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RUSH: Well, folks, it’s so predictable, and it’s hilarious. MSNBC, PMSNBC practically 24/7 has decided their new theme is the “war on women.” The Chyron graphic, they have guests, they have shows, they have hosts, talking about the war on women. And it’s hilarious. I can’t think — Snerdley, I know you’ll agree with me on this — I can’t think of a single red-blooded American male who wouldn’t surrender to any woman in a war. “Here, take me prisoner, I’m all yours.” This whole notion of a war on women, it’s so contrived. It’s so forced. It feels so unnatural. ‘Cause there is no war on women.

How are you, folks? It’s great to have you back. Rush Limbaugh here, again, behind the Golden EIB Microphone, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.


Here, please take me captive, madam. If there’s a war on women, I want to surrender. It reminds me of the peacenik bumper stickers back in the 1960s. (paraphrasing) “What if they gave a war and nobody showed up?” That was a popular bumper sticker back in the sixties when I was a teenager. Our side certainly hasn’t shown up in this war on women. Mostly because there isn’t one. What there is, is a war on freedom. There is a war on freedom being waged daily from the White House. It’s being orchestrated by Obama and his willing sycophants in the Drive-By Media. And not just religious freedom. Freedom of everybody, including women. The avowed purpose, the express purpose of the Obama administration, is to grow this government to as massive a size as they can pull off and take control over as much as they can.

I have a story here in the Stack. I should have put this up at the front. Let me find this. It is on a par with when I found out that the Sierra Club was going to target your SUV. This was back in 1996, and I warned you people, “Keep a sharp eye because they’re gonna be coming after your SUV.” And everybody pooh-poohed me. “No way. Come on, Rush, get serious. There’s no way anybody would go after our SUVs. It just a bunch of wacko leftists.” And you know they tried, and they still are. What do you think the Chevy Volt is? What do you think all of these hybrids are? What do you think the involvement of the regime in buying an automobile company and then trying to downsize all the vehicles is all about? They’re not gonna stop until they succeed at this. This is the point.

Now, here’s the story. This is in the New York Times, and the date is February 21st. I’ve been holding onto this. “Before the Food Arrives on Your Plate, So Much Goes on Behind the Scenes.” Let me give you the pull-quote from this story that you need. Now, look at me. Here’s the pull-quote from this story. “Food is one of the only base human needs where the American government lets the private market dictate its delivery to our communities,” but not for long. Now, I added the “but not for long.” You know, we have social justice. We have food justice. We already have food insecurity out there. Food insecurity is when people who run out of food stamps get hungry. Who is the authorette? It doesn’t matter.

“One of the first things to like about Tracie McMillan, the author of The American Way of Eating, is her forthrightness. SheÂ’s a blue-collar girl who grew up eating a lot of Tuna Helper and Ortega Taco Dinners because her mother was gravely ill for a decade, and her father, who sold lawn equipment, had little time to cook. About these box meals, she says, ‘I liked them.’ Expensive food that took time to prepare ‘wasnÂ’t for people like us,’ she writes.” Now, you see, already, paragraph two, there’s discrimination in food. “Expensive food that took time to prepare ‘wasnÂ’t for people like us.'” See, the dirty little secret is the food that takes time to prepare is cheaper than all this boxed processed prefab stuff. “Expensive food that took time to prepare ‘wasnÂ’t for people like us.'” What, somebody was denying you expensive food that took time to prepare?

She goes on. This is Tracie McMillan again, the author of The American Way of Eating. “‘It was for the people my grandmother described, with equal parts envy and derision, as “fancy”; my fatherÂ’s word was “snob.” And I wasnÂ’t about to be like that.’ This is a voice the food world needs,” says the writer of the story in the New York Times. Folks, I know you’re thinking, some of you, “Rush, what?” Every time I find evidence of a massive forthcoming event to take away a little bit of our freedom here and there, under the guise of improving on our health or our safety or our security, I am going to warn you about it because the ultimate endgame is to take away your freedom. And so now we have a book by a woman named Tracie McMillan, The American Way of Eating, which has, according to the New York Times, as its premise that only the “fancy” and the “snobs” get good food.

