{"id":35222,"date":"2019-01-02T12:35:34","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T20:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=35222"},"modified":"2019-01-02T12:35:34","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T20:35:34","slug":"open-thread-1-2-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/02\/open-thread-1-2-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 1\/2\/2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It&#8217;s been a busy day here in the CatBox.&#160; I received as notice from Google that, unless I fix a database error, PP articles will not appear in searches.&#160; After hours of digging, I finally chased it down to a Friday Fun in 2017 and deleted it.&#160; I hope it fixes the problem and will know after Google rescans the site.&#160; WWWendy is coming tonight to destink a very smelly TomCat and help with chores.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 4:11 (average 5:49).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2019-01-02-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NME_A1FFVT8\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/CNN\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">CNN Channel<\/a>): <\/font>These Democrats will make life harder for Trump in 2019<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/NME_A1FFVT8\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">American Heroes, one and all! <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/news\/2019\/01\/02\/cruel-and-inhumane-trump-border-patrol-hits-women-children-and-journalists-mexico\" target=\"_blank\">Common Dreams<\/a>: <\/font>In what human rights groups condemned as a &quot;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnestyusa.org\/press-releases\/amnesty-usa-reaction-to-use-of-tear-gas-along-us-mexico-border\/\" target=\"_blank\">cruel and inhumane<\/a>&quot; act that must be independently investigated, agents with President Donald Trump&#8217;s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Tuesday reportedly hit women, children, and journalists near the U.S.-Mexico border with <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/3f2a5aba2a8844dcb05816a24402739e\" target=\"_blank\">tear gas, smoke, and pepper spray<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/3f2a5aba2a8844dcb05816a24402739e\" target=\"_blank\">According to<\/a> an Associated Press photographer present at the scene, CBP agents fired &quot;at least three volleys of gas&quot; into Mexico at around 150 asylum-seekers who approached the border in the early hours of Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Contradicting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dhs.gov\/news\/2019\/01\/01\/cbp-issues-statement-illegal-border-crossings-san-diego-sector\" target=\"_blank\">CBP&#8217;s claim<\/a> that the tear gas was used to deter migrants who were throwing rocks over the border fence, the AP photographer said rocks were thrown &quot;only after U.S. agents fired the tear gas.&quot;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Are Republicans starting a terrorist border war with Mexico? <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/food\/2019\/01\/usda-school-lunch-rules-sonny-perdue\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mother Jones<\/a>: <\/font>Earlier this month, the US Department of Agriculture issued new nutrition <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fns.usda.gov\/school-meals\/school-meal-flexibilities-sy-2017-18\" target=\"_blank\">standards<\/a> for school lunches that make it easier for schools to offer less healthy meals to students.<\/p>\n<p>The new rules significantly dilute the high standards set by the Obama administration\u2019s 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which required that federally subsidized school lunch programs provide meals that meet certain nutrition standards: for instance, bread that is whole-grain rich, flavored milk that is nonfat, and lower levels of sodium across the board. Those standards were meant to address growing health concerns for children across the United States, including rising levels of obesity. The changes announced earlier this month undo the whole grain, nonfat milk, and sodium rules set by former President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n<p>Rolling back healthy lunch standards has long been a priority for USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, who in 2017 announced that his department was looking at the lunch rules. Perdue, a former Georgia governor and a <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/y8Dxs_YKH1M?t=319\" target=\"_blank\">supporter of chocolate milk<\/a>, said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usda.gov\/media\/press-releases\/2017\/11\/29\/usda-publishes-school-meals-rule-expands-options-eases-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">statement<\/a> last year that schools should have more control over the kind of food they serve in cafeterias.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSchools want to offer food that students actually want to eat,\u201d Purdue said as he announced the planned changes last year. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t do any good to serve nutritious meals if they wind up in the trash can,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>But experts believe that the more nutritious meals offered in schools following the Obama-era law aren\u2019t going in the trash. Recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/25734372\" target=\"_blank\">studies<\/a> indicate that kids are getting used to the healthier meals\u2014they are eating more fruits and veggies at lunch, and they\u2019re starting to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rwjf.org\/en\/library\/articles-and-news\/2014\/07\/school-leaders-report-widespread-student-acceptance-of-healthier.html\" target=\"_blank\">like them<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Republicans are what they want American kids to eat: garbage. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/0102Cartoon.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a busy day here in the CatBox.&#160; I received as notice from Google that, unless I fix a database error, PP articles will not appear in searches.&#160; After hours of digging, I finally chased it down to a Friday Fun in 2017 and deleted it.&#160; I hope it fixes the problem and will <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/02\/open-thread-1-2-2019\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}