RUSH: The government wants to establish talking shopping carts so that food stamp recipients will be directed to healthier foods in the grocery store. And if they end up buying the government-approved amount of healthy foods, they could win free movie tickets. I kid you not. They want to install talking shopping carts in grocery stores for food stamp users. (interruption) Well, Michelle’s voice would probably be a good idea. I don’t know whose voice, but it probably would be Moochelle’s voice.

In fact, it’s a USDA suggestion. “The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is suggesting major changes to grocery stores.” I guess it would apply to the homeless, too. I mean, the homeless are using food stamps. It says here they want “to ‘nudge’ Americans to purchase healthier foods when they shop. The agency commissioned an ‘expert panel’ to make recommendations on how to guide the more than 47 million Americans on food stamps into spending their benefits on fruits and vegetables.”

Now, of course incumbent here is the assumption that the government thinks you’re too stupid to buy what’s right for you. But not only that, they don’t think you ought to have the freedom to get what you want. They are going to try to coerce, i.e., nudge you into eating what they want you to eat. By the way, this push toward eating fruits, you could end up with type 2 diabetes if you’re not careful. Do you know how much sugar is in some fruit? “Oh, Rush, come on, it’s natural.” That doesn’t matter. It’s loaded.

Vegetables, you have to cook them. How many people are gonna go home and actually cook? It’s a losing battle. “The group released an 80-page report this month presenting their ideas, which include talking shopping carts and a marketing strategy for grocery chains that would feature better store lighting for healthier items.” In other words, the healthy items would be better lit, probably be brighter and a little bit more focused on them.

“Initial suggestions from the USDA on how to alter the grocery environment include stores offering ‘SNAP-Ed cooking classes’ and consultations with dieticians. … Another idea included a point-based system where food stamp recipients could receive movie tickets in exchange for healthy food purchases. Grocery store staff could also be used as ‘ambassadors’ for the USDAÂ’s agenda.” That’s right. Grocery store snitches is what we’re talking about. Grocery store brownshirts disguised as ambassadors to help you.

You people on food stamps, do you understand what this means? Do you understand what the government thinks of you? You are blithering idiots. You’re incapable of doing what’s best for you. You’re incompetent of eating the right way. You don’t know how to spend your money. You need ambassadors. You need talking shopping carts. You need the incentive of free movie tickets all to eat what Michelle Obama thinks you should eat.

“The panel based this approach on a $999,891 government-funded study entitled ‘Nudging Nutrition,’ arguing the research ‘suggests an intervention of this sort might be successful in modifying consumer shopping behavior.'” Man, oh, man. Here you have one of the most basic rituals of life, going to the grocery store to stock up in order to feed yourself so that you stay alive. And your government, if you’re on food stamps — and they think this of all of us — you don’t know the right stuff to eat and they’re gonna tell you. They are going to have you steered in only certain directions.

What they ought to do, if they’re really serious about this, which they’re not, because there’s an instant solution to this, if they’re really serious. You simply disallow certain things to be purchased with food stamps. You only allow the purchase of fruits and vegetables. You only allow the purchase of whatever it is the government wants you to eat. Anything else, food stamps won’t buy it. But they won’t do that. And you know why they won’t do that? Because that’s not the real purpose of food stamps.

The real purpose of food stamps is vote buying. The real purpose of food stamps is not compassion, it’s not better health. This is just the libs trying to make people think they care about them. This is all about vote buying. Nothing more, nothing less. And so there won’t be any restrictions. There will just be these constant nudges and guidelines.

“Sam Kass, the executive director of LetÂ’s Move! and senior policy advisor for nutrition policy, will not have the opportunity to speak at the School Nutrition AssociationÂ’s convention in Boston this week, reports Politico. According to Politico, the organization — which represents school districts in every state — denied the celebrity chefÂ’s request to ‘rally the troops’ on nutrition standards. Kass attended the School Nutrition AssociationÂ’s convention in Denver in 2012. However, since teaming up with Michelle Obama to push for major school meal reforms, his relationship with cafeteria professionals has greatly soured.”

