Mother Michelle Speaks to Her / Our Children

WASHINGTON, D.C. – First Lady Michelle Obama took to the airwaves Friday in a Channel One interview beamed into thousands of school classrooms to an estimated 5 million students across America.
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According to a transcript provided on the Channel One website, Obama said, “I know kids are grumbling because they have to make changes. Trust me, my kids roll their eyes at me every time I tell them ‘you know you don’t have to finish your diner, but you have to finish your vegetables.’ But I know that I’m doing it because I’m giving my kids the best that I know I can give them.”
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The First Lady made it clear she’s not backing down: “Don’t be mad because there are changes. Figure out why the changes are important, and then find out how you make it work for you.” 
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You know, my kids like broccoli, celery, carrots – those kind of vegetables that have a little flavor, sweetness to it. And I would encourage kids to go over to those salad bars and just try a mixture of things, because sometimes if you mix a bunch of things up and you chop it up, the whole combination sounds pretty good.

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In fact, the Channel One anchor, Maggie Rulli, pointed student viewers to her blog, where they would see some “first-lady-inspired lunches.”
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“Look, I wouldn’t want to eat a nasty lunch either. Quite frankly, no one wants to eat bad food,” Obama said in the interview.
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Sure, I know that there are more pressing issues facing the Nation today, but could we please spend a moment; one solitary moment, speaking on behalf of the children?  
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• The children who are looking CHOICE.  
• The children who are looking for FREEDOM.  
• The children who are looking for a Hot Dog, Macaroni and Cheese, a dollop of Apple Sauce, and a pint of Chocolate Milk.

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We learned a few weeks ago that school fundraising efforts are being monitored by alert State employees intent on adhering to stringent FLOTUS guidelines regarding the type and number of 'unhealthy choices' bake sales a school can have.  
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Sure, the elimination of bake sales, cookie sales, and spaghetti dinners will put additional financial burdens on schools trying to figure out how to fund new uniforms for the Football Team, the Golf Squad, the field hockey team, and the High School Marching Band, but given that the kids will be too weak and frail to participate in athletics, or to carry instruments in musical programs - they won't need those new uniforms after all!  
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Turn that frown upside down!!!
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Hey kid, knock it off, you're bumming me out...

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So, how are students around the country responding to the new, healthy alternatives inflicted upon them by the un-elected spouse of the President of the United States?
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BREITBART.COM:   Michelle Obama's School Lunch Program: $4 Million of Food Thrown in Trash Each Day.
"We don't want to have the most nutritious waste basket in the state or the country."
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An investigative report by a Cincinnati TV station finds that the government's new school lunch requirements championed by First Lady Michelle Obama are wasting $4 million a day in discarded food that children won't eat.
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The National School Lunch Program feeds upwards to 31 million American students a day, spending nearly $12 billion annually, but many of those children are throwing away the vegetables, fruits, and snacks forced on them by the new federal nutrition standards.
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A new Harvard study of the program, WCPO Channel 9 reported, "shows that 60 percent of fresh vegetables and 40 percent of fresh fruit are being thrown away."
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"And a recent study released by the National School Nutrition Association found 81.2 percent of schools surveyed indicated an increase in the amount of food being thrown away by students since the new nutrition standards went into effect two years ago," the televised report continued.
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Nearly 600 school districts have already dropped out of the First Lady's lunch program, Fort Thomas Independent Schools in Northern Kentucky being one of them.
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Fort Thomas School Superintendent Gene Kirchner pointed out that if the program is resulting in so much waste, then it is not very effective. "I have to think that across the country, it has to be a staggering amount of food going to waste, and I think there are people out there who could really use that food," he said.
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In fact, according to one government study, over one million kids across the country have stopped eating lunch altogether after the new standards were imposed on their schools.

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Welcome to the Obama's Fundamentally-Transformed America - yeah, it's how we roll...

Without the butter.
 

From My Cold Dead (and Sticky) Hands

"Hey kid, you'll put that sign down if you know what's good for you..."

As the summer of 2014 inches inexorably towards fall, children across America have one more reason to dread returning to their local 'Temple of Pure Thought'...  The Great American Bake Sale, the lone redeeming feature of the US Educational System, like so much else we knew (and in my case, 'LOVED') in elementary / high school is under attack.

But don't be alarmed, it's for the good of the children.

