So we are going to talk about sugar in schools now, when 21 of our Demccratic senators just voted like Santorum did on Iran? Bill Clinton is worried about sugar when we are voting about Iran?

Read this and explain it to those of us who are not very bright.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/3/83734/61208

I apologize for the spelling in my first post, but when I saw Clinton on TV today pushing the sugar in school deal I flipped. I flipped more when I saw that post at Kos, and wondered have we not learned how Bush goes about regime change?

I feel like my head is exploding from the absurdity of everything in this country, and Bill Clinton wants sugar out of schools.

And we are going to change regimes in Iran.

I think the story about Clinton doing something about the average American (be it too much sugar, or whatever) shows that he cares for the average American. When they say "what would the Democrats do [in a case such as this]?" Well, in this case, what would the Republicans do about something like this? The answer: nothing. Since Clinton is no longer President, he cannot do anything (concrete) about Iran and Iraq.

Doing nothing is the same response from Bush to most problems facing the average American. NPR just reported Bush's response, on behalf of our federal government, to a pandemic bird flu epidemic that could reach the U.S. Bush's answer: there was nothing the federal government could do.

Bush's response to the gas situation? There is nothing the federal government can do. And, about health care, Katrina, immigration, retirement protection, women's rights, the environment? Now if we could only keep them out of our pockets.

Unfortunately, the deterrent in the case of Iran, will probably be Iran.

But, Bush's remaining tenure is looking longer and longer day by day.

Well, given former President Clinton has no authority to act regarding Iran, but he does have the clout to work on fighting childhood obesity, I applaud him for his work. And I'd like to than the DNC for putting this information out here.

As for Iran, I just read through the bill, and amazingly enough, there's nothing in there that appears capable of being read to support the use of force. Certainly nothing theoretically open ended like the AUMF that the White House keeps claiming gave them the authority to invade Iraq (which is patently false). Does this mean that Bush doesn't want to invade? No, of course not. I wouldn't be surprised if he was drawing up war plans with Cheney and Rumsfeld right now. It's just that this bill wouldn't give him the authority to do it.

Clinton could be out on a yacht enjoying the nice sunny weather somewhere or he could be on a golf course somewhere like First President Bush, with the Saudi Royal Family or the chaps from Halliburton.

At least he is trying to do something, his hands are tied when it comes to Iran, unless you are suggesting we change our policy on only two terms to bring him back, I for one, would vote to bring him back, in a minute.

This is not about Clinton. This is about starting a new war...which is exactly what they know Bush is likely to do.

This is about our Democrats trusting Bush enough to sign on to hold Iran accountable.

If you think that what I posted is about Clinton, think again. It is about our Democrats signing on to regime change in Iraq and not talking about it on TV. They are not opposing Bush on this issue.

BTW I am a staunch Democrat, a strong supporter of what Howard Dean is doing for the party, but you need to hold them accountable when they need it.

yeah that is the reason these kids are fat soda in school maybe parents should take some credit for there own kids and teaching them some self control. I couldn't phathem blaming a President for the health of my child ever and that is a fundamental differance. I don't want the government all in my grill knowing the type of kool-aid I drank I would like them to focus on more important issues. We are in an information age and we all know what causes obisity. You can lead a horse to the water but if he choses pop and dies well that is Freedom and if the owner of the Horse keeps giving the horse the pop too well....
Much love AJ sorry for any typos

Republicans like to blame Clinton for everything. More than five years out of office, Clinton is apparently to blame for high gasoline prices, according to Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist. Other Republicans, however, think Frist has no plans for anything. Here are comments by other Republicans about Frist's oil plan.

Funny. As if kids weren't drinking soda and getting fat in the 90's, just like the former president.

Actually, it's not about sugar, at all.
Most processed foods including non-diet soft drinks are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup.
This is a substance which has been pushed by the mega-agribusiness as "natural", when it is actually chemically processed from corn starch. It is a sticky syrup, which is shipped in tanker trucks and railroad tank cars by the thousands of gallons.
It is metabolized in the liver, putting more of a load on the liver, and high-fructose corn syrup does not trigger that "full" feeling like sugar does. At one time fructose was touted as the answer to diabetic sweetner, but it caused problems and is no longer reccomended in diabetic diets.
Start reading your labels, you will find this stuff, not just in soda pop, but in a surprising array of processed foods, including things you wouldn't suspect.
In the mean-time family-farm sugar beet growers and small town beet sugar processing plants in many western states have been put out of business, and cane sugar growers have also felt the pinch from loss of market share. People in the cane and beet sugar industries are the only ones who have tightened their belts because of this stuff.

As long as the Republicans are calling the punches
there will be little help with wages so people can earn the money to properly feed their children which IS due to the "Republican Culture of Corruption" which IS the same "Culture of Corruption" that Republicans do in lock step every time they get control of the government.

As a member of the Democracy for America (DFA) Movement, I am in support of Governor Howard Dean as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, DNC, and the DNC "lawsuit seeking the release of Secret Service records detailing cronies and other central figures in the "Republican Culture of Corruption" including Grover Norquist, Patrick Pizzella, Ralph Reed, Michael Scanlon and David Safavian", and I ask that ALL DFA Members and supporters declare their support of Governor Dean in this endeavor both in this blog and in every public forum available.

