A lot of people resolve to make changes in their diets in January. This is an open thread for any tips you have on substituting one kind of food for another for any health or ethical reason.

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, do you have a tip for adapting a recipe you used to enjoy with meat, eggs or dairy?

If you’re trying to lose weight, have you changed the way you cook any of your favorite meals? Some people would rather eat a completely different dish than adapt a beloved recipe that is “too fattening.”

If you have developed a food allergy or sensitivity, have you learned any trick for replacing the foods you can’t tolerate?

Here are a few food substitutions that work for me:

1. I’ve been using strained tomatoes or tomato paste packaged in glass jars in place of canned tomatoes ever since I learned that almost all canned tomatoes, including organic brands, contain bisphenol-A (BPA).

2. I’ve been having oatmeal for breakfast, or yogurt with cereal, instead of bagels. That’s partly because I’m trying to eat less bread, and partly because I’d rather forgo bagels than eat a bagel that isn’t slathered with either butter or cream cheese.

3. To make risotto with no milk or cream, I use a tip from the Moosewood Collective’s Low-Fat Favorites cookbook. In a food processor or blender, combine a cup or two of frozen corn kernels with whatever kind of stock you will use to cook the risotto. This creates a creamy consistency, but without being as heavy as risotto with cream. It’s good for vegans or anyone cutting back on calories.

4. Applesauce or other fruit purees can replace some of the fat in cake or quickbread recipes. Diana Shaw’s Essential Vegetarian Cookbook has lots of ideas on this front. Moosewood’s Low-Fat Favorites has a good spice bread recipe containing prune puree and no egg, which is good to bake for vegans or anyone with an egg allergy.

Final suggestion, which I’ve never tried but a friend swears by:

Dump an undrained can of black beans into a blender or food processor and puree. Add the mixture to any boxed brownie mix (she says this works with any brand). Don’t add egg or oil or water–just mix the dry ingredients in the box with the black bean puree, then bake. This sounds crazy, but I have eaten her brownies at potlucks, and you would never know there are beans in them. She does it to sneak extra protein and fiber into a treat for her kids.

I’ll look forward to reading your comments.

Food Democracy Now reported in an e-mail to supporters yesterday that two of the “sustainable dozen” candidates the organization has endorsed for positions at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are “under serious consideration for Deputy Secretary”: Chuck Hassebrook of the Center for Rural Affairs and  Karen Ross of the California Winegrape Growers Association and the Winegrape Growers of America.

More than 80,000 people have signed Food Democracy Now’s petition supporting sustainable change at the USDA. Click here to sign the petition or click here to forward it to like-minded friends if you have already signed. You can kick in a few bucks to help keep Food Democracy Now going by donating here.

The House of Representatives passed a symbolic “disapproval” measure on Thursday to oppose the release of the second $350 billion tranche to the Treasury Department’s Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), more commonly known as the Wall Street bailout. About a third of House Democrats joined most of the Republicans (including Iowa’s Tom Latham and Steve King) in this measure.

However, all three Iowa Democrats (Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Leonard Boswell) voted against the disapproval resolution, meaning they are on record not opposing the release of another $350 billion to the TARP.

The House action was merely symbolic because last week a similar “disapproval” resolution failed in the U.S. Senate. Chuck Grassley voted with most Republicans trying to block the release of the $350 billion, but Tom Harkin voted with most Democrats to reject the motion of disapproval. (President-elect Barack Obama personally contacted many senators urging them not to block the $350 billion.)

I believe that the events of the last few months have shown that the Wall Street bailout was costly and ineffective. It did not free up credit, as banks remain reluctant to lend. It did not stabilize the stock market either. New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman argues persuasively here that policy-makers are in effect “making huge gifts to bank shareholders at taxpayer expense.”

That said, perhaps the Obama administration will use the second half of the TARP money more competently than the Bush administration used the first $350 billion. I certainly hope so, not only for the sake of the economy and the banking system, but also for the sake of Democrats who now well and truly “own” this bailout.

If you attended any political events leading up to the Iowa Caucuses you know about Iowans for Sensible Priorities. They are the ones that handed out the pens with the pull out charts, had the pie chart car, and passed out cookies with pie charts on them. There goals were to…

Increase funding to meet the needs of our children and children around the world (at no additional taxpayer expense) by reducing money spent on the Pentagon for Cold War weapons systems no longer needed to protect America.

Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, has recently said that the Obama administration plans to cut Pentagon spending…

Withdrawing from Iraq, and cutting $300 billion in other defense spending, would wipe out the increases in military spending under the Bush administration. It would even reduce military spending to a smaller percentage of the federal budget than it was during the Clinton administration.

It is great to have a President with sensible priorities.

Senator Chuck Grassley voted against Timothy Geithner’s nomination for Treasury Secretary today:

Grassley had praised Geithner for being qualified for the job and for apologizing for his failure to pay $34,000 in income taxes several years ago. But Grassley said he gave inconsistent answers during his testimony to the committee during his confirmation hearing Wednesday.

