This Op-Ed piece examines how the EPA has yet to rule BPA out of products because of its effects on stimulating cancer cells but shows that some manufacturers have voluntarily stopped using the chemical in baby bottles and some other products. The problem is that the chemicals they are substituting have not been tested for safety and could be even more dangerous. We have the highest cancer rates in the world and perhaps it's time to test chemicals for human safety before we allow them to be used in commercial products!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/opinion/09browning.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
A review of food policy and debate in the wake of The Future of Food symposium recently put on by The Washington Post at Georgetown University. Prince Charles' presentation regarding the perils of industrial agriculture, soil erosion and many other issues, based on his Duchy Originals organic farming experience, were largely marginalized with talk about organic food being elitist. In fact, what is really undemocratic about US food policy is the concentration of so much power in the hands of so few corporate productions and their government acolytes. Good reading on an issue that affects each and every one of us.
http://civileats.com/2011/05/06/elitism-is-dead-the-new-debate-for-the-good-food-movement/
This disturbing footage of riot police cracking down on college students with tear gas and sonic weapons took place in MaComb, Illinois last Saturday. Is this America? How can we allow such blatant violation of constitutional rights as these to take place? This account, supported by video footage, shows the students peaceably assembled on their front lawns yet the riot police illegally entered homes without warrants and used pepper spray against the students.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufKv-5t0t4E
Police, SWAT Teams Storm College Block Party With LRAD Sound Cannons, Tear Gas, Riot Gear for No Reason
http://www.NaturalNews.com/032318_block_party_SWAT_teams.html
WIU Parent Wants Answers After Police Use Pepper Spray
http://www.wqad.com/news/western-illinois-university-riots-wheeler-street-block-party-05032011,0,7847957.story
Food & Water Watch chooses Mother's Day as an opportunity to highlight the dangers of the endocrine disruptor Triclosan, that is found in many household products. While this is news to me, the site details a host of problems with this industrial compound and reveals that both the FDA and EPA are investigating its safety.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blogs/calling-on-the-power-of-moms/
This update on sentiment in the banking community regarding Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau offers some encouragement regarding her eventual nomination to head the consumer watchdog group. While the GOP still seems set on undermining the CFPB and its mandate, some in the banking community have warmed to Warren and credit her knowledge of the industry as well as her dedication to consumer advocacy. This may make it more likely that Warren could survive congressional hearings to head the bureau should Obama finally decide to formally nominate the law professor to the post.
http://beta.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/elizabeth-warren-cfpb-community-banks
In an age of decreasing budgets for journalism and the increasing reliance on 'expert' commentary in TV news, this sort of thing is occurring all too often. It's well-known that viewers tend to give more credence to non-partisan 'experts' on hotly debated issues but shouldn't we be told if a commentator has financial ties to the industry their commentary supports? The featured 'expert' in this Media Matters expose happens to have PR clients who own millions of acres of potential oil fields in Alaska. To present such a voice as independent is nothing short of a travesty that constitutes propaganda of the most insidious sort.
http://mediamatters.org/research/201105070007?utm
This column reviews details on a host of laws that are being enacted around the country to restrict women's right to choose and cut funding for women's healthcare and, abortions. It's really an all-out assault on American women that is not only a threat but an insult to all women.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/07/973996/-This-week-in-the-War-on-Women?utm
The nationwide push for voter ID laws in several states is actually a trumped-up legislative assault on a non-issue as voter fraud has been shown to be a negligible problem in America. Nonetheless, several states, including Wisconsin, are pushing voter ID laws that target the least stable residents, ethnic groups and students, and if approved would work to reduce turnout of likely Democratic voters.
http://www.defendwisconsin.org/2011/04/27/voter-id-bill-under-scrutiny-at-the-capitol/
As voter ID bill heads toward passage, the only certainty is a high price tag
http://www.defendwisconsin.org/2011/05/07/as-voter-id-bill-heads-toward-passage-the-only-certainty-is-a-high-price-tag/
This story highlights a distressing pattern, a declining number of journalists increasingly dependent on PR releases and video news releases for their segments. The PR industry has grown not only in numbers but also in the sophistication of their tactics, presenting a compelling information problem for the masses.
http://www.truth-out.org/pr-industry-fills-vacuum-left-shrinking-newsrooms/1304357509
Fracking for natural gas is a hotly contested issue these days as reports of widespread contamination of drinking water supplies, methane gas leaks and undocumented toxins used in the process continue to cause public concern in the largely unregulated industry that won exemption from federal Drinking Water Protection guidelines during the Bush Administration under Dick Cheney's direction. Oh yeah, the hydraulic fracturing process was developed by good old Halliburton and sold as "green" to us by its former CEO, Dick Cheney.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/fracking-moratorium_b_858654.html
This extensive report on the gas fracking industry and it's false claims of safety and climate neutrality was produced by the author's organization DeSmogBlog.
