Reasons To Be Cheerful, Reasons To Be Miserable... In The Age Of Trump

Christopher Ingraham wrote up a Gallup polling report for the Washington Post that shows "the Trump era has ushered in the largest happiness gap between white and nonwhite Americans in nearly two decades. More than 90 percent of white Americans," wrote Ingraham, "say they are 'very' or 'fairly' happy these days, a number that has held steady since the early 2000s. Seventy-seven percent of nonwhites can say the same, which is 11 percentage points lower than the last time Gallup posed the question, early in the Obama years."

For most of the past two decades, whites and nonwhites were generally a few points apart on happiness. That briefly changed around 2005, when the federal government’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was interpreted by many black Americans as a sign of institutional racism. That year, nonwhites were 10 percentage points less likely to report being happy than whites. But today’s 14-point gap is even larger.

Looks like someone has a reason too be cheerful

Record nonwhite discontent in the era of a president who weaponizes racial resentment may not come as a particular surprise. In 2018, nearly half of American Latinos said their circumstances had worsened in the first year of the Trump administration. Last summer, 80 percent of black Americans and 55 percent of Hispanics told Quinnipiac they consider Trump a racist. The Trump era also has coincided with a surge in hate crimes, particularly against Hispanics.

The relative unhappiness of nonwhites has driven the overall level of American happiness to its lowest level in more than a half-century of polling. Overall, Gallup reports, 86 percent of Americans report being “somewhat” or “fairly” happy, marking the fifth time happiness has fallen below 90 percent in 23 readings since 1948. The share who say they’re “not too happy” has more than doubled since 2007.

Previous Gallup research has found that Americans have grown more stressed, worried and angry during the Trump era. Last year. the United Nations’ seventh World Happiness Report found the United States ranked 19th in the world for happiness, a slide of five places relative to 2017.

Letter of the week. Note the cc

The growing gloominess is at odds with many of the most closely watched economic indicators: U.S. stocks continue to break their own record highs; unemployment hovers near 50-year lows; and the United States is in the midst of its longest economic expansion in history.

For a time, many economists and policymakers assumed the top-line numbers could serve as a rough proxy for quality of life in America. This assumption made a fair amount of sense in the era of shared prosperity in the middle of the last century. Employee wages kept pace with shareholder profits. The necessities of life-- a decent home, a quality education, good medical care-- were more or less affordable for workers in the middle of the income distribution.

But in the past few decades, more and more of the economy’s spoils have flowed to the already wealthy, leaving less for everyone else. A surging stock market doesn’t mean much to the more than 50 percent of Americans who own no stocks. Unemployment may be low, but many workers find themselves stuck in low-paying jobs that don’t cover basic necessities.

Who will this make happier (other than KKK members)? The Trumpist Regime decided to celebrate Michelle Obama's birthday yesterday by substituting pizza and french fries for fresh vegetables in school menus. "The U.S. Department of Agriculture has taken another whack at former first lady Michelle Obama’s signature achievement: Establishing stricter nutritional standards for school breakfasts and lunches. And on her birthday. USDA Deputy Under Secretary Brandon Lipps announced new proposed rules for the Food and Nutrition Service that would allow schools to cut the amount of vegetables and fruits required at lunch and breakfasts while giving them the ability to sell more pizza, burgers and fries to students." Trump campaign contributors in the junk food industry were giddy at the prospect of millions more in profits while nutritionists and public health specialists condemned the move.

A savvy Democrat in Congress told me in a private conversation about a post of mine we were discussing last night that in 2016 "Trump won the Republican primary primarily on name-recognition, which is what 'low information' voters rely on. (Same thing with Biden now.) Trump 'won' the general election, though, on the basis of a well-informed choice between two major candidates who both had 100% name-ID. In that case, surprisingly few people voted for either candidate; the great majority of the votes were against one or the other.'None of the above' would have won in a landslide. So you really can’t put that one on the low-information voter. At this point, I think that it’s a competitive race largely because Trump does have a huge name-ID advantage. But in the general election, he’s almost certainly the candidate who most people will hate more, no matter whom the Democrats put up. The more worrisome things to me is that we ought to be able to get ourselves out of this lesser-of-two-evils thing now, but we can’t, because no one believes-- or cares about-- a damn thing we are saying. They care a lot more about some crazy 'caravan' thing that never even reaches the border (much less where they live) than they do about the cost of health insurance, or anything else that Democrats claim we can help with.  Basically, everyone on both sides is obsessed with what’s going to be taken away from them-- guns, the right to an abortion, whatever--because they absolutely don’t believe that anyone could possibly make things better."

