To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
I think the greatest gift of the Soviet Union to modern civilization
was
the dethronement of the clergy and the refusal to let religion be
taught in the public schools.
Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.
There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.
W. E. B. Du Bois
s()
2min. news
leecamp
trnn b. black
tyt drones
tyt Hastings
tyt bill the spin
In a little-known case called American Express v. Italian Colors Restaurant, the Supreme Court today issued yet another decision
making it easier for big corporations to use their market power to
screw over consumers and small businesses. Thursday's 5-3 decision
affirmed the right of big corporations to use mandatory arbitration
clauses in contracts to force small businesses to challenge monopolistic
practices in private arbitration rather than through class actions in
court. The case shows once again that the conservative majority, led by
Chief Justice John Roberts, has no problem with judicial activism when
it comes to bolstering corporate power.
Here's the background on this decision:
That's one reason public interest lawyers have sounded the alarm about the Amex case for a year, noting that, given the court's current makeup, the case had potentially awful implications for anyone ripped off while using a credit card or cellphone and for small businesses trying to fend off corporate monopolies.
In an amicus brief submitted in this case on the side of the small businesses, lawyers for AARP, Public Justice, and the American Association for Justice warned that if the court sided with Amex, "statutes intended by Congress to protect weaker parties against stronger parties will essentially be gutted. Small businesses might as well move to a different country where they no longer enjoy the protection of the antitrust laws. At the whim of an employer, workers could be required to prospectively waive their Title VII [anti-discrimination] rights. Consumer protection laws such as the Truth in Lending Act could be silently, but inescapably, repealed by corporations with the stroke of a pen.”
Indeed, if the court ruled that Amex could use an arbitration clause in a contract with a much less powerful party to escape punishment under the Sherman Antitrust Act, there's no reason why a big company couldn't create contracts that prevent people from filing sex discrimination, consumer fraud, or other similar claims in any venue. Laws that Congress passed to protect the public could simply be voided through artfully written arbitration clauses that create expensive hurdles to pressing a claim.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion in the Amex case, seems to believe that this isn't a problem. He said that the law doesn't entitle every potential plaintiff a cheap route into court, noting that litigation outside arbitration is expensive, too, a fact that can keep people from exercising their legal rights. His argument boils down to this: The Federal Arbitration Act, a 1925 maritime law that the court has broadened to cover just about everything, trumps every other law on the books. So if a big company breaks the law and screws you, but you signed a contract with an arbitration clause giving away your right to sue or bring class action, you don't have a case, even if federal law says you do.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas invoked the fiction that the contract Italian Colors signed agreeing to arbitrate its claims individually with Amex was voluntary. But anyone who's ever tried to open a bank account knows it's virtually impossible to engage in commerce these days without being forced to sign a contract in which you forego your right to sue the company if it rips you off.
Justice Elena Kagan gets this point. In her biting dissent aimed squarely at Scalia, she called the majority opinion a "betrayal of our precedents and of federal statutes like antitrust laws." She observed that the court would never uphold an arbitration agreement that explicitly banned merchants from bringing an antitrust claim, yet that's effectively what the Amex contract does by compelling merchants to give up the option of class actions in court. She noted that by ignoring several precedents, the majority is providing companies "every incentive to draft their agreements to extract backdoor waivers of statutory rights." That is, they will use contracts to immunize themselves from laws they don't like.
Kagan was blunt: "If the arbitration clause is enforceable, Amex has insulated itself from antitrust liability—even if it has in fact violated the law. The monopolist gets to use its monopoly power to insist on a contract effectively depriving its victims of all legal recourse. And here is the nutshell version of today’s opinion, admirably flaunted rather than camouflaged: Too darn bad."
-
Microwaves use super-fast particles to literally radiate the contents
of water inside food and bring it to the boil. Not only has microwave
use been linked to causing infertility in men, but it also denatures
many of the essential proteins in the food making them virtually
indigestible.
Most animals will only consume food in its natural, unprocessed state, but humans actually go out of their way to render food nutritionally worthless before eating it. It's no wonder that our health is in dire straits.
