Saturday, August 17, 2013

Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

By 


On May 31st, president Barack Obama strolled into the bright sunlight of the Rose Garden, covered from head to toe in the slime and ooze of the Benghazi and IRS scandals. In a Karl Rove-ian masterstroke, he simply pretended they weren't there and changed the subject.

The topic? Student loans. Unless Congress took action soon, he warned, the relatively low 3.4 percent interest rates on key federal student loans would double. Obama knew the Republicans would make a scene over extending the subsidized loan program, and that he could corner them into looking like obstructionist meanies out to snatch the lollipop of higher education from America's youth. "We cannot price the middle class or folks who are willing to work hard to get into the middle class," he said sternly, "out of a college education."
Flash-forward through a few months of brinkmanship and name-calling, and not only is nobody talking about the IRS anymore, but the Republicans and Democrats are snuggled in bed together on the student-loan thing, having hatched a quick-fix plan on July 31st to peg interest rates to Treasury rates, ensuring the rate for undergrads would only rise to 3.86 percent for the coming year.
Though this was just the thinnest of temporary solutions – Congressional Budget Office projections predicted interest rates on undergraduate loans under the new plan would still rise as high as 7.25 percent within five years, while graduate loans could reach an even more ridiculous 8.8 percent – the jobholders on Capitol Hill couldn't stop congratulating themselves for their "rare" "feat" of bipartisan cooperation. "This proves Washington can work," clucked House Republican Luke Messer of Indiana, in a typically autoerotic assessment of the work done by Beltway pols like himself who were now freed up for their August vacations.
Not only had the president succeeded in moving the goal posts on his spring scandals, he'd teamed up with the Republicans to perpetuate a long-standing deception about the education issue: that the student-loan controversy is now entirely about interest rates and/or access to school loans.
Obama had already set himself up as a great champion of student rights by taking on banks and greedy lenders like Sallie Mae. Three years earlier, he'd scored what at the time looked like a major victory over the Republicans with a transformative plan to revamp the student-loan industry. The 2010 bill mostly eliminated private banks and lenders from the federal student-loan business. Henceforth, the government would lend college money directly to students, with no middlemen taking a cut. The president insisted the plan would eliminate waste and promised to pass the savings along to students in the form of more college and university loans, including $36 billion in new Pell grants over 10 years for low-income students. Republican senator and former Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander bashed the move as "another Washington takeover."
The thing is, none of it – not last month's deal, not Obama's 2010 reforms – mattered that much. No doubt, seeing rates double permanently would genuinely have sucked for many students, so it was nice to avoid that. And yes, it was theoretically beneficial when Obama took banks and middlemen out of the federal student-loan game. But the dirty secret of American higher education is that student-loan interest rates are almost irrelevant. It's not the cost of the loan that's the problem, it's the principal – the appallingly high tuition costs that have been soaring at two to three times the rate of inflation, an irrational upward trajectory eerily reminiscent of skyrocketing housing prices in the years before 2008.


