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Gary Edwards

75 Economic Numbers From 2012 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe - 0 views

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    Thanks to Marbux we have this extraordinary collection of facts and figures describing the economic catastrophe that has hit the USA.  excerpt: "What a year 2012 has been!  The mainstream media continues to tell us what a "great job" the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve are doing of managing the economy, but meanwhile things just continue to get even worse for the poor and the middle class.  It is imperative that we educate the American people about the true condition of our economy and about why all of this is happening.  If nothing is done, our debt problems will continue to get worse, millions of jobs will continue to leave the country, small businesses will continue to be suffocated, the middle class will continue to collapse, and poverty in the United States will continue to explode.  Just "tweaking" things slightly is not going to fix our economy.  We need a fundamental change in direction.  Right now we are living in a bubble of debt-fueled false prosperity that allows us to continue to consume far more wealth than we produce, but when that bubble bursts we are going to experience the most painful economic "adjustment" that America has ever gone through.  We need to be able to explain to our fellow Americans what is coming, why it is coming and what needs to be done.  Hopefully the crazy economic numbers that I have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up. The end of the year is a time when people tend to gather with family and friends more than they do during the rest of the year.  Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help start some conversations about the coming economic collapse with your loved ones.  Sadly, most Americans still tend to doubt that we are heading into economic oblivion.  So if you have someone among your family and friends that believes that everything is going to be "just fine", just show them these numbers.  They are a good summary of the problems that the U
Paul Merrell

Victory! World's Largest Nation Bans GMO Food Crops | New Eastern Outlook - 0 views

  • Victories are to be celebrated and for the future of healthy life on our planet we all can celebrate a beautiful victory. The world’s largest nation, the Russian Federation, whose landmass spans Eurasia from the Baltic and Ukraine on the west to Vladivostock and the Pacific on her east, has formally declared all commercial planting of Genetically Modified Organisms, GMOs, to be prohibited. The issue has been subject of a heated debate for some months inside Russia. In February 2014, just days prior to the US-orchestrated coup d’etat in Ukraine, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev created a national research project to obtain scientific information so the Government and Duma might make a decision on GMOs in Russia. Now a definitive decision has been made, and it goes against Monsanto and the US-led GMO cartel. We can say Russia’s crisis has concentrated minds on the essentials of life.
  • Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dorkovich told an international biotechnology conference in Kirov September 18, “As far as genetically-modified organisms are concerned, we have made the decision not to use any GMO in food productions.” Last year the Duma or parliament voted to make tough GMO labeling laws as a first step to the new ban in order to inform consumers of presence of GMO in various foods they buy. That was before US and EU sanctions led to Russian counter-sanctions against EU imports of agriculture products. In August 2014, the Russian government announced its bans on import from the EU and several other countries of meat, fish, dairy products, fruit and vegetables as a response to the sanctions. It produced surprising results. Since the imposition of tough Russian food import bans, Russian agriculture has undergone a spectacular rebirth.
  • This July, taking a page out of American history, the Russian government announced it was drafting a Russian “Homestead Act.” The Russian government is finalizing a bill which will give an opportunity to every Russian citizen to obtain one hectare of land, or a maximum of five hectares for a family of five, in the Russian Far East for free. They can use the land to farm, to do forestry or simply build a home and live, so long as they use the land for the first five years. After, they own the land free if the plot has been used for activities not banned by Russian laws, reported TASS. In the case of non-use the land will be confiscated and revert back to the government. Foreigners will have no right to get the free land. The new land law, if passed in the Duma, will take effect in January, 2016.
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  • Food production in Russia’s under-populated far-east region is also set to boom. On September 3 in Vladivostok at the first Eastern Economic Forum, Russia’s Agriculture Ministry announced the creation of a new $10 billion agriculture development fund together with China. A number of financial institutions, including Russia’s state-owned Sberbank, will participate in its operations. The aim of the fund is to stimulate the production of 10 million tons of grain and agricultural products annually, beginning 2020.
  • A recent poll suggests there is significant interest in the offer, with some 30 million mostly young Russians ready to “go east.” Following the economic devastation of Russia during the Yeltsin era of the 1990s, eastern regions suffered economic collapse and significant depopulation as people migrated to cities to survive. Into this broader context of recent developments, the definitive government ban on growing GMO crops in the Russian Federation adds a major new attraction. Russia stands to become one of the world’s most desired producers of natural, organic non-GMO-contaminated food for the world. Today, the once-great American agriculture has been de-humanized, industrialized, by giant agribusiness concerns, and contaminated by Monsanto and GMO plants along with its deadly herbicides containing toxic glyphosate. More than 80% of all US corn is GMO and almost 100% of USA soybeans. This is no small matter. Exports of GMO soybeans and corn are allowed unlabeled, by loopholes, into the European Union as well as into China. That means that most of the meat and even farmed fish that European and Chinese consumers eat contains indirect GMO crops and toxins. In light of all this it might make sense to treat Russia a little more politely in the future if we want to eat healthy food. They are doing what we should be doing, but don’t. Why?
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    5 hectares == 12.35 acres. Times 30 million Russians == 370.5 million acres less space for a home and a driveway. That's a lot of new agricultural production.  Bear in mind that Russia imported most of its food from Europe before the Ukraine sanctions. This article is about the evaporation of foreign trade that Europe will never get back.And it's about new Russian agricultural exports to China. Perhaps even about eventual exports to the U.S. for those who want a "GMO-free" label on their food. This is very bad news for Monsanto and other biotech companies in the U.S, especially a few years down the road when other countries begin importing Russian GMO-free food.  
Paul Merrell

