Sunday, May 31, 2015

UK’s Independent Newspaper Blows Lid Off Vaccine Damages

Activist Post
Link


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Stop Calling the TPP a Trade Agreement – It Isn’t.

BillMoyers.com
Link

Trade is a good thing. But enabling companies to move $30/hour jobs to countries with $.60/hour wages so a few billionaires can pocket the difference is not trade. Continue reading

The post Stop Calling the TPP a Trade Agreement – It Isn’t. appeared first on BillMoyers.com.



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UK Mainstream Media Prints the Truth About HPV Vaccine – Will Story be Retracted?

Health Impact News
Link
Sources outside of the U.S. continue to publish concerns about the HPV vaccine, documenting how thousands of lives of young women have been ruined by it. The Independent in the UK, has run a Sunday story on the HPV vaccine, daring to suggest that there are problems with the vaccine that is ruining so many lives. Late last year, the Toronto Star published a similar story on their front page, but pro-pharma forces convinced them to remove the story from their website. It is still available on archive.org. Will the same fate happen to The Independent? Or will they stand strong against efforts to censor their investigative report?


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"Non-GMO" Cheerios Oats Still Sprayed With Roundup, Supplier Announces

GreenMedInfo
Link

"Non-GMO" Cheerios Oats Still Sprayed With Roundup, Supplier Announces

General Mills Cheerios may now be "non-GMO" but it is virtually guaranteed to contain Roundup herbicide residues, as disclosed by North America's largest oat supplier. 

While there are no genetically modified oats on the marketplace today, non-organic oats might as well be labeled Roundup Ready (RR). This is because it is common practice to spray them with Roundup's active ingredient glyphosate, putting them in the same category of glyphosate contaminated crops which includes RR GM soy, corn and canola.

read more



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Marc Tucker: Time for the Civil Rights Community to Rethink Its Support for Annual Testing

Diane Ravitch's blog
Link
In this brilliant article, Marc Tucker explains why the civil rights community is making an error by supporting annual testing as a “civil right.” He knows their leaders believe that poor and minority children will be overlooked in the absence of annual testing. But he demonstrates persuasively that annual testing has done nothing to improve […]

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Saturday, May 30, 2015

46 Republican Who Just Voted to Eliminate Freedom of the Press

Freedom Outpost
Link

Recently, I reported on the fact that the American Phoenix Foundation is in possession of what they claim are 800 hours of damning undercover video of Texas politicians engaging in corruption. I also told you that the Texas legislature was pushing to stifle freedom of the press in a new bill that would make illegal […]

The post 46 Republican Who Just Voted to Eliminate Freedom of the Press appeared first on Freedom Outpost.



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Rand Paul: “Tomorrow, I will force the expiration of the NSA illegal spy program.”

Reason.com Full Feed
Link
So long bulk collections under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which courts say are unauthorized and the FBI says is ineffective.


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Thursday, May 28, 2015

The Danger That There Will Be No “Big Event”

SHTF Plan - When It Hits The Fan, Don't Say We Didn't Warn You
Link
In the end, our lines get moved without us realizing it, and what has already crossed the line, only appears as though it has not. That is both the power and danger of gradualism.

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Chris Hedges: America's Mania for Positive Thinking and Denial of Reality Will Be Our Downfall | Alternet

Chris Hedges: America's Mania for Positive Thinking and Denial of Reality Will Be Our Downfall | Alternet:



"The naive belief that history is linear, that moral progress accompanies technical progress, is a form of collective self-delusion. It cripples our capacity for radical action and lulls us into a false sense of security. Those who cling to the myth of human progress, who believe that the world inevitably moves toward a higher material and moral state, are held captive by power. Only those who accept the very real possibility of dystopia, of the rise of a ruthless corporate totalitarianism, buttressed by the most terrifying security and surveillance apparatus in human history, are likely to carry out the self-sacrifice necessary for revolt....



"The blundering history of the human race is always given coherence by power elites and their courtiers in the press and academia who endow it with a meaning and coherence it lacks. They need to manufacture national myths to hide the greed, violence and stupidity that characterize the march of most human societies....



"Wisdom is not knowledge. Knowledge deals with the particular and the actual. Knowledge is the domain of science and technology. Wisdom is about transcendence. Wisdom allows us to see and accept reality, no matter how bleak that reality may be. It is only through wisdom that we are able to cope with the messiness and absurdity of life. Wisdom is about detachment. Once wisdom is achieved, the idea of moral progress is obliterated. Wisdom throughout the ages is a constant. Did Shakespeare supersede Sophocles? Is Homer inferior to Dante? Does the Book of Ecclesiastes not have the same deep powers of observation about life that Samuel Beckett offers? Systems of power fear and seek to silence those who achieve wisdom, which is what the war by corporate forces against the humanities and art is about. Wisdom, because it sees through the facade, is a threat to power. It exposes the lies and ideologies that power uses to maintain its privilege and its warped ideology of progress....



"Resistance, as Alexander Berkman points out, is first about learning to speak differently and abandoning the vocabulary of the “rational” technocrats who rule. Once we discover new words and ideas through which to perceive and explain reality, we free ourselves from neoliberal capitalism, which functions, as Walter Benjamin knew, like a state religion. Resistance will take place outside the boundaries of popular culture and academia, where the deadening weight of the dominant ideology curtails creativity and independent thought."



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Tragedy of Whitney Houston and Her Daughter: The Surprising Factors That Can Make People 4600 Percent More Prone To Addiction | Alternet

Tragedy of Whitney Houston and Her Daughter: The Surprising Factors That Can Make People 4600 Percent More Prone To Addiction | Alternet: "“A person who experienced any six or more of the categories” of childhood trauma, Dr Felitti tells me, “was 4600 percent more likely to become an IV [injecting] drug user later in life than a person who experienced none of them.” (6) He adds: “I remember the epidemologists at the CDC told me those were numbers a magnitude of which they see once in a career. You read the latest cancer scare of the week in the newspaper and something causes an increase of 30 percent in breast or prostate cancer and everybody goes nuts – and here, we’re talking 4600 percent.”

The published research showed that for every category of trauma that happens to a child, they are two to four times more like to grow up to be an addict – and multiple traumas produced a massive risk. The correlation for addiction was startling. Nearly two-thirds of injecting drug use, they found, is the result of early childhood trauma. (7)"



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Anonymous Fear-Mongering About the Patriot Act from the White House and NYT

The Intercept
Link

Two paragraphs, courtesy of the Obama White House and the Paper of Record, illustrate the principal weapons that have poisoned post-9/11 political discourse in the U.S.

The post Anonymous Fear-Mongering About the Patriot Act from the White House and NYT appeared first on The Intercept.



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People Framing Critical Thinking and Political Engagement as “Negativity”

https://marlanaesquire.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/people-framing-critical-thinking-and-political-engagement-as-negativity/

There are several issues I run into when writing about critical topics in the public domain. One of the main contentions people have with my public participation in the political/intellectual sphere is they perceive critical engagement as “negativity.” Specifically, when I share my critical articles with people close to me (which is rarely ever now), there is definitely a backlash for my behavior. Most people don’t directly confront me about it, but they feel my engagement with cultural issues is “negative.” In fact, I had a close family member tell me I should “just be positive and everything will turn out fine.”

