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States Sue Over School Lunch Changes, Say They’re Not Scientific Like the Obama Rules Based on Retracted Nutrition Studies: Reason Roundup

Suit takes aim at new school lunch standards. A recent rule change regarding school lunches was greeted with relief by some school districts, who had found that federal mandates from the Obama administration led to food waste, less lunches sold, and more kids buying meals from vending machines. Additionally, schools were still allowed to serve sugary flavored milk, but for some reason it had to be the less nutritious nonfat version.

The changes approved by the Trump administration are relatively minor—more time to comply with reduced sodium levels, no need for flavored milk to be nonfat, and lower whole-grain requirements for some foods—but they address some of the chief criticisms from public schools across the country.

Some state attorneys general don’t like that. They’re now suing in federal court to make the Obama-era lunch standards permanent.

The suit argues that the recent changes are illegal because Agriculture Department officials didn’t provide scientific justification. This is pretty hilarious, considering the sloppy science that the Obama administration relied on when instituting its “Smarter Lunchrooms” program. Many papers from the lead architect of the initiative have since been retracted, after fellow researchers found inconsistencies, errors, and evidence of fraudulent data.

The lawsuit was filed by attorneys general in California, D.C., Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont. The eternal whackjobs at the PETA-esque Center for Science in the Public Interest have filed a separate lawsuit also challenging the changes.

FREE MINDS

Warren wants to lower burden of proof for white-collar crime. Some people are defending Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s “bad bill to jail executives for negligence” using “the argument that we should trust prosecutors to show restraint,” tweets Radley Balko. But this “flies in the face the history of prosecutors.”

Read more on why from criminal law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick in this thread.

FREE MARKETS

Pete Buttigieg says no to “free college.” Behold, the rare Democratic presidential candidate capable of resisting a trendy talking point:

QUICK HITS

  • Amazing how many new ways that prison staff can find to be evil:

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George Mason Students Want Visiting Professor Brett Kavanaugh Fired Over Sexual Misconduct Allegations

KavanaughGeorge Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School has hired Associate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to teach a course for students studying abroad in England next summer. Some student activists want Kavanaugh’s appointment rescinded, due to the sexual misconduct allegations made against him during his confirmation hearings.

These students are framing the issue as one of safety. George Mason, they say, will be an unsafe place if someone like Kavanaugh is affiliated with it.

“As a survivor, as a student who comes to this university, and expects to have a good education, to experience a happy, safe place, I am insulted,” student Elijah Nichols tells WDVM. Nicholas also accuses the university’s president of disregarding students’ safety and well-being.

A change.org petition with more than 2,000 signatories calls on George Mason University to cancel Kavanaugh, change its practices around the gender equality law Title IX, and issue a formal apology to survivors. The Twitter feed of Survivors 4 Mason, the activist group organizing opposition to Kavanaugh, has retweeted several students who chided the school for being lenient to Kavanaugh.

George Mason President Angel Cabrera has thus far rebuffed the activist demands that he step in and override the law school’s decision. Indeed, it would be insane to deny students the opportunity to learn from a member of the Supreme Court due to these allegations, at least some of which seem quite dubious in hindsight. It’s also hard to see how Kavanaugh’s presence actually impacts any current student’s safety.

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Nine Reasons Why You Should Support Joe Biden For President

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Former Vice President Joe Biden has released a video statement telling the American people that the accusations he is now facing of touching women in inappropriate ways without their consent is the product of changing “social norms”, assuring everyone that he will indeed be adjusting to those changes.

And thank goodness. For a minute there, I was worried Biden might cave under the pressure of a looming scandal and decline to run for president on the grounds that it could cripple his campaign and leave America facing another four years of Donald Trump. Here are nine good reasons why I hope Joe Biden runs for president, and why you should support him too:

1. It’s his turn.

It’s Biden’s turn to be president. He’s spent years playing second fiddle while other leading Democrats hogged all the limelight, and that’s not fair. He’s been waiting very patiently. Come on.