“The explanations for irregularities have ranged from statements that he should have known, to proclamations that if only his accountants had warned him he would have done the right thing,” Grassley said in a statement released after the committee vote.

“I received a message yesterday from a constituent in Dubuque expressing concern about this nomination. The constituent wrote, ‘If the man cannot handle his own finances, how is he going to handle the country’s?’ “

Geither will be confirmed easily by the full Senate. Only four other Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee joined Grassley in voting against him.

I am surprised that Grassley voted against Geithner, given that the Wall Street establishment is uniformly behind this nomination.

I wasn’t crazy about this pick because of Geithner’s role in the bailout. The Des Moines Register makes clear that Grassley did not oppose Geithner for that reason.

I think it’s reasonable for people to object when the prospective head of the Treasury Department did not fully meet his tax obligations for several years in a row. I also suspect that if Geithner were not a white male, a lot more senators would view his past tax problems as disqualifying.

I expect all of Obama’s cabinet appointments to be confirmed, with Eric Holder perhaps getting the most “no” votes for Attorney General.

Interestingly, only two Republicans voted against confirming Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State yesterday.

The Senate unanimously confirmed Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and five other Obama appointees on Tuesday.  

John Norris will become Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s chief of staff at the US Department of Agriculture, Iowa Independent reported today. Norris was Vilsack’s chief of staff early in his first term as governor.

In November, Norris’s wife, Jackie Norris, accepted an offer to become chief of staff for First Lady Michelle Obama.

Before Barack Obama announced his plan to nominate Vilsack to run the USDA, John Norris indicated that he was interested in being appointed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Norris’s departure means that Governor Chet Culver will need to make two appointments to the three-member Iowa Utilities Board this spring. Norris currently chairs the IUB. Someone will need to fill the remainder of his term, which expires in April 2011.

IUB member Krista Tanner has been serving out the remainder of a term that expires in April 2009. I do not know whether she will ask to be reappointed to a full six-year term on that body.

Last year Tanner and Norris cast the deciding votes to approve an application to build a new coal-fired power plant near Marshalltown. However, the IUB has yet to issue a ruling on ratemaking principles for that plant. Reuters reported last March,

Ratemaking principles define how construction costs will be recovered in utility rates throughout the life of the generating facility. [Interstate Power and Light] is requesting a 12.55 percent return on common equity as part of the filing.

Several environmental organizations have intervened with the IUB regarding the ratemaking for this proposed plant. The board’s decision could affect whether Interstate Power and Light proceeds with this project or abandons it as unprofitable. LS Power recently announced that it no longer plans to build a coal-fired power plant near Waterloo.

If you know any qualified candidates who are interested in serving on the Iowa Utilities Board, encourage them to submit their resumes and supporting materials to the governor’s office as soon as possible.  

We don’t buy a lot of processed foods, so I wasn’t worried about the major outbreak of salmonella that has been traced to contaminated peanut butter.

Then I glanced down the full list of recalled items, which Jill Richardson posted at La Vida Locavore. It includes lots of popular brand-name crackers, cookies, and other foods (such as Wal-Mart, Keebler and Hy-Vee).

There are even some organics on the list, like certain types of Clif bars (which we have in our cupboard).

Some PetSmart dog biscuits have been recalled too.

Note: the FDA says jars of peanut butter are not affected. This recall applies to other forms of processed food made with peanut butter.

Do not take chances with salmonella.

Congratulations are in order to Tom Vilsack today. As I predicted, the Senate confirmed him as Secretary of Agriculture by a unanimous vote. The same measure, approved shortly after Barack Obama’s inauguration, also confirmed five of the new president’s other appointees: Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and White House Budget Office director Peter Orszag.

The Sunday Des Moines Register ran an article featuring Drake University Law Professor Neil Hamilton, who predicted that Vilsack will do more to reform the US Department of Agriculture than some of his critics anticipate:

His critics see Vilsack as “coming from only part of agriculture, and I don’t think that probably is accurate,” Hamilton said in an interview after Vilsack’s Senate confirmation hearing last week. Hamilton, who has long been an advocate of locally grown food systems, a priority of Vilsack’s critics, attended the hearing and chatted with the former governor afterward.

Hamilton persuaded Vilsack as governor to form a state food policy council to promote local food systems, among other ideas.

At last week’s Senate confirmation hearing, Vilsack promised to promote local foods.

Discussing Vilsack’s record on agriculture issues, Hamilton told the Des Moines Register that

Vilsack couldn’t have been expected to be anything but an advocate of biotechnology or ethanol when he was governor. “It would have been hard to be the governor of Iowa, just as it’s hard to be the senator from Illinois, without being a supporter of ethanol,” Hamilton said in a reference to Obama, a leading supporter of corn ethanol as an Illinois senator.