Except Bernie: someone to believe in. Look at this tweet from Doctors For Bernie. They're bringing up something that is very real and very present in the lives of millions of people, if not about student debt, then medical debt or housing insecurity or endless wars or-- for younger people-- the Climate Crisis:

Now listen to this Rod Stewart classic (basically, classic for people in their 60s and 70s, Biden and Trump supporters):





This week Emerson released a new poll of New Hampshire Democratic voters, showing how Bernie has been surging and is now clearly in first place at 23% compared to 18% for Mayo Pete and 14% each for Status Quo Joe and Elizabeth Warren. To rationalize Bernie's dominance, they write it off to the kids, "defining young voters" as anyone under 50. Poll director Spencer Kimball wrote that "Looking at ideology, Sanders leads with voters who describe themselves as 'very liberal' with 34%, followed by Warren with 29%, Buttigieg with 18%, Yang with 8% and Biden with 5%. Among voters who describe themselves as 'somewhat liberal,' Sanders continues to lead with 26%, followed by Buttigieg with 21%, Warren with 15%, Biden with 13% and Klobuchar with 12%. And among voters who describe themselves as 'moderate' or 'conservative,' Biden leads with 18%, followed by Buttigieg with 16%, Sanders with 15%, Klobuchar with 12%, and Steyer with 8%."

New Hampshire Democrats say that healthcare is the most important issue and those people overwhelmingly back Bernie (35%) followed by a distant Mayo Pete (19%) and Status Quo Joe (17%). Among voters who say the economy is the most important issue, Bernie also leads. He gets 23% of that group, compared to 20% for Elizabeth Warren and Mayo Pete at 17%, followed by Status Quo Joe at 17%.

The national Ipsos poll that came out this week for Reuters doesn't seem to show a lot of shiny, happy people as far as I can see. 58% of registered voters say the country is headed in the wrong direction-- and that shoots up to 81% among registered Democrats.

Among registered voters, Trump's job approval is just 38% and his job disapproval is 56% (and 55% among Independent voters). 45% say Trump should be removed from office, 14% say he should be censured and 31% say charges against him should be dismissed. This doesn't sound like a cohort of people who can possibly he happy, at least not when they watch the evening news, regardless of channel. And now a version of all this from the wild fringes of the far, far right:

You Might Be A Republican If... You Think First Graders Should Scrub Toilets If They Wants To Eat Lunch

My friend-- and favorite chef-- Michael Voltaggio, got his start cooking at the elegant, world-famous Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Though both Huntington, which sits in the middle of Appalachia, where Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia meet on the other side of the state, and White Sulphur Springs in Greenbrier County are in Nick Rahall's 3rd congressional district, the area is by no means progressive or Democratic, although it certainly used to be. Greenbrier County is now represented in the West Virginia House of Delegates by a reactionary Republican, Ray Canterbury, who astounded even other Republicans this week. And all he did was make a speech completely consistent with the most basic and fundamental Republican/conservative philosophy, namely that the rich earned their money and they shouldn't have to pay for the well-being of poor people and their children.

Like the U.S., India has passed laws to prevent children working in coal mines. But in India tens of thousands of children, in the 12-15 age group, still do, often in atrociously unsafe conditions. Delegate Canterbury wasn't advocating-- at least not in that speech-- to repeal child labor laws... but then again, he was advocating making first graders clean toilets if they don't want to starve. It all started with a bill to combat childhood hunger in West Virginia.

Some Republican lawmakers said the free-meals-in-schools program would send a bad message to kids about personal responsibility, while Democrats argued there's a moral imperative to feed hungry students.

Delegate Canterbury hasn't missed many meals

Delegate Ray Canterbury, R-Greenbrier, predicted the program could set up children for failure, "destroying their work ethic" and "showing them there's an easy way." Canterbury suggested that students "work for their lunches" by mowing lawns and taking out trash at schools.

Delegate Meshea Poore, D-Kanawha, said Republicans were trying to mislead people about the bill.

"I'm offended anybody in this body would dare say a child has to work for their meals," Poore said. "I can't believe someone would say a first-grader, a second-grader... a fifth-grader has to labor before they eat. This isn't an entitlement bill."

...The bill would make free breakfasts and lunches available to every student in public schools, pre-kindergarten through the 12th-grade. West Virginia would become the first state in the nation to enact such a program... The bill would establish nonprofit foundations that would raise money to help pay for the free meals. Now, only low-income children get free and discounted lunches and breakfasts at school.

"Kids can't learn if they're hungry," said House Majority Leader Brent Boggs, D-Braxton.

...Delegate Michael Folk, R-Berkeley, said churches and food pantries already have programs that feed poor people, and schools already provide free meals to students.

"There's already a safety net on the government level: It's called free and reduced lunch," Folk said. "It's not whether we think we should feed children; it's about whether we think the government should be the sole provider of food."

