Obama Signs Monsanto Protection Act Into Law After Promising GMO Labeling in 2007 Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/obama-signs-monsanto-protection-act-into-law-after-promising-gmo-labeling-in-2007/#ixzz2P1xzmTVx Follow us: @naturalsociety on Twitter | NaturalSociety on Facebook

From:  Natural Society

 by Anthony Gucciardi

President Obama has signed into law the notorious Monsanto Protection Act legislation hidden inside of the Continuing Resolution spending bill, which protects Monsanto and its genetically modified creations from federal courts.

Passing up the chance to veto the bill in favor of stopping Monsanto’s increasing monopoly on the food supply, Obama pushed the bill through into a law in a move that reminds us of his failed 2007 promise to ‘immediately’ label GMOs upon his election.

Contained in the rider (Farmer Assurance Provision, Sec. 735) of HR 933, Monsanto is now even protected (at least under this law) from the United States government.

As I pointed out in a previous article, the Monsanto Protection Act’s success actually proves how corporations have more power than even the United States federal government. Monsanto’s lobbyists managed to slip the rider into the major bill, which — despite the rider — has virtually nothing to do with the topic.

This is a typical and routinely practiced move by lobbyists to insert an incognito line of legislation into a bill generally viewed as favorable overall. One that has proven to be effective for Monsanto. 

2007 Promise to Label GMOs
 

The result is now major outcry against Obama for signing the bill into law and protecting the biotech juggernaut Monsanto. Many fail to remember, however, that Obama first decided to allow Monsanto to continue pulverizing the food supply and the health of the nation back in 2008 when he went back on his promise to ‘immediately’ label GMOs. It was in 2007, during a campaign speech, that Obama first stated his support of non-GMO and GMO labeling activists, in which he promised to swiftly label GMOs.

You can see the video from our Youtube channel here:

For a brief period before the bill was passed by the Senate and now signed into law by Obama, both myself and many others in the alternative news community crusaded tirelessly to alert politicians and activists in order to stop the Protection Act from going through. Unfortunately, time was not on our side. The hasty vote by the Senate and the news blackout from the mainstream media were enough to break through the warnings of concerned activists (and people who just want real food). Now, however, renewed interest in the GMO labeling campaign and the fight against Monsanto brews.

With such a blatant and cocky act against the United States and its people, Monsanto has set itself up to fail. Let’s remind Obama of his promise to label GMOs he made many years ago.

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/obama-signs-monsanto-protection-act-into-law-after-promising-gmo-labeling-in-2007/#ixzz2P1yjWu6T
Follow us: @naturalsociety on Twitter | NaturalSociety on Facebook

The Confiscation Scheme Planned for U.S. and U.K. Depositors

From:  Truth Dig

eflon (CC BY 2.0)

By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt

This article first appeared at Web of Debt.

Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few Eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here); and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds. 

New Zealand has a similar directive, discussed in my last article here, indicating that this isn’t just an emergency measure for troubled Eurozone countries. New Zealand’s Voxy reported on March 19th:

The National Government [is] pushing a Cyprus-style solution to bank failure in New Zealand which will see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts . . . .

Open Bank Resolution (OBR) is Finance Minister Bill English’s favoured option dealing with a major bank failure. If a bank fails under OBR, all depositors will have their savings reduced overnight to fund the bank’s bail out.

Can They Do That?

Although few depositors realize it, legally the bank owns the depositor’s funds as soon as they are put in the bank. Our money becomes the bank’s, and we become unsecured creditors holding IOUs or promises to pay. (See here and here.) But until now the bank has been obligated to pay the money back on demand in the form of cash. Under the FDIC-BOE plan, our IOUs will be converted into “bank equity.”  The bank will get the money and we will get stock in the bank. With any luck we may be able to sell the stock to someone else, but when and at what price? Most people keep a deposit account so they can have ready cash to pay the bills. 

The 15-page FDIC-BOE document is called “Resolving Globally Active, Systemically Important, Financial Institutions.”  It begins by explaining that the 2008 banking crisis has made it clear that some other way besides taxpayer bailouts is needed to maintain “financial stability.” Evidently anticipating that the next financial collapse will be on a grander scale than either the taxpayers or Congress is willing to underwrite, the authors state:

An efficient path for returning the sound operations of the G-SIFI to the private sector would be provided by exchanging or converting a sufficient amount of the unsecured debt from the original creditors of the failed company [meaning the depositors] into equity [or stock]. In the U.S., the new equity would become capital in one or more newly formed operating entities. In the U.K., the same approach could be used, or the equity could be used to recapitalize the failing financial company itself—thus, the highest layer of surviving bailed-in creditors would become the owners of the resolved firm. In either country, the new equity holders would take on the corresponding risk of being shareholders in a financial institution.

