Obama Administration to Regulate Bake Sales

8/4/2014

New Requirements May Squeeze Out Gooey Fundraising Fare; Fat Standard

At Chapman School in Nebraska, resourceful students hawk pizza and cookie dough to raise money for school supplies, field trips and an eighth-grade excursion to Washington. They peddle chocolate bars to help fund the yearbook.

But the sales won't be so sweet starting this fall. Campus bake sales—a mainstay of school fundraisers—are going on a diet. A federal law that aims to curb childhood obesity means that, in dozens of states, bake sales must adhere to nutrition requirements that could replace cupcakes and brownies with fruit cups and granola bars.

Jeff Ellsworth, principal of the kindergarten through eighth-grade school in Chapman, Neb., isn't quite sure how to break the news to the kids. "The chocolate bars are a big seller," said Mr. Ellsworth.

The restrictions that took effect in July stem from the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by first ladyMichelle Obama and her "Let's Move!" campaign. The law overhauled nutrition standards affecting more than 30 million children. Among the changes: fatty french fries were out, while baked sweet potato fries were deemed to be fine.

The law also required the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set standards for all food and beverages sold during the school day, which includes vending machines, snack carts and daytime fundraisers. It allowed for "infrequent" fundraisers, and states were allowed to decide how many bake sales they would have that didn't meet nutrition standards.

Without state-approved exemptions, any treats sold would have to meet calorie, sodium, fat and other requirements. The law permits states to fine schools that don't comply.

Forget about buttery, salty popcorn, for instance. Kernels sold on site during the day must contain no more than 230 milligrams of sodium per serving until 2016, when it drops even lower. No more than 35% of calories in an item can come from total fat.

A graphic put out by the USDA shows where some snacks stand.

Six chocolate sandwich cookies at 286 calories would be out, but a 4-ounce fruit cup with 100% juice at 68 calories would make the cut. Also out: a large doughnut at 242 calories and a 1.6 oz. chocolate bar with 235 calories.

Homemade fare is more challenging to measure, schools say.

Each state can mandate the number of daytime fundraisers held each year that buck the nutrition requirements. But so far, 32 states have opted to stay strictly in the healthy zone, according to a draft report from the School Nutrition Association, which said the final number could change before the school year begins.

That means students in those states, which range from Alabama to California to Texas, can't sell fatty or sugary fare that doesn't meet the federal requirements.

"For some districts, this will be a huge change," said Julia Bauscher, president of the School Nutrition Association and director of school and community nutrition services at Jefferson County Public School in Louisville, Ky. "There's a lot of fear among school food directors that we will have to be the food police."

The Obama administration said it has provided states flexibility with the rules, which cover schools that participate in the federal school meals programs. "We defer to the states to make decisions that made sense to them," said Sam Kass, executive director of Let's Move!

Tennessee will allow schools to sell food items that tip the federal scales for 30 days each year.

"Schools have relied on these types of sales as revenue streams for sports, cheering clubs, marching bands," said David Sevier, deputy executive director of the Tennessee Board of Education. "We get the obesity issue, but we don't want to jerk this out from under the kids."

In advance of the law, some schools had already banned students from a near-sacred activity: setting up tables to sell boxes of Girl Scout cookies during the day. There are also those that have replaced food-centric fundraisers with calorie-free events such as wrapping-paper sales, pie-throwing events and bowl-a-thons. Others have prohibited homemade fare in favor of processed items where the nutritional information is calculated and displayed.

At least 12 states have also already adopted limits on bake-sale foods on their own—providing a taste of what's to come for hundreds of schools nationwide.

"We used to have a carnival with a cake walk, now we do a book walk," said Adam Drummond, principal of Lincoln Elementary School in Huntington, Ind. "The students get to pick a book."

Child obesity has more than quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of children 6-11, in 2012, 18% were obese. That is up from 7% in 1980, according to the CDC.

Texas has had nutrition requirements since at least 2010 that cover fundraisers, but had allowed campuses to have three events a year during the school day where students could sell candy or other restricted items. This year, it didn't adopt such exemptions.