The bill passed 89-9. So only 9 Republicans had the courage of their reactionary, Darwinish/Dickensian convictions. I wonder why Republicans didn't ask that the first graders from poor families work for their textbooks too. Canterbury: "I think it would be a good idea if perhaps we had the kids work for their lunches: trash to be taken out, hallways to be swept, lawns to be mowed, make them earn it. If they miss a lunch or they miss a meal they might not, in that class that afternoon, learn to add, they may not learn to diagram a sentence, but they'll learn a more important lesson." I guess he had been inspired by Newt Gingrich's remarks about how poor children should clean school toilets and work as janitors if they want to be educated. I wonder how all this fits in with that Republican rebranding thing RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is supposed to be working on.

Michelle Obama vs The Hopelessly Rotund Republican Caucus

Grotesquely rotund Republicans like James Sensenbrenner (R-WI, 375 lbs) and Rush Limbaugh get hysterical about Michelle Obama's anti-obesity campaign. They take it very personally... although they call it something different. They call it socialism or something absurd like that. Undermining American school children by wanting schools to offer healthy alternatives! Imagine! Now we don't just have a Republican War on Education; we have a Republican War on Healthy School Lunches.

Something tells me right-wing fatties like Sensenbrenner and Limbaugh will be pissed off at CREDO Action's new campaign-- but that the First Lady will be pleased by it.

So-called pink slime is a beef-like product created by grinding together connective tissue and beef scraps normally used in dog food, and treated with ammonia hydroxide to kill salmonella and E. coli.

It is "not meat" according to a 35-year veteran USDA microbiologist, and was recently rejected by the likes of McDonalds, Taco Bell and Burger King.

So it's pretty disturbing that the USDA continues feeding this stuff to kids, and plans to buy seven million pounds of it for school lunches.

Tell the USDA: Stop putting pink slime "Lean Beef Trimmings" in kids' school lunches.

In an all too familiar story, despite concerns raised by USDA inspectors and minimal safety inspections, the USDA approval of Beef Products Incorporated's "Lean Beef Trimmings" was pushed through by USDA undersecretary JoAnne Smith, a George H.W. Bush appointee and former president of the National Cattleman's Association.

The USDA allows beef products like hamburgers to contain up to 15% of the Ammonia-treated, meat-ish stuff, but inadequate labeling requirements prevent parents from knowing if it's included in the meat being served at their kids' school.

Tell the USDA: Don't buy any more pink slime for school lunches.

Aside from the lack of nutritional value, pink slime raises a number of health and safety concerns. The New York Times exposed in 2009 that despite being treated with ammonia, three E. coli contaminations and four dozen salmonella contaminations occurred between 2005 and 2009, during which time school lunch officials three times temporarily banned hamburger makers from using pink slime from one facility in Kansas.

Ammonium hydroxide is itself of course harmful to eat, and can potentially turn into ammonium nitrate, a common ingredient in home made explosives.

Kids need nutritious food to be able to learn in school, and many of the tens of millions of kids who rely on school lunches come from low income families where they are less likely to get a healthy diet. While pink slime is a nutritionally inferior and potentially risky product, the school lunch program saves only three cents per pound of ground beef by continuing to put this filler in kids hamburgers.

Over the past few months, numerous fast-food chains have rejected the product and say they no longer use it. School lunch officials should clearly follow suit.

There are a number of excellent and dedicated doctors running for Congress this year and one of the best and brightest is David Gill (IL-13), who's in a tight primary race with some conservative schlemiel. Dr. Gill is very concerned with children's nutrition and with the crap kids are getting in school. "As an E.R. doctor," he told me this morning, "I've cared for children critically ill from the diarrhea caused by E. coli and salmonella. It's an agonizing illness, and the federal officials who permit this type of 'food' to be served to our children should have been dismissed from their positions long ago. This is yet one more glaring example of what happens when we turn our government over to representatives who are funded by Corporate America. I'm proud that in my Congressional campaign, I refuse to accept a single penny from the corporations and Wall Street banks that are rotting our democracy from the inside out." Sound like your kind of candidate? Please help him win his primary here at our Blue America page. (At the bottom of this post I embedded Dr. Gill's new radio ad. It goes right to the real problem here: a bribed Congress. Give it a listen.

Meanwhile, gluttonous Republicans keep attacking Mrs. Obama for being a Stalinist or Hitler or whatever nonsense pops into their heads. This week she did an interview with Topanga Sena, age 11, a reporter for Scholastic News in Florida.



Uh oh... now she wants to focus on physical fitness-- and moving-- another enemy of the Limbaugh-Sensenbrenner set.

“‘Let’s Move!’ is not about having government tell people what to do, because government doesn't have all the answers. A problem that's this big and affects so many people requires everyone to step up. So we're asking everyone to step up.”

She can probably count on Sensenbrenner for the part about eating french fries everyday.

She added that she loves french fries. “I wish I could eat french fries every single day,” she said. Some conservative pundits have specifically singled out french fries as a food they say Obama’s nutrition campaign would ban.

