Rush Limbaugh just signed an unprecedented $400 million deal through 2016. Conservative radio has exceptionally large audiences, giant advertisers who want to sell stuff to those millions of listeners, and a message and format that attracts both.
Beyond infuriating the left, that staggering sum is sure to reinforce the widespread industry belief that talk represents one of broadcast radio’s only remaining bright spots. While several other major outfits are struggling to survive, Limbaugh and Premiere have provided a steady revenue stream for Clear Channel.
In fact, while advertisers have begun to abandon music radio for the Internet and other media, Limbaugh has recently added sponsors.
Expect Rush’s massive renewal deal to spark a fresh round of hand- wringing from the left, where their own “progressive” talk radio format remains stalled.
Compare that to failed liberal Air America — where Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, and Randi Rhodes were paid with stolen money from the nonprofit Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club.
Is it any wonder why Liberals are pushing for the return of the (un)Fairness Doctrine?
All the money in the world doesn’t change the fact that Rush Limbaugh is a fat, sexist, racist, homophobic, and worst of all, hypocritically drug-addicted, morally bankrupt fuckface.
[Editor --- One of the greatest things about Rush is his ability to do this to his opponents. The frothing at mouth is so knee-jerk that precipitously straddles the line between high comedy and psychotic.]
More wingnut welfare from teh likes of Ailes and Scaife. What does that prove? Boils on your ass are golden in America? Oh and it don’t hurt to have a rich fat daddy like Rush Sr. either.
At least we libs earn our coin the honest way. All these silver spoon-fed fortunate sons you so revere like Bush, Limbaugh, J Goldberg, Bill Kristol, John Podhoretz, and McCain were born on third base yet consistently claim credit for a grand slam. They represent the worst of American dynasty and excess.
[Editor --- I'm sorry...but were you talking about Teddy Kennedy?]
Rush is a brilliant man, and a national treasure. His uniqueness as a brilliant observer and commentator has inspired millions to think, and encouraged many to get involved. He also is an excellent example of what hard work, and optimism can accomplish.
Three Cheers for Rush!
As long as their are liberals, we need Rush.
That’s rich.
Dang…mention Rush Limbaugh and watch all the liberals come out of the woodwork!
Kind of fun to watch their head’s explode!
“At least we libs earn our coin the honest way?” Yah right, welfare, food stamps, housing vouchers, medicaid, free school lunches, free pre-school, Title this and Title That.
At least you libs could say thank you.
[Editor --- I'm sorry...but were you talking about Teddy Kennedy?]
You really can’t see the difference? Has Ted Kennedy denied that he has been enormously privileged? Hasn’t his entire career been an effort to make the lives easier for people who didn’t inherit fortunes?
Compare that to economic policies of the guy who married an heiress.
Compare that to economic policies of the guy who married an heiress.
John Kerry? Yeah, he sucks as much as Ted Kennedy.
Y’all have a really tough time distinguishing rich people who advocate for policies that help the middle class from the rich who advocate for 50,000 dollar tax cuts for themselves.
Actually, Preston, it is you who have the difficulty in making the distinction between the tax the rich, give to the poor attitude of the leftists. Your belief the left cares about the middle class, more than they care about buying votes from the poor is laughable.
Here’s the tax data from 1913-2008.
I’ll help break it down for you, as B-HO would return us to the Clinton tax rates.
Clinton:Single making 30K – tax $8,400
Bush:Single making 30K – tax $4,500
Clinton:Single making 50K – tax $14,000
Bush:Single making 50K – tax $12,500
Clinton:Single making 75K – tax $23,250
Bush:Single making 75K – tax $18,750
Clinton:Married making 60K – tax $16,800
Bush:Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Clinton:Married making 75K – tax $21,000
Bush:Married making 75K – tax $18,750
Clinton:Married making 125K – tax $38,750
Bush:Married making 125K – tax $31,250
(thanks to writer chick for the heavy lifting)
So much for the liberal deceit about tax cuts for the rich. Any other lies from the liberals I can help straighten out for you, just let me know. That you promote the drivel your ideological propagandists promote, and accept it as truth, without checking the facts, reveals you to be unworthy of making serious comments on these matters.
Why did you stop at 125K? That’s when the fun really starts!
I can’t decide if you know that you are being deceived or if you are complicit in the deception.