How Unconventional Gas Fracking Threatens Our Water, Health and Climate
http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/
Let's not forget the horrors of Agent Orange and the sickness and birth defects it caused for US veterans and the Vietnamese as we contemplate Monsanto's role in our society and its increasing dominance in the US food supply and industrial agriculture model. This story was published by Veteran's Today and serves to review Monsanto's conduct over the years, some of the harm it's perpetrated against public health, and points out the revolving door appointment of a former Monsanto lobbyist as Deputy Commissioner for Foods at the FDA.
http://current.com/127sd4c
This PR Watch update on the Emergency Financial Manager law in Michigan that allows the Governor to strip all local elected officials and statutory powers, in effect declaring martial law, and place authoritarian powers in the hands of unelected political appointees. The test case for this law is Benton Harbor and it is part of a statewide push to privatize education and strip teacher's unions of their collective bargaining rights and jobs. Governor Snyder has now identified 23 new districts that are at risk of having the EFM laws applied to their local governments. This is an anti-democratic process that s currently being legitimized in Michigan and it should cause grave concern to all Americans who value their constitutional protections and democratic rights. Included is a link to a Rachel Maddow segment on the Benton Harbor story featuring an interview with the Lansing mayor who ran against Snyder in the last election.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10702/protests-benton-harbor-follow-martial-law-enforcement
The rush to brings drugs to market has resulted in many drugs with less benefits than current available treatments to be prescribed to patients. A Congressionally-funded directive to determine comparative effectiveness of new drugs has often been ignored by the FDA which has approved a number of these drugs without studying the effectiveness data.
http://www.NaturalNews.com/032279_Big_Pharma_fraud.html
A report on the situation in Honduras where a US-backed military regime has been repressing dissent violently in the course of crushing teacher's unions in a push to privatize education throughout the country.
http://www.thenation.com/article/160472/honduras-teargassed-open-business
This ReasonTV video about continuing FDA armed raids and persecution of natural food producers and cooperatives, ostensibly on behalf of the industrialized food industry, is alarming to say the least. It's a short, sweet and immensely important report.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioN0ehlyyXI
The more I learn about the activities of the FDA in persecuting the natural foods industry, and it's role in supporting the pharmaceutical industry at the risk of public health, the more I fear that the agency's agenda is not aligned with a purported mission to protect the public interest.
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/05/fda-claims-power-to-seize-food-without.html
This is a stunning report on the profitability of the Fortune 500 in 2010, a year in which corporate tax revenues as a percentage of GDP were the lowest they've been in years.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/05/fortune-500-corporations-81/
We all will be affected by Net Neutrality laws in the US and need to stay informed on these issues. Once a tiered service approach is adopted then the voices of the lay public will be muted and the corporate-financed bullhorn will rule the day. It's going to be yet another battle worth fighting for citizens, small businesses and consumers who have been manipulated for so long by commercial interests.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13134494
Groups like Kellogg Garden Products are masquerading as green business by promoting "compost" that is made up of big city sewage sludge containing all sort of chemical and bacterial contamination. In LA recently this "compost" from industrial and human waste was being heralded as part of the organic school garden initiative there.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10700/dont-be-duped-sewage-sludge-industrys-compost
The GOP is desperately trying to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and wants to replace a single head to the bureau with a five person oversight panel, among other tactics designed to curtail its ability to enact reforms that truly benefit consumers and their pocketbooks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/04/gop-blocks-elizabeth-warren-cfpb_n_857780.html
Here's another story on these developments from CitizenVox, an arm of Public Citizen. This story includes a link to sign a petition that now has over 26,000 signatures, asking Obama to appoint Warren to the post.
http://www.citizenvox.org/2011/05/05/elizabeth-warren-amendment/?utm