How is this happening? It's complicated. But throw off the mystery and what you'll uncover is a shameful and oppressive outrage that for years now has been systematically perpetrated against a generation of young adults. For this story, I interviewed people who developed crippling mental and physical conditions, who considered suicide, who had to give up hope of having children, who were forced to leave the country, or who even entered a life of crime because of their student debts.
They all take responsibility for their own mistakes. They know they didn't arrive at gorgeous campuses for four golden years of boozing, balling and bong hits by way of anybody's cattle car. But they're angry, too, and they should be. Because the underlying cause of all that later-life distress and heartache – the reason they carry such crushing, life-alteringly huge college debt – is that our university-tuition system really is exploitative and unfair, designed primarily to benefit two major actors.
First in line are the colleges and universities, and the contractors who build their extravagant athletic complexes, hotel-like dormitories and God knows what other campus embellishments. For these little regional economic empires, the federal student-loan system is essentially a massive and ongoing government subsidy, once funded mostly by emotionally vulnerable parents, but now increasingly paid for in the form of federally backed loans to a political constituency – low- and middle-income students – that has virtually no lobby in Washington.
Next up is the government itself. While it's not commonly discussed on the Hill, the government actually stands to make an enormous profit on the president's new federal student-loan system, an estimated $184 billion over 10 years, a boondoggle paid for by hyperinflated tuition costs and fueled by a government-sponsored predatory-lending program that makes even the most ruthless private credit-card company seem like a "Save the Panda" charity. Why is this happening? The answer lies in a sociopathic marriage of private-sector greed and government force that will make you shake your head in wonder at the way modern America sucks blood out of its young.
In the early 2000s, a thirtysomething scientist named Alan Collinge seemed to be going places. He had graduated from USC in 1999 with a degree in aerospace engineering and landed a research job at Caltech. Then he made a mistake: He asked for a raise, didn't get it, lost his job and soon found himself underemployed and with no way to repay the roughly $38,000 in loans he'd taken out to get his degree.
Collinge's creditor, Sallie Mae, which originally had been a quasi-public institution but, in the late Nineties, had begun transforming into a wholly private lender, didn't answer his requests for a forbearance or a restructuring. So in 2001, he went into default. Soon enough, his original $38,000 loan had ballooned to more than $100,000 in debt, thanks to fees, penalties and accrued interest. He had a job as a military contractor, but he lost it when his employer ran a credit check on him. His whole life was now about his student debt.
Collinge became so upset that, while sitting on a buddy's couch in Tacoma, Washington, one night in 2005 and nursing a bottle of Jack Daniel's, he swore that he'd see Sallie Mae on 60 Minutes if it was the last thing he did. In what has to be a first in the history of drunken bullshitting, it actually happened. "Lo and behold, I ended up being featured on 60 Minutes within about a year," he says. In 2006, he got to tell his debt story to Lesley Stahl for a piece on Sallie Mae's draconian lending tactics that, curiously enough, Sallie Mae itself refused to be interviewed for.
From that point forward, Collinge – who founded the website StudentLoanJustice.org – became what he calls "a complaint box for the industry." He heard thousands of horror stories from people like himself, and over the course of many years began to wonder more and more about one particular recurring theme, what he calls "the really significant thing – the sticker price." Why was college so expensive?
Read more here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ripping-off-young-america-the-college-loan-scandal-20130815#ixzz2cIKcLPdJ


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FEMA Preparing For The Worst In Region 3- Why? (Video)

Wake Up America – by Susan Duclos



Well this is pretty creepy. According to a notice sent by Senator Sheldon R. Songstad, Ret. ofSouth Dakota State and published, with a video, which will be shown below, titled “Emergency Fema Region 3 Alert!!!,” the government obviously believes something big is coming.   
Region three includes, DC, DE, MD, PA, VA, WV.
The preparations listed include; Nine-week training course for UN Peacekeepers in CONUS to learn Urban Warfare, English, and US weapons systems beginning 4th week of July for 386,000 troops to be completed by October 1st;
$11 million in antibiotics to be delivered to FEMA region III by October 1st ordered by CDC;
FEMA purchase orders for over $14.2 million for MREs and heater meals to be delivered to Region III by October 1st;
FEMA purchase orders for 22 million pouches of emergency water to be delivered to region III by October 1st;
FEMA purchase orders for $13.6 million for MREs and heater meals to be delivered to Austin by October 1st;
2800 MRAPs must be delivered to DHS by October 1st;
(VIDEO) URGENT!!! POSSIBLE EMERGENCY ALERT FOR FEMA REGION III