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The success of last weekend’s March Against Monsanto should have made it very clear that a great many people wish to see, at the very least, labels on toxic GMO foods. The fact that this success was covered up by the media does NOT mean that the members of Congress were unaware of it – just the opposite. Our success was frightening, and that is why it was covered up.
Despite that, the day before the event, an amendment to the farm bill that would have allowed the individual states to pass laws protecting consumers from unlabeled GMOs was quietly shot down in the Senate with a vote of 71-27 against this right. The timing of this betrayal, right before a long weekend, goes along with the general modus operandi of sliding through things that will meet with objections from the public when they are otherwise distracted.
The failure to pass this amendment was due in part to Monsanto mouthpiece Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chair of the Agriculture Committee. Stabenow, incidentally, received over three quarters of a million dollars from agribusiness interests ($739,926 to be exact) in agribusiness donations. Stabenow utilized the propaganda that is being dispersed by the likes of Monsanto and the Gates Foundation to argue her point:
These congressional folk cannot get re-elected/auctioned/bought/ or, how bout, won by majority of popular opine, if you guys knew how badly us commons are being stabbed in the back by the vary same we sent to put an end to this SHIT....do you know your enemy? you should
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Baldwin (D-WI)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Brown (D-OH)
Burr (R-NC)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Coons (D-DE)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Cowan (D-MA)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Enzi (R-WY)
Fischer (R-NE)
Franken (D-MN)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hagan (D-NC)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (D-SD)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kaine (D-VA)
Kirk (R-IL)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lee (R-UT)
Levin (D-MI)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Moran (R-KS)
Nelson (D-FL)
Paul (R-KY)
Portman (R-OH)
Pryor (D-AR)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rubio (R-FL)
Scott (R-SC)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Shelby (R-AL)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Thune (R-SD)
Toomey (R-PA)
Udall (D-CO)
Vitter (R-LA)
Warner (D-VA)
Warren (D-MA)
Wicker (R-MS)
Despite the vast campaign donations the politicians receive from special interest groups, the recent grassroots movements like Occupy Monsanto and March Against Monsanto have proven that activism works without the huge budget. Even though Monsanto has a kennel full of obedient pet congress members, we can defeat the biotech enemy by spreading information. Teaching the public about the dangers of consuming GMOs, the environmental and health tolls of Monsanto’s farming methods, and the unscrupulous business practices that are designed to put small farmers around the globe out of business, is our most powerful weapon.
This is a call to action. Use the list above to make it clear that we will not stand idly by while our elected representatives betray us for the benefit of Monsanto.
Would you like genetically engineered fries with that?
You say potato, I say... trouble.
Apparently even the humble potato isn't safe from the biotech industry. There's now a genetically engineered (GE) potato up for approval in the USDA, and it's making public health activists cringe.
The potato, created by biotech company J.R. Simplot, has been altered to reduce "problems" that normal potatoes have, like black-spot browning. But altering even one enzyme in a plant can unintentionally affect other characteristics of the potato as well, meaning that there may be unintended health risks that we don't yet know about. Will you tell the USDA before July 2nd not to approve this under-tested and potentially unsafe GE potato?
The company intends to use its GE potato in processed foods like french fries and potato chips, and may even market the crop as a "healthier alternative" to normal potatoes. Such advertising would be incredibly misleading, because without more testing it's impossible to know what negative effects this GE potato could have on our bodies. Tell the USDA not to approve this new, under-tested genetically engineered potato.
Once approved, the GE potato will likely be unlabeled. Because shoppers won't be able to tell the difference between regular potatoes and genetically engineered ones, they will have no way to avoid GE potatoes if they prefer not to eat them. We have just a few weeks to convince the USDA not to approve this GE potato — sign the petition today!
Say no to GE potatoes.
Thanks for taking action,
Jill Pape
Online Organizer
Food & Water Watch
act(at)fwwatch(dot)org
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A judge has ruled that opponents of the
Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska can proceed with their legal challenge
to a state law that paved the way for a new project route.
