11 votes

Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of March 13

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Tags: usa, politics, recurring.weekly

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

12 comments

  1. [2]
    Gaywallet
    Link
    Elon Musk Is Planning a Texas Utopia—His Own Town

    Elon Musk Is Planning a Texas Utopia—His Own Town

    7 votes
    1. rosco
      Link Parent
      Bezzie using Pinkertons, Mollusk setting up Pullman towns... We jumped from the roaring twenties into the 1880s!

      Bezzie using Pinkertons, Mollusk setting up Pullman towns... We jumped from the roaring twenties into the 1880s!

      5 votes
  2. cfabbro
    Link
    Texas announces takeover of Houston schools, stirring anger

    Texas announces takeover of Houston schools, stirring anger

    Texas officials on Wednesday announced a state takeover of Houston’s nearly 200,000-student public school district, the eighth-largest in the country, acting on years of threats and angering Democrats who assailed the move as political.

    The announcement, made by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s education commissioner, Mike Morath, amounts to one of the largest school takeovers ever in the U.S. It also deepens a high-stakes rift between Texas’ largest city, where Democrats wield control, and state Republican leaders, who have sought increased authority following election fumbles and COVID-19 restrictions.

    The takeover is the latest example of Republican and predominately white state officials pushing to take control of actions in heavily minority and Democratic-led cities. They include St. Louis and Jackson, Mississippi, where the Legislature is pushing to take over the water system and for an expanded role for state police and appointed judges.

    In a letter to the Houston Independent School District, Morath said the Texas Education Agency will replace Superintendent Millard House II and the district’s elected board of trustees with a new superintendent and an appointed board of managers made of residents from within the district’s boundaries.

    The Texas State Teachers Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas condemned the takeover. At a news conference in Austin, state Democratic leaders called for the Legislature to increase funding for education and raise teacher pay.

    “We acknowledge that there’s been underperformance in the past, mainly due to that severe underfunding in our public schools,” state Rep. Armando Walle, who represents parts of north Houston, said.

    An annual Census Bureau survey of public school funding showed Texas spent $10,342 per pupil in the 2020 fiscal year, more than $3,000 less than the national average, according to the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University in Houston.

    Schools in other big cities, including Philadelphia, New Orleans and Detroit, in recent decades have gone through state takeovers, which are generally viewed as last resorts for underperforming schools and are often met with community backlash. Critics argue that state interventions generally have not led to big improvements.

    Texas started moving to take over the district following allegations of misconduct by school trustees, including inappropriate influencing of vendor contracts, and chronically low academic scores at Wheatley High.

    The district sued to block a takeover, but new education laws subsequently passed by the GOP-controlled state Legislature and a January ruling from the Texas Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to seize control.

    Schools in Houston are not under mayoral control, unlike in New York and Chicago, but as expectations of a takeover mounted, the city’s Democratic leaders unified in opposition.

    Race is also an issue because the overwhelming majority of students in Houston schools are Hispanic or Black. Domingo Morel, a professor of political science and public services at New York University, said the political and racial dynamics in the Houston case are similar to instances where states have intervened elsewhere.

    “If we just focus on taking over school districts because they underperform, we would have a lot more takeovers,” Morel said. “But that’s not what happens.”

    7 votes
  3. [2]
    cmccabe
    Link
    Trump says he expects to be arrested Tuesday https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/18/politics/donald-trump-manhattan-da-arrest-protests/index.html Could be an eventful week…

    Trump says he expects to be arrested Tuesday
    https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/18/politics/donald-trump-manhattan-da-arrest-protests/index.html

    Could be an eventful week…

    6 votes
    1. cmccabe
      Link Parent
      Trump Says His Arrest Is Imminent, and, Echoing Jan. 6, Calls for Protests https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/trump-indictment-arrest-protests.html alt link <insert facepalm emoticon here>

      Trump Says His Arrest Is Imminent, and, Echoing Jan. 6, Calls for Protests
      https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/trump-indictment-arrest-protests.html
      alt link

      With his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury expected but its timing uncertain, former President Donald J. Trump declared on his social media site Saturday that he would be arrested on Tuesday, and demanded that his supporters protest on his behalf.

      Mr. Trump made the declaration on Truth Social at 7:26. a.m., in a post written in all capital letters that ended by saying, “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

      <insert facepalm emoticon here>
      6 votes
  4. [6]
    skybrian
    Link
    ‘Leave the chocolate milk out of this’: School cooks, parents, kids push back on USDA effort to make lunches healthier (Stat) […] […]

    ‘Leave the chocolate milk out of this’: School cooks, parents, kids push back on USDA effort to make lunches healthier (Stat)

    WASHINGTON — The feds are coming for your kids’ chocolate milk.

    At least, so says the stampede of school cooks, administrators, and parents flooding the Department of Agriculture with complaints. They’re “targeting” kids, forcing them to “go thirsty,” and are being “just mean,” they’ve cried.

    The anger was prompted by a February proposal from the USDA aimed at making school meals healthier by limiting the amount of added sugar and sodium in breakfasts and lunches. The USDA reimburses schools for a portion of nearly every meal they provide, which gives it some say over what foods schools offer.

    No element of the February proposal has generated more vitriol than a suggestion that the agency might stop reimbursing schools for chocolate milk served to children in elementary and middle school.