One of the accomplishments Obama celebrated with her second anniversary tour was the USDA’s new school meal regulations, implemented in January 2012, which seek to ensure public schools serve more fruits, vegetables and whole grains and less sodium, saturated fat and trans fats. According to the White House, the new mandatory standards for federally subsidized school lunch programs are the first major changes in school meal regulations in over 15 years. Republicans in Congress recently pushed back against the new regulations by attempting to drop them from a 2012 spending bill.

The first lady explained that the “Let’s Move!” program is an attempt to make sure government does “its part" to support others' choices.

“Parents have to make some changes at home, you know, but they need the information to be able to make those choices, and they have to have access to affordable foods in their communities, fresh and healthy foods. We need government to do its part, but we need businesses to do their part as well,” she explained. “If we're going to solve this problem, we need everyone to step up. And there's no one solution. … People have to figure out what works best for their family, their budget, their lifestyle, their community."

The first lady launched the anti-obesity initiative in February 2010. In the interview, she touted the support she’s seen from community centers such as the YMCA and YWCAs, Girl Scouts, childcare facilities, the video game industry and faith communities.

I Wonder Why No One Is Asking Herman Cain If Pizza Should Be Counted As A Vegetable For School Children From Poor Families

Thursday evening we looked at the Republicans' and their Blue Dog allies' decision to declare pizza a vegetable for school children. While Twittery wags are wondering when conservatives will also declare pepper spray a vegetable, Boulder Congressman Jared Polis pointed out, in a more serious light, that "Forcing taxpayers to subsidize unhealthy foods is absurd. The potato industry got legislators to include French fries as vegetables, and once the door was open the pizza industry jumped in and got pizza to count as a vegetable. What's next? Are twinkles vegetables too?" And, as A.P. reported, "Who needs leafy greens and carrots when pizza and french fries will do?"

The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year. These include limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line, putting new restrictions on sodium and boosting the use of whole grains. The legislation would block or delay all of those efforts.

The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. USDA had wanted to only count a half-cup of tomato paste or more as a vegetable, and a serving of pizza has less than that.

Nutritionists say the whole effort is reminiscent of the Reagan administration's much-ridiculed attempt 30 years ago to classify ketchup as a vegetable to cut costs. This time around, food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers requested the changes and lobbied Congress.

School meals that are subsidized by the federal government must include a certain amount of vegetables, and USDA's proposal could have pushed pizza-makers and potato growers out of the school lunch business.

Piling on to the companies' opposition, some conservatives argue that the federal government shouldn't tell children what to eat. In a summary of the bill, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee said the changes would "prevent overly burdensome and costly regulations and ...provide greater flexibility for local school districts to improve the nutritional quality of meals."

Providing "greater flexibility for local school districts to improve the nutritional quality of meals" is the last thing conservative shills for AgriBusiness have on their larcenous minds. They're being paid off-- and paid off very handsomely-- to wreck the USDA regulations. USDA spokeswoman Courtney Rowe told the press that "While it's unfortunate that some members of Congress continue to put special interests ahead of the health of America's children, USDA remains committed to practical, science-based standards for school meals."

Nutrition advocate Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said Congress's proposed changes will keep schools from serving a wider array of vegetables. Children already get enough pizza and potatoes, she says. It also would slow efforts to make pizzas-- a longtime standby on school lunch lines-- healthier, with whole grain crusts and lower sodium levels.
"They are making sure that two of the biggest problems in the school lunch program, pizza and french fries, are untouched," she said.

A group of retired generals advocating for healthier school lunches also criticized the spending bill. The group, called Mission: Readiness, has called poor nutrition in school lunches a national security issue because obesity is the leading medical disqualifier for military service.

"We are outraged that Congress is seriously considering language that would effectively categorize pizza as a vegetable in the school lunch program," Amy Dawson Taggart, the director of the group, said in a letter to lawmakers before the final bill was released. "It doesn't take an advanced degree in nutrition to call this a national disgrace."

One of the worst of the K Street lobbyists pushing Congress in this direction, John Bode, has donated over $100,000 of his own money to some of the most corrupt conservatives in Congress-- only to Republicans. Bode has donated heavily to right-wing PACs and to money-grubbing anti-regulatory fanatics like Saxby Chambliss (R-GA, a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee), Frank Lucas (R-OK, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA, vice-chairman of the House Agriculture Committee), John Boehner (R-OH), as well as to Agriculture Committee members who are notorious for taking bribes from lobbyists-- Reid Ribble (R-WI), Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), Tim Huelskamp (R-AR), Bob Gibbs (R-OH), Rick Crawford (R-AR), Renee Ellmers (R-NC), Austin Scott (R-GA), Bobby Schilling (R-IL), Scott Tipton (R-CO), Steve Southerland (R-FL), Martha Roby (R-AL), Randy Hultgren (R-IL), Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), Chris Gibson (R-NY). There are 26 Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee. Bode has greased the palms of at least 16 of them directly.