Ukraine's Strategic Food Reserve...Runs Out Of Food - Fort Russ - 0 views

  • Ukrainian food prices are rising at a rate faster than in the ‘90s. But the Yatsenyuk government is still blaming the situation on the ignorance of the population and speculation by supermarket chains.
  • They used to blame currency exchangers, now they are blaming supermarket directors. However, you can’t feed the people with such tales.
  • The government’s “economy block” hastily summoned the director of the Ukrainian State Reserve Vladimir Zhukov. They demanded that he open the storehouses and fill the shelves with flour, sugar, canned meat, and buckwheat from its stores. In response the keeper of Motherland’s strategic stores revealed a terrible military secret to Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko: the storehouses are empty.
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  • The last time the strategic reserve was cleaned out so thoroughly was during the Chernobyl disaster, when the reserve sent steel plates, diesel fuel, gas masks and protective equipment, medicine and food. Moreover, most of the goods were sent from Donetsk. The other storehouses, for example, in Kharkov, store four, or petroleum and diesel fuel, as in Chernigov region. However, all gasoline and kerosene from the state reserve was used up already six months ago.
  • In addition, once combat operations resumed the State Reserve sent to the front everything that it could: steel plates, spare parts, tents, heaters, mattresses. All of that was stored by the “Yanukovych band”, but the strategic reserve came in handy for the new government.
  • It could hardly have been news to the Prime Minister: already in January he ordered to open up the State Reserve, including its stores of medicines. However, already by then the medical stores amounted to only portable first aid kits and medicinal preparations and expired (dating back to the 1960s) bandages, cotton, hypodermics, which even African countries refused to accept even though Ukraine was giving them away for free.
  • Medicines were cleared out in January, supposedly as humanitarian aid to Donbass.
  • Now it’s the turn of food stores, in order to calm down the rioting Kievans and prevent hunger rebellions. But, alas. Last year’s entire harvest was sold abroad, the acreage for new sowing season was reduced by 30%. The storehouses are the only remaining hope.
  • For example, there is a large food storehouse on the outskirts of Kiev, which contains frozen mean, butter, canned meat, sugar. Incidentally, this storehouse has existed since before WW2, it was the first Kiev target struck by the Luftwaffe in order to destroy the strategic food stores.
  • The Ukrainian government did not need airstrikes: the food reserve is empty only one year after it took power, as a result of several changes among the management of the reserve, and the theft and sale of its contents. The proceeds, of course, were already split. No doubt even the top leadership of the country got its cut.
  • As a reminder, the former Prime Minister Azarov filled the Strategic Reserve with Chinese buckwheat, which earned him considerable criticism. One of the former managers of the agency, a Party of Regions official by the name of Lelyuk, carried out reforms, refurbished obsolescent factories, and filled the storehouses with flour, evaporated milk, canned meat and fish, sugar, and gasoline.
  • Now that the “H-Hour” is here, it turns out it's all gone: all the food has “gone to the front”, since the army is also being supplied partly by the State Reserve, since MOD and State Reserve storehouses have been merged.
  • Having learned of the empty shelves not only in the stores but also in the State Reserve, Poroshenko reportedly went into shock. He fumed and demanded the management to find something and throw a few crumbs to the Kievans.
  • Yatsenyuk maintained icy composure: he was better informed about the state of affairs, since the State Reserve is under his “patronage” as it is part of the Cabinet of Ministers.
  • It would seem Ukraine’s Black Hour is here.
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    Concurrently, the areas under the coup government have been hit by hyper-inflation. Food prices have climbed so high that an estimated 20 per cent of the population can no longer afford to eat nutritious meals. Way to go, CIA.
Joseph Skues

LITERATURE TABLE - 0 views

  • Food Not Bombs without literature and a banner is just another charity supporting the current system of exploitation
  • Food Not Bombs can be one of the most effective ways to encourage public support for peace, social justice and the protection of the environment
  • we are often the only activists visible to our communities.
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  • Food Not Bombs group can be effective at inspiring social change if
  • make a point of engaging the public in conversation about subjects like diverting resources from the military toward necessities like nutritious food, educations and healthcare.
  • You can also set up a literature table at concerts and other events. The more we speak with the public the more we will build interest in changing the world. After all one reason there are somany Food Not Bombs groups is because people learned of our work by talking with us at our literature tables.
  • Food Not Bombs is not a charity. It is organizing to change society.
  • The authorities are so concerned about our literature tables that they have been telling groups that they can share food as long as they don't hand out flyers and post banners.
  • Police infiltrators have been volunteering to bring the literature and end up discarding the flyers on the way to our meals.
  • The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the government that handing out literature and vegan meals under the banner Food Not Bombs is a threat and can be stopped by the government. Your group is encouraged to defy the courts, military contractors and government by always bring a Food Not Bombs banner and literature to your vegan meals. Read the July 6, 2010 Ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
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    Raytheon has 'BLACKLISTED ALL THE MEMBERS OF THIS GROUP."
Paul Merrell

