Prepare for a barrage of speculation that organic foods are somehow more risky than conventional produce, even though the FDA says there is no data showing that organic has different risks than other food. The conservative Washington Times has begun this misinformation campaign, according to Media Matters.
http://mediamatters.org/research/201106100026?utm
The Health and Human Services agency has decided to adopt a much more aggressive legal stance against corporate healthcare fraud which is estimated to cost the government $60 billion a year from medicare fraud and put Americans at risk with unscrupulous drug claims and illegal marketing. Moving forward the CEOs of companies that engage in these practices can be held personally responsible for the actions of their employees, whether knowledgable of specific acts or not, face jail time and a lifetime ban from the industry. This is the sort of compliance incentives that we need to restore corporate integrity and protect the public interest. Bravo!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/getting-personal-feds-pursue-top-execs-in-health-care-fraud-cases-previously-settled-for-cash/2011/05/31/AGg6QHFH_story.html
The Obama Administration's prosecution of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake turned on a single ruling by a district court judge. When Richard D. Bennett declared that prosecutors would have to show the jury some of the 'classified' documents that were key to the case, the government withdrew several and redacted others before offering Drake a plea bargain on a minor charge. The outcome of this draconian legal preceding, Drake faced 35 years in prison under the Espionage Act for exposing massive NSA mismanagement, is a hopeful demonstration of the potential of the law to serve legal principles of fairness involving powerful interests, such as the US Government. But, in the end, it all depends on the judge.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/us/10leak.html?pagewanted=1&hp
Gov. Chris Christie is speaking out both sides of his mouth again, this time cutting subsidies for developing sustainable technology for solar, reducing long-term sustainable goals for the state, and pushing more subsidies for mature industries like natural gas and nuclear energy. Who says all the climate deniers are in the conservative midwest and south? We've got one right across the river.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/08/239869/christie-slashes-nj-renewable-targets-set-by-corzine/
The Fed Chairman recently spoke about the slow growth of the economy and joblessness but offered no solutions to the housing crisis while implicitly supporting a broad policy in which taxpayer money has been made available to corporations whose investments and job creation benefits foreigners at the expense of US workers. Oh yeah, he also claimed that all TARP money had been paid back but failed to note the cost of other programs that will not be paid back and $5 trillion in additional debt that resulted from ineffective Fed policy under his watch.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_bernanke_scandal_full_frontal_cluelessness_20110608/?utm
Climate change is rapidly invaded our daily consciousness and the havoc that an over-heated earth is ravaging on populations around the world is startling. This story puts a point on the planet-warming attributes of natural gas, not to mention the dangers posed to drinking water from fracking, and argues convincingly that more gas production is not going to help fight global warming.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/07/238578/iea-golden-age-of-natural-gas-scenario-warming-climate-change/
The infiltration of the hacking community by the FBI and Secret Service, aided by threats of long prison sentences, has created widespread mistrust and paranoia among hackers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/06/us-hackers-fbi-informer
Not only does industrialized hemp agriculture make good common sense as a sustainable alternative to petrochemical based production, but hemp is also a remarkable source of nutrients in the form of hemp seed and oil. Both are extremely high in protein and essential fatty acids that are easily absorbed into the body.
http://www.naturalnews.com/012726.html
Hemp Seeds Are Full of Health
http://www.naturalnews.com/029729_hemp_seeds_health.html
Authorities in Germany have been blaming one organic vegetable after another, inflicting enormous damage of farmers and the organic market, despite the fact that no link has yet been found. This article points out that E coli. originates in meat production, not in the plant kingdom, because of factory farming methods used to grow livestock quickly with little regard to safety. It's a good read though the piece fails to consider the likelihood that the particular strain causing death and sickness in Europe was bioengineered to be antibiotic-resistant to eight different drug classes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/e-coli-vegetables-blame-meat_b_872055.html
Secret trials of 14 new strains of genetically modified wheat in Australia represents another attack on the natural order and organic food production. As with GM crops introduced in the United States, and more surreptitiously in South America, these bioengineered patent-protected seeds will grow to inevitably contaminate non-GM crops through natural pollination.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/gm-wheat-trial-begins-amid-secrecy-20110527-1f8hl.html
Check out this remarkable list of characteristics and uses for industrialized Hemp, which is currently grown in all industrialized nations with the exception of the United States. One of the most significant aspects of growing this crop is that it requires no herbicides, fungicides or pesticides to flourish. This information will blow your mind.
