This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the banana republic of the United States of America
By Simon Maloy

Yesterday we reproached ourselves for demonstrating blithe naïveté in wanting to talk about health care when other more pressing issues abound -- the gun census, Michael Jackson's debt to Ronald Reagan, and the "fine print czar," to name just a few. But we're going to continue in our innocent ways, as the cracks in the conservative opposition to health care reform have now graduated into a full-blown fracture. As we noted yesterday, public opinion on the public option is firmly against Rush & co. Even Wal-Mart got in the act, joining with the SEIU and the Center for American Progress in supporting an employer mandate for health care, and sending certain conservatives into apoplectic fits. Well, the news today is that the CBO released an estimate of the revised Kennedy-Dodd health care bill, which, when Medicaid expansion is factored in, will cost roughly $1 trillion over 10 years and cover 97 percent of Americans. This is a significant decrease from the CBO's estimate of an earlier, incomplete version of the bill, which didn't factor in a public option and an employer mandate. As Ezra Klein explains, it's the inclusion of the employer mandate that's driving costs down and boosting coverage: "[T]he overarching lesson of these CBO reports is simple: You can't do health-care reform -- at least not this kind of health-care reform -- without an employer mandate." So now Rush and his ilk are faced with a health care bill that includes the public option Americans overwhelmingly want, has the employer mandate that America's largest private employer wants, and covers nearly every American citizen.

Rush got things going today by saying that he went to bed last night last night confident in the news that the North Koreans were not going to launch any missiles, but it turns out that they launched four of them. Rush wondered what Obama will do: "He'll probably call Hugo Chavez to find out what to do about it, except Hugo's in the hills marshaling forces to invade Honduras. And if we had any good luck, Honduras would send some people here and help us get our government back." Not often that you hear a big-time radio personality suggest that we need a coup against the American president. Rush then explained that he'll be working tomorrow (gotta have Open Line Friday, we guess), but he'll be off all next week playing golf. We were thinking about sending El Rushbo a thank-you note for this generous gift, but then the words "Mark Steyn" intruded our thoughts.

Rush then read from an article on the megacolony of Argentine ants that has "spread onto every continent save Antarctica, thanks to human activity," and from a separate article on the expected jellyfish "invasion" of Japan, saying that we're "surrounded." Boy, do we feel dumb in wanting to talk about health care today ...

Then Rush remarked that he saw MSNBC's Carlos Watson spoke to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson this morning and asked her if it's time for a second stimulus package. Rush asked where they find these brain-dead people -- they must have a factory somewhere that makes them. The health care town hall yesterday was staged, said Rush, so everything on MSNBC might be staged too. Rush then remarked that Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski say it's not helpful for us to criticize Colin Powell and Obama, but they're fine with anonymous McCain aides ripping Sarah Palin.

Rush then went into monologue mode, expounding on "Dependence Day":

LIMBAUGH: Since the beginning of this country, we have celebrated Independence Day. And now we have to ask ourselves, are we heading to Dependence Day? Not if I can help it. "When in the course of human events" -- seven words that started the Declaration of Independence and begat the United States of America. Independence: a single word, a glorious idea, a word that guided us, governed us for 232 or 3 or 4 -- whatever the number is -- years. Independence. Liberty. Freedom. Independence. That which made us different from everyone else.

But on this July 4th, we have to give pause. Are we celebrating Independence Day or a new Dependence Day? Dependence on government for our health, our wealth -- our income; there won't be any wealth -- our well-being. Independence or dependence? The answer, my friends, is written in the polls. Thirty-five to 45 percent of Americans want dependence. It is our job, your job, my job, ours, to do everything we can to resist the false promises of dependence and cherish the virtues of independence.

Then Rush asked us all to stand. We couldn't because part of this job is that we have to be chained to the desk -- for our own safety and the safety of others - but we listened nonetheless as Rush played for us the new national anthem of "the banana republic of the United States of America" -- Harry Belafonte's "Day-O."