2. Most Qualified Candidate Ever.

If Joe Biden secures the Democratic Party nomination for president, he would be the Most Qualified Candidate Ever to run for office. His service as a US Senator and a Vice President has given him unparalleled experience priming him for the most powerful elected office in the world. Everything Biden has done throughout his entire career proves that he’d make a great Commander-in-Chief.

3. He’s closely associated with a popular Democratic president.

You think Biden, you think Obama. You think Obama, you think greatness. You can’t spend that much time with a great Democratic president without absorbing his greatness yourself. It’s called osmosis.

4. You liked Obama, didn’t you?

Biden was part of the Obama administration. Remember the Obama administration? It was magical, right? If you want more of that, vote Biden.

5. But Trump!

Do you want Trump to win the next election? You know he’ll shatter all our norms and literally end the world if he does, right? You should be terrified of the possibility of Trump winning in 2020, and if you are, you should want him running against Joe Biden. What’s the alternative? Nominating some crazy unelectable socialist like Bernie Sanders? Might as well just hand Trump the victory now, then. Anyone who wants to beat Trump must fall in line behind the Most Qualified Candidate Ever.

6. Iraq wasn’t so bad.

Okay, maybe some of his past foreign policy positions look bad in hindsight, but come on. Pushing for the Iraq war was what everyone was doing back in those days. It was all the rage. We all made it through, right? I mean, most of us?

7. This is happening whether you like it or not.

We’re doing this. We’re going to push Joe Biden through whether you like it or not, and we can do it the easy way or the hard way. Just relax, take deep breaths, and think about a nice place far away from here. Don’t struggle. This will be over before you know it. We’ll use plenty of lube.

8. Just vote for him.

Just vote for him, you insolent little shits. Who the fuck do you think you are, anyway? You think you’re entitled to a bunch of ponies and unicorns like healthcare and drinkable water? You only think that because you’re a bunch of racist, sexist homophobes. You will vote for who we tell you to or we’ll spend the next four years calling you all Russian agents and screaming about Susan Sarandon.

9. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Honestly, what could possibly go wrong? It’s not like the Most Qualified Candidate Ever could manage to lose an election to some oafish reality TV star. Hell, Biden could beat Trump in his sleep. He could even skip campaigning in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and still win by a landslide, because those states are in the bag. There’s no way he could fail, barring some unprecedented and completely unforeseeable freak occurrences from way out of left field that nobody could possibly have anticipated.

*  *  *

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White Plains, New York, Will Finally End Its Ban on Amusement Arcades

In a victory for the young and the young at heart, a city in Westchester County, New York, is moving to strike down its harebrained ban on arcades.

White Plains—a popular suburb outside of Manhattan—inched closer to sanctioning fun this week, with the city council signaling they will scrap a law that has barred business owners from opening “amusement arcades.” The ban’s repeal will also pave the way for laser tag and Esports establishments, both of which were barred under the prohibition as well.

The city’s ban was first implemented in the ’70s, briefly repealed, and then reinstated in 1999.

Why the discrimination against arcades, which breed family friendly fun in malls across America? White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach thinks he knows the source, and it’s as insidious as ever: Times Square.

“There was a time when Times Square was seedy, and they had a lot of arcades,” he told the New York CBS affiliate. “Things were happening there that were not favored, and I think, in general, communities didn’t think arcades were a good thing to have.”

The centrally located Manhattan plaza—laden with jumbotrons and envied by tourists everywhere—does have an arcade or two. It also has its fair share of restaurants, bars, clothing shops, convenience stores, and hotels, which were fortunate enough to avoid prohibition in White Plains.

But that’s not the entire story, as arcades have had their fair share of critics since their inception in the early 20th century. Gambling was commonplace at such establishments, and the arcade’s reputation as a smoky den of sin promulgated widely. In 1942, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia confiscated the city’s pinball machines, and in a highly publicized news appearance, smashed some with a sledgehammer and then dumped them into the Long Island Sound.

The 1970s saw a resurgence—the dawn of an arcade golden age, so to speak—with businesses transitioning from pinball to computerized role-play games. Popular options included the legendary Pac-Man, as well as Asteroids and Space Invaders—pioneers in the “shoot ’em up” genre. That irked some politicians, church leaders, and concerned citizens, who worried about violence in video games and fretted over what trouble the youth might get in if left to their own devices. They soon saw to it that White Plains was washed of its debauchery.

