Wasn't it just yesterday that we talked of a House effort to allow financially-strapped school districts to wriggle out from under recently-issued healthy food regulations? Who knew that so many House members were objectively pro-childhood diabetes? Well, the American Heart Association helps you tell your Reps and Senators to oppose any effort to roll back healthy food regulations for public school kids. Do not brook any absurdity about federal mandates, which right-wingers only seem to care about when those mandates do something good, and certainly do not brook any absurdity about school districts needing flexibility, when school districts need money. Kids in America are more likely to be obese and diabetic than ever before, and certainly our public schools should not make that situation worse by offering junk foods dripping in sugar, salt, trans fats, and saturated fats. And personal to those who think making kids eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains equals FASCISM!!!!!: save your tantrums for some actual fascism, like warrantless wiretapping.
Meanwhile, President Obama has, perhaps surprisingly, nominated a far right-wing judge to Georgia's Northern District Court, a former state legislator named Michael Boggs. Mr. Boggs voted for one of those anti-gay marriage constitutional amendments that keep falling these days, and he doesn't get to say that's what I did as a legislator, but as a judge I'll be impartial -- not when he's already run for judge by foregrounding his opposition to gay marriage. He also supported making public data on abortions performed by doctors, a questionable notion in a land where doctors get harassed and killed for the perception that they've performed abortions. Word on the street is that the Boggs nomination is part of a deal Mr. Obama has made with Georgia's two Republican Senators, but the President didn't make a deal with the American people, did he? And we certainly would not trade our right to free speech for a little peace in Congress. So People for the American Way helps you oppose the Michael Boggs nomination.
Finally, gay Eagle Scout Pascal Tessier has begun a petition on change.org, with which you may tell Amazon, a key Boy Scouts of America corporate sponsor, to suspend their financial support of the BSA until the BSA stops firing gay scout troop leaders. It seems the Boy Scouts have decided to tolerate gay scouts but not gay troop leaders, and that's actually a bit patronizing -- does the BSA tolerate gay scouts merely because they think they just don't know better, while continuing to treat gay troop leaders because they do "know better" and still choose to carry Teh Gay Cooties? Of course, while Amazon is no friend of economically liberal causes, it has been a friend of gay rights causes -- which makes its continued funding for the BSA a little puzzling, unless its braintrust has decided that change is slow and the BSA has made progress by allowing gay scouts. But none of that requires any of us to adopt their opinion, let alone stop fighting for justice. No justice happens but that we demand it.
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