After the break, Rush noted that the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent and 467,000 jobs were lost in June, saying that we've lost over two million jobs have been lost in six months. It is hilarious to read state-run media go through the contortions to make this seem not as bad as it is, said Rush, reading from this Reuters article that didn't really seem to us to have any good news. Nonetheless, Rush said that no one can simply report how bad things are because that doesn't fit the "template." Rush then attacked the AP for reporting that the recession began in 2007. Even though the recession did begin in 2007, Rush insisted that it actually began in 2008, but the AP said 2007 so they could blame it on George W. Bush. By our quick calculation, Bush was president for -- let's see here -- yep, all of 2008, so we're not sure how saying the recession began in 2008 exculpates Bush.

Rush then noted that Obama will be giving a speech today on the economy. Rush said that Obama's going to say that things are bad but they would be worse had they not acted with the stimulus package. The stimulus, Rush maintained, is working exactly as intended -- rising unemployment is exactly what they want. The unemployment news today, said Rush, is just more evidence of the president's successful assault on the private sector. Obama is winning, said Rush. He's remaking America just as he promised. Rush added: "If you wanted more people to demand free healthcare, if you wanted more people to demand the government healthcare problem, wouldn't you want to drive their bills through the roof? Wouldn't you want to make them more unemployed 'cause they don't have portability with health insurance? So the worse you can create economic circumstances, the more pain that you can create for people, the greater the odds are they will sign up for your agenda. This is by design, folks. This is chaos. This is remaking America. Cap and trade, healthcare, unemployment numbers. This is what they intend to do."

After another break, Rush noted that Vice President Joe Biden was in Erie, Pennsylvania, yesterday and fewer than 100 people showed up to see him. Rush said there is something going on -- these people have lost the magic. Then Rush said he's rethought the "staged" health care town hall since yesterday, when he remarked that all the people sitting behind the president looked bored and miserable. What could be better when the subject is health care, Rush asked, than to have all these people look miserable? Then Rush remarked that the woman who the president hugged said after the town hall that she wasn't satisfied with Obama's reassurances on health care. She expected to be cured by Dr. Barack, said Rush.

Then Rush attacked CNN for a bit, airing audio from yesterday of a CNN reporter looking for a "silver lining" in the economic news. It is so bad for CNN, said Rush, that MSNBC is beating them, and no one watches MSNBC. They want a silver lining, said Rush, and so they invent one. Rush then asked if we could imagine any of this happening with any Republican president. During the booming Bush economy, he said, we were told that we were in a recession.

Rush then reminded us that he's been attacking government incentives for innovation all week - specifically, the green technology incentives in the cap-and-trade bill. Rush said this isn't the way innovation works (even though it is sometimes), and this Inc.com article is proof of that. Rush read from the article, which recounted an 11-year-old boy's development of a popular math app for the iPhone, and had a couple of questions for us: Did a single member of the government give a speech and demand the creation of the iPhone? Did government mandate any of this? No, he said, they arose out of freedom, entrepreneur-ism, and creativity. Barack Obama doesn't know a kilogram from a pound, said Rush, and he's never accomplished anything that is anywhere near the private sector. And yet, said Rush, Obama claims to be "the magic man" while he purposefully sets about destroying the environment in which this kid triumphed.

One more break and Rush came back with a caller who, after hearing Rush play "Day-O" earlier in the hour, sadly realized that her kids aren't going to be growing up in the same country that she did. Rush said it's not quite time to say that, there are people still standing up, and as long as Rush is still on the case, that's all the leadership conservatives will need. Rush said he thinks there's hope that conservatives can take the country back, there's hope for change.

Rush closed out the hour with another rendition of "Day-O."

Greg Lewis and Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: So I went to bed last night, safe and confident in the news that the Pentagon said that the Norks were not gonna launch any missiles, that they had gotten cold feet. I wake up this morning, I find out the Norks have lit off four of 'em. So then I said, "I wonder what Obama's going to do?" He'll probably call Hugo Chavez to find out what to do about it, except Hugo's in the hills marshaling forces to invade Honduras. And if we had any good luck, Honduras would send some people here and help us get our government back.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Since the beginning of this country, we have celebrated Independence Day. And now we have to ask ourselves, are we heading to Dependence Day? Not if I can help it. "When in the course of human events" -- seven words that started the Declaration of Independence and begat the United States of America. Independence: a single word, a glorious idea, a word that guided us, governed us for 232 or 3 or 4 -- whatever the number is -- years. Independence. Liberty. Freedom. Independence. That which made us different from everyone else.

