By Ryan Morrison

Judging by ratings alone, Rush Limbaugh’s radio show was crumbling. Desperate for attention, Mr. Limbaugh took a ride on a carousel of scandals, ranging from claims that Michael J. Fox was faking symptoms of Parkinson’s disease to an ill advised reference to our president as “Barack the Magic Negro.”

Most recently, on February 29 Mr. Limbaugh not only decided to call Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown  law student testifying before Congress on contraception’s role in women’s health, a “slut” and a “prostitute,” but in the process, he also showed that he has zero understanding of how birth control works. That’s no big surprise, though, since facts seldom have any bearing on his opinions. His quote:

“Three thousand dollars for birth control in three years? That’s a thousand dollars a year of sex — and, she wants us to pay for it. … They’re admitting before congressional committee that they’re having so much sex they can’t afford the birth control pills! What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.”

Mr. Limbaugh seems to believe that you take some pills every time you have sex, when in fact, as every seventh grader who’s taken a health class knows, a woman on birth control takes one pill every day to adjust her hormones in a way that makes her unable to conceive. It doesn’t matter if she has sex once a year or ten times a day, it’s still one pill, every day.

Middle school science aside, Mr. Limbaugh still said some pretty terrible things about a woman who was testifying on the need of birth control for her friend who suffered from ovarian cancer. The media has advised Ms. Fluke to sue Mr. Limbaugh with some outlets already predicting an easily won slander suit. This latest offense in the Rush Limbaugh Horrors Hall of Fame has already cost him several of his biggest sponsors. And while fellow LASIS reporter Russell Smith disagrees, I think it will cost Mr. Limbaugh even more.   Read more »

By Russell Smith

Rush Limbaugh is a dumbass. I can write this without getting sued for defamation because it’s hyperbole. No reasonable person could conclude that I’m stating an actual fact about Mr. Limbaugh. (Feel free to agree, of course, but it’s rhetoric, not provably true or false.)

Following that same line of reasoning, Georgetown University Law student Sandra Fluke can’t sue Mr. Limbaugh for his nasty comments about her – despite what you’re probably reading in the press.

Last week, Ms. Fluke testified at a Congressional hearing about health insurance that without insurance coverage, it costs the women at Georgetown $3,000 to pay for contraceptives during their three years in law school.

Mr. Limbaugh’s response will surprise nobody who’s familiar with his particular brand of loathesome. He said on his radio show last Wednesday that Ms. Fluke is a “slut” and a “prostitute.”  He followed that up on Thursday by calling Ms. Fluke and her supporters “feminazis” (he loves that word) who should publish videos of their sex life in exchange for public subsidies for contraception.

Mr. Limbaugh’s comments were lambasted by the national media, corporate sponsors and politicians. President Obama was so appalled that he called Ms. Fluke to tell her that her parents must be so proud of her and check she was OK..

On Friday, New York Representative Carolyn Maloney (D), while at New York Law School to introduce Senator John Kerry, ventured a bit off topic, remarking that “we will be filing a slander suit against Rush Limbaugh. What he’s really trying to do is silence a young woman. It’s unfair, it’s un-American.”

I’m not sure exactly what Ms. Maloney meant by “we,” especially because New York has no criminal slander statues under which Mr. Limbaugh could be prosecuted by the state. Presumably though, she was referring to a potential civil claim for monetary damages brought by Ms. Fluke. And while Ms. Fluke is reportedly less certain about filing a lawsuit, she did say that she is “entertaining” the possibility.

She shouldn’t bother.   Read more »

By Asher Hawkins

For the second time in as many months, a local law-enforcement agency has served Twitter with a subpoena that instructs the micro-blog network to hand over information on a suspected rabble-rouser of the Occupy persuasion and warns not to tell anyone – not even the tweet-happy revolutionary being investigated – about the subpoena’s existence.

And once again, despite the ominous-sounding language directing Twitter to keep schtum, within days of receipt of the subpoena, a copy has gone up on Scribd. Hardly surprising, as Twitter’s law-enforcement guidelines make clear that Twitter prefers to notify users when their account information is being sought by prosecutors. Notifying tweeters they’re being investigated allows them to try to have the subpoenas quashed — before Twitter has to comply.

Laudable, perhaps. But is Twitter’s subpoena-notification policy as courageous as some media have made it out to be?   Read more »

By Ryan Morrison

Welfare tends to be a polarizing issue in America. Whether you believe welfare recipients are (a) little more than lazy drug addicts suckling at the teat of America’s hard-working middle class, (b) that they are good people who have temporarily fallen on hard times, or (c) something in between, you probably have a strong opinion on the subject.

I’m a news junkie and consume with gusto, from media outlets highbrow and lowbrow alike. And it seems to me that choice (a) is, more and more, the go-to thinking of many of us above the poverty line.

“Taxpayers have a vested interest in making sure that their hard-earned tax dollars are not being used to subsidize drug addiction,” says Rep. Jason Spencer, R-Woodbine, GA. And to date, 32 states, have decided the best solution to this problem is to drug test potential welfare recipients.

Governor Rick Scott of Florida, who championed the idea of bringing drug tests to Floridian welfare recipients, recently signed a bill into law that would do just that. Since July, new applicants for welfare in Florida must not only take a drug test to receive benefits, but they have had to foot the bill, and are reimbursed if they pass. If they fail they must wait one year to reapply for benefits. Meantime, at the federal level Senator David Vitter, R-Louisiana, is sponsoring the Drug Free Families Act of 2011, which would require all 50 states to drug-test welfare applicants.

Never mind that the notion that taxpayers are funding welfare recipients’ drug habits has been proven untrue. Never mind that the monthly government aid that welfare recipients receive would seem a pittance to most readers of this article:  $180 for a single person or $364 for a family of four.

Never mind that such drug tests may be unconstitutional.   Read more »

By Alison Parker

I have been active, healthy, and fit my whole life.  As a young girl I tried out every sport to see what would stick — from softball, soccer and basketball, to gymnastics, cheerleading and dancing. I caught the running bug as a teenager, and since starting law school I have competed in triathlons. The truth is, I just don’t feel in touch with myself if I’m not active.  It helps keep me sane.

But though I never suffered from a serious weight problem personally,  I grew up with a keen understanding of the struggles overweight children endure –my mother, an avid runner, nutritionist, and registered dietician, specializes in treating them.

“After spending a decade in a pediatric clinic for overweight children, none of the children I saw had an endocrine (read: genetic) problem for their obesity,” Kathryn Parker, (mom) told me, when I asked about the role of nature versus nurture in overweight children. “As a mother it was clear to me that children don’t have purchasing power and they don’t have any say of what food is brought into the home.” She further believes that a child’s weight problem will only worsen if the parents don’t take action.

Obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above, which translates to being about 30 pounds overweight. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 17% of our children and adolescents aged 2-19 are obese. Obesity can lead to problems like heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes — and diabetes can lead to complications such as amputations, blindness and kidney failure. One out of three children born after 2000 will develop diabetes in her lifetime if current lifestyle trends continue.

Obesity can also scar a child psychologically. A current classmate of mine struggled with obesity as a child and young adult; although she is slim now, the emotional wounds will never fully heal. “Kids were really cruel growing up,” she said. “They’d call me ‘fatty boombaladdy.’ Eating was like an escape from my problems, but it was also the cause of my problems. It was a vicious cycle.”

The severe and long-term damage done to children who are allowed to become obese is being recognized by our legal system.  As The Wall Street Journal recently reported, some courts are ordering a change in custody if a child is obese. This got LASIS wondering, under what circumstances does a court step in to change the living arrangements of an obese child?   Read more »