The countryside has been filled with tractors plowing and planting crops for this year. About all that can be seen from horizon to horizon are fields dedicated to growing genetically modified, or genetically engineered, corn and soybeans. This is Indiana. The final destinations for these crops following harvest this fall will be livestock feed and, in one form or another, food for our tables. No one will know though because none will be labeled, “GMO”, or genetically modified.
Labeling is required for GMO’s in about 65 countries worldwide. These include all of Europe, Australia, Japan, Russia, South Africa and dozens of others. Some countries ban genetically modified foods altogether. One must wonder if other countries know something the United States does not. The big seed and chemical corporations do not want labels. So far, they have successfully stopped labeling in this country. They do not want people to know GMOs are in the food they eat. It is a secret to be kept by them only.
There are many questions about genetically modified foods and their long term safety for people and the environment. More and more evidence is accumulating saying all is not well. All is not well for people and animals that eat these foods. All is not well for the natural environment and the genetic contamination GMOs bring. All is not well with the use of the toxic chemical poisons, herbicides and pesticides, used on crops or in the case of GMO corn with the pesticide that each cell of the plant produces on its own in every plant cell and corn kernel. All is not well with the pesticide residues on harvested crops. All is not well. But all that is to be kept secret, too.
The historical record shows that even the scientists in the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) were concerned about the safety of genetically modified crops over 20 years ago. That did not matter because those who approved GMOs were political appointees. One key appointee at the FDA was an attorney for a firm that did legal work for Monsanto before coming to the FDA. Although he has been in and out of the FDA and Monsanto more than once, he is now in a key food safety position at the FDA
Many states have had GMO labeling legislation introduced, including Indiana. The most visible one was California. Big agriculture and food corporations spent about $45 million on a publicity campaign to narrowly defeat Proposition 37 there. Private Citizens who believe they have a right to know what is in their food could not match that kind of steamrolling propaganda effort. One wonders what there is to hide if millions are spent to defeat a law that would openly tell people what is in their food.
The controversy about GMOs and poisons, pesticides, is reminiscent of the tobacco companies that kept people in the dark for decades about the bad or even catastrophic long term health effects of smoking. Tobacco corporate executives lied to Congress. The largest GMO seed and chemical corporation that wants us to trust it is the one that gave us DDT, Dioxin, PCBs, and Agent Orange.
Go Home
It is time for the Republicans in Congress to go home for Christmas. There is no sense in staying in Washington to be subject to Democrat whining.
The Republicans need to get some backbone. They need to come to the realization that the House of Representatives holds all of the cards. The power of the House is absolute. No appropriations of money for anything the federal government does happens without being initiated by the House of Representatives. No changes in the tax laws can happen without being initiated by the House of Representatives.
In other words, no compromise with or caving in to the Democrats is needed. The House of Representatives needs to pass the appropriations and tax bills they believe to be the right ones and send same along to the Senate. Let the Senate take the responsibility for blocking. The House needs to get on with its business on all sorts of matters without concern about what the President or the Senate thinks. Neither the President nor the Senate controls the purse. The House does.
The House needs to decide where government should be cut, then cut off the funding. The first place to start would be with all of the czars created by Obama. Maybe the next should be a cut in the amount of money available to the President for traveling like a rock star all over the place all of the time.
The President is not a king nor an emperor, nor a dictator….. yet. He may want to be. It sure looks that way when he comes with a proposal that would give him unilateral power to raise the debt ceiling all by his little own self. What a completely arrogant thing to even suggest.
The people power resides in the House of Representative. It is time for them to act like it.
Time to Get Out — NOW!
The Russians learned. The United States has not. Afghanistan is a bottomless pit.
We have about 68,000 troops still fighting in Afghanistan after being there over 10 years. Obama wants to keep significant troops in that country until the end of 2014. WHY?
It is crystal clear no military victory over the Taliban is possible. Meanwhile, the people we are supposed to be training to take over their own security are killing our soldiers and the “nation-building” in this most primitive of countries is failing. Yet, we continue to put our young men and women in harm’s way meaning many do not come home and many that do are horribly maimed or mentally and emotionally damaged.
Rest assured, when we do leave, the Taliban will move in. Afghanistan will remain a backward and fractured country ruled by tribes and extreme Islamists. This is true whether we leave now or two years from now.
And al Qaida…. it has already established outposts in many other countries including Iraq, the country we allegedly freed and left already. We need to be very aggressive in counter terrorism efforts but this does not mean thousands of boots on the ground in areas where clear wins are not possible. It means search, destroy, and get out.
It is way past time to bring our troops home. NOW.
