The modern GOP:
House Republicans are pushing back against a series of public health measures, including school lunch standards and tobacco regulation, teeing up a confrontation with Senate Democrats and the White House over the reach of government in daily life.
The Republicans have used an agriculture appropriations bill to send several messages: They don’t want the government to require school meals that are more nutritional but also more expensive, they don’t want the government to prod food companies to restrain marketing to children, and they don’t want the Food and Drug Administration to regulate any substance based on anything but “hard science.”
They took aim at measures that are part of the Obama administration’s efforts to combat obesity among children and adults as well as some initiatives enacted by the previous Congress.
On Tuesday, the GOP majority on the House Appropriations Committee approved a 2012 spending plan that directs the Agriculture Department to ditch the first new nutritional standards in 15 years proposed for school breakfasts and lunches. The lawmakers say meals containing more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy will cost an additional $7 billion over five years — money they say the country can ill afford in difficult economic times.
The Republican party is now apparently defiantly pro-obesity and pro-cancer. If these guys were comic book villains, no one would buy it because it’s just too over the top.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Shorter GOP: Let them eat Skoal.
Aimai
Jesus Christ I just chant even fathom the depths of soullessness involved.
Xecky Gilchrist
That $7 billion would be easy to scrape together if we only had even more tax cuts for billionaires.
Tom
Anything government does is bad… except kill people.
Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods
So NOW they’re for “hard science”?!
Just as we surely cannot afford higher health care costs that will result from kids eating garbage the one meal a day that’s at least semi-nutritious. Bravo!
cathyx
No, they are not pro-obesity and pro-cancer. They are pro-corporations having regulations that make them the most money. If it aligns with what will help people, then so be it, but if it doesn’t, then they are against the government intrusion.
Southern Beale
Aaaaand on a related note: Gov. Sandwiches is going to repay New Jersey taxpayers for his wanton personal use of a helicopter.
But only because he got busted for it. Not because he learned his lesson or anything.
Hunter Gathers
You have obviously never watched anything directed by Michael Bay.
Rommie
Why don’t they just cut to the end scene and suggest MRE’s for school lunches. That way the future soldiers of the Great American Crusade are already used to them.
jl
From the link:
‘ “The FDA is starting to use soft sciences in some considerations in the promulgation of its rules,” said Rehberg, who defined “hard science”, as “perceived as being more scientific, rigorous and accurate” than behavioral and social sciences.
“I hate to try and define the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist, between a sociologist and a geologist, but there is clearly a difference,” he told the committee. ‘
They want geologists to do nutritional analysis?
No physiologists are available? Physiology is hard, ain’t it?
Unfortunately the communist science conspiracy is wider than Rep Rehberg believes. Every geologist I know believes that global warming is caused by industrial carbon dioxide omissions. And geological associations have started making position statements (see Realclimate blog).
The geologists I know do not get real excited or indignant about it, since (as far as I can tell) what they study (rocks and dirt) will still be here a plenty. The earth will adjust fine over the next couple of million years, so what is the fuss?
Geologists also got the athiestic evolutionary science ball rolling in the early 19th century. Darwin pointed his finger at the pioneering early geologists about where he got his Satanic evolutionary ideas.
But, I would go with geologists over GOP House reps.
Edit: I wonder how many people in experimental sciences (say, physics, chemistry, and physiology) would consider geology to be a ‘hard’ science? Don’t ask geological engineers about how ‘scientific’ geologists are, let alone ‘hard scientific’. But maybe that is Rehberg’s reasoning is that Rocks Is Hard, Therefore, Them Who Studies Rocks is Hard Science. Or something.
Snark aside, this is all knownothingism dressed up as some kind of bogus common sense garbage these goons are spouting.
les
But I’m sure they intend to give that $7B to the productive members of society, with the obvious benefits for the rest of us.
opal
Hey, the Lean Finely Textured Beef industry needs a leg up to compete fairly in the free market.
John PM
@Southern Beale:
I could not help myself.
John PM
What about Crack Baby Basketball?
Maude
@Southern Beale:
Christie wants to put the limit on income to be eligible for NJ Medicaid to under $6,000 a year.
I think his goal is to get th federal funding of Medicaid cut off to NJ. Also, he is costing NJ a lot of money with his tunnel fight.
He wants to run for prez.
Wag
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it. For all you know, Skoal could be an excellent source of dietary fiber.
