This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by investor prenups
By Simon Maloy

Sometimes, when we feel sorry for ourselves for having to listen to the likes of Mark Steyn prattle on about cat AIDS and Birther gibberish, we take a step back, survey the broader talk radio landscape, and remind ourselves that it could be worse. Anyway, welcome back for another day of the Limbaugh Wire -- this time it's the real McCoy, as El Rushbo is back from charity golfing.

Rush kicked off the show by once again explaining Obama's grand plan to drive down the economy so he can take over the private sector and destroy capitalism. The impetus behind Obama's grand conspiracy is, apparently, his overarching anger: "I tell you, this is one angry guy. He's a bad guy. He's one angry guy. His wife is angry as well. Everybody around him is in full rage, although they're probably happy now to see him sit around what is -- what's happening."

From there, Rush touched off on the semi-interesting factoid that the Sunday New York Times opinion page contained several pieces critical of Obama. Rush was upset, however, because the New York Times "leftists" were attacking Obama's style, not the substance of his ideas, because "leftists" will never "admit that their ideas are bad." Except for Paul Krugman, who, according to Rush, may be "more right than wrong" regarding Treasury Secretary Geithner's toxic asset plan. At this point, we dove under our desk because we were sure reality had just torn itself asunder. After a minute or so, we convinced ourselves that the end times were not upon us, so we resumed listening.

Talking about the toxic asset plan, Rush encouraged private investors participating in the plan to get a "prenup" before entering into this "marriage" with the government, because they'll end up being taxed at 90 percent if they make too much money. Moving on to Geithner, Rush noted that The Washington Post reported that the "Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document." According to Rush, "Geithner is going to get total control over determining whether something needs to be seized or not, whether it's working or not -- and it's just keeps on coming, folks." This isn't quite accurate -- the Post article he read from noted that the "Treasury secretary could act only after consulting with the president and getting a recommendation from two-thirds of the Federal Reserve Board."

Rush came back from the break with an explanation of what "toxic assets" are and once again cautioned investors to get a "prenup" so that they don't face "retroactive taxation" or hearings with Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA). Rush expressed his extreme disapproval with the toxic asset plan because it is "just another bailout," saying that investors are going to be buying toxic assets with government "loans" and that they don't have to repay that money, regardless of whether the investments make or lose money. According to Rush, it's a "show" intended to make it look as thought the private sector is saving the economy. The key thing to remember, according to Rush, is that the private investors participating in the plan are the same people Obama has been "vilifying" for the past six months (and they're all Democrats).

Rounding out the hour, Rush returned to his teleprompter fixation, claiming that CNN's Jeannie Moos and the rest of the "drive-bys" are covering for Obama regarding the teleprompter mishap involving the Irish prime minister. Rush was incredulous that Obama, according to Moos, jokingly read the wrong speech to cover for the Irish PM: "Obama is not a person with a sense of humor. No serious, angry, leftist ever has a sense of humor." Rush then demanded that Moos show the video of the incident if that really was the case. Of course, in the very same segment, Moos said quite clearly of the incident: "Too bad it wasn't on camera."

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: The poor and the middle class, this is a bunch of people that believe a bunch of things. One of the things they believe is that the nation's achievers and so-called wealthy have acquired their wealth by stealing it or not allowing others to have it, and this has created the middle class and the poor. And so we've got to go get that money back, and that's what we're in the process of doing.

Remember Obama told some people in a California town meeting not to be investment bankers -- the same thing his wife did during the campaign in Zanesville, Ohio. I tell you, this is one angry guy. He's a bad guy. He's one angry guy. His wife is angry as well. Everybody around him is in full rage, although they're probably happy now to see him sit around what is -- what's happening.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: After they have made it doubly tough for anybody to run a profitable business, then they can go in and seize it, when you can't make a profit, when your business isn't doing -- this is all part of a plan. This is not a rescue. This is a plan. They are focused on the destruction of the private sector. They -- this is an all-out assault on capitalism.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: See, Obama had the presence of mind to run to the teleprompter and thank himself, knowing full well he's just trying to bail the Irish prime minister out of an embarrassing moment by thanking himself. Well, if that's the case, show us the tape. If it's just a joke, if it was -- I mean, this could really help Obama to show that he can ad lib off the prompter. Isn't that one of the big complaints that people have about him?

So, Jeannie, go get the tape and show it to us if this is such a brilliant effort by Obama to tell a joke, which he can't do by the way. Obama is not a person with a sense of humor. No serious, angry, leftist ever has a sense of humor. Obama does not have one. He's got an engaging smile, but when he tries to crack jokes, we know what happens. He is not funny. He is not a funny guy.