“The fact that you can see a role for genetic modification and science in agriculture doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t also see an opportunity for local food and organic” agriculture, Hamilton continued. […]

Hamilton said he is “very confident that whether it’s a year, two years, or four years, that most of the people” who signed the Food Democracy Now! petition “will be impressed and pleased” with Vilsack.

Hamilton was one of the six potential nominees for secretary of agriculture on the Food Democracy Now! petition. He is also one of the “sustainable dozen” that Food Democracy Now! is recommending for undersecretary posts within the USDA.

Those senior USDA appointments will set the tone for Vilsack’s tenure. I have no idea whether any of the “sustainable dozen” have a chance to be hired. Unfortunately, Jill Richardson reports that some strong advocates for industrial agriculture are being considered for high-ranking positions: Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff may become deputy secretary of agriculture, and Joy Philippi, former past president of the National Pork Producers Council, may become an undersecretary of the USDA. (In 2007, Philippi was a co-chair of Rural Americans for Hillary.)

Today, I am hopeful that Hamilton, who knows Vilsack well, is right about the governor’s plans for the USDA.

I look forward to writing regularly here about the Obama administration’s food and agriculture policies. La Vida Locavore will be following these issues in even more detail, so bookmark that blog if you are interested in these subjects.

While Joe Biden was taking the oath of office this morning, I was struck by how healthy Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens looked and sounded. The man is 88 years old, and not only does he look 15 years younger, he is still able to do an intellectually demanding job well.

Even though luck has a lot to do with longevity (Mr. desmoinesdem tells me that Justice Stevens has an older brother who still practices law in Florida), I still feel grateful for whatever Stevens has done throughout his life to stay in such fine health.

Imagine the harm that could have been done if George Bush had been able to name another justice of the Scalia, Thomas, Roberts or Alito variety.

President Gerald Ford nominated Stevens for the Supreme Court in 1975. That has to be one of the best things Ford ever did for this country.

Apparently Stevens has no immediate plans to step down and has hired clerks for the Supreme Court’s 2009 session. I learned from his wikipedia entry that if Stevens continues to serve through February 2011, he will become the oldest justice in the history of the Supreme Court (Oliver Wendell Holmes currently holds the record). If Stevens serves until July 15, 2012, he would become the justice to have served on the high court for the longest time (surpassing William O. Douglas).

At Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall has been posting some readers’ thoughts about what Barack Obama’s nomination means to them.

Please use this thread to post any of your own thoughts and feelings, as well as your hopes and dreams for the beginning of Obama’s presidency.

Although I am the Iowa blogosphere’s resident Obamaskeptic, I find it incredibly moving that my children will have no memory of a time when people questioned whether a black person could be elected president.

I have a long wish list for what a Democratic president can accomplish with the help of a Democratic Congress, but if I had to boil it down to just one thing, I hope that Obama will seize the mandate he has to enact big change, and not water things down too much in the name of bipartisanship.

I’m talking about changes that will still affect people’s lives decades into the future. At MyDD bruh3 compiled this impressive list of programs and laws enacted during LBJ’s presidency. We can’t imagine the U.S. without these things. The Republicans don’t even pretend to be against them anymore.

Also in this thread, feel free to share your celebration plans for tomorrow. If I weren’t trying to lose a few pounds, I would bake Abraham Lincoln’s favorite cake (recipe courtesy of Obama Foodorama).

UPDATE: I watched the ceremony through Obama’s speech at a party organized by people who used to work on the Biden campaign in Iowa. They were cheering and clapping and even giving some standing ovations. Fun atmosphere.

Courtesy of Daily Kos, I am putting the text of Obama’s address (as prepared for delivery) after the jump. It was a good speech, I thought.

What did you think?

Incidentally, Obama did not flub the oath of office–Chief Justice John Roberts did.

SECOND UPDATE: A few more thoughts. In general, the speech struck me as quite low-key. There were very few applause lines. I assume he purposely did not want to feed into a mood of celebration. Maybe he was trying to lower expectations or not come across as taunting the opposition, but for whatever reason, he didn’t give that enormous crowd many chances to go wild.

Like Deeth, I thought it was noteworthy that Obama mentioned “non-believers” along with the various religions we have in this country. Perhaps that was a gesture toward people who were upset that Obama chose Rick Warren to deliver the invocation.

Speaking of which, I disagreed with Obama’s decision to bestow that honor on Warren, but I am glad the crowd was respectful during the prayer. I am certainly not going to give conservatives the satisfaction of getting bent out of shape because Warren mentioned Jesus and recited the Lord’s Prayer. What Warren was going to say or not say at the inauguration itself wasn’t the issue for me.

I am genuinely surprised that Jeff Angelo found Obama’s speech to be “full of petty shots [at] his predecessor.” Huh? For what it’s worth, this Iowa conservative blogger also felt Obama was “smacking down” George Bush. In contrast, Krusty Konservative described the speech as “ambiguous,” noting that “George W. Bush could have given the same exact speech.”

