RUSH: I want to shout out big time today to McDonald’s. McDonald’s, I love you. I remember back in the days of the global warming craze when the wackos were suggesting don’t eat McDonald’s, don’t
eat beef because it leads to cow methane causing global warming. Remember I sent one of the Snerdleys over to McDonald’s in Times Square and picked up 240 Quarter Pounders with cheese and Big Macs and brought ’em back to the studio and had the whole transaction take place on the phone, on the air, just to stand up and support McDonald’s. And listen to this. You know, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, this wacko bunch of leftist kooks, statists, nannies, these are the people that banned coconut oil from your popcorn in movie theaters, have gotten rid of MSG, the flavoring in Chinese food, they wanted to ban Chinese food. These people want to get in your life and tell you what to eat. If you look at these people you wonder if they’re barely alive, they’re skeletal, they’re miserable, they are unhappy, and they want to spread that misery to everybody else by having you eat basically nothing but tofu and cardboard, run around eating miniature rocks and berries as you traverse the deserts of the world.
And their latest target was McDonald’s Happy Meal. They wanted to sue McDonald’s to remove the toys from the Happy Meal package because the toys were incentive to parents to go out and buy Happy Meals, which the Center for Science in the Public Interest determined was unhealthy and unwise and in fact is none of their business. From the Chicago Sun-Times: ‘Those Hot Wheels and Polly Pocket dolls aren’t going anywhere. The Happy Meals toys are staying, according to a letter McDonald’s brass delivered Wednesday to a health watchdog group.’ You know, this group ought not get any attention. They got a logo and a fax machine because they’re a bunch of liberals and the media gives them instant credibility. They’re just a bunch of kooks! They’re no different than your crazy aunt in the basement who gives herself a logo and a fax machine and sends it out to the media and says she’s against whatever. That’s essentially who they are.
‘The Center for Science in the Public Interest last month threatened a lawsuit against the fast-food giant to get it to dump the toys that accompany Happy Meals. Forget it, McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner said, defending Happy Meals in the written response sent to the Washington, D.C.-based group. ‘Internet sites, blogs and network surveys suggest that public opinion is running overwhelmingly against your premise,’ Skinner wrote. ‘Our customer websites and phone lines at McDonald’s are also busy, with more than 9 out of 10 customers disagreeing with your agenda.” Finally, some corporate CEO standing up to a bunch of leftist statists in the minority. The people that run Center for Science in the Public Interest are in a minority.
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RUSH: Continuing the shout-out to the CEO, Mr. Skinner, at McDonald’s responding to Center for Science in the Public Interest. ”Internet sites, blogs and network surveys suggest that public opinion is running overwhelmingly against your premise,’ Skinner wrote. ‘Our customer websites and phone lines at McDonald’s are also busy, with more than 9 out of 10 customers disagreeing with your agenda.’ The strong public response is uncommon for the company, whose dominance in the fast-food industry makes it a target of a range of activist groups. ‘CSPI is wrong in its assertions, and frivolous in its legal threats,’ Skinner said, calling the group’s claims ‘over-the-top rhetoric.’ Seeking to turn the tables on the group, Skinner called for an apology.
”CSPI’s twisted characterization of McDonald’s as ‘the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children’ is an insult to every one of our franchisees and employees around the world,’ Skinner wrote. ‘When CSPI refers to America’s children as ‘an unpaid drone army,’ you similarly denigrate parents and families, because they are fully capable of making their own decisions. You should apologize.’ ‘Parents, in particular, strongly believe they have the right and responsibility to decide what’s best for their children, not CSPI,’ he wrote. ‘It’s really that simple.” I love this. It is that simple. This guy has guts and courage. It’s a shame that something like what he’s done here has to be characterized as guts and courage. Not too long ago in this country it would not have been unique for a CEO to tell some little pesky little bunch of maggots to leave him alone.
White Castle, the hamburger chain, says insurance reform will bite into their profits big time. It’ll ‘eat up roughly 55% of its yearly net income after 2014.’ So, again, another private sector industry sounding the warning about Obamacare.
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RUSH: It’s $17 million. They’re a ‘nonprofit’ and $17 million they made last year. They have a total of $80 million in the bank. Maybe they should take some of that $80 million and practice what Obama preaches, spread it around like to poor kids who have preexisting conditions and can’t get medical care from those horrific insurance companies that are obese because they’re eating all this horrible food that the Center for Science in the Public Interest disapproves of. What does a public interest group who cares about people supposedly doing hoarding $80 million? What are they doing earning $17 million? Why doesn’t anybody ask, ‘How the hell are they doing that and what are they doing for it and what are they using it for?’ Here, grab audio sound bite number 13. This is from my TV show back in February of 1996. This is a montage of the people at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Michael Jacobson and others, and you’ll hear some audience laughter in here.
JACOBSON: Soda pop has been shown to promote obesity in children.
JACOBSON: This is Gerber’s best-selling product: Bananas with Tapioca. It has only half the banana content of a plain banana product.