  
August 1, 2014 Wall Street Journal Online:  Put Down the Cupcake: New Ban Hits School Bake Sales
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Campus bake sales—a mainstay of school fundraisers—are going on a diet. A federal law that aims to curb childhood obesity means that, in dozens of states, bake sales must adhere to nutrition requirements that could replace cupcakes and brownies with fruit cups and granola bars.
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The restrictions that took effect in July stem from the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by first lady Michelle Obama and her "Let's Move!" campaign. The law overhauled nutrition standards affecting more than 30 million children.
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The law also required the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set standards for all food and beverages sold during the school day, which includes vending machines, snack carts and daytime fundraisers. It allowed for "infrequent" fundraisers, and states were allowed to decide how many bake sales they would have that didn't meet nutrition standards.
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Without state-approved exemptions, any treats sold would have to meet calorie, sodium, fat and other requirements. The law permits states to fine schools that don't comply.
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Tennessee will allow schools to sell food items that tip the federal scales for 30 days each year.
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"Schools have relied on these types of sales as revenue streams for sports, cheering clubs, marching bands," said David Sevier, deputy executive director of the Tennessee Board of Education. "We get the obesity issue, but we don't want to jerk this out from under the kids."
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In advance of the law, some schools had already banned students from a near-sacred activity: setting up tables to sell boxes of Girl Scout cookies during the day. There are also those that have replaced food-centric fundraisers with calorie-free events such as wrapping-paper sales, pie-throwing events and bowl-a-thons. Others have prohibited homemade fare in favor of processed items where the nutritional information is calculated and displayed.
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"Some don't follow the spirit and set up bake sales right after the bell rings," said Christine Jovanovic, of Austin, who is a member of the parent-teacher association at Canyon Vista Middle School and Westwood High School.
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The result of the new requirements may be more processed-food products.
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"We use prepackaged food because it has to have nutritional requirements posted," said Keli Gill, president-elect of the Arkansas PTA, where the state has had nutrition standards for bake sales for a few years. "Items like apples are perishable and don't last as long, so we don't want to waste money and have it go bad on us."

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Yes, your Federal Government is looking out for your kids, because it (the Federal Government) loves them so much more than you do...
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A couple of questions spring to mind.  Questions for which I would really appreciate some answers from Michelle Obama and the Federal Government in general:
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1. Schools have replaced bake sales with 'non-food-centric-events' such as Pie Tossing (last time I looked, I'm pretty sure that a PIE was 'some sort of food'), wrapping paper sales (Oops, wouldn't some wrapping paper feature a 'Jolly Old Elf' celebrating Christmas?!?!  Since when does the Federal Government support religious events?) and 'Bowl-A-Thons' (quick question, has anyone ELSE been to a bowling alley lately?  Don't they serve alcohol to overweight, slovenly adults AND sell extremely unhealthy food from that grease-laden snack bar they've got set up there?  So it's okay to put kids in an environment where people are drinking AND eating junk food at a school-sponsored event, just so long as you don't do it on school property?  What's up next, Sex Education classes taught by 'professionals' in stiletto heels, tear-away clothing, and women (and men?) sporting 'safe-sex-themed'...  'Tramp Stamps'?)
2. Bake sales are OKAY, as long as they happen after school hours?  Calories do not COUNT after the bell rings?  Knowing this, I'll be installing a portable bell at my dinner table and ring it just before jumping into the Apple Pie a la mode.
3. The legislation may result in more 'Pre-Packaged Food' being sold at school?  Yes, why would you want freshly-baked goods when you can purchase something which was belched out of a factory conveyor line roughly 22 months ago?  So it's more important to buy food with a Federally-recognized 'label' (and BONUS! chocked full of preservatives), than it is to buy something which was flour, eggs, and sugar yesterday in some Mom or Dad's home kitchen?  So Twinkies (with a shelf-life of the half life of Plutonium) are preferable to my Mom's brownies?  Thanks, but, um, no thanks.
4. Items which are perishable (like apples) are a waste of money because they don't last 'long enough to sell'?  Hey lady, it's a BAKE SALE, not a freaking FARM STAND!  If a kid WANTS an apple, they can get it courtesy of the First Lady's horrific school lunch program - cut these kids a break and let them buy something BAKED in the oven if they choose to.  If kids are not smart enough to eat well, perhaps their parents (which you people educated) aren't smart enough to have kids in the first place).  Come to think of it, this explains...  A lot.