Fast food workers, other low-wage employees launch nationwide strike | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

  • Fast-food workers in roughly 190 cities nationwide are set to walk off the job Thursday morning, demanding an industry-wide base wage of $15 per hour and the right to form a union. Thursday’s strike, the latest in a series of day-long labor actions coordinated through a nationwide coalition of various fast food worker groups, may well be the largest work stoppage in the history of the industry, if early organizer estimates prove to be accurate. This will also be the first strike since the campaign began in November 2012 to include work stoppages at businesses other than fast-food restaurants. Organizers say that some employees of dollar stores and convenience stores in about two dozen cities are also walking off the job, a sign that the campaign is extending its reach into other parts of the service and retail sector. By recruiting workers from outside the fast food business, organizers for the fast food campaign appear to be knitting together a broader low-wage campaign that crosses industry barriers. Workers in roughly 150 cities voted by conference call on Nov. 29, the two-year anniversary of the campaign’s first labor action, to approve the strike date.
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    A revival of trade unionism in the U.S.? If broadly successful, the higher wages should stoke the U.S. economy. Trickle-down doesn't work; trickle-up does. 
Gary Edwards

ANALYSIS: Chipotle is a victim of corporate sabotage... biotech industry food terrorist... - 1 views

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    "(NaturalNews) After observing recent events involving Chipotle and e.coli, here's my analysis of the situation: Chipotle's e.coli outbreaks are not random chance. They are the result of the biotech industry unleashing bioterrorism attacks against the only fast food company that has publicly denounced GMOs. How do we know? The CDC has already admitted that some of these e.coli outbreaks involve a "rare genetic strain" of e.coli not normally seen in foods. Furthermore, we also know the track record of the biotech industry engaging in the most criminal, dirty, sleazebag tactics imaginable against any person or company that speaks out against GMOs. Doctor Oz, for example, was maliciously targeted in a defamation campaign funded by the biotech industry earlier this year. The onslaught against Oz was initiated because he publicly expressed his support for honest GMO labeling on foods. As the attacks escalated, Doctor Oz had his own team investigate the source of the attacks and found they were all biotech industry shills, some with felony criminal records and long histories of dubious propaganda activities targeting anti-GMO activists. "
Paul Merrell

The Guardian view on the Syrian crisis: if we can't tackle the cause, at least we shoul... - 0 views

  • As if the Syrian tragedy weren’t terrible enough, with a death toll now topping 200,000, and over half of the population uprooted by the civil war, another ingredient has been added to the plight of this nation: some of the international humanitarian aid seems to be slowing down to a trickle. In a decision intended to ring alarm bells, the United Nations’ World Food Programme has announced that it is suspending food aid in the region because of a lack of funding. The WFP needs around $60m to provide critical food vouchers to over 1.7 million Syrian refugees through the month of December. The money hasn’t been forthcoming, in part perhaps because of donor fatigue. One can only imagine the devastating impact that any interruption of food distribution will have on the countless camps and shelters in which those Syrians who fled the war now live. More than 3 million Syrians are refugees in neighbouring countries, mainly Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
  • No one wants, or seems able, to deal with the root of the Syrian problem – the Assad regime – but now we are not even dealing with the symptoms. Food aid is essential. Governments of the richest nations, starting perhaps with those in the Gulf, must give the UN the money it needs to feed Syrians going hungry. The very stability of the countries sheltering those refugees may be at stake.
Paul Merrell

Starve or surrender: Cut off all food and water to Gaza, says Israeli general | The Ele... - 0 views