    Most chocolate milks have about 20 grams of sugar per carton — roughly half of which is added sugar. The American Heart Association recommends kids consume just 25 grams of added sugar in a full day. But parents, teachers, and school officials simply aren’t having it. They insist children won’t drink unflavored milk — so the proposal would rob them of necessary calcium — and force them to go thirsty.

    […]

    Previous pushes to update the school meal program, including a 2010 law that set sodium and saturated fat limits for school meals, generated similar controversy, according to Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean for policy at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.

    “All of the same concerns and hysteria arose around the 2010 legislation. School staff said this was impossible, industry said this can’t happen … and people said kids won’t eat the food,” said Mozaffarian. “Foods that we know are making people sick, people somehow defend — and it just wouldn’t happen for any other product.”

    Mozaffarian, who supports the overarching changes to the school lunch program, suggested the milk dispute could be solved by cutting the sugar in chocolate milk in half, or offering children plain whole milk instead of the low fat options.

    […]

    School meal professionals also insist that they are already doing their part to push kids toward healthy foods, even with the existing structural issues. Pratt-Heavner pointed to a recent study from Tufts University analyzing the diets of nearly 21,000 children from 2003 to 2018, which showed that the nutritional quality of school lunches rapidly improved following the 2010 law, and that school meals are often the healthiest ones that kids eat.

    4 votes
    1. [4]
      rosco
      Link Parent
      I'm a big fan of chocolate milk, but boy unless I'm doing a pretty rigorous training regime - like training for a bike a running race - I stay away from it. There is no easier way to bulk up than...

      I'm a big fan of chocolate milk, but boy unless I'm doing a pretty rigorous training regime - like training for a bike a running race - I stay away from it. There is no easier way to bulk up than adding chocolate milk to your diet. I feel for the kids who want it, but "going thirsty" is a crazy framing. Both water and milk are great alternatives and if parents say their kids won't drink it, that's an issue with parenting not the school lunch program.

      11 votes
      1. [3]
        skybrian
        Link Parent
        Yes, I think this is a case of people being a little unreasonable about change in a “who moved my cheese” kind of way. I think we can assume they are sincere, though, and fighting over it doesn’t...

        Yes, I think this is a case of people being a little unreasonable about change in a “who moved my cheese” kind of way. I think we can assume they are sincere, though, and fighting over it doesn’t seem politically smart? There’s something unsettling about local policies getting overruled in this way, so it seems like it should be saved for when it’s really necessary. People like feeling like they have a say in what happens rather than having it imposed on them.

        I like chocolate Soylent a lot. It’s not cheap, though, and whether it’s ok for kids hasn’t been studied. It’s probably healthier than fast food and many snacks, though. Some kids’ diets are very unhealthy because they refuse to eat most foods.

        1 vote
        1. [2]
          rosco
          Link Parent
          I agree. It's a pity as it feels like quite a bit of the caloric density and quantity issues are almost encouraged by large scale food producers - Nestle, Unilever, Kraft - to the point where...

          There’s something unsettling about local policies getting overruled in this way, so it seems like it should be saved for when it’s really necessary.

          I agree. It's a pity as it feels like quite a bit of the caloric density and quantity issues are almost encouraged by large scale food producers - Nestle, Unilever, Kraft - to the point where individual choice is mute. I'm not really sure where a policy window is even feasible. It's not happening on the consumer end after decades of attempted education and programs, it's not happening with supply side, but maybe there are some opportunities in advertising/marketing regulation?

          2 votes
          1. skybrian
            Link Parent
            Chocolate milk isn't new. I remember having it in school. I wonder how long ago it was introduced? We had the choice between chocolate and "white milk" and a majority chose chocolate. I remember...

            Chocolate milk isn't new. I remember having it in school. I wonder how long ago it was introduced?

            We had the choice between chocolate and "white milk" and a majority chose chocolate. I remember not liking the white milk for some reason, even though we drank it at home. Maybe it was 2%?

            But new kids start kindergarten every year. If they never had it, it seems like they wouldn't expect it. Unless that's what they drank before, or at home? Seems like advertising is secondary to personal experience.

            When I talked about local policies, I meant the school and the parents (local government), but it's also true that the kids need to be happy with at least one of the choices.

            2 votes
    2. cmccabe
      Link Parent
      On the topic of school lunches... Kraft Heinz Lunchables are going to be rolled out directly to students https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/business/lunchables-in-schools/index.html

      On the topic of school lunches...

      Kraft Heinz Lunchables are going to be rolled out directly to students
      https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/business/lunchables-in-schools/index.html

      Kraft Heinz has succeeded in getting its ready-to-eat packaged Lunchables into school lunch programs starting this fall, in a major new initiative.

      5 votes
  5. skybrian
    Link
    From a week ago: US House of Representatives impacted by health insurance data breach

    From a week ago:

    US House of Representatives impacted by health insurance data breach

    Sensitive information for members of Congress and their staff and family members has been exposed in a data breach, according to House leaders. The FBI was able to purchase leaked information from health insurance marketplace DC Health Link on the dark web, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in a letter.

    The data included the names of enrollees' spouses, dependent children, social security numbers and home addresses, according to the letter. "This breach significantly increase the risk that members, staff and their families will experience identity theft, financial crimes and physical threats — already an ongoing concern," it reads.

    4 votes