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 Okay, here's the deal, I know there's a lot going on in the World lately.  I also know that 'Banning Bake Sales' is NOT the end of the World.  But I know that whenever Freedom is taken away ('bite-by-small-bite') the World which I knew growing up...  Will never be quite the same.
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One last question for you before I need to get out to work:  How does eliminating Bake Sales which raise money for school Marching Bands, Soccer Teams, Baseball Teams, and other after school activities make kids healthier?  Each extra-curricular event encourages kids to be involved with other kids, keeps them motivated, keeps them moving, and, unless I'm missing something, keeps them healthier than if they were sitting at home eating a bag of 22-month old Doritos while watching YouTube videos of idiots on skateboards.
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Without the external funding (from bake sales and other fund raisers), these programs are diminished, AND without additional financial support will...  Die.  
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So either one of two things are happening:
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1. Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move' Campaign is just another means to and end in increasing demands on state and federal government, or,
2. It is merely a means of teaching 'your kids' to 'comply' with whatever onerous legislation is passed for 'their kids' (the worst-case scenario, is, of course, that the intended result of this legislation is meant to cause both)

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Like I said before, Freedom doesn't disappear in a single bite, it's gnawed away while you're looking elsewhere.  You know, like when you're watching a flagging Economy, seeing more than 50% of the US population on Federal Support, the Immigration debacle, Russia's annexation of the Ukraine, or perhaps if you're looking to a far-away country where our Vacationer-In-Chief left an unprepared people to fend for themselves and is now investing resources to a job which he left unfinished in the first place.
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Never lose sight of the bigger (and smaller) pictures, for they all tell a similar story.  The only question remaining, of course, is...  
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How will the story end?
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Mean Mrs. Mustard

#BringBackErucaVesicariaSativa

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POLITICO, July 19, 2014:  First lady goes on offensive at ‘Kids’ State Dinner’
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First lady Michelle Obama used a White House lunch honoring the pint-size winners of a national recipe contest to send a clear message to Congress on Friday: Healthy school lunch reforms are here to stay.
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The first lady called out the “grown-ups” in Congress, who she said are “trying to undo some of the progress we’ve made,” and delivered her sharpest remarks yet on the food industry.
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“There’s a lot of money involved in feeding our kids at school,” Mrs. Obama said, surrounded by schoolchildren from all 50 states at the third annual “Kids’ State Dinner” in the East Room. “We are currently spending $10 billion a year on our school lunch program…so it’s not surprising that certain interests are resisting change and trying to take us back to the old way of doing business, because for them there’s a lot of money on the line.”

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(Moos Note:  Sure, why wouldn't FLOTUS take the opportunity to morph a kid's cooking celebration into a crass political attack-the-attackers-of-'change'-event?  We can't do anything about the border, fixing ObamaCare, Gaza, Iran, or the Ukraine.  Gut gosh darn it, we're going to get these kids up to speed on these 'certain interests' who 'resist change and are trying to take us back to the old way of doing business' back to when I would have been a slave, and when a Republican President FREED the slaves, and OOPS, hold on kids, that's not what I meant!)
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Mrs. Obama’s comments come as the Obama administration wages a battle against House Republicans and the School Nutrition Association (SNA), which have teamed up to relax many of the changes mandated by the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, a bipartisan law championed by the first lady.
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The remarks echo those she made last month to “fight until the bitter end to make sure that every kid in this country continues to have the best nutrition that they can have in our schools.”

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President Barack Obama made an appearance at Friday’s lunch and briefly talked about the importance of healthy eating, revealing some of the first family’s guilty pleasures in the process.
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“Each of us have our weaknesses,” the president said. For Malia it’s ice cream, for Sasha it’s sushi and for the first lady it’s French fries. “My big thing: chips and guacamole,” he said. “If there’s a good bowl of chips and guacamole, I lose my mind.”  

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(Moos Note:  Who knew they were serving 'All Mexican All The Time' at the White House during the past six years???)

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The president, who had just come from a briefing on the situation in Ukraine, did not address the politics of the school nutrition fight.  

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(Moos Note:  I find it odd that even on the issue of 'School Nutrition', the President of the United States chooses to lead from (Michelle's) behind.)

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In a related story, kids are taking to Social Media to tell the President (and her husband) exactly what they think of their new meal programs.  If these kids grow up to vote (assuming the food doesn't KILL them), the Democrats are in BIG trouble.  

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Warning:  The following posts include foul language, graphic depictions of nasty food, and a sense of reality reserved exclusively for the 'young'.  

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Bottom line is that I didn't write the comments which follow, 'They' (young Democrats) did.  Good boys and girls, YOU are the future of this country, go out and grab yourself a McRib or something...

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For more about TWEETS about Michelle's Meal Plan, visit:  Twitchy.com
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The good news is that these kids are learning about Progressive Democrats early in life.  You screw with 'lunch', you screw with the kid.  And kids of a certain age have a very long memory. 

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The bad news is that each of the above Twitter ID's is now scheduled for IRS audit once they file their first tax return.

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Good luck kids...   

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Poor little sprouts...

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