Bode gave Norm Coleman, an Agriculture Committee member, massive legalistic bribes before he was defeated for reelection

Bode has also paid off Pat Roberts (R-KS), the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee as well as Agriculture Committee members Dick Lugar (R-IN), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Miss McConnell (R-KY), and Thad Cochran (R-MS), half the Republicans on the committee.

On top of that Bode's sleazy lobbying firm, Olsson, Frank & Weeda, reports spending $1,370,000 on lobbying this year alone. Last year they spent $2,440,000, approximately what they have spent every year since 2006. Yesterday the Second Alarm exposed Bode publicly.

Schwan Foods couldn't use "Arbeit macht frei" in their school foods division logo

Meet John Bode, the man with the magic to turn pizza into a federally subsidized vegetable for our children to enjoy.

According to lobbying reports obtained by The Second Alarm, Bode was the point man for Schwan Foods, the largest maker of frozen pizzas purchased by federally-subsidized school programs, in forcing to qualify pizza as a nutritious vegetable. Bode, a revolving door staffer from the USDA and Congress, was contracted by Schwan Foods to lobby Congress on proposed school lunch food standards in the latest appropriations bill. See a copy of Bode’s lobbying report here.

Schwan Foods is also a contributing member of two trade associations that lobbied on the bill. The “Frozen Food Institute” and the “Coalition for Sustainable School Meal Programs” received cash from industrial food corporations to lobby heavily on the bill. The Frozen Food Institute might have a funny sounding name, but the group runs on a $4.6 million operating budget. That’s serious lobbying firepower, and its only part of the influence operation by industrial food producers with skin in the school lunch game.

Brett Neely, a reporter from Minnesota Public Radio, has an astonishing report on the efforts by companies like Schwan Foods and ConAgra, the massive agribiz conglomerate that makes the stuff that goes into mass-produced frozen pizzas. ConAgra’s lobbying team is robust, and includes six different registered lobbyists (three are in-house, three are from a firm called Cornerstone Government Affairs). However, its difficult to determine which lobbyists work on issues like frozen pizzas, and which ones lobby on ConAgra’s other priorities-- like exemptions on commodity speculation rules.

Are Congressmembers Purposely Undermining Children's Health To Please Their Corporate Donors?

No one in Congress has worked harder to introduce healthy options into school lunches than Colorado Democrat Jared Polis, who also happens to be a brand new first-time dad. Working with the Pentagon, he's urged his colleagues to think out of the box and realize that childhood obesity is rapidly becoming a genuine national security threat. By offering the option for school kids to chose plant-based food, Polis-- who is not a vegetarian himself-- noting that "the prevalence of overweight in children ages 6 to 19 has tripled and 1 in 5 is struggling with obesity and related conditions like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, which were previously considered adult diseases."

His legislation was based on the fact that children consume too much fat, saturated fat and sodium and don’t get enough fiber, whole grains, fruits or vegetables and that research shows that children who eat school-purchased lunches are more likely to be overweight and obese, and less likely to eat enough fruits and vegetables. But the Republicans and their corporate financiers had something else in mind-- something else entirely. You heard about how conservatives in Congress wants pizza to be considered a vegetable, right? Am I saying that conservatives hate children and want them to die? Sure.

Who needs leafy greens and carrots when pizza and french fries will do?

In an effort many 9-year-olds will cheer, Congress wants pizza and french fries to stay on school lunch lines and is fighting the Obama administration's efforts to take unhealthy foods out of schools.

The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year. These include limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line, putting new restrictions on sodium and boosting the use of whole grains. The legislation would block or delay all of those efforts.

The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. USDA had wanted to only count a half-cup of tomato paste or more as a vegetable, and a serving of pizza has less than that.

Nutritionists say the whole effort is reminiscent of the Reagan administration's much-ridiculed attempt 30 years ago to classify ketchup as a vegetable to cut costs. This time around, food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers requested the changes and lobbied Congress.

School meals that are subsidized by the federal government must include a certain amount of vegetables, and USDA's proposal could have pushed pizza-makers and potato growers out of the school lunch business.

...USDA spokeswoman Courtney Rowe said Tuesday that the department will continue its efforts to make lunches healthier.

"While it's unfortunate that some members of Congress continue to put special interests ahead of the health of America's children, USDA remains committed to practical, science-based standards for school meals," she said in a statement.

Nutrition advocate Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said Congress's proposed changes will keep schools from serving a wider array of vegetables. Children already get enough pizza and potatoes, she says. It also would slow efforts to make pizzas-- a longtime standby on school lunch lines-- healthier, with whole grain crusts and lower sodium levels.

"They are making sure that two of the biggest problems in the school lunch program, pizza and french fries, are untouched," she said.

A group of retired generals advocating for healthier school lunches also criticized the spending bill. The group, called Mission: Readiness, has called poor nutrition in school lunches a national security issue because obesity is the leading medical disqualifier for military service.