No exception is indicated for “insured deposits” in the U.S., meaning those under $250,000, the deposits we thought were protected by FDIC insurance. This can hardly be an oversight, since it is the FDIC that is issuing the directive. The FDIC is an insurance company funded by premiums paid by private banks. The directive is called a “resolution process,” defined elsewhere as a plan that “would be triggered in the event of the failure of an insurer . . . .” The only mention of “insured deposits” is in connection with existing UK legislation, which the FDIC-BOE directive goes on to say is inadequate, implying that it needs to be modified or overridden.  

An Imminent Risk

If our IOUs are converted to bank stock, they will no longer be subject to insurance protection but will be “at risk” and vulnerable to being wiped out, just as the Lehman Brothers shareholders were in 2008. That this dire scenario could actually materialize was underscored by Yves Smith in a March 19th post titled When You Weren’t Looking, Democrat Bank Stooges Launch Bills to Permit Bailouts, Deregulate Derivatives. She writes:

In the US, depositors have actually been put in a worse position than Cyprus deposit-holders, at least if they are at the big banks that play in the derivatives casino. The regulators have
turned a blind eye as banks use their depositaries to fund derivatives exposures. And as bad as that is, the depositors, unlike their Cypriot confreres, aren’t even senior creditors. Remember Lehman? When the investment bank failed, unsecured creditors (and remember, depositors are unsecured creditors) got eight cents on the dollar. One big reason was that derivatives counterparties require collateral for any exposures, meaning they are secured creditors. The 2005 bankruptcy reforms made derivatives counterparties senior to unsecured lenders.

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Homeland Security: Preparing for Massive Civil War

From:  Veterans Today

by Paul Joseph Watson and Alexander Higgins (with Jim Fetzer)

The discovery by the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (3 October 2012) that, “Despite reviewing 13 months’ worth of reporting originating from fusion centers from April 1, 2009 to April 30, 2010, the Subcommittee investigation could identify no reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot” means that there is no evidence of the existence of any domestic terrorist threat.  On that basis, it is rational to infer (with high probability) that there is no domestic terrorist threat.

We also know that there are 300 or more FEMA camps distributed around the country. We know that Congress has authorized 30,000 drones to conduct surveillance on the American people. We know that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had requisitioned 1.5 billion rounds of .40 calibre hollow-point ammunition, which is not even permissible for use in warfare under the Geneva Conventions. Since DHS does not conduct operations abroad, it is rational to infer (with virtual certainty) that DHS must be acquiring that massive stock of ammo for use in the United States.

And we now learn that Congress is in the process of passing H.R. 6566, “The Mass Fatality Planning and Religious Considerations Act”, which was posted on the govtrack.us website FEMA To Mobilize For “Mass Fatality Planning” (5 October 2012), mandating federal agency to respond to “funeral homes, cemeteries, and mortuaries” being “overwhelmed” in the aftermath of a mass terror attack, natural disaster or other crisis. It was posted this after having been approved by the House on 28 September 2012.  Not to make an obvious point, but there is no domestic terrorist threat and no conceivable natural disaster could possibly justify this dramatic authorization for coping with staggering numbers of bodies.

You don’t have to have spent 35 years teaching logic, critical thinking and scientific reasoning to put together the following premises and draw the obvious conclusion:

(1) The US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (3 October 2012) has established that there is no domestic terrorist threat;
(2) There are 300 or more FEMA camps distributed around the country and we know that Congress has authorized 30,000 drones for domestic surveillance;
(3) Since there is no domestic terrorist threat, the domestic surveillance and those FEMA camps are not intended to survey terrorists or to imprison terrorists;
(4) Since those drones and FEMA camps are either intended to survey terrorists or US citizens, it follows that, since they are not for terrorists, they are for US citizens;
(5) DHS has acquired more than 1.5 billion rounds of .40 caliber hollow-point ammunition, which is not even permissible in warfare under the Geneva Conventions;  MORE

Victory: Unanimous Supreme Court Rules that Citizens Can Hold Federal Government Liable for Abuse by Law Enforcement Officers (Police, Prison Guards)

From:  Rutherford Institute

On The Front Lines

---

March 28, 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its ruling in Millbrook v. United States, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court has concluded that the U.S. government may be held liable for abuses intentionally carried out by law enforcement officers in the course of their employment. The Court’s ruling dovetails with arguments put forward by The Rutherford Institute in its amicus brief, which urged the Court to enforce the plain meaning of federal statutes allowing citizens to sue the government for injuries intentionally inflicted by law enforcement officers.