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

BEST OF THE WEB: 3 years of confronting the Western Empire and its propaganda machine

Signs of the Times
Link
After my two days marathon discussion with Noam Chomsky, (at MIT in 2012), a bestselling book was born. Later this year a film will hit the cinemas. Noam and I discussed Western imperialism, and the terror it has been spreading around the world. After WWII, at least 50 million lives were lost. Lives of those whom Orwell used to call "unpeople"; lives brutally interrupted as a result of Western-led and orchestrated wars, invasions, coups and proxy-conflicts. We discussed at length the Western propaganda, which, for centuries, worked extremely hard to justify everything from the colonialist insanity, to supremacist and exceptionalist theories. After my encounter with Chomsky, I decided to dedicate at least two years of my life to visiting most parts of the world, where the Empire had been striking; where it was attempting to bulldoze all opposition that was standing on its way to the absolute control over the planet. My goal was Quixotic - a monster, 1000-page book, exposing and confronting techniques and dogmas utilized by the Empire in all corners of the globe, for purposes of destabilizing "rebellious" nations, overthrowing "unruly" governments, or simply grabbing natural resources.

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Medical holocaust: Psych drugs have killed more than 5 million people over the last 10 years

NaturalNews.com
Link
(NaturalNews) If every single person currently taking psychotropic medications or antidepressants were to be pulled off these deadly drugs and given a new, safer regimen instead, society would be much better off. This is the larger inference of a new review published in The BMJ (British...


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What a Stupid and Terrifying School Intruder Drill

Free Range Kids
Link
From Wyoming’s trib.com news comes possibly the dumbest school shooting drill I’ve heard of: Aubrey Truman was swinging on the playground at Worland’s East Side Elementary School about 10 a.m. Thursday when she received the scare of her life. A man in a hooded sweatshirt with a suspicious backpack appeared in the back of the […]

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Here’s how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill

“It’s a rare thing for members of Congress to go against the money these days,” said Mansur Gidfar, spokesman for the anti-corruption group Represent.Us. “They know exactly which special interests they need to keep happy if they want to fund their reelection campaigns or secure a future job as a lobbyist.

“How can we expect politicians who routinely receive campaign money, lucrative job offers, and lavish gifts from special interests to make impartial decisions that directly affect those same special interests?” Gidfar said. “As long as this kind of transparently corrupt behavior remains legal, we won’t have a government that truly represents the people.”

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/27/corporations-paid-us-senators-fast-track-tpp

Vaccinating the ‘herd’ | Consumer Policy Institute

Vaccinating the ‘herd’ | Consumer Policy Institute: "Herd immunity sounds fine in theory. But as Stanford’s Dr. Obukhanych concluded, “As with any garbage in-garbage out type of theory, the expectations of the herd-immunity theory are bound to fail in the real world.”"



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Activist Post: Airlines Spraying Fliers With Pesticides Inside the Plane

Activist Post: Airlines Spraying Fliers With Pesticides Inside the Plane:



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MARYLAND MEITIVS CLEARED OF FIRST “NEGLECT” CHARGE

Free Range Kids
Link
Hallelujah! Danielle and Alexander Meitiv have been cleared of any wrongdoing in the Dec. 20 incident when they let their kids walk home from the park in Silver Spring, MD.  As Donna St. George in the Washington Post reports: A Maryland couple investigated for neglect after they let their two young children walk home alone […]

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It's Sinister: We're Locking Up Poor People in Debtor's Prisons to Fund Police Depts.

AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed
Link
Local courts and municipalities are adopting aggressive collection practices that prey on the poor.

Ray Charles Staten Sr. should have celebrated his 60th birthday this month. Instead, his family marked the fourth anniversary of his death. It all started, according to a lawsuit that settled in March 2015, when a small debt became a death sentence in the spring of 2011.

Unable to pay an outstanding debt of $409 in court fines, Mr Staten was arrested and sentenced to 16 days in Mississippi’s Harrison County Jail. Shortly after being booked at the jail, Mr Staten fell seriously ill. Despite his obvious symptoms and his cellmates’ cries for help, the jail’s privately-contracted medical staff allowed his condition to worsen until – on the fifth day of his sentence – he collapsed in his cell and, upon being transported to a medical center, could not be revived. He had suffered acute peritonitis, a life-threatening infection of the abdominal lining for which early treatment is essential.

Whenever the government locks someone in jail, it has a constitutional duty to provide adequate medical care, a responsibility that can’t be evaded simply by contracting it out to a for-profit company. Unfortunately, Mr Staten’s is a familiar story: the ACLU is currently litigating a case in a Mississippi prison that challenges, in part, the dangerously inadequate health care provided by Health Assurance, a private corporation also responsible for Mr Staten’s medical treatment — or lack thereof.

Mr Staten’s experience is far from unusual. Every day, indigent Americans are ripped from their homes and their communities and forced into jails of varying degrees of dysfunction and decay. The US supreme court ruled three decades ago that it is unconstitutional to imprison people because they cannot afford to pay debts. The ruling, however, hasn’t ended the practice of jailing people for unpaid government fees and fines.

In 2010, the ACLU found that courts across the nation regularly deny Americans proper consideration of their financial position and throw them into jail over fines they could never hope to pay. As a result, local jails nationwide have transformed into modern-day “debtors’ prisons” overcrowded with indigent people whose only punishable offense is being poor. The effects are devastating.

This growing phenomenon funnels poor Americans into the criminal justice system with sentences that disrupt their lives, too often trapping them in a damning cycle of poverty and incarceration that far outlasts their initial conviction. These practices have a disparate impact on communities of color in the United States.

Consider 19-year-old Kevin Thompson, a black teenager in DeKalb County, Georgia, who was jailed simply because he was unable to pay $838 in fines and fees associated with a routine traffic citation. Though only half of DeKalb County’s residents are black, nearly all probationers jailed for failure to pay by its recorders court, which handles minor offenses like traffic misdemeanors, are black. The ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of Mr Thompson and reached a settlement with the county that included a number of new reform measures aimed at preventing others from facing the same unconstitutional treatment.

Jail sentences like those imposed on Mr Thompson and Mr Staten aren’t just unjust – they’re also costly. The ACLU’s 2010 report In for a Penny found that individuals incarcerated for failure to pay often cost the state more than they owe. The report identifies one individual whose incarceration in New Orleans cost more than six times his $498 debt. So why are we stuck with this senseless system?

Local courts and municipalities – reliant on fines and fees as a source of revenue – are adopting increasingly aggressive collection practices. This was the case in DeKalb County, where county policymakers enlisted a for-profit company for the specific purpose of targeting those too poor to pay fines on sentencing day. And a report released in March by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division found that municipal courts in Ferguson, Missouri, prioritized revenue above fair administration of justice and imposed undue burdens on residents living in or near poverty, perpetuating and exacerbating racial and economic inequality in the community.