What? What? Well, we've got yucks at the handicapped. That's what I mean. He's not a funny guy. He does not know how to tell a joke. This whole notion this was a joke, Obama going up there to bailout -- show us the tape, Jeannie. Or get this pool reporter. Show us the tape if it's just a joke, if it's just a joke. So they will continue to cover for him.

America's Truth Rejector

Misleadingly claimed new plan would give Geithner "total control" over decision to seize financial institutions:

LIMBAUGH: The Obama administration is going to ask Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies like large insurers, investment firms, hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy -- this from White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. They're going to use it until they get control of as much of the private sector as they want.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: So they're going to get rid of the independent agencies that examine the health of various aspects of the economy. They're going to turn that over to Geithner. Geithner is going to get total control over determining whether something needs to be seized or not, whether it's working or not -- and it's just keeps on coming, folks.

There's nothing in the road to stop these people -- nothing on the road to stop them. No boulders in the way -- and even if there were boulders, these people are in a jet. They're flying over the land. They're not driving over it. And they're proceeding full speed ahead.

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by ACORN's billions
By Simon Maloy

Top of the second hour, Rush touched on some poll numbers, specifically a Public Policy Polling survey of North Carolina that put Rush's favorability rating at 31 percent. This, according to Rush, means he's one of the most popular people in the country! Forgive us for being sticklers, but it actually means that he's popular with less than one out of every three North Carolinians. Regardless, Rush claimed that this poll is evidence that the Democrats are really, really scared of Rush and his articulation of conservatism, and that Democrats are trying to discredit him in states that they want to keep blue.

After once again proudly declaring his opposition to Obama's particular brand of "socialism," Rush launched into an extended plug for Mark Levin's new book, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. Levin, apparently, will appear on the second hour of the program tomorrow, so we'll have that to look forward to. Anyway, according to Rush, Levin is one of the few people -- along with Rush and Hannity -- fighting for American liberty. He's a genius, he's brilliant, and "a bare-knuckles fighter for freedom," fighting against those who "snatch liberty from people at every turn with a heart that is as cold as ice." Things went on in this vein for some time, with Rush fantasizing about the book attaining underground fame on par with The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Rush then proclaimed it astounding that the book has sold so many copies without him even mentioning it. Rush concluded that this means people out there are thirsty for this sort of thing.

Back from the break, Rush commiserates with Snerdley that no one is outraged by ACORN creating "mobs" in Connecticut to travel by bus to protest at the homes of AIG executives. In venting his outrage, Rush repeated that old conservative chestnut that ACORN "got three and a half billion dollars from the stimulus bill." If you're surprised to hear that ACORN is so well-funded by the government, don't be... because they're not. On both sides of the next break, Rush read extensively from a Connecticut Post article on the "bus tour" organized by ACORN and the Connecticut Working Families Party. According to Rush, he's the only person speaking out about this because everyone else is "scared to death" of being "demonized."

Then it was time for a caller, who asked Rush if the return of AIG bonuses to the government sets a dangerous precedent. Rush claimed that Obama and the Democrats pulled a fast one, using "mob rule" and "popular psychology" in proposing a 90-percent tax to which no one objected. The caller then urged Rush to devote an entire show to Obama's alleged "hypocrisies." Rush declined, however, saying that "hypocrisy" does not go far enough: "He's taking away freedom incrementally, each and every day, making another big grab at it. That's not hypocrisy, that's tyranny."

Back from the break, Rush shifted from Obama's incremental, big-grab freedom destruction program back to the ACORN bus tour and his own extraordinary bravery in criticizing it. Why are people scared to raise their voices in opposition? According to Rush: "Nobody's going to stand up and oppose it, especially if most of the people on the protest tour are minority, most of them are very poor. Nobody wants to be critical of either group, so you have to sit there and just sort of, you know, you know, I understand where they're coming for. I know where they're coming from, and that's a shame, and so forth."

Rush closed out the hour with another caller, once again trashing Geithner's toxic asset plan and claiming that it would have been better to suspend income and payroll taxes for an entire year. That, according to Rush, would revive the economy.

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Mark Levin is a bare-knuckles fighter for freedom. The left labels him mean and angry, while Obama is labeled as compassionate and reasonable and engaging, while fighting to snatch liberty from people at every turn with a heart that is as cold as ice. So we've got Levin's book, Liberty and Tyranny. It embraces liberty. It's out. It is number one wherever books are sold. Obama's plans -- they're also out for taking it away. You can read them every day in The Washington Post.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I think it's worse than hypocritical. Hypocritical doesn't begin to describe it. And by the way, hypocrisy is not an indictment of Democrats. Democrats are hypocritical every day, and they're never held to account. Hypocrisy only damages Republicans. We're missing the boat if all we want to say about Obama is he's hypocritical.