But on this July 4th, we have to give pause. Are we celebrating Independence Day or a new Dependence Day? Dependence on government for our health, our wealth -- our income; there won't be any wealth -- our well-being. Independence or dependence? The answer, my friends, is written in the polls. Thirty-five to 45 percent of Americans want dependence. It is our job, your job, my job, ours, to do everything we can to resist the false promises of dependence and cherish the virtues of independence.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: If you wanted more people to demand free health care, if you wanted more people to demand a government health care problem [sic], wouldn't you want to drive their bills through the roof? Wouldn't you want to make them more unemployed 'cause they don't have portability with health insurance? So the worse you can create economic circumstances, the more pain that you can create for people, the greater the odds are they will sign up for your agenda. This is by design, folks. This is chaos. This is remaking America. Cap and trade, health care, unemployment numbers. This is what they intend to do.

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by troop movements on the Venezuelan-Honduran border
By Simon Maloy

Rush got the second hour rolling by recounting his theory from yesterday about the rise and decline of Michael Jackson corresponding to the party ID of the person sitting in the White House. What Rush said, he explained, was that Michael Jackson is an original - he was so original, and his songs were so original, that you never see any musicians cover Michael Jackson songs (except for this one, and this one, and all these). Anyway, Rush then aired audio of MSNBC's David Shuster, Tamron Hall, and Chuck Todd reacting to Rush's comments and, in his view, misinterpreting them. Rush then aired audio of The Washington Post's Dan Balz saying on NPR that GOP officeholders are not prepared to take Rush on and don't want to get into arguments with him, but they realize you can't be elected president by acting like Rush.

Rush then said he's noticed lately that more and more advertisements contain the phrase "you deserve." This is occurring more and more in the age of Obama, said Rush, because successful advertisers recognize consumer trends. If liberals are out there saying that people deserve all these things like health care, said Rush, then why wouldn't advertisers get in on the game? Americans now believe they deserve anything they want. Barney Frank, said Rush, is one of these people: "This guy, he's another guy who says you deserve affordable housing. 'America deserves affordable housing!' So he devises a system where you can get a house without paying for it, and creates a scandal and the problem that we are in the midst of. There was an editorial yesterday in Investor's Business Daily, and it laid it all out again. I don't know how many times I've read this. How many times have I read Barney Frank and Chris Dodd created the problem with Bill Clinton and still, it isn't mainstream? And it's been out there all over the place for years and years and years." We think we can explain to Rush why this story hasn't become "mainstream" -- it's not true.

After the break, Rush said that he, as an influential member of the media, is often asked how it was the Obama got elected, and Rush offered this story as an explanation: "The family's pet 12-foot Burmese python strangled a 2-year-old girl in Sumter County, Florida, on Wednesday, according to the Sumter County Sheriff's Office. An adult at the home woke up and found the snake wrapped around the girl in bed."

Then Rush issued a quick correction on his claim that Michael Jackson songs have never been covered -- we're glad he cleared that up. But then we got right back to the stupidity as Rush read from a story that Obama "might be interested" in -- an Al Jazeera report on how the president of Gambia says he can cure AIDS on Thursdays. Rush added: "So here is a leader, Yahya Jammeh, in Gambia, that Obama might be following in the footsteps of. Another great African leader here."

Rush then took a call from a man who asked Rush to think how bad things would be if Obama hadn't passed the stimulus. Rush asked if the caller was for real, the caller said no, and a hearty laugh was shared by all. Rush said he's been told that people in the Clinton circle are furious at how Obama has marginalized Hillary. It's bad enough that a guy has marginalized Hillary, said Rush, but it's even worse that it's this guy. And where's Bill? He's the envoy to Haiti, said Rush, and no one wants to go to Haiti. The Obama-ites have marginalized the Clintons, said Rush, and that's evidence as to how much of a piker Clinton is to Obama. Rush said he has been on the radio for 20 years, and the drive-bys still don't understand him, so why do we think that the media are going to "get" Obama?