In striking down lower court rulings, the justices held that the courts had erred in dismissing a prisoner’s lawsuit alleging that three prison guards had brutally and sexually assaulted him. The lower courts justified their ruling under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows individuals to sue the government for misconduct by law enforcement officials only if the injury inflicted occurs while the officers are in the course of making an arrest or seizure, or executing a search. In their amicus brief, Rutherford Institute attorneys asked the Supreme Court to protect citizens from government brutality by eliminating the restriction on government liability.

“Hopefully, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Millbrook will send a strong message to the government’s various law enforcement agencies that they need to do a better job of policing their employees—whether they’re police officers or prison guards—and holding them accountable to respecting citizens’ rights, especially while on the job,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “At a time when the courts are increasingly giving deference to the police and prioritizing security over civil liberties, this ruling is at least an encouraging glimmer in the gloom.”

In 1948 Congress enacted the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) to provide a limited waiver of “sovereign” immunity for the negligent acts of government agents, despite the fact that the United States is generally not liable for injuries to persons caused by the negligent or intentional acts of government employees and agents. The original version of the FTCA preserved government immunity for “intentional torts” such as assault, battery and false imprisonment.  However, in 1974, Congress amended the FTCA to allow the government to be sued for intentional torts by “law enforcement officers.”

In 2011, Kim Millbrook, a prisoner at a federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, filed an FTCA lawsuit against the United States alleging that three prison guards had brutally assaulted him in the basement of the prison, forcibly restraining Millbrook and forcing him to perform oral sex. Millbrook’s lawsuit was dismissed by a federal district court which ruled that the 1974 amendment to the FTCA allowing for intentional tort claims against law enforcement officers only applies to acts that occur during searches, while seizing evidence, or while making arrests. The district court’s decision was affirmed on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which, relying on prior rulings from the circuit, held that because the 1974 amendment defines “law enforcement officers” as officers “empowered by law to execute searches, to seize evidence, or to make arrests,” the scope of the waiver of immunity for intentional torts applies only where the harmful act occurs in the course of one of those three duties. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected this interpretation, noting that the plain language of the law does not restrict the waiver of immunity to acts that occur during searches, seizures, and arrests.  MORE

DHS Solicits More Ammunition

From:  Conservative Action Alerts

 

by Conservative Action Alerts on March 27, 2013   

 

ALERT: DHS Secretary Napolitano avoids questioning, solicits thousands more rounds of ammunition. Take Action: Demand Congress to DEFUND and DISMANTLE the police state!

Conservative American,

Over a dozen House members are calling on Janet Napolitano to answer for the Department of Homeland Security’s recent mass-purchases of ammunition, guns, and heavily armored vehicles.

It’s not just Representative Leonard Lance, as we reported last week – California Representative Doug LaMalfa is also pressing the DHS.

In a letter to the DHS Secretary co-signed by thirteen House members, Rep. LaMalfa writes:

“Aside from being hard to justify, the timing of these purchases is of great interest as well since, as we all know, the Obama Administration is proposing legislation to further restrict access to firearms and ammunition. The extraordinary level of ammunition purchases made by Homeland Security seems to have, in states such as my own, created an extreme shortage of ammunition to the point where many gun owners are unable to purchase any.
Additionally, the Department has spent, or is asking to spend, significant amounts of money on nearly two billion rounds of ammunition when across-the-board spending cuts are scheduled to go into effect under the President’s sequester plan. According to your recent public statements, these cuts make our nation more vulnerable to a terrorist attack, yet the Department is still spending money on millions of bullets in addition to the billion and a half that have already been sought.”

The California Representative is correct in assuming that the DHS is helping the Feinstein-types in Congress who have blatantly stated that their gun-control efforts are aimed to “dry up” the supply of privately-owned firearms and ammunition.

This is a new hypothesis, but it fits the overall disarm-and-control agenda perfectly.

Fax Congress and Demand that they DEFUND and DISMANTLE Obama’s police state! They must kill appropriations for all unconstitutional purchases, programs, and executive orders that would deprive Americans of their God-given liberty! Select Here and Take Action!

