RUSH: AP story…. You talk about a bleeding heart, tug your heartstrings, “Oh, my gosh, I don’t know if I can finish the day,” story? I have it here for you from Allentown, Pennsylvania. “Shutdown/Feeding Children — Shutdown Jeopardizes Nutrition Program for Poor.” Folks, this is so over the top…
I laugh at this. I go back and forth. I laugh at it and I get angry of course, but I laugh at this. This is the kind of thing that most people wouldn’t tell you what they really think about it. That’s never stopped me. “Jacob Quick is a fat and happy 4-month-old with a big and expensive appetite.” How do they know he’s happy? He’s four months old. I can’t tell anybody how he feels. When you were four months old, do you remember being happy, or sad or whatever?
Do you remember? (interruption) He smiles? I could be indigestion. It could be gas. Could be laughing at his mother. If he’s fat, had his mother fat? Who knows what the kid’s smiling about! “Like millions of other poor women, Jacob’s mother relies on the federal Women, Infants and Children program to pay for infant formula — aid that is now jeopardized by the government shutdown.
Pennsylvania and other states say they can operate WIC at least through the end of October, easing fears among officials that it would run out of money within days. But advocates and others worry what will happen if the shutdown drags on beyond that. ‘What’s going to happen to my baby?’ asked Jacob’s mother, Cierra Schoeneberger, as she fed him a bottle of formula bought with her WIC voucher.” Can I read that sentence to you here again here, folks?
“What’s gonna happen to my baby?” asked fat Jacob’s mother. AP described him as a happy fat four month old, so I’m just trying to keep you people informed. You know, you can’t read this. I’m reading it to you. I want to make sure you remember the characters here. “‘What’s going to happen to my baby?’ asked [fat] Jacob’s mother, Cierra Schoeneberger, as she fed him a bottle of formula bought with her WIC voucher.
“‘Am I going to have to feed him regular milk, or am I going to have to scrounge up the little bit of change I do have for formula or even baby food?'” Hey, have you ever tried 911 to see if it delivers some McNuggets? What am I going to feed my baby? “What’s gonna happen to my baby?” How about the baby daddy? Is the baby daddy in the equation here? The Women, Infants and Children program, “WIC serves nearly 9 million mothers and young children…” Serves!
“[P]roviding what advocates say is vital nutrition that poor families might otherwise be unable to afford.” They can afford babies. They can’t afford the “nutrition,” but they can afford the babies. (chuckling) That’s how it works, see? Well, I’m just reading this. I’m just sharing with you. If you were sitting here with me, and we’re reading the paper together, reading the wires, this is how I’d be reacting to it. That’s all I’m doing here.
It’s “vital nutrition that poor families might otherwise be unable to afford. Schoenberger, for example, said her son,” that’s fat Jacob, the four-month-old happy baby, “goes through about $40 worth of formula a week. ‘It’s like a car payment,’ said the unemployed mother of three.” So feeding her son is the equivalent to her of a car payment — and again, I’m sitting here asking, “Where is Da-da?” You know, where’s the baby daddy?
I doubt that he’s working at the car wash. “The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children — better known as WIC — supplies low-income women with checks or debit cards that can be used for infant formula and cereal, fruits and vegetables, dairy items and other healthy food. WIC also provides breast-feeding support and nutrition classes. Poor women with children under five are eligible.”
Right, we got nine million of ’em. Breast-feeding support? What is that? A brassiere? What’s breast-feeding support? Dawn, you’re a mother. What would you think if you’re on WIC and you need “breast-feeding support,” what would you ask for? (interruption) Oh. Oh. It’s training in how to do it? I guess that’s breast-feeding support. (interruption) No, there’s more to it. It’s not just that simple, Mr. Snerdley. You don’t just hold the baby up to the breast and then it feeds.
That’s not it. Apparently it’s much more complicated than that because these women need breast-feeding support from WIC. Anyway, “Just before the shutdown, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had warned that states would run out of WIC cash after a ‘week or so.’ Now the agency says WIC should be able to provide benefits through late October, with states using $100 million in federal contingency money released Wednesday and $280 million in unspent funds from the last budget year.”
Doesn’t sound like they got a budget problem, to me. It sounds like they’re running a surplus here at WIC, if you ask me. Now, “If the aid dries up, desperate moms…” That’s what it says here, AP story: “desperate moms.” You ever seen a desperate mom? Get out of the way. Well, “If the aid dries up, desperate moms will probably dilute their babies’ formula with water to make it last longer, or simply give them water or milk, said the Rev. Douglas A. Greenaway, head of the National WIC Association, an advocacy group.
