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NEW YORK (AP) The uproar over Rush Limbaugh's derisive comments about a young woman's sex life is serving as a vivid reminder of the outsize role conservative media stars play in Republican politics.

With a Democratic president in the White House and no leading GOP elected official setting the party's agenda, Limbaugh and other media personalities like the late Andrew Breitbart and even Donald Trump have filled a vacuum for many conservatives seeking a full-throated political advocate. The popularity of such figures among Republican core voters has made party leaders reluctant to cross them, even when their comments or tactics steer well out of bounds.

Democrats have plenty of left-leaning media figures in their corner, too some of whom have made comments that have embarrassed the party and its candidates. Bill Maher, who gave $1 million to a super PAC that supports President Barack Obama, was widely criticized recently for mocking NFL quarterback Tim Tebow's religious beliefs on Twitter.

But no liberal media figure has an audience the size of Limbaugh's, estimated as high as 20 million listeners mostly men per week. And no one suggests Maher or any other commentator has displaced Obama as the voice of the Democratic Party.

"The voices you hear on the conservative side have an audience of people who are very skeptical of traditional mainstream media and power," said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington who studies media in politics. "If you're a Republican candidate you don't want to offend those people. They are the most hard-core Republican voters and the most likely to turn out in a primary."

Such was the case last week, when the top GOP presidential candidates distanced themselves from Limbaugh but did not directly criticize him after he called 30-year old Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" on his radio show. Fluke had testified to Democratic members of Congress in support of a requirement that health care companies provide coverage for contraception. That requirement would compel her Jesuit college's health plan to cover her birth control.

Limbaugh offered an apology to Fluke on his website Saturday after sponsors began suspending advertising on his show, which is carried by 600 stations and is by far the most popular talk radio program in the U.S. He voiced regret on the air on Monday, too, but also said he was the victim of a double standard. He said, "Rappers can say anything they want about women. It's called art. And they win awards."

The controversy has been an inopportune tempest for Republican hopeful Mitt Romney, who has tried to focus on jobs and the economy but has found himself dealing with questions about social issues in recent weeks.

Romney said he wouldn't have used the language Limbaugh chose, but he refrained from directly criticizing him. The former Massachusetts governor has struggled in his efforts to cement his status as the front-runner in the field, in part because of the reluctance of many conservative voters to get behind his candidacy.

Rick Santorum called Limbaugh an "entertainer" who had license to be "absurd" sometimes, while Newt Gingrich dismissed the matter as a media distraction. Only Ron Paul took Limbaugh to task, telling CBS' "Face the Nation" that the commentator's language went over the top at times.

Original post:
Limbaugh and the GOP: The media stars and politics

Your middle-schooler just got her first D. What's an appropriate response?

Parent advice:

Try not to overreact and then try to find out the reason by calmly discussing it. If the reason is vague, request a conference with the teacher as soon as possible to find out what's going on from the teacher's perspective.

Dodie Hofstetter

Wendy Donahue

Expert advice:

An appropriate response is to step up your own game, says pediatric neuropsychologist Karen L. Schiltz, author of "Beyond the Label: A Guide to Unlocking a Child's Educational Potential" (Oxford University Press).

"Now is the time to be your child's advocate," says Schiltz. "Report cards only give a portion of the story."

Your job is to get the rest of the story by starting a regular dialogue with your child.

"A lot of parents say, 'My child never wants to talk to me when I get home,' " says Schiltz. "She's probably picking up that you're forcing a conversation. Take her outside and throw the ball around. Take a walk. Go skating with her. It's amazing how much she's going to tell you over time when you take the time to be in the moment and have fun with your child.

See the article here:
Damage control when your daughter brings home her first D

LIMA, Ohio It wasnt just the White House, the editorial boards and the entire Democratic establishment that lashed Rick Santorum over the last week for calling President Barack Obama a snob for wanting young people to go to college.

Santorums wife did, too.

Karen Santorum, guarded in public but blunt in private when counseling her husband, advised him to pull back. By Friday, her husband did just that, expressing regret for the controversial comment.

He knows you always separate what you say from the person, said Karen Santorum in an interview Saturday with POLITICO, her first of the presidential campaign with a print media outlet. He should have said what (Obama) said is snobbish. It was a snobbish comment, not he is snobbish. There is a big difference. And he knows that. But everybody makes those mistakes along the journey.

This is the hidden side of Karen Santorum, who is always sketched in the same broad strokes as her husband: parent of seven, devout Catholic, doting spouse, crusader against abortion rights, champion of home-schooling. Rick Santorum described his wife of more than two decades during a speech here to Republican Party activists as my conscience on conservative convictions.

She is all those things and proudly so.

But Karen Santorum most often a silent, if visible presence on the campaign trail compared to other candidate spouses can also be one of her husbands toughest critics. Shes a long-time adviser on issues, messaging and tone who doesnt hesitate to tell him when he screws up.