"Some don't follow the spirit and set up bake sales right after the bell rings," said Christine Jovanovic, of Austin, who is a member of the parent-teacher association at Canyon Vista Middle School and Westwood High School.

The result of the new requirements may be more processed-food products.

"We use prepackaged food because it has to have nutritional requirements posted," said Keli Gill, president-elect of the Arkansas PTA, where the state has had nutrition standards for bake sales for a few years. "Items like apples are perishable and don't last as long, so we don't want to waste money and have it go bad on us."

Schools are also grappling with how to monitor food sales so as not to end up in the penalty box.

Davis High School in Kaysville, Utah, was fined more than $15,000 during the 2012-2013 school year for selling certain snacks and carbonated beverages near the lunch area while meals were served, which isn't allowed under federal requirements. The Utah Department of Education conducted on-site visits and found the infractions. The fine was reduced to $1,297, according to Christopher Williams, a district spokesman.

Said Tennessee's Mr. Sevier: "It's not like we're going to have a brigade of black helicopters coming in to check."

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For whistleblowers, a bold move can be followed by one to department basement

8/4/2014


Paula Pedene, a former chief spokeswoman for the Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital, works in the basement of the hospital, where her desk was relocated amid a misconduct investigation after she blew the whistle on the hospital’s director. (SAMANTHA SAIS)

PHOENIX — On her 71st workday in the basement, Paula Pedene had something fun to look forward to. She had an errand to run, up on the first floor.

“Today, I get to go get the papers. Exciting!” she said. “I get to go upstairs and, you know, see people.”

The task itself was no thrill: Retrieve the morning’s newspapers and bring them back to the library of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital. The pleasure was in the journey. Down a long, sunlit hallway. Back again, seeing friends in the bustle of the hospital’s main floor.

Then, Pedene got back in the elevator and hit “B.” The day’s big excitement was over. It was 7:40 a.m.

“I will not be able to do this forever,” Pedene said later that day.

Pedene, 56, is the former chief spokeswoman for this VA hospital. Now, she is living in a bureaucrat’s urban legend. After complaining to higher-ups about mismanagement at this hospital, she has been reassigned — indefinitely — to a desk in the basement.

In the Phoenix case, investigators are still trying to determine whether Pedene was punished because of her earlier complaints. If she is, that would make her part of a long, ugly tradition in the federal bureaucracy — workers sent to a cubicle in exile.

In the past, whistleblowers have had their desks moved to break rooms, broom closets and basements. It’s a clever punishment, good-government activists say, that exploits a gray area in the law.

The whole thing can look minor on paper. They moved your office. So what? But the change is designed to afflict the striving soul of a federal worker, with a mix of isolation, idle time and lost prestige.

“I was down there in that office for 16 months. Nothing. They gave me no meaningful work,” said Walter Tamosaitis, a former contract worker at an Energy Department installation in Washington state.

Four years ago, he raised concerns about the processing of radioactive waste. Then he was transferred to a windowless room in the building’s basement.

“It was so lonely,” he said. One day, there was a big snowstorm outside. In the basement, the phone rang. It was his wife, who’d seen a TV report that his workplace had been shut down. He went upstairs: lights out. Doors locked. Nobody told him.

“I thought the Rapture had occurred,” Tamosaitis said. “And I said, ‘Well, [expletive]. I’m the good guy, it can’t be the Rapture. I should be gone, and they should be here.’ ”

A four-year punishment

In Phoenix, Pedene believes she is stuck in the basement now because of something she did four years ago.

At the time, she was a 20-year employee at the hospital who oversaw everything from news releases to the hospital newsletter to the annualVeterans Day parade. In 2010, Pedene joined a group that complained to VA’s upper management about the Phoenix hospital’s director. They alleged that the director had allowed budget shortfalls and berated subordinates.

And it seemed to work. VA’s inspector general investigated and found an $11 million shortfall in the hospital’s budget. The director retired voluntarily. “I felt we had actually done the right thing,” Pedene said.

But that turned out to be the beginning of her troubles, not the end.

Pedene said the hospital’s new leaders were still suspicious of her, since she’d made trouble for the old leader. In December 2012, she said, those new bosses accused Pedene of violating VA rules.