So basically a public school nutritionist has told Michelle Obama’s food guy to take a hike. There’s a lot of acrimony in this country. Can you believe the degree to which we’re divided? We’re divided over food. We’re divide over what to eat. We’re divided over who should be able to tell you what to eat. We’re divided over who’s gonna pay you to buy food. I mean, we’re divided over freaking everything, and it’s all because people have, for some reason, willingly surrendered self-reliance.

They’re just giving it up. They’ve just said, “To hell with it, I’d rather be taken care of. I would rather be guided. I would rather be steered, rather than take upon the responsibility of life myself.” And when you surrender that, when you give that power away or that liberty or freedom away, the people who want to control every aspect of your life or just the fun of it or whatever other cockeyed reason, are going to do it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Mary in Philadelphia. It’s great to have you on the program. I’m glad you waited. Hi.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. It’s an honor to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you much.

CALLER: Thank you! I’m a listener of 20-plus years, and I have to tell you that it’s thrilling to talk to you. Your brain, your voice, your determination to bring the truth to light, I find all of those thrilling, and I’m just so honored to talk to you. It’s wonderful.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: It’s great. I’m calling because I heard you talking when I first turned the program on about this program where they’re going to educate everyone about nutrition and teach them what to buy and have people to teach them how to cook and so forth. I thought, “Well, this is very strange.” I got a little bit distressed ’cause I thought, “These are the liberals, the Democrats, who started the great War on Poverty a long time ago with LBJ, and they spent all kinds of time since then tearing down everything traditional about the family: Morality, food, American values, you name it.”

RUSH: You got it.

CALLER: Now suddenly they’re going to turn around and they’re gonna teach everybody, and it’s the old story of they tear something down and then we need the government back up.

RUSH: Exactly! Government breaks it first, and then the government fixes it.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: What sense does that make?

CALLER: I know. It just made me a little bit… I got a little bit upset, and I turned the program off for a few minutes to finish some work here, and then I turned back on and I tried to call and I got through to Bo, and here I am. But I mean, also these are the same people who, in the mortgage problem — I remember a story someone told on your program couple years ago. Someone wanted to get a mortgage, and the bank officers analyzed it, found out that when this person paid all their expenses at the end of the month, they would have $14 left for living expenses after paying their mortgage.

RUSH: Hold your thought. I have to take a brief, obscene profit time-out and we’ll come back. Mary, don’t hang up. We’ll come right back and resume right at that point.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We’re back with Mary in Philadelphia. You know, your original point here is really good. What she’s talking about, first item of the program, folks. The government wants to put talking shopping carts in grocery stores for food stamp recipients to direct them to the place where healthy food is sold in grocery stores. Because these people can’t figure that out on their own. Now, Mary, your point is how in the world have we gotten to the point that people do not know that there’s nobody in any home that knows how to tell anybody else what’s good to eat and what’s bad for them? Why does this require the government? And your answer is, it used to be that people could figure these things out for themselves.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Government came along and assumed all of these roles and responsibilities and busted up the family. And now, since they broke it, here comes a plan to fix it, which looks like compassion and looks like assistance and help and good thoughts and good vibes, when in fact it’s a tantamount admission that the government screws up everything it touches.

CALLER: Right. And then turns into a tyrant to come and fix it. They’re gonna show you the way. It’s very distressing to see.

RUSH: I couldn’t agree more.

CALLER: These are the people, I mentioned the mortgage crisis of a few years ago where a bank mentioned they were being pressured by the government to give people mortgages they couldn’t afford.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: Somebody came in and when they went through this person’s finances, by the end of the month, this person would have $14 for all their other expenses, rent, food, whatever. And the bank didn’t want to give the person the mortgage and they were told by the government officials, “You have to give it to them. You can’t make lifestyle choices for them.” And I have a feeling about food that if we went back 10 years and somebody wasn’t eating such healthy things or whatever, somebody from the government might say, “Well, you can’t make lifestyle choices for them.”

RUSH: Well — (crosstalk)

CALLER: Now they’re gonna come in and become tyrannical and be telling everybody what to eat.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: It’s like they did a 180. They destroy it, then they come around, “Oh, we’re gonna fix it now and tell you what to eat.”

RUSH: Yeah, but what now is it that gives them the right to make lifestyle choices for people? What is that?

CALLER: Well, yeah, I don’t understand that.

RUSH: It’s called Obamacare.