On January 3, 2008, roughly 240,000 Iowans attended Democratic precinct caucuses, and at least 90,000 of them ended up in Barack Obama’s corner.

However we felt about Obama during the primaries or the general election campaign, whatever we think about his substantive and symbolic actions since the election, we can all agree that he would not be taking the oath of office tomorrow if Iowa caucus-goers had put him in third place, or even a distant second.

I started writing this diary several times last year. I kept abandoning it because emotions were so raw on Democratic blogs that I felt the piece would only ignite a flamewar. Since more than a year has passed, I decided to try one more time.

I do not mean to start an argument or pretend that I have all the answers. I just enjoy thinking about counterfactual history (such as this or this).

After the jump I will try to figure out whether Hillary Clinton or John Edwards could have beaten Obama in Iowa.

Mary Lundby, a former leader of Iowa Senate Republicans and the first woman elected Speaker Pro-Tem in the Iowa House, passed away on Saturday after a long fight with cervical cancer.

Her funeral will be on January 21 at 1:00 p.m. at St. Joseph Parish in Marion.

Iowa politicians from both parties have paid tribute to Lundby. You can read their comments in Lynda Waddington’s piece for Iowa Independent, this article from the Cedar Rapids Gazette, and this Des Moines Register article.

I only spoke to Senator Lundby once or twice. My friends who knew her well always spoke so highly of her. I appreciated her support for responsible land use in Iowa (land use issues often cut across party lines when they come up in the Iowa legislature). Lundby was on the advisory council of 1000 Friends of Iowa, a group I’m involved with.

Condolences go out to her loved ones. She was a strong and caring person.

Cancer is a monstrous disease. Women should educate themselves about ways to prevent cervical cancer as well as common symptoms of cervical cancer.

UPDATE: Lynda Waddington shares some memories and links to other reflections at Essential Estrogen.

SECOND UPDATE: 24-hour Dorman reports that Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal has “cancelled all committee and floor action” scheduled for Wednesday so that members of the Iowa Senate and the Senate staff may attend Mary Lundby’s memorial service in Marion.

Send me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) or post a comment if you know of another event that should be added to this calendar.

Sunday, January 18:

From Blog for Iowa (click the link for more details):

On Sunday, January 18, the Iowa City Environmental Film Festival and Sierra Club will sponsor a screening of Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars.  The film portrays how Texans formed unlikely coalitions to fight the construction of nineteen coal-fired power plants being fast-tracked by the state’s governor, Rick Perry.  The film, narrated by Robert Redford, has received numerous awards.

Representatives from two groups instrumental in challenging the construction of the two plants in Iowa will lead a discussion following the film.  Mike Carberry, Sierra Club, will be joined by Carrie LeSeur, founder and Executive Director of Plains Justice, to talk about what is being done and what Iowans can do to stop construction of the coal-fired power plants.   Plains Justice, a public interest law center, was founded in 2006 in part in response to the Waterloo, Iowa Coal Plant Proposal, which has now been withdrawn.        

[…] Sunday, January 18th at the Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., Room A at 3:00 PM.

The screening is free and open to the public.

Monday, January 19:

From Polk County Democrats:

From Vern Naffier

Come to the Pre-Inauguration Celebration

Friends:  Join me Monday night at 7 pm at the State Historical Building for an inspiring event celebrating Martin Luther King’s Birthday, Barack Obama’s inauguration, and the beginning of an era of peace, reconciliation, and social justice throughout the world. See announcement below.

RENEWING AMERICA’S PROMISE

Rebirthing King – Rebirthing America

A pre-inauguration celebration

State Historical Building

600 East Locust

Des Moines

January 19, 2009

7-8 pm

Come join the effort to reclaim the dream of America free from racism, militarism, and materialism. Come join the candlelight march for Martin’s memory and Barack’s beginning.

The Iowa Obama Presidential Inauguration Committee invites you to bring items for the DMARC Food Pantry.

Sponsored by the King Birthday Celebration Planning Committee

Tuesday, January 20:

George W. Bush’s presidency will finally end as Barack Obama takes the oath of office. What are you doing to celebrate? There must be many parties going on all over this state.

Urban Dreams Presents

Brown, Black & The Blues People’s Ball

Celebrating the Inauguration of

President Barack Obama

Together through the diversity of our community

Jnauary 20, 2009

8:00 PM until…

Hotel Fort Des Moines

1000 Walnut Street

Des Moines, IA  50309

$25 / person

Dress to Impress

Featuring Musica Latina, Soul and the Blues

A nonpartisan event open to the whole community

for more information please call 515-288-4742

The Brown, Black & The Blues People’s Ball is brought to you by

Project V.O.T.E. (Voting Opportunities Through Education).

PLease call Hotel Fort Des Moines at 515-243-1181 if interested in room reservations.

From 1000 Friends of Iowa:

There will be a Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization Public Input Meeting in the DMAMPO Meeting Room, Merle Hay Center, 6200 Aurora Avenue, Suite 300W, Urbandale, IA. Click here for more details about what’s on the agenda and why you should care.