The chief accusation was that Pedene had let her husband upload photos of a VA-sponsored Veterans Day parade onto her work computer. He was helping her finish a PowerPoint presentation she was working on. He was a non-VA employee, working on a VA computer.

Pedene and her allies admit that this happened. (She was also accused of excessive spending, which she denies.) But they say her punishment has been far greater than the offense.

“They took her out from there like she’d sold nuclear secrets to the Iranians,” said Sam Foote, a former doctor at the Phoenix VA hospital, who had been an ally of Pedene.

While the allegation was being investigated, Pedene lost her BlackBerry, her e-mail address, her office and her position as spokeswoman. She was shifted, instead, to the hospital’s library.

Back then, the library was on the third floor. The library had windows. But not for long.

“They knew that it was moving to the basement,” Pedene said. In April, it did.

Today, the library is one room stuffed with bookshelves and computers. Pedene is a kind of backup receptionist there, sitting in the second desk that visitors get to.

“I used to be the first reception person,” she said. “Now I’m the second reception person. So my days are even more boring.”

That’s because the library’s visitors don’t really need that much help. Many of them are here to do personal business on the free computers and phone.

On one recent morning, for instance, a man at one computer was loudly doing a telephone interview. (“Occasionally, I’ll have a beer. But that’s it,” the man said. “No addiction. No felony.”) Another visitor said his truck had been stolen.

He wanted to borrow the library’s phone.

“If it’s not back today — in the yard and parked — those boys will be looking for you,” he said in one phone call. He seemed to be leaving a message to the actual truck thief, threatening to call the police.

Pedene’s role in all this is to log visitors onto the computers, help them make copies, and occasionally lend a stapler or a pencil. In her idle time, the wheels still spin. One day last month, she was constantly thinking about how she would be handling the hospital’s P.R. — if that were still her job.

The Facebook postings have been pretty poor lately, she said one day last month. And they’ve done nothing with the health observation calendar! Nobody has a clue that this is World Hepatitis Day, or Cord Blood Awareness Month.

“I don’t feel like I’m using the full potential that God has given me,” Pedene said. She is staying on in the basement because she thinks someday, the VA will let her out. “My goal is to be an awesome PR person for VA again,” she says.

A non-answer from the VA

So how does VA explain what has happened to Pedene?

Here, things turn slightly Kafkaesque. At the Phoenix hospital, a spokeswoman said she couldn’t answer the question.

“Why she was moved to the library was Ms. Helman’s decision,” said spokeswoman Jean Schaefer. She meant Sharon Helman, the hospital’s director from 2012 until this year.

Could Helman explain it, then?

The spokeswoman said no to that, too.

The reason was that this spring, Sam Foote — the doctor who was Pedene’s old ally — revealed an enormous scandal that occurred on Helman’s watch. Phoenix VA staffers were using bogus wait lists to hide the fact that patients were waiting too long for care.

Helman was put on leave, Schaefer said. She couldn’t be reached (Helman didn’t respond to an e-mail from The Washington Post).

So the person who forced Pedene out of her office has been forced out ofher office. Has anybody checked to see whether Pedene should get out of the basement now?

Schaefer said she couldn’t answer the question.

“Since these are personnel actions, we are unable to provide any comment,” she said in an e-mail.

A spokesman for the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee said the committee is looking into Pedene’s case — and so is the Office of Special Counsel, which is in charge of protecting federal whistleblowers. The Office of Special Counsel declined to comment, citing privacy rules.

Across the country, there are no reliable statistics about how often federal employees and contractors are sent into this kind of internal exile. In a 2010 survey, 13.7 percent of federal workers said they had personally been punished by their bosses, by being moved to a different “geographical location.” But the question was too broad. Its wording could include a relocation to the basement, or to North Dakota.

‘A long, rich tradition’

But activists who help whistleblowers say they’ve seen it happen again and again.

“There’s a long, rich tradition of exiling whistleblowers to dusty, dark closets, or hallways, or public spaces,” said Tom Devine, of the watchdog group Government Accountability Project.