Average, ordinary Americans, the 99%, are denied expensive food that takes time to prepare. “That food wasn’t for people like us,” writes Ms. McMillan. “Ms. McMillan, like a lot of us, has grown to take an interest in fresh, well-prepared food.” You’ve seen this interest, I’m sure. Every time you travel, you talk to people. When’s the last conversation you had with people about fresh, well-prepared food? I mean it’s a common topic at dinner parties, is it not? It’s a common, ordinary, everyday discussion item. Well, it’s portrayed that way here.

“Ms. McMillan, like a lot of us, has grown to take an interest in fresh, well-prepared food. SheÂ’s written for Saveur magazine, a pretty fancy journal, and she knows her way around a kitchen. But her central concern, in her journalism and in this provocative book, is food and class. She stares at AmericaÂ’s bounty, noting that so few seem able to share in it fully, and she asks: ‘What would it take for us all to eat well?'” And I take you back to the pull-quote: “Food is one of the only base human needs where the American government lets the private market dictate its delivery to our communities.”

So capitalism and the private sector are discriminating against the average, ordinary American by not delivering him quality food. The junk food is going to the poor and the miserable, and the fancy and the snobs are getting the good stuff, and that’s because the government is not regulating the delivery. Now, you put this together with Moochelle (My Belle) Obama what she’s trying to do. You put this together with a story we had out of North Carolina with a federal food agent telling a four-year-old that what was in her boxed lunch from home didn’t meet standards. What’s the message there? “Your mommy doesn’t really know what’s best for you. We here at the school do.”

I don’t want you to doubt me on this. There’s not a war on women. There’s a war on freedom. And anything that the government does not have its hands in is the focus and the target for this regime — and now it’s food and the distribution of food. What would it take for us all to eat well? What would it take for us all to have a nice car? What would it take for all of us to have birth control pills? What would it take for all of us to have a house on the beach? What would it take for all of us to have air-conditioning? What would it take for all of us to never get sick? What would it take for those who do get sick to get totally well and not have to pay for it? What would it take to have everything you want and not have to pay for it? And that’s what this regime attempts to answer for people.

“The title of Ms. McMillanÂ’s book pays fealty to Jessica MitfordÂ’s classic of English nonfiction prose, The American Way of Death (1963). Ms. McMillanÂ’s sentences donÂ’t have MitfordÂ’s high style — theyÂ’re a pile of leeks, not shallots — but both books traffic in dark humor. Standing in a Walmart, where she has taken a minimum-wage job, Ms. McMillan observes that its ‘produce section is nothing less than an expansive life-support system.’ Most days, when it comes to vegetables, sheÂ’s putting lipstick on corpses.” Whatever that means, don’t ask me. I do not know what that means.

I know what “lipstick on a pig” is but I don’t know what “lipstick on a corpse” is, and I don’t know what it’s got to do with the vegetable department at Walmart. Except maybe they’re killing people there and we haven’t heard about it yet. “The book Ms. McMillanÂ’s most resembles is Barbara EhrenreichÂ’s best seller ‘Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America’ (2001). Like Ms. Ehrenreich, Ms. McMillan goes undercover amid this countryÂ’s working poor. She takes jobs picking grapes, peaches and garlic in California; stocking produce in a Walmart in Detroit; and working in a busy ApplebeeÂ’s in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. She tries, and often fails, to live on only the money she earns. The news Ms. McMillan brings about life on the front lines is mostly grim.”

Of course it is! Because this is America, and it’s grim because the government doesn’t control everything yet. And it will only be a panacea and a utopia when the government controls everything. Food Justice Now! You will soon be hearing this demand. You watch. Mark my words. I don’t know when, but it won’t take long. “Ms. McMillanÂ’s chapters about Walmart and ApplebeeÂ’s are the bookÂ’s best.” Naturally! A journalist writing about Walmart who says the vegetable department is like “lipstick on a corpse.” “She is not a slash-and-burn critic of either company: both provide needed jobs and treat their employees at least moderately well.