Lancaster County District Court Judge Stephanie Stacy on Tuesday rejected a motion by Nebraska state officials to dismiss the lawsuit.
The lawsuit filed by three Nebraska landowners asserts that Gov. Dave Heineman's decision to approve a new pipeline route was rooted in an unconstitutional state law. The law was passed during a special legislative session in 2011 as a way to reroute the pipeline away from Nebraska's environmentally sensitive Sandhills.
Stacy did not rule on the merits of the case, but said opponents should be allowed to present their
But we need your help to send a powerful reminder to the President today.
Thanks for speaking up,
Vanessa Kritzer
Online Campaigns Manager, League of Conservation Voters
I think the greatest gift of the Soviet Union to modern civilization
was
the dethronement of the clergy and the refusal to let religion be
taught in the public schools. Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.
There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.
W. E. B. Du Bois
s()
2min. news
leecamp
trnn b. black
tyt drones
tyt Hastings
tyt bill the spin
USA Today, Maddow and Iran Misinformation
Treating nuclear claims as facts
Treating nuclear claims as facts
6/21/13
| The recent elections in Iran may change some things--but inaccurate media depictions of Iran might not change much at all. After moderate presidential candidate Hasan Rowhani emerged victorious, USA Today (6/17/13) reported that he "is known for his negotiating skill over the country's nuclear weapons program." That is incorrect; Rowhani has represented the country in discussions of its atomic energy program. There have been charges that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program, but that is an allegation, not a fact (Extra!, 1/12); the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies is that Iran is not trying to make a nuclear weapon (New York Times, 2/24/12).
In a recent interview (Asharq Al-Awsat, 6/12/13),
Rowhani said that "Iran has an exclusively peaceful nuclear program....
Nuclear weapons have no role in Iran’s national security doctrine, and
therefore Iran has nothing to conceal."
But the notion that Iran has a weapons program is widely accepted in corporate media. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow (6/10/13) went farther in spreading misinformation:
The
current president of Iran has had the job for the last eight years.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he's known around the world for defending Iran's
pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Far
from "defending Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons," Ahmadinejad
regularly did the opposite, insisting that Iran had no such program, as a
simple Web search would reveal--see a CBS interview (9/24/12) from last year, helpfully titled "Iranian President Denies Iran Developing a Nuclear Weapon." Or as Reuters (11/8/12) quoted him, "The Iranian nation is not seeking an atomic bomb, nor do they need to build an atomic bomb."
Media
commentary about Iran's election results suggests there is an opening
to change the state of relations between Iran and the United States. But
U.S. media will make that more difficult if they cannot get these
simple facts straight.
|
|
The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier for Big Business to Screw the Little Guy
Here's the background on this decision:
The case, Italian Colors v. American Express,was brought by a California Italian restaurant and a group of other small businesses that tried to sue the credit card behemoth for antitrust violations. They allege Amex used its monopoly power to force them to accept its bank-issued knock-off credit cards as a condition of taking regular, more elite American Express cards—and then charging them 30 percent higher fees for the privilege.The 2nd Circuit repeatedly voted in favor of the merchants. It heard the case at least three times, including once after the high court reversed its original decision in favor of the restaurants, and it seemed fairly united in its belief that the Amex contract was unenforceable. But the Roberts Court has been no friend of small businesses or consumers, particularly those seeking to bring class actions against big companies. The court's conservative majority has made class action litigation much harder to bring, mostly notably in 2011 when it struck down a huge sex discrimination case brought by 1.5 million women working at Walmart.
The small businesses’ claims were pretty small individually, not more than around $5,000 per shop. So, to make their case worth enough for a lawyer to take it, they banded together to file a class action on behalf of all small businesses affected by the practice. In response, Amex invoked the small print in its contract with them: a clause that not only banned the companies from suing individually but also prevented them from bringing a class action. Instead, Amex insisted the contract required each little businesses to submit to the decision of a private arbitrator paid by Amex, and individually press their claims. (Arbitration is heavily stacked in favor of the big companies, as you can read more about here and here.)
