RUSH: I mentioned before the break at the top of the hour that the Obama administration, via the Food and Drug Administration, has scolded General Mills, the makers of Cheerios, ‘about the way they promote the cereal’s health benefits. The FDA sent a letter of warning to General Mills accusing 
them of making unauthorized health claims. Current boxes of Cheerios are touting what the company calls exciting news — the cereal’s ability to help lower cholesterol 10 percent in one month. ‘My mother actually eats it every day, seven days a week for breakfast to lower her cholesterol,’ Staten Island resident Lauren Schwam said. According to a letter from the FDA General Mills’ advertising violates the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The agency said claims that Cheerios ingredients can lower cholesterol within a certain amount of time, all while providing cancer-fighting and heart-healthy benefits, essentially makes Cheerios ‘a drug’ by their definition. And no drug in this country can be legally marketed without an approved new drug application. As a certified dietetic nutritionist, Keri Glassman often recommends foods high in soluble fiber for patients looking to lower their cholesterol. ‘Because of the oats, because of the soluble fiber in Cheerios, it may help you reduce cholesterol and I think the FDA is still acknowledging that … I just think they are saying but you can’t really say that because you are a food product, not a drug,’ Glassman said.”
So even if you got a nutritionist and a couple people who think that it might actually lower your cholesterol they can’t say so because of the Obama administration. Okay, so follow me on this. If false promises are a concern, if we’re going to get our underwear in a wad here over misleading claims, I am here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that Cheerios are the least of our problems. Barack Obama promised millions of new jobs. Barack Obama promised to lower the sea levels. Barack Obama promised to heal the sick. Barack Obama promised prudent federal budgets. Barack Obama promised unity. Barack Obama promised bipartisanship. Barack Obama promised to end corruption. Barack Obama promised to end wasteful spending. He promised a lot more. So now we’re going to throw General Mills in the dock for a misleading claim, supposedly misleading claim on a box of cereal, and this lying, out-of-control administration gets a full-fledged pass on the same stuff.
Imagine if somebody were to put sugar on their Cheerios, oh, my God, what would the FDA do then? Actually, General Mills does. They’re called Honey Nut Cheerios. You ever had Honey Nut Cheerios? They put sugar on them, oh, no, I just thought of that, and what happens if somebody having their Honey Nut Cheerios then drinks coffee with their Honey Nut Cheerios, imagine then if they went out and ate bacon with their Honey Nut Cheerios and their sugar sweetened coffee? It’s a gateway drug here, folks, it’s a gateway drug to other addictive behaviors, including lying. This is the stuff they’re focused on. It’s a load of BS. For all anybody knows, Cheerios may do what it claims, it may not. But we know one thing for sure: Obama lives up to none of his promises.
I don’t care what it says on the box. If I want to eat Cheerios, I will eat ’em. People are going to eat Cheerios because they like them. There may be people that can lower cholesterol. Half of it’s mind control anyway, positive thinking and so forth. You know, I may eat Cheerios, hope I won’t get heart disease, but I’ll do all of that before I will believe Barack Obama is going to strengthen our economy. I’ll believe any claim General Mills makes about Cheerios before I’ll accept that what Obama is doing is going to help this country’s economy revive. You know what we need to start doing — of course it’s a just a pipe dream here — but we need to start holding Obama to the same standards that he holds the private sector to. He has to be as responsible and honest as all these corporations, all these CEOs, all of these people that he’s targeting, along with Tim Geithner, all the time. No exceptions, no excuses. And if he isn’t, he gets blasted. By the way, speaking of sugar, sugar taxes from yesterday, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. It’s not going to stop there. Who benefits from sugar? Aside from the Fanjul family and the people that make it, who benefits from sugar?