Luckily for arcade-lovers in White Plains, though, pinball machines and Pac-Man are no longer canceled.

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Turkey Issues Counter-Ultimatum To Pence: Either Stand With Us Or With The Terrorists

In the latest in the continuing fallout between the US and Turkey over Ankara’s plans to install Russia’s S-400 missile defense systems — for which the United States this week finally halted delivery of not only the jets but also equipment related to the stealth F-35 fighter aircraft, and canceled all future shipments of F-35 related material — Turkey has issued its own counter-ultimatum: you are either with us or with the terrorists.

In response to yesterday’s threat by Vice President Mike Pence putting Turkey on notice to either scrap the S-400 deal with Russia or say goodbye to the Lockheed F-35, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay tweeted, “The United States must choose. Does it want to remain Turkey’s ally or risk our friendship by joining forces with terrorists to undermine its NATO ally’s defense against its enemies?”

File photo via RFE/RL

Ironically it’s precisely the “undermining of NATO defense” that has Washington concerned related to the S-400, given the potential for compromising the F-35 advanced radar evading and electronics capabilities as Russia could get access to the extremely advanced Joint Strike Fighter stealth aircraft, enabling Moscow to detect and exploit its vulnerabilities.

Pence said during a speech Wednesday at the “NATO Engages” summit in Washington, DC: “We’ve also made it clear that we’ll not stand idly by while NATO allies purchase weapons from our adversaries, weapons that threaten the very cohesion of this alliance.”

“Turkey’s purchase of a $2.5 billion S-400 anti-aircraft missile system from Russia poses great danger to NATO and to the strength of this alliance,” he added, warning further that Turkey could face serious consequences.

While Turkey’s VP didn’t specify which “terrorists” the US would be taking sides with as part of his response, there’s little doubt this was a reference to Syrian Kurdish militias which has also been the source of tensions given ongoing US support to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) just across Turkey’s border with Syria. Over the past year Washington has repeatedly warned against Turkish forces foraying deeper into Syria to fight Syrian Kurdish militants. 

Turkey has also in the past lashed out at Washington over the fact that self-exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen has been allowed safe haven in the US. Turkey has long claimed he was a prime force behind the 2016 coup attempt targeting the Erdogan government. 

On Wednesday Turkey sought to calm US fears of compromising NATO’s systems, as Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated, “[S-400s] will not be integrated into the NATO system,” and further suggested establishing a multi-party technical group that would ensure the air defense system “will not be a threat” to any advanced western systems, the F-35 included. 

Both the US and Turkish Vice Presidents publicly sparring this week will likely only harden Erdogan in his position. Turkey again reminded the world last Friday that, “We have signed a deal with Russia, and this deal is valid. Now we are discussing the delivery process,” according to words from the foreign ministry on Friday after he came out of a meeting with his Russian counterpart FM Lavrov.

He added that “We have an agreement with Russia and we are bound by it.” The first Russian S-400 delivery is expected in July.

Both last week President Erdogan and Turkish officials have remained unwavering in declaring “it’s a done deal” in the face of US threats. 

A month ago Erdogan even colorfully told a Turkish broadcaster during an interview that, “There can never be a turning back. This would not be ethical, it would be immoral. Nobody should ask us to lick up what we spat.” 

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Initial Jobless Claims Crash To Lowest In 50 Years

The last time this few Americans sought the help of government after losing a job was in November 1969…

Initial Jobless Claims tumbled 10K from the prior week to 202k.

Certainly provides some optimism for tomorrow’s payroll print being better than expected and better than last month’s dismal data.

For some context:

  • The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” Album hit #1

  • Wendy’s Hamburgers, American fast food restaurant chains founded by Dave Thomas opens in Columbus, Ohio

  • Alcatraz Island off SF, is seized by militant Native Americans

  • US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

  • USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR

So much for that Q1 weakness?

