Just days after
the November 4th U.S. election where government certified voters
went to the polls to select among the government sanctioned candidates, who
will represent them in government. The
sham election vultures have come home to roost and payback’s a bitch.
From CBS SanFrancisco:
Excerpt:
Organic
Farmers Object to California Pest-Management Plan
SAN FRANCISCO
(CBS/AP) — With organic food growers reporting double-digit growth in US sales
each year, producers are challenging a PROPOSED California pest-management
program they say enshrines a pesticide-heavy approach for decades to
come, including compulsory
spraying of organic crops at the state’s discretion.
Chief among the complaints of organic growers: The California Department of Food and
Agriculture’s pest-management plan says compulsory state pesticide spraying of
organic crops would do no economic harm to organic producers, on the grounds
that the growers could sell sprayed crops as non-organic instead.
 |
Pesticide
Damage
|
Oh my God, what are we living in a
communist country? The California
Department of Food and Agriculture says organic farmers won’t be economically harmed
by government ordered pesticide poisons sprayed all over their land because they
can still sell their produce, just not as organic.
“I would rather stop farming than have to be a conventional
farmer. I think I am not alone in that,” said Zea Sonnabend, a Watsonville
organic apple-grower with California Certified Organic Farmers, one of more
than 30 agriculture groups, environmental
organizations and regional water agencies to file concerns about the
agriculture department’s pesticide provisions by an Oct. 31 state deadline.
At issue is a
California organic agriculture industry that
grew by 54 percent between 2009
and 2012. California leads the nation in
organic sales, according to statistics tracked by University of
California-Davis agriculture economist Karen Klonsky, who says the state is
responsible for roughly one-third of a national organic industry. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture puts the overall value of the U.S. organic sector at $35
billion.
 |
Organic Food
|
Hmmm, if you take a $35 billion dollar
nationwide industry of organic foods and wipe out the California market where
one-third of the national organic industry is located, the government will wipe
out the organic food industry. Sounds like someone has bought themselves a
government. Pesticide regulation in the United States is primarily a responsibility of the Environmental
Protection Agency so this goes all
the way to the top.
The U.S. organic
industry has seen a similar growth spurt nationally in the same time frame, and
three out of four grocery stores in the country now carry at least some organic
