ANALIESE PAIK, - Fairfield Green Food Guide
Stephan: The Virtual corporate states, and their allies the Theocratic Rightists now clearly understand that the power to effect the kind of policies they want can sometimes be best accomplished at the state level. Such tactics are easier, and far cheaper than working at the federal level. We have seen this in the war on women and the 1100 bills introduced to put women in their place. But it is also going on in the drive to force Americans to accept GMOs. Here is an example. Like the contraception bills this will be coming to your state legislature soon, if is not already happening. Note the difference between the Connecticut legislature's reaction to marijuana as compared with GMOs. The former is well known there strong public opinion for it. The latter, GMOs, is little known and even less understood. Thus, the power of public opinion. Once again, of course, this has received little or no national media coverage.
Connecticut’s Genetically Engineered Foods bill may still be alive, but it is no longer a bill requiring the labeling of GE foods. As of last night, the labeling provision was removed. Why was this bill eviscerated?
Rep. Richard Roy of Milford, co-chair of the Environment Committee and the original sponsor of the bill, when reached for comment this morning said ‘I feel very strongly that someone or some state has to challenge the use of the Bill of Rights, designed to protect we individuals, from using it to thwart the sharing of information and the subjugation of a whole industry. Residents of more than 50 other countries get simple information saying that saying that GMOs are present in a product. The freest society in the world cannot get that simple sentence.
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LEO HICKMAN, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Heartland Institute is the pseudo-think tank created by the petroleum industry, companies like Exxon/Mobil, and individuals like the Koch Brothers. It is a disinformation propaganda organization whose function is to create confusion about climate change, and delay the implementation of rational government policies about this issue.
I knew these people were morally corrupt and vile, real villains, but they have sunk to a level even I thought impossible. I urge you to click through and see the example of the kind of billboards they are funding.
It really is hard to know where to begin with this one. But let’s start with: ‘What on earth were they thinking?’
The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based rightwing thinktank notorious for promoting climate scepticism, has launched quite possibly one of the most ill-judged poster campaigns in the history of ill-judged poster campaigns.
I’ll let its own press release for its upcoming conference explain, as there’s simply no need to finesse it further:
Billboards in Chicago paid for by The Heartland Institute point out that some of the world’s most notorious criminals say they ‘still believe in global warming’ – and ask viewers if they do, too
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NEELA BANERJEE, - Los Angeles Times
Stephan: Here is the latest on fracking. As you can see virtually everything the petroleum industry is saying is a lie, and their position is to act first and find out how many people are harmed second. These people really are the dark side of the force.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration proposed updated rules for oil and gas development on federal lands – an effort to catch up with the boom in use of the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing – but struck a compromise that failed to satisfy industry and most environmentalists.
Both sides focused on the contentious issue of disclosure of compounds that companies use during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which entails injecting millions of gallons of water and sand laced with chemicals into rock formations to unlock oil and gas deposits.
The proposed rules would require companies for the first time to disclose the chemicals they use within 30 days of ‘fracking
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PAUL KRUGMAN, Nobel Laureate - Op-Ed Columnist - The New York Review of Books
Stephan: In the 15 years I have been doing SR everything Nobel Laureate economists Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz have said about the economy has proven to be correct. By now it should be obvious to anyone who actually cares about facts, that the Rightist Randian economic theories and policies are both intellectually and morally bankrupt.
Read this article carefully, click through to see the charts, then go back and search SR's archives for the interview with Siglitz I published a few days ago. That is what we should be doing. If the Ryan Plan were ever enacted it would plunge the world into a depression greater than that of the 30s. Yet millions of Americans will vote for Romney. So if those of us who care about national wellness don't vote for Obama, as bad as he is on many issues, we will watch our world crumble. Not voting is the same as a Republican vote. Once again, this is not about politicial partisanship as that is usually defined. It is about facts.
The depression we’re in is essentially gratuitous: we don’t need to be suffering so much pain and destroying so many lives. We could end it both more easily and more quickly than anyone imagines-anyone, that is, except those who have actually studied the economics of depressed economies and the historical evidence on how policies work in such economies.
The truth is that recovery would be almost ridiculously easy to achieve: all we need is to reverse the austerity policies of the past couple of years and temporarily boost spending. Never mind all the talk of how we have a long-run problem that can’t have a short-run solution-this may sound sophisticated, but it isn’t. With a boost in spending, we could be back to more or less full employment faster than anyone imagines.
But don’t we have to worry about long-run budget deficits? Keynes wrote that ‘the boom, not the slump, is the time for austerity.
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HAROLD FISCHER, - Arizona Daily Star
Stephan: This is the latest on the Theocratic Rightist war on women. If you live in Arizona -- a state that has become a kind of freak show for Rightist policies -- and you are a woman who is elderly, poor, or a student your life just got much tougher, and your healthcare, such as it is, more problematic.
PHOENIX — Gov. Jan Brewer continued her anti-abortion efforts late Friday, signing controversial legislation to keep any of the federal family-planning funding Arizona gets from going to Planned Parenthood.
A legal challenge is likely.
HB 2800 establishes an order for dividing up public funds for family planning. Top priority goes to government-run health-care facilities, followed by hospitals, rural health clinics and private doctors.
It bars funding from going to anyone who performs abortions or operates a facility where abortions are performed, a provision Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, sponsor of the legislation, acknowledged is aimed at Planned Parenthood.
Brewer’s action comes even as a federal judge has barred Texas from using a similar regulation to defund Planned Parenthood there. Brewer’s spokesman, Matthew Benson, said she is not concerned.
‘The governor is confident of the constitutionality of this law and believes it will be upheld,’ he said.
Olson acknowledged the Texas court ruling, but he said that is a ‘unique situation’ and the Arizona law is sufficiently different. Still, he anticipates a lawsuit.
‘Those who are intent on taking the life of the most innocent among us will try to strike this down in the courts,’ Olson said. But he said if other states enact similar laws, that will […]
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