Obama is, while everybody stands around cheering, is taking away individual liberty and freedom as quickly as he can while smiling and laughing about it on Leno, smiling and laughing about it on 60 Minutes with Steve Kroft, and while his mindless Obama-bots are out there cheering for him at every town meeting and so forth. He's taking away freedom incrementally, each and every day, making another big grab at it.

That's not hypocrisy, that's tyranny.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: So you have a bunch of ignoramuses in this country whose emotions are being played, and they're being ginned up, and they're joining these protests and so forth -- nobody's going to do anything to stop it. Nobody's going to stand up and oppose it, especially if most of the people on the protest tour are minority, most of them are very poor. Nobody wants to be critical of either group, so you have to sit there and just sort of, you know, you know, I understand where they're coming for. I know where they're coming from, and that's a shame, and so forth.

Well, Snerdley, I agree that somebody better stop it now, but it's not -- it's not -- I don't know who's going to stop it. The Obama administration - the president is not going to speak out against this. The president is encouraging this. The president could stop this with a snap of his fingers. The president loves this. It's his group. ACORN got stimulus money to do this kind of thing. It's his group. This is where he trained, ACORN. This is exactly the kind of chaos that his administration wants.

"Socialism" watch

LIMBAUGH: Our opposition to Obama is indeed based on N-O. We say no to socialism. We say no to government berating the private sector for the purpose of taking it over. What's negative about that?

America's Truth Rejector

Repeated false claim that ACORN received billions in stimulus cash:

LIMBAUGH: Is nobody upset here that a group of people that Obama used to work for, ACORN, which got three and a half billion dollars from the stimulus bill -- is nobody upset that our country has been turned into a banana republic because this Obama support group, this election fraud group, is up conducting tours of a mob of angry people by the homes of executives of AIG? Is nobody upset about this?

Echo chamber

Promoted Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny; Levin will be on the show tomorrow.

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by Barack Ogabe
By Simon Maloy

To kick off the final hour, Rush noted a Reuters article headlined, "Resistance grows to Obama's bigger government," and encouraged us all to look at the bigger picture. Rush took us back to January 15, asking us to imagine where the country would be if, between now and then, there had been no resistance to Obama's "assault" on capitalism. Before we could get around to envisioning that nightmare scenario, Rush explained why he took us back to that seemingly random date -- the very next day, Rush first said he wanted Obama to "fail." According to Rush, this was -- he was -- the tipping point, the "first breath" of opposition to Obama, without which there would be no opposition to Obama. But now, because of Rush's desire that Obama fail, people are starting to raise questions.

Finally we were able to move past Rush's ego, and Rush claimed that the Obama administration's goal was power grabs -- in the present and the future. That's why they need "chaos," according to Rush, as demonstrated by the flap over the AIG bonuses. Rush also asked us to remember the Obama administration's desire to regulate executive pay: "Why would a leftist authoritarian want that power? Well, if you control executive compensation, you can then start controlling any other kind of compensation. And if you control that, you have the right to take over the economy's central nervous system, do you not?" The purpose of all this, according to Limbaugh, is... political donations. So says Rush: "[R]ansom, in other words. Obama is basically asking for ransom from financial institutions: Pay me or I'll take you over. Donate to me and my party or I'll take you over -- the old protection racket." That's right, the man who proved himself to be the most effective and prolific fundraiser in campaign history is enacting a vast conspiracy to reshape the American financial system so he can do something he already does better than anyone else.

Just before the break, Rush took a few shots at NBC News' Chuck Todd -- one of those media figures who are "too invested" in Obama -- for saying that Obama was "Zen-like" in his 60 Minutes interview. Of course, Todd used that term in describing a "criticism" of Obama "that sometimes he doesn't seem to show that he feels the pain of what's going on in America."

In a quick segment between breaks, Limbaugh aired audio of today's hearing in the House with Secretary Geithner, during which, according to Limbaugh, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) "shut down the entire conversation" Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) was having with Geithner, because Bachus "was about to nail Geithner, not on the bonuses, but on the 170 billion in bailout money that 93 to $100 billon of which was sent to other banks, among them Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and others." It's an interesting theory, but one that doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. According to the New York Times liveblog of the hearing, at 10:58 a.m., there were "questions about A.I.G.'s payments to counterparties, in which some bailout funds were used to pay financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank in full. Mr. Geithner says his team did explore imposing a loss on the counterparties, but concluded that the Fed had no legal authority to do so." Rep. Frank should really learn to use his conversation-stifling gavel more consistently.

Back from another break, Limbaugh touched on one of the more unfortunate topics from yesterday's adventure with Mark Steyn -- the U.S. government buying condoms from China. Rush linked this to reports that one of the British prime minister's advisers will "warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society." Rush went off on this for a while, claiming that you'd have to kill people to reduce Britain's population, and that such thinking represents "leftism" and "Democrat Partyism" and "liberalism." Rush then linked this to yet another unfortunate topic -- his mockery from last week of explorers trapped and imperiled in the Arctic Circle. According to Rush, this "idiot" and "lunatic" adviser to the British PM "should have been on that trek." The explorers were saved, by the way.