http://www.rense.com/general49/could.htm
A ten-minute excerpt from the documentary, "Hemp and the Rule of Law," that reveals fascinating details about the crop and its superior strength and ability to biodegrade. Included are a completely biodegradable car made by Henry Ford which led presumably to the fact that Mercedes now has Hemp 'plastic' car bodies for one-third of new cars.
http://farmwars.info/?p=6084&utm
There is a Supreme Court in Canada that believes in the unfettered rule of law, and has slapped down the US government's attempt to railroad a former Cisco exec turned whistleblower. Our democracy has become corporatism and there is increasingly evidence that the country is morphing into a Corporate Police State. Where are the heros we need in America to fight this battle and tell it like it is to the powerful and unscrupulous when they trample the law?
http://www.salon.com/news/david_sirota/2011/06/06/cisco_law_enforcement/index.html
Judge Blasts Cisco's "Unmitigated Gall" in Ex-Exec's Arrest
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/03/cisco_charged_with_duplicity/
Canada Blocks Extradition of Cisco Suspect
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9217300/Canada_blocks_extradition_of_Cisco_suspect?taxonomyId=16&pageNumber=1
A short and sour recap from the New Yorker on Obama's record on climate change since he took office, and a call for him to do the right thing now before it's too late.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/06/13/110613taco_talk_kolbert
The New Yorker Slams Oil-Centric Obama For Letting The Planet Burn
http://www.grist.org/climate-change/2011-06-06-new-yorker-elizabeth-kolbert-president-barack-obama
I'm embarrassed to admit that I only discovered the combative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) a few months ago despite the fact that he is a six-term congressman from NYC where I live. Nonetheless, I admired his forceful advocacy of issues that I believe are critical to the country. So, naturally, I was dismayed to learn of the mess he got into this week and his apparent dalliances with the truth. Well, Anthony Weiner just came clean a few minutes ago in a heartfelt and sincere statement to the press in which he said he would not resign. Good. Let's get past this major mistake and the Rep's admission of other inappropriate online or phone contacts with women over the past six years, and get back to fighting for the interests of the nation's people.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/06/weiner_confesses.php?utm
It's hard to believe that deadly the Jack-in-the-Box E coli. outbreak in the US was all the way back in 1993. That event sickened over 750 children and resulted in four deaths while alerting the public because of massive news coverage that dangerous E coli. bacteria was commonly found in US meat products. As a result, that deadly strain of E coli. was declared an adulterant in food and regular testing was instituted to prevent a recurrence. Yet, since then, six new deadly E coli. strands have been identified by our government that we do not test for at all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/opinion/05Benedict.html
I never got caught up in all the hysteria about exposure to sunlight and rarely use sunscreen when I'm out and only a bit when I'll be on the beach for a good stretch trying to catch a fish. By chance, I recently got a thumbs up from a skin doc at a free clinic. Now, it turns out that scientists have determined that sunlight is an important source of vitamin D, which protects against skin cancer as well as osteoporosis, prostate, bowel, cervical cancers and rickets. So, lighten up on the sunscreen and go for natural products if you can to avoid the chemicals in most sunscreen products.
http://www.naturalnews.com/032533_sun_exposure_skin_cancer.html
If you've been wondering about all of the weather related natural disasters that have wreaked havoc with the earth recently then this op/ed piece by Bill McKibben from 350.org will put our nation's ignorant approach to these questions in revealing perspective.
http://action.350.org/signup_page/connections
This is certainly good news for New York politics as there will now be external oversight of the state legislature and lawmakers will be required to disclose clients who have business before the state. However, in order to get it passed, Cuomo gave the Senate Majority Leader veto power over investigations and all votes for or against investigations will be kept secret.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/nyregion/cuomo-and-albany-legislators-in-deah-on-ethics-overhaul.html?hp
I'm a little late on this one but it's important to acknowledge this man. Thomas Tamm demonstrated remarkable courage and integrity by leaking details of illegal wiretapping by the US government to the press. His action was taken on behalf of all Americans and the supposed rule of law that governs our democracy. One wonders why it took Obama two years to drop the prosecution of the man he championed on the campaign trail, and why we cannot guarantee the well-being of whistleblowers in this country, past, present and future.