Don
Not really too surprising that there’s a push for this stuff. It’s the House (R) nutters who are libertarian when it’s convenient for them – eviscerating any and all regulation is right up their alley. It’s surprising they’re getting the rest of the crew to go along with them, though.
Looking at the WaPo’s cruddy WhoRunsGov site, though, I do notice that 6 of the folks on appropriations were elected after 2008, a pretty decent amount. Perhaps there’s enough of them making enough fuss that the more sane of them aren’t willing to risk them stirring up their Tea Nutters against them.
Violet
@Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods:
Sure they are. Of the “Earth is 6,000 years old” variety. Hey, the Bible is a hard book.
PeakVT
Let’s see…. $7B, 5 years, $15T GDP… the program has an additional annual cost of about 0.0093% of GDP. Or a 5 year cost of slightly more than one new aircraft carrier.
KG
@jl:
I’ve been staring at that for like 5 minutes, trying to figure out what to say, but unfortunately I’m +0 at the moment, so I can’t figure it out.
trollhattan
If they can pivot correctly, the Republicans will figure out how to come down in the wrong side of immunizations, also, too. I’m so [sniff] proud of the state of my yout. Sure glad the folks had me jabbed with everything before the “controversy” erupted.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015215221_vaccines03m.html
jl
Today is totalitarianist eating food police day: the new USDA food pyramid/icon is out.
You can view the face of fascist food police evil right here:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/06/02/usda.new.food.plate/index.html?eref=rss_health
I am shattered by this image of government oppression of our God given freedom to eat continuously like pigs all day long at our self indulgent whim, and am so shaken that I may need to spend the rest of the day drinking.
Click to the next picture and you see the evil progressivefascistcommie plot began in the 1880s, when an evil agricultural chemist (and I seriously doubt that ‘agricultural chemistry’, whatever that is supposed to be, can be considered a ‘hard science’) produced some guidelines and started to ruin our lives.
quaint irene
Yes, those magical ‘job creators’ will be the saving of us all!
It’s not so much whatever the expense was. What galls me is the whole imperial feel of it. The guy takes a freaking helicopter to a kid’s softball game.
I mean honestly. All hail, Emperor Christie! And then the kicker; winging back to meet with deep-pocket donors. Stay classy, Chris.
Suffern ACE
I wonder if nutritionists are scientists. Is medical science a science?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Have you walked thru certain, er, um, red-votin’ districts lately? Looked at the girth of the residents? The Repups are simply playing to their constituency.
And as long as that nigra is occupying the White House, nothing these asshats will do will be seen as over the top…by their constituents.
Beauzeaux
For once it’s not them crying “But what about the CHULDREN?!
$7 billion is chump change in the US budget. $7 billion spent on school lunches is an investment in the future. Who doesn’t worry at least a little about children’s future??
Disclosure: I am 69 years old, have no grandchildren, and don’t really care much about what happens after I’m dead but even I think this is the stupidest most venal congress ever.
jl
You will notice in the new USDA so called balanced eating healthy whatever nanny plate icon, that there are no portions set aside for booze or smokes or soda or candy bars.
And they are ALL legal products.
Our Freedom is gone.
You sheeples can try to complain to me when the food SWAT teams smash down your kids’ lemonade stands and drag them off to food education camps, but I won’t listen.
jl
@Suffern ACE:
“I wonder if nutritionists are scientists. Is medical science a science?”
I dunno. Do the people who give me money like what they say?
That is a scientific approach, by the way. A very elegant and simple algorithm, an ironclad decision procedure. That is a very ‘hard science’ approach to deciding the merits.
Brachiator
Uh, what other kind of valid science is there?
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
What, Republicans can’t afford gym memberships and liposuction?
Granted, this is a lot of anti-nutrition BS coming from the GOP, but the notion that right minded people are all slim and trim just because they eat right is vanity nonsense.
Poopyman
@quaint irene: I read this little-reported tidbit: He left before the game was over so he could fly back to those fat–cat Iowans who were trying to -bribe- convince him to run in their primary.
His son’s team won, btw. No doubt he read about it in the paper.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
Seems to me that they’re aiming to be the Party of Misery.
Tonal Crow
I call media bullshit. Sending people to prison for smoking joints is the government reaching into daily life. Setting standards for federally-financed school lunches is the government deciding how to spend its own money. Still want your kid to eat Twinkies for lunch? Put some in her lunch box.
jl
“Twinkies for lunch?”