WOMAN: Who would have guessed that one Belgian waffle has as much saturated fat as two Quarter Pounders?
ROBINSON: Movie theater popcorn is certainly one of the single worst foods you can buy.
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
WOMAN: I’m sorry to say we found that Mexican food is loaded with salt.
MAN: Here are nine strips of bacon. Here are three glasses of 2% milk. Would you believe they have the same amount of saturated fat?
WOMAN: The tuna salad. What a disappointment!
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
WOMAN: Kung pao chicken has as much fat as four McDonald’s Quarter Pounders.
JACOBSON: Mint Chip Dazzler has 1300 calories, a full day’s worth of fat, two full days’ worth of saturated fat!
RUSH: That’s who these people are. That’s who they are. They’re no different than Algore and his stupid movie. They’re no different than the lying hoaxers from global warming. But beyond that it’s none of their business what anybody eats, and I keep bringing this up because the McDonald’s CEO told them to go pound sand when they threatened to sue McDonald’s over the toys that are in Happy Meals. That’s the kind of leadership people are looking for, the kind of leadership we’re seeing from Chris Christie, from Jan Brewer (the governor of Arizona) and Sarah Palin. This is the kind of leadership people are looking for, not this. Try this. This is an AP story today. ‘Too many Republican leaders are acquiescing to a poisonous ‘demagoguery’ that threatens the party’s long-term credibility, says a veteran GOP House member who was defeated in South Carolina’s primary last month.
‘While not naming names, 12-year incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis suggested in interviews with the Associated Press that tea party favorites such as former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and right-wing talk show hosts … are the culprits. He cited a claim made famous by Palin that the Democratic health care bill would create ‘death panels’ to decide whether elderly or sick people should get care. ‘There were no death panels in the bill … and to encourage that kind of fear is just the lowest form of political leadership.” This is a Republican, and he got beat, in South Carolina. This is not what people are looking for. By the way, the new Medicare guy, this Berwick, he openly advocates health care rationing, which is why Obama recess appointed him so that he would not expose all of this in testimony during confirmation hearings. They didn’t want anything this guy says to be heard four months before an election creating more controversy about Obamacare.
Don’t try to tell me that Obama is this mindless little waif being sabotaged by left-wing staff and appointees. These people are Obama. That’s why he picks them. This guy is an open advocate of rationing, which is shorthand for death panels. Anyway, three cheers again for Mr. Skinner, the CEO at McDonald’s.
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RUSH: Here is Suzanne in Houston. You’re on Open Line Friday. Great to have you on the program.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. I am a vegan. I eat a vegan diet. So no meat, no animal products at all.
RUSH: Does that basically mean you don’t eat anything that has a face?
CALLER: Uh… (sigh) I have heard people say that before, yeah.
RUSH: That’s what McCartney says.
CALLER: But milk doesn’t have a face, either, Rush.
RUSH: McCartney said he doesn’t eat anything that has a face.
CALLER: Yep. Yep. I mean, basically that’s it.
RUSH: No fish. You don’t eat fish? You don’t eat chicken? You don’t eat beef, obviously.
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: So it’s just vegetables and tofu?
CALLER: It’s fruits, vegetables, grains. Anything that’s a plant.
RUSH: Ah! Okay.
CALLER: Okay? Now, having said that, I am completely against the Center for Science in the Public Interest and what they do, their strategy of going after industries like McDonald’s, for example. I think that that is just the wrong way for them to go, and it’s not helping their cause — assuming their cause, you know, primarily is to promote healthy food.
RUSH: It’s not what they’re about.
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: They’re typical leftist control freaks.
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: Nobody has the smarts to live their lives the right way. The Center for Science and the Public Interest has to tell everybody how to live ’cause most everybody’s too stupid to make the right decisions on their own.
CALLER: Yeah, that’s the frustrating thing because they could be doing something much better — or anyone else out there, other groups could be doing something much, much better.
RUSH: Like what? What in the world could they do that’s better or good?
CALLER: Well, you know, they could take the strategy of putting their dollars into marketing, like McDonald’s and other companies do. Give us good-tasting, healthy food, fruits and vegetables. Because a lot of the vegetarian and vegan food out there just doesn’t taste that good. Nobody would want it. So give people some education, give people some choices and promote things —
RUSH: Ah! See, that’s the thing.
CALLER: — things instead of going after companies that they don’t like.
RUSH: Suzanne, you just nailed it. The Center for Science in the Public Interest is no different than the Sierra Club or the National Resources Defense Council or the Obama administration. They want to deny people choice. That’s what it’s all about, not promote choice. They want to deny liberty and freedom.
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: You know, they have the audacity and the arrogance to think everybody ought to live the life they live. Everybody ought to do what they do. Who are they? What business is it of theirs what anybody else eats? You know, I’m a big First Amendment guy, and freedom and liberty in general, and I just have an instinctive, intrinsic repulsive reaction to these groups, and they are all to be found on the left.