The restaurants estimated, with good evidence, that because of the market research required to press an antitrust case, arbitration would cost each of them almost $1 million to collect a possible maximum of $38,000, making it impossible to bring their claims at all. After a lot of litigation, the little guys prevailed in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that the arbitration clause was unconscionable because it prevented the plaintiffs from having their claims heard in any forum. The court said the arbitration contract should be invalidated and that the class action should go forward in a regular courtroom. (Sonia Sotomayor sat on one of the appeals before heading to the high court and is recusing herself from the case as a result.)
That's one reason public interest lawyers have sounded the alarm about the Amex case for a year, noting that, given the court's current makeup, the case had potentially awful implications for anyone ripped off while using a credit card or cellphone and for small businesses trying to fend off corporate monopolies.
In an amicus brief submitted in this case on the side of the small businesses, lawyers for AARP, Public Justice, and the American Association for Justice warned that if the court sided with Amex, "statutes intended by Congress to protect weaker parties against stronger parties will essentially be gutted. Small businesses might as well move to a different country where they no longer enjoy the protection of the antitrust laws. At the whim of an employer, workers could be required to prospectively waive their Title VII [anti-discrimination] rights. Consumer protection laws such as the Truth in Lending Act could be silently, but inescapably, repealed by corporations with the stroke of a pen.”
Indeed, if the court ruled that Amex could use an arbitration clause in a contract with a much less powerful party to escape punishment under the Sherman Antitrust Act, there's no reason why a big company couldn't create contracts that prevent people from filing sex discrimination, consumer fraud, or other similar claims in any venue. Laws that Congress passed to protect the public could simply be voided through artfully written arbitration clauses that create expensive hurdles to pressing a claim.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion in the Amex case, seems to believe that this isn't a problem. He said that the law doesn't entitle every potential plaintiff a cheap route into court, noting that litigation outside arbitration is expensive, too, a fact that can keep people from exercising their legal rights. His argument boils down to this: The Federal Arbitration Act, a 1925 maritime law that the court has broadened to cover just about everything, trumps every other law on the books. So if a big company breaks the law and screws you, but you signed a contract with an arbitration clause giving away your right to sue or bring class action, you don't have a case, even if federal law says you do.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas invoked the fiction that the contract Italian Colors signed agreeing to arbitrate its claims individually with Amex was voluntary. But anyone who's ever tried to open a bank account knows it's virtually impossible to engage in commerce these days without being forced to sign a contract in which you forego your right to sue the company if it rips you off.
Justice Elena Kagan gets this point. In her biting dissent aimed squarely at Scalia, she called the majority opinion a "betrayal of our precedents and of federal statutes like antitrust laws." She observed that the court would never uphold an arbitration agreement that explicitly banned merchants from bringing an antitrust claim, yet that's effectively what the Amex contract does by compelling merchants to give up the option of class actions in court. She noted that by ignoring several precedents, the majority is providing companies "every incentive to draft their agreements to extract backdoor waivers of statutory rights." That is, they will use contracts to immunize themselves from laws they don't like.
Kagan was blunt: "If the arbitration clause is enforceable, Amex has insulated itself from antitrust liability—even if it has in fact violated the law. The monopolist gets to use its monopoly power to insist on a contract effectively depriving its victims of all legal recourse. And here is the nutshell version of today’s opinion, admirably flaunted rather than camouflaged: Too darn bad."
Posted: 20 Jun 2013 10:31 PM PDT
Cambodia’s
first REDD project is in trouble after two potential buyers of carbon
credits walked away after the government missed a deadline to sign off
on the carbon credit deal, reports the Cambodia Daily. The project has
been running since 2007. Started by Community Forestry International, in
2009 Pact Cambodia took over as the implementing [...]
Posted: 20 Jun 2013 09:49 PM PDT
20 June 2013
-
Microwaves use super-fast particles to literally radiate the contents
of water inside food and bring it to the boil. Not only has microwave
use been linked to causing infertility in men, but it also denatures
many of the essential proteins in the food making them virtually
indigestible.Most animals will only consume food in its natural, unprocessed state, but humans actually go out of their way to render food nutritionally worthless before eating it. It's no wonder that our health is in dire straits.
