Unhealthy Reform

[Dusty]

Those wily, wascles -

But all those claims were put to the test -- all those bluffs were called -- once the White House decided that it had to use reconciliation to pass a final health care reform bill. That meant that any changes to the Senate bill (which had passed with 60 votes) -- including the addition of the public option -- would only require 50 votes, which Democrats assured progressives all year long that they had. Great news for the public option, right? Wrong. As soon as it actually became possible to pass it, the 50 votes magically vanished. Senate Democrats (and the White House) were willing to pretend they supported a public option only as long as it was impossible to pass it. Once reconciliation gave them the opportunity they claimed all year long they needed -- a "majority rule" system -- they began concocting ways to ensure that it lacked 50 votes.

[Dusty]

Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan Goes to Bat for Monsanto, Sides With Conservative Justices

"USDA should start over and truly evaluate the contamination of non-GM alfalfa and the potential affects on seed growers, organic and natural meat producers, dairy producers, and conventional and organic honey producers," said farmer and anti-GE advocate Todd Leake shortly after the ruling.

Monsanto, however, didn't back down and appealed the Ninth Circuit's decision to the US Supreme Court. In stepped Elena Kagan, whose role as solicitor general is to look out for the welfare of American citizens in all matters that come before the high court.

Unfortunately, Kagan opted to ditch her duty and instead side with Monsanto. In March 2010, a month before the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case, the solicitor general's office released a legal brief despite the fact that the US government was not a defendant in the case.

As Kagan's office argued, "The judgment of the court of appeals should be reversed, and the case should be remanded with instructions to vacate the permanent injunction entered by the district court."

Thanks, Obama.

[Bob Richards]

Do you want lettuce, or sprouts, on that?

[Dusty]

Do you want lettuce, or sprouts, on that?

Both, please, and a sprig of alfalfa, thank you.

[Bob Richards]

A genetically modified organism if I've ever seen one!

[Tom D Ford]

Monsantos' mono-culture crops are going to cause massive and disastrous crop failures at some time and make the Irish potato famine look puny. At some point nature will evolve a variation in some insect, virus, fungus, bacteria, weed, or some damn thing and the entire corn or soy or other crop will go down the shitter and everything based on that crop will turn to shit, starving people, killing jobs, towns, and whole industries, maybe even countries, and Monsanto will testify that no-one could have predicted such a problem and "don't blame us".

And they'll blame the consumers for "demanding" those crops.

Whatever most consumers shit out, Monsanto had a hand in it. Corn, soy, on and on.


They're taking over crop after crop and turning non-gmo growers into criminals by proxy. Oh, your crop has been contaminated by our gmo pollen? Then you're stealing our patented seeds and we'll sue you out of business!

It is less than optimal.

[Dusty]

Yep.

"A new earthquake" is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto's seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.

It's remarkable that the second democracy in our hemisphere has been so brutalized by the first.

[Bob Richards]

It's remarkable that the second democracy in our hemisphere has been so brutalized by the first.

Democracying while Black? Up against the wall, scumbags!

[Dusty]

They're also determined to say no to stuff they know is not good for them.

Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds

Doesn't it warm your heart to see Obama still running interference for crooked corporations?

Low Estimate of Oil Spill's Size Could Save BP Millions in Court

WASHINGTON - BP's estimate that only 5,000 barrels of oil are leaking daily from a well in the Gulf of Mexico, which the Obama administration hasn't disputed, could save the company millions of dollars in damages when the financial impact of the spill is resolved in court, legal experts say.

A month after a surge of gas from the undersea well engulfed the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in flames and triggered the massive leak that now threatens sea life, fisheries and tourist centers in five Gulf coast states, neither BP nor the federal government has tried to measure at the source the amount of crude pouring into the water.

[Tom D Ford]

Henh, we three grumpy old men.

[Dusty]

Henh, we three grumpy old men.

Well...I mean, who wants salt water in their petrol?

[Tom D Ford]

They're also determined to say no to stuff they know is not good for them.

Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds

Doesn't it warm your heart to see Obama still running interference for crooked corporations?

Low Estimate of Oil Spill's Size Could Save BP Millions in Court

WASHINGTON - BP's estimate that only 5,000 barrels of oil are leaking daily from a well in the Gulf of Mexico, which the Obama administration hasn't disputed, could save the company millions of dollars in damages when the financial impact of the spill is resolved in court, legal experts say.

A month after a surge of gas from the undersea well engulfed the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in flames and triggered the massive leak that now threatens sea life, fisheries and tourist centers in five Gulf coast states, neither BP nor the federal government has tried to measure at the source the amount of crude pouring into the water.

They'll probably put those peasants in jail for destroying property.

I don't know of anything or anyone the gov has to either measure or stop oil well problems. I don't see how anyone can blame Obama for that spill. Maybe the Coast Guard ought to have a section dedicated to oceanic oil well problems, how to stop them and prevent them and all that. Maybe make them the very serious regulators of oceanic drilling.

Drill baby drill? And what a thrill when it kills! But not to the public and small businesses. The little guys and the public are getting fucked again by big Oil.

We really ought to keep that oil "capped" and "trade" in some other form of energy.

[Dusty]

I don't see how anyone can blame Obama for that spill.

Maybe, but one thing is for sure is his hyping of off shore drilling, "clean coal" [sic] and more nuclear reactors looks an awful lot like he is as supportive of those ridiculous energy programs as Bush was.

Louisiana now has a lot of free oil though.

[Bob Richards]

I heard a self-professed psychic on the radio say that after the hurricanes come through the Gulf of Mexico this year, that toxic rains will fall all over the Southeast.

He also said this Korea thing is going to blow up big-time and involve guess who?

[Dusty]

I heard a self-professed psychic on the radio say that after the hurricanes come through the Gulf of Mexico this year, that toxic rains will fall all over the Southeast.

He also said this Korea thing is going to blow up big-time and involve guess who?

Yea, and the poor media industrial complex no longer has time to talk about occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or health care. Or franken foods. Or domestic spying. Or millionaire mining assholes, and on and on...this all must be that change we should believe in.