By Todd Gregory

Rush excited about article that Reuters withdrew

Rush kicked off the show today by saying that President Obama's budget proposal would be “destructive” over the course of many years, mischaracterizing a proposal to limit itemized deductions for upper-income taxpayers by saying that it would “eliminate” the tax deduction entirely.

Limbaugh was very excited about a Reuters article that was so riddled with errors that the wire service withdrew it after it was released.

Limbaugh ended up reading pretty much the whole thing and falsely claimed that the expiration of some of the Bush tax cuts would result in an increase in income taxes for everyone. He went on to claim that he has talked to people who have tried to arrange the deaths of relatives on life support this year, because the estate tax lapses out of existence in 2010 before coming back next year.

Rush then advised workers to ask the people in their payroll department whether they have new instructions to withhold more income from their paychecks, because, he said, “there are” before reading from a sky-is-falling Investor's Business Daily article on the deficit.

Back from the first break, Rush declared that Obama's statement about expanding nuclear energy in his State of the Union was “a fake,” because his new budget shuts down the spent-fuel storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. He cited a Mona Charen column as proof.

Rush returned to his fascination with the Reuters article, predicting it would get a new headline, but very few revisions.

Rush then read a St. Louis Post-Dispatch advice column ridiculing a reader's concern about the connection between human flatulence and global warming. Rush said that since he believes in intelligent design and the higher intelligence of God, he can't accept the fact that humans would be designed to do anything that would destroy the environment.

After the break, Rush interviewed the newly crowned Miss America, Caressa Cameron. Rush wanted to know what Cameron would say to a reporter who asks why the Miss America pageant is still relevant today. She discussed with Limbaugh scholarships and the message that women can achieve all the goals they have. Rush also told Cameron that he thinks she will help restore the contest's reputation.

Back from a break, Limbaugh bragged that he made a Hitler remix video because he had won a dance contest. Rush then took issue with Joy Behar's statement that he was booed at the Miss America pageant, playing a set of audio clips to prove his point.

During the short segment before the end of the hour, Limbaugh brought up Sarah Palin's demand that Obama fire Rahm Emanuel over a report that he called people who were planning to run ads against some conservative Democrats “effing retarded.”

Rush really doesn't like the Obama budget

Back for the second hour, Rush read a story about Sony Pictures laying off 450 employees. Naturally, he blamed Obama.

Rush returned to criticizing Obama's budget, connecting this to Obama's purported hatred of “the way this country is.” He even went so far as to imply that Obama wants to “harm” America.

Rush mentioned a MarketWatch.com commentary headlined “20 reasons Global Debt Time Bomb explodes soon. Commentary: Which trigger will ignite the Great Depression II?” Next, he read from a Wall Street Journal editorial on the budget. To Rush, all this news shows that compared to the Obama administration, the Bush administration was practically saving money. The numbers beg to differ.

He then read from a New York Post op-ed by a Heritage Foundation fellow that lays blame for deficit problems on Obama, which Rush supplemented with his own commentary.

Rush returned from a break to take a call from a woman who told him that she watched the Miss America pageant for the first time in 30 years because Rush was a judge. Rush responded by praising the contestants and saying that the competition is a counter to “cultural rot.”

Limbaugh then brought up a story about a study that found abstinence-only sexual education to be effective. He gloried in the fact that this upsets feminists and the left.

After a break, Rush highlighted criticism of Obama's budget from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and again declared that Obama is promoting the Cloward-Piven strategy, a favorite theory of his that's also adored by Glenn Beck. Rush also dropped his standard “fascism-Marxism” description of the Obama administration's policies.

Rush then read from a Washington Post article on the aforementioned sex-ed study. Somehow, Rush quickly pivoted to say that Obama and other Democrats are destroying America. One wonders if he actually sets a goal of repeating these things at least once every show.

Limbaugh took another call from a man who said that given Rep. James Clyburn's comment that the best way to improve the economy is through government spending, it seems that Democrats want more government spending under every economic circumstance.

Rush played a clip of Clyburn talking about government spending. El Rushbo said that he is “tired of hearing” that we need to invest in education, “because that's all we do is invest in education.” He then made a ridiculous claim that investment just results in indoctrination anyway.

Back from a break, Rush said Republicans in Washington should declare the Obama budget DOA. He then read from a Power Line blog post about how Obama is bad.

Rush referenced “an interesting analysis” that says that Obama's budget omits liabilities on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts and read a report about Ford Motor Co. posting a profit. He contrasted this with the other American automakers who received bailout money.

He closed out the hour by saying that the next hour would go by “faster than you believe.” Wanna bet, Rush?

Rush and his callers just don't get the global warming thing

Opening the final hour, Limbaugh read from a New York Times article from February of last year on Obama pledging to reduce the deficit.