So the question is this: did the Secretary respond to the House members’ call? No. Napolitano hasn’t said a single word.

(Note: Homeland Security spokesperson Peter Boogaard’s reiteration of the DHS’ often-used “official” answer – saying that the purchases are for “training purposes” – offers nothing new, and does not stand as a substitute for the Secretary’s answer, which is exactly what the House members are calling for. See Boogaard’s response at US News. Plus, let’s ask this question: If the U.S. military doesn’t even train with hollow-point rounds, why would the DHS?)

What’s more, as the DHS evades questions on their current ammo supply, they are at the same time in the midst of stocking-up even more ammunition!

We aren’t kidding. On March 21st – five days ago – Homeland Security solicited an additional 360,000 rounds of ammunition!

Whether, as Rep. LaMalfa believes, the DHS is intentionally buying-up ammunition to create a civilian shortage, or if the Department is preparing for some up-and-coming crisis, either way Americans lose.

The Department of Homeland Security – which was born to combat terrorism in the wake of 9/11 – is now a terror itself. This ever-growing monster must be slain and Congress carries the sword!

Fax Congress and Demand that they DEFUND and DISMANTLE Obama’s police state! They mustkill appropriations for all unconstitutional purchases, programs, and executive orders that would deprive Americans of their God-given liberty! Select Here and Take Action!

Speaking at a Tea Party Rally in Whippany, New Jersey, Representative Leonard Lance said he is “concerned” about the DHS’ stockpiling of ammo and heavily-armored vehicles for domestic use.

The New Jersey Rep. state he “would like a full explanation” from DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. He said, “Congress has a responsibility to ask Secretary Napolitano as to exactly why these purchases have occurred.”

Rep. Lance concluded his statement on the DHS, saying: “I think we need to make sure we continue to live in a country based on freedom – a country based on individual rights – and I hope that we in Congress get the answers to these questions.”

(Watch the video here)

While Rep. Lance’ statement stands to show that lawmakers are on our side, asking the DHS to explain its actions is not enough – what is needed is a wholesale change in the way Homeland Security does business!

The good news is that we can force this change by demanding our elected servants to investigate and defund the DHS police state!

Fax Congress and Demand that they DEFUND and DISMANTLE Obama’s police state! They mustkill appropriations for all unconstitutional purchases, programs, and executive orders that would deprive Americans of their God-given liberty! Select Here and Take Action!

Some of our Nation’s founders rightly warned against “standing armies,” having the memory of King George III’s continental troops and their tyranny fresh in their minds.

It was James Madison who said that, “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”

Madison is being proven correct today; his statement rings true in regards to Obama’s Department of Homeland Security.

Would the Great Virginian Founder have guessed that, in addition to an Army and Navy, the U.S. President would wield his very own domestic security force?

The fact is, Obama and Janet Napolitano’s DHS is becoming more and more militarized. In its most recent move, Homeland Security bought nearly three-thousand fifteen-ton tanks!

That’s right; the DHS just purchased 2,717 Mine Resistant Armor Protected Vehicles — or MRAPs – which they have retrofitted to operate American streets.

These “light tanks” are more than capable of withstanding major combat.

Navistar Defense, the company that builds MRAP vehicles, describes these heavily armored vehicles as able to “withstand ballistic arms fire, mine blasts, IEDs, and other emerging threats.”

Recently a YouTube video surfaced that shows a train carrying these MRAP vehicles in the Arizona desert. See the video below.

The question is this: What on earth is this ever-growing DHS expecting?

They are literally preparing for war.

Fax Congress and Demand that they DEFUND and DISMANTLE Obama’s police state! They must kill appropriations for all unconstitutional purchases, programs, and executive orders that would deprive Americans of their God-given liberty! Select Here and Take Action!

(See the DHS’s video release on their recent purchases here)
Remember, this same department also possesses of over 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition!

Andrew Malcom notes in his piece at Investors that ammunition in this amount could’ve serviced the government’s peak military involvement in Iraq – when 5.5 million rounds were fired per month – for twenty-four years!

MORE

VA uses tranquilizers on over 30 percent of veterans with PTSD despite clinical warnings against their use

From:  Natural News 

 Wednesday, March 27, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes

(NaturalNews) Doctors and medical professionals at the Veterans Affairs are handing out dangerous tranquilizers such as Xanax and Valium to military service members diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder though they have been repeatedly advised not to do so because of the potential the drugs could cause more harm than good.

