How is a whale like a canary?

So I finally went and read the article about the sushi bar that got raided for serving up fillet o' Moby Dick. I made it about four paragraphs in before I nearly had a cerebral event...

Prosecutors charged Typhoon Restaurant Inc., the parent company of The Hump, and one of its chefs -- Kiyoshiro Yamamoto, 45 -- with the illegal sale of a marine mammal product for an unauthorized purpose.

While it is considered a delicacy in Japan and some other countries, meat from whale -- an endangered species -- is illegal to consume in the United States.

The misdemeanor charge carries a federal prison sentence of up to a year and a fine of up to $200,000 for the company, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

There is just so much wrong there that I don't even know where to begin.

1. The only hook the feds have on which to hang their hat here, assuming they still gave a rat's ass about the Constitution, is the commerce clause. Since the whale had presumably been involved in commerce with a foreign nation, it could have been contraband since I'd assume that no duties or tariffs had been paid for Willy.
2. Illegal to consume? Illegal to consume? You point out to me where in the Constitution that the federal government thinks it has any business telling people what they can or cannot "consume". Even during Prohibition it wasn't illegal to drink alcohol, you overreaching petty tyrants, and they at least had the common courtesy to amend the founding contract rather than just pull some BS new law out of their butts. What any citizen of this great nation chooses to stick in any orifice of their bodies is not even the slightest legitimate concern of the federal government. Mind your own business, you pin-headed pack of jumped-up Chamber of Commerce boosters and refugees from the back cover of the phone book. We sent you people to Washington to get you out of our hair, not to tell us what to put in our mouths.
3. A Federal misdemeanor? Really? You mean in between its legitimate functions like declaring war, signing treaties, hanging pirates, and establishing post roads, the Federal government has time to throw individual citizens of the sovereign states in the pokey for misdemeanors? And this makes sense to someone?

Jesus, what a mess we've made of this thing. It was such a neat little setup for a country we had and we have effed it up so thoroughly that the Federal government can put people in jail for eating meat from the wrong species. Jimmy, Alex, Ben, George, we broke it; we're sorry.


CORRECTION: Looks like I nearly had a cerebral hemorrhage this morning for nothing. Apparently neither the heavily fact-checked reporter nor their layers of editorial oversight at CNN has access to Google. The relevant portion of the U.S. Code is here: 16 U.S.C. § 1372. No mention of misdemeanors or eating. Given how ignorant they are about firearms and firearms law, I don't know why I expect them to be any better informed about any other topic.