Monsanto’s Next Target: Democracy

Ronnie Cummins, Katherine Paul |  AlterNet | April 8, 2013

Big Food’s greatest fear is materializing. A critical mass of educated consumers, food and natural health activists are organizing a powerful movement that could well overthrow North America’s trillion-dollar junk food empire. Savvy and more determined than ever, activists are zeroing in on the Achilles heel of Food Inc. — labeling.

But as consumers demand truth and greater transparency in labeling, it isn’t just Big Food whose empire is vulnerable. The biotech industry, which makes billions supplying junk food manufacturers with cheap, genetically engineered (GE) ingredients, has even more to lose. Monsanto knows that if food producers are forced to label the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in their food products, they’ll reformulate those products to meet consumer demand for GMO-free alternatives. That’s why companies like Monsanto, DuPont and Dow, along with Coca-Cola and Pepsi, last year spent more than $46 million to defeat Proposition 37, California’s GMO labeling initiative.

The junk food and biotech industries narrowly (48.5% – 51.5%) prevailed in California, but they know it’s only a matter of time before one or more states pass a mandatory GMO labeling law. More than 30 state legislatures are now debating GMO labeling bills. And consumers have  broadened the fight beyond just labeling. Five counties and two cities in California and Washington have banned the growing of GE crops. In addition, given the near total absence of FDA regulation, 19 states have passed laws  restricting GMOs.

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Tar Sands Oil Arkansas

William Boardman | Reader Supported News | April 7, 2013

Within a week of the ExxonMobil tar sands oil pipeline burst in Mayflower, Arkansas, ExxonMobil was in charge of the clean-up, the U.S. government had established a no-fly zone over the area, some 40 residents were starting their second week of evacuation, ExxonMobil was threatening to arrest reporters trying to cover the spill, and several homeowners had filed a class action lawsuit seeking damages from the world’s second-most-profitable corporation, which had helped keep the pipeline secret from terrorists.

Before March 29, even some people living next to ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline didn’t know it was there. All that changed abruptly around 2:45 pm that Good Friday afternoon, when a resident of the suburban subdivision reported a fresh rivulet of diluted Wabasca heavy crude oil from Canada snaking across the lawn, pooling around children’s yard toys, filling gutters, and flowing on down the street, to the nearest storm drain. (Horrendous slideshow here)

And it smelled! The smell carried for miles. Up close, prolonged exposure was potentially unhealthy, for lung, brain, peace of mind. Environmental responders monitored the air quality for days, but only some of the cleanup workers wore breathing masks.

The pipeline gushed for almost an hour before ExxonMobil had it shut down.

The cleanup began at once and continues. Local volunteers responded immediately to keep the spill from entering nearby Lake Conway, with apparent success so far. Rain hasn’t helped. ExxonMobil has promised to be there till it’s done. Local, state, and federal teams are also on site, but the situation remains fluid, as it were, with potential impacts possible from local to global.

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Why 1,600 Years of Ice Melting in 25 Years Is a Bad Omen

Keith Wagstaff | The Week Magazine | Reader Supported News | April 8, 2013

glacier in Peru has melted to levels not seen since the end of the last ice age

Ice that took 1,600 years to form in the Peruvian Andes took only 25 years to disappear, according to a new study published in Science.

Lonnie G. Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University, studied plants that had been recently exposed near Quelccaya, the world’s largest tropical ice sheet, located 18,000 feet above sea level. Analysis of the plants showed that the ice cap is smaller than it has been for six thousand years.

Ultimately, Thompson was able to figure out that 1,600 years worth of ice had melted in less than three decades. The culprit? Global warming, scientists told the New York Times:

[T]he melting now under way appears to be at least as fast, if not faster, than anything in the geological record since the end of the last ice age …

Global warming, which scientists say is being caused primarily by the human release of greenhouse gases, is having its largest effects at high latitudes and high altitudes. Sitting at high elevation in the tropics, the Quelccaya ice cap appears to be extremely sensitive to the temperature changes, several scientists said. [New York Times]

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Google Takes on Rare Fight Against National Security Letters

Kim Zetter | Wired Magazine | Reader Supported News | April 7, 2013

oogle has filed a rare petition to challenge an ultra-secret national security letter issued by the government to obtain private data about one or more of its users.

The extraordinary petition, which was filed under seal in the U.S. District Court of Northern California on March 29, comes just days after a U.S. District Judge in California ruled in a case brought by an unnamed company and the Electronic Frontier Foundation that so-called NSLs that come with a gag order on the recipient are an unconstitutional impingement on free speech.

On March 14, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered the government to stop issuing NSLs and to cease enforcing the gag provision in cases where they have already been issued. Illston, however, stayed her order for 90 days to give the government a chance to appeal her ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The recent Google challenge has also been assigned to Judge Illston.

It’s not known exactly when Google received the NSL or why it decided to fight back against this particular one, though the company was likely emboldened to act by the recent ruling. Bloomberg broke the story about Google’s challenge.

In early March, Google signaled an interest in becoming more transparent about the NSLs it has received by releasing a report for the first time showing a “range” of times that it received NSL’s from the FBI.

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US Plans ‘Proportional Retaliation’ for North Korea

David E. Sanger, Thom Shanker | The New York Times | Reader Supported News | April 8, 2013

s North Korea hints at new military provocations in the coming days, the United States and South Korea have drawn up plans to respond more forcefully than in the recent past, but in a limited way intended to prevent an escalation to broader war.

