"It’s easier to frame opposition using the bloodless language of the budget than the combustible language of national character and composition," The Washington Post's Ezra Klein wrote this mornin, but the Congressional Budget Office has refuted argument by finding that immigration reform would cut almost $1 trillion from the federal deficit over the next 20 years.
There is a split among conservatives between those who think the NSA's collection of data about every phone call in America is an important counterterrorism tool, and those who think President Obama is, as usual, trampling on the constitution and the flag and the Founding Fathers. But Rush Limbaugh takes it one step further. He says Obama is leading a coup d'etat. And this time it's for real.
After admitting that his 2012 Republican "fever" theory was wrong, President Obama told donors like Jessica Biel, Justin Timberlake (who was wearing hipster glasses), and Tommy Hilfiger that Washington gridlock is pretty much Rush Limbaugh's fault on Monday evening at a fundraiser at Harvey Weinstein's house in New York's Greenwich Village.
On Monday, after Obama called the ongoing theories a "sideshow," Rush Limbaugh floated a different theory that would make Obama's actions much worse, if not quite so treasonous. Rush was not alone in his floating; so long as there is an attack's aftermath with which to create more aftermath, he never will be.
Rush Limbaugh enied that the advertiser boycott of his show after he called Fluke a slut would cost him anything, but a year later, it's clear that prediction wasn't true. It has, at the very least, cost him his relationship with the radio network giant Cumulus Media.
We've gotten so used to the idea that conservative media parrot official Republican Party talking points that even Luntz — king of the on-air focus group, prompter of Fox News teleprompters — is surprised when they fail to do so.
Rush Limbaugh has struggled mightily to come to grips with why Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev bombed the Boston marathon. Now he and others are reminding us that the Tsarnaevs were possibly aided by the thing liberals apparently love most of all — the bloated welfare state.
"He's not a normal kid," Limbaugh said on his radio show Tuesday. "There's nothing normal about this, and we don't want it to be normal." Well, yeah, that's the point.
The Tsarnaev brothers don't provide an easy answer for how to stop something like the Boston marathon bombing to ever happen again. That leaves the Tsnarnaevs' religion — and, apparently, all the liberals who think religious profiling is a bad idea.
The race was not a sprint, but a long, hard slog. Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert won that race today, but he could never have done it without the hard work of others who went before him.
No one wants to politicize the Boston Marathon bombing. But a political opponent politicizing the Boston Marathon bombing? Well, that might be useful!
Many politicians and pundits have noticed that gay marriage has become so popular that they have to evolve on the issue to stay relevant. But there are still several conservatives who do have strong feelings. There are a few distinct arguments against gay marriage, and they don't always mesh well together.
Rand Paul declared victory Thursday when his 13-hour filibuster forced Attorney General Eric Holder to answer his question of whether the government can kill by drone an American citizen now engaged in combat on American soil. But that victory was fairly narrow.
Sen. Marco Rubio went on Rush Limbaugh's show to sell his proposal for comprehensive immigration reform on Tuesday, a day after the radio host said only he and Fox News stand can stop amnesty now, and while Rubio charmed Limbaugh, the Senator from Florida didn't win a new supporter for his immigration proposal.
Rush Limbaugh warned on Monday that "It's up to me and Fox News" to stop the threat of amnesty for illegal immigrants he sees in a new bipartisan immigration reform plan. But it's looking like it's up to Sen. Marco Rubio to sell the plan.
If we want to know which way the Republican Party is headed after its big losses on Tuesday, it helps to look at how conservatives are explaining Mitt Romney's loss to themselves.
The Obama Phone is a perfect example of the combustible mix of deregulation, lobbyists, and clever marketers: a more efficient system that's also expensive and wasteful.
Last night we can all agree that there was a gross miscarriage of officiating during the Packers-Seahawks game. But forget the football: is there a way to parlay a sporting travesty into partisan gain? The political world is trying its hardest.
Chickification: This is a term our dear friend Rush Limbaugh adores, considering it some sort of powerful way to demean women. But for having made it up, it's still rather unclear what it means. And why should we take his word for what chickification is?
Something is rotten with the National Hurricane Center's forecasting of Tropical Storm Isaac, Rush Limbaugh thinks.
As soon as Rush Limbaugh linked Friday's shooting near the Empire State Building with President Barack Obama's policies, he started qualifying the connection as "absurdist," which is the same way he qualified calling Sandra Fluke a slut.
Mitt Romney was perfectly set up to spike a ball of righteous outrage at Democrats, but the campaign screwed it up in conservatives' eyes.
When Sandra Fluke became a household name after Rush Limbaugh called her a "slut" for testifying in favor of requiring insurance to cover contraception, right-wing conspiracy theorists howled that she was a Democratic operative. Now she kind of is.
The sense that John Roberts betrayed conservatives with his vote upholding Obamacare is widespread, but it's probably misplaced. Republicans have already seized on his "tax" label, and the young Chief Justice's interpretation of the commerce clause will have ramifications for years.
The latest nugget in conservatives' "vetting" of President Obama is the revelation by the National Review's Stanley Kurtz that in 1996, a pro-union third party called the New Party named Barack Obama as a member in meeting minutes.
Political commentator Monica Crowley is enduring some social media criticism Thursday for a decidedly uncreative joke she made about Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown Law Student who withstood Rush Limbaugh's unpleasant attacks earlier this year.
