Reality informs us that American students are fat (We're #1!) due, in part, to non-nutritional school lunches. But in the alternate reality of Fox's Outnumbered, #oneluckyguy Tucker Carlson and his right wing handmaidens see Michelle Obama's campaign to make school lunches healthier as - wait for it - a blatant power grab! 

In the real world, Michelle Obama's efforts to improve school lunches are applauded. But in Fox News' Obama hating alternate reality, this is seen as an affront to America. Last week, Outnumbered advanced this meme in a segment which began with Jedidiah Bila pontificating that "two new surveys could mean trouble for our nation's healthy school lunch program." She noted that one of the surveys shows that kids are throwing out the healthy fruits and vegetables and that the other survey showed that school districts are laying off workers to offset the cost of  "Michelle Obama's lunch rules." (As if Fox cares about laid off workers?) This being Fox News, she didn't identify the surveys.

Bila addressed Tucker Carlson who was heard guffawing in the background. She told Tucker that "this stuff drives me insane" because she once worked in schools and "the idea that they thought that they were just going to mandate that kids put these vegetables and fruits on their plates and somehow that was going to force them to eat it...the food has to taste good."

Carlson asked "who put Michelle Obama in charge of what my children eat" and whined that "it's too personal a decision for the president's wife to be making for the rest of us, it's imposed from on high like all their decisions and people resent the hell out of it even if objectively, maybe there's some good sense...but Michelle Obama shouldn't be involved."

Harris Faulker feigned outrage with her scripted follow up to Carlson's agitprop drop: "Who put her in charge of our food program." Bila kept the agitprop going with her response: "she did." Faulker feigned astonishment: "How is that possible, we didn't elect her." Carlson laughed as he provided affirmation: "Good point." Faulker shouted "that is so basic" and asked "how did the train get here."

Bila fulminated about "government bureaucrats making decisions, who is to say that they know anything." (Right, the USDA and government health specialists are just so stoopid.) Faulkner kept up the message with her quip about how her school department didn't send her kids home with a note saying "are you OK with Michelle Obama's food program" because then "I would understand where she got that power from." Throughout the segment, the banner reinforced the propaganda message that these nasty lunches are Michelle Obama's fault: "New Surveys Spell Trouble for Mrs. Obama's School Lunch Program."

This is a classic example of Fox lies and propaganda couched in a happy chat show format (think Fox & Friends). First of all, you didn't hear that the national PTA is pleased with the nutrition requirements and academic achievement has improved in some school districts since the new rules began. What you did hear, however, was the suggestion that Michelle Obama is some kind of school lunch czarina when the truth is that the school lunch requirements were SET BY CONGRESS with the bi-partisan passage of the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act that set standards which Michelle Obama, in her Let's Move campaign, advocated.

Despite what Fox is selling, FLOTUS did not "put herself" in charge of school lunches. But the suggestion that she did dovetails nicely with their Obama hating narrative. And you thought that Fox & Friends had cornered the market on bullshit!