Free Republic

Angered by a New York state plan to tax residents earning over $500,000 per year, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh vowed Monday to sell all of his property and shut down his operations there and move them to Texas, a state with no income tax. The new plan, which is expected to be voted on Tuesday, would raise about $4 billion a year, said Dan Weiller, spokesman for New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Lawmakers are calling it a temporary tax increase but Rush was having none of that. “When I am there working I pay whatever, you know,...

Is Michael Steele advising the DNC on the side? Because whoever is still pushing the Rush Limbaugh line over at the Democratic National Committee doesn’t get it. The whole Limbaugh gimmick went stale weeks ago when the DNC announced the remarkably uncreative slogan for a billboard meant to razz the talk show host. While it lasted Sure, the “Rush is the de facto leader of the Republican party” circus was effective for awhile. Effective in a double-edged sword kinda way. On the one hand, Rahm’s strategy completely frazzled the GOP rendering the party ridiculous for what seemed like an eternity....

As one White House official explained it to me Limbaugh became an issue not because he is the most prominent Obama critic but because the talk show host embodies “hyper-partisanship.” Limbaugh became a stand-in for White House view of Republicans as a party that is not constructive, not willing to seek common ground and out of touch with a bipartisan thirst for solutions to pressing economic problems. Obama’s aides connect the dots and see a picture of a dark, unappealing political landscape on the right in which Republicans have become so in-grown that not one of them felt free to...

The numbers are in — Rush Limbaugh has won a dramatic victory over the Democrats. The White House's unprecedented assault on the talk-radio host has driven his ratings to number one in many of America's biggest, most liberal radio markets. The anti-Limbaugh offensive was a calculated move promoted by Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville to make Rush a new conservative bogeyman, in the same way they stigmatized Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. The strategy was implemented on Jan. 23 when President Obama lectured a gathering of GOP leaders at a meeting discussing his $1 trillion stimulus package, “You...

Radio Dialogue paraphrase:Rush was discussing the Audit extremes foisted on him by the State of New York. The new New York State and City Taxes are targeting "rich folk". He will broadcast from his Florida home but also wants to find a Hurricane proof have. He said that he might move to Texas because there is no State Income tax.We Lone Star T=State Freepers should show our support and invite hime to "come on down". Of course as a DFW_phile I'd like to see him in my own backyard!

Captain Ed Morrissey points out that, according to her Twitter feed, Meghan McCain has found the comedic Holy Grail: (Tweet #1 and #2) To the people at current that created this, I am flattered beyond words. I can officially die a happy woman. Officially the funniest thing I have ever seen in my entire life (and I have seen my fair share). Thanks for correctly animating my bootylicious body :-) LOVE IT!!!

President Obama and the Democrats should wave the white flag in their strawman war on Rush Limbaugh. The Media Research Center delivered the grim casualty figures for the Democrats. Since January, the top talk show gabber's ratings have soared off the charts. Radio affiliates that carry Limbaugh's syndicated show call the ratings boost he's gotten from the Democrat's orchestrated attack on him a "dramatic surge." This writer predicted as much when President Obama cracked to Congressional Republicans in late January that they should knock off listening to Limbaugh if they expected to get anything done in Congress and with his...

Michael Steele is the gift that keeps on giving. His latest entrée unto the absurd comes in the form of an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon. Steele now wants us to believe that his wayward ramblings are part of an elaborate ruse – some sort of Jedi mind trick. Really?

The more President Obama and the Democrats talk about talk radio titan Rush Limbaugh, the higher his ratings go. And he’s taking all conservative talk radio along for a very exciting ride.

To hear GOP Chairman Michael Steele tell it, his recent donnybrook with radio host Rush Limbaugh - and his subsequent apology - were all part of a grand "strategic" plan. "I'm a cause-and-effect kind of guy," Steele told CNN’s Don Lemon on Wednesday. "So if I do something, there's a reason for it... Even it may look like a mistake, a gaffe. There is a rationale, there is a logic behind it," he said.

Why is it that in descriptions of the words and activities of Rush Limbaugh, it is not pointed out the obvious similarity of Limbaugh and Adolph Hitler. Rush knows exactly what he has started. Do you remember how overbearing, intimidating and feared Sen. Joseph McCarthy became before his crudities and chilling attacks on patriotic citizens was stopped? The rise of Hitler came about through use of the same strident, rancorous and dangerous appeal to a populace who had suffered military defeat and in times of embarrassment for their loss of economic power – how the Germans suffered because of inflation...