Amid the rising tensions, there were still efforts on many fronts on Sunday to limit the possibility of military conflict. In an indirect but clear criticism of China’s longtime ally, North Korea, Xi Jinping, China’s new president, said in a speech on Sunday that no country in Asia “should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain.”

A senior adviser to President Obama, Dan Pfeiffer, appearing on the ABC program “This Week,” played down the situation as “a pattern of behavior we’ve seen from the North Koreans many times.”

Still, the escalating tensions were underscored Sunday when the commander of American forces on the Korean Peninsula, Gen. James D. Thurman, abruptly canceled a trip to Washington for Congressional testimony and consultations. So did South Korea’s top commander.

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In Mock Election, Hillary Clinton Wallops the Competition

Brad Knickerbocker | Christian Science Monitor | Reader Supported News | April 8, 2013

Political professionals and grassroots supporters are organizing and raising money in case Hillary Clinton runs for the presidency in 2016. So far, she’s leading potential opponents of both parties.

It may be the weekend for the “Final Four” in the NCAA basketball championship. But for political junkies out there, the “Sweet Sixteen” already has been whittled down to the two major party candidates in the 2016 presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Marco Rubio.

That is, if you believe the chart concocted by the Washington Post the other day pitting 32 possible candidates among Republicans and Democrats who (in their dreams, at least) have a shot at the White House.

More on that later. But former first lady, US Senator, and Secretary of State Clinton seemed to be all over the news this week.

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Margaret Thatcher Dies After Stroke

Michael White | Guardian UK | Reader Supported News | April 8, 2013

The first woman elected to lead a major western state changed way Britons viewed politics and economics.

Margaret Thatcher, the most dominant British prime minister since Winston Churchill in 1940 and a global champion of the late 20th century free market economic revival, has died.

Her spokesman, Lord Bell, said on Monday: “It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning.

“A further statement will be made later.”

Downing Street announced that she would receive a ceremonial funeral with military honours at St Paul’s Cathedral.

David Cameron, who is cutting short his trip to Europe to return to London following the news, said: “It was with great sadness that l learned of Lady Thatcher’s death. We’ve lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton.”

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The Press and Public Are Contained

William Boardman | Reader Supported News | April 8, 2013

The first “Tar Sands Oil Arkansas” (published April 7) discussed a number of questions raised by the ExxonMobil Pegasus pipeline that burst in Mayflower, Arkansas, on March 29, pumping tar sands oil Ð technically Wabasca Heavy crude oil Ð into a residential neighborhood for almost an hour.

Among the questions touched on in that piece were protecting the pipeline from terrorists, residents suing ExxonMobil in federal court, the nature of Wabasca Heavy tar sands oil, some effects of the spill, and the “martial law” atmosphere described by reporters trying to look at the cleanup site.

As the second week of toxic air in Mayflower begins, here are more of the questions this disaster raises and some of the current answers, subject to future refinement. A reader writes:

What is the point of origin of the leak? In front of whose house? Why no image of the hole in the ground or in the pipe? Was it corrosion, a weld failure, sabotage by cutting or explosives, or WHAT? Do we have to wait for NTSB for answers? Are ExxonMobil and their execs too big to jail?

The point of origin appears to be in the woods, behind the houses, and underground. The absence of images is unexplained.

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Is the Keystone XL Pipeline the ‘Stonewall’ of the Climate Movement?

Bill McKibben | The Nation | April 8, 2013

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com.

A few weeks ago, Time magazine called the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to the US Gulf Coast the “Selma and Stonewall” of the climate movement.

Which, if you think about it, may be both good news and bad news. Yes, those of us fighting the pipeline have mobilized record numbers of activists: the largest civil disobedience action in 30 years and 40,000 people on the mall in February for the biggest climate rally in American history. Right now, we’re aiming to get a million people to send in public comments about the “environmental review” the State Department is conducting on the feasibility and advisability of building the pipeline. And there’s good reason to put pressure on. After all, it’s the same State Department that, as on a previous round of reviews, hired “experts” who had once worked as consultants for TransCanada, the pipeline’s builder.

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‘There Are Now States Where It’s Not Safe to Be a Woman’

Katrina vanden Heuvel | The Nation | April 8, 2013

Activists rally in support of abortion rights in Jackson, Mississippi. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis).

Chalk another one up for the extremists. Three weeks after Arkansas’ legislature overrode a veto and prohibited most second trimester abortions, North Dakota’s Governor signed into law a ban that kicks in just six weeks after conception. As the Associated Press noted, both sides recognize the laws for what they are: “an unprecedented frontal assault” on the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade.

“The thing that’s incredible to me – North Dakota being case in point – is the thought that women’s rights in this country depend on their ZIP code,” the inimitable Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards told the Huffington Post late last month. “There are now states where it’s not safe to be a woman.”

This didn’t happen by accident. Rather, there’s a disturbing pattern of states pushing blatantly unconstitutional anti-abortion measures, creating a patchwork of places in the United States where women are treated as second-class citizens who can’t be trusted to make their own decisions. The extreme anti-equality activists are intentionally defying Roe v. Wade in hopes of triggering a constitutional showdown. They want to rewrite the constitution as they go, using it to their benefit when it fits their draconian worldview and disregarding it when it doesn’t. That’s a dangerous precedent to set.

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