He said that, in many cases, the new, bad office is close enough to the old, good office that the person’s colleagues see what’s become of them. “The bureaucratic equivalent of putting a whistleblower in the stocks,” Devine said.

In the 1980s, for instance, Air Force chemist Joseph Whitson testified in a military court about mismanagement in his office. When he got back to work, he was given a new job in a basement: dusting file cabinets and sweeping the floor.

More recently, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has drawn attention to the case of Robert Kobus, an FBI employee who complained that agents were entering false information into the FBI’s time-and-attendance system. Grassley said that in 2005, Kobus was moved to a cubicle on an otherwise vacant floor of an FBI building in New York. Kobus’s own attorney declined comment on the case.

In theory, it is illegal to make the basement into a bureaucratic purgatory. In 1994, for instance, Congress prohibited agencies from making significant changes in a whistleblower’s “working conditions” as punishment for speaking out.

But in practice, the situation is murkier. Some courts have said moving an employee to a basement or closet usually amounts to punishment. But others have said this is a decision that should be made case by case. How nice is the basement office? How big is the closet?

“To get a lawyer to take your case, you need to have damages. And the damages for that kind of claim, standing alone — it just wouldn’t be a great case to bring in court,” said Sandra Sperino, a University of Cincinnati law professor who has studied this kind of scenario. “If you’re fired, you might be able to get damages for your lost income. There may be some damages for getting moved to the basement or a dingy closet, but they’re minimal.” She said a lawyer’s best bet would be to seek punitive damages, or compensation for emotional distress.

Back in the basement of the Phoenix hospital, Pedene’s day unspooled slowly. Somebody asked her how to repair his home printer. Someone needed help printing a résumé. Somebody needed her to look up Home Depot in the phone book.

“What can you do?” a woman in a doctor’s coat asked Pedene, inquiring quietly about her situation.

“Nothing,” Pedene told her. “Just hope it gets better.”

This was a rare good moment: a friend who’d ventured downstairs into the hospital basement. But eventually, the friend revealed why she was there.

“But anyway,” she said, “I’m looking for a copy machine.”

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Al-Qassam Brigades: We killed 150 Zionist soldiers. Here's photo of killed soldiers which the Zionist Enemy, Israel officially recognized

8/4/2014

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Ebola terror at Gatwick as passenger collapses and dies getting off Sierra Leone flight

8/3/2014

Staff tell of fears as jet from Africa is quarantined after the death of passenger who was 'sweating and vomiting' before she collapsed

Ebola fears: A passenger died at Gatwick after getting off a glight fromm Sierra Leone

Airport staff tonight told of their fears of an Ebola outbreak after a passenger from Sierra Leone collapsed and died as she got off a plane at Gatwick.

Workers said they were terrified the virus could spread globally through the busy international hub from the West African country which is in the grip of the deadly epidemic.

The woman, said to be 72, became ill on the gangway after she left a Gambia Bird jet with 128 passengers on board.

She died in hospital on Saturday.

Ebola has killed 256 people in Sierra Leone.

A total of 826 have died in West Africa since the outbreak began in February.

Tests were carried out to see if the woman had the disease.

The plane was quarantined as ­officials desperately tried to trace everyone who had been in contact with the woman.

Airport workers faced an anxious wait to see if the woman had Ebola. One said: “Everyone’s just ­petrified.

“We’ve all seen how many people have died from Ebola, especially in Sierra Leone, and it’s terrifying.”

Speaking of the horrific moment the passenger collapsed, the shocked staff member added: “The woman was sweating buckets and vomiting.

“Paramedics arrived to try and help her. The next thing everybody was there… emergency crews, airfield operations, even immigration.

“They closed down the jet bridge and put the aircraft into quarantine.

“They took everyone’s details, even the guy who fuels the aircraft.”

The plane carrying the woman came from Freetown in Sierra Leone – a country with the highest number of victims from the disease.

It stopped at Banjul in The Gambia before landing in Gatwick at 8.15am on Saturday after a five-hour flight.

Public Health England tried to allay fears of an Ebola ­breakout in Britain.

It said the woman showed no ­symptoms during the flight.