When youre married, it is everything. Your hair is out of place. You didnt say that right. You shouldve said this. You didnt say that, Karen Santorum said. Before a speech, well talk about the message. Before a debate, What are going to say, how are you going to say it? It is about the kids. What is happening at home.

The day after the Michigan primary, Karen scolded her husband for answering too many questions on the stump about birth control, rather than focusing on how, at that point, he had picked up as many delegates as Mitt Romney.

My advice to him was stop answering the question, she said. Tell em, Im not going to answer this question, let me tell you what I know about national security. I know a lot about national security.

See original here:
'Snob' control: Karen Santorum guides husband on gaffe

Down East safety issues

As the members of the bargaining yeam for the Maine State Nurses Association, or MSNA, we felt we had to address statements made by the CEO of Down East Community Hospital in local media outlets.

We believe the issue here is absolutely a public health issue. The community relies upon a well staffed hospital; if there is a staffing shortage on any given shift or in any department that becomes a safety problem. At the heart of this dispute are staffing issues.

Management is insisting on an 11 percent pay cut for the night shift to be taken immediately. We have been trying to explain to the hospital that these differentials have been established to fill a need and were actually introduced by the hospital several years ago in order to recruit and retain employees for these areas. Traditionally it has always been more difficult to recruit and retain nurses on the night shift.

We have been through a lot in the last few years as a hospital. This is no time to talk about taking things away from the very employees who have been loyal to this hospital. In addition to the undersigned, this letter is written by the MSNA bargaining team; Karma Alley, LPN; Shirley Brown, RN; Cheryl Christie, MLT; Liz Faraci, RN and Scott Huber, CRT.

Veronica Conley, RN

MSNA

The EPA recently passed new standards that will slash emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from the nations dirtiest power plants. This will clean up our air significantly.

In December 2011, President Obama signed into law the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or MATS, which will slash toxic mercury air emissions by 90 percent. As the tailpipe state of the nation, this is great news for Maine. Nationwide, reports say this rule will save as many as 11,000 lives, prevent as many as 130,000 asthma attacks among children and prevent as many as 4,700 heart attacks each year, according to the EPA.

However, there is an attempt to undermine this lifesaving rule. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, is trying to use the obscure Congressional Review Act to kill the new mercury rule. If he succeeds in this cynical procedural ploy, hell not only kill EPA clean air standards, hell unwittingly be costing thousands of Americans their lives and health, particularly children who would otherwise live and suffer less by the new EPA rule. Doctors, nurses, scientists and public health professionals agree this is a standard to save lives and prevent illnesses.

Read more here:
Monday, March 5, 2012: Mercury emissions, same-sex marriage and birth control

Western media that is under absolute influence of Israeli lobby is trying to dampen the high voter turnout of Irans parliamentary elections.

The message from Iran is that the high turnout of 65 percent in the parliamentary elections is a response of loyalty against Western pressures and threats.

Press TV has interviewed Mark Dankof, former US Senate candidate from San Antonio about US media's purposeful attempts to spin Iran's elections in a negative light and the disproportionate influence and control of the American news media by the Israeli lobby in the US. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: In monitoring some of the media, they led in their coverage of Iran's election by saying 'not fair or free' and then they continued with their story; however, some of these same entities not that long ago were extremely encouraging with so-called elections i.e. one-man elections in Yemen, which we know was absolutely no election at all. Why the difference, what exactly is going on?

Dankof: I think you can pretty much tell the difference in terms of what it is that Israel wants and what the Western multinational corporations want.

A primary example of this - Ron Kampeas had an article recently in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which is reproduced by the Jerusalem Post talking about the fact that this pro-Israel element in the US was behind the effort to get the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MKO) or the People's Holy Warriors de-listed by the American State Department as a terrorist organization.

And when we continue to read this article we discover that there is a group called the Global Initiative for Democracy that sponsored this gathering, which are major Israeli lobby figures in the American government and these American governmental figures have clear links to Israel and to Netanyahu's war lobby.

This not an accident and I think it's a microcosm of the larger problem that we come to when we start looking at all of the influence that Israel has in the Western media and the number of these global institutes-for-democracy of various kinds operating under various guises including the National Endowment for Democracy that are little more than conduits for Israel and the Western multi-nationals to try and co-opt the local political scene wherever it takes place around the globe manipulated in a direction that is serving the usual political purposes.

Press TV: As an American here in Iran I have to say one thing I have found interesting in looking at the Iranian people is a sophistication of the electorate and how informed they are. Even children, you are able to enliven discussions about elections; kids have an opinion about what is going on politically.

We touched a little bit earlier on the low turnout in elections in the US - What do you attribute this to? Why the difference - why is there such a low turnout, not only a low turnout in the US, but it almost seems a case of political apathy?

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‘Israel in full control of Western media’