“Pediatricians say children under 1 shouldn’t drink cow’s milk because they can develop iron deficiency anemia.” That must be where the breast-feeding support comes in. “‘These mothers have trust and confidence in this program, and that trust and confidence has been shaken by Congress,’ Greenaway said. ‘This is just unconscionable.'” No, Reverend, that’s not what’s unconscionable.
He’s trying to tell us that the WIC mothers, their trust and confidence have been shaken by Congress. “Danyelle Brents, 22, a single mother of three, receives about $200 a month in vouchers for food and formula for her two children and baby. She is being hit doubly hard by the shutdown: She is a contract worker for the Federal Aviation Administration who catalogs records for aircraft certification, and is furloughed.”
Again, where’s daddy?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, cutting to the end, this WIC story, women, infants and children story, goes on and on. It prints out to two pages, and it’s a sob story, and it’s all the pain and the suffering that might happen in a month because of the shutdown. And the implication, of course, is that it’s the Republicans who hate children. Now, if you go ask Harry Reid about this, “Harry, there’s a bunch of women and babies in the WIC program that might lose formula the end of the month,” he would likely say, “Why should I care about that? I got 1,100 people at Nellis Air Force Base to worry about.”
But the end of the story quotes a woman, Patricia Jones in New Jersey, who says she’s worried about losing her WIC assistance. “‘YouÂ’re affecting families that havenÂ’t done anything to you,’ said Jones, a 34-year-old mother of five. Because of the shutdown, she was turned away from the Social Security Administration office in Newark.”
(imitating Jones) “You’re affecting families that haven’t done anything to you. Why are you doing this? We haven’t done anything to you. We haven’t hurt you.” Five children, mother of five, age 34. Now, I know there are a bunch of you leftists, “Well, what you would you do, Rush? Come on, now, these women exist and their kids are alive, and what would you do, just freeze ’em out?” No, but you use them as an object lesson. This is not the kind of country we want. This is not the kind of life we want for these people. We don’t want life like this. You people on the left tolerate this, and you come up with programs that actually maintain this. You come up with programs that sustain this kind of life for these people.
You’ve become the daddy, except none of you take personal responsibility. You use everybody’s taxpayer money and you credit yourselves for having compassion, and you’re destroying lives. You’re not helping anybody here. You’re not helping anybody by creating policies that essentially promote this kind of behavior. I mean, the sad thing is liberals love this kind of stuff. This is what rips my heart out. They love this kind of stuff because this is where they derive their power. And it’s people like this, liberals that are able to claim they’re the ones that have compassion. They’re the ones with big hearts. They’re the ones who care.
Really? These women all sound miserable to me. These women sound scared to death to me. These women don’t sound like they have any concept of self-reliance. These mothers don’t sound like they have a chance, to me. They’re scared to death that whatever they’ve got’s gonna be taken away from ’em. They haven’t the foggiest idea what to do if that were to happen. I think in this country that’s an absolute outrage. I don’t applaud leftists, and I don’t grant them automatic compassion simply because they’re willing to tolerate this all for their own personal political benefit. That’s what’s sick about it.
Somebody comes along and actually wants to suggest doing something about this and they get attacked and ripped to shreds. Do you realize that this program, folks, the WIC program, Women, Infant, and Children program serves 53% of all babies born in this country? That is just a stunning statistic to me, and it is quite telling. And, by definition, we’re talking single mothers here, are we not? We know that in the African-American community, 73% of all births are out of wedlock. That’s not doing anybody any good. “Well, Mr. Limbaugh, they’re gonna have sex, you can’t stop it.” You know, the attitude you people on the left have, this laissez-faire attitude and so forth, compassion is the last thing you people have and the last thing you people are exhibiting on the left.
This is almost a life of torture these people are living. Scared to death that they’re not gonna get baby formula. They don’t know what to do if a government program runs dry? There’s no compassion in that. Not in this country. And because it happens to minorities you get a double whammy, you get to claim great compassion and the fact that you’re not racist because you’re willing to sit there and say you’re helping. You’re not helping. That’s the dirty little secret. Do you think I’m wrong about this? I don’t think this is helping anybody. I mean temporarily, yeah, but this is no way to live, and it isn’t necessary in this country. That’s the thing that irritates me.
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