The copied email alert, in full, below:
Emergency Fema Region 3 Alert!!!
FEMA Region III: DC, DE, MD, PA, VA, WV
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2013 6:43 AM
Subject: National update from Sheldon: Senator Sheldon R. Songstad, Ret. of South Dakota State
A few nights ago Donald Trump was with Greta on Fox News. He told her something BIG was going to happen, most likely starting the first week of October. He could say NOTHING ELSE at this time.
HERE IS WHAT WHAT THE SENATORS NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS RESEARCH TURNED UP…
FEMA purchase orders for over $14.2 million for MREs and heater meals to be delivered to Region III by October 1st.
FEMA purchase orders for 22 million pouches of emergency water to be delivered to region III by October 1st.
FEMA purchase orders for $13.6 million for MREs and heater meals to be delivered to Austin by October 1st.
Nine-week training course for UN Peacekeepers in CONUS to learn Urban Warfare, English, and US weapons systems beginning 4th week of July for 386,000 troops to be completed by October 1st.
$11 million in antibiotics to be delivered to FEMA region III by October 1st ordered by CDC.
World Health Organization held second emergency meeting in its history to discuss MERS Coronavirus. Determined a vaccine MUST be in place by October 1st.
2800 MRAPs must be delivered to DHS by October 1st.
No leave will be allowed for US military from September 28th thru November 5th. NORCOMM yearly training for civil unrest suspended until September 27th. To be performed in northeast coastal areas.
Date for release of QE3 report moved to October 16th.
All DHS agents MUST qualify with sidearm, shotgun and AR 15 by September 28th. No mention of yearly less lethal qualification.
Sporadic testing of GPS and Communications satellites is coordinated for the first time with a testing date of September 29th.
POTUS mandates to FEMA and DHS concerning support for metropolitan communities dealing with the extreme climate change MUST be complete by October 1st. These mandates were issued during the last three weeks.
Over 300 school systems in the US have determined they need three-day kits for each school AND three-day kits for each student to take with them. All deliveries are scheduled for the month of September.
All National Guard units will complete riot control and disaster assistance training during this years annual two week training. All units MUST have their training complete by September 30th.
Daily testing of the Emergency Broadcast System to begin on September 25th and run thru October 2nd.
Eastern-based Coast Guard units to perform massive group training, usually performed in the Gulf, in the Virginia and Delaware areas. This is a 10-day training mission to begin September 26th.
“GOD, PLEASE HELP AMERICA”
Sheldon R. Songstad
Senator Retired: South Dakota State

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The Collapse of World Trade Center 1: Madrid Windsor Building Exposes a Fundamental Flaw


The Windsor Building was of a similar truss design to the twin towers, the fire started 11 stories from the top of the building, and it burned at temperatures of 800ºC for more than 18 hours [AFP]. The core of the building did not fail.

The fire in WTC 1 is reported to have burned at 800ºC and was located roughly 17 stories from the top of the building meaning the inner core supported only 6 additional floors of weight above the fire zone in comparison to the Windsor Building. WTC 1 collapsed after only 85 minutes, reportedly through core failure.

Don't you find this odd?

Let's take a look at the cores of the buildings.
Windsor Building Core:
WTC 1 Core:
See
It is obvious that the core of WTC 1 was far more robust than the Windsor Building's core - this is to be expected since the building was 110 storeys high.

The core was designed to support the entire weight of the buildings several times over. Far more than a mere "service core", it comprised of 47 steel box columns tied together at each floor by steel plates, similar to the 52" deep spandrel plates that tied the perimeter columns together. The largest of these core columns were 18"x36", with steel walls 4" thick near the base and tapering in thickness toward the top, and was anchored directly to the bedrock.

Okay, the core of WTC 1 was solid, but an airliner flew directly fly into it. Could this be the reason for the quick collapse?

The aluminum wings and the planes' fuselage would have been almost instantly shredded into pieces the size of an adult's fist, said Tomasz Wierzbicki, director of the impact and crashworthiness laboratory at M.I.T. Engines and other heavy parts continued to the core, but by working out the amount of energy involved, Dr. Wierzbicki and a student, Liang Xue, determined that at most half the inner columns could have been broken or severely mangled. [New York Times]

The above indicates that at least 50% of WTC 1's core was intact after Flight 11 hit the building, and the fact that the building remained standing proves the intact core columns could support the weight of floors above the impact level without problems.

This leaves a quandary because we are told that the 800ºC temperatures which the Windsor Building's core columns withstood for 18 hours wrecked the intact core columns of WTC 1 in only 85 minutes.

Okay, let's assume that some of WTC 1's remaining core columns of were damaged by the plane impact, maybe this could account for the quick collapse of the building. Well, this might be plausible if an 800ºC fire burned at the airliner impact level, but these temperatures did not exist inside WTC 1.

When you add to the above the mysterious demise of the building's core you have to conclude that either a fundamental flaw existed in WTC 1's inner core construction, or a fundamental flaw exists in the official explanation of the building's collapse.

"The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it, that was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building could probably sustain multiple impacts of jet liners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door - this intense grid - and the plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting."

See also:


THINK!

