I just learned Rush lost another sponsor today. That’s two more since he “apologized.” The most recent dropout is ProFlowers. The other former advertisers are Quicken Loans, Sleep Train, Sleep Number, Citrix Systems Inc., Carbonite and LegalZoom.

Next goal: Getting Rush off of Armed Forces radio.

There were a lot of stories last year about Rush’s ratings dropping about 30%. I haven’t found anything recent, so I don’t know if they’ve pulled up again. He’s got four years to go on an eight year, $400 million contract with Clear Channel. He may have the highest rated radio show in the world, but it’s still a radio show. How many advertisers can Clear Channel lose and still make a profit?

Some rightie bloggers are trying to organize a counter-boycott to support Rush. I don’t think they appreciate that the recent flaps over women’s health care have tapped into something much deeper and broader than the usual games we play online.

And I’m thinking it would not be a bad thing for Some People to learn to be afraid of pissing off women.

See also: I’ve spent the past 2 days trying to convince my 16 y/o she is not a “slut”

John Cole is right, er, correct:

The craziest thing to me about this whole Rush flare-up and the lunatic fringe of the right doubling down on the slut issue is how politically incompetent it all is. I remember someone calling this political malpractice, and that is correct. I’m really not used to this kind of political incompetence from Republicans- usually they are horribly wrong on the issues, but win the political battles. This time, not so much.

However, once again we see a situation in which the GOP establishment is irrelevant. Elected leaders like John Boehner have said little about Rush-ageddon, other than bleat some faint-hearted suggestions that perhaps Rushbo’s words were “inappropriate.” The strongest criticism of Rush from the Right came from Carly Fiorina, whereupon some rightie bloggers began to attack Fiorina.

No, this is coming from rightie media mouthpieces and bloggers, and the raw, hysterical misogyny they are spewing out has rarely been seen in public since the early days of second-wave feminism. It’s like watching someone lance a particularly nasty and long-festering pustule.

And they didn’t have to go there. As John Cole said, after President Obama made the concession to the bishops — that they didn’t have to pay for the contraception coverage — the Right could have declared victory and gone on to something else. Indeed, you might remember that just after the announcement of the concession, “Obama caved” headlines were everywhere, including left-leaning blogs. Pushing that meme would have done the President some real political damage.

But they can’t help themselves. They saw an opening and charged through it, not noticing the opening was at the top of a cliff. And even now I don’t think they’ve noticed that the majority of Americans are not following them, but instead are recoiling in revulsion.

The few who are beginning to notice they are losing the PR battle are still trying to blame Sandra Fluke for wanting someone else to pay for her sex life. But Fluke never once said anything about her own sexuality. She could be celibate, for all we know.

It’s like 1967, when a woman who said she’d prefer a career to being a housewife routinely was slimed for being a “lesbo.” There’s nothing rational coming from the Right; it’s just the usual bullying and shaming to keep women in their “place.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything about the Right’s masculinity issues, but the old stuff still applies. Show me a misogynist and I’ll show you someone terribly insecure about his (and sometimes her) sexuality. Real men don’t need to oppress women to be able to define themselves as men. Beneath all that spewing pus is a whole lot of fear.

And this all ties in to right-wing authoritarianism and the escalating irrationality of what passes for conservatism these days. The extremists who took over the Republican Party care little about the functions of government. What animates them is fear and loathing of “foreigners,” 21st century social and cultural norms and often their own sexuality.

See also Steve M.

Rushbo has lost several advertisers in the past couple of days, and he has issued a non-apology apology in which he says “I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.” Shameless.

Whiskey Fire quotes Erick Erickson —

Well of course Rush Limbaugh was being insulting. It is not something I would do and I do think we’re going to now focused on what he said for a while and that it will be a distraction from the central argument, but he was using insult and sarcasm to highlight the absurdity of Sandra Fluke and the left’s position, which in a nut shell is they think you, me, and every other American should pay for them to have sex. And while I understand people being offended, I am offended by many of these same people thinking I should be subsidizing what has, for years, been considered a consensual act.

Does that even make sense?

They call it “women’s health”, but the language associated with it involves pregnancy and sex. They have, in other words, turned “women’s health” into a euphemism for having sex.

It’s like they have no concept of pregnancy. Just the thought of women having sex has them completely unglued. Un-bleeping-real. It’s like somebody opened a door and all the ugly heebie-jeebies in their sick little ids were set free.

Here’s a clip & save for you — “The White House’s Economic Case for Reelection in 13 Charts.” Keep it handy and use it to smack people who say President Obama made the economy worse.

Meanwhile — Krugman has been writing about the “fiscal phoniness” of Republicans who scream about the deficit and then propose economy policies that would make it worse. Today he says,

They issue apocalyptic warnings about the dangers of government debt and, in the name of deficit reduction, demand savage cuts in programs that protect the middle class and the poor. But then they propose squandering all the money thereby saved — and much, much more — on tax cuts for the rich.

And nobody should be surprised. It has been obvious all along, to anyone paying attention, that the politicians shouting loudest about deficits are actually using deficit hysteria as a cover story for their real agenda, which is top-down class warfare.

Also meanwhile, President Obama is touting the improved economy. And it does seem to have improved — U.S. auto sales just hit a four-year high — although it’s a tad early to be singing “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

Some are arguing the optimism theme could make the President seem out of touch (think George H.W. Bush in 20021992). But I think what he’s going for is marketing himself as the friend and benefactor of workers, as opposed to whatever the GOP nominates, who clearly will be the friend and benefactor of the corporate overlords. So from here it looks smart. For now.

Steve Kornacki argues that high gas prices won’t hurt the President. We’ll see. If the economy wobbles along as it has been I think we’ll be OK on that front.

Seems to me the real question mark is the Middle East. Lots of really alarming stuff is going on over there. I take it Americans aren’t focusing on the Middle East much these days, but if something happens that does get their attention, the political dynamics here could shift in ways that are impossible to predict. It wouldn’t necessarily shift against President Obama, however.

The Ruibio-Blunt amendment that would have allowed employers to deny insurance coverage to employees based on the employers’ personal whims was tabled in the Senate. Sen. Olympia Snowe was the only Republican to vote down the amendment. Three Democrats — Sens. Ben Nelson (NE), Joe Manchin (WV), and Bob Casey (PA) — voted to preserve it. Yeah, we’re taking names.