Out of Africa: A Gambia Bird jet

One ­official added: “Public Health England is aware a passenger arriving on a flight from The Gambia that landed at Gatwick airport on Saturday fell ill shortly after disembarking.

"The passenger was taken to hospital and sadly died.

“In line with standard ­procedures, tests are being undertaken to determine the cause of death.

“The patient’s symptoms suggest that Ebola is very unlikely but as a precaution this is one of the tests being undertaken.

"The patient was not symptomatic on the plane and therefore there is no risk of Ebola being passed on to either flight crew or other passengers.

“England has world class health care and disease control systems which are active permanently, ­regularly tested and proven to be effective.

“As such, if the UK does see a case of imported Ebola, this will not result in an outbreak in this country.”

PA

Killer: The Ebola virus

South East Ambulance Service confirmed it had dealt with the sick woman at the airport.

Communications chief Janine Compton said: “We attended Gatwick airport at 8.30am on Saturday to attend an adult female patient who was seriously ill.

"She was taken to East Surrey Hospital in Redhill where she subsequently died.”

A Gatwick airport spokeswoman added: “A passenger collapsed after disembarking a flight from the Gambia.

"She was treated by airport medical staff at the scene but died later in hospital. The cause of death is yet to be confirmed.”

At around 11pm on Sunday, the Department of Health said that tests for the deadly Ebola virus on the woman who died at Gatwick had proved negative.

There is no cure for Ebola.

Symptoms in the later stages include external and internal bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea.

At this point the disease is highly contagious.

Victims have a 90% chance of dying, although doctors said in this epidemic the rate is 60%.

The outbreak began in the forests of eastern Guinea in February.

It quickly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

A jump in the number of cases and the death toll has raised international concern and placed under-resourced health facilities in the West African nations under strain.

Last week, the Ebola crisis was described as out of control by World Health Organisation chief Margaret Chan and could be “catastrophic”.

At the same time, Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency and called in troops to quarantine victims.

Liberia also imposed controls.

Ms Chan revealed 60 doctors, nurses and health care workers had now lost their lives trying to save others.

She said: “This outbreak is moving faster than our efforts to control it.

“If the situation continues to ­deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socio-economic disruption as well as a high risk of spread to other countries.”

Ms Chan met the presidents of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.

She told them: “This meeting must mark a turning point in the outbreak response.”

 

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Annual Check Up: 1963 Communist Goals

8/3/2014

Periodically we check the "progress" of the Communist donkey. Let's review: 

1963 Communist Goals 

The communist goals were entered into the Congressional record by Albert Herlong, Jr. (a Floridian who served in Congress from 1949-69).

1) US acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war

2) US willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war

3) Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the US would be a demonstration of "moral strength"

4) Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5) Extension of long term loans to Russia and Soviet Satellites

6) Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination

7) Grant recognition of Red China, and admission of Red China to the UN.

8) Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the Germany question by free elections under supervision of the UN

9) Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the US has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress

10) Allow all Soviet Satellites individual representation in the UN

11) Promote the UN as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the UN as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo)

12) Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party 

13) Do away with loyalty oaths

14) Continue giving Russia access to the US Patent Office

15) Capture one or both of the political parties in the US

16) Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions, by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17) Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Socialism, and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations. Put the party line in text books.

18) Gain control of all student newspapers

19) Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20) Infiltrate the press. Get control of book review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.

21) Gain control of key positions in radio, TV & motion pictures.

22) Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings", substitute shapeless, awkward, and meaningless forms.

23) Control art critics and directors of art museums. " Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art".

24) Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25) Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography, and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.

26) Present Homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as "normal, natural, and healthy".
27) Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch"

28) Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state"
29) Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30) Discredit the American founding fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man".

31) Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of "the big picture:" Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32) Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture - - education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33) Eliminate all laws or procedures, which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34) Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35) Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI

36) Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37) Infiltrate and gain control of big business

38) Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand or treat.

39) Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40) Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41) Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42) Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special interest groups should rise up and make a "united force" to solve economic, political, or social problems.

43) Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44) Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45) Repeal the Connally Reservation so the US can not prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.

Live video of Hamas rocket HITTING civilian building in Gaza

8/3/2014

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