Too many Americans are locked away over small debts. At best, they will leave with few resources and diminished job prospects, trapped in a cycle of poverty and inequality. At worst, they will suffer and die due to the callous neglect of their jailers, like Mr Staten. Poverty should never be criminalized. Local courts and municipalities must find other sources of revenue that don’t make victims of their most vulnerable citizens.

 

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Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Praying for Peace While Waging Permanent War? » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Praying for Peace While Waging Permanent War? » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names: "Memorial Day is, by federal law, a day of prayer for permanent peace.   But is it possible to honestly pray for peace while our country is far and away number one in the world in waging war, military presence, military spending and the sale of weapons around the world?"



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Former CDC Director Julie Gerberding sells 38,368 shares of Merck Stock for $2.3 Million

Former CDC Director Julie Gerberding sells 38,368 shares of Merck Stock for $2.3 Million: "Julie Gerberding was in charge of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2002 to 2009, which includes the years the FDA approved the Merck Gardasil vaccine. Soon after she took over the CDC, she reportedly completely overhauled the agency’s organizational structure, and many of the CDC’s senior scientists and leaders either left or announced plans to leave. Some have claimed that almost all of the replacements Julie Gerberding appointed had ties to the vaccine industry.

Gerberding resigned from the CDC on January 20, 2009, and took over as the president of Merck’s Vaccine division, a 5 billion dollar a year operation, and the supplier of the largest number of vaccines the CDC recommends (article here).

It was reported earlier this month that Dr. Gerberding, now the executive vice president of pharmaceutical giant Merck, sold 38,368 of her shares in Merck stock for $2,340,064.32. She still holds 31,985 shares of the company’s stock, valued at about $2 million. (Source.)"



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The Global Elite’s Crimes Against Humanity

The Liberty Beacon
Link

By COLIN TODHUNTER | May 25, 2015 The Subversion of Life, Liberty and…

The post The Global Elite’s Crimes Against Humanity appeared first on The Liberty Beacon.



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Monday, May 25, 2015

Whatever Happened to Antitrust?

Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines
Link
Last week’s settlement between the Justice Department and five giant banks reveals the appalling weakness of modern antitrust law.

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Sunday, May 24, 2015

These Are the 5 Stages of Collapse. We Are in Stage...

Before It's News | ALTERNATIVE NEWS
Link
"For the most part, Americans are completely oblivious of just how close the country is to a total disintegration of its fiat monetary system...the United States financial system died in 2008. It has been kept alive by policy deregulation, monetary printing, and market manipulation (including derivative manufacturing such as interest rate swaps). These collaborative short term machinations have a lifespan that is diminishing every passing day, while investors who have made the wise decision to exchange fiat money for gold and silver keep wondering how long this manipulation can continue. I remember watching Peter Schiff on CNBC and Fox Business between the years of 2005-2007 debating about the upcoming collapse of the mortgage and housing markets.

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Saturday, May 23, 2015

FBI forced to admit Patriot Act powers led to exactly zero major terrorism cases cracked

Signs of the Times
Link
FBI agents can't point to any major terrorism cases they've cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department's inspector general said in a report Thursday that could complicate efforts to keep key parts of the law operating. Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said that between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents, and increasingly scooped up records of Americans who had no ties to official terrorism investigations. The FBI did finally come up with procedures to try to minimize the information it was gathering on nontargets, but it took far too long, Mr. Horowitz said in the 77-page report, which comes just as Congress is trying to decide whether to extend, rewrite or entirely nix Section 215. Backers say the Patriot Act powers are critical and must be kept intact, particularly with the spread of the threat from terrorists. But opponents have doubted the efficacy of Section 215, particularly when it's used to justify bulk data collection such as in the case of the National Security Agency's phone metadata program, revealed in leaks from former government contractor Edward Snowden. The new report adds ammunition to those opponents, with the inspector general concluding that no major cases have been broken by use of the Patriot Act's records-snooping provisions.

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Secret Pentagon Report Reveals US "Created" ISIS As A "Tool" To Overthrow Syria's President Assad

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-23/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-us-created-isis-tool-overthrow-syrias-president-assad

Clinton and the Bankers — Guest Column by Nomi Prins

PaulCraigRoberts.org
Link

Clinton Destroyed The Financial System Nomi Prins points out how Wall Street and the Big Banks used money to seduce the Clintons and then used the Clintons to remake the US financial system in the interest of the maximum profits…

The post Clinton and the Bankers — Guest Column by Nomi Prins appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org.



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Elites Panic as Information Control Flounders

The Liberty Beacon
Link

by James Corbett | 5.20.2015 TheInternationalForecaster.com Do you want the good news…

The post Elites Panic as Information Control Flounders appeared first on The Liberty Beacon.



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Photos: Massive 1/4 mile long military train loaded with vehicles seen near Colorado Wyoming border

Intellihub
Link

Alex Thomas | A massive quarter-mile long train full of military vehicles has been spotted near the Colorado Wyoming border.

The post Photos: Massive 1/4 mile long military train loaded with vehicles seen near Colorado Wyoming border appeared first on Intellihub.



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Friday, May 22, 2015

David Cameron's New Thought Police

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-21/david-camerons-new-thought-police

We certainly don’t like what one might term “extremist hate preachers” and the ideas they are propagating. We are just as repulsed by people glorifying fascism, communism or Islamist fundamentalism as almost all civilized people presumably are. We too find it extremely unfortunate that a number of impressionable young people have been taken in by the slick propaganda published by outfits like the Islamic State. However, once government becomes the arbiter of what speech is and isn’t legitimate, the door is inevitably thrown wide open to the suppression of all political dissent.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Public school violates First Amendment by firing vegan teacher over private Facebook post

NaturalNews.com
Link
(NaturalNews) A second-grade teacher in Smithville, Ohio, was fired from his job in December because he wrote on his Facebook page that he was against dairy farming.According to local affiliate Fox8, Keith Allison is a vegan and animal rights advocate who often openly posts his...


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How Popular Music’s Lyrics Perpetuate American Idiocy

http://theantimedia.org/how-popular-musics-lyrics-perpetuate-american-idiocy/

From a political standpoint, all this ‘dumbing down’ makes sense: indoctrination creates obedience. If music and culture focus on mindless diversion, and education lacks, well, education, then people lack the acuity necessary to question the absurdity of the system. Those who manage to liberate themselves from this mold and have the gumption to question official authority will find a cozy spot on the government’s watch list. So while we bemoan our country’s lack of intellectual prowess, it isn’t by a failure of design.

Former Foster Parent Exposes How CPS Kidnaps Kids Away from Good Homes – Puts them on Drugs

Health Impact News
Link
I became a foster parent with the intentions of putting a roof over the heads of orphaned children. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. By the time I completed the training process, I understood that the majority of the children that would be entering my home were not orphans. I was brainwashed into believing the children had come from abusive and neglectful homes. I was told the state had rescued them from horrible living environments and that I was somewhat of a hero for taking them in. They were all lies. It took several years for me to truly see what I had become a part of.