  • Israeli Major-General Giora Eiland has urged that all food and water be cut off to Gaza’s nearly 1.8 million Palestinian residents – a major war crime and precisely the “starve or surrender” policy which the United States has condemned when used in Syria. Eiland, the Israeli government’s former national security advisor, argues that Gaza should be considered an enemy “state.” “Since Gaza is in fact a state in a military confrontation with us, the proper way to put pressure on them is to bring to a full stop the supplies from Israel to Gaza, not only of electricity and fuel, but also of food and water,” he wrote in a Hebrew-language op-ed on Mako, a website affiliated with Israel’s Channel 2 television. “A state cannot simultaneously attack and feed the enemy, while he is shooting at you, because this gives the other country a breathing space – and again I am referring to Gaza as a country, because the regime there is supported by its people,” Eiland adds.
  • Eiland appears to believe that the fiction that Gaza is a sovereign “state” would somehow lessen culpability for what would amount to massive war crimes and crimes against humanity. Under Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, “the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.” Under international law, Israel’s 2005 “disengagement” from Gaza has not ended its military occupation of the territory because Gaza remains under the “effective control” of Israel. Yet Israel has long violated its obligation by deliberately restricting the basic needs of Gaza’s population and deliberately destroying their food sources including agricultural land, poultry and dairy farms.
  • Israel’s deliberate attacks on Gaza’s civilian infrastructure have created a “water disaster,” already depriving every single person of access to a safe and secure supply of water. Israel’s brutal siege is precisely what the Palestinian resistance in Gaza is currently fighting to end.
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  • Eiland recently argued in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest newspaper, that because they elected Hamas, the people of Gaza as a whole “are to blame for this situation just like Germany’s residents were to blame for electing Hitler as their leader and paid a heavy price for that, and rightfully so.” General Eiland’s call – which may amount to incitement to genocide as well as to war crimes and crimes against humanity – is only the latest exterminationist proposal from an Israeli leader. Moshe Feiglin, deputy speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, for instance, recently called for the population of Gaza to be moved to concentration camps and then expelled so that Gaza could be resettled with Jews.
  • The United States government, Israel’s chief sponsor, has not expressed any criticism of Eiland’s proposals, nor done anything to end Israel’s siege. However, it views “starve or surrender” as a grave crime when used against opposition-held areas by the government in Syria.
  • Last month, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution demanding that “all Syrian parties to the conflict,” including the government and the opposition, “shall enable the immediate and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance directly to people throughout Syria,” immediately “removing all impediments to the provision of humanitarian assistance.” By contrast, the so-called “international community,” led by the United States, has supported and justified Israel’s siege of Gaza for almost eight years.
Paul Merrell

Turkey to deploy troops to Qatar, Iran offers food supplies to ward off food shortages ... - 0 views

  • Turkey’s parliament approved the deployment of troops to Qatar while neighboring Iran offered to provide food supplies to ward off food shortages caused by the row between Qatar, its Gulf-Arab neighbors as well as Egypt and imposed sanctions.
Gary Edwards

Executive Doomsday Order: Obama Authorizes Gov to Seize Farms, Food, Processing Plants,... - 1 views

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    Good summary of the most recent and entirely un-Constitutional act of definace and tyranny.  Keep in mind that Obama does not have the authority to suspend or alter any natural rights, especially those specifically protected by the Constitution from any and all branches of the federal government.  Nor does Congress have the authority to grant that power.  There is only one way to alter the Constitution, and that is through an onerous amendment process requiring the approval of 2/3 rds the States. Recall also that in 1798, the passage of the Alien & Sedition Act similarly sought to compromise the Constitution and reatly expand the authority of the Feds.  Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, author of the Constitution, fought and defeated the A&S Act by going directly to the State Legislatures to force their US Senators to repeal the A&S Act.  This worked extremely well; but that was before the 17th Amendment separated US Senators from their State Legislatures. Still, i think the approach holds.  I suggest we petition the State Legislatures to declare these Executive Orders and Martial Law Congressional authorizations Un-Constitutional; taking the arguments directly to the Supreme Court.  Immediately. excerpt: As of March 16, 2012, your land, your food, your water and your abilities as a laborer are now a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States government at any time they choose to initiate the provisions of this order, which according to the order itself, can be during an emergency or a non-emergency. While some reports indicate that the general impact of this new executive order is negligible, when considered with the broader implications including the  introduction and passage of laws allowing for the indefinite detention of American citizens without charge or trial, restricting the general assembly of individuals to protest, the establishment of an internet 'kill switch' contingency plan and jamming
Gary Edwards

Not Actually a Shutdown | National Review Online - 0 views

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    excerpt: "A 1981 memorandum by David Stockman during the Reagan administration that is still relied on by the OMB laid out the services that continue without interruption during any government "shutdown": .... National security, including the conduct of foreign relations essential to the national security or the safety of life and property; .... Benefit payments and the performance of contract obligations under no-year or multi-year appropriations or other funds remaining available for those purposes; .... Medical care of inpatients and emergency outpatient care and activities essential for the safe use of food, drugs, and hazardous materials; .... Air-traffic control and other transportation safety functions; Border and coastal protection and surveillance; .... Protection of federal lands, buildings, waterways, and other property of the U.S.; .... Care of prisoners and others in federal custody; .... Law enforcement and criminal investigations; .... Emergency and disaster assistance; .... Activities essential to the preservation of the money and banking system of the U.S., including borrowing and tax collection; .... Production of power and maintenance of the power-distribution system; and .... Protection of research property. So planes, trains, and automobiles will keep running and TSA will keep patting you down. The president can continue to go on overseas trips to conduct foreign relations. Social Security and Medicaid benefits will keep going out. The Border Patrol will keep patrolling our borders to prevent illegal crossings (at least as much as this administration will let it do that). The Federal Bureau of Prisons will keep convicted criminals in prison and the FBI will continue making arrests and investigating violations of the law. The FDA and the Department of Agriculture will continue their safety testing and inspection of food and drugs, and medical care of inpatients and emergency outpatient care will keep right on going. The Fed
Paul Merrell

