Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator penned a piece this morning from which we will copiously crib, as it’s spot on with respect to one of the ex-sponsors of Rush Limbaugh’s program in the wake of the Sandra Fluke scandal-cum-scam…

Rush Limbaugh has discussed at length — at length — what Sandra Fluke and her statist cronies are up to. Yes, he used the words “slut” and “prostitute” — using the ludicrous to make his point. Ms. Fluke, in one of the most pathetic, shamelessly whining stories in recent memory, demands to be paid for her sex life because it costs $3,000 for three years of birth control while she’s at law school. She demands that a Catholic university violate its fundamental right to religious liberty so she can have others pay for her sex life. So Rush asked the farcical obvious about somebody who demands that someone else pay her for her apparent, self-admitted prolific sex life. He spent two solid days relating her greed for other people’s money and a lack of personal responsibility to the oldest of principles.

Right on cue, the blacklisting crowd came out of their Stalinist caves. Having driven Lou Dobbs from CNN, cut off Beck’s windpipe at Fox, severed Pat Buchanan from MSNBC, thus emboldened they have now set their sights on Rush.

And Rush, threatened with his livelihood, has issued this statement:

For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.

I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit? In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone’s bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.

My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.

This, but of course, was not enough to satisfy. Sandra Fluke herself raced to the Ed Schultz show on MSNBC to denounce Rush. Yes, the same Ed Schulz who not long ago called conservative radio and TV commentator Laura Ingraham a “slut.” And he wasn’t joking either. But suddenly, Ms. Fluke simply didn’t care. Why? Because this entire controversy over Rush’s words was never about the actual subject. It was really about yet another drive to blacklist yet another conservative in the media.

Big mistake. Really big mistake.

Did I mention Carbonite yet? Hold on.

And a bit more, where Lord really hits home…

Carbonite’s statement was especially and curiously unctuous, its withdrawal of sponsorship coming as it did after Rush’s apology. Here is Carbonite’s CEO David Friend:

No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show.

Friend added:

We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.

Now. Carbonite really deserves some special attention.

David Friend is making his attack on Rush sound like he’s one upset Dad with a couple of nice young daughters. And oh, yes, he wants a “more civilized public discourse.”

Is that all there is to Mr. Friend? Quite aside that he gives a pass to Sandra Fluke for her obnoxiously intolerant behavior when it comes to the free speech of others, is there anything else going on here?

Yes. Of course.

Take a look here at this link to Bloomberg/Business Week which profiles Mr. Friend and affirms him as “General Partner” of an investment group called “Orchid Partners” in Boston, Massachusetts. And Orchid Partners? Yes indeed, they are the venture capital firm behind… Carbonite.

Where Mr. Friend is listed as “Co-Founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President.”

So?

So when you cross check Mr. David Friend of Orchid Partners in Boston with the Federal Election Commission, one finds — ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh shocker!……… that a Mr. David Friend of Orchid Partners in Boston has been a contributor to… ready? Here’s the list of just where David Friend spends his political money:

MoveOn.org, America Coming Together and Democracy for America, all three listed here as George Soros funded groups, the latter set up by Howard Dean. Texans for Truth also drew Mr. Friend’s support. This group, according to Wikipedia, was set up by MoveOn.org spin-off Drive Democracy.org in 2004. Why? To… wait for it… challenge then-President Bush’s service in the Texas National Guard. The precise same stunt for which CBS fired Dan Rather after documents were discovered to have been forged. The Bush-Cheney campaign said of Texans for Truth that it was “a smear group launching baseless attacks on behalf of John Kerry’s campaign that will be rejected by the American people.” They were. But that didn’t quench Mr. Friend’s affection for either the smear campaign or supporting leftist candidates such as Howard Dean, and John Kerry.

And get a load of this. Take a look right here at Ed “Laura Ingraham is a slut” Schultz’s site for his radio show. Who is listed as a Schultz sponsor? That’s right: Carbonite. Like Rush Limbaugh, Ed Schultz apologized. The difference? If Rush uses the word “slut” to illustrate the absurdity of the left-wing Sandra Fluke’s views — David Friend is outraged. But when Ed Schultz refers in hostile fashion out of the blue to conservative and Catholic Laura Ingraham as a “slut” — hey, no big deal for Carbonite.

In other words, to put it politely, Mr. Friend’s woe-is-me I’m-withdrawing-my-company’s sponsorship-from-Rush Limbaugh-because of-my-lovely-daughters is as close to certifiable BS as one can imagine. Mr. Friend, one can only suspect, placed Carbonite’s ads with Rush Limbaugh because he knew it would make him money — which he obviously then funneled to MoveOn and the rest. Meanwhile, he keeps advertising on the Ed Slut Show… sorry… Ed Schultz Show. His daughters? His daughters? What a deeply cynical man.