Thomas G. Miller
DFA Democrat and
DNC Member for Reform
of the Democratic Party

Money isn't the issue.
When I was working minimum wage jobs, I fed my kids properly because I had been taught the elements of nutrition and also how to prepare meals from scratch. Most of this I learned from my Mom, not from schools.
The 800lb gorilla (and getting fatter) is that the giant corporations are pushing ready made food (both fast food and pre-prepared food in grocery stores) at much higher cost per serving, while education on nutrition and preparing simple meals is really not being taught in schools.
I know about time crunches. For many years, I worked an 8 hour day + a 3/4 hr commute one way, and came home and could put a nutritious meal together in about 1/2 hour, and taught my kids how to cook at the same time.
The bottom line for me was that by buying basic ingredients and putting food together from scratch, I could save about 1/3 of what pre-prepared foods would have cost me. Since I was not aware of the health problems linked to pre-made foods at that time, it was not a consideration.
Depending on my wages at the time, that half hour was worth more money in my pocket than what I made in an hour at work.
My point is that we are being told, through commercials, that we need to buy all this pre-made food, which has been proven to contain too much salt, high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, high trans-fatty acids and all these preservatives,which have questionable health effects, and pay through the nose for them, because we are short of time.
Horse hocky!
There needs to be more studies done on the health effects of all these ingredients in foods, and there needs to be more emphasis on nutrition and practical food preparation classes in shcools. Kids, especially need to be taught to question TV commercials, and to read packaging lables critically.
The food industry needs to be critically looked at, better research done on ingredients, and guidelines set up so that there is healthier foods for the American people. Maybe some criteria for truth in advertising for these foods.
Reining in the beverage industry, and taking cola flavored high-fructose cornsyrup out of shcools is a good first step, but if we want the health of this country to improve, we need to keep stepping.

I raised my children and did the best I could, also; but we ate a lot of goulash. Goulash is not good for staying thin.

I did not raise our meat, so I had to stick with store bought meats. I could never afford fresh fish. My protein source was weiners, pork, chicken, beef (hamburger or roast, tuna, dried starchy beans or fat peanut butter. I could not afford fresh vegetables so served starchy potatoes, starchy rice, starchy spagetti or starchy macaroni with canned starchy boiled enemic vegetables like canned starchy yellow corn, canned starchy enemic mixed vegetables, canned enemic green beans, canned high glycemic beets, canned high glycemic carrots, canned starchy enemic peas, canned enemic spinach, and fresh no food value iceberg lettuce or fresh high glycemic carrots that I could afford. This is not a proper diet. I did not have the money to feed my children or myself properly.

Eating properly means that each child will have a salad at least once a day made with non-starchy vegetables like fresh dark green Romaine lettuce with non-starchy dark green or yellow vegetables like fresh sliced green non-starchy zucchini squash, fresh sliced non-starchy yellow summer squash, fresh non-starchy non-peeled cucumber, fresh non-starchy but glycemic carrots, fresh or frozen young green peas, non-starchy baby corn before it goes to starch, fresh or frozen non-starchy green asparagus, fresh or frozen non-starchy broccoli, fresh or frozen non-starchy spinach, fresh non-starchy cauliflower, fresh apples and fresh oranges, etc. I could not afford fresh vegetables and knew nothing about the Glycemic Index.

It isn't only sugar that makes people fat. I actually doubt if sugar is the real culprit. Starch turns to sugar nearly the instance it arrives in your stomach and peoples diets are mainly starch.

That's one of the problems for the poor in cities. They have no resources for getting better food. Canned vegtetables, and even peanut butter, though high in high-fructose corn syrup, is still better than a lot of the very expensive pre-prepared foods. As the Freddy Fender song goes "A little bit is better than nada". You do with what you have.
It's a matter of getting more people educated to get the best stuff they can. One of the advantages I had was I was poor in a small town in the midwest, and a lot of us had gardens, so we shared excess vegetables with each other in the summer. Also a lot of local farmers had roadside stands and you could buy fresh vegetables from them too.
It's not really the poorest people though, who are getting the worst food, it's the people who have the money to buy the junk food, and the pre-prepared stuff, and eat at McGreasy's often. Right now, where I live it's hard to get good vegetables in the winter, most of the produce in the local groceries is kept on display too long, and isn't that fresh when it is recieved. However we do have a nice farmer's market in the summer with local produce and Hutterite chickens (much much better than Tyson's) with no added hormones or anitbiotics.
The bottom line is though that kids haven't really been taught much about nutrition and cooking in schools for about a generation, all they know about food are the junk and fast food commercials that they are fed during kid shows, and it is adversely affecting the health of our nation.
Goulash, I haven't made that stuff in years, though I still know more ways to cook hamburger (without hamburger helper, read those ingredients once) than I currently care to think about.

Food schmood. Are we going to talk about food while George Bush and his RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS play the fiddle and destroy our country? Shades of Nero are in our actions on this forum and in the Democratic Party. America needs to support Americans, not our Neo-Nero President Select, George W. Bush, and dialogue about food at the present time when our Nation is collapsing down around our ears into a New World Order that does not protect and defend the National interests of the United States and the 70% MAJORITY Population of the WORKING and POOR CLASS?????????