Factcheck.org reveals how your $2K is swamped by the $112,0o0 tax break that the wealthiest get:
Income Change
200-500K -$7,173
500-1,000K -$22,485
More than 1,000K -$112,925
So, you probably, say “I’ll take the two thousand dollars!” Of course, the trade off is 8 thousand dollars more debt for your family to pay and the bankrupting of programs that benefit you more than the millionaire. For instance, the projected growth of medicare, medicaid, and social security is less than the amount lost to the tax cuts.
So enjoy the two thousand dollars, but it will be cold comfort if it comes as at the expense of Social Security.
So your real objection is that those who earn more should be taxed even more severely than they already are. I understand.
Just as long as you understand the lie of “tax cuts for the rich” is exposed.
Excuse me? 112,000 dollars certainly sounds like a “tax cut for the rich”.
So Robbie- I’m not sure what you think the importance of the popularity of Limbaugh and other right wing media. That popularity obviously isn’t being represented at the ballot box.
Part of the explanation of the popularity of right wing radio is simply the greater willingness of liberals to sample across the ideological spectrum. While I listened to Rush Limbaugh for many years out of curiosity of the right wing spin there are few conservatives who do the same at left wing media.
No, I won’t.
The top 50% were those individuals or couples filing jointly who earned $29,019 and up in 2003, and they paid 96.54% of all income taxes. The top 1% pay over a third, 34.27% of all income taxes. (Up from 2003: 33.71%) The top 5% pay 54.36% of all income taxes (Up from 2002: 53.80%). The top 10% pay 65.84% (Up from 2002: 65.73%). The top 25% pay 83.88% (Down from 2002: 83.90%). The top 50% pay 96.54% (Up from 2002: 96.50%). The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.46% of all income taxes (Down from 2002: 3.50%). The top 1% is paying nearly ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom 50%!
Requires Excel.
Your Marxist desires are evident. You want equality of outcome, irrespective of effort.
If the tax system were fair to all American’s, we would all pay the same rate, but people like you aren’t interested in fairness, you want to punish those who achieve, by not only confiscating more of their earnings with an equal percentage, but by raising the confiscation percentage to an absurd level.
How did we ever take care of our poor and unfortunate before FDR’s Raw Deal, and LBJ’s War on
PovertyAchievement?Here’s how.
Uh, yeah, charity worked so well in the Depression. I suppose you also want to go back to the ‘traditional’ way of food inspection or drug regulation or ‘labor negotiations’.
Well, luckily Americans rejected that ideological nonsense.
Your supposition requires a different debate.
Tax cuts for the rich is a lie, with the small exception that they pay most of the taxes collected anyway, so any reduction in their rate, regardless of the reduction in rates for the other groups, is in your pretzel logic, wrong.
Gee, you must still be all torn up about the Berlin Wall falling.
Tax cuts for the rich is a lie,
What do all of those numbers mean to you then?
Not what they mean to a devoted Marxist, that’s for certain.
Those numbers tell me that everyone that pays taxes gets a tax cut. That the wealthiest people in this country pay significantly more than a share that is proportionately fair. Even if the wealthiest citizens had the same rate as the lower middle class, they would still be paying more, so why should their rate be even higher? Because the left needs to continue the class envy, to keep their voters on the economic plantation.
Honestly, a nearly fifty percent tax cut for a single person making $30K under Bush’s tax cuts, from Clinton’s rates, and you are obsessed with being unfair to those who make and produce more.
You sicken me with your collectivist beliefs.
Robbie, please tell me how Rush Limbaugh is not a hypocrite. The same man who spent his entire career going and on about drug users and how they are poxes on society was and is himself, an pathetic addict. If Rush’s own opinions about the proper way to “treat” drug abuse were enacted in this country he’d be rotting in jail.
Not to mention the time he spent on unemployment, how he opted out of Vietnam, and the bible-length list of just plain WRONG information he spews on his show on a daily basis, among them:
*There are more Native Americans in the continental united states than at the time Columbus arrived
*Styrofoam is biodegradable and paper is not
All you right-wing yahoos need to understand something: Rush Limbaugh doesn’t piss me off. Bill O’Reilly doesn’t piss me off. They just make me sad that Americans are so fucking stupid and easily led by the nose that they can be swayed by a bunch of overgrown fratboys who like to yell at people.
Uh oh, John! Looks like you are just another hater who’s been brainwashed by liberals! Conservatives, descend upon his ludicrous beliefs and prepare to mock!
…
Seriously though, while you are fairly correct, remember that they don’t actually want to “understand something”. They want to believe that you are just full of hate because you are desperate and stupid. They want to feel validated that everything good is associated with them and everything bad is associated with you.
What good would understanding us do, when Rush Limbaugh and others clearly have liberals all figured out for them already?