Yemen's children at immediate risk of severe malnutrition | Scoop News - 0 views

  • More children in Yemen are at risk of dying from hunger and lack of health services than from bombs and bullets, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned today amid ongoing fighting across the Gulf country.Briefing the press in Geneva, UNICEF spokesperson Christophe Boulierac warned that 120,000 children in Yemen remain at immediate risk of severe malnutrition over the coming three months if health and hygiene services failed to resume normal functioning.Mr. Boulierac explained that restrictions on commercial imports of fuel and food are largely to blame for the rapidly deteriorating situation facing the country’s children.He added that another 2.5 million children under five years of age were at immediate risk of diarrhoea while 1.2 children were likely to suffer from preventable diseases such as pneumonia and measles as vaccination campaigns had ground to a halt.
  • More than 1,400 people have been killed and 300,000 have fled their homes in nearly three months of fighting in the war-torn Gulf nation. Emergency relief and medical teams from abroad are struggling to fly in to scale-up the humanitarian operation to address the needs of increasingly vulnerable Yemenis.Insecurity and lack of fuel have also limited access to and delivery of services. Partners report difficulty providing medical services as result of the current security situation and continued airstrikes targeting Haradh, Sa'ada and Sana'a. Food relief partners have reported they have had to suspend assistance in several districts due to lack of fuel. Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), confirmed that regular commercial imports of fuel had become the main issue and called for them to increase. The primary obstacle, he explained, was an inspection regime instituted by a recent Security Council resolution and which had resulted in a crippling effect on humanitarian operations.In addition to the limited access to fuel, food imports had also been impacted, cautioned Mr. Laerke as he noted that 90 percent of the country depended on their food from imports.Against that backdrop, the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) – which also addressed the briefing – cited reports of 484 suspected cases of dengue fever with two reported deaths.
  • A spokesperson for the WHO said the UN agency was on the ground and trying to send rapid diagnostic kits for both dengue and malaria but could not confirm the dengue cases without lab testing. The spokesperson added that between 19 March and 4 May the number of casualties across the country had shot up to 1,439 deaths and 5,951 injuries, including 71 children deaths.
Gary Edwards

Ron Paul Dropping a Reality Bomb on the GOP Field - By Kevin D. Williamson - The Corner... - 0 views

  • Paul isn't going to cut the military. He's going to cut the Militarism. That's why Paul gets more political contributions from active duty military personnel than all the other candidates COMBINED.
  • here is the actual plan. Looks pretty good: External Link 
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    $1 Trillion in Spending Cuts!  Ron Paul has announced his financial and budgetary plan.  The details have yet to be released, but the summary came out today an dimmediately got the full support of ruxh Limbaugh! summary:  He'll propose immediately freezing spending by numerous government agencies at 2006 levels, the last time Republicans had complete control of the federal budget, and drastically reducing spending elsewhere. The EPA would see a 30 percent cut, the Food and Drug Administration would see one of 40 percent and foreign aid would be zeroed out immediately. He'd also take an ax to Pentagon funding for wars. Medicaid, the children's health insurance program, food stamps, family support programs and the children's nutrition program would all be block-granted to the states and removed from the mandatory spending column of the federal budget. Some functions of eliminated departments, such as Pell Grants, would be continued elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy. And in a noticeable nod to seniors during an election year when Social Security's become an issue within the Republican primary, the campaign says that plan "honors our promise to our seniors and veterans, while allowing young workers to opt out." The federal workforce would be reduced by 10 percent, and the president's pay would be cut to $39,336 - a level that the Paul document notes is "approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker."
Gary Edwards

Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House | Zero Hedge - 0 views

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    Incredible must read analysis. Take away: the world is going to go "medevil". It's the only way out of this mess. Since the zero hedge layout is so bad, i'm going to post as much of the article as Diigo will allow: Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/06/2014 19:36 -0500 Submitted by James H. Kunstler of Kunstler.com , Many of us in the Long Emergency crowd and like-minded brother-and-sisterhoods remain perplexed by the amazing stasis in our national life, despite the gathering tsunami of forces arrayed to rock our economy, our culture, and our politics. Nothing has yielded to these forces already in motion, so far. Nothing changes, nothing gives, yet. It's like being buried alive in Jell-O. It's embarrassing to appear so out-of-tune with the consensus, but we persevere like good soldiers in a just war. Paper and digital markets levitate, central banks pull out all the stops of their magical reality-tweaking machine to manipulate everything, accounting fraud pervades public and private enterprise, everything is mis-priced, all official statistics are lies of one kind or another, the regulating authorities sit on their hands, lost in raptures of online pornography (or dreams of future employment at Goldman Sachs), the news media sprinkles wishful-thinking propaganda about a mythical "recovery" and the "shale gas miracle" on a credulous public desperate to believe, the routine swindles of medicine get more cruel and blatant each month, a tiny cohort of financial vampire squids suck in all the nominal wealth of society, and everybody else is left whirling down the drain of posterity in a vortex of diminishing returns and scuttled expectations. Life in the USA is like living in a broken-down, cob-jobbed, vermin-infested house that needs to be gutted, disinfected, and rebuilt - with the hope that it might come out of the restoration process retaining the better qualities of our heritage.
Paul Merrell

