{"id":11221,"date":"2013-10-04T16:34:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T16:34:43","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-10-04T16:34:43","modified_gmt":"2013-10-04T16:34:43","slug":"ap_claims_shutdown_will_starve_babies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/10\/04\/ap_claims_shutdown_will_starve_babies\/","title":{"rendered":"AP Claims Shutdown Will Starve Babies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: AP story<\/a>…. You talk about a bleeding heart, tug your heartstrings, “Oh, my gosh, I don\u2019t 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…<\/p>\n

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\u2019t tell you what they really think about it. That\u2019s never stopped me. “Jacob Quick is a fat and happy 4-month-old with a big and expensive appetite.” How do they know he\u2019s happy? He\u2019s four months old. I can\u2019t tell anybody how he feels. When you were four months old, do you remember being happy, or sad or whatever?<\/p>\n

Do you remember? (interruption) He smiles? I could be indigestion. It could be gas. Could be laughing at his mother. If he\u2019s fat, had his mother fat? Who knows what the kid\u2019s smiling about! “Like millions of other poor women, Jacob\u2019s mother relies on the federal Women, Infants and Children program to pay for infant formula — aid that is now jeopardized by the government shutdown. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s going to happen to my baby?\u2019 asked Jacob\u2019s 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? <\/p>\n

“What\u2019s gonna happen to my baby?” asked fat Jacob\u2019s mother. AP described him as a happy fat four month old, so I\u2019m just trying to keep you people informed. You know, you can\u2019t read this. I\u2019m reading it to you. I want to make sure you remember the characters here. “‘What\u2019s going to happen to my baby?\u2019 asked [fat] Jacob\u2019s mother, Cierra Schoeneberger, as she fed him a bottle of formula bought with her WIC voucher.<\/p>\n

“‘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\u2019s 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>\n

“[P]roviding what advocates say is vital nutrition that poor families might otherwise be unable to afford.” They can afford babies. They can\u2019t afford the “nutrition,” but they can afford the babies. (chuckling) That\u2019s how it works, see? Well, I\u2019m just reading this. I\u2019m just sharing with you. If you were sitting here with me, and we\u2019re reading the paper together, reading the wires, this is how I\u2019d be reacting to it. That\u2019s all I\u2019m doing here. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s “vital nutrition that poor families might otherwise be unable to afford. Schoenberger, for example, said her son,” that\u2019s fat Jacob, the four-month-old happy baby, “goes through about $40 worth of formula a week. ‘It\u2019s like a car payment,\u2019 said the unemployed mother of three.” So feeding her son is the equivalent to her of a car payment — and again, I\u2019m sitting here asking, “Where is Da-da?” You know, where\u2019s the baby daddy?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I doubt that he\u2019s 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.” <\/p>\n

Right, we got nine million of \u2019em. Breast-feeding support? What is that? A brassiere? What\u2019s breast-feeding support? Dawn, you\u2019re a mother. What would you think if you\u2019re on WIC and you need “breast-feeding support,” what would you ask for? (interruption) Oh. Oh. It\u2019s training in how to do it? I guess that\u2019s breast-feeding support. (interruption) No, there\u2019s more to it. It\u2019s not just that simple, Mr. Snerdley. You don\u2019t just hold the baby up to the breast and then it feeds. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not it. Apparently it\u2019s 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.\u2019 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.” <\/p>\n

Doesn\u2019t sound like they got a budget problem, to me. It sounds like they\u2019re running a surplus here at WIC, if you ask me. Now, “If the aid dries up, desperate moms…” That\u2019s 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\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

“Pediatricians say children under 1 shouldn\u2019t drink cow\u2019s 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,\u2019 Greenaway said. ‘This is just unconscionable.'” No, Reverend, that\u2019s not what\u2019s unconscionable. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s 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.”<\/p>\n

Again, where\u2019s daddy?<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

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\u2019s a sob story, and it\u2019s all the pain and the suffering that might happen in a month because of the shutdown. And the implication, of course, is that it\u2019s the Republicans who hate children. Now, if you go ask Harry Reid about this<\/a>, “Harry, there\u2019s 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.” <\/p>\n

But the end of the story quotes a woman, Patricia Jones in New Jersey, who says she\u2019s worried about losing her WIC assistance. “‘You\u00c2\u2019re affecting families that haven\u00c2\u2019t done anything to you,\u2019 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.”<\/p>\n