He then criticized Obama for holding a town hall in New Hampshire on jobs, wondering whether a town hall had ever created any jobs.

Limbaugh then read from a series of articles: A New York Daily News story about New York City instituting a program to remind residents to visit the doctor -- which he claimed means that the city would have access to medical records -- a Politico item about Lawrence O'Donnell saying that health care reform is dead, and a Los Angeles Times article about how a surge in the production of wind power hasn't produced many jobs.

After a break, Rush read from a Roll Call story about senators trying to block money to fund trials of 9-11 suspects and read Sen. John McCain's comment that Attorney General Eric Holder has “obviously botched” the handling of the trials. McCain, it turns out, was actually talking about the interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Limbaugh then took a call from a man who said something about humans breathing carbon dioxide and its connection to global warming, as well as another caller who said Obama is acting like a dictator. Rush responded by making reference to Sen. Byron Dorgan's statement that he's concerned that Obama's budget proposal would put the country on an unsustainable fiscal path, which Rush had discussed earlier in the show. He somehow linked Obama's alleged disregard for congressional oversight to the Supreme Court's decision that the EPA can regulate carbon emissions.

This provided a segue for Rush to read a CNNMoney.com article on the possibility that the EPA will regulate carbon.

He then said he was going to read two stories from the “very left-wing” British newspaper The Guardian. One was a Guardian report that a British climate scientist had allegedly hidden flaws in a study. The other was actually a Daily Mail article about the same thing. Rush called global warming a “scam” again, of course.

Back from another break, someone claiming to be a physicist called in to refute whatever it was the earlier caller had said about humans breathing carbon dioxide. Rush and the purported physicist both agreed that it would be silly to regulate carbon emissions, and the purported physicist declared that humans aren't causing climate change, contradicting the scientific consensus on the issue.

Rush moved on to unemployment statistics, reading from a post on globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com that predicts massive layoffs in specific locations across the country.

Limbaugh brought up a PPP poll on the race for Blanche Lincoln's Senate seat in Arkansas. He went on to other horse-race news on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' potential trouble in her race in Arizona, Sen. Chuck Schumer's weak approval numbers, and Marco Rubio's surge ahead of Gov. Charlie Crist in the race for the U.S. Senate seat in Florida.

Next up: a Kansas City Star story on America's declining appetite for gasoline. Rush sang the praises of oil for a while, saying that nothing can ever replace it.

After the break, Limbaugh briefly read from an article on Mother Nature's appetite for CO2 and crowed about the ratings for the Miss America pageant, which he said were good.

Rush took a caller who asked whether Abdulmutallab's statements to interrogators would be inadmissible in court because he made them before being Mirandized. Rush said he was right and said the handling of Abdulmutallab had been “totally botched.”

To close out the show, Rush read a snippet of a Washington Post article on the rising default rate on loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration.

Kitty Kaletsky and Michael Timberlake contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights

LIMBAUGH: I have told you from the get-go the purpose this president has is remaking this country. Cloward-Priven [sic] strategy wants to turn everybody -- as many people as possible -- into welfare. Just overwhelm the private sector with things and turn everybody, force everybody onto government assistance. That's -- and I know, folks, you can't understand why a president who do that. The only reason you cant understand it is because -- if you don't -- is because you don't understand liberals, because you don't understand radicals, because you don't understand ideology. And a lot of people don't because ideology makes them uncomfortable. That's partisanship and they would rather we all just get along and they hold out hope for it.

“Fascism” watch

LIMBAUGH: The only way we're going to rescue ourselves here is for as many people, as many multiple millions of people to find out what the hell liberalism is all about, because that's what's hap -- radical, radical leftism. Fascism, Marxism, I don't care what you want to call it, it is radical and it is not like it. It's not American, this -- what's happening here is un-American. This budget is so outrageous.

America's Truth Rejecter

LIMBAUGH: In the 2010 budget, tabled by Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year, effectively a tax increase by stealth. Now, while the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.

Here's why. If the provisions, the Bush tax cuts, if they are indeed allowed to expire December 31^st, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise 39.6 percent from the current 35.

But lower-income families will pay more as well, the 25-percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent. The 28-percent bracket will increase to 31 percent. The 33-percent bracket will increase to 36.

This is what they all were before Bush cut them. The special 10-percent bracket is eliminated. This is all true. Every bit of it is true. If you're going to let these tax cuts sunset, it means we're going to go back to what they were before Bush cut them, and those are the rates I just gave you. That means that everybody paying income taxes is going to effectively get an increase, a tax increase. Despite Obama' constant pledges that 95 percent of the American people will get a tax cut, and he's calling one-time tax rebates a tax cut.