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Serving Wall Street

Teacher Tom
Link


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The Political Roots of Widening Inequality

BillMoyers.com
Link

The key to understanding the rise in inequality isn’t technology or globalization. It’s the power of the moneyed interests to shape the underlying rules of the market. Continue reading

The post The Political Roots of Widening Inequality appeared first on BillMoyers.com.



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Let the Public Read the Completed Parts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership

BillMoyers.com
Link

We the People deserve to see the agreement before Congress essentially preapproves it by voting on fast track. Continue reading

The post Let the Public Read the Completed Parts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership appeared first on BillMoyers.com.



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Man Helps Boy Whose Ball Went Over Fence. Now Police Are Looking for Him

Free Range Kids
Link
. Alexandria, VA: From a country gone crazy with mandemonium (pandemonium sparked by seeing a man near a child) comes this all points bulletin, below. Notice that while “At no time did the unknown man attempt to leave the area with the child,” the police nonetheless give a detailed description of the suspect…er…Samaritan…er…suspect.  And they […]

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Raider Focus: Military war games set to include 650 vehicles, will be largest military convoy seen in Colorado since World War II

Intellihub Transfer
Link

Alex Thomas | The simulated war game known as Raider Focus will pack Colorado highways with military vehicles.

The post Raider Focus: Military war games set to include 650 vehicles, will be largest military convoy seen in Colorado since World War II appeared first on Intellihub Transfer.



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Rising Police Aggression A Telling Indicator Of Our Societal Decline

Unfortunately there are far too many cases where the police have acted as judge, jury and executioner to suggest that there are just a few bad apples.

Instead there’s a pervasive atmosphere of hostility and force escalation better suited to war zones than maintaining civilian order.  The lines have been drawn in many police departments: it’s us vs. them.

Trust in many departments has been utterly shattered within some communities because the police hold themselves to a different standard than they do the populace.  Police commit brazen acts of brutality and get away with it, largely because they self-investigate and/or because the local District Attorney office is unwilling to press charges.

But the recent cases of police brutality are simply a symptom of a much larger problem. Society in the US is breaking down, civility has been lost, and the country is rapidly becoming uncivilized.

This extends within and across all of the most important institutions. Congress is known to work for corporations first and foremost. Democracy itself is bought and sold by the highest bidders. The Federal Reserve protects big banks from the costs of their misdeeds and enriches the already stupidly rich as a side benefit.

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/92427/rising-police-aggression-telling-indicator-our-societal-decline

No Jail Time for Bankers

From comments at
http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/92663/4-factors-signaling-volatility-will-return-vengeance

As happened, yet again, today:

Global Banks to Pay $5.6 Billion in Penalties in FX, Libor Probe

May 20, 2015

Officials said a 19-month investigation in which FBI agents conducted 175 interviews and reviewed a terabyte of trading data showed traders withholding bids or offers to avoid moving the rate in directions that would hurt open positions held by other members of the group, in violation of antitrust laws.

Members of the group discussed whether to allow one Barclays trader to join the chat room and ultimately decided to let him in for a “1 month trial,” but advised him: “mess this up and sleep with one eye open at night,” according to the New York Department of Financial Services.

The fines, which include penalties from the Federal Reserve and other regulators, come on top of a combined $4.3 billion many of the same banks paid in November to resolve similar charges from U.S. and U.K. regulators.

Bank of America Corp. will also pay a $205 million penalty to the Fed to resolve the regulator’s foreign exchange probe. Bank of America didn’t face similar action from the Justice Department.

Citigroup, which was accused of being involved in the misconduct from December 2007 through January 2013, is paying the largest criminal fine of $925 million, in addition to a Fed penalty of $342 million. The other banks were accused of engaging in the conduct for various periods within that time frame.

Note that not one single person will be facing any jail time. No indictments were handed down. This is despite specific email exchanges with people’s names on them.

Were this a normal prosecution of something or some entity that the Justice Department really hated and wanted to make an example out of, say an environmental organization or perhaps a raw milk collective, the normal procedure would have been to start with the persons on the email strings, threaten them with hundreds of potential years in the Federal Penitentiary, and then lean on them to name names higher up the ladder. You don’t stop until you reach as high into the organization as you can.

You see, the idea behind criminal probes is that you want to both catch and punish the prior wrong doings but also deter future criminal acts.

Let’s see how they did. Citi was fined fined the most and dinged for $925 million. First quarter 2015 revenues for Citi were $19.7 billion. This means that 4.5% of a single quarter’s incoming cash flows, or roughly 0.5 weeks of operational cash flows were dinged.

This would be like you robbing a bank, being caught, and then having the prosecutor come out and hit you for a half a week’s pay.

Not only is nobody else deterred by your “punishment” but you probably aren’t either.

While the Justice Department wanted to appear they were being tough, it was yet another massive failure on their part to do anything meaningful, and that means Obama's administration is literally the very worst on record for going after Wall Street fat cats.  The bar is now so low, there's really no further to go...except to just default into overt Ukrainian style plutocracy.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Major Gay Marriage Study Was Fabricated, Author Admits

The Daily Caller
Link
They were just trying to start a conversation

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How the CIA tortured its detainees

US news | The Guardian
Link

Waterboarding, confinement, sleep deprivation – Oliver Laughland takes a look at some of the ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ used by the agency

First published in December 2014

Continue reading...

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Big Banks Pay $5.6 Billion, Plead Guilty To Felonies Over Currency And Rate-Fixing

News
Link
In one exchange, a broker told a trader, "mate yur getting bloody good at this libor game . . . think of me when yur on yur yacht in monaco."

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How to Live a Middle-Class Life in New York City on Less Than $5,000 a Year | Alternet

How to Live a Middle-Class Life in New York City on Less Than $5,000 a Year | Alternet:



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Latest USDA Scandal: Organic Program Dismisses Legal Complaints Targeting Factory Farms — Without Investigating

http://www.cornucopia.org/2015/05/latest-usda-scandal-organic-program-dismisses-legal-complaints-targeting-factory-farms-without-investigating/

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Obama Bans Machine Guns, Tanks, Grenade Launchers Going to Local Cops : Anything Peaceful : Foundation for Economic Education

Obama Bans Machine Guns, Tanks, Grenade Launchers Going to Local Cops : Anything Peaceful : Foundation for Economic Education:



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A Complete Case for Home Education (54 Arguments) - Jeff Till's Five Hundred Years at Liberty.me - Jeffrey Till

Liberty.me Articles: Daily Roundup
Link


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Getting Elected to Congress Should Not Be a Lifetime Gig

http://downtrend.com/donn-marten/getting-elected-to-congress-should-not-be-a-lifetime-gig

When Open Government Slams Shut

http://reason.com/archives/2015/04/30/when-open-government-slams-shu

In hindsight, Obama's oft-repeated vow to run the "most transparent administration ever" has become a punchline even among his own supporters. On March 17, the White House quietly deleted the part of the federal register requiring the White House Office of Administration to be subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. On March 18, the Associated Press reported Obama set a new record for the number of FOIA requests denied—over 55 percent were refused in 2014. The administration also set a record for improperly denied FOIA requests, with one out of every three denials that was appealed last year eventually getting overturned. And the White House is dragging its feet egregiously when it comes to making information public. Six years ago, over half of all speedy processing requests for FOIA claims were granted. Last year, the government granted just one in eight requests to expedite the information being sought.