"We are outraged that Congress is seriously considering language that would effectively categorize pizza as a vegetable in the school lunch program," Amy Dawson Taggart, the director of the group, said in a letter to lawmakers before the final bill was released. "It doesn't take an advanced degree in nutrition to call this a national disgrace."

...Food companies who have fought the USDA standards say they were too strict and neglected the nutrients that potatoes, other starchy vegetables and tomato paste do offer.

"This agreement ensures that nutrient-rich vegetables such as potatoes, corn and peas will remain part of a balanced, healthy diet in federally funded school meals and recognizes the significant amounts of potassium, fiber and vitamins A and C provided by tomato paste, ensuring that students may continue to enjoy healthy meals such as pizza and pasta," said Kraig Naasz, president of the American Frozen Food Institute.

The school lunch provisions are part of a final House-Senate compromise on a $182 billion measure that would fund the day-to-day operations of the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Both the House and the Senate are expected to vote on the bill this week and send it to President Barack Obama.

I reached Polis and asked him what he thinks of the conservatives' approach to the school lunch program he's worked so hard to improve. He didn't seem amused: "Forcing taxpayers to subsidize unhealthy foods is absurd," he said. "The potato industry got legislators to include French fries as vegetables, and once the door was open the pizza industry jumped in and got pizza to count as a vegetable. What's next? Are twinkles vegetabes too?"

Republicans And Blue Dogs Try To Kill The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act

Yesterday the House voted to take a vote on S.3307, Blanche Lincoln's (really Tom Harkin's) Agriculture Committee bill-- that passed by voice vote in the Senate last summer-- to revamp federal child nutrition programs. It would boost subsidies to schools that offer healthier menus and give the Agriculture Department some new power to regulate what’s offered in campus vending machines as well as cafeterias. Conservative Democrats have gone along with GOP demands to offset part of the cost by ending, five months ahead of schedule in 2013, the better food-stamp benefits created in last year’s economic stimulus law.

In the spirit of the GOP's renewed anti-government jihad and obstructionism, every single one of them-- plus 11 of the most reactionary Democrats in the House-- voted against allowing the bill to be considered. For those keeping score, the aisle crossers were recently defeated conservatives John Adler (NJ), Allen Boyd (Blue Dog-FL), Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL), Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), Glenn Nye (Blue Dog-VA) and Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS) plus retiring alcoholic Marion Berry (Blue Dog-AR), and three that got away, Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC), and Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR).

A few minutes later the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act came up again and this time one Republican, outgoing Hawaiian Charles Djou, voted to... allow a vote, while outgoing right-wing shitheads John Tanner (Blue Dog-TN), Travis Childers (MS), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (Blue Dog-SD), Scott Murphy (NY), John Adler (NJ), Allen Boyd (Blue Dog-FL), and Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA) voted NO, as did conservative hangers-on Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN), Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY), Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC), and Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), and, for some reason only he will ever know, Mike Quigley (D-IL).

So I can understand the Republicans' motivation for opposing everything. They just want to create chaos and misery and do whatever they can to upset people and blame it on Obama. And since Obama never seems to have learned to go on the offense, it's working. But what about these Blue Dogs, especially the ones who were already defeated? What makes them veer away from conservatism and into an embrace of hateful reactionary politics? Are they just all steaming mad that they were rejected by the voters? Or do they just want revenge against humanity?

Before a final vote could be taken yesterday, the Republicans added a poison pill amendment to scuttle the whole process but all it will do is hold up passage until today's session. What assholes!

And this afternoon, despite all the Republican bluster, all their tricks and threats, the actual bill passed 264-157. In the end 17 Republicans didn't have the stomach to stick with their hateful, vicious anti-family, anti-child leadership and they abandoned Boehner and Cantor and Pence and the rest of the corporate pawns-- while Allen Boyd (Blue Dog-FL), John Tanner (Blue Dog-TN), Bart Stupak (MI) and Peter Welch (VT) voted NO, the former two because they are angry conservatives and the latter two because they don't want to see this being paid for by decreasing food stamps. The Republicans who had the cajones and the decency to thwart Boehner were Spencer Bachus (AL), Anh Cao (LA), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Mike Castle (DE), Charlie Dent (PA), Charles Djou (HI), Vern Ehlers (MI), Jo Ann Emerson (MO), Jeff Fortenberry (NE), Jim Gerlach (PA), Walter Jones (NC), Tom Latham (IA), Steve LaTourette (OH), Tim Murphy (PA), Todd Platts (PA), Dave Reichert (WA), and Don Young (AK). The rest will, no doubt, rot in hell.