Is the Justice Department Protecting An Anti-Iran Smear Campaign? « LobeLog - 0 views

  • A new wrinkle in an already bizarre lawsuit is shaping up to potentially embarrass the Obama administration. If allegations made in a recent court filing are true, then the US Department of Justice, with an unprecedented assertion of the state secrets privilege, might be shielding from any accountability a group actively engaged in spreading false information. The lawsuit revolves around United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), an anti-Iran, pro-sanctions outfit that takes a hard line against Iran and lodges name-and-shame campaigns against companies it says are doing business with the country. The group is made up of former officials from the Bush and Obama administrations, as well as a host of academics, former diplomats and former intelligence officials from foreign countries, including Israel.
  • Last week, things got even weirder: in a motion filed on Wednesday, Restis’s lawyers suggested that UANI had leaked information to the Jerusalem Post that resulted in a piece accusing Restis of doing more illegal business in Iran. The Post later retracted the article, citing “new information” that indicated the purportedly illegal shipping had been “legitimate and permitted,” and scrubbed the article from its website. “Defendants appear to have provided The Jerusalem Post with false information purporting to show an American company’s legal and humanitarian cargo of soya beans to Iran aboard Plaintiffs’ vessel violated sanctions against Iran,” said a footnote in the filing from Restis’s lawyers. “Although it printed Defendants’ false allegations against Plaintiffs, The Jerusalem Post recognized the falsity of the allegations and issued a retraction and apology.”
  • If true, the alleged UANI leak of false information to the Jerusalem Post would contradict UANI’s lawyers’ assertion in an October hearing that “UANI has made no statements whatsoever about Victor Restis or his companies, about any subject, doing business with Iran or any subject since February of 2014.” The Jerusalem Post article also said that the information it revealed would be “raised… in an upcoming hearing in a US federal court.” UANI’s lawyers brought up the purported revelations the following day in the October 8 hearing. It has not been proven that UANI leaked information to the Post.
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  • In a separate filing last Wednesday, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups spelled out how unusual the Justice Department intervention was. The groups submitted a friend of the court briefing—itself an unusual move, since amicus briefs are usually filed when cases reach the appellate stage—agreeing with Restis’s team. “Never before has the government sought dismissal of a suit between private parties on state secrets grounds without providing the parties and the public any information about the government’s interest in the case,” the lawyers from the groups wrote. “It is hard to see why, unlike in every other state secrets case in history, meaningful public disclosure to the parties is not possible in this case.”
  • The October 7 Jerusalem Post article in question, headlined “Evidence obtained by JPost shows alleged ongoing violation of Iran sanctions” and written by legal correspondent Yonah Jeremy Bob, went through several iterations online before being retracted. (Bob did not respond to requests for comment.) The original version of the article purported to present evidence that Restis’s companies were continuing to violate Iran sanctions by pointing to information that a ship owned by Restis docked in Iran on September 27. (The article was amended without notice before being captured by a web archive on October 8.) Lowell, the lawyer for Restis, denied the charges to the Post at the time. “In September 2014, a major US-based food company made a legal shipment of soya beans from Argentina to Iran aboard the Helvetia One, a vessel owned by the Restis family,” Lowell told the paper. “The provision of food cargo to Iran is entirely legal and encouraged under the humanitarian carve-outs to international sanctions regimes.”
  • The original version of the article purported to present evidence that Restis’s companies were continuing to violate Iran sanctions by pointing to information that a ship owned by Restis docked in Iran on September 27. (The article was amended without notice before being captured by a web archive on October 8.) Lowell, the lawyer for Restis, denied the charges to the Post at the time. “In September 2014, a major US-based food company made a legal shipment of soya beans from Argentina to Iran aboard the Helvetia One, a vessel owned by the Restis family,” Lowell told the paper. “The provision of food cargo to Iran is entirely legal and encouraged under the humanitarian carve-outs to international sanctions regimes.”
  • On October 22, the Post came around to Lowell’s perspective, scrubbing the story and issuing a “clarification and correction” that expressed regret for publishing the story. The Post said its assertions of illegal business were “contradicted by new information provided to us and therefore no allegations of misconduct should be concluded from the above article.”
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    The strange Restis case just keeps getting more strange.
Gary Edwards