Who are the primary beneficiaries of people using sugar? Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock. Bzzz. Your time is up. Dentists. Without sugar, dentists would have much less income. Dentists are the ones benefiting from all this sugar being consumed, which means that dentists ought to face another 10% tax increase to help pay for educational programs to warn children about the dangers of sugar. I mean if we’re going to tax marijuana, we’re going to tax sugar, how about a snack tax, a one-two punch? Tax the dope, tax the snacks, talking real money now, and then tax dentists who have to do the repair work. I’ve also heard, you know, they say, I frankly don’t believe this, in fact I know this isn’t true, but they say that late-night eating contributes to weight gain. It does not. No. It does not. If you’re on a 1,500 calorie a day diet, you can have them all at 11 o’clock before you go to bed and you will lose weight. Late night eating is another one of these many myths. However, since everybody believes it, why not a pizza delivery tax after nine o’clock? When Domino’s or Uncle John’s or Captain John’s, whatever, bring you a pizza after nine o’clock, late-night eating bad for you, going to make you fatter, going to increase health care expenses, tax pizza deliveries an additional 10% after nine p.m.
See, I am getting into the spirit of how the Obama people think. I also heard, folks, that nothing good ever happened in a bar after midnight. (laughing) Well, I know, depends on your perspective, but for the most part, you know, talk to your average NFL player, nothing good happens in a bar or a nightclub after midnight. So in an effort to advance the public welfare, I would propose an after midnight bar tax, any adult beverage served after midnight gets slapped with an additional 20% tax. This is how health care is gonna work. If we get nationalized health care, this is how it’s going to work. Snerdley is all worried, here I am making jokes and Democrats listening are going to think this is all brilliant, brilliant stuff. I know there’s a track record of my jokes becoming reality. Late-night pizza delivery, I think it’s funny as hell, late-night pizza delivery tax because late night eating you gain weight, nothing good in a bar happens after midnight. Hey, we tax cigarettes ’cause they can kill you. We want to raise money for kids’ health care and also encourage you not to smoke so that you don’t cost us a lot of health care when you get older, from lung cancer and so forth.
So the premise has been set to tax all of these things on the basis of bad health results. You have any idea how many people snack while watching television at home? We’ve already imposed a snack tax with the trans fats, snack tax on some potato chips that’s coming along with the sugar. How about like a Blockbuster tax or a Netflix tax, another 15% on top of what your video rental service charges, because they are encouraging obesity, they’re contributing to it, at any rate, by encouraging watching the movies at home, and they should have to pay for the negative consequences of their products. Video game makers, we all worry about that kids are getting slothful and fat, because, what, they play video games, every computer, every video game, every movie you buy or rent, an additional 10% tax because it’s contributing to your obesity, and your obesity is leading to increased health care costs. Do you see how this is gonna work? Late-night pizza delivery, nothing good happens in a bar after midnight. And, by the way, we cannot deny that movie theaters push unhealthy foods on their sedentary customers, so let’s just double the cost of movie tickets and send that money to Obama, call it a day? It would be easier just to double the cost of movie tickets rather than raise the cost of concessions because concessions, you’re a trapped market there, you can’t go anywhere. You gotta spend $25 bucks for the Coke. Fifteen dollars for the Jujubes, $18 for the gummy bears. Be hard to tax that. I mean but just raise the price of the movie ticket, doubled, send the money to Obama to fund health care.
By the way, you sit when you drive, do you not? You are totally sedentary when you drive. The more you drive, the less active you are, the greater the odds you’re going to gain weight, the greater the odds you’re going to put strain on the health care system, so you’ll be taxed by the mile you drive in addition to all the other taxes on gasoline and driving, and your car, taxed an additional amount per mile you drive, because it’s contributing to obesity. Same thing with public transportation, if you stand on the bus, fine. If you sit on the bus and they put censors in the seats to know who’s there. And you’ll have your little ID card, federal government’s going to issue you at some point so they’ll know that it’s your butt in the seat on the street car, on the bus, or what have you. You see how easy this is all going to be? If we can go after Cheerios, if we can go after Cheerios as a gateway drug, sugar as a gateway drug, and you heard this poor woman that called yesterday who thinks taxing sugar is a wonderful idea. There are enough dolts in this country who will applaud this. Because they think doing all this will improve the health of every American, Mr. Limbaugh. That’s exactly right, and we want people to be healthy and happy and secure, and poor. Yeah. Brief time-out, my friends, as you ponder all the new ways this administration, under the guise of keeping you healthy, can raise your taxes.