“But you will steer clear of both places after reading about her travails.” Now, let’s put that together. “She is not a slash-and-burn critic of either company … but you will steer clear of both places after” you read her book. It’s not slash-and-burn, but once you read what she’s got to say about Walmart and Applebee’s, you’ll never go back. But it’s not slash-and-burn. “The produce sold at the Walmart where she works is second-rate, often slimy, mushy or merely bland. ‘Walmart doesn’t always have the freshest stuff,’ one manager says to her. ‘That’s how we keep the prices low.'” So quotes a Walmart guy saying: Yeah, we’re selling garbage here and that’s how it’s cheap.

“The produce management is so sloppy that ‘the newer among us are still working our way from recognition to acceptance, as if advancing through the stages of grief.'” This is about working at Walmart. “Much of her time in WalmartÂ’s produce department is spent trimming rotted leaves (small bunches of lettuce have usually been trimmed many times) and ‘crisping,’ a method of rehydrating limp greens so they appear to be fresh.” In other words, most of her time is spent screwing customers by deceiving them that what they’re buying is actually quality. “At ApplebeeÂ’s, almost no actual cooking is done: premade food in plastic baggies is heated in microwaves and dumped onto plates.

“Ms. McMillan deplores this practice while also finding it fascinating. ‘I watch an endless assembly line,’ she writes, ‘a large-scale mash-up that hits the sweet spot between McDonaldÂ’s and Sandra LeeÂ’s “Semi-Homemade Cooking.”‘ Much of the friction in The American Way of Eating comes from Ms. McMillanÂ’s writing about being a woman — and an unmarried white one, to boot — working at the bottom rungs of the food industry.” So, the war on women now includes unmarried white women working at these horrible places like Walmart and Applebee’s. The bottom rungs of the food industry. And I take you back. It’s “one of the only base human needs where the American government lets the private market dictate its delivery to our communities.”

“Ms. McMillan is an amiable writer,” it says here, “yet her book is lighted from within by anger at the poor food options many in this country face. Noting that Detroit is a city of 700,000 without a single store from a national grocery chain, she writes: ‘Food is one of the only base human needs where the American government lets the private market dictate its delivery to our communities,'” and of course it’s bad out there, so if we gotta have the government step in. The government’s gotta get involved in making sure that food gets to the right places. We should hate Walmart because they offer low-cost produce.

Google “food justice.” You think it’s a new term? Google it! You get 1,810,000 hits. This is happening right in front of us for years, this kind of thing. Food is the next front in the left-wing war on the private sector. “Food justice,” mark my words, will soon be joining the term “social justice.” It will be appearing in news stories. The Drive-By Media reporters will accept this from the left uncritically and won’t even bother to define it. I’m sorry, they will define it. They will define it. “Food justice: The private sector hates the poor. The private sector doesn’t care if its customers live, even. The private sector doesn’t care if its customers get sick. The private sector will make sure that cheap, low-cost, rotten, limp, needing-lipstick produce is the only thing you have available to you.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me grab this phone call real quick. This could be instructive. Here is Craig in Detroit. Craig, I’m glad you called. Welcome to the program.

CALLER: Hi, Rush, it’s pleasure to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you. I know.

CALLER: (chuckles) Yeah, I just wanted to let you know that I often work in Detroit and there are certain items my wife will give me to pick up in Detroit. Several of them are fresh produce. There’s a great market not far from downtown Detroit. I was out there the other day. Peppers, carrots, blueberries, you name it. They’re all over the place.

RUSH: Well.

CALLER: So to rebuke that myth there’s no place to get fresh produce in Detroit, it’s not true.

RUSH: That’s what you think.

CALLER: And not only is there fresh produce, but there’s tons of available land to grow your own produce.

RUSH: Now, Craig?