CALLER: Exactly. It’s horrifying. It’s absolutely horrifying. Because, you know, they’re gonna basically run your life, and you make the point a number of times that that was the first thing that people like Hitler wanted to do was get control, have a national health care system. Then they control every aspect of your life, they control your life basically.

RUSH: Exactly.

CALLER: And it’s horrifying. So I don’t get it. In school, I was taught in school about nutrition, then when I had my children I made it my business to give myself a refresher course about nutrition because I was in charge of these little people’s lives and I wanted to make sure that they ate well. So, you know, why is that not happening now? What the heck’s going on that people are, you know, what’s going on in schools that — I learned that in school the first time. So what are they teaching them in school? That America is the problem, you know. And about that subject, that America is the problem. I remember being in honor classes in high school and having some of the kids in the class start this narrative the United States was the problem. And I’ve been fighting that battle since I was a teenager with other people.

RUSH: Well, I never made the honors section.

CALLER: No, it doesn’t matter what class it was. It’s just that the people were already started to say that narrative. I thought back, when did I first encounter this, and I thought jeez, I was in high school.

RUSH: You raise an interesting question. I’m asking myself now when was it that I learned what the so-called bad things are to eat and the so-called good things. I mean, parents are always saying, you know, eat your vegetables. I didn’t mind the vegetables.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: I liked them. Look, I just instinctively knew that a lifetime of Twinkies was not the answer. Nobody had to tell me this. (interruption) Oh, that’s right. Oh. Let me tell you something. Oh, I’m glad you reminded me. My mother got so mad at me one day because I left some food. Our parents made us clean our plates. And the reason for that, they came from the Great Depression. Having food abundance was a genuine luxury. We were encouraged, the healthy thing to do was to eat what was provided for you. You didn’t know if you were gonna get any more the next time around or as much.

It’s a risky thing, and our parents constantly, one of the techniques they used, “You know, there are starving children in China right now. You clean your plate.” And I’ve always been a smart ass. And I said to my mother, “You mean to tell me that if I eat everything on this plate, that the starving children in China are gonna rub their stomachs and go, ‘Wow, do I feel good and full’?” And she just laid into me. Not physically, of course. “Don’t sass me. You don’t sass your mother.” She was secretly proud of it, but she only told me that later on.

But the mortgage business, it’s even worse than what you described, Mary. Those banks were under threat of government investigation if they didn’t make those loans, and it was all based on the premise that it wasn’t fair that some should have houses and others didn’t. The truth is, many of those loans were never intended to be repaid, except that’s a little bit of news they kept from the suckers who bought the mortgages, by virtue of what you just said, 14 bucks left after paying the mortgage? That’s not enough to live on. They were gonna float, not live and pay the mortgage, and that’s what happened. Hello, subprime crisis.

Now, for those of you, “What do you mean, Obamacare? What’s that got to do with eating, Rush?” It’s very, very simple. So they’re telling these food stamp people, let’s just pick one. Let’s say there’s a 32-year-old food stamp recipient out there, and Michelle Obama’s just hell-bent on this guy eating right for whatever reason. So she gives him a talking shopping cart and the shopping cart directs him to the stuff in the grocery store that doesn’t taste good. That’s what they want him to eat, that’s the definition from a kid’s standpoint, the healthy stuff is stuff that does not taste good. So he goes, but he doesn’t buy it. He continues to use his food stamps to buy what Michelle Obama would think is junk.

Well, the food stamp card records what he buys, and it goes into his permanent record. And 25 years later this same guy shows up at 400 pounds and needs lap band surgery to survive. So the Regime takes a look, “Okay, we gave this guy the chance. We gave him a talking shopping cart 30 years ago. We told him what to do to eat healthfully. He didn’t listen to us. We’re not gonna spend the money on his lap band. He’s on his own.” That’s how, folks, that’s how Obamacare, that’s how they’re going to force you to behave the way they want you to, ’cause they’re always gonna be able to dangle some benefit in front of you that they can deny you if you don’t live the right way.

If you don’t vote the right way, if you don’t whatever, there’s no end to this kind of tyranny. That’s why they want control of the health care system. Once they’ve got that, they can determine every aspect of life because there’s a cost component to getting well when you get sick. Mary, great call. I’m glad you called, and I thank you so much for your nice words.