department of agriculture

Chris Knight's avatar

Please tell me that isn’t a soybean that Michelle Obama is extolling the virtues of in that photo.

The current First Lady has somehow become the nation’s Food Czar, with a capacity of recommending, implementing and apparently enforcing her own policies on the country. No other First Lady has enjoyed such power. Not even the much-beloved Nancy Reagan, who channeled the massive respect given her toward no less a gesture than encouraging America’s children to steer clear of drug abuse, was granted such authority to wield.

Michelle Obama, however, is hellbent on imposing her own whacked nutritional vision upon the children of those who “just said no”.

Michelle Obama has directed the United States Department of Agriculture to mandate school lunches that can best be described as “skimpy” and “lacking”. Not to mention downright unpalatable. The government is determined to limit elementary kids to 650 calories and high schoolers to ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

How in Heaven’s name did we make it this far without the Food Police?

I mean, I remember going to school every day with a lunchbox packed with a sandwich, a small bag of potato chips, a thermos of lemonade and sometimes a brownie or slice of cake. Around the holidays Mom would also usually throw in a bag of Chex snack mix (we’ve always called it “trash” because “there’s all kinds of good junk in it!). So did millions of other children around the country. And we certainly didn’t seem to suffer from malnutrition, rickets or plague.

In 2012 however, those individually-prepared meals packed with love would almost certainly have had our parents taken away in handcuffs by Department of Social Services. That seems to be the general direction we’re headed according to this story from Carolina Journal Online, which reports on government run amok in the schools ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Late last night this blog joined numerous other outlets in reporting that the Obama Administration was set to impose a 15-cent tax on all freshly cut Christmas trees. You can read that initial post for more information, including some stuff I came across during a bit o’ investigatin’ (I’m still curious as to who the heck the people behind “Christmas Tree Promotion Now” are…)

Looks like Obama and gang got the message: the tax is being put on hold. But not without some snide commentary from the White House…

White House spokesman Matt Lehrich told ABC News that despite some media coverage, “I can tell you unequivocally that the Obama Administration is not taxing Christmas trees. What’s being talked about here is an industry group deciding to impose fees on itself to fund a promotional campaign, similar to how the dairy producers have created the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign.”

Nonetheless,

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Chris Knight's avatar

This is not satire and it’s not from The Onion. I already checked and it’s true…

President Barack Obama’s administration is trying to impose a 15-cent “Christmas Tree tax” on all freshly-cut trees intended for Yuletide celebration. Fifteen cents on the sale of every tree to… get this now… “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States.”

Okay, two things that already stick out in this blogger’s mind: that this is a tax without any representation or due process, regardless of what the administration is arguing. Indeed, within the text of the “order” issued by the Department of Agriculture it is found that “…the assessment provided for in this type of program is not a tax nor does it yield revenue for the Federal government. These producer and importers funds raised by producers and importers are for the benefit of producers ...

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