White Potato Privilege

Those science-hating Republicans are at it again. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi says they “reject science, they ignore clear cut facts and evidence to betray the best interests of America's families while protecting special interests.”

And just who are those special interests? The fossil fuel industry? The Koch Brothers? Second Amendment supporters? Unlicensed lemonade stand operators?

Not this time.

I’m talking trouble with a capital “T,” and that rhymes with “P,” and that stands for Potatoes. The white variety, to be specific.

Yep, big spud. That pistol-shaped, unregistered tater gun-slinging red state is toast.

The evil right wingers want to modify an ag appropriations bill to actually (gasp) allow more white potatoes to be purchased by low-income families in the Women, Infants and Children program.

The unmitigated barbarism of these ignorant vegetable deniers knows no bounds.

Said the former carnival game mallet-like gavel-wielding House Speaker, “We are talking about fruit, vegetables, whole grains and the rest. And they have an amendment that said more white potatoes than nutritionists recommend. These assaults on essential nutritional standards are really hard to explain to anybody...”

Assaults on nutritional standards?

If you want an assault, try to survive a barrage from an improvised catapult after serving a typical child a plate of overcooked Brussels sprouts.

Newsflash, Mrs. Pelosi: mothers serve food to children that they will actually eat — and if you cook them right, you can do a lot worse than potatoes.

Pelosi’s anti-spud spew follows an op-ed piece in the New York Times by First Lady Michelle Obama on the same earthshaking issue, in which she lamely lambastes congress for trying to “override science,” saying, “The problem is that many women and children already consume enough potatoes and not enough of the nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables they need.”

She continued, “Congress shouldn’t even have the authority to decide what foods schools are serving. Experts should make those rules.”

Experts? Are they anything like the experts who have been paid some $5 billion to design and implement the clusterquack of government-mandated health insurance exchanges? Or maybe the experts in various solar energy companies who were given billions of dollars so a good number of them could go bankrupt (while the percentage of power the functioning sources provide to the U.S. still rounds to 0%)?

Here’s a brilliant idea: Mrs. Pelosi and Mrs. Obama should put their money where their mouths are. For one year, they should vow to eat nothing more than what students are allowed in a typical school lunch program that they foist on students.

If you insist that everyone else must live by the experts’ rules, you should have to live by them, too.

But I suspect that the pair of persnickety progressives wouldn’t last too long. Perhaps they, in the manner of Al Gore, would instead agree to pay indulgences — “broccoli balances” for every tamale Michelle snarfs, or “skim milk offsets” to compensate for Pelosi’s $100,000 Air Force jet benders — in order to assuage their consciences. 
 
As for the rest, let them eat kale.