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: I’m really glad you called, because you’re gonna assist me here in making a point. It’s like ‘the war on women.’ Stop and think of this for a second. The Republican Party is conducting a war on women. Now, what’s the objective of the Republican Party? It’s to win elections, is it not? That’s what we think. That may even be a matter of doubt. (laughing) But theoretically the purpose of the Republican Party is to win elections. So what sense would it make for the Republican Party to conduct a war on women? By the same token, here I have just shared this story from the New York Times about how the authorette is talking about the unfairness in “food justice” because the really good food is going to the snobs, because the government doesn’t control distribution.

You called to refute the charge. “Wait a minute, I can get great produce here in Detroit,” and that’s great. Don’t misunderstand. But that isn’t the point of the article. This is how people get… I don’t want to say duped, but it’s how people get thrown off on the wrong direction. Of course, Craig, one can find quality produce in Detroit. Anywhere in America you can find quality produce! That’s not the refutation of this piece. This piece really isn’t about quality produce. This piece is about the fact that the federal government doesn’t have any say-so in food distribution. And it represents yet another area for the left to have the government move into to have more and more power and strip away more and more freedom.

It’s about freedom. It’s not about produce.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: And so you see, folks, what I’m introducing to you today is a new crisis. We’ve uncovered another crisis for the government to solve, and that is basically what? See, it’s not enough that Walmart offers unprocessed food to low-income families. Oh, no, that’s not enough. Now it has to be the best. It has to be the best, it has to be the most expensive, but it has to be practically given away, otherwise what? Walmart is racist. That’s how this works. This is how pressure is brought to bear on people in the private sector, accuse them of racism, discrimination, servicing only a few small percentage points of the market. Force them to cave to the all-powerful demands of the federal government, because to do otherwise is to incur their wrath, and nobody wants that.

What is it with all of these young single white women, overeducated — doesn’t mean intelligent. For example, Tracie McMillan, the author of this book, seems to be just out of college and already she has been showered with awards, including the 2006 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. Social justice journalism. This woman who wrote the book on food inequality, food justice, got an award for social justice journalism. She won a national prize rewarding journalism that measures business, governmental and social affairs against clear ideals of the common good. Her degree is not in food or nutrition. She has a B.A. from New York University in political science. She’s a political scientist. She’s a journalist. She has received awards for social justice journalism, and she has a book out on food justice.

I know. You’re saying, “Rush, there’s Super Tuesday going on.” I know. Super Tuesday is going on, and there are election laws. You can’t really electioneer on Election Tuesday. Super Tuesday is what it is. The polls are open, and people are voting. What’s left now is to count ’em tonight. We still have some audio sound bites coming up. Don’t misunderstand. This is important, folks. It’s important. All of this, everything we discuss on this program given the inauguration of Barack Obama is about the loss of freedom, the loss of economic freedom, the loss of religious freedom, the loss of speech freedom, the loss of freedom overall. And with it, the vanishing opportunity for prosperity on the part of all of our citizens. It matters. It’s an all-out assault, and it’s coming from young college students, fresh, idealistic, wide-eyed, interested in social justice and the common good and how only government can do that.

Well, what happens when the government is in charge of food purchases? Have you heard the story of pink slime for school lunches? Have you heard about this? Ground connective tissue and beef scraps normally destined for dog food treated with ammonia hydroxide are ending up in school lunches? I hold here in my formally nicotine-stained fingers a story from The Daily, which is an app for the iPad, and it’s a joint effort between Apple and News Corp, Rupert Murdoch.

“The U.S. Department of AgricultureÂ’s continued purchase of so-called pink slime for school lunches makes no sense, according to two former microbiologists at the Food Safety Inspection Service. ‘I have a 2-year-old son,’ microbiologist Gerald Zirnstein told The Daily. ‘And you better believe I donÂ’t want him eating pink slime when he starts going to school.’ It was Zirnstein who first coined the term ‘pink slime’ after touring a Beef Products Inc. production facility in 2002 as part of an investigation into salmonella contamination in packaged ground beef. In an e-mail to his colleagues shortly after the visit, Zirnstein said he did not ‘consider the stuff to be ground beef.’