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Should online jokes be criminal?

posted by CharlesB in IN THE NEWS


BBC News wonders why a Canadian woman can have a Texas teen jailed because she doesn't like him.
A $500,000 bail?
Petition to Free Jailed League of Legends Player Reaches 100,000 Sigs
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125833-Petition-to-Free-Jailed...
"According to his lawyer, Carter has been assaulted multiple times by other inmates and is thus now being held in solitary confinement; he's also fallen into a depression and is now under suicide watch. He rejected a plea bargain offer of eight years in prison, and so on April 10 was indicted on charges of making terroristic threats "with the intent to cause impairment or interruption of communications, public transportation, public water, gas or public supply or other public service" and to "place the public or a substantial group of the public in fear of serious bodily injury."--Andy Chalk | 9 July 2013
Justin Carter case: Should online jokes be criminal?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23188875
When A Teen's 'Sarcastic' Facebook Message Goes Terribly Wrong
http://www.businessinsider.com/teen-justin-carter-faces-trial-and-jail-f...
Kid imprisoned for 5 months, assaulted, and currently held in solitary confinement on suicide watch, Now facing 8 more years in prison all just for a joke he made on facebook.
http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1hzrb4/kid_imprisoned_for_5_months...
"In February, Justin Carter, then 18, was engaged in a Facebook dispute with someone from his online gaming community. The gamer called Carter mentally disturbed on a public wall, and Carter, with withering sarcasm and a teenager's poor judgment, wrote back:
I think Ima shoot up a kindergarten
And watch the blood of the innocent rain down
And eat the beating heart of one of them.
Carter and his lawyer insist the statement was a joke - albeit one in poor taste. But it's hard to read sarcasm over the internet.
Soon a Texas law enforcement agency received an anonymous tip from Canada. Carter's home was searched and he was arrested. Now, he's been sitting in jail for almost five months, unable to pay the $500,000 (£334,470) bond required for his release."
--By Kate Dailey, BBC News
"Justin Carter is being reported by his dad to have
"concussions, black eyes, moved four times...for his own protection.
This is worth contemplating and thinking more about: being behind bars
in America is a serious thing with serious consequences, and it's
horrible to be used as a quick general interest problem-solving tool.
Especially so for victimless crimes."
--Brian Doherty
Father: Teen Jailed For Facebook Comment Beaten Up Behind Bars
http://m.npr.org/news/U.S./198129617
‘Concussions, Black Eyes…Put in Solitary Confinement, Nude, for Days’:
TX Teen Jailed for Facebook Comment Reportedly Suffering Behind Bars,
on Suicide Watch
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/03/concussions-black-eyes-put-in...
Teen jailed since February for making online comment about 'shooting
up a school full of kids' is on suicide watch because faces eight
YEARS in prison even though he says it was just a joke
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356244/Justin-Carter-Father-say...

Friday, August 16, 2013

WHY IS BARRETT BROWN FACING 100 YEARS IN PRISON?


By Patrick McGuire


It was announced on Wednesday morning that Barrett Brown, a man who became a very public talking head for AnonOps (the brain trust that is arguably the cortex of the hacktivist group Anonymous, even though there technically isn’t one) is facing up to 100 years in jail for three separate indictments. Two of the indictments—the threatening of an FBI officer in a YouTube video and the concealing of evidence—do not seem worthy of such a harsh sentence, consideringa man in Houston recieved only 42 months for threatening to blow up an FBI building, and a former dentist got 18 months for threatening to kill an FBI agent. The third, however, pertains to Barrett Brown's pasting of a link in an Anonymous IRC chat room to a document full of credit card numbers and their authentication codes that was stolen from the security company Stratfor, in the midst of a hack that released over five million internal emails. Those emails were published to Wikileaks. Some writers have rightfully raised their concerns about the legalities behind sharing a link that points to stolen material (which is why I have not linked to those five million emails) and whether or not that should be an indictable offense. However, Barrett’s work and research into Stratfor tells a much more complicated and disturbing story than a pile of stolen Visa cards.

Video of Barrett Brown being arrested
Barrett Brown Busted: In the middle of a TinyChat, the FBI walk in and arrest the Anonymous hacker/journalist/fameball. The real action starts at about 1:31 for the impatient. 


