The Lifestyles of the Rich and Obnoxious – Rush Limbaugh’s 14 million dollar apartment

Found this Alex Cockburn piece on the newly revamped Anderson Valley Advertiser website.  It’s got photos of Limbaugh’s NYC Penthouse apartment, up for sale if anybody is looking for a place.  13.95 million is the asking price.  The decor is kind of surprising for someone who allegedly speaks for the everyday man of Middle America and rants and raves against the elitism of liberals struggling to pay off student loans way into their 30s because they chose public service jobs.

Cockburn on the decor:

The decor makes you wonder. Uptight provincial rococo. As someone commented, “Looks feminine, dainty and uncomfortable. No reclining chair. No TV. No pool table. No mounted deer head. No bear rug. No gun rack. No militaria. No truck in the driveway. Are you sure a single man lives here?” Of course the thrice-married, thrice-divorced Rush takes pains to have a woman on his arm, at least in public, even though the current companion, Kate Rogers, was having her nails done in West Palm Beach when Limbaugh was on vacation in Hawaii, where he had his heart attack (and benefited from Hawaii’s quasi-social medical system – EVK).

I love the flowers on the mantle.  Nice touch.  Are they real do you think?

The irony here is that it looks as garish as anything you’d find in Hollywood.  Maybe more so.  I bet he says it was redecorated to sell.

Click on the photo to enlarge.  You can see his bedroom through the link.

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On the new AVA site itself, pretty snazzy.  Kind of brings up its own ironies however.  I remember an AVA issue with a quote from a Fanzine in San Francisco whose masthead read: “Please don’t visit our website.  We don’t have one.”  They’ve had a website for awhile, but it was pretty minimal.

And actually, I miss the old Pulitzer quote on the AVA masthead which read, “a newspaper should have no friends.”  Do we have a kinder/gentler Bruce Anderson running the show now?  Has he converted to Buddhism or something?

On that Nazi health care reform

There’s been a little bit of a stir over the tea bagger signs on the Capital steps yesterday comparing the anticipated victims of health care reform to Dachau victims, complete with photos of bodies found in the famed death camp.  Republican after Republican scrambled to speak in front of the crowd, but nobody bothered to comment on the sign until today, following pressure from Jewish groups.  Senator Eric Cantor has now deemed the sign “inappropriate” and even gone so far as to criticize Rush for inflaming the debate by comparing Obama to Hitler.

It’s in the Friday afternoon dump, but tea baggers don’t take kindly to criticism of their icons or the perceived weakness of apologies (to liberals).  Anybody want to start a pool on how long it will take Cantor to recant his anti-Rush heresy?

TPM has put together a list of the ritual apologies made to date, entitled “Forgive me Rush for I have sinned.”

Meanwhile, some Democrats are seizing the moment to make the wingnuttiness the story of the protest.  Fair game?  You decide.  Rep. Steve Israel:

“I can’t believe that Congresswoman Bachmann would stand where she stood, and see those images, and not have the common decency to say, ‘I disagree with the use of those images.’ I think that she owes the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust an apology. She owes us all an apology. And I’m waiting. We’re all waiting.

Don’t burst former Rep. Tancredo’s bubble!  “You bet it’s appropriate” he says.  And he blames anti-Bush demonstrators.  As previously noted, the right wing approach these days is:  Don’t apologize.  Always attack.  Don’t worry about how lame it sounds.  They’ll praise you for “straight talking.”

“So we stand by the fabricated quote because we know Obama thinks it anyway.”

The de facto leader of the Republican Party reaches yet another plateau of professionalism and class.

The Rush Limbaugh apology kit

It’s a form for transgressing Republicans to fill out, with blanks to fill in with ready-made input from Republicans who’ve already been there.

Rush is King!

Check out all the TPM headlines!  Any Republican who criticizes Rush will be put through the ringer, and now Republican dignitaries everywhere are scrambling for his approval.  He’s in charge.

And then check out Gibbs on video in the Steele thread below.  And Emanuel.  The Republican leadership has to be sweating bricks right about now.

Do you think Rush is secretly a liberal?

Addendum: Rush to Judgment Day!  This has got to be one of the best moments of political theater in years, including last year’s primary.