Oh, we almost forgot. In the middle of that rant about the British adviser, he "confus[ed]" Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe "with a well-known Kenyan named Barack Ogabe," saying: "Please forgive me. I did not intend that slip-up to be made. Barack Ogabe and Robert Mugabe, at least in human structure, are two different people. I don't know about policy."

Anyway, what remained of the show was spent on the AIG bonuses, with Limbaugh claiming that the government used "fear" (congressional hearings, ACORN, etc.) to compel AIG executives to return the bonus money, in effect levying a 100-percent tax.

That's it for this fine Tuesday's Limbaugh Wire. In our subjective and thoroughly biased opinion, Media Matters' Limbaugh coverage is the best around, so we strongly encourage you to read, listen to, and internalize every last bit of it. See you tomorrow.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: All of this chaos, all of the effort to talk down the U.S. economy to create chaos is necessary for future power grabs. It's been in the works for some time. Treasury and the Congress work together to protect the retention contracts. They sanctioned those contracts.

Yet, now, they're angered and shocked and outraged those contracts were paid as promised. It makes sense if the end game is chaos after chaos after chaos to take over more and more of the private sector. And they are openly admitting this. They told The Washington Post and The New York Times that this is what they want to do -- stories yesterday and Monday, or Sunday.

And let's not forget that Obama wants to control the pay -- the compensation of all bank and non-bank executives too. Why would a leftist authoritarian want that power? Well, if you control executive compensation, you can then start controlling any other kind of compensation. And if you control that, you have the right to take over the economy's central nervous system, do you not?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Barney Frank and the Obama administration are blackmailing the rest of the financial industry. This could happen to you. You could be next if you don't play ball with us. A polite way to say blackmail is leverage.

Regardless, this is de-facto nationalization of the entire economy. Remember, we have to return the wealth of the nation to its rightful owners, and in Obama's world, that's the poor and the middle class, who are only poor and middle class because all the spoils are being stolen from them by evil, greedy thieves.

So you destroy the private sector. And you do it with a mob demanding that you do so, as in going after AIG executives. That's how it starts: gin up the populist mob to support a takeover of the private sector. What this will then in turn create is political donations from all of the targeted companies -- ransom, in other words. Obama is basically asking for ransom from financial institutions: Pay me or I'll take you over. Donate to me and my party or I'll take you over -- the old protection racket. Now, in most instances, something as dramatic and overwhelming as this would be a tipping point.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The standard of living around the world has increased in places where there are basic free markets. Where there aren't, of course, the standard of living has declined, such as Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia, now run by Robert Ogabe -- Mugabe. I was confusing him with a well-known Kenyan named Barack Ogabe. This is Robert Mugabe.

Please forgive me. I did not intend that slip-up to be made. Barack Ogabe and Robert Mugabe, at least in human structure, are two different people. I don't know about policy, but, basically -- regardless, regardless. See, I'm embarrassed I stepped in that -- Barack Ogabe.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Meanwhile, some jerk, some idiot, this guy should have been along on the trek to the North Pole. They got stranded. They're going up there to check the sea ice. They're up there -- they're skiing. They're skiing to the Arctic Circle, to the North Pole in March, and they got frozen out. The finally were saved. You know what saved them?

An airplane made in Canada: the DeHavilland Twin Otter. The Twin Otter is a very versatile airplane. It has -- if you want to put skis on it, you can do that. If you want to put pontoons on it for water landing, it'll do that. It'll land on a carrier, power on landings. It'll do any number of things.

So it landed and saved them, rescued them, dropped them food and got them out of there. An evil, combustible engine airplane saved these lunatics skiing to the North Pole in March to check sea ice. This lunatic from the UK should have been on that trek.

Enemies list

NBC News' Chuck Todd, for saying that Obama was "Zen-like" during 60 Minutes interview. Rush claimed Todd is "too invested" in Obama.

America's Truth Rejector

Falsely suggested that Barney Frank was stifling inquiry into AIG's payments to counterparties:

LIMBAUGH: What was happening here is Spencer Bachus was about to nail Geithner, not on the bonuses, but on the 170 billion in bailout money that 93 to $100 billon of which was sent to other banks, among them Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and others, and he had set that all up and that's why the conversation on haircuts and 80-percent ownership and so forth.

He knows where Bachus is going with all this, and so, the -- Barney Frank once again shut down the entire conversation as it was about to nail Geithner on the real, real problem with these bailouts -- and that is the laundering of money to other banks.