Rush's next caller wanted to know when people are going to wake up and see through Obama, whose policies are designed to dismantle the economy. Rush, elated to hear his own opinions dittoed back at him, said the best sales technique you can have for these policies is misery -- there's no question that this is purposeful. Rush said he doesn't know when Americans are going to wake up, and that's why they have to keep fighting.

After the break, Rush treated us to a rendition of Michael Jackson's "Beat It," with accompanying sound bites of Pee Wee Herman ... moments like these, ladies and gents, should help explain why we get chained to the desk for the three hours we listen to Rush. Anyway, Rush then aired a sound bite of business analyst Richard Yamarone saying on CNBC this morning that he's been traveling the country talking to businessmen, and they say that there's no reason to believe the stimulus is working or the economy is coming back. This is purposeful, said Rush: "It's time to face the facts. Nobody in their right mind who wanted to really help the U.S. economy would do 10 percent of what this president has done. It is purposeful to create more crisis to create more demand for government solution, and thus more dependence." Obama doesn't care about the impact of his policies on the country, said Rush -- the more chaos the better. He has a huge chip on his shoulder too, said Rush. For example, he said, look at this interview Obama gave the AP, in which he said "affirmative action can be made an 'afterthought' when problems such as malnutrition, poverty and substandard schools are dealt with, and 'everybody has a level playing field.' " That means never, said Rush, because there will never be a level playing field because "people are different."

Rush's next caller had a question for all the people helping Obama to succeed -- do they stop and think what is going to happen if he does succeed? No, said Rush, they think of themselves as elites to whom nothing bad will happen. Look at the health care bill, said Rush -- no one in the government is going to give up their health plan for the public option. The caller wanted to know specifically about people in the media helping Obama. The best way to answer your question, Rush said, is to recall what his father said to him years ago -- the media are so stupid that if they communists ever take over, the media would be the first ones put in jail, but they would think they'd been admitted to the inner circle. But Rush understands these election results in 2008 -- what alternative was there to Obama? For people who didn't like Obama, there was no one else to turn to.

Then Rush expounded on Obama's attempts to cast himself as a "moderate." We have a "surge" in Afghanistan, said Rush, that rivals anything Bush did, but do you see any criticism of it? And Obama has come out for unending detentions, said Rush. He said it gives him huge pause. What pause? Rush said Obama is continuing Bush's plan. Meanwhile, said Rush, "[Hugo] Chavez's military's in the hills down there, surrounding Honduras, waiting for the go signal from Obama. To go in there and finally have a real coup to take a democratic country back." There are a couple of things wrong with this. The first is the sheer stupidity of it, and the second is geographical -- for Chavez's troops to be in the "hills" surrounding Honduras, they'd have to make their way through Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica, and then set up camp in Nicaragua.

After the break, Rush had one more example for us of how, in covering the Mark Sanford story, the "chicks in the media" are enacting the "chickification" of the media. Rush read from a Los Angeles Times column which speculated that "maybe, just maybe, there's a tiny bit of Mark Sanford in, if not all men, quite a few of them."

Greg Lewis and Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: By the way, President Obama might be interested in this story. Here's the headline from Al Jazeera: "Gambia President Cures AIDS on Thursday." I got this from sweetnessandlight.com. "Welcome to Gambia. Land of sun, sea, sand, and a president who cures AIDS. Yahya Jammeh is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, secretary of state for defense, and chief custodian of the sacred Constitution of Gambia." Sounds just like Obama. "Now he is also a self-styled miracle worker. He claims he has a mandate handed down from his father to cure AIDS -- as long as it is a Thursday. Asthma sufferers can also be cured, but only on a Saturday." So here is a leader, Yahya Jammeh, in Gambia, that Obama might be following in the footsteps of. Another great African leader here.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: This is purposeful, folks. It's time to face the facts. Nobody in their right mind who wanted to really help the U.S. economy would do 10 percent of what this president has done. It is purposeful to create more crisis, to create more demand for government solution, and thus more dependence.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I'll bet you Chavez's military is in the hills down there surrounding Honduras, waiting for the go signal from Obama. To go in there and finally have a real coup to take a democratic country back.