It’s obvious by looking at the most recent posts on Barrett Brown’s blog that while he is highly interested in Stratfor, it wasn’t the credit card information that motivated him. When those five million emails leaked, a product called TrapWire, which was created by a company called Abraxas, was revealed to the public at large. And it caused a media shitstorm. In 2005, the founder of Abraxas and former head of the CIA’s European division, Richard Helms, described TrapWire as software that is installed inside of surveillance camera systems that is, “more accurate than facial recognition” with the ability to “draw patterns, and do threat assessments of areas that may be under observation from terrorists.” As Russia Today reported, one of the leaked emails, allegedly written by Stratfor’s VP of Intelligence, Fred Burton, stated that TrapWire was at “high-value targets” in “the UK, Canada, Vegas, Los Angeles, NYC.
Now, the TrapWire software has largely been dismissed as, nothing to “freak out” over and that hopefully is the case. However, far beyond what the surveillance software itself can or can’t do, the revelation that TrapWire exists has caused a chain reaction of discoveries that have seemingly revealed a mob of very powerful cybersecurity firms.
Barrett Brown was doing some very serious investigating into a company called Cubic from San Diego, that was alleged to own TrapWire as a subsidiary of their firm. This is an allegation that they officially denied. However, these tax filings from 2010 that Barrett uncovered clearly state that Cubic had in fact merged with Abraxas Corporation. If you click through and take a look, you can see that Richard Helms’s name is right there on the top of the first page.
Alongside Abraxas and Cubic on those tax filings is another company called Ntrepid. According to Florida State’s records of corporations, Richard Helms is the director of that company. In 2011, Barrett’s work helped lead the Guardian to their report that Ntrepid won a $2.76 million-dollar contract from Centcom (U.S. Central Command), to create “online persona management” software, also known as “sockpuppetry.” To break it down in plain English, online persona management was created to populate social networks with a bunch of fake and believable social media personas to “influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.”
Ntrepid also has a product they call Tartan, that’s detailed in this internal presentation hosted by the Wall Street Journal. In Ntrepid’s own parlance, they describe Tartan as a program that can “Analyze illicit organizations and less structured social networks by identifying: Ranks of influence within human networks… [and can] end the use of [online] aliases.” Clearly they are looking to dismantle the smoke and mirrors that groups like Anonymous maintain, by hanging out in chatrooms where they do not need to identify themselves officially, with many private communications happening at once. This creates a difficult to penetrate den, where people can easily hide online. Evidently, Ntrepid is seeking to pull all of that apart with Tartan.

In another document on Ntrepid letterhead, titled “Tartan Influence Model: Anarchist Groups,” Tartan is positioned as a software tool that can help combat domestic protestors who operate in “an amorphous network of anarchist and protest groups” and suggests that these groups are prone to violence. They name Occupy Wall Street and Occupy D.C. as part of the problem, and have “built Occupy networks through online communication with anarchists.” By identifying the threat of anarchistic, supposedly violent protestors, Tartan sells its services by saying their software “identifies the hidden relationships among organizers of seemingly unrelated movements… To mitigate the ability of anarchists to incite violence… Law enforcement must identify the complex network of relationships among anarchist leaders.” So, beyond taking apart movements that exist solely online, Tartan is looking to come out and crush real world protest movements as well.
A lot of this information and the connections between it all would not be easy to figure out were it not for Barrett Brown. For one, Barrett started ProjectPM, a wiki that is completely dedicated to piecing together all of this information about surveillance companies in the United States. He even got on the phone with a representative at Cubic to tell them that their company was full of liars and that they do in fact own TrapWire. Without Barrett Brown, tons of this research would likely have gone unearthed. Besides a few journalists, not many people have been looking into this information. The one other group that does is called Telecomix, the guys who are famous for supplying dial-up internet lines to areas of the world with oppressive dictatorships, and who I interviewed about the Gaza conflict here. They operate the Bluecabinet Wiki, and they worked very closely with Barrett Brown to uncover more information about the network of cybersecurity firms.
I talked to one of the volunteers at Telecomix, who strongly believes in the work that Barrett did to connect all of these very confusing dots: “I haven't seen reporters really taking a hard look at what Barrett Brown, the investigative journalist, was researching and where it leads to. His discovery that TrapWire = Abraxas and that there is CIA involvement is very important.  Do you know in Berlin right now a game was started to destroy surveillance cameras in public places? Barrett apparently was reading through the emails of HBGary and Stratfor, linking the data to the specific surveillance companies and contractors… It is an extremely time consuming task.”
Barrett Brown was not a hacker. He did not infiltrate any systems, nor did he appear to know how to do anything of the sort (he did try to take down the Mexican drug cartels in 2011, but that is a whole other story). Barrett was an investigative journalist who has been published in theGuardianVanity FairHuffington Post, and Business Week. He closely (perhaps too closely) aligned himself with Anonymous, and dug into some very serious, complicated, and high-level issues pertaining to the future of America’s cyberwar conquests. In light of recent news that the Pentagon wants 4,000 new “hackers for cyber command,” it’s clear that the US’ infrastructure for private cyber defense companies is only growing, and their motives are oftentimes confusing and frightening.
Clearly there is so much more to the Stratfor leak than a bunch of credit card numbers—and the truth behind it all, along with Barrett Brown’s possible century-long jail sentence—is a scary prospect for journalists, privacy advocates, and internet activists alike. As Barrett Brown himself said regarding the leak of Stratfor emails and the credit card numbers within them that some hackers from Anonymous used to donate money to charities: “Much of the media has focused on the fact that some participants in the attack chose to use obtained customer credit card numbers to make donations to charitable causes. Although this aspect of the operation is indeed newsworthy, and, like all things, should be scrutinized and criticized as necessary, the original purpose and ultimate consequence of the operation has been largely ignored.”
Follow Patrick on Twitter: @patrickmcguire