Friday, January 23:

For bicycling advocates and enthusiasts:

Iowa Bicycle Summit

January 23-24, Des Moines

Iowa Bicycle Summit will be held in Des Moines at the Holiday Inn, Downtown, from 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Friday’s session features Steve Durrant from Portland, Oregon, a registered landscape architect and planner with over 30 years experience helping communities become better places to live. A Friday Bike Night fundraiser will feature a presentation by mountain-biking legend Gary Fisher at a dinner and silent auction. Saturday is geared for grassroots bicyclists who want to better their communities. Sessions include Safe Routes to Schools, Bike to Work Week, legislative issues and more. Primary sponsors are the Iowa Department of Transportation and the Iowa Bicycle Coalition. Participation is limited. Find out more or register at the Iowa Bicycle Summit webpage, http://www.iowabicyclecoalitio…

From the Iowa Environmental Council newsletter:

Winter Solstice Workshop: No Child Left Inside

January 23-25, Honey Creek State Park

The Iowa Conservation Education Coalition’s annual Environmental Education Workshop, Winter Solstice, will be held on January 23-25, 2009.  The workshop title is No Child Left Inside.  Winter Solstice will be held at the Honey Creek State Park Resort on Lake Rathbun. This new resort features motel rooms, a restaurant, an indoor water park, and most important for ICEC, a wonderful conference center. Our keynote speakers include: Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder; Connie Mutel, author of The Emerald Horizon: The History of Nature in Iowa; and Jim Pease and Susan O’Brien author of Environmental Literacy in Iowa. For questions about the workshop, please contact Gail Barels at gail.barels@linncounty.org or Heather Niec at adminicec@hotmail.com.

Saturday, January 24:

For those who enjoy public art:

Design a Dragonfly on Ice at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory

January 24, West Lake Okoboji

Filmmaker Chad Branham will design this year’s Artslive’s People Project on Saturday, January 24, on the ice in Miller’s Bay, beginning at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. This ephemeral art project will line people up on the ice on West Lake Okoboji, in the shape of a giant 100 foot dragonfly. This design will take over 225 people to complete. Once everyone is in place the dragonfly will be photographed from an airplane by Judy Hemphill. Due to limited parking at Lakeside, participants are asked to gather at Peace Corner, at the corner of Highways 9 and 86, at 12:30 pm, and take a shuttle bus to the project site at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. People are encouraged to dress warmly and, if possible, in bright primary colors.  To sign up to participate, or for more information about participating in this year’s ArtsLive People’s Project, contact Jen Johnson at (712)332-6502 or jen@activeokoboji.org, or visit artslive.com.

Tuesday, January 27:

From Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement:

Jan. 27, 2009  

BIG Rally & Lobby Day

Mark your calendars and plan to be at our Rally & Lobby Day at the State Capitol Tuesday, Jan. 27. We need you there to show our legislators that thousands of Iowans will be holding them accountable this legislative session to issues like local control, clean elections, homeowner protections and the rights of all workers.

Decisions made at the Statehouse impact us every day. This is our chance to put our issues at the top of the legislative agenda. Join with us today – click here for more information and REGISTER TODAY!

Friday, January 30:

From Polk County Democrats:

The Ankeny Area Democrats and The Polk County Democrats Present An Inauguration Celebration Dinner At The Iowa State Historical Building

Friday, January 30, 2009

Catered by Baratta’s Restaurant

Social Hour begins at 6:00 PM

Dinner at 7:00 PM

Live music through the Musician’s Union

Tickets $25 per person

Tickets include chicken / pasta dinner and sides, soft drinks, coffee, iced tea or water

Semi-formal attire encouraged, but not required

Tickets available by calling Tamyra at 515-285-1800 or Mary Oliver at 515-964-1227

Email polkdems@gmail.com or Ankenyareadems@msn.com

President-elect Barack Obama has appointed Patrick Dillon to be the White House Deputy Director of Political Affairs, according to an Iowa Democratic Party press release on January 16.

The news completes Dillon’s transition from one-half of an Iowa power couple to one-half of a Washington power couple. Dillon managed Chet Culver’s gubernatorial campaign in 2006 and served as the governor’s chief of staff until a few days ago.

Dillon’s wife, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, directed John Edwards’ presidential campaign in Iowa and then served as battleground states director for Barack Obama’s campaign before Obama chose her to be the new executive director of the Democratic National Committee.

No class.

UPDATE: Like I said, no class.

Barack Obama promised during his presidential campaign to “finally make the Employee Free Choice Act the law of the land.”

So why did I read this in today’s Washington Post?

The president-elect also gave his support for legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize, but he said there may be other ways to achieve the same goal without angering businesses. And while many Democrats on Capitol Hill are eager to see a quick vote on that bill, he indicated no desire to rush into the contentious issue.