Where is the Democratic Party Forum on this site that discusses topical information that is relevant to the times we are living in?

Where is the Democratic Party Forum that has a topic to discuss the Democratic National Committee "filing a lawsuit seeking the release of secret service records detailing White House visits by Jack Abramoff's cronies and other central figures in the Republican Culture of Corruption, including Grover Norquist, Patrick Pizzella, Ralph Reed, Michael Scanlon, and David Safavian" and their complicity in the Culture of Corruption of the Republican Party and of the United States that has resulted in the Republican Party using revolutionary power in an attempt to subvert the National interests of the United States to their interests of a New World Order?

Are we going to "fiddle" with FOOD while America "burns" as Nero did, or are we going to place FOOD in its proper perspective and take care of first things "FIRST"?

OK, here's some perspective. The discussion started out with taking non-diet sodas out of schools. Which lead to high-fructose corn syrup. This ties directly in to agribusiness mega-corporations, ConAgra and Monsanto to name two. Their profits are tied to, among other things, high-fructose cornsyrup, genetically altered crops and animals (frankenfoods), the devastation of the Mexican farm economy caused by the dumping of subsidized corn on the Mexican market by the mega agribusinesses, and the involvement in these megalith corporations in the corruption of our legislators.
The discussion of the poor diet of Americans which followed, ties in with pre-packaged foods which contains all sorts of nasties including high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated vegetable oiols, and preservatives of dubious health effects.
The fact that the American people aren't being taught proper nutrition, or how to fix healthier meals, and the fact that poor people don't have access to reasonably priced healthy foods does have a bearing on the government, and also on the pervasiveness of the pressures put on everybody by big business.
Guess who the big businesses are paying to get the watchdogs of our food supplies, education system, Department of Agriculture, etc, to toe the line and who is being lobbied (paid) to pass legislation that protects the people who are degrading our food supplies?
Ahah!
Do you really think the oil lobby, insurance industry, pharmaceuticals, or Jack Abramoff are the only ones who are exerting undue influence on our legislators?
Guess again. This corruption in Washington has it's slimy tentacles everywhere, even slithering across your dinner table.

Butte:

The family garden only works for 1/4th of the year at best. The American farmer is being put out of business by the corporate greed of this corrupt fascist Bush Administration; in fact, the family farmer is being put out of business all around the world due to the fascist Right-wing EXTREME of the Republican Party, the Bush Administration.

Butte:

The family garden only works for 1/4th of the year at best. The American farmer is being put out of business by the corporate greed of this corrupt fascist Bush Administration; in fact, the family farmer is being put out of business all around the world due to the fascist Right-wing EXTREME of the Republican Party, the Bush Administration.

ThomasG:

There is a post on this site about the Democratic National Committee filing a lawsuit against the Bush Administration seeking the release of Secret Service records detailing White House complicity, but for some reason comments are not allowed. Since discussion of a DNC lawsuit against the White House is of concern to the Left, comments would be in the best interest of the majority population that the Dean For America Movement actually represent and the Democractic Party is suppose to represent.

ThomasG:

You are correct, food is definitely of little consequence to be talked about while our Nation is being destroyed by the Right-Wing of the Republican Party, the Bush "Culture of Corruption" that talks about protection from Evil, while destroying our country. Satan's duty as Leader of Evil is to steal, kill and destroy; the Bush culture of corruption is in whole representative of Evil and definitely our Nation's best interest of representing the majority population is being totally destroyed.

Taking over the world, outsourcing American work and destroying the American farmer is what this Right-wing of the Republican Party is all about.

You know, the Democratic Party does have individual corruption within the party, but there is a distinct difference between individual corruption and the Republican "culture of corruption" that extends from the Teapot Dome Scandal through the Watergate Scandal and to the present Project for the New American Century Scandal of missing WMD and the attack on the World Trade Center, etc.

We all know that culture IS that which people do that is passed down from generation to generation and the Republicans have developed a distinct culture of corruption. Government corruption in the Republican Party has been extensive for generations. The corruption from the Teapot Dome Scandal of the Republican Harding Administration was passed down to the corruption of the Watergate Scandal of the Republican Nixon Administration and that corruption was further passed down to the Project for the New American Scandal of the Republican Bush Administration. That's 85 years of corruption, which is over 4 generations of corruption, demonstrating a factual basis for the Repulican "Culture of Corruption" now being talked about by the Democratic Party.

Corruption has never been passed down on the Left; but is always passed down on the Right. The Right work together, but the Left is usually akin to a bowl of worms being dumped. I live in hope of the Left getting some cooperation in order that we can get rid of the cancer infesting the White House before it destroys the whole country.

ThomasG:
I left off part of the Bush Culture of Corruption in my typing, so I will reiterate. The Bush culture of corruption is The Project for the New American Century written by Paul Wolfowitz who now runs the World Bank. That ought to make people feel really good.

Anyone can find out about the Project for the New American Century by Googling Project for the New American Century.