“Made by grinding together connective tissue and beef scraps normally destined for dog food and rendering, BPIÂ’s Lean Beef Trimmings are then treated with ammonia hydroxide, a process that kills pathogens such as salmonella and E. coli. The resulting pinkish substance is later blended into traditional ground beef and hamburger patties. For retired microbiologist Carl Custer, a 35-year veteran of the Food Safety Inspection Service, the idea of mixing in BPIÂ’s Lean Beef Trimmings into more nutritious, pure ground beef was itself problematic. ‘We originally called it soylent pink,’ Custer told The Daily. ‘We looked at the product and we objected to it because it used connective tissues instead of muscle,'” which is what meat is. If you didn’t know, beef is muscle. They’re using connective tissue in this stuff.

You didn’t know that, Snerdley? Well, what did you think it was? What did you think beef is? Yeah, but what part of the cow did you think beef — I know you don’t eat it, but what did you think it was? No, it’s the muscle. And it’s not cows; it’s steers. Cow meat goes into this garbage they give to kids at school when the federal government’s in charge of it. Cow meat goes into chili and soup and stuff — USD… well, I don’t know about McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets, but there are a lot of so-called Chicken McNuggets that are just called McNuggets or nuggets and not chicken, they’re made to look like it, but aren’t. Made to taste like it, but aren’t. Well, how can you make vodka taste like blueberry? How do you make tea taste like blueberry? What we do at Two If By Tea, you have some flavorings, you pour it in there. Come on. Don’t be ignorant in there. Beef that you eat, USDA prime beef, whatever, it’s muscle.

The point here is that what they’re giving to kids is the connective tissue, cartilage, tendons. My point is this is what happens when you let the federal government into this process. When you keep the private sector out of it, when you let the government get involved — Why is the government more qualified to do food than people who are in that business? The really angering thing here is the presumption or the assumption by government and by these wide-eyed idealistic college grads that anything in the private sector is by definition corrupt. The people in the private sector are by definition sharks and they are corrupt, and they’re out, every one of them, to cheat you. And yet, on the other end of the scale, there is the federal government, clean and pure as the wind-driven snow, when everybody knows that’s not true.

So this is what happens if you let the government get involved. Pink slime that’s said to be ground beef, but it isn’t, served to your unsuspecting kids at school. Meanwhile, they tell us the problem is Walmart and Applebee’s. So, like the war on women — again, I hearken back to this — the war on women, really, the Republican Party is waging a war on women. Their objective is to win elections, and they’re gonna do that by conducting a war on women? Where’s the logic? Where is the sense in this? McDonald’s, Walmart, Applebee’s, they have as their express purpose to sell garbage so that their customers get sick. Everything about liberalism is a lie, everything about it.

Everything about it is deceit. Everything about it is a trick designed to get you to give up your freedom because you get angry when you hear that Walmart’s screwing you or Applebee’s or the Big Oil companies or whoever. And who gets to ride in and save the day? Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, whoever, on a white horse. By the way, speaking of the federal food agent in North Carolina that told the four year old that her boxed lunch from home didn’t meet standards — and really, again, what is the message there? The message is, the very safe and protective and loving federal agent cares more about the four year old than her own mommy. “Yes, little four year old, your mommy sent you to school with an unsafe lunch. Here, eat what we have for you.” This is hideous stuff.

Now, from the Carolina News Journal: “Teacher Suspended Over Chicken Nugget Incident — The teacher involved in ‘supplementing’ a preschoolerÂ’s lunch with chicken nuggets in Hoke County has been suspended indefinitely. Parents of students in the Pre-Kindergarten program at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford got a letter from Assistant Superintendent Bob Barnes last week saying a substitute teacher would take over the preschool class until the ‘issue’ is resolved. It remains unclear why the teacherÂ’s actions violated district policy. State officials responsible for monitoring homemade lunches for preschoolers have told Carolina Journal that the Jan. 30 incident that caused a nationwide uproar satisfied state policy.”