Hillary Clinton's seemingly unusual email troubles have, in fact, been replicated throughout the executive branch. Obama's head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, stepped down in February of 2013 after the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner discovered Jackson had been using a secret email account under the name "Richard Windsor" to obscure her communications. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Attorney General Eric Holder have both used multiple email aliases, we learned in the wake of the Clinton revelations.

The Justice Department claims with a straight face that hidden email accounts do not "in any way impact compliance with FOIA requests," but most journalists have no way of knowing which nom de email contains the information they're seeking.

28 Signs That The West Coast Is Being Absolutely Fried With Nuclear Radiation From Fukushima

Before It's News | ALTERNATIVE NEWS
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The map above comes from the Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center. It shows that radiation levels at radiation monitoring stations all over the country are elevated. As you will notice, this is particularly true along the west coast of the United States. Every single day, 300 tons of radioactive water from Fukushima enters the Pacific Ocean.

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8th Grader Arrested, Threatened with Beatings and Held for 6 Days in Jail – For Throwing Skittles

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The boy had allegedly thrown the candy on a school bus the previous day.

Jefferson Parrish, LA — In a Jefferson Parrish School District in Louisiana, an eighth grader was handcuffed and dragged out of the classroom…for throwing skittles. He was then held for six days.

For throwing skittles.

The boy had allegedly thrown the candy on a school bus the previous day. A report from Vocativ states:

“The following day, as the boy was taking a social studies test, a police officer assigned to the school handcuffed him, dragged him out of class and arrested him. He was charged with “interference with an educational facility” and battery.

As the officer led the handcuffed teenager out of the school, both students and faculty heard him threaten to “beat the f*** out of [the boy],” or to have his son, who is about the same age, do it for him. The student, who is African-American, spent six days in a juvenile detention facility before seeing a judge, whose first comment was: “Am I to get this right? Are we really here about Skittles?”

The mother has pulled the young boy from the school.

This is no isolated incident. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Jefferson Parish School District has had over 1600 kids arrested for things like carrying a cell phone, swearing, or not adhering to dress code. Arrested. 

In what universe is this acceptable?

They also found that black students make up 80% of those arrested, despite that fact that black students make up only 40% of the school district. The SPLC has reportedly called on the Department of Justice “to intervene with the school’s unwarranted arrests of overwhelmingly minority students.”

According to SPLC attorney Eden Heilman,

“The Jefferson Parish Public School System has continued its destructive practice of arresting and jailing children for minor, and often trivial, violations of school rules and decorum. It’s nothing less than a racially biased system of criminalizing African-American children.”

The school district stated publicly that it was aware of the situation and will be working to fix it.

 

 

Related Stories



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Monday, May 18, 2015

Monsanto’s Worst Fear May Be Coming True

Monsanto’s Worst Fear May Be Coming True: "The decision of the Chipotle restaurant chain to make its product lines GMO-free is not most people’s idea of a world-historic event. Especially since Chipotle, by US standards, is not a huge operation. A clear sign that the move is significant, however, is that Chipotle’s decision was met with a tidal-wave of establishment media abuse. Chipotle has been called irresponsible, anti-science, irrational, and much more by the Washington Post, Time Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, and many others. A business deciding to give consumers what they want was surely never so contentious.

The media lynching of Chipotle has an explanation that is important to the future of GMOs. The cause of it is that there has long been an incipient crack in the solid public front that the food industry has presented on the GMO issue. The crack originates from the fact that while agribusiness sees GMOs as central to their business future, the brand-oriented and customer-sensitive ends of the food supply chain do not."



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Sunday, May 17, 2015

The Trojan Horse President

Truthout Stories
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President Barack Obama speaks at an event at the White House in Washington, May 11, 2015. (Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times) President Barack Obama speaks at an event at the White House in Washington, May 11, 2015. (Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times)

I am not an economist, not even close, but Joseph Stiglitz is. Stiglitz is actually a Nobel Prize winning economist, former Chair of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, and former chief economist for the World Bank. Joseph Stiglitz is positively terrified of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal being pushed rabidly by President Obama. Because he is, I am also frightened by what this "deal" portends.

Stiglitz:

Fundamental to America's system of government is an impartial public judiciary, with legal standards built up over the decades, based on principles of transparency, precedent, and the opportunity to appeal unfavorable decisions. All of this is being set aside, as the new agreements call for private, non-transparent, and very expensive arbitration. Moreover, this arrangement is often rife with conflicts of interest; for example, arbitrators may be a "judge" in one case and an advocate in a related case.

If there ever was a one-sided dispute-resolution mechanism that violates basic principles, this is it. That is why I joined leading U.S. legal experts, including from Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley, in writing a letter to President Barack Obama explaining how damaging to our system of justice these agreements are.

Rules and regulations determine the kind of economy and society in which people live. They affect relative bargaining power, with important implications for inequality, a growing problem around the world. The question is whether we should allow rich corporations to use provisions hidden in so-called trade agreements to dictate how we will live in the twenty-first century. I hope citizens in the U.S., Europe, and the Pacific answer with a resounding no.

At the core of this Nobel Laureate's argument against the TPP deal is the simple fact that legal authority - basic, bedrock legal authority - would be transferred from the sovereign courts of the United States to multinational corporations if this "deal" comes to pass. Note well, also, this statement from Stiglitz: "Though corporations can bring suit, others cannot. If there is a violation of other commitments - on labor and environmental standards, for example - citizens, unions, and civil-society groups have no recourse."

That is utterly intolerable, and it's what the president wants.

Joseph Stiglitz is not alone. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has essentially gone to war with the White House over the issue of the TPP. While she deplores many of the aspects of the TPP, her main concern has been the secrecy behind the whole process, and the push in Congress to give the president fast-track authority to pass this thing ... which, by the bye, got a significant boost when the Senate voted against it, and then voted for it 24 hours later, much to the dismay of many who rightly oppose this thing. Progressives are particularly distressed; with friends like these, who needs enemas?

Warren:

The president has committed only to letting the public see this deal after Congress votes to authorize fast track. At that point it will be impossible for us to amend the agreement or to block any part of it without tanking the whole TPP. The TPP is basically done. If the president is so confident it's a good deal, he should declassify the text and let people see it before asking Congress to tie its hands on fixing it.

I understand that we want to be a nation that trades, that trade creates many benefits for us. But only if done on terms that strengthen the American economy and American worker. I should say the American family, because that's what this is really about.

A Republican President could easily use a future trade deal to override our domestic financial rules.  And this is hardly a hypothetical possibility: We are already deep into negotiations with the European Union on a trade agreement and big banks on both sides of the Atlantic are gearing up to use that agreement to water down financial regulations.  A six-year Fast Track bill is the missing link they need to make that happen.