Now We Know
The election is over. All of the “swing states” went for Barack Obama. The Republicans for the office of the Presidency were trounced.
The only saving grace for Republicans, and I believe for the country, is the fact the Republicans remain in firm control of the House of Representatives and the Democrats did not gain enough in the Senate to reach the 2/3rds majority to enable shutoff of filibuster. This means that if President Barack Obama wants anything through Congress, he will have to work with the Republicans or the federal government will be in a state of gridlock for the next four years.
Then there is Benghazi. I pray the House of Representatives will not let this issue go. There were four Americans murdered including the Ambassador from the United States of America. It is clear the Obama administration attempted a coverup of the events leading to the death of these four. In short, they lied.
The Obama foreign policy is in shambles. The Middle East is a complete mess with dictators being replaced with worse, the Islamists. Israel no longer trusts the United States to be at their back. And Obama goes off to Burma for what?
And this at a time when there are millions in the USA that are in dire need of federal assistance to get their lives back from the hurricane and storms that hit the east coast. It is ironic that many of the states affected voted for Obama and that now federal response to their plight has been pathetic. There was little, if any, prepositioning of assets before the storms.
We have to live with a President who wants to lead this country down a path that many of us do not want to go. Where we have the power to stop the slide to more and more government, there should be no compromise.
Vote
In two days a President of these United States will be elected. This country under the leadership of whomever is elected will be headed on an upward course or a further decline. The choice is clear. Romney believes in the free enterprise system and smaller government. Obama believes in socialism and larger government with more and more people dependent upon the government.
Then there is Benghazi and the death of an Ambassador. It is crystal clear that President Obama and Hillary Clinton and others have been lying. They have been kicking the can down the road to try to get past the election.
Although I am not for all positions the Republicans have on various issues, I deeply believe an election of a Democrat President, Barack Obama, and a Democrat Congress spells “D” for disaster or “down the tube”. In two days we will know.
Which is it: Gross Incompetence or Criminal Negligence?
The more that is revealed about the deaths at the United States Consulate at Benghazi, Libya, the more sickening it becomes. President Barack Obama and those closest to him are either grossly incompetent or were criminally negligent. Obama was the only authority who could have ordered a response by the military and CIA in time to go the aid of our Ambassador and those with him to have saved them. Instead Obama did nothing. The military and CIA were ready for the trigger to be pulled. No order came. Brave people died needlessly.
Obama now claims that he did give an order to act. What did he do then, go to bed? Obviously, no one monitored the response assuming he gave an order. If there was no response to a Presidential order, that should have triggered an immediate discharge and possibly a Courts Martial. That has not happened. I more think that President Barack Obama is lying. He and his surrogates tried to sell the story that all of the events in Libya and Middle East around 9/11 were the result of a video that was derogatory of the Prophet Mohammad when they already knew that was a lie. The US representative to the United Nations tried to sell the video story for days as did others in the administration including dear Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State.
It has been weeks now since this tragedy. The Democrats say the matter is being studied and that they will get to the bottom of it…… of course, after the election. This is yet another example of either incompetence or lying. The facts are already known. If they are not by now, more incompetence.
If it turns out the drones overhead watching the slaughter of American citizens including the Ambassador, the personal representative of the President of the United States, were armed. It is time for impeachment if he is still in office. Nothing less will do.
Oh, you would have to catch the President first. He was off to Las Vegas for a campaign party right after the Ambassador was murdered.
Ye Ole Newspaper
It has been over 30 years since my family sold the daily newspaper it had owned for 84 years. Still, I have printers ink in my blood. I was involved with management of this newspaper for over 20 years. In the negotiations before the sale, the buyers promised to continue operations much as it had been. We had about 150 employees, were recognized by the industry as having the most penetration of our market over any other paper in the country, and made a good profit to boot.
That all changed. The cuts began almost immediately. I was still the publisher in name, but that soon came to an end. Within about 6 months of the purchase, I was out……. some are in and some are out.
To this day, I carry with me what I believe are inviolate principles of journalism. The first is to tell the truth and the complete truth. It is not the place of a “news” organization to editorialize when reporting the news. You would not know that now particularly with the electronic media. I cannot tell news from opinion most of the time. The second is to be the conscience of a community. That is, look out for your readers, look over the shoulder of politicians and those in government, and promote good things among the people.
Things changed from the old days. In the middle of the 20th Century, there were almost 2000 independent family owned newspapers in this country. This changed in the last quarter of the Century. Independent newspapers were bought out by newspaper chains. One reason this happened were the adverse estate tax laws. Newspapers had to be sold to pay inheritance taxes. Turned out this was not good for the owners or for the county.