So now what they’re saying is the teacher didn’t know what the policy was. The federal agent, whoever it was that absconded the four year old’s boxed lunch, did it mistakenly. When will the teachers wake up to the reality that they’re nothing but tools for a liberal agenda? Well, I take it back. Many of them know that they are, and happily serve as such. But there are so many rules and regulations and laws coming from so many different agencies and bureaucracies that teachers like this one are forced and expected to monitor and enforce, they can’t possibly understand ’em all. They need an extra degree just to figure out bureaucratic BS. When they do try to follow the rules you can count on the bureaucrats, the government agents, to throw ’em under the bus, just like happened here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So at the Hoke County school the teacher is being scapegoated, not the federal agent. Remember in this story originally, the federal agent absconded with the four year old’s lunch. Now the teacher is being scapegoated! But since I understand the left… See, folks, I understand why the teacher is being punished. It’s very simple. She let the kid go home and rat ’em out. She didn’t scare the kid enough. The kid was not supposed to go home and tell the mother that her boxed lunch was taken away from her. The kid wasn’t sufficiently intimidated by the teacher, so the kid goes home (impression), “Mommy, Mommy! The school, they took my lunch.

“The lady said it wasn’t healthy. They said that you don’t care about me as much as they do. (crying)” And the mother said, “What the hell is going on at school?” She goes up there and all hell breaks loose. So they have a meeting with the teacher and say, “Look, if you’re gonna do this you’ve got to put the fear of God in that four year old so she’s not gonna say a word about this. Don’t let it happen next time. We’re gonna suspend you for a while.” Next time the kid gets her lunch taken, the teacher will be up to speed. You think I’m trying to be funny, and, yes, certainly an element of that, folks. But I know who these people are. You’re seeing it play out every day.

Here’s Terry in Mesa, Arizona, as we go back to the phones. Great to have you on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Hey, listen, I just wanted to talk about this food justice thing. I can’t speak on behalf of Applebee’s but I can sure the heck speak on behalf of Walmart. My wife’s been part of a nationally recognized weight-loss program for many, many years and she looks great. She’s lost a lot of weight, she looks fabulous, and we buy all of our produce over at Walmart.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: I’ve been buying it for years.

RUSH: And you know why your wife’s losing weight is because the stuff she’s buying is not nutritionally sound. It doesn’t have all the proper calories, and she’s wasting away! She’s not losing weight.

CALLER: Oh, no, no, no. I beg to differ. She’s not wasting away. She’s still as voluptuous as she was when I married her —

RUSH: (laughing)

CALLER: — and I gotta tell you, Rush. Let me tell you, the food… She makes stir fries at night. She makes salad, and she makes the best doggone salads. And all of that produce, I guarantee you — probably for the last eight or ten years — has all come from Walmart!

RUSH: Okay. Of course. Of course the allegation is baseless! Of course Walmart stuff is good quality. They wouldn’t be number one in their field if it wasn’t quality. That’s not the point. I understand the desire to defend Walmart. Believe me, I’ve tried it. I understand and I’m glad that you’re doing it. I don’t like these private sector companies — made up of entrepreneurs who take great risks, who try to provide value at the cheapest price for their customers — getting ripped. I don’t see why they get ripped. I know why they do get ripped by the left, but the point here is not Walmart’s produce. This is simply an allegation. It doesn’t have to be true!

It has now been alleged by an award-winning political scientist journalist writing about it in a book. So it’s true now. You can spend the rest of your life defending the produce at Walmart, but as far as the people playing offense on this, the book and the allegation make the allegation true. Not what is true. And so the focus here is to take over the distribution of food by the federal government. This is about the expansion of government. It is not about whether or not the food at Walmart or Applebee’s is any good. They have to malign these places. It’s part and parcel of the scheme.

You have to malign and impugn the private sector or whatever target that you’ve zeroed in on. You malign them by accusing them of harming their customers or being discriminatory toward their customers (being racist toward their customers, or what have you) and that sets the stage for the white knight federal government to ride in ostensibly to save the day, when all they’re doing is expanding their power. I find it extremely curious that this young person focuses on one of the biggest failures of liberal government ever — Detroit, Michigan — as the area where food justice isn’t taking place. There’s no food justice in Detroit, and who’s been running that show? Liberals. Think about it.

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