Robert Scheer, Truthdig
The name of the game is threat inflation. READ MORE»
By Alex Kane, AlterNet
A drone strike that killed 42 people is the focus of filmmaker Robert Greenwald's new video on the American war in Pakistan. READ MORE»
By Fiona Harvey, The Guardian
Chomsky responds to revelations of massive NSA spying. READ MORE»
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The CDC is lying to you again: flu reality vs. flu fiction
Jon Rappoport
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Fast-Tracking Toward War on Syria
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Recent Supreme Court decision hugely undermines your right to remain silent
Project Chess: Skype’s secret program aimed at making calls readily available
to intelligence agencies
Madison Ruppert
Financial Markets Freak Out When Fed Hints at Slowing Down Injections
Waste List: 66 Crazy Ways Govt Is Wasting Your Hard-Earned Money
Mass Carnage: Stocks, Bonds, Gold, Silver, Eur & Japan Get Pummeled
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Food, Guns, Gold: “The Record is Rather Clear On the Side of Commodity Money”
Obama’s Plan to Depopulate the Suburbs
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Smallest-ever laser dot shines a light on silicon alternatives
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This is what happens when you give boffins 3D printers
Congressional Cartel: List of Senators Who Betrayed Constituents in Favor of Biotech Dollars
Daisy Luther
Once upon a time, a system was designed in which “the people” elected
delegates to go to Washington DC. These members of Congress had the
specific duty of representing the wishes of their constituencies when
laws were being voted upon.The success of last weekend’s March Against Monsanto should have made it very clear that a great many people wish to see, at the very least, labels on toxic GMO foods. The fact that this success was covered up by the media does NOT mean that the members of Congress were unaware of it – just the opposite. Our success was frightening, and that is why it was covered up.
Despite that, the day before the event, an amendment to the farm bill that would have allowed the individual states to pass laws protecting consumers from unlabeled GMOs was quietly shot down in the Senate with a vote of 71-27 against this right. The timing of this betrayal, right before a long weekend, goes along with the general modus operandi of sliding through things that will meet with objections from the public when they are otherwise distracted.
The failure to pass this amendment was due in part to Monsanto mouthpiece Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chair of the Agriculture Committee. Stabenow, incidentally, received over three quarters of a million dollars from agribusiness interests ($739,926 to be exact) in agribusiness donations. Stabenow utilized the propaganda that is being dispersed by the likes of Monsanto and the Gates Foundation to argue her point:
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chair of the Agriculture Committee, spoke on behalf of the biotech giant seizing the opportunity to focus primarily on the myth that genetically modified ingredients feed the hungry people of the world, ignoring the fact that 64 countries now require GMO labeling.
“This particular amendment would interfere with the FDA’s science-based process to determine what food labeling is necessary for consumers,” Stabenow said. More here
These congressional folk cannot get re-elected/auctioned/bought/ or, how bout, won by majority of popular opine, if you guys knew how badly us commons are being stabbed in the back by the vary same we sent to put an end to this SHIT....do you know your enemy? you should
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Baldwin (D-WI)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Brown (D-OH)
Burr (R-NC)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Coons (D-DE)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Cowan (D-MA)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Enzi (R-WY)
Fischer (R-NE)
Franken (D-MN)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hagan (D-NC)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (D-SD)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kaine (D-VA)
Kirk (R-IL)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lee (R-UT)
Levin (D-MI)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Moran (R-KS)
Nelson (D-FL)
Paul (R-KY)
Portman (R-OH)
Pryor (D-AR)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rubio (R-FL)
Scott (R-SC)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Shelby (R-AL)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Thune (R-SD)
Toomey (R-PA)
Udall (D-CO)
Vitter (R-LA)
Warner (D-VA)
Warren (D-MA)
Wicker (R-MS)
Despite the vast campaign donations the politicians receive from special interest groups, the recent grassroots movements like Occupy Monsanto and March Against Monsanto have proven that activism works without the huge budget. Even though Monsanto has a kennel full of obedient pet congress members, we can defeat the biotech enemy by spreading information. Teaching the public about the dangers of consuming GMOs, the environmental and health tolls of Monsanto’s farming methods, and the unscrupulous business practices that are designed to put small farmers around the globe out of business, is our most powerful weapon.