The funny part came when President Obama dismissed Sen. Warren as just another politician as a means of defusing her criticism. Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook" while staring into a camera. He was in fact a crook, and President Obama is in fact a politician. A consummate one, if truth be told. Of course Sen. Warren is a politician, but she is endeavoring to do what the president is not: represent the people. The president, for his part, is actively representing the corporations that actually are allowed to read the details of this deal, while the rest of us are not.

Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders agrees:

Incredibly, while Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry and major media companies have full knowledge as to what is in this treaty, the American people and members of Congress do not. They have been locked out of the process.

The TPP follows in the footsteps of other unfettered free trade agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA and the Permanent Normalized Trade Agreement with China (PNTR). These treaties have forced American workers to compete against desperate and low-wage labor around the world. The result has been massive job losses in the United States and the shutting down of tens of thousands of factories. These corporately backed trade agreements have significantly contributed to the race to the bottom, the collapse of the American middle class and increased wealth and income inequality. The TPP is more of the same, but even worse.

TPP will allow corporations to outsource even more jobs overseas; Service Sector Jobs will be lost; manufacturing jobs will be lost; US sovereignty will be undermined by giving corporations the right to challenge our laws before international tribunals; wages, benefits, and collective bargaining will be threatened; our ability to protect the environment will be undermined; food safety standards will be threatened; prescription drug prices will increase, access to life saving drugs will decrease, and the profits of drug companies will go up; and Wall Street would benefit at the expense of everyone else.

Stiglitz, Warren, Sanders ... and they are not alone. A very interesting left-right coalition is coalescing around opposition to this mysterious, dangerous, perilous trade deal. The real mystery, however, is why President Obama - in his final years in office - would staple himself to such a divisive and damaging initiative. He has the opportunity to focus on infrastructure repair, an example made vivid by the recent rail calamity in Philadelphia. He could lean into pushing the ACA in Red states that still resist it. Hell, he could go wild and push for what they've done with solar power in Germany, panels right down the sides of the highways, free and open space to do all that green stuff he's been yapping about while approving oil drilling in the Arctic and the Atlantic Ocean. 

But no, it's this terrible thing he has chosen for his "legacy."

Is he getting bad advice? Does he seek finally the chance to say he crafted a bi-partisan agreement on something? 

Or is he what many of us have feared he is for a while now: a Trojan Horse president, presented at the gates as a progressive gift? Once let in, however, an army of Third-Way "Democrats," multinational corporations, insurance companies, banks and Wall Street masters-of-the-universe were unleashed to wreak havoc, again.

Res ipsa loquitur, the saying goes. The thing speaks for itself.



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53 ADMITTED False Flag Attacks

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/x-admitted-false-flag-attacks.html

There are many documented false flag attacks, where a government carries out a terror attack … and then falsely blames its enemy for political purposes.

In the following 53 instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admits to it, either orally or in writing:

Saturday, May 16, 2015

‘We The People’ Need To Circle The Wagons: The Government Is On The Warpath

Before It's News | ALTERNATIVE NEWS
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This article was written by John Whitehead and originally published at The Rutherford Institute / Alt-Market.com "The government is merely a servant, merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them." - Mark Twain How many Americans have actually bothered to read the Constitution, let alone the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights (a quick read at 462 words)? Take a few minutes and read those words for yourself—rather than having some court or politician translate them for you—and you will be under no illusion about where to draw the line when it comes to speaking your mind, criticizing your government, defending what is yours, doing whatever you want on your own property, and keeping the government’s nose out of your private affairs. In an age of overcriminalization, where the average citizen unknowingly commits three crimes a day, and even the most mundane activities such as fishing and gardening are regulated, government officials are constantly telling Americans what not to do.

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I Went to Prison After Exposing US Torture. Why Weren’t the Perpetrators Charged?

BillMoyers.com
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There's still time for the Obama administration to prosecute US human rights abusers. Continue reading

The post I Went to Prison After Exposing US Torture. Why Weren’t the Perpetrators Charged? appeared first on BillMoyers.com.



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Video: Marines Practice Subduing Citizens Inside Internment Camps

SHTF Plan - When It Hits The Fan, Don't Say We Didn't Warn You
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Role players chant for food and water during alarming exercise...

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Death Penalty for Boston Marathon Suspect Drives Nail in the Coffin of US Justice System | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Death Penalty for Boston Marathon Suspect Drives Nail in the Coffin of US Justice System | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization:



With the jury’s verdict now in sentencing an innocent man to death, the US justice system is sinking ever lower in its moral decay. So many giant holes in the prosecution’s case were simply ignored. Photos of the shredded backpacks allegedly containing the bombs never matched the backpacks of the Tsarnaev brothers. But the fact that they did match a number of Kraft International private security contractors photographed at the scene meant nothing. When evidence of a staged “realistic” enacted event complete with role actors and stagehand direction, fake bombs and fake blood, pre-marathon announcements of a “bomb drill” confirmed by a public notice in the Boston Globe, and no real evidence that either Tsarnaev brother committed a crime as much as admitted by the feds, there is absolutely no justice left in America today! 
The very actors seen on video walking around uninjured immediately after the fake bombs detonated are seen many months later showing up at court as fake witnesses brandishing fake injuries. If this innocent US citizen can be framed, found guilty prior to even the fake show trial and then be put to death by a fascist totalitarian police state government, then the stage is being set for any of us US citizens to be next. 


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Under sweeping subpoenas, Justice Department obtained AP phone records in leak investigation

In a sweeping and unusual move, the Justice Department secretly obtained two months’ worth of telephone records of journalists working for the Associated Press as part of a year-long investigation into the disclosure of classified information about a failed al-Qaeda plot last year. The AP’s president said Monday that federal authorities obtained cellular, office and home telephone records of individual reporters and an editor; AP general office numbers in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn.; and the main number for AP reporters covering Congress. He called the Justice Department’s actions a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into newsgathering activities.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/under-sweeping-subpoenas-justice-department-obtained-ap-phone-records-in-leak-investigation/2013/05/13/11d1bb82-bc11-11e2-89c9-3be8095fe767_story.html

Friday, May 15, 2015

James Clapper: I Wasn’t Lying When I Said The NSA Doesn’t Spy On Millions Of Americans – I Just Forgot

Downtrend
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He forgot. Back in March 2013, when National Intelligence Director James Clapper was asked by Congress if the NSA collects any data on millions of Americans, he replied “no.” Sen. Ron Wyden asked again: “It does not?” Not “wittingly,” was the response. But – that’s precisely what the feds are doing. The NSA does exactly […]

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Putting Orwell’s “Thought Police” to Shame - Liberty News Now

Putting Orwell’s “Thought Police” to Shame - Liberty News Now: "Last weekend, however, America moved yet another step closer to fulfilling Orwell’s vision for the future under a totalitarian state as the New York Times revealed that a disturbing number of federal agencies are now using costly, and largely unsupervised, “undercover” investigations to conduct surveillance. These “Secret Police” pose as “business people, welfare recipients, political protesters and even doctors or ministers” in order to catch suspects, or whomever else may fall within the ever-expanding registry of federal criminal offenses (now approaching 5,000 in number)."