According to a report in NextGov.com, the VA is prescribing tranquilizers to more than 30 percent of veterans with PTSD, though clinical practice guidelines issued in 2010 by the VA's National Center for PTSD, among others, has warned against it.

Under the guidelines, which also apply to the Department of Defense, warned providers against using benzodiazepine to manage the condition because of "the lack of efficacy data and growing evidence for the potential risk of harm," the center said in the March edition of quarterly research publication.

Let's addict them, then take the pills away and see what happens

Data indicate that treatment of PTSD with benzodiazepine drugs "may interfere with the extinction of fear conditioning or potentiate the acquisition of fear responses, actually worsening recovery from trauma," the center said. That, in turn, could interfere with "first-line" treatment like exposure therapy, in which trained personnel help veterans relive traumatic events so they can learn to effectively handle them.

The center noted that more than half of all combat vets diagnosed with PTSD also suffer from substance abuse and alcoholism, adding that treatment with benzodiazepine can very often lead to addiction.

Military figures indicate the number of vets with PTSD that are being treated by the VA nearly tripled from 171,000 in 1999 to 498,000 a decade later, as troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan entered the VA's oft-marginal healthcare system. Meanwhile, at the same time, benzodiazepine prescriptions for vets who have been diagnosed with PTSD fell from 37 percent in 1999 to 30 percent 10 years later, as the VA began using SSRIs - selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors - such as Zoloft and Paxil to treat the condition.

Despite the reduction, the VA told NextGov.com last summer that it had bought $72 million worth of benzodiazepine from Oct. 1, 2001, through March 31, 2012.

At that, the PTSD center advised the VA to continue cutting back use of benzodiazepine for PTDS treatment.

"The decrease in benzodiazepine prescribing to 30 percent is encouraging yet the frequency of use remains high and suggests that minimizing benzodiazepine exposure is a vital policy issue for the VA," the report said.

Current warning matches earlier ones

The report's advice matches that of the Army surgeon general, who issued a policy last April warning regional medical commanders to refrain from using benzodiazepines to treat PTSD.

"The Army determined, like VA this month, that treatment of PTSD with benzodiazepines could intensify rather than reduce combat stress symptoms and lead to addiction," NextGov.com reported.

Others have also issued similar warnings, some more strongly.

In September 2011, for instance, the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury strongly urged against benzodiazepine, emphasizing in bold-face type on its website: "There is evidence against the use of benzodiazepines in PTSD management as it may cause HARM. Strongly recommend against the use of benzodiazepines for treatment of PTSD."

The PTSD center ended its report on benzodiazepine by advising the VA to find alternatives for PTSD treatment, adding that "mounting evidence suggests that the long-term harms imposed by benzodiazepine use outweigh any short-term symptomatic benefits in patients with PTSD."

Just say 'no'

Natural News has long reported on the dangers of SSRI's and benzodiazepines (http://www.naturalnews.com). Among other conditions, these dangerous drugs:

-- Double the risk of developing dementia.
(http://www.naturalnews.com/037468_anxiety_drugs_dementia_warning.html)

-- Dramatically increase the risk of sudden death. (http://www.naturalnews.com), http://www.naturalnews.com)

-- Can lead to premature births. (http://www.naturalnews.com)

-- Suppress overall brain function. (http://www.naturalnews.com)

Sources:

http://www.nextgov.com

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/039667_tranquilizers_veterans_PTSD.html#ixzz2Oiq8Y8jb

A Drone Strike Reality Check

From:  Freedom Outpost 

March 25, 2013 by Tim Brown

Ben Swann, in a special edition of Reality Check, gives us a full overview of drones, drone strikes and the Obama administration’s “kill list” and assassinations.
Ben then takes on the issue of CIA Director John Bennan and “Absolute Human Rights.”
Additional articles of interest on this subject:

Drones, Constitutional Powers, Congress & An Imperial Presidency

Does The Obama Administration Think It Has The Right To Assassinate Citizens On US Soil?

Obama DOJ: We Don’t Need Clear Evidence To Kill Americans With Drones

Federal Judge Rules White House Can Keep Killing Americans Secret

Obama Administration Asks Federal Judge To Dismiss Cases Of Americans Killed By Drones

Barack Obama Appoints First Ever Assassination Czar 

Obama’s Secret Kill List
 
Drone Pilots Are Targeting Your Cars

Read more: http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/03/a-drone-strike-reality-check/#ixzz2OhZuMVww