Maher and Olbermann accuse conservative talk radio of "whipping up" fringe elements of society. Maher and Olbermann accused conservative talk radio of "whipping up" fringe elements of society Friday. Maher: Listening to people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck these days, I cannot figure out whether these right wingers are more dangerous when they're in power or when they're out of power, because when they're out of power, you know their paranoid, their paranoia goes off the charts. This Glenn Beck guy, I wouldn't even give him the time of day except he's a big star now on Fox and...

WEST PALM BEACH, FL (WFLX) - It's a national war of words, and the battleground is West Palm Beach. In one corner: conservative talk show host and Palm Beach resident Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh infuriated Democrats with his comments earlier this month that he hoped that President Barack Obama fails. Democrats, in response, declared a PR war. They decided to buy space on a billboard in West Palm Beach to "send Rush a message". The Democratic National Party solicited ideas for a billboard message to Limbaugh on their website. More than 80,000 slogans were submitted as part of a contest. Nearly...

Here is video of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responding to a question about comments by former Vice-President Dick Cheney that President Obama is seeking to take advantage of the Economic Crisis to radically expand government in all kinds of ways. Gibbs responds that "I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy," so they "trotted out the next most popular member of the Republican cabal." Question: As Gibbs makes the caddy remark, you hear some female hyena laughing in the background. I wonder which member of the impartial press corps it was who thought Gibbs was so funny? . . ....

Beginning Sunday, the White House will harness every part of the Democratic Party’s machinery to defend President Obama’s budget and portray Republicans as reflexively political, according to party strategists. A participant in the planning meetings described the push as a successor to Democrats’ message that Rush Limbaugh is the Republican Party leader. “We have exhausted the use of Rush as an attention-getter,” the official said. David Plouffe, manager of Obama’s presidential race, helped design the strategy, which includes the most extensive activation since November of the campaign’s grassroots network. The database—which includes information for at least 10 million donors, supporters...

Did you know that the racism in our country is coming from Rush Limbaugh? That's what HBO's Bill Maher said on Friday's "Real Time." Not just that, but also the people who are buying guns and ammunition since Election Day are doing so "because they're afraid that Obama and his Negro army are going to come and get" them. I kid you not. Such offenses occurred in the following exchange between Maher and his conservative guest Andrew Breitbart (video embedded below the fold, relevant section at 2:37):

Forced to the ramparts to defend Rush Limbaugh against spurious, low-down attacks from the Obama White House and assorted Obamedia, conservatives, in their understandable zeal to defend a salient voice of conservatism, are letting the real enemy slip away unnamed. Who would that be? The answer is George W. Bush, whose stealthy political legacy stands as taking what is popularly known as "conservatism" on a disastrously leftward lurch. A shocking statement, maybe. But I came to believe long ago -- at some point after the insipid limpness of former President Bush's theories of world democracy, delivered in his second inaugural...

First, just a word before the following is dismissed by Democratic readers as partisan, or as being from someone who doesn't know what he is talking about. My polling firm, InsiderAdvantage, is non-partisan. It polled the 2008 presidential race for the red-hot political site Politico, and was in a recent speech at Fordham University named by a guru who even D.C. liberals praise as one of the three most accurate national pollsters for the presidential contest. This column isn't about partisanship. It's about strategy. I've only met Rush Limbaugh once. It was back when I was politically active, running Newt...

Presidents throughout history have kept lists of political foes. But the Obama White House is the first I am aware of to pick targets based on polls. Even Richard Nixon didn't focus-group his enemies list. Team Obama -- aided by Clintonistas Paul Begala, James Carville and Stanley Greenberg -- decided to attack Rush Limbaugh after poring over opinion research. White House senior adviser David Axelrod explicitly authorized the assault. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel assigned a White House official to coordinate the push. And Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gleefully punched the launch button at his podium, suckering the White House...

Link to Rachel Maddow interview with Meghan McCain on MSNBC (Total Time: 9:59) "...there are people who think we should go back to our conservative roots, become extreme conservatives" (emphasis mine) (1:26) Maddow identified Tim Pawlenty as being on McCain's side. (1:42) "I love the Republican Party and I'm trying to help it." (2:11) "...the poster child for moderate Republicanism..." (Maddow, talking about McCain) (2:44) "I still consider myself a Republican." (emphasis mine) (4:04) "...we're never going to create a dialogue, meet in the middle..." (talking about Republicans appearing on Maddow's show, Maddow appearing on Fox) (4:17) "And I hate...