Michigan's former governor talks Tosh.O, right-wing radio, and her favorite 22-year-old blogger.
Mike Huckabee is looking to provide a nicer alternative - "conservatism with a smile" - to Rush Limbaugh's brash, louder, confrontational radio style. Huckabee will debut a new radio show on Monday that will directly challenge Limbaugh from noon-to-3 p.m., Politico reports.
There is "no real outrage" over Trayvon Martin's death, Rush Limbaugh declared on his radio show Thursday, just like there was no real outrage over the time he called Sandra Fluke a "slut" and demanded to see sex tapes.
Now that the outrage over his comments about activist Sandra Fluke have had a few weeks to die down, it seems clear that Rush Limbaugh and his radio show are going to be okay.
Robert De Niro's joke about caucasian first ladies isn't even racist, but we have a feeling his comments from an Obama fundraiser are going to fuel some Republican rage today.
Rush Limbaugh has added singer Cee-Lo Green to the list of folks he thinks the media is letting off as they criticize the radio show host for his attacks on a Georgetown Law student.
Rush Limbaugh has had a personal Twitter account since 2009, but it has taken him over three years to send his first tweet. He wanted to share a blog post concerning the boycott of advertisers on his show.
President Obama's reelection team was quick to conjure the horror of a Mitt Romney victory in November in an email to supporters Tuesday, but maybe they jumped the gun. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
Right after releasing an ever-growing-list companies that don't want anything to do with Rush Limbaugh on Monday (the count is at 140), the broadcaster's distributor has sent out a memo telling affiliates to suspend national advertising spots for the next two weeks.
Preparation H, Domino's, and Acura all have one thing in common--they don't want their ads to be scheduled within 15 minutes of Rush Limbaugh and other "controversial" content like Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Glenn Beck.
On the morning of March 7, Mario Lurig, a 32-year-old "author, web developer, and chocolatier" who resides in the Greater Denver area, was on the Internet, catching up on the latest happenings involving Rush Limbaugh, the word "slut," and a woman named Sandra Fluke.
AshleyMadison.com, the dating site for people out to cheat on their spouses, made a clever publicity grab by offering to buy up all of Rush Limbaugh's ad spots as other advertisers fled the show in the wake of his rant against a Georgetown law student, but Limbaugh is apparently above accepting such an offer.
RushLimbaugh.com appears to have removed parts of his radio transcripts from February 29 and March 1 in which he called Sandra Fluke a "slut" and demanded a sex tape as a thank you to taxpayers for subsidizing her birth control.
Democrats say they're really mad about Rush Limbaugh's slut controversy, but it sure is useful to them. Obama reelection adviser David Axelrod did his part to keep the story alive on Wednesday, asking reporters that if Mitt Romney can't stand up to Limbaugh, "how can he stand up to Ahmadinejad?"
It would be tempting to say that no one has won with the initial slut-shaming and the firestorm that has ensued with Rushgate. But, if we're being honest, we have to admit that this may not have gone that terribly for quite a few people.
We're still updating our list of companies that have pulled their ads from Rush Limbaugh even after he apologized for calling Sandra Fluke a slut on Monday. The current tally is up to 46.
Less than a week after calling Sandra Fluke a "slut" on the air, Rush Limbaugh ran his mouth again on Tuesday, calling investigative journalist Tracie McMillan a "babe", an "authorette" and, more broadly, one of "these single white women."
Now that over a dozen companies have bailed on Rush Limbaugh after he called Sandra Fluke a "slut" on air, a couple of new companies are swooping in to buy up that abandoned air time.
Less than 10 companies had pulled their ads from Rush Limbaugh's radio show Tuesday, when The Atlantic Wire counted the ads still running. Since then, the number pulling their ads has more than doubled.
Rush Limbaugh said he wasn't motivated to apologize to Sandra Fluke by the number of companies pulling ads from his show. He insists he's turned away "millions" in ads and he can always "replace" the ones who've left! But it made us wonder exactly who does advertise on Limbaugh's show.
Just after AOL announced it would no longer be advertising on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, he opened Monday's edition with yet another apology to Sandra Fluke for calling her a "slut" and a "prostitute," this time blaming (who else?) the left.
Rush Limbaugh has issued an apology to Sandra Fluke: He never meant to "attack" the Georgetown law student by calling her a "slut" and a "prostitute." Advertisers are dropping out, anyway.
Two more companies have decided to stop advertising on the Rush Limbaugh Show after his continued attacks Friday on a Georgetown Law student who testified before Congress about birth control. But so far, Limbaugh doesn't show signs that he'll apologize.
Have a story we missed? A link we have to click? A sharp opinion about the news? Instead of waiting for us to post it, tell us on the Open Wire.
Submit your news and ideas | See all reader postsThe Atlantic Wire is your authoritative guide to the news and ideas that matter most right now. Our team tracks newsmakers and opinions across the entire media spectrum: newspapers, web sites, television, radio and magazines.
But we do more than just collect information. By synthesizing, analyzing and summarizing what’s out there, and adding new information when we can, we are a news engine that gives you a quick and valuable account of the issues of the day.
Have a hot tip? A story we missed? Tell us on the Open Wire
How to send us editorial or technical feedback
Get Five Best Columns in your inbox each morning (preview)