“If we’re losing half a million jobs a month, then there are no jobs to unionize, so my focus first is on those key economic priority items I just mentioned,” he said. “Let’s see what the legislative docket looks like.”

Marc Ambinder has the exact wording of Obama’s answer, which the Washington Post paraphrased.

A lot of labor unions backed Obama during the primaries, and even more backed him during the general election campaign. Unions were there for Obama when he needed them. Now, they need him to follow through on his promise.

This diary by TomP lays out the very strong case for passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

Why do we need to dance around looking for some way to help unions without angering businesses? Obama won the election and has high approval ratings. Democrats enlarged their Congressional majorities. Now is the time for the president to spend his political capital on getting good laws through Congress.

Setting the policy merits aside for the moment, this is a poor negotiating strategy.

By announcing before taking office that his goal is to help unions without arousing intense opposition from businesses, Obama has just given the business lobby every incentive to raise hell about even the most innocuous bill to support workers’ rights.

He should not have telegraphed that he is willing to sacrifice the Employee Free Choice Act if necessary. You never announce before negotiations begin what concessions you are willing to make. (For more on Obama’s negotiating strategy so far, read this diary by bruh3.)

In any event, there isn’t going to be some magical bill that would make it significantly easier for workers to organize, but which the business lobby would take in stride. They will fight every bill perceived as pro-labor, and they will claim that it will cost jobs, just like they fought any number of good laws, from minimum wage increases to the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Here’s hoping that incoming Labor Secretary Hilda Solis (a passionate supporter of the EFCA) will be able to strengthen Obama’s resolve to fight for this bill.

By the way, American Rights at Work just launched a major tv advertising campaign in support of the EFCA and has a petition you can sign if you care about this issue.

Jason Hancock has the story at Iowa Independent: former Iowa Democratic Party chairman Gordon Fischer wants to become the U.S. Attorney for Iowa’s southern district. He is asking prominent Democrats to “reach out to Sen. [Tom] Harkin on my behalf, with either a letter, or phone call, or (preferably) both.”

Fischer wasn’t a particularly early supporter of Barack Obama by Iowa standards, but he was an enthusiastic one, as any regular reader of his blog Iowa True Blue can attest.

Sometimes Fischer was a bit too caught up in the primary wars, by his own admission. Even though I never backed Hillary Clinton for president, I also felt Fischer went too far on more than one occasion (like when he approvingly quoted Andrew Sullivan’s casual reference to the Clintons as “sociopaths”).

One Clinton supporter even filed a Federal Election Commission complaint against Fischer because of his blogging. The FEC found no evidence to substantiate the allegations made in that complaint.

I have no idea whether Fischer is the leading candidate the U.S. Attorney job. Anyone hear about other Iowa lawyers who are putting their names in for this one?

I have no opinion about who should get the appointment, as long as it’s someone who won’t prosecute members of the other political party on very thin evidence.

UPDATE: Someone in a position to know tells me that several others have applied for this position, including Iowa Assistant Attorney General Donn Stanley and Tom Henderson, chairman of the Polk County Democrats.

So I’m reading La Vida Locavore, and Jill Richardson has a post up about Burger King’s new marketing campaign:

Now, if you ditch 10 [Facebook] friends, they’ll give you a free burger. Then they send your ex-friends a message saying you like Whoppers better than you like them. Gross.

It sounded so weird that I followed her link to this article from Adweek. Sure enough, it’s a real story and not satire from The Onion:

The fast-food chain has released the Whopper Sacrifice application on Facebook. The app rewards people with a coupon for BK’s signature burger when they cull 10 friends. Each time a friend is excommunicated, the application sends a notification to the banished party via Facebook’s news feed explaining that the user’s love for the unlucky soul is less than his or her zeal for the Whopper. […]

“We thought there could be some fun there, removing some of these people who are friends [but] not necessarily] best friends,” said Jeff Benjamin, executive interactive creative director at Crispin, and friend to 736 on Facebook. “It’s asking the question of which love is bigger, your love for your friends or your love for the Whopper,” he said.

The app also adds a box to user profile pages charting their progress toward the free burger with the line, “Who will be the next to go?”

The application is available on Facebook and at WhopperSacrifice.com.

This concept strikes me as bizarre. I don’t know whether that’s because I am not a Facebook person, because I’m older than the demographic they are targeting, or because I haven’t eaten at Burger King in who knows how many years.

Are excess friends that big a problem on Facebook? Is a Whopper that desirable? It seems so unappetizing.

Jill reminds us that Burger King has had other unusual marketing campaigns lately, namely a meat-scented Burger King fragrance, ads featuring “Whopper Virgins” from cultures where fast food is unknown, and a series of YouTube videos

of people eating the “Octo Stacker” – a burger made with 2 buns, 8 patties, 9 pieces of cheese and 16 pieces of bacon.

Seriously, who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?