America's Truth Rejector

Rush was flabbergasted that the bogus claim that Barney Frank caused the housing crisis isn't "mainstream":

LIMBAUGH: Barney Frank -- not gonna do it now, but I have "Banking Queen" standing by. This guy, he's another guy who says you deserve affordable housing. "America deserves affordable housing!" So he devises a system where you can get a house without paying for it, and creates the scandal and the problem that we are in the midst of. There was an editorial yesterday in Investor's Business Daily, and it laid it all out again. I don't know how many times I've read this. How many times have I read Barney Frank and Chris Dodd created the problem with Bill Clinton, and still it isn't mainstream? And it's been out there all over the place for years and years and years.

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by hate crime bus rides
By Greg Lewis

Rush began the third hour noting that he was still "stuck" on the LA Times story about Sanford from the previous hour. Rush had to ask himself: What part of Mark Sanford do most men see in themselves? The part that has the mistress? The part that loves the mistress? The part that never crosses the line?

Then Rush delved into an article from the Palm Beach Post that reported "hungry" residents in Palm Beach County were failing to claim $83 million in food-stamp aid. Rush was baffled as to why the headline would describe the residents as "hungry" because surely if they were hungry, they'd be collecting the food stamps. "You're telling me that since 1964 -- 45 years -- Americans, particularly in a 78 percent or 70 percent Democrat county like this one, don't know where the food stamps are?  

Rush continued to mock those who would need food-stamps: "So why not get some stimulus money and use that to buy advertising in the Palm Beach Post to tell these people that are hungry and starving that there's $83 million worth of food stamps they haven't claimed? Well, the reason is that the people who are hungry and starving, supposedly, probably don't read the paper in the first place or can't, one of the two."

Then Rush [finally] got to reading the article. After a few sentences, he was quick to mock Alex Stevens, the director of the county's community food alliance. He wondered if Stevens grew up wanting to be the director of the community food alliance, and why we would even need such a program. This isn't Honduras, Venezuela, or Afghanistan, Rush keenly observed. He said we're the richest country on earth -- or at least we used to be, before we became a banana republic.

After making a few more jokes at the expense of the country's disadvantaged, Rush giggled about calling the county's 211 information line that was also mentioned in the article. And so he did. Unfortunately nothing interesting happened as a result. All this reminded us of a rant Rush went on a few weeks ago about how the media, in their desire to protect Obama from harm, were not reporting stories of economic hardship that they reported ad nauseam during Republican administrations. Rush was particularly insistent that the media cover how, in the declining economy, children are going hungry. As we pointed out at the time, the media are reporting on childhood hunger, but this all gets to a larger point. Rush seems to treat the hungry in the United States in one of two ways -- either as a cudgel to be wielded against his political adversaries, or as a foil to be mocked.

Rush welcomed us back after the break -- after some more quips about the 211 call -- by playing his infamously headache-inducing unerringly hilarious "Banking Queen" parody. The reason? A Byron York article on Rep. Barney Frank wanting to spend TARP profits "before taxpayers can get them," which Rush read from at length.

Then Rush moved on to Eric Holder's testimony on the new hate crimes bill. Rush singled out a statement in which Holder explained to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) the purpose of hate crimes legislation is to protect historically targeted groups -- people who had been targeted based on the color of their skin or sexual orientation. Rush took this to mean that hate crimes are reserved exclusively for "blacks and homosexuals." He added that "everyone else can get on the back of the bus" on this one -- the front of the bus is for blacks and gays.

Oh, and a brief aside before we move on. Rush made things meta for us again in the middle of his rant on Holder:

LIMBAUGH: You know what the media didn't pick up yet? Whether liberalism is chosen or whether you're born with it. I -- once they get through the fog of the Jackson death, Media Matters will get that to them. I'm sure they have it, it's just a matter of -- it hasn't penetrated the fog there at the editors' desks.