http://www.openthegovernment.org/node/3089
US Opens WikiLeaks Grand Jury Hearing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/11/us-opens-wikileaks-grand-jury-hearing
This is a very interesting piece from Dave Roberts at Grist. He recalls that environmentalism was initially a high priority for the communist state and that quality of life, represented by clean working conditions, air and water, were supposed to distinguish East Germany from the capitalist West. As the need for increased industrial capacity grew and a dependence on dirty lignite coal brought brown smog the environmental standards went by the wayside. The State eventually declared all environmental information to be state secrets and an underground resistance developed.
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-04-21-underground-environmentalism-in-communist-east-germany
Prominent GOP lawmakers beholden to the financial industry, and the US Chamber of Commerce, have declared all-out war on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its yet to be formerly appointed administrator Elizabeth Warren. It seems that the only constituents these players care about are their friends in the banking and financial industry, rather than the citizens whom the wizards of Wall Street prey upon with shocking alacrity.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/03/981720/-Opposition-to-Elizabeth-Warren-extremely-well-funded,-inherently-sexist?utm
The banking and mortgage servicing industry continue to fleece homeowners even after some have won modifications to avoid foreclosures. The deliberate stonewalling and falsification of records on behalf of bankers puts the common citizen in the position of having to prove that the bank has made a mistake and attain legal representation. It's an exploitive strategy on the part of the recently bailed out banks, a numbers game that reckons most people will not be able to fight inappropriate charges and foreclosure efforts by bankers. It's a fundamentally amoral way to do business and the banks persist in ripping off Americans on a regular basis. I will post a follow-up article on the resources being amassed and used against the nomination of Elizabeth Warren to head the CFPB, a consumer watchdog bureau that might effective curtail much of this abuse.
http://www.propublica.org/article/even-after-mortgage-modification-shoddy-bank-practices-continue-to-hurt-hom
US regulators have known about five other deadly strains of E. coli for years but only test for one, E. coli 0157. Now there is a new super-toxic strain of E. coli that has struck in Germany and spread to ten countries so far. Yet regulators in the US continue to pander to the factory food industry which prefers to wait until there is another food-borne epidemic before testing for these known pathogens in our food supply. Like it or not, we are all guinea pigs for the chemical, biotech, pharmaceutical and food industries. In America we don't test for safety before marketing to the public, it's only after a product causes death and sickness that we consider that a product may cause more harm than good.
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/as-new-food-safety-threat-emerges-u.s.-regulators-still-steps-behin
Do not be fooled by all the talk of privatization being the savior of democracy. The goal of all privatizers is to make money on their investment and by buying municipal water and sewage systems the privatizers buy into a monopoly market with a captive population of customers. Then they will raise water prices, a lot, and that's what this Food & Water Watch study documents. Privatizations are generally a bad deal for the public and water privatizations put an alarming economic cost on a basic necessity of life.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/factsheet/selling-out-consumers/
TEPCO is belatedly acknowledging the overflow risk posed by storage tanks containing radioactive water containing more radiation than what has already been released into the atmosphere by the Fukushima disaster. Even though the American press is failing to cover the global tragedy in Japan on a regular basis, developments there continue to worsen with industry and government there failing to do all that is possible to mitigate the danger of increased radiation releases and contamination of ocean life.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/03/981775/-Radioactive-Fukushima-Water-Nears-Overflow?via=siderec
From the War On Drugs to the War On Terror to the Patriot Act, Americans have seen a steady erosion of civil liberties here at home. This AlterNet piece examines the Supreme Court's recent 8-1 decision undermining Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure by empowering police to forgo a search warrant after they are denied entry to a person's home.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/151150/america%27s_creeping_police_state/?page=1
This is a sobering example of what has come to freedom of expression in the United States. It appears increasingly undeniable that America is becoming a police state in which the Constitution is an inconvenience that the government trample on at will. These people were not even demonstrating, they were dancing, and they got arrested in Washington DC.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/151128/shocking_video%3A_americans_arrested_violently_at_the_jefferson_memorial_--_for_dancing_/
This little chart produced by the IMF underscores the fundamentally exploitive concept of privatizing profits and externalizing costs, as identified in Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine." The US has the lowest costs for polluting the environment which basically results in another government subsidy for industry that is literally borne on the backs, and health, of the American public. It's a bad deal for all of us.