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Time to Retire the USDA's Dietary Guidelines? | Alternet

Time to Retire the USDA's Dietary Guidelines? | Alternet: "As long as Big Food continues to influence the process, the dietary guidelines will never be that blunt. But the larger problem is really the disconnect between our agricultural policies and public health. Rather than tweaking guidelines, the government should figure out how to subsidize more of the foods we should be eating, instead of those we shouldn't. That's when eating a truly healthy diet will actually be within reach for everyone. But until then, maybe the feds should just stop bothering to tell Americans how to eat right."



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USDA Food Pyramid History

USDA Food Pyramid History: "The USDA revised the food pyramid in 2010. As expected, the panel of "experts" advising the USDA were all proponents of the low fat, high carb diet.

The wealth of gold standard research supporting a lower carb diet and reduced grain consumption was NOT reviewed, and sure enough, the pyramid continues to recommend the products that benefit agricultural and food processing interests."



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A Fatally Flawed Food Guide by Luise Light, Ed.D

A Fatally Flawed Food Guide by Luise Light, Ed.D: "Carefully reviewing the research on nutrient recommendations, disease prevention, documented dietary shortfalls and major health problems of the population, we submitted the final version of our new Food Guide to the Secretary of Agriculture.

When our version of the Food Guide came back to us revised, we were shocked to find that it was vastly different from the one we had developed. As I later discovered, the wholesale changes made to the guide by the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture were calculated to win the acceptance of the food industry. For instance, the Ag Secretary’s office altered wording to emphasize processed foods over fresh and whole foods, to downplay lean meats and low-fat dairy choices because the meat and milk lobbies believed it’d hurt sales of full-fat products; it also hugely increased the servings of wheat and other grains to make the wheat growers happy. The meat lobby got the final word on the color of the saturated fat/cholesterol guideline which was changed from red to purple because meat producers worried that using red to signify “bad” fat would be linked to red meat in consumers’ minds.
Where we, the USDA nutritionists, called for a base of 5-9 servings of fresh fruits and vegetables a day, it was replaced with a paltry 2-3 servings (changed to 5-7 servings a couple of years later because an anti-cancer campaign by another government agency, the National Cancer Institute, forced the USDA to adopt the higher standard). Our recommendation of 3-4 daily servings of whole-grain breads and cereals was changed to a whopping 6-11 servings forming the base of the Food Pyramid as a concession to the processed wheat and corn industries. Moreover, my nutritionist group had placed baked goods made with white flour — including crackers, sweets and other low-nutrient foods laden with sugars and fats — at the peak of the pyramid, recommending that they be eaten sparingly. To our alarm, in the “revised” Food Guide, they were now made part of the Pyramid’s base. And, in yet one more assault on dietary logic, changes were made to the wording of the dietary guidelines from “eat less” to “avoid too much,” giving a nod to the processed-food industry interests by not limiting highly profitable “fun foods” (junk foods by any other name) that might affect the bottom line of food companies.

But even this neutralized wording of the revised Guidelines created a firestorm of angry responses from the food industry and their Congressional allies who believed that the “farmers’ department” (USDA) should not be telling the public to eat less of anything, including saturated fat and cholesterol, meat, eggs and sugar."



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Government “Help” Makes Nutrition Worse: Fats | Somewhat Reasonable

Government “Help” Makes Nutrition Worse: Fats | Somewhat Reasonable: "The alarming myth about fat was originated by Dr. Ancel Keys, for which he was even honored by being on the cover of Time magazine in 1961.  That was the year he landed a position on the nutrition committee of the American Heart Association, the same year the AHA issued the first guidelines targeting saturated fats.  Keys violated several scientific norms in his research, but some of these weren’t revealed until 2002 by later researchers.  It turns out that from the 655 men he originally selected as a representative sample, he used just 33 from Crete and 34 from Corfu as the basis for the entire revolution of our diet.  He also kept to himself for 16 years the results of a 9,000-patient coronary survey because it failed to find cutting saturated fat reduced the risk of heart disease.  Though advocating limiting a diet to 7% saturated fat, Keys ate chops, roasts and steaks three time a week and lived to be 100."



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Internal TSA Documents: Body Scanners, Pat Downs Not For Terrorists Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

» Internal TSA Documents: Body Scanners, Pat Downs Not For Terrorists Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!: "In a redacted version of the appellate’s brief, filed by Corbett on October 7 with the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, several portions of the Summary of Facts section were blacked out, raising questions as to the nature of the censored information.

But in a sealed version of the same documents, which were inexplicably uploaded to and found through PACER.gov (and available here), the redacted sections appear with incriminating clarity.

Through Redactions, TSA Admits Terror Threats are Slim to Nonexistent"



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Rebuilding Liberty without Permission

Charles Murray: "He argues that American government today is so far divorced from the nation’s founding principles of limited government and individual liberty that it can’t be returned to those principles through normal political action. No presidential administration, congressional turnover, or set of SCOTUS appointments will restore the Commerce and General Welfare clauses.

Thus, he writes, supporters of liberty should try to effect change through carefully chosen but broadly adopted acts of civil disobedience against publicly unpopular regulations. "



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'This Is the Most Closed, Control Freak Administration I've Ever Covered' -- Press Freedoms in the Obama Years

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There's an uneasy alliance of the Obama administration and the media.
This special report originally appeared on the Committee to Protect Journalists website, and is reprinted here with their permission.
* * *
U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging open government, but he has fallen short of his promise. Journalists and transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the press. Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources from speaking to journalists.


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Effort by Japan to Stifle News Media Is Working

“Some don’t like his method, but Mr. Koga did draw public attention to the Abe government’s pressure on the media,” said Takashi Uesugi, a media critic and one-time researcher at The New York Times who runs an independent online news program. “This was an inconvenient truth for both the government and the self-censoring journalists.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/world/asia/in-japan-bid-to-stifle-media-is-working.html

Monsanto knew 35 years ago that its glyphosate-soaked 'food' causes cancer

NaturalNews.com
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(NaturalNews) Key data outlining the toxicity of glyphosate (Roundup) was recently uncovered, revealing that Monsanto knew about the cancer-causing effects of its best-selling herbicide more than 35 years ago, as did the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and yet neither entity...


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Thursday, May 14, 2015

Since April 2014, Bee Population Has Declined 40% – 60%

The Anti-Media
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When bees go... so do we.

The post Since April 2014, Bee Population Has Declined 40% – 60% appeared first on The Anti-Media.



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Why Big Business Profit Is The Real Reason Behind NSA Surveillance

The Anti-Media
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Is the NSA "protecting our safety" like it claims, or is it protecting the pocketbooks of the surveillance-industrial-complex?

The post Why Big Business Profit Is The Real Reason Behind NSA Surveillance appeared first on The Anti-Media.