Second addendum: Fox is dissing Rush.  They obviously realize the story isn’t good for Republicans.  Will they be forced to apologize?

RNC chair Michael Steele’s having a bad week

First he threatens the GOP moderates.  Then he backs down.  Then he called Rush Limbaugh’s commentary “ugly.”  Now he’s groveling such that you’d expect him to wear a cultural revolution dunce cap.

Meanwhile Rahm Emanual sees Rush as the gift that keeps giving, calling Rush “the voice and intellectual force and enrgy behind the Republican Party.” The Democrats have taken some lessons over the years.

Addendum: TPM has a scary slideshow of the CPAC conference.  Parental guidance suggested.

And their day in 100 seconds.  If you measure the economy by the stock market, we’re in free fall again.  Plus more Rush.

Meanwhile Blago has a six million dollar book deal.  Will you read it?  I got bored with him by the second day of the controversy, nevermind whether I want any of his royalties coming out of my wallet.

And Coleman rests, setting up for an appeal to keep Franken out of office for as long as possible.

Second addendum: The Freepers are turning on Steele.  A sampling:

Is he nuts? Does he not want contributions? You insult or stand AGAINST Rush….you are spitting on your base. Looks like I may have to change my affiliation to INDEPENDENT (until CONSERVATIVE) is allowed. I didn’t leave the Republican party…they left me.

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This is very disappointing.

Personally I was jazzed by everything Rush said.

I’ve never been inspired by Michael Steele’s comments on Fox. Now I see why. He’s one of “them”.

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I just emailed Steele and gave him a piece of my mind. He is pitiful, spineless, and a disgrace.

I am disgusted.

But these quotes take the prize!

Steele really disappointed me in his comments. I wonder if he is revealing his deep hidden allegiance to obuma’s skin in the game loyalty of race?????

Rush’s comments were clear, consise and to the point. Rush said what the Repubs are too, scared to say “the truth.”

In summation, steele is just “another got skin in da game rino brother.”

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Gee Michael, maybe your BROTHERS will share a spliff w/you later. How pathetic to cave so they can say your bright. He thinks your a wimp and he’s right.

Frankly, I wouldn’t take this too seriously. Steele will be glad to have Rush on his side when the time comes. This is, to be honest, a black guy talking ya-ya with other black guys and that kind of “dialog” never yields anything terribly useful.

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It’s like Rush said, we’re always acting like we’re the minority, letting the dems set the agenda while all we do is react to their bullying. We’ll, they set the agenda with a black president, and the pathetic GOP had to find their own black person to put in the store window. Enough of that crap.

Third Addendum: I missed this yesterday. Robert Gibbs calls on the media to ask Congressional Republicans whether they agree with Rush Limbaugh and want Obama’s economic plan to fail.

Right wing freakout – Obama is appointing homosexuals!

Not satisfied with what looks like a very hawkish national security team nominated yesterday, some right wingers are kvetching about seven appointments to his transition team who are openly homosexual.  He’s “keeping his promises” to the “homosexual pressure groups.”

Scared yet?

Well did you know that eharmony, the largest online dating now (gasp!) serving homosexuals!

Meanwhile, in more mundane news, the year-long recession has been confirmed.  Of course, it’s all Obama’s fault.

The political language of apologies

Rush Limbaugh is under some fire for calling soldiers who oppose the war “phony soldiers.” He and his defenders have choreographed some amusing Clintonian gymnastics to spin what he “really meant.” And while claiming the liberal “smear campaign” was taking his quote out of context, he provided a very selectively edited transcript to underscore his point.

Democrats are pushing a measure similar to the recent censureship of MoveOn.org – Rush having provided the DLC wing an opportunity to show they aren’t weenies after all. The Republicans aren’t going for it though. It’s fair game to attack soldiers when they oppose the war. Some would argue that opposition, even after the service is over, is a breach of military discipline.

But anyway, today Rush “apologized.”

“It’s unconscionable what Sen. Reid and Sen. Harkin and these other Democrats are doing. And again I want to apologize today to all of you in the United States military — active duty and retired — for this smear. I am not apologizing for myself. I am apologizing for Media Matters.org, for Hillary Clinton, for Harry Reid. I am apologizing for all of these groups that are undertaking efforts to demoralize you. … I want to apologize to you on their behalf for this storm having been created out of thin air out of a total lie.”

