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**Written by Doug Powers

And then the Health Police™ came for the cupcakes:

A child nutrition bill on its way to President Barack Obama — and championed by the first lady — gives the government power to limit school bake sales and other fundraisers that health advocates say sometimes replace wholesome meals in the lunchroom.

Republicans, notably Sarah Palin, and public school organizations decry the bill as an unnecessary intrusion on a common practice often used to raise money.

“This could be a real train wreck for school districts,” Lucy Gettman of the National School Boards Association said Friday, a day after the House cleared the bill. “The federal government should not be in the business of regulating this kind of activity at the local level.”

You know it’s bad when even the Associated Press is starting to sound like Charlton Heston with an oven mitt: Don’t Touch My Brownies!

Naturally, where there’s a call for more regulation, there will be the inevitable call for more regulators. This law will no doubt “save or create” countless “Brownie Law Compliance Officer” union jobs.

And here’s your Sunday head-scratcher:

The language is broad enough that a president’s administration could even ban bake sales, but Secretary Tom Vilsack signaled in a letter to House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., this week that he does not intend to do that.

If they don’t intend do it, why put the language in there?

What they’re really well on the road to banning is parents and parental authority — “junk food” is just the chosen path to do so.

The bake sale regulators, led by Michelle Obama, tell us, in part, that obesity is a threat to the US economy (if FLOTUS wants to see a threat to the US economy, all she needs to do is convene a meeting of leading Democrats and her husband’s economic advisers).

The reasoning of course is alleged concern for the future of our children. Last month, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin drew attention to how obesity is a threat to the future work force:

Childhood obesity is more than a public health issue, says U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin. It’s endangering the country’s future work force.
[...]
“If kids are having high blood pressure or heart disease when they’re 19 or 20 years old, you’re not going to have a work force out there,” Benjamin said. “All the studies that show kids perform better when they exercise … That’s the work force you want.”

Don’t worry though, kids, because if you can’t exercise and keep fit, there’s always the “Surgeon General” career option:

What’s next for schools? Lindsay Lohan in charge of the DARE program?

(h/t Doug Ross)

**Written by Doug Powers

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