Is democracy a trade barrier? | European Public Affairs - 0 views

  • The United States and the European Union (EU) are negotiating a trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The aim is to lower trade barriers. Unfortunately those ‘barriers’ include not just traditional trade tariffs and quotas, but also the laws your elected representatives make.
  • This is why the fight against TTIP is a fight for democracy. It is not about protectionism, but rather the protection of our democratic laws over their business interests.
  •  
    "In a democracy, elected representatives make laws. But with new trade agreements, businesses could co-write legislation. The United States and the European Union (EU) are negotiating a trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The aim is to lower trade barriers. Unfortunately those 'barriers' include not just traditional trade tariffs and quotas, but also the laws your elected representatives make. For example, Pierre Defraigne, former Deputy Director-General in the EU Commission Department responsible for Trade, sees the core battle of TTIP is over "the norms and standards in terms of environmental, health and consumer protection". This is why the fight against TTIP is a fight for democracy. It is not about protectionism, but rather the protection of our democratic laws over their business interests. If TTIP was to be signed, two new doors will be opened for businesses to influence legislation: 1. Firstly, regulatory co-operation will give access to industry before laws are to be signed. This means regulators and stakeholders work together for the convergence of laws across the Atlantic. 2. And secondly, once laws are enacted, private investors can sue the EU or US in private tribunals, outside of national courts (known as ISDS or investor-state dispute settlement). The example of the chemical Bisphenol A illustrates what both these 'open doors' for business could mean in practice. Used in everything from water bottles to the lining of food cans, Bisphenol A is one of the most ubiquitous endocrine disruptors. As such, it disrupts the hormonal system of the body, which is responsible for all vital features such as growth, sexual development, and even behaviour. Its presence in the natural world is already felt: two out of three fish caught in Austrian rivers are now female. Bisphenol A has been banned in France since 1st January 2015. This ban goes further than the existing EU ban. Meanwhile, Bisphenol A is stil
Paul Merrell

The EU Demands Argentina to Ban Food Exports to Russia: Arrogance and Stupidity | Globa... - 0 views

  • Imagine – Argentina – and the rest of Latin America – being urged by the EU, ultimate puppet of the US not to supply Russia with food stuff – vegetables, fruit, meat – after Argentina was ‘punished’ by a corrupt court in New York to pay 1.5 billion dollars to the fraudulent NML Capital et al vulture funds – out of its current agreed upon debt of US$29 billion – equivalent to Argentina’s total reserves. And yes, the hedge funds have to be paid 100%, when the remaining 93% of creditors agreed on a 20% reimbursement rate. – And, yes, Mr. Griesa, the bought NY judge, has blocked all of Argentina’s payments to the other creditors, unless his vulture clients are paid in full. So, Argentina is in forced default – having to pay now much higher interest rates on international money markets, if she is indeed still eligible for international credits. Unimaginable but true.
  • Under these circumstances, the boundless arrogance of Brussels expects Argentina to ascend to the US / EU sanctions on Russia to which Russia responded by banning all imports from the EU? – And is now seeking trading with South America? Not that Russia really needs food from South America – there is an enormous and willing Asia market open to them. Russia’s gesture is a helping hand to Argentina and South America to free themselves from the economic and political pressures constantly exerted on them by Washington. Argentina will laugh at such a ridiculously stupid request from the EU. Good for Russia – and good for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru et al – to finally escape the claws of the predator empire of Washington and go the way of independence, namely towards a new area of economic sovereignty and world monetary system. Good for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), as they may finally come to a consensus among themselves and issue their own currency, backed by about one third of the world’s economic output and about half the world’s population.
  • If the BRICS are not yet ready with an alternative, dollar delinked currency to replace the western predatory money machine, Russia and China are. The two countries have forged a solid political and economic alliance during the past few years, have a combined GDP of US$ 21.1 trillion (China – US$ 19 trillion; Russia US$ 2.1 trillion – est. 2014), equal to about 27% of the world economic output – US$ 77.8 trillion (est. 2014). Russia has already announced that the ruble is backed 100% by gold – which is not a reference in itself, but enhances the solidity of their countries’ manufacturing and construction output. This compares with a US GDP of US$ 17 trillion, mostly based on the output of the war and security industrial complex, meaning a GDP of destruction – and on consumption, as well as hollow financial and legal services. While the BRICS are getting their act together, it is conceivable that Russia and China will issue shortly their own combined currency – the ‘Ruyuan’ or the ‘Yuanru’, delinked from the corrupt, predatory western monetary system; a new monetary alliance could also replace the dollar as reserve currency. Controlling more than a quarter of the world’s economic output and a majority chunk of the Asian market, a combined China-Russian currency would have an infinitely more solid backing than has the fiat dollar – as well as meanwhile also the fiat euro – to become a serious reserve currency. – It is only a question of time until much of the rest of the world will jump on the occasion and abandon the dollar.
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  • Peter Koenig is an economist and former World Bank staff.
jacob logan

Food City deploys GlobalWorx technology solution across stores - 1 views

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    American supermarket chain Food City has selected technology platform GlobalWorx OOS-Alert solution for deployment across its retail locations.
Paul Merrell

Palestinians worse off than ever as settler numbers soar, says UN | The Electronic Inti... - 1 views