Blanche Lincoln's Back In Action-- Working With Jon Kyl To Make Sure The Wealthiest Americans Become Much, Much Wealthier

Yesterday one of Blanche Lincoln's staffers penned a press release kind of thing for HuffPo under her name, Saving Our Children. She sounds very concerned:

Hunger and obesity. It might seem odd to find these epidemics mentioned together, but they are two of the greatest threats to the health of America's children and the future of our nation... Childhood hunger and obesity are problems known all too well in my home state of Arkansas. A recent Feeding America report found our state to have the highest rate of childhood hunger in the country at nearly 25 percent. That's one in four children living in hunger.

Another report found 20 percent of Arkansas children to be obese, the seventh highest rate in the country.

As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, I have authored the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which addresses these two threats by making strong improvements to our federal child nutrition programs. Funding authorization for these programs expires in 78 days.

Children who are hungry or obese will face learning challenges and lifelong health problems. And their poor health will add significant cost to our health care system and a significant cost to our nation's future economic security.

Fortunately, hunger is a disease for which we have the cure. And we know healthier meals are part of the solution to reverse the growing epidemic of childhood obesity.

Jill Richardson, one of the country's foremost progressive food policy experts-- and author of Recipe For America: Why Our Food System Is Broken And What We Can Do To Fix It-- doesn't see the problem quite the same way Lincoln does. Jill is delighted that Lincoln pressed forward with the bill that her progressive predecessor as Agriculture Committee chair worked on for so long but points out that "both the Senate and House bills drastically underfund child nutrition programs like school lunch (by tens of billions of dollars), but the Senate bill is FAR worse than the House bill, giving only a tad over half as much money as the House bill does ($4.5 billion over 10 years compared with $8 billion over 10 years). Last, under PAYGO rules, both the Senate and the House committees need to pay for the extra money they spend on school lunch. The House is still exploring options for where this money will come from. Dennis Kucinich, for example, has offered a measure that would remove a subsidy for marketing junk foods to kids and use that money to pay for school lunch. But Lincoln, lovely lady that she is, looked around for a program she thought had some money to cut and took it out of a perennially underfunded agriculture conservation program... The school lunch bill is actually great in terms of expanding the number of kids who get fed. But it does nothing to improve the food. So, in essence, the bill says 'Here kids, we care enough to keep you from starving, but not enough to keep you from getting diabetes, heart disease, or cancer'."

She may not be writing self-promoting pieces for HuffPo about it-- I wonder why-- but Blanche's real priority has nothing to do with poor people, children or otherwise. Her actual raison d'être, and what keeps her from any serious action of behalf of the impoverished Arkansas children she wants to appear concerned about, is her work with Jon Kyl on behalf of a few hundred of the wealthiest families in America, i.e., their campaign donors. As Digby mentioned Monday taxes on the rich are un-American. Blanche to the rescue... since it's clear that a few families once paid too much in estate taxes-- at least in their own minds (and hers)-- is what ails America. Blanche and Kyl are working together to pass a "less onerous estate tax" for multimillionaires.

Sens. Blanche Lincoln , D-Ark., and Jon Kyl , R-Ariz., have laid down an important marker in the continued fight over the tax, which expired Dec. 31 but will kick in again next year. Although Republicans and some moderate Democrats [translation: corrupt corporate shills and far right Democrats like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu] are likely to support their plan, the issue is highly contentious and Democratic leaders have not signaled whether they intend to allow a vote on it.

The Lincoln-Kyl proposal, backed by many business groups, would be more generous to heirs and estate owners than the version favored by the White House and most Democrats.

The House passed a bill last December that would set the estate tax at the parameters in effect in 2009-- a 45 percent top rate, with a $3.5 million per-person exemption.

The Lincoln-Kyl proposal would gradually drop the top estate tax rate to 35 percent, set the per-person exemption at $5 million and index it to inflation.

Under the 2001 tax cut law, which phased out the estate tax over the past decade, the levy will return on Jan. 1, 2011, if Congress does not act by then. The top rate will jump to 55 percent and the per-person exemption will be set at $1 million.

That would be super! And Durbin, Sanders, Merkeley, Franken and other tribunes of working families should filibuster anything that prevents just that from happening. I wonder if Sherrod ever talks to Blanche. He's right in his analysis of what Republicans want to do in this interview last night with Rachel Maddow, but Blanche Lincoln in his own party, has the same mindset as the anti-family GOP zombies.

I Guess We Should Consider It A Blessing That Conservatives Don't Just Kill Poor Children Outright And Have Done With It

I hope you remember-- and remember as fondly as I do-- my favorite recent video on the nature of conservatism. It looks like they've gone and done a part two:



Oh, but it's just about those damn oil spilling Brits, you say? No, the nature of conservatism spans all eras and all geographic space. Conservatives are selfish, greedy sociopaths. Didn't you watch the video? It doesn't matter where they live or at what point in history they lived. It's like a cockroach; they never change-- and you can never get rid of them. After the Civil War they started the KKK and were back in power relatively quickly. After WWII, how long did it take for conservatives to regain the reins of power all across Europe and even the U.S.? Money talks... loudly.

