Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Florida GOP trying to pack state Supreme Court for Rick Scott?

Stuff like this is going on all over the country. It's really alarming and people should be talking about it. This is very anti-Constitutional assault underway in this country that attacks the core principles and protections that define a Democracy.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/19/968090/-Florida-GOP-trying-to-pack-state-Supreme-Court-for-Rick-Scott?utm

Canada Backpeddles on GMO Wheat Issue!

The biotech industry and the political establishment beholden to it threaten to wipe out conventional and organic farming with an all out push to promote and permit transgenic crops that contain viruses, human genes and other genetic modifications throughout our food supply. None of these GM seeds and food products have been studied for their environmental and health impact.
http://farmwars.info/?p=5734&utm_

USDA moves to let Monsanto perform its own environmental impact studies on GMOs

When are we going to learn that industry, let alone rapacious polluters and biotechs like Monsanto, are fundamentally incapable of acting in the public interest for the sake of being responsible corporate citizens?
http://www.grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2011-04-19-usda-to-let-monsanto-do-own-environmental-impact-studies-on-gmos

Cannibal USDA okays rice modified with human gene

The USDA is a major promoter of GM crops and transgenic foods that have not been tested for safety and pose potentially devastating threats to human health. The momentum of the biotech interests in promoting these frankenfoods is aided and abetted by regulators and politicians across the national spectrum and there is regrettably inadequate organized resistance in the states at this time. We all need to get in this game and oppose the reckless and unsafe biotech agenda or the unscientific proponents of bioengineering will continue to treat the public as guinea pigs in the great experiment that exposes people to viruses and foreign genes in our food supply.
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/usda-okays-rice-modified-with-human-gene-to-be-grown-on-3000-kansas-acres/

Here are a few petition sites on this issue where you can register opposition to widespread approval and promotion of transgenic crops and food.

Fukushima and the Happy Talk About Nuclear Power

The nuclear disaster at Fukushima has recently been upgraded to the highest danger level in history, matched only by Chernobyl, yet industry hacks and politicians continue to promote nuclear power as safe. This report points out that Fukushima has seven sources of radiation (3 reactors and 4 spent fuel rod pools) that are leaking into the environment representing roughly 20 times the radioactivity of Chernobyl.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/04/10579/fukushima-and-happy-talk-about-nuclear-power

Astroturfing Net Neutrality

A report from Save The Internet on industry front group lobbying, astroturfing, on the critical issue of Net Neutrality. The public must stand up and make their voices heard as we increasingly are inundated with corporate messages that distort the issues in the media and in cyberspace.
http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/11/04/19/astroturfing-net-neutrality

Daily Show: Oliver - Dennis Kucinich's Improbable Success

The Daily Show put together this hysterical investigative piece on how Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has been re-elected in conservative Ohio for seven terms and now is preparing another run after the GOP eliminated his district altogether. As bad as things are it's essential that we keep our sense of humor!
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-14-2011/dennis-kucinich-s-improbable-success

Top ‘U.S.’ Corporations Outsourced More Than 2.4 Million American Jobs Over The Last Decade

Big Business in the form of multinational corporations are letting all of us down. Without legal reforms and regulations to force corporate entities to act as responsible citizens they will continue to outsource jobs, pollute our air and water, rip off our citizens, genetically modify our food and expose the public to antibiotic-resistant pathogens, offshore their profits, lobby for a corporate tax holiday and continue the reality where one-third of corporations pay zero taxes. It's time that the public take hold of the national interest by legislating companies who profit in this country to invest in the people, infrastructure and environment that enriches them.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/19/us-corporations-outsourced-americans/

A leading expert withdraws his name from the Climate Shift report

A new Climate Shift report being cited by mainstream media is rife with errors and contradictions, serving to undermine the effort to reduce greenhouse-gas pollution and address the source causes of global warming. It also claims, falsely, that environmental advocates had closed the lobbying and publicity gap on the climate issue. The paper's author, Matthew Nisbet (above), ignored his own data in writing the report which in turn led one expert reviewer to remove his name from the document.
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-04-18-a-leading-expert-withdraws-his-name-from-climate-shift-report

Letting the Banks Off the Hook

This disturbing update on efforts to regulate banks and their predatory lending and foreclosure policies concludes that, without enforcement capability, the rush to publish the mostly voluntary regulations by the O.C.C. is primarily despite to undercut State AG actions that promised to be more aggressive. Joe Nocera, for the Times, wrote a lousy cover piece for the hydrofracking natural gas industry the other day that I protested in a letter but this is a solid piece.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/opinion/19nocera.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Martial Law Now a Reality in Michigan

This stunning development in Michigan happened in lightning fast fashion and is a horrendous and lawless attempt to circumvent the Constitution by usurping the power of elected officials.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/04/10625/martial-law-now-reality-michigan

Koch Industries buying ads to refute news stories

This appears to be the first time that ads have been used to attack journalists.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/18/kochs-industries-buying-ads-to-refute-news-stories/