  • Palestinians are economically worse off than ever before as the number of Israeli settlers on their land sets records, a new report by the United Nations trade and development agency UNCTAD reveals. Israel’s longstanding restrictions on the Palestinian economy are to blame. But the situation has been made catastrophically worse by its ongoing blockade and devastating attack on Gaza last summer that killed more than 2,200 people, including 551 children.
  • Three full-scale Israeli military attacks on Gaza in the last six years, on top of eight years of blockade, have ravaged the territory’s infrastructure, destroyed its productive capacity, hindered any meaningful reconstruction and left the people poorer than any time in 20 years, the report states. Unemployment in Gaza has reached 44 percent, the highest level on record, and is at 18 percent in the West Bank. But UNCTAD says “the real depth of unemployment and the attendant waste of human resources” are even worse than the figures suggest. Even before last summer’s Israeli attack on Gaza and the further deterioration in the economy, 3 out of 5 households in Gaza and 1 out of 5 in the West Bank were food insecure – meaning they could not guarantee a reliable and sufficient supply of affordable and nutritious food. In the year 2000, just 72,000 people in Gaza were dependent on UN food rations. In May this year, that figure reached 868,000 – almost half the population.
  • The lastest Israeli assault on Gaza “effectively eliminated what was left of the middle class, sending almost all of the population into destitution and dependence on international humanitarian aid,” the report states. UNCTAD estimates the direct costs of the destruction Israel inflicted on Gaza in its attacks in November 2012 and last year at $2.7 billion. In a much publicized 2012 report, the UN concluded that if nothing changed, Gaza would be “unlivable” by 2020. This latest report notes that things have only gotten worse since then.
Joseph Skues

Prisoner Advocate Elaine Brown on Georgia Prison Strike: "Repression Breeds Resistance" - 0 views

  • four prisons in Georgia remain in lockdown five days after prisoners went on strike
  • Using cell phones purchased from guards, the prisoners coordinated the nonviolent protests to stage the largest prison strike in U.S. history.
  • reports of widespread violence and brutality by the guards against the prisoners on strike
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  • Elaine Brown, Longtime prison activist and former chair of the Black Panther Party. Her books include The Condemnation of Little B: New Age Racism in America and A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story.
  • Black Panthers, Then and Now (5/13/1996)
  • until they receive better medical care and nutrition, more educational opportunities, payment for the work they do in the prisons.
  • they’re demanding just parole decisions, an end to cruel and unusual punishments, and better access to their families.
  • the newly formed group Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoners’ Rights
  • And t hey made a decision that that would be on December 9th.I have no idea why they picked that date and how they ended up getting perhaps ten prisons involved. But at that point, of course, the guards and the administration became aware of their intention. And so, when they locked down on the night of the 8th, their decision was to not get up.
  • they’re talking about four prisons, and there were probably ten in the initial one-day strike
  • Can you tell us a little bit about your life and how you came to be a prison activist today?
  • have known him for 15 years, and I have been with him for that long, since he was incarcerated and put into an adult facility at 14 years old.
  • there’s no real educational opportunities. There’s no exercise. There’s nothing else.
  • Not only is he on lockdown, but he’s in the hole right now, because from almost day one or so, I was informed that he was taken off to the hole, deemed some sort of leader.
  • the constant violence being perpetrated against them by guards, who with their own idle time look to try and instigate an incident here or there, so there’s a lot of screaming, hollering, you know, aggressive behaviors that go on. And so, there’s always some incident jumping off,
  • But the prisoners in the state of Georgia are paid nothing at all.Now, that’s not to say that the prisoners in other states are being paid. They’re mostly being paid a dollar a day to 50 cents an hour
  • they are not paid one single dime, and they are required to clean the floors, clean the showers, do the yard work, do the dishes, cook the food—in other words, to maintain the prison itself.
  • I learned the other day that one guy said he paid $800 to a guard for a cell phone that was probably worth about 50 bucks. So, that’s the first point that has to be made, because people imagine that there’s all this smuggling going on—and there is, but it’s on the part of—in the main, on the part of guards that are inside these facilities.
  • all of them, for reasons that I cannot explain how they suddenly understood how to be unified, decided, “Yeah, we’re not working, and we’re down with this, and we’re not going to get up, and we’re going to stay united.” And across the prisons, in the various sets, they called each other, sent text messages
  • e food is bad. They have poor nutrition.
  • In the Black Panther Party, there was a 10-point platform and program that articulated some of the manifestations of our general oppression, talking about lack of education, as a matter of fact, not having enough food and housing. In essence, what we called for was freedom and right of self-determination.
  • the Brown Berets, the Red Guard, the Young Lords, the Young Patriots, and so forth
  • So, we became internationalists.
  • when we consider that we black people make up approximately 12 to 13 percent of the overall population and yet almost 50 percent of the prison population, we have to ask the question, is this the result of some genetic flaw in black people? Are we obviously some sort of criminally minded? Or is there something wrong in the scheme of things? Obviously, the latter is what I would say. And so, I’ve committed myself to bringing people out of prison.
  • So I helped to organize the Committee to Free Chip Fitzgerald. These people have been buried in prison for their political beliefs, and they’ve been buried in prison for their poverty. There are no rich people languishing in the prisons of America.
  • which is what they are doing by prodding men with everything, turning off the heat, beating people, forcing them out of their cells, turning off the hot water, destroying and trashing people’s property, not feeding them, and so forth and so on, all kinds of tactics to instigate a violent response.
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