By Terry Krepel

Rush started the show by highlighting an Associated Press article claiming that a retired couple will need $250,000 for health care after retirement. The Medicare cuts in health care reform means this figure can only go up, Rush said. Rush then jumped into reports about death threats against Democratic members of Congress, claiming that they are part of what he called a plan to “criminalize dissent,” to make Democrats look like victims, and to change the subject from the health care bill. Liberals wrote the book on such tactics, Rush insisted; conservatives “didn't have anybody on our side who tried to blow up the Pentagon,” he said, let alone someone whose friend later became president of the United States. Besides, the real “death threat” to our country, according to Rush, is the health care reform bill. From there, Rush leaped to claiming that the real violence is abortion, and that “we have a president who believes a baby who survives abortion shouldn't be saved.” This claim isn't any more true than it was any of the other times Rush made it. Rush went on to claim that the health care reform bill funds abortions, which isn't true either.

Here are some highlights from the show:

Limbaugh accuses Dems of using “totally contrived” threats against them to “criminalize dissent”

Rush again distorts Dingell's comment: Dingell “confessed” health reform seeks to “control us”

Rush calls health care reform a “death threat against the country” and “our economy”

Limbaugh: Beating the Democrats is “the only hope the country has”

Rush repeats “born alive” Obama smear, falsehood that health care bill funds abortions

Limbaugh's “solution” for U.S.-Israeli relations: “Change the name of [Israel] to Iran”

Rush began the second hour by rehashing the “death threat” stuff from the first hour and by reciting examples of violence by liberals. He heartily endorsed the Republican tactic of making Democrats reject extraneous amendments to the health care reconciliation bill -- like Tom Coburn's proposed ban on Viagra for sex offenders -- for the purpose of generating fodder for anti-Democrat campaign ads later this year. Rush can't want to see the ads, he said, and he even came up with a slogan the GOP can use for the Viagra ads: “Democrats support taxpayers supporting hardened criminals.”

The third hour started with Rush asserting that the Labor Department is “rewriting history” by revising the way it counts initial jobless claims, which makes the number slightly lower than it has been. This was followed by criticism of Barney Frank, which led to the inevitable playing of the “Banking Queen” parody. Watching Obama's speech in Iowa City, Rush complained that the media won't note that his audience is “mostly white,” as they would with a Republican president. Rush also claimed that the controversy over Israeli settlements in Jerusalem is a “ginned up controversy brought up by the Obama administration.” Rush also served up his solution to defuse the crisis: He'll call up Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and tell him to change the name of the country to Iran. Rush crowed that his prediction was correct that Obama would claim none of the dire things Republicans said would happen upon passage of health care reform have happened, adding, “I am living rent-free in this guy's head.” When a caller said that Vice President Joe Biden was “two-thirds right,” in that passage of reform is not a “big effing deal” but just a “big effing,” Rush chimed in with his line from yesterday that we're the ones getting eff'd. Rush closed the show by claiming that if Fidel Castro and the head of the World Health Organization are endorsing passage of health care reform, we're screwed.

Greg Lewis and Brooke Obie contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.