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/06/03/234753/the-united-states-undertaxes-pollution/
Bill McKibben outlines Obama policies that facilitate massive new coal extraction in the US and Canada that threatens to raise global temperatures dramatically and further imperil the planet.
http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/06/obama-global-warming-failure
This guy, the governor of New Jersey, is turning out to be a heartless buffoon and a supreme jerk as he brutally slashes state spending for the working class while pushing tax cuts for the rich and powerful. He's a full-fledged member of the new class of extremist Republican governors, such as Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Rick Snyder of Michigan, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, John Kasich of Ohio, Rick Scott in Florida and Paul LePage of Maine whose approval ratings are in the toilet as they continue to attack working people of all stripes.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/02/981446/-Chris-Christie:-$6,000-a-year-is-too-much-income-to-qualify-for-Medicaid?utm
In their attacks on Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau the GOP equates the defense of liberty with a lawless banking industry that preys on unsuspecting and vulnerable consumers. How can there be so much opposition to the common sense reform represented by the CFPB that seeks to ensure that the American people get a fair shake?
http://www.thenation.com/article/161069/bank-lobby-steps-its-attack-elizabeth-warren
Despite the cosiness of both Republicans and Democrats in Congress and the Obama Administration to the nuclear power industry, several states are taking action to close existing plants and canceling plans to build new ones. Grist offers this update as part of an ongoing series of stories.
http://www.grist.org/nuclear/2011-06-02-states-fight-back-against-nuclear-power-even-as-the-feds-remain
This is a disturbing report on plans in some circles to add lithium to public water supplies in an effort to "cultivate a more serene social order.' We already have flouride in our drinking water, a practice that was pioneered by the Nazis, which is also intended to have a calming effect on the public. Flouride is the chief ingredient in the psychiatric drug Prozac.
http://www.naturalnews.com/032576_lithium_drinking_water.html
Through a secretive process based on shoddy studies the Swedish government has approved the illicit planting of Amflora, a genetically modified potato, in violation of current EU law. Though petitions may not have the impact one would hope for, and the Greenpeace goal of 3000 seems ridiculously small, it still seems worthwhile to sign. In any event, it's good, if not heartening, to know what's going on and this article provides an important update.
http://www.NaturalNews.com/032585_GM_potatoes_petition.html
This short video details that the board of the OTA has not one out of the 14,000 small organic farms on it, but rather is dominated by individuals with strong financial and professional ties to conventional genetically engineered factory food multinationals. The association has failed to make GMO labeling a legislative priority and is de-incentivized to support the very policy that is key to protecting and strengthening the organic food industry. Over thirty nations have banned GMOs or required labeling of GMOs because of widespread concerns over the health impact of these food products.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCK0MTS4mvI
This piece points out the absurd compensation levels for CEOs, now making 343 times the average workers salary from only 28 times in 1970.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/05/05/163805/average-ceo-navy-seal/
I've only recently gotten hip to HAARP, a US high-frequency technology described by the European Parliament as a "weapons system that disrupts the climate," and learned that it is capable of triggering seismic events and may have been responsible for the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan.
http://coto2.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/haarp-and-the-japanese-earthquake/
The smallest percentage of judicial nominees have been confirmed for Obama of any American presidency. The Republicans recently filibustered to defeat the nomination of Goodwin Liu, a Berkeley Law Professor known to be one of the sharpest constitutional lawyers in the country, after promising in 2005 not to use such filibusters unless there were "extraordinary circumstances."
http://www.thenation.com/blog/161059/gop-obstructionism-reaches-new-heights
Robert Sheer recounts some of the secret and highly unusual special treatment provided to Goldman Sachs, first at President of the NY Federal Bank and then as Treasury Secretary.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/geithner_and_goldman_thick_as_thieves_20110531/?utm