UPDATE: Thanks to ragbrai08 for pointing me to this Washington Post article. After “233,906 friends were removed by 82,771 people in less than a week,” Facebook shut down this application because it supposedly “facilitated activity that ran counter to user privacy […].”

For the record, Crispin Porter + Bogusky were the ad wizards who came up with this one. Clearly they were tapping into real potential to generate buzz for Burger King. Go figure.

Thanks to Bleeding Heartland user ragbrai08, who sent me this link to a survey on the Iowa Department of Natural Resources website:

What fundamental experiences do you believe children in Iowa should have in order to develop a healthy, active lifestyle? Cast your vote today. Voting has been extended until January 16, 2009.

Results obtained from the survey will be used to guide creation of an “Iowa Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights.”

It only takes a few minutes to complete the survey, and you do not have to give your name, address, phone number or e-mail. (For demographic analysis, they want your zip code, gender and age range.)

Here is a brief post on the benefits of getting children to play outdoors. Richard Louv wrote a whole book on the subject called, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder.”  

Tom Vilsack appears to be on track for unanimous confirmation by the Senate as Secretary of Agriculture in Barack Obama’s cabinet. At his confirmation hearing yesterday, Republicans didn’t ask hostile questions, and Vilsack didn’t have to explain away any embarrassing behavior like Treasury Secretary-nominee Timothy Geithner’s failure to fully meet his tax obligations over a period of years.

Despite the lack of drama, Vilsack made a number of noteworthy comments during the hearing. Here are some highlights.

Vilsack told senators on Wednesday that

The Obama administration wants to accelerate the development of new versions of biofuels made form crop residue and non-food crops such as switchgrass. The plants’ fibrous material, or cellulose, can be converted into alcohols or even new versions of gasoline or diesel.

“Moving toward next-generation biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, is going to be really important in order to respond” to concerns about the impact on food prices of using grain for fuel, he said.

Vilsack addressed a range of other issues, pledging, for example, to promote fruit and vegetable consumption and promising to ensure that any new international trade agreement is a “net plus for all of agriculture.”

It makes a lot of sense to produce ethanol from perennial plants that are less energy-intensive to grow and need fewer herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer than corn.

Vilsack’s opening statement also

promised swift implementation of the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) which, alone among farm bill conservation programs, has languished under the Bush Administration since passage of the 2008 Farm Bill last May.

A little later during the hearing, Vilsack described the Conservation Stewardship Program as important for the environment and cited its potential to boost farm income and create jobs.

By the way, Vilsack’s disclosure documents show that he collects payments from the US Department of Agriculture on some Iowa farmland he and his wife own:

The former Iowa governor and his wife, Christie, have been receiving payments since 2000 for an acreage in Davis County that is enrolled in the land-idling Conservation Reserve Program, according to USDA data compiled by the Environmental Working Group.

In a Jan. 8 letter to USDA ethics officials, Vilsack said he would seek a waiver to continue receiving CRP payments while he is secretary. Otherwise, experts said, he would have to break his contract and reimburse the USDA for all previous payments he has received, which would total nearly $60,000.

Craig Cox, Midwest vice president of the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization, welcomed having an agriculture secretary who receives conservation payments.

At a time “when simultaneously protecting our soil, water, wildlife habitat and climate is an urgent priority, it is encouraging that our new secretary of agriculture is personally participating in a conservation program that does just that,” he said.

I’m with Cox; it’s good for the secretary of agriculture to have first-hand knowledge of the conservation reserve program’s value.

Earlier this week the Register published an article on the opening statement Vilsack prepared for his confirmation hearing:

Tom Vilsack is promising to use the U.S. Department of Agriculture to “aggressively address” global warming and energy independence.

In an opening statement prepared for his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for agriculture secretary also said he would use the department to “create real and meaningful opportunities” for farmers and to guarantee that rural communities grow and prosper. […]

Vilsack, a former mayor of Mount Pleasant, also said rural communities continue to lose population and “find it increasingly difficult to keep pace with the ever-changing national and global economy.”

He pledged to try to resolve the long-standing civil rights claims against the department.

“If I’m confirmed, the message will be clear: discrimination in any form will not be tolerated,” Vilsack said.

After reading that Register article, La Vida Locavore’s Jill Richardson commented,

I want to see our subsidy structure change to reward farmers for sustainability instead of yield. I want the government to ease the financial risk on any farmer transitioning to organic because it appears to me that being an organic farmer isn’t so bad on your bank account, but transitioning alone might break several farmers financially. I want to outlaw CAFOs altogether. But will Vilsack do this? Let me just say this: I am so confident he won’t that I promise now to entirely shave my head if he DOES do each of these 3 things.

I think we can all agree that Jill is not going to look like Sinead O’Connor anytime soon. I totally agree with her first two suggestions. As for CAFOs, it’s not realistic to expect them to be banned, but I believe they would be greatly reduced in number and size (over time) if government policy made them pay for the harm they cause.