A touchy-feelly professor of mine once tried to convince me that the majority of the right-left differences were a matter of language, and that to resolve our political disputes we had to find the common ground, yada, yada, yada. Well, I do agree their are differences in language between the ideologies, particularly in the realm of apologies.

So next time a right winger calls me a “pro-terror, freedom hating, latte loving, traitorous surrender monkey,” I shall gracefully accept his or her apology for having bought into a war of which the logic behind defied all history, common sense, and ethical bearing. I know that’s what you’re trying to say.

Rush’s mug comes from ABC News.

Tuesday notes 6/27/06

Rush Limbaugh is in trouble again. Apparently he was stopped in an airport because he possessed a bottle of prescription medicine that was in his physician’s name (for privacy) rather than his and detained for three hours. The fact that it wasn’t in his name isn’t the problem. The problem is that under the terms of his probation-that-we-aren’t-supposed-to-call-”probation,” he’s supposed to clear all prescription drugs with his non-probation officer. Another round for the late-night comedians.

Photo from MYDD.

Update: Just borrowed the following Al Franken line from Tenzil Kem, who has posted here a couple of times.

“From what I understand, if you cut out all the passages in the Bible where Jesus talks about the poor, about helping out the least among us, you’d have the perfect container to smuggle Rush Limbaugh’s drugs in.”

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In a letter to the Eureka Reporter one William Langely is worried that if the Arkleys won’t buy the balloon track, nobody will. He says that Arkley wants to make it a “very beautiful place.”

Meanwhile, local historian Ray Hillman would like to see the Balloon Track preserved as a “cultural resource.”

And Times Standard columnist notes that tensions are high on the Eureka City Council over the Balloon Tract, particularly between Chris Kerrigan and Jeff Leonard.

Note also that the TS says “tract” while the ER says “track.” As a rural SoHumer so confused by those big city politics up there, can somebody tell me which paper has it right?

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Once again, 3 Strikes is under some negative scrutiny, as the governor pushes for more bonds to build even more prisons to accomodate the increased inmate population. Cited in the Calitics article linked above are the following points:

According to a 2004 report, 3 strikes accomplishes very little but costs a great deal. A summary of the 3 part report that the Justice Policy Institute Published:

1. 3 Strikes has significantly contributed to an increase in California’s prison population. (Still Striking Out)
2. Nearly two thirds of the second or third strikers were incarcerated for nonviolent crimes.
3. California had four times as many people incarcerated under Three Strikes as the other 21 Three Strikes states for which there were data.
4. There was no substantial link between the use of Three Strikes and declines in crime.
5. 3 Strikes disproportionately impacts African-Americans and Latinos on a statewide basis. (Racial Divide)

In fact, according the article, there are now 3 times more black men in prison than in college. Basically, many conservatives – the same people who would join the tax posse in opposing bonds for schools or libraries – will vote to spend exhorbitant amounts of money to build even more prisons in the state which has the highest percentage of its citizens behind bars – a reality that reflects the rule of conservatives thanks to Orange County bloc voting for about 15 years.

This issue brings new meaning to the phrase “if you build it, they will come.”

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And the Confusion Hill bypass construction is finally under way!

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The Redwood Times also features a nice story on the latest business venture of Holly Sweet and Jill McClure.

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Robert Scheer of the San Francisco Bay Guardian revives a decades old story about journalists who were charged with sedition for alleging that the US military used germ warfare in Korea. The surviving member of the group still believes it’s true. The case was dismissed because the prosecutor misunderstood a basic element of sedition law. The story was revived again a couple of decades later after the journalist using the Freedom of Information Act squeezed some interesting documents from the government. A fascinating story either way.

I wonder though if this is the same Robert Scheer who once lobbied Pete Seeger to back off of supportive statements about Solidarity, the Polish Trade Union on the basis that it was the creation of a CIA plot. Stalinism isn’t dead yet.

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And the librarians still have it in for President Bush.

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My wife is watching the news and just informed me that Jim Steinberg will be stepping down as Public Defender. I assume it’ll be the hot topic in our competing dailies tomorrow morning.