This is a call to action. Use the list above to make it clear that we will not stand idly by while our elected representatives betray us for the benefit of Monsanto.
- Find the email addresses and phone numbers of your Senator HERE. Write them a polite letter or make a polite phone call. Firmly and courteously demand answers.
- Use public forums provided to you on your local level to share information about the selling out of our health by these elected officials. Write letters to the editor, post on social media, and hand out fliers, being sure to follow local ordinances. Always be courteous to encourage dialogue.
- Find your senator’s page on Facebook. Actively post in the comments sections and post on their timelines about your displeasure regarding their betrayals.
- Use the power of social media to spread the word that these senators are the friends of Monsanto, and thus the enemies of food freedom and GMO labeling.
Would you like genetically engineered fries with that?
Keep Genetically Engineered Potatoes Off Supermarket Shelves
Tell the USDA: Drop This Crop Like a Hot Potato!
Tell the USDA: Drop This Crop Like a Hot Potato!
These Potatoes
Are No Small Fries  |
You say potato, I say... trouble.
Apparently even the humble potato isn't safe from the biotech industry. There's now a genetically engineered (GE) potato up for approval in the USDA, and it's making public health activists cringe.
The potato, created by biotech company J.R. Simplot, has been altered to reduce "problems" that normal potatoes have, like black-spot browning. But altering even one enzyme in a plant can unintentionally affect other characteristics of the potato as well, meaning that there may be unintended health risks that we don't yet know about. Will you tell the USDA before July 2nd not to approve this under-tested and potentially unsafe GE potato?
The company intends to use its GE potato in processed foods like french fries and potato chips, and may even market the crop as a "healthier alternative" to normal potatoes. Such advertising would be incredibly misleading, because without more testing it's impossible to know what negative effects this GE potato could have on our bodies. Tell the USDA not to approve this new, under-tested genetically engineered potato.
Once approved, the GE potato will likely be unlabeled. Because shoppers won't be able to tell the difference between regular potatoes and genetically engineered ones, they will have no way to avoid GE potatoes if they prefer not to eat them. We have just a few weeks to convince the USDA not to approve this GE potato — sign the petition today!
Say no to GE potatoes.
Thanks for taking action,
Jill Pape
Online Organizer
Food & Water Watch
act(at)fwwatch(dot)org
Lancaster County District Court Judge Stephanie Stacy on Tuesday rejected a motion by Nebraska state officials to dismiss the lawsuit.
The lawsuit filed by three Nebraska landowners asserts that Gov. Dave Heineman's decision to approve a new pipeline route was rooted in an unconstitutional state law. The law was passed during a special legislative session in 2011 as a way to reroute the pipeline away from Nebraska's environmentally sensitive Sandhills.
Stacy did not rule on the merits of the case, but said opponents should be allowed to present their
USAction Member -- We have reached a dangerous new milestone on the global warming front.
Concentrations of carbon, the primary global warming pollutant, have
reached levels we haven't seen since the dinosaurs. If we don't take
immediate action soon, temperatures and sea levels will rise --
potentially displacing millions of people and wreaking havoc on life as
we know it.
But thankfully, there's still time to act. Please
join our friends at the League of Conservation Voters and tell Obama to
take action to curb global warming pollution from power plants. Click here to take action or read more below.
Sincerely,
Ross Wallen
USAction / TrueMajority
Ross Wallen
USAction / TrueMajority
 |
Dangerous New Milestone Reached
Dear USAction Member,
|
We
have reached a disturbing milestone -- concentrations of carbon
dioxide, the primary global warming pollutant, have hit 400 parts per
million in our planet's atmosphere.
The
last time there was this much carbon dioxide in our atmosphere was
millions of years ago -- and it had a catastrophic impact. Average
temperatures rose by as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit and sea levels
ranged between 16 to 131 feet higher than current levels.