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Time for Action: Ending “bulk collection” of library records on the line in looming Senate vote

Choose Privacy Week
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by Adam Eisgrau, ALA Washington Office May 14, 2015 Crossposted from District Dispatch Last night the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly, 338 to 88, for passage of the latest version of the USA FREEDOM Act, H.R. 2048. The bill — and the battle to achieve the first meaningful reform of the USA PATRIOT Act since […]

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Stephanopoulos gave $50,000 to Clinton Foundation, didn’t disclose during coverage of scandal; ABC News: “Honest mistake”; Update: Other coverage without disclosure from 2013, 2014; Update: Two weeks ago, too

Hot Air
Link
"Smoking gun."

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Early Academic Training Produces Long-Term Harm

Psychology Today
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Many preschool and kindergarten teachers are extremely upset by the increased pressure to teach literary and numerical skills to little children and test them regularly. They can see firsthand the unhappiness generated, and they suspect that the children would be learning much more useful lessons by playing. Their suspicions are well validated by research studies.

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UN Report Says Small-Scale Organic Farming Only Way to Feed the World

Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily
Link


Nick Meyer, TechnologyWater, May 14, 2015


This article is really useful in helping me understand the scepticism people have about the sort of view of learning I espouse. When I looked at the headline my reaction was that there is no way small-scale individual food production could be sustainable, let along feed the world. That's what prompted me to follow the links to the source, rather than dismissing the idea as hooey (yes, even I dismiss some ideas as hooey!). And I think at the core of the UN report (341 page PDF) there is an analogue with distributed online personal learning (which is how I'm thinking of connectivism these days). Here's their take (quoted):

  • The perception that there is a supply-side productivity problem is questionable. Hunger and malnutrition are mainly related to lack of purchasing power..
  • The fundamental transformation of agriculture may well turn out to be one of the biggest challenges (with) mounting pressure on food security and related access to land and water
  • The world needs a shift... toward mosaics of sustainable, regenerative production systems that also considerably improve the productivity of small scale farmers
  • We need to see a move from a linear to a holistic approach... which recognizes that the farmer is not only a producer of agricultural goods, but also... water, soil, landscape, energy, biodiversity and recreation
  • Significant governance issues, power asymmetries' problems in food input and output markets as well as current trade rules for agriculture pose considerable challenge
  • Elements: increasing soil carbon content, reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions, closed nutrient cycles, reduction of waste, climate-friendly food consumption, reform of international trade regime
  • Need for a holstic understanding of the challenges...

When put this way, the move away from large-scale automated agricultural production begins to make more sense. Many of the gains we see are illusory and non-sustainable. The same is true in learning. We may achieve what appear to be gains through massive-scale outcomes-focused education automation. But this is a misapplication of educational technology, and does not recognize the importance of education in an ecosystem, and the role educators play as stewards of far more than job-readiness in a society. The key to the MOOC (as I've always said, not that anyone listens) isn't the massive scale, though it is scalable, it's the return of education to individual autonomy, of localized knowledge production, of the integration of community-based learning with other social values (diversity, openness, etc.).

[Link] [Comment]


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Foster Care Children are Worse Off than Children in Troubled Homes – The Child Trafficking Business

Health Impact News
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Children whose families are investigated for abuse or neglect are likely to do better in life if they stay with their families than if they go into foster care. Studies show that children from troubled homes who stayed with their families were less likely to become juvenile delinquents or teen mothers and more likely to hold jobs as young adults. Children placed in foster care have arrest, conviction, and imprisonment rates as adults that are three times higher than those of children who remained in troubled homes. These facts are not even in dispute. So why does the current foster care system still exist, when it is clearly destroying the lives of so many children?


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New Federal Vaccine Mandate Proposed: All Shots Required, No Parental Exemptions

Health Impact News
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Florida Congresswoman Frederica S. Wilson (D-24) has introduced a bill, House Resolution H.R. 2232, that will require all states to mandate all students enrolled in public schools receive all the vaccines recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Policy, a federal body compromised of vaccine-industry representatives, which includes vaccines for HPV, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, Paul Offit’s rota virus vaccine, annual flu shots, and dozens of others. States that do not comply will not be eligible for grants for “preventive health services” under the Public Health Services Act.


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Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Let’s All Disobey Stupid Laws

Reason.com Full Feed
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Many freedoms we take for granted exist because of lawbreakers.


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David Cameron Unleashes Frightening Attack on ‘Tolerance’ Through New Extremism Laws

Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines
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Wikimedia  Less than a week into his second term as prime minister, David Cameron is set to introduce a series of tough new laws redefining what it means to be an extremist in Britain. “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance. This Government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach,” states a briefing released by Cameron’s office. Anyone expressing an ideology that the government views as “extreme” will be required to apply for permission to print or post to social media, and as part of the strategy, Cameron will fast-track powers to allow British police to vet the online conversations of those considered extremists. According to The Independent, the new package is expected to include: • The introduction of banning orders for extremist organizations that use hate speech in public places, but whose activities fall short of proscription. • New Extremism Disruption Orders to restrict people who seek to radicalize young people • Powers to close premises where extremists seek to influence others • Strengthening the powers of the Charity Commission to root out charities that channel funds toward extremism and terrorism • Further immigration restrictions on extremists • A strengthened role for Ofcom (the U.K.’s communications regulator) to take action against channels that broadcast extremist content. Vetoed in March by former coalition partners the Liberal Democrats on the grounds that they violate free speech, the legislation package is expected to be pushed through by the new Conservative majority as part of the Queen’s Speech proposals at the end of May. The proposed legislation has already drawn criticism from civil liberties groups that claim the ban on extremists could be adapted to cover anyone, including protesters the government disagrees with. As Emma Norton, a legal officer at the civil liberties organization Liberty, noted in a statement, “Just a few months after the prime minister marched in Paris in defense of free speech [in the aftermath of the attacks on the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo] he proposes measures to help shut it down.” “Driving those who despise diversity underground does nothing to challenge their beliefs,” she said, adding, “you don’t protect democracy by undermining the freedoms that sustain it.” —Posted by Roisin Davis

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'Sacred cow' of industry science cult should be slaughtered for the good of humanity, BMJ editor says

NaturalNews.com
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(NaturalNews) Widespread acceptance of pre-publication peer review as the "gold standard" of science-based research is entirely misguided, warns a former editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), one of the top scientific journals in the world.Richard Smith, who served as the...


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Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors

The Intercept
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With the debate over NSA telephone surveillance at a critical juncture, it's worth examining how money flows from the spy agency to contractors and eventually to some of the NSA's loudest defenders.

The post Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors appeared first on The Intercept.



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Think Organic Doesn’t Matter? Watch This.

Nutritional Anarchy
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After only two weeks of eating strictly organic, you won't believe what happened to this family!

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One Of The Most Important Scientists In The World: “Most Cancer Research Is Largely A Fraud” | Collective-Evolution

One Of The Most Important Scientists In The World: “Most Cancer Research Is Largely A Fraud” | Collective-Evolution: "Here is another great example of a hard hitting quote when it comes to scientific fraud and manipulation. It comes from Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and long time Editor in Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ), which is considered to be one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals in the world. I apologize if you have seen it before in my articles, but it is quite the statement.

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine” "



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