In the old days, when owners lived in the same community as the newspaper, profit was not always king. There were intangible values that became as important once profit was at a reasonable level. The owners put back into the community in terms of time, talent, and money. It was more like family taking care of each other. Markets were more local rather than national.
The USA has suffered a loss. The “Fourth Estate” is not what it once was. Thomas Jefferson said, “Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe”. It should be added that the press must be both “free” and “unbiased” for all to be safe. We are not there now.
The X Factor
I am hooked on the X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and America’s Got Talent. YouTube clips from those shows put me to bed at night and wake me in the morning. I check out the clips to see which ones have viewing in the millions, then watch them. These shows have captured the hearts of the globe. They are one of the few positive shared experiences we have.
Yes, Simon Cowell has made a lot of money from his shows, but he has at the same time provided a path for hundreds of very talented people, who otherwise would have likely never come out of the shadows, to live their dreams. What he has done is nothing short of a small miracle.
If you have never tuned in, start with Ronan Parke, Paul Potts, Jonathan and Charlotte, Eugene Murphy Jr., Carly Rose Sonenclar, Ella Henderson, Jason Brock, Tate Stevens, Jahmene Douglas, Drew Ryniewicz, Josh Krajcik, and Susan Boyle. If these don’t put a smile on your face and maybe a tear in your eye, nothing will. Enjoy.
Delusional
Tuned into the news this morning only to hear that Sarah Palin does not rule out the possibility that she will run for the Presidency of the United States of America at some point. My reaction…. she is delusional. Let’s face it. The only reason she ever got onto the Republican ballot was that Sen. John McCain was pandering for the female vote in the 2008 election. It didn’t work. “Hope and Change” won.
Palin should be satisfied that she has become a millionaire through the fortunes of luck. It was not because she was/is so skilled as a public servant. Yes, she was the governor of the State of Alaska for a time, but not even for a full term. And I remind you that the State of Alaska has fewer people than the city of Indianapolis, Indiana. A good chunk of Alaska is federal government land and/or so rugged only moose, wolves, and other wild animals live there.
I add, too, that even her daughter, Bristol, has become a millionaire. She became the spokesperson for the Candie’s Foundation, a teen pregnancy prevention organization and was paid some $262,000 in 2009 for that alone. Are you joking me. That and now she is a star on “Dancing with the Stars”. She cannot dance but she continues on from week to week through the votes of her adoring public. That, too, is a joke. Now, she has a book deal for reportedly over one million dollars. The joke goes on.
This whole episode beginning with the nomination of Sarah Palin for VP is a mockery of our way of life. There are plenty of dedicated, hard working, and competent people in the USA that deserve more. The comedy of the Palins turns my stomach.
Military Downsizing
In case it is not clear, our military is in trouble. Unless change in Congress happens, “sequester” – a set of automatic cuts in federal spending – kicks in on January 2, 2013. The automatic cuts would chop the Pentagon’s budget by about $500 billion (That’s with a “B”) over nine years. That is about $55 billion per year. This whole process came about via agreement between the White House and Congressional House Republicans in the ongoing fight over federal government spending. I think it has become a big “OOPS!” Many Republicans now want to cancel the sequester through legislation, stating that the mandated cuts would pose a serious threat to our national security.
Now that time is drawing near, the cheese gets binding. The agreement and affected worker contracts require a 60 or 90 day notice if layoffs are to happen. The White House is telling military industry companies not to issue such notices to workers. This is in violation of the law. The companies are between a rock and a hard place not knowing exactly what to do. The Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, said that under such budget restraints, the USA would become a “paper tiger”. If layoffs happen en mass in companies that produce things, it could take months or even years to rebuild the skilled workforce in the military industrial complex back to the point of today. At the same time, troop strength would drop from the present 569,000 active-duty soldiers today to 426,000, the lowest number since WWII. Not smart in today’s world.
Mitt Romney advocates a strong military. He says he will restore budget cuts if they happen and even raise the defense budget by some $150 billion a year. Romney believes the United States of America should have a military second to none; in fact, one so powerful that no nation would take the risk of challenging it. I think most American citizens believe the same way.
On the other hand, periodically there are stories about military projects and production that are not needed or are carried on only to please some Senator or Representative. This must stop. We cannot waste any dollars, military or otherwise. All waste and pandering must be rooted out and ended. Weapons systems and development should be judged by professionals, not politicians. We expect our military to protect this country and its interests around the world, yet we handicap it with politics.
We have yet to see if the sequester can be avoided. Any compromise must come after the November election during a lame duck Congress. Good luck.