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So anything that affects safety and welfare thereby affects interstate commerce, and can fall within the wide net of the commerce clause. That's why we've had commerce clause laws and cases about whether growing your own wheat is interstate commerce, whether being near a school with a gun is interstate commerce, whether rape is interstate commerce, whether partial birth abortion is interstate commerce, whether designing and building your own machine gun is interstate commerce, whether growing your own cannabis is interstate commerce, whether a certain California toad is interstate commerce, and on and on.

Few and defined powers, as Mr. Madison promised?

Well, one of them certainly seems to be the Swiss Army Knife of federal powers, giving Congress control over anything that Congress says affects interstate commerce. As O'Connor noted, the Court reduced Lopez to a drafting guide and gives the federal government control over, as you said, the safety and welfare of the citizenry.

Hey, isn't safety and welfare of the citizenry another way of saying the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State?

"So anything that affects safety and welfare thereby affects interstate commerce, and can fall within the wide net of the commerce clause."

No, not "anything". The courts have ruled that, "Congress can certainly regulate interstate commerce to the extent of forbidding and punishing the use of such commerce as an agency to promote immorality, dishonesty, or the spread of any evil or harm to the people of other States from the State of origin."

"Few and defined powers, as Mr. Madison promised?"

The Commerce Clause is but one of the powers granted to Congress. It's powerful, it has to be, but it is only one power.

"It is unnecessary to repeat what has frequently been said by this court with respect to the complete and paramount character of the power confided to Congress to regulate commerce among the several states. It is of the essence of this power that, where it exists, it dominates. Interstate trade was not left to be destroyed or impeded by the rivalries of local government. The purpose was to make impossible the recurrence of the evils which had overwhelmed the Confederation, and to provide the necessary basis of national unity by insuring 'uniformity of regulation against conflicting and discriminating state legislation."
-- Mr. Justice Hughes, The Shreveport Rate Cases (1914)

"Hey, isn't safety and welfare of the citizenry another way of saying the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State?"

Yes, but while safety and welfare is the role of the state, it is not the exclusive role of the state, especially when the threat to safety and welfare comes from without.

Congress says that wheat growing can "harm" the wheat market.

whether being near a school with a gun is interstate commerce,

Obviously "evil" - to congress.

whether rape is interstate commerce,

Rape harms, thus is evil, giving congress the power to control it twice.

whether partial birth abortion is interstate commerce,

Abortion is immoral, harms, and is evil, giving congress the power to control it three time over.

whether designing and building your own machine gun is interstate commerce,

Guns are evil, immoral, have the potential of harm, and, -- it is dishonest to claim anyone needs a machine gun. -- Four reasons for congressional control.

whether growing your own cannabis is interstate commerce, whether a certain California toad is interstate commerce, and on and on.

As we see, Congress has unlimited power to control immorality, dishonesty, evil or harm..
Long live the Republic!