Political and corporate elite shun GMO food on their own plate

October 08, 2012 by: Carolanne Wright



With a sad twist of irony, corporate and government elite dine on safe, organic food while the masses, those very people who are supposedly represented and protected by their governments, are poisoned by hidden genetically modified organisms, pesticides and dangerous contaminants. The presidential family demands organic food in their kitchen, yet behind closed doors, shake hands with the biotech industry. China's top brass is fed by an exclusive, gated organic garden while the rest of the population consumes GM food, steroid contaminated meat and dairy laced with melamine. Even Monsanto's own employee's command non-genetically modified food in their canteen. Access to clean, organic and healthy food is not a given right anymore -- it has become a political battleground with the average citizen suffering the loss.

White House double-take

While First Lady Michelle Obama digs up the White House lawn to plant an organic garden, her husband promotes a GMO agenda within his administration. "You know, in my household, over the last year we have just shifted to organic," she said in a New Yorker interview during Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Organic produce from the garden feeds the Obama family and visiting dignitaries alike. Seems okay so far. But then take a look at Obama's laundry-list of presidential appointed positions with biotech ties: USDA head Roger Beachy, a former director at Monsanto, FDA food safety czar Michael Taylor, one-time vice president for public policy at Monsanto, Commissioner of the USDA Tom Vilsack who created the Governors' Biotechnology Partnership. Under President Obama, 10 new GM crops have been approved for 'safe consumption.'

Spiked fences protect organic gardens from the people

The political elite in China enjoy the safest of food -- organic produce, grass-fed beef from Inner Mongolia, rice free of pesticides, chemicals or genetically modified organisms. Compare this with the food supply of ordinary citizens that is laden with pesticides, industrial chemicals and GMOs. Children have become sick and died from tainted baby formula and milk products. Blindness and death have resulted from adults consuming fake liquor. Yet Chinese leaders have their own protected food sources of the highest quality. In Beijing, an organic farm is surrounded by a six-foot spiked fence while security personnel guard the entrance. The garden produces food for top-notch officials only. Beidaihe Sanitorium, a seaside haven for retired party cadres, exclusively uses a specialty rice that is organic and free of GMOs. As for the public, they can purchase the small remaining surplus of the grain at 15 times the cost of regular rice. All the while, the government continues to approve GMOs and harmful chemicals for general consumption.

GMO-free meals at Monsanto

Remember the notice at a Monsanto staff canteen stating the decision "to remove, as far as practicable, GM soya and maize from all food products served in our restaurant. We have taken the above steps to ensure that you, the customer, can feel confident in the food we serve." According to Tony Coombes, the company's spokesperson, "Yes, this is the case, and it is because we believe in choice."