Not to mention Friend’s chutzpah calling for a “more civilized public discourse” when he is busy contributing to MoveOn.org, the self-same group that put together this charming video comparing George W. Bush to Hitler. Not to mention MoveOn’s “Bush Lied” routine. This is pathetic.

Lord is precisely correct – Carbonite’s hypocrisy shouldn’t go unpunished in the marketplace. As he notes, self-identified conservatives are 40 percent of the American population, and our numbers are double that of the Left. Carbonite’s CEO is a member of the 20 percent, but he directed advertising dollars to Limbaugh because he wanted access to Limbaugh’s audience – he wanted the positive demographics Limbaugh’s show brings to an advertiser.

But Carbonite’s CEO was willing to throw that overboard when Limbaugh made the mistake of name-calling Sandra Fluke along lines that were perfectly defensible given the outrageous nature of her entry onto the public scene; as Limbaugh correctly noted, Fluke presented herself as having so much casual sex that her budget could not accomodate the cost of birth control. It might be impolitic to call such a person a slut, but it’s hardly wide of the factual mark to do so.

As Lord notes, David Friend had no apparent problem with Ed Schultz calling Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut” when Schultz has no idea how Ingraham conducts her sex life. And given Friend’s political donations, that’s obviously driven by his political agenda – an agenda those of us should find obnoxious in the extreme.

Limbaugh apologized for his remarks, both in a note on his website over the weekend and live on his radio show earlier today. That should have been the end of the matter, just like it was when Schultz apologized for calling Laura Ingraham a slut. Carbonite pulled its advertising anyway.

And as it turns out Friend isn’t much of a businessman. Legal Insurrection’s William Jacobson researched Friend’s company and found out that it is energetically destroying the wealth of its stockholders, with no end in sight…

In Carbonite’s most recent Quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Carbonite discloses that it loses money hand over fist, and is expected to do so for the foreseeable future [note: I broke the single long paragraph down into multiple paragraphs to make it more readable]:

Risks Related to Our Business

We have experienced losses and negative cash flow since our inception, and we may not be able to achieve or sustain profitability or positive cash flow in the future.

We experienced net losses of $17.4 million for 2008, $19.2 million for 2009, $25.8 million for 2010, and $17.4 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2011, respectively, and have an accumulated deficit of $94.3 million as of September 30, 2011.

We have not generally achieved positive cash flow from our operations or reported net income, and we do not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future. We expect to continue making significant expenditures to develop and expand our business, including for advertising, customer acquisition, technology infrastructure, storage capacity, product development, and international expansion, in an effort to increase and service our customer base.

In 2011, we have incurred, and expect to continue to incur, increased expenses associated with the relocation of one of our data centers to a new facility, and with relocating our customer service operations from India to the U.S., which will adversely affect our operating results for 2011. We also expect that our quarterly results may fluctuate due to a variety of factors described elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, including the timing and amount of our advertising expenditures, which are seasonal, as well as the timing and amount of expenditures related to the development of technologies and solutions and to defend intellectual property infringement and other claims.

In addition, as a public company, we incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses, including increased costs for director and officer liability insurance that we did not incur as a private company. We may also incur increased losses and negative cash flow in the future for a number of reasons, and we may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays, and other unknown events.

For these reasons, we expect to continue to record net losses for the next several years and we may not be able to achieve or maintain positive cash flow from operations or profitability.

We’re no more interested in engaging in politically-motivated boycotts of people engaged in commerce than Lord or Jacobson are. That said, what Friend has chosen to engage in isn’t commerce; it’s sabotage. He’s sabotaging the wealth of his stockholders, he’s lying about what drives his business decisions and he’s lending support to people who want to destroy America. Why those of us who care about this country’s future should allow people like this to continue in those activities without expressing our will is beyond me.

Don’t patronize Carbonite. Let’s help accelerate the creative destruction the market is attempting to impose on that company its bottom line so clearly shows is inevitable. Let’s kill this monster off and let it serve as an example to the next failing entrepreneur who thinks he can put a left-wing political agenda over sound business practices, and at the same time flat-out lie to the public about the true nature of that choice.

If you want to back up your hard drive online, moreover, you certainly don’t have to use this ridiculous outfit to do so. Check out any of these major suppliers instead of Carbonite…

http://mozy.com/
http://www.mypcbackup.com/
http://www.justcloud.com/
http://www.livedrive.com