Yesterday my friend Jill Richardson, author of Recipe For America, as well as of the best food policy blog in the country, LaVidaLocavore.org alerted me to the latest action on the school lunches legislation. Hopefully you'll recall the Blue America chat last month with Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) about the importance of healthy, nutritional school lunches. Jill was just in DC when the Child Nutrition Bill was introduced. She's far more elegant in her phrasing but, as she pointed out, it just sucks. There are good things in the bill, of course, but, in the end, conservatives are making school lunches about... what else? Their money. They don't want to educate or medicate or feed children born into impoverished circumstances. They don't see children as national resources for making out country richer and stronger, just as burdens on their ability to buy that third SUV they must have in the 6-car garage. End of story. That's what conservatism is. The hell with the well-being or the future of the country; I've got mine/screw the rest of you. Didn't you ever watch Cartman on South Park?

For those not obsessed with the difference between being a billionaire and a mere multimillionaire-- and, I'll admit I think billionairism should carry an automatic death penalty-- it is clearly understood that a refusal to fund school lunches means poor nutrition and no chance of an adequate education. The makes the country's future very bleak indeed. Jill blames the predicament on the conservative triumph called PAYGO, something they selectively use to keep rich people's taxes low and poor people's ability to break out of the chains of poverty even lower.

Somebody in DC decided that the deficit is a huge problem. And somebody also decided that we will deal with it by spending very little on government. If we increase spending somewhere, we have to offset it with cuts somewhere else. Within a committee like the House Education and Labor Committee or the Senate Agriculture Committee-- the two committees responsible for the child nutrition bill-- they can only take from certain programs to give money to school lunch. The Senate took money from agriculture conservation programs. The House hasn't told us yet (to my knowledge) where they will find the money, but it could be farm subsidies, conservation, or something else agriculture-related like that. It won't be (and CAN'T be if I understand things correctly) things outside of the committee's jurisdiction-- like taxing rich people or cutting outdated Cold War weapons programs from the bloated Pentagon budget.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine put on a happy face, calling the bill a "first historic step," while recognizing "much more needs to follow in order to deal with the childhood obesity epidemic by enabling schools to have equal access to and the ability to serve more vegetables, fruits, and low-fat, cholesterol-free meals."

Senior clinicians called for amendments that would bring forward the introduction of healthier plant-based meal options in accordance with recommendations made by the American Medical Association and the American Public Health Association.

The bill, in its current form, does little to encourage the substitution of high fat content foods (such as meat and cheese) with low-fat fruit and vegetables. Such substitutions are crucial in fighting childhood obesity and have been endorsed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and 66 members of the House of Representatives... Clinicians at PCRM have suggested that the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act could easily be improved by including provisions from the Healthy School Meals Act, H.R. 4870, legislation introduced by Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado and co-sponsored by 65 additional Members of Congress.

From what I can gather, school lunches currently cost $2.68 per child per day. Conservatives would like to reduce this-- or cut it out entirely-- and Democrats, mighty defenders of progressivism, are willing, many just grudgingly, to increase it by a whopping six cents. Last year chef and nutrition expert Alice Waters did an OpEd in the NY Times insisting that Congress address the nutritional quality of the lunches and allocating $5.00 per child per day.

Many nutrition experts believe that it is possible to fix the National School Lunch Program by throwing a little more money at it. But without healthy food (and cooks and kitchens to prepare it), increased financing will only create a larger junk-food distribution system. We need to scrap the current system and start from scratch. Washington needs to give schools enough money to cook and serve unprocessed foods that are produced without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. When possible, these foods should be locally grown.

How much would it cost to feed 30 million American schoolchildren a wholesome meal? It could be done for about $5 per child, or roughly $27 billion a year, plus a one-time investment in real kitchens. Yes, that sounds expensive. But a healthy school lunch program would bring long-term savings and benefits in the areas of hunger, children’s health and dietary habits, food safety (contaminated peanuts have recently found their way into school lunches), environmental preservation and energy conservation.

The Agriculture Department will have to do its part, by making good on its fledgling commitment to back environmentally sound farming practices and by realizing a separate program to deliver food, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, from farms to schools. It will also need to provide adequate support for kitchens and healthy meal planning. Congress has an opportunity to accomplish some of these goals when it takes up the Child Nutrition and Women Infants and Children Reauthorization Act, which is set to expire in September.

Ann Cooper, the "Renegade Lunch Lady," and the nutrition director for the Boulder Valley, Colorado public school system, describes her life's work as transforming "how we feed our children in school each day, from highly processed to highly nourishing food-- one school lunch at a time." She thinks it can be done for about $1.00 more per child per day. All experts agree that replacing junk food with real food is what has to happen. Junk food manufacturers, of course, have another perspective. And they somehow figured out that teaming up with conservatives would go a long way towards maintaining the status quo, regardless of the original intent of the legislation meant to serve as a health safety net for poor children.