Obama wins Orwellian “Peace” prize while expanding war, defending torture, targeting Iran

While continuing the 9th year of war in Afghanistan with all objective evidence demonstrating the US invasion is an illegal War of Aggression, refusing criminal investigation for torture despite all case law declaring waterboarding definitively as torture, despite over a year’s history of lying about Iran threatening to “wipe Israel off the map” and collaborating in the same lying war rhetoric against Iran that began his predecessor’s wars, and his defense of Israel in their enslavement of Gaza in the world’s largest concentration camp, Barack Obama and the Nobel Committee challenged the world’s peace advocates and sane citizens with an act George Orwell would sadly nod to in recognition: calling the criminal gang-leader of empire, war, and death as a leader for “peace.” (Read more from examiner.com)

Massive Marijuana Civil Disobedience in Keene, New Hampshire

Freedom Lovers, Free State Project participants and Pro-Marijuana advocates have been gathering daily for the past week [written Sept. 27], each day at 4:20 p.m. to smoke marijuana (and peppermint cloves to confuse the police, lol) in protest of the war on drugs. So far only two arrests have been made, despite hundreds of people smoking marijuana. (Read more from dailypaul.com)

State to Mom: Stop Baby-Sitting Neighbors’ Kids

IRVING TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) – Each day before the school bus comes to pick up the neighborhood’s children, Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her fellow moms, welcoming their children into her home for about an hour before they left for school.

Regulators who oversee child care, however, don’t see it as charity. Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, she’d be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day care centers. (Read more from myfoxdetroit.com)

On Food Safety & Freedom – to all my socialist friends

I’ve been paying more attention to Food Freedom issues. Food Freedom is interesting because, like the War on Drugs, it’s an issue where the hippie, I-♥-socialism crowd agrees with the liberty crowd. We agree on the problems, but, unsurprisingly, recommend exact opposite solutions.

Last month, I watched The World According to Monsanto, which is available for free online in ten parts:

The movie presents very strong evidence i.m.o. that genetically modified (GM) foods got a pass from the F.D.A.’s testing despite indications that they caused health problems. Scientists in the U.S. and Britain lost their jobs for insisting on publishing findings suggestive of the dangers of GM foods.

Shelly Roche makes the case against GM foods in this short video:

It also seems that Big Media (surprise, surprise) has been complicit in suppressing the dangers of GM foods. During last year’s epidemic killing honey bee the mainstream press unanimously ignored the possibility of GM foods killing the bees, even when speculating about long lists of possible causes.

Fox “News” spiked the Monsanto story and fired a pair of journalists:

Anyway, back to the documentary. I could imagine the socialists in the audience saying “We need more rules! We need better rules! We need stronger government!” This is the socialist approach to everything — the force of government.

In fact, government is not our protector from powerful companies like Monsanto. Government is their enabler through the granting of privilege and elimination of competition. This has always been the case. More than anything else, realizing this made me a libertarian. Government doesn’t protect me from the powerful, it protects the powerful and grants them privileges.

To my socialist friends, I would point out:

– Monsanto has written seed laws and gotten legislators to put them through, that make cleaning, collecting and storing of seeds so onerous in terms of fees and paperwork that having normal seed becomes almost impossible. (source) More freedom would legalize competition.

– Much legislation is designed to cut down on Monsanto’s competition:

More freedom would legalize competition.

– Obama has put a former Monsanto vice president in charge of America’s food safety: Obama appoints Monsanto fox to guard food safety hen house.

– In much of the country, it is illegal to label milk “hormore free” or “rbgh free”. (source) Again, more freedom would legalize competition.

The failures detailed in The World According to Monsanto, and evident elsewhere suggest to my libertarian mind that we should get rid of the F.D.A.. Government is incapable of regulating something so important with such incentive for corruption. Private organizations like the Organic Consumer Association would do a much better job, and we would have the liberty to decide for ourselves whom to trust. Private organizations will believe in their cause and be passionate about it.

What am I personally doing about my food? I joined my local co-op, which helps me avoid GMOs, at least in my groceries.

Want more advice? Top 4 Ways to Identify & Avoid Genetically Modified Foods:

1. Look at the PLU sticker on fruit.

  • 4 digits = conventionally grown
  • 5 digits beginning with 9 = organic
  • 5 digits beginning with 8 = GM

2. Buy local and talk to your farmers. (85% of prepackaged/processed foods contain GMOs)
3. Avoid the four top GMO crops: soy, corn, canola & cotton seed.
4. Encourage “GMO free” labeling. (which, I think, is illegal)

AIG’s Payback to Taxpayers in Doubt

One year after the biggest corporate bailout in the country’s history, a government watchdog office Monday warned that American taxpayers may not recoup the full $182 billion given to embattled insurance giant American International Group.

“AIG’s ability to restructure its business and repay the government is unclear at this time,” the Government Accountability Office said in a new report released Monday.

As of the start of September, the company’s outstanding balance of taxpayer aid was $120 billion. (Read more from abcnews.go.com)

Surprise, surprise. Not that any of the bleeding hearts who cried “save our financial system” are paying attention anymore.

UK trade unions overwhelmingly pass Israel boycott vote

In a landmark decision, Britain’s trade unions have voted overwhelmingly to commit to build a mass boycott movement, disinvestment and sanctions on Israel for a negotiated settlement based on justice for Palestinians.

The motion was passed at the 2009 TUC Annual Congress in Liverpool today (17 September), by unions representing 6.5 million workers across the UK.

. . . .

The motion additionally called for the TUC General Council to put pressure on the British government to end all arms trading with Israel and support moves to suspend the EU-Israel trade agreement. Unions are also encouraged to disinvest from companies which profit from Israel’s illegal 42-year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. (Read more from electronicintifada.net)

Israel goes on offensive after U.N. report on Israeli warcrimes in Gaza

A day after the release of the critical Goldstone Commission report over Israeli crimes in Gaza, Israel continued its Anti-UN campaign.

“The Goldstone committee is a committee that was set up to find Israel guilty of crimes that were determined in advanced, and the committee’s members did not let the facts confuse them,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday, in his first comments in response to the harsh UN report investigation into the Israeli aggression on the Gaza strip.

According to the report: “Some of the actions of the Government of Israel might justify a competent court finding that crimes against humanity have been committed,” and “…the Mission finds that there have been a number of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law.” (Read more from politicaltheatrics.org)

See Also:

Shooting Prisoners


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FACT CHECK: Obamacare enforced with tax

Memo to President Barack Obama: It’s a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance — and fining them if they don’t — isn’t the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation’s health care system doesn’t quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.

And the reason the fines are in the legislation is to enforce the coverage requirement.

“If you put something in the Internal Revenue Code, and you tell the IRS to collect it, I think that’s a tax,” said Clint Stretch, head of the tax policy group for Deloitte, a major accounting firm. “If you don’t pay, the person who’s going to come and get it is going to be from the IRS.” (Read more from news.yahoo.com)