Evidently the average citizen is not allowed the same courtesy of choice considering GMOs have infiltrated the food supply and are not labeled in North America. Only those who can afford the price tag of organic food are able to protect themselves from harmful contaminants. As for the rest of the population, they are the ones who will suffer the devastating health consequences of a corrupt system.

Sources for this article include:

"Meet Monsanto's Number One Lobbyist: Barack Obama" Jon Rappoport. Infowars, September 24, 2012. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://www.infowars.com

"White House Will Not say Where It Gets Its Meat (And I Don't Blame Them)" David Kirby, Huff Post Green, April 20, 2010. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

"Does Monsanto Man Mitt Romney Secretly Eat Organic?" Tom Philpott. MotherJones, September 26, 2012. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://www.motherjones.com

"In China, what you eat tells who you are" Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2011. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://articles.latimes.com

"Amid milk scare, China's elite eat all-organic" Associated Press, NBC News, September 24, 2008. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26874854/#.UGrObal9mlI

"GM food banned in Monsanto canteen" Michael McCarthy, The Independent, December 22, 1999. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://www.independent.co.uk

About the author:
Carolanne enthusiastically believes if we want to see change in the world, we need to be the change. As a nutritionist, natural foods chef and wellness coach, Carolanne has encouraged others to embrace a healthy lifestyle of organic living, gratefulness and joyful orientation for over 13 years. Through her websitewww.Thrive-Living.net she looks forward to connecting with other like-minded people who share a similar vision. 

Find at Diaspora: thriveliving@joindiaspora.com

Follow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Thrive_Living 

At Facebook, connect here: www.facebook.com/pages/Thrive-Living/499578863433146

For Pinterest fans: www.pinterest.com/thriveliving/natural-news/

SOURCE: http://www.naturalnews.com/037466_gm_food_global_elite_organic_gardens.html#ixzz2cAqAIH3n


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(VIDEO) The War You Don't See



This is a film by John Pilger, revealing the hidden truth of the Iraq invasion, and highlights the Media's compliance in the propaganda, of selling the war to the public, and their failure to report the whole truth of the various conflicts currently occurring in the middle east, and previously in Vietnam, WW1 and WW2.





















(VIDEO) The War You Don't See

 


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Big Money at Clinton Foundation Funneled to Cronies, Global Deals

By  


(Truthstream Media.com)

Neo-colonialism has a philanthropic face.

Philanthropic and charitable foundations operating at the global level typically play by a different set of rules benefiting non-profit, tax free and offshore status, etc., in a different set of rules, where “aid” “relief” and “help” often taken on different meanings than those of the do-gooder planted in the minds of the public through propaganda and celebrity endorsement.
At the center of the current scandal is the Clinton Global Initiative, after a NYT report calling attention to the fact that the foundation is running a deficit of several million dollars while hauling in nearly half a billion dollars over a ten year period.
Where does that money come from and where does it go?
(VIDEO) Big Money at Clinton Foundation Funneled to Cronies, Global Deals


Private philanthrophy and NGOs help steer the ship of globalism by transforming third worlddeveloping nations in need of some Western interventionalist-aid administered by UN divisions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and regional development banks. Each of these international bodies tie loans and aid to conditionalities – policy changes to allow or even demand privatization of utilities, population control measures, trade barriers favorable to Western corporations, offshore (slave) labor pools and more. Causes used to raise big cash through sympathy in the public is rerouted to private firms friendly with the tax-free foundations and complex agenda-driven global development structure.
Smedley Darlington Butler[1] (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps explained how foreign policy overlaps with private interest to create a crony-fascist (public/private partnerships) corporate dominance over foreign locales:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

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Canada Free Press – What happened to our tsunami aid? (2005)
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover042605.htm
Peter Buffett: The Charitable-Industrial Complex, Philanthropic Colonialism, Conscience Laundering
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/opinion/the-charitable-industrial-complex.html?_r=0
Smedley Butler: Racketeer, Gangster for Capitalism.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/115545.Smedley_D_Butler
Where did all the money go? How $700 million in Katrina relief money went missing
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/where-did-money-700-million-katrina-relief-money-112137424.html
PBS Frontline: Cochabamba Water Revolt – IMF Loan to Bolivia Requires Privatization
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/bolivia/timeline.html
SOURCE: http://truthstreammedia.com/big-money-at-clinton-foundation-funneled-to-cronies-global-deals/