>> So, they closed down the ranch. There were always rumors it was a tax dodge <<
Something tells me that the IRS didn’t like the way Imus was running a lot of personal expenses thru his “charitable” set up. That may have had something to do with the shut down.
As I recall the public explanation, however, Imus said the thin air out on the high desert of New Mexico gave him problems after he had a very serious injury affecting his lungs, making it necessary for him to relocate.
But both the tax angle and the air angle could be true. Not mutually exclusive. All I know is that I wish he could have kept going with the old MSNBC format. If so, I’d probably still be watching!
I remember when he would get annoyed with MSNBC and have Chuck tape a piece of paper over the camera lens. Hilarious.
I remember the Wall St. Journal did a negative article on the ranch when Elliot Spitzer was still NY AG. When they want to get you indicted, they first get it into the paper. To show Imus’s power, he got the AG to drop it - or not take it up ‘cause the story was dropped. (Curtis Sliwa was always banging on about it.)
I’m sure he has major health problems from smoking so I agree it was probably the two things that got him to close down the ranch.