But as daunting as this sounds, we don’t have to accept dirtier air and an increasingly warming planet as inevitable.
President Obama has the authority and the responsibility to enact the first-ever clean air safeguards that would cut carbon pollution from power plants.
But
unfortunately, the Obama administration just missed the deadline for
finalizing these critical standards for new power plants, and has yet to
propose similar standards for existing power plants. So we need your
help to make sure President Obama takes action as soon as possible.
President
Obama has spoken eloquently about our obligation to future generations
to address climate change. In this year’s State of the Union he said,
“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the
failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.”
But it’s been four months since that inspiring promise, and we haven’t seen action.
Power plants are the nation’s single largest source of climate change-inducing carbon pollution.
Unless
we dramatically slash the pollution they spew out, we’ll only see
climate change get worse -- with more threats to our health and
livelihood from extreme weather, smog, and more.
President
Obama can use his executive authority to hold polluters accountable and
cut this pollution. And he can also fight climate change by rejecting
the dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which would carry the most
carbon-intensive oil on earth.But we need your help to send a powerful reminder to the President today.
In
his first four years in office, President Obama made big progress in
addressing climate change by doubling U.S. use of wind and solar energy
and creating new fuel efficiency standards that will cut the amount of
global warming pollution from our tailpipes in half.
But
we have to remind him that we will only be able to protect our planet
with sustained action to combat climate change. With your help, we can
send him that message and work together for a cleaner, greener future.Thanks for speaking up,
Vanessa Kritzer
Online Campaigns Manager, League of Conservation Voters
Did
you see that the Big Oil billionaire Koch brothers are trying to buy
the Tribune Company's media assets? That would put newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune
under Koch control -- and help them spread their climate change-denying
propaganda in news outlets that we rely on right now for strong
coverage on important environmental issues.
Thanks,
 |
They’re
baaaaack! Did you think that the Big Oil billionaire Koch brothers were
finished after spending millions of dollars on losing races in last
year’s election? Think again.
Now the climate change-denying Koch brothers are taking aim at another critical pillar of our democracy: the news.
The
owners of the Tribune Company are selling their media assets --
including TV stations and newspapers across the country like the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune -- and the Koch brothers will snatch them up if we don’t take action now.
We
have already seen what the Koch brothers do with their dirty energy
money -- they poison our airwaves during elections, fund think tanks
that push propaganda for climate change denial, and get their
congressional cronies to block action to protect the air we breathe and
water we drink.
The
Koch brothers cannot be allowed to control some of the most respected
newspapers in the country in order to peddle their anti-science,
anti-environment agenda.
Luckily,
we’re not the only ones who see this as a major problem. Environmental
groups, unions, and civil rights groups across the country have come
together to form the Coalition to Save Our News -- and they’ve already
delivered more than 500,000 petitions to key players at the Tribune
Company! But as the decision draws closer, they need our help to keep
the pressure on.
Millions of readers rely on papers like the LA Times and Chicago Tribune
for strong coverage on important environmental issues. In the past year
alone, these papers have featured editorials from climate scientists,
exposés on public health threats like cancer-causing chemicals in our
furniture, and important endorsements in elections that many use as a
guide when they go to the ballot box.
If
the Koch brothers take control of these news sources, they will not
only have a powerful platform for their anti-science propaganda, but
they will also silence the coverage on critical issues that the public
needs to learn about.
But this isn’t a done deal. If enough of us speak out, we can convince the Tribune Company to reject the Koch brothers’ offer. Will you help us make that happen by adding your name to our petition now?
Thanks so much,
Vanessa Kritzer
Online Campaigns Manager
League of Conservation Voters
Vanessa Kritzer
Online Campaigns Manager
League of Conservation Voters
P.S. The Tribune’s newspapers include the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Sun Sentinel, Orlando Sentinel, Hartford Courant, Morning Call, Daily Press, and the Spanish-language papers Hoy and El Sentinel. If you read any of these papers or just care about keeping our news Koch-free, add your name to our petition here >>
Thanks to Forecast the Facts for the image.
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