On a more encouraging note, I read this at the U.S. Food Policy blog:

Some highlights included Vilsack’s encouragement of locally grown fruits and vegetables and pronouncement that they should be grown not just in rural areas, but everywhere. He announced that he met with Health and Human Services nominee Tom Daschle last week in order to demonstrate the importance of working together for nutrition. “It’s going to be important for us to promote fresh fruits and vegetables as part of our children’s diets. . .that means supporting those who supply those products” and making it easier for consumers to buy locally grown products, Vilsack said.

Maybe Vilsack and Daschle will take some of Angie Tagtow’s excellent advice on how their agencies can work together to improve human health. I would also encourage them to read this recent piece by Steph Larsen: “For healthy food and soil, we need affordable health care for farmers.”

I am curious about what Vilsack means by “supporting those who supply” locally-grown fresh fruits and vegetables. One problem with our current agricultural policy is that commodity farmers lose all federal subsidies if they put more than two acres into growing fruits or vegetables. Apparently that was the price needed to get California’s Congressional delegation to vote for various farm bills over the years. Even though almost no subsidies go directly to California farmers, this penalty limits the competition California growers might otherwise face from Midwestern farmers.

So, very little of the produce consumed by Iowans is grown in Iowa, and our grocery stores are full of produce trucked in from thousands of miles away. Most of the crops Iowa farmers grow are inedible for humans without processing.

A few years back the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University published a report on “Food, Fuel and Freeways.” It showed how far food travels to Iowans and how much Iowans could reduce greenhouse-gas emissions if we increased the proportion of locally-grown food in our diets to even 10 percent of what we eat.

Getting back to the Vilsack hearing, members of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee made some notable comments yesterday. who questioned Vilsack made some notable comments on Wednesday. Iowa’s own Tom Harkin, who chairs the committee, gave Vilsack a warm welcome:

“I just couldn’t be more proud to see you sitting there. I don’t think President-elect [Barack] Obama could have picked a better person for this position,” Harkin said.

Harkin also discussed federal child nutrition programs:

Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin , D-Iowa, said reauthorization of a law (PL 108-265) governing school lunches and other child nutrition programs “is really the only thing that we have to do this year.” […]

During the hearing, Harkin said he will propose that the Department of Agriculture use Institute of Medicine guidelines to set standards for junk food sold in schools. Current USDA school food standards exempt most snack foods, because they aren’t a part of subsidized lunches.

During the last renewal of the child nutrition act, then-Gov. Vilsack wrote a letter to lawmakers and the Bush administration expressing concern about childhood obesity and the problem of vending machine snacks that compete with school meals.

At the time, Vilsack backed limits on the kinds of snacks and beverages students can buy outside the lunch line. Nutrition advocates want junk food kicked out of schools, but many schools use the cash from sales to cover the rising costs of meal services.

(Side note: the state of Iowa is now considering banning the sale of junk food in public schools.)

Meanwhile, Iowa’s Republican Senator Chuck Grassley urged Vilsack to act quickly on several other fronts, including rule-making that would protect smaller volume livestock producers. Also, Grassley and Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota wrote an open letter to Vilsack asking him to close a loophole affecting commodity program payment limits. Ferd Hoefner, Policy Director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, explains that “This particular loophole is the single most important one allowing mega farming operations to collect payments in multiples of what otherwise appears to be the statutory dollar limit.”

According to Hoefner,

Another former chairman, Pat Leahy (D-VT), weighed in with a comment that the Department is not keeping up with the rapid growth of organic and then with a question asking whether it wasn’t time for the Department to get on with the business of actually actively promoting organic.  Vilsack said we need to “celebrate and support” organic and USDA should view it as one very legitimate option in a menu of options for improving farm incomes.  Then, in response to an extended monologue from Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) deriding organic as marginal, Vilsack held his ground, but diffused the implied antagonism, saying the Department needs to support the full diversity of American agriculture.

The Ethicurean blog published an excerpt of Roberts’ insult to “small family farmers”:

That small family farmer is about 5’2″ … and he’s a retired airline pilot and sits on his porch on a glider reading Gentleman’s Quarterly – he used to read the Wall Street Journal but that got pretty drab – and his wife works as stock broker downtown. And he has 40 acres, and he has a pond and he has an orchard and he grows organic apples. Sometimes there is a little more protein in those apples than people bargain for, and he’s very happy to have that.

How disappointing that an imbecile like this could easily get re-elected in Kansas. Roberts’ caricature does not resemble any of the sustainable farmers I know. They work just as hard as Roberts’ idealized “production agriculture farmer” but don’t receive any federal subsidies, despite growing high-quality food and being good stewards of the land.

If you haven’t already done so, please go to the Food Democracy Now site and sign their new petition recommending 12 good candidates for undersecretary positions at the USDA. These will be important appointments, since Vilsack won’t single-handedly be setting the USDA’s policy direction.

The Center for Rural Affairs has also launched a petition worth signing, which urges Vilsack to implement a number of programs that would benefit farmers and rural economies.