Damn straight. I am going to down a couple or so of three packs for a snack pretty soon, in protest.
Some one wanna send me 3 or 4 bucks, that should cover my selfless citizen protest.
BTW, I tried the original banana flavored twinkies when they were out, and they were super good.
cathyx
I made it very clear to my daughter from early on that school lunches were gross and tasted worse. She happily brings her lunch every day. It’s cheaper, healthier, and tastes better.
Ash Can
Serves those damned kids right for not voting Republican.
S. cerevisiae
@jl:
OK, that made me laugh. I’ll bet “nanny plate” has already made it into the wingnut blogs.
ETA: blockquote fail – sorry
Howlin Wolfe
Probably no baby kicking measures because they got hung up on whether a baby is kickable before birth as well as after.
jl
@S. cerevisiae: I am going to look for some wingnut analysis of the hidden evil symbology of this plate later this evening.
DonkeyKong
Let them eat cookiedough!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@jl:
C3PO: He made a fair move. Screaming about it can’t help you.
HS: Let him have it. It’s not wise to upset a geologist.
C3PO: But sir, nobody worries about upsetting a sociologist.
HS: That’s ’cause sociologists don’t pull people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose. Geologists are known to do that.
S. cerevisiae
@jl: I will put money on “It’s shaped like Obama’s emblem so it’s BRAINWASHING R KIDZZZZ!!”
evinfuilt
@jl:
Of course Geology is a hard science, I mean they invented the scale ;)
Kyle
We’ve seen the Repigs’ definition of “hard science”, which excludes evolution, anthropogenic climate change, stem cell research, and vast swathes of geological science, medicine and genetics, yet includes invisible sky daddies who coincidentally agree with all their political views. I guess you can give them credit for finally coming around on heliocentrism.
AAA Bonds
LET’S MAKE SURE POOR KIDS DON’T EAT WELL, THAT CAN’T POSSIBLY BE BAD FOR AMERICA, OH WAIT HARD SCIENCE IS ON THE PHONE FOR ME WHAT’S THAT YOU SAY????
Chuck Butcher
After watching these sorts of threads for … well, lots of days – I do have a question. At what give point by Democrats would everybody on this blog outside the obvious trolls say is just tooooo much? Nah, that is concern trolling …
From preceding threads I actually have virtually no idea – which is not to say that I take this place as representative of Democratic/leaner voters. Oh hell, it isn’t a serious question asking for an answer; it’s a thought provoker.
AAA Bonds
@Chuck Butcher:
The Democratic Party clearly has sophisticated and pragmatic reasons to despise the poor, while the Republicans do it out of moral integrity.
JoyceH
@Maude:
That’s for a family of three! As the news media helpfully pointed out, that means that any New Jersey resident who was supporting three people by working half time at minimum wage would not be eligible for Medicaid.
Says the guy who has a state vehicle standing by to drive him the length of a football field from his state helicopter to his son’s ball game.
Priorities…
dollared
@Howlin Wolfe: Kicking before, murder. Kicking after, (let me call ESPN and Nike and see whether they think they see some prime time programming possibilities, then let me call the Wilpons and John Elway and see if they want to form two franchises and find out how much they’ll pay for me to introduce an antitrust exemption bill for the baby-kicking league, and then let me call Jack Abramoff and see if his Indian friends want to have OTB franchises for baby-kicking), clearly legal and a fine American tradition.
dollared
@Chuck Butcher: Uh, give point on what?
Angela
@JoyceH:
So isn’t disability more than that? So if you are disabled and drawing SSI, you are not eligible for Medicaid?
Citizen Alan
@quaint irene:
It’s not even that for me. I would have accepted taking a helicopter to a kid’s softball game from a Republican. That’s garden-variety arrogance and malfeasance. It’s the fact that he had a government car on hand to ferry him the last 100 yards. I’m surprised he didn’t have his state troopers russle up some of the local peasants to carry his jeweled palanquin up the steps to his private box.
SFAW
Creation Science, of course.
Dylan
I hate to say it, but in this case they are right, but probably for the wrong reasons.
There is no evidence that low fat diets high in fruit and vegetables have any contribution to reducing obesity.
MarkJ
@Suffern ACE: That’s just what I was thinking. They’re jettisoning food standards based on hard science then claiming they want standards based on hard science.