After another break, Rush played some more audio of Holder's testimony, this time in response to a question by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) as to whether the murder of a soldier at a recruiting facility in Arkansas a few weeks ago would be considered a hate crime. Holder said that the bill would not apply to the military because they aren't a group that has been historically targeted. Rush was beside himself over this -- liberals, he said, have been targeting the military with hate crimes for as long as he had been alive, and "Islamofascists" have been targeting them for decades.

Then Rush took a caller who thought that Obama's "saved jobs" statistic might be "made up" because of how many people were still working at ACORN. We tell ya, those ACORN jokes -- like "Banking Queen" -- never seem to get old ... but we were able to keep it together enough to hear the caller say that the only private-sector job growth recently has been in the health care sector, and that must be why Obama wants to nationalize health care. Rush then launched into a rant about how "Colonel Obama" is waging a "war on prosperity" -- a rant that sounded suspiciously similar to a rant from yesterday. And the day before. And last week. And last -- well, you get the picture.

Rush moved on to the next caller, who told Rush that the "drive bys" were just jealous of his success, and that they could just "minimize" Rush if they reported the truth. Rush said that was a good idea, but the problem is that the drive bys think that they are reporting the truth.

Then Rush brought up the story which has been making the rounds today about The Washington Post offering lobbyists and executives access to administration officials and members of Congress in exchange for some lucrative fees. Rush explained that this is just more evidence that there is little daylight between the media and the Democrats, and later noted that the Post had cancelled the "salons." Then Rush read from a Forbes article reporting that McClatchy might be facing bankruptcy. Rush quipped that they should just sell access like the Post was trying to do.

After the break, and after some more riffing on the Post story and job cuts at Gannett, Rush took a caller who explained his experience after his company sold products because of stimulus money, and the federal government later contacted him because they wanted to know how many jobs were created and saved because of the transaction. Rush told the caller that this administration is "phony from top to bottom."

The last caller of the day was a doozy. She had heard on "Fox TV" that there was "talk" that Obama "wants to change the constitution" so that he could "live forever as president" and that she was "really concerned" about it. We here at the Wire weren't sure what she was talking about, as we hadn't encountered any Fox News types pursuing this particular lunatic conspiracy. We assume that she had probably heard it on Rush's program earlier this week, and simply confused Fox News and The Rush Limbaugh Show -- which is an understandable mistake.

That's it for this week of the Limbaugh Wire. We're taking a well-deserved day off tomorrow, but we'll be back next week, even if Rush won't. In the meantime, the Limbaugh Wire wishes all of you a happy Independence Day -- oops, we meant Dependence Day -- weekend. In our opinion, no Fourth of July celebration is complete without a barbecue, a few cold ones, and a thorough perusal of the Limbaugh Wire archives.

Simon Maloy, Zachary Pleat, and Hannah Kieschnick contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: You know what the media didn't pick up yet? Whether liberalism is chosen or whether you're born with it. I -- once they get through the fog of the Jackson death, Media Matters will get that to them. I'm sure they have it, it's just a matter of -- it hasn't penetrated the fog there at the editors' desks.

War on the poor

LIMBAUGH: You're telling me that since 1964 -- 45 years -- Americans, particularly in a 78 percent or 70 percent Democrat county like this one, don't know where the food stamps are? Don't know how to go get the food stamps? I got an idea -- we like to bring solutions to things here at the EIB Network. The journalism business is in deep doo-doo, right? Newspapers are in bad shape. Palm Beach Post has laid off a lot of people. They've cut the size of the newspaper. It's no -- it's a tabloid, it's just not printed that way. They still print it as a broadsheet, but there's nothing broad about it anymore. So why not get some stimulus money and use that to buy advertising in the Palm Beach Post to tell these people that are hungry and starving that there's $83 million worth of food stamps they haven't claimed? Well, the reason is that the people who are hungry and starving, supposedly, probably don't read the paper in the first place or can't, one of the two.