“Mission Accomplished”

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Manhattan D.A. Spent $250K in Asset Forfeiture Funds on Fine Dining and Luxurious Travel

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance spent nearly $250,000 over the past five years from a state asset forfeiture fund on fine dining, first-class airfare, and luxurious hotels, according to public records obtained by The City, a nonprofit news outlet in New York City.

While regular state employees, like the line prosecutors under Vance, are bound by strict travel and expense rules, Vance is under no such regulations, and his office controls more than $600 million in funds seized by New York law enforcement in civil and criminal cases.

During his frequent trips across the country, Vance lived high on the hog, The City reports:

Expense reports show that in the last fiscal year alone, Vance visited Washington nine times, Aspen and London twice, and Paris and Los Angeles once apiece.

While in Paris, he spent four nights at Hôtel d’Aubusson, paying $2,816. The five-star hotel “is housed in a true Parisian mansion dating back to 1634” and boasts “discrete luxury, Louis XV furniture, original Aubusson tapestries and a wonderful wood burning fireplace,” according to a description posted on TripAdvisor.

In London, Vance was booked at the Ned Hotel, paying $994 for a two-night stay. The five-star accommodations are located in a former bank described on the hotel’s website as an “abandoned architectural masterpiece,” with a rooftop pool that overlooks St. Paul’s Cathedral. Vance spent $128 for a meal in the hotel’s restaurant, records show.

Notably, The City reports that Vance’s spending over that period dwarfs that of district attorneys in New York City’s other boroughs. The next highest spender was Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, who expensed $18,407 since taking office on Jan. 1, 2016.

Vance defended the spending in statements to The City, saying they were within the rules and involved travel to important policing and counter-terrorism conferences. Vance’s office has also spent $38 million in forfeiture funds to help local prosecutors across the country test rape kits.

But the report highlights one of the chief criticisms of asset forfeiture: The loose rules and lax oversight over how those funds are used.

Civil asset forfeiture laws allow police and prosecutors to seize property—cash, cars, and even houses—suspected of being connected to criminal activity. Much of that money is often funneled back into police department and district attorney offices’ budgets.

Civil liberties groups argue that creates a perverse profit incentive. Many states have lax reporting requirements for forfeiture expenditures, and numerous watchdog and media investigations have revealed local police departments and prosecutors using forfeiture revenues as a slush fund.

Local news outlets reported earlier this year that the district attorney in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, used $21,000 in asset forfeiture revenues intended for drug enforcement to lease a 2016 Toyota Highlander.

In Macomb County, Michigan, county officials launched an audit of the local prosecutor’s office after a successful public records lawsuit revealed more than $100,000 in questionable expenditures from the asset forfeiture fund, including office furniture, birthdays, and retirement parties.

In Illinois, former La Salle County state’s attorney Brian Towne is facing criminal charges for misconduct and misappropriating public funds after he allegedly spent asset forfeiture funds on an SUV, WiFi for his home, and local youth sports programs. Town created his own highway interdiction unit and asset forfeiture fund for his office, an unusual move that the Illinois Supreme Court later ruled was illegal.

A 2016 Department of Justice Office of Inspector General audit found that an Illinois police department spent more than $20,000 in equitable sharing funds on accessories for two lightly used motorcycles, including after-market exhaust pipes, decorative chrome, and heated handgrips.

There was also the Georgia sheriff who purchased a $90,000 Dodge Viper with forfeiture funds for the department’s D.A.R.E. program—not to be confused with the other Georgia sheriff who bought a $70,000 Dodge Charger Hellcat with forfeiture funds.

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German Manfuacturing Collapse: “Awful” Industrial Orders Plunge Most Since Financial Crisis

One day after Germany’s leading economic institutes slashed their forecasts for 2019 growth by more than half on Thursday (and warned that the economy could slow much more if Britain quits the European Union without an agreement), Germany again confirmed just how bad the manufacturing recession at the heart of the Eurozone is, when it reported that Industrial orders fell by the biggest margin sequentially in more than two years in February, slumping 4.2%, badly missing consensus expectations of a 0.3% rebound, and worse than last monght’s -2.1% drop, highlighting the extent of the slowdown amid ongoing global trade disputes.

On an annual basis, the collapse was almost unprecedented, with the 8.2% drop matching the worst since the global financial crisis.

The drop in orders in February was marked by a slump in foreign demand, data from the Economy Ministry showed. Across sectors, orders of capital goods fell by 6.0%, compared with a decrease of 0.9% and 3.5% for intermediate and consumer goods orders, respectively.

As Goldman recaps, the February weakness was “broad-based across regions and sectors. Foreign orders declined the most (by 7.9%mom, of which -2.9% from the Euro area countries) against a decrease of 1.6% for domestic orders.”

Digging between the numbers, the IIF’s Robin Brooks noted that contrary to consensus, it wasn’t collapsing Chinese trade that was the culprit for the drop, but rather the GDP contraction in Turkey that disproportionately hit German manufacturing: while German exports to Turkey are only 1.4% of total, they were down 22% in the year to Jan. 2019.

Long the Eurozone’s economic powerhouse, Germany barely avoided a technical recession at the end of last year and posted its weakest growth in five years in 2018 as its export-orientated economy is slowed by the trade and Brexit headwinds.

As Reuters notes, Germany’s slower-than-previously-expected growth means Finance Minister Olaf Scholz’s fiscal room for maneuver is getting tighter as tax revenues are likely to come in lower than expected this year. Last month, the cabinet passed a draft budget for 2020 that calls for a 1.7% spending increase and relies on ministries to cut costs to avoid incurring new debt in light of the slowdown.

The tighter public finances – after years of budget surpluses routinely exceeding expectations – are starting to raise tensions over spending priorities in Merkel’s awkward grand coalition, senior party officials say. Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said last month the ministry would have to fight next year to ensure that defense spending continues to expand as a share of the overall economy to move toward the NATO target of 2 percent of economic output.

Meanwhile as we noted yesterday, the German institutes’ forecasts were completed by March 29, the date Britain was originally due to leave the EU, when the institutes assumed it would not quit without an agreement on the terms. The deadline has since been extended to April 12. Their estimates feed into the government’s own growth projections, which will be updated later this month. In January, the government forecast growth of 1.0 percent for this year.

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said the slowdown in Germany seen in the second half of 2018 would be overcome during the course of this year and replaced by an economic upswing. Still, officials are hopeful that once global trade disputes and Brexit are resolved, growth can pick up next year.

Summarizing all of the above, ING economist Carsten Brzeski said that “awful new-order data suggests that German industry is still suffering from Brexit woes and global uncertainties.”

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The End Of The Bull Market, In Three Charts

Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

Stocks have completely recovered from their flash bear market of late 2018.

But now they face a hard question: Can already record high prices continue to rise in the face of falling corporate profits?

Let’s start with the “falling corporate profits” part:

A business generates improving profits when the things it sells rise in price faster than the cost of production. So on the following chart you want labor costs to be flat or falling, and the other line – a measure of inflation – to be rising. But lately the opposite is true.

A big part of the past decade’s spike in corporate profits came at the expense of workers, who saw real wages stagnate while the cost of living rose. Now, with labor markets tightening and minimum wages rising, workers are getting a bigger slice of their employers’ revenues. That means shrinking corporate margins and, other things being equal, slower to negative earnings growth.

Now let’s look directly at corporate profit margins. Note that they stopped widening in 2015 as wage inflation began to bite. Then they spiked in 2018 when the Trump corporate tax cuts provided a one-time windfall. But that windfall is over and future comparisons will be with last year’s unbeatable earnings. As a result, public companies are going to report lower year-over-year profits going forward.

Why does that imply falling stock prices, especially when corporate profits stagnated between 2015 and 2018 while share prices kept rising? Because of what those rising share prices did to valuations. Stocks are now a lot more expensive both nominally and compared to earnings than they were in 2015, which means the air pockets under them are much bigger. They’re priced for perfection, and falling earnings per share is the definition of imperfect for the stock market.

Based on history, the next few years look brutal for the US stock market. Which raises yet another question: Is history still worth anything in a world of out-of-control central banks and hyper-profligate governments?

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