This week's Washington Post story about the new assertiveness by federal agencies in charge of consumer protection had a decidedly Minnesota flavor. The Consumer Product Safety Commission shut down 200 swimming pools after an inspection sweep last month, enforcing a law passed after 6-year-old Abigail Taylor was mortally wounded by a dangerous pool drain in St. Louis Park in 2007. The story also noted the Food and Drug Administration's crackdown on Cheerios, that American breakfast icon made by Golden Valley-based General Mills. The marketing campaign touting the benefits to Cheerio-eaters' hearts and cholesterol levels went too far for the FDA's taste, leading the agency to threaten to regulate the breakfast O's as a drug if the company didn't stop, the Post reported. The cholesterol claim is gone.

It's all part of a greater scheme:

I suspect this will mean more business for Whistleblower, both from consumers and workers emboldened to speak out, and those who think the government crackdown goes too far.