This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by spontaneous canned pork
By Simon Maloy

Sometimes it's really just too easy. We fired up the Limbaugh crystal ball this morning -- meaning we took a quick look at The Drudge Report -- and we got a pretty clear impression of what El Rushbo is going to talk about this fine Monday afternoon. Specifically, the many Recovery.gov links Drudge has at the top of his page pointing to million-dollar contracts for silly-sounding things like “Ham, water added, cooked, frozen, sliced, 2-lb” and “canned pork.” The intent is clear -- stoking outrage by suggesting that the government spent $2.5 million on a frozen ham, or $16 million on a can of pork. But, as ProPublica explains, there's less here than Drudge would have you believe. These are food projects that are “funded by a $150 million Agriculture Department program to deliver meat, fruit and other items to food banks, which have been struggling to meet the surging demand in the economic downturn.” According to Lakeside Foods, which received the canned pork grant, the project employs 53 people. And in yet another woeful sign of how much influence this Internet gossip yields over the public discourse, the USDA put out a statement responding specifically to Drudge, pointing out that he's peddling nonsense.

Rush got things rolling with a quick question for us -- has President Obama instructed the attorney general to issue arrest warrants for the Taliban who have kidnapped this U.S. soldier? That's how they said they were going to fight them, said Rush, who wondered if we're prepared to read these Taliban their Miranda rights.

The headlines today are somewhat amazing, said Rush -- Obama sinking in the polls; Obama taking center stage on health care. Rush then noted that the stimulus money is showing up in great detail, and there's so much stimulus money spent on ham! What did we tell you... Anyway, Rush helpfully explained to us that “ham is pork.”

Moving on to health care, Rush said the majority of the media coverage is not on the substance, but on the politics. It's not about the American people, in the media's eyes, but what is best for Obama. Obama is just in a full sprint hurry to get this done by August, said Rush, but the governors are worrying about it, Democrats are getting antsy about the budget, and so, Obama is going to take “center stage.” To demonstrate the speed with which Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) are trying to ram this through the Congress, Rush aired some speeded-up sound bites of Obama speaking about health care, so that he sounds like one of the Chipmunks.

In the first clip, Obama said that Americans will be able to keep their insurance plan if they like it, and the government will not choose your doctor. Rush pronounced this all “lies,” citing Betsy McCaughey's “devastating” critique of the health care bill. We should point out here that McCaughey's “devastating” critiques are known for containing stark lies, and her claim that individuals will be forced to sign up for government health coverage has been contradicted by the language of the bill itself. The second high-speed Obama sound bite was of the president saying that he's not proposing government-run health care, though we must have an insurance exchange and a public option. This is outrageous, said Rush. There are already 1,700 options you have available across the country. Bringing the government into it will not expand competition. This idea of a vast insurance marketplace is a canard. The health insurance industry is highly concentrated, meaning that, in many areas, the marketplace is completely dominated by just one or two companies, making the options available very few.

Rush then said he is not upset that he will never win a Pulitzer, though he might qualify for a Nobel, but he would shelve that Nobel if he “could be the guy history acknowledges as warning the American people that this health care plan is nothing more than the subprime mortgage debacle ready to happen all over again.” Of course, in Rush's mind, the subprime crisis is all the fault of Democrats. It got started with Jimmy Carter and magically skipped over the Reagan and Bush presidencies. Anyway, Rush said this will be the subprime mess times 10, and with all the pressures that we're already facing, the minimum wage is going up on Friday. The minimum wage is going to add to unemployment, Rush said. This is worse than the gang that couldn't shoot straight -- this is the gang that's purposefully missing their target.

Then Rush aired a speeded-up clip of Pelosi “lying” about health care. They know what a debacle this is, said Rush, and they know that the more you learn about it the less you'll support it. They're lying through their teeth about this, but the drive-bys aren't dealing with the substance, they're focused on the politics.

After the break, Rush said it's an insult to everyone's intelligence when Pelosi and Obama act like we don't know who they are or what their records are. They passed this stimulus bill, the purpose of which was to destroy the economy, and “Pelosi runs around talking about savings and -- this is the bunch that has given us, if you run it out over 10 years, a minimum of $12 trillion in deficits.” As we have explained so, so, so many times, George W. Bush can take credit for most of those deficits, largely because of the massive tax cuts he signed into law that wiped out the billions-large budget surplus at the beginning of the decade.

Another break and Rush was back, saying that we finally have a communist idea that's not coming out of Washington. Rush read from a Leader-Telegram article reporting that an Eau Claire, Wisconsin, housing complex voted to ban smoking within residences. Think of this, said Rush -- which is more likely to reach your neighbors and kill them, second-hand smoking inside your house, or outside your house? Not to mention the fact that if you succeed in destroying the tobacco industry, you're losing all that tax revenue that pays for children's health insurance.

Rush then noted that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released a statement (noted above) responding to Drudge on the canned ham silliness. Vilsack thinks that he's being a real smart guy here, said Rush, but the point is that the stimulus plan was to put people back to work. It wasn't about buying processed cheese and ham. That's not what the stimulus was about. As we also noted above, the canned pork program alone employed 53 people. Does Rush think that these food products process and package themselves?

Anyway, Rush then noted that the AP is reporting that the “administration's annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama's budget in February and update in May,” and that the “release of the update -- usually scheduled for mid-July -- has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town Aug. 7 on its summer recess.” The interesting thing, said Rush, is that if you go back to WhiteHouse.gov, they have a memo on transparency in government. And now they're hiding budget data. Rush concluded: “Everything about this man -- everything about this administration -- is a scam. Everything is a sham. Barack Obama is an illusion; practicing -- he's an illusionist -- practicing illusion day in and day out.”

Rush then speculated that maybe Obama, in his next speech, will give us a telling statistic -- how many people leave this country for medical treatment versus the number of people who come to this country for medical treatment. Rush invited us to compare health reform to government-run schools, before getting sidetracked: “Obama is the National Education Association's best friends. He even shut down a charter school program in D.C., because he wants to kill any competition with government schools -- and this was a school for minorities. And the minorities in D.C. in this charter school were performing great. They loved it; their parents loved it. Obama shut it down, a school for minority kids.” We debunked this waaaaaay back in May -- Obama actually shut down a school vouchers program because, in the words of The Washington Post, the “Department of Education recently issued a three-year analysis of student achievement under the program that showed limited gains in reading and no significant progress in math.”

One more break and Rush was back reading a few headlines from stories on Obama's poll numbers and health care. In every one of these stories, said Rush, there is no discussion of the impact on real Americans. There's nothing in these stories about Obama destroying the economy or lying through his teeth about his agenda. This is what conservatives mean by “liberal media bias,” folks -- they get upset that the media aren't parroting the ridiculous attacks they're making. Anyway, Rush asked us to think back to the Lewinksy hearings, when Clinton's approval ratings never went below 60 percent. With Obama, said Rush, it's already below 60 percent. This is so drastic and dramatic what they're doing. There are people within the Democratic Party who are realizing that this is not at all what they signed up for, said Rush. And there are stories here about how the Blue Dog Democrats could slow things down. Rush counseled us that there is no such thing as a Blue Dog Democrat, and these stories about the Blue Dogs standing up to Obama are a scam. This is going to be defeated the good old-fashioned way -- with the American people behind us. Don't fall for this Blue Dog stuff.

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

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Many people ask me, over the course of my sterling and starring broadcast career, if I'm ever upset that I can never win a Pulitzer. No. I would -- if I won a Pulitzer, I would be embarrassed. I might resign. “Well, Rush, don't you think you oughta get a Nobel?” Yeah, I'd -- you know, I think I do qualify for a Nobel Prize.

But I would shelve that if I could be the guy history acknowledges as warning the American people that this health care plan is nothing more than the subprime mortgage debacle ready to happen all over again. We got the government involved in giving people homes who couldn't afford them. The government mandated that the lenders lend money to people who couldn't qualify, much less pay it back.

It started under Jimmy Carter; it gained steam under Bill Clinton; it was propped up and aided by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. They tried to shut it down with regulators over the course of the Bush administration and it failed because the Democrats had their hands too deeply inside Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And so you know what a debacle that was -- and the government was running a plan designed to be wonderful: “affordable housing,” as Barney Frank calls it. It is just not fair that some people could have a house and some people couldn't, so we're going to find a way to make it all equal. Housing was a right. Health care is a right.

The same people that gave us the subprime debacle, which is at the root of today's economic malaise; the same people and the same thinking and the same philosophy are behind this push for government-run health care. It is socialized -- I don't care what the term that you come up with -- and it's getting to be nothing more than the subprime mortgage mess, times 10.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Everything about this man -- everything about this administration -- is a scam. Everything is a sham. Barack Obama is an illusion; practicing -- he's an illusionist -- practicing illusion day in and day out.

America's Truth Rejector

Falsely claimed Pelosi and the Democrats are responsible for the $12 trillion 10-year deficits:

LIMBAUGH: The stimulus bill -- the entire Obama economic plan is by design destroying the U.S. economy. They're not interested in finding savings and efficiencies. Pelosi runs around talking about savings and -- this is the bunch that has given us, if you run it out over 10 years, a minimum of $12 trillion in deficits.

Lied about why Obama shut down a D.C. school vouchers program:

LIMBAUGH: Government-run schools: Obama is the National Education Association's best friends. He even shut down a charter school program in D.C., because he wants to kill any competition with government schools -- and this was a school for minorities. And the minorities in D.C. in this charter school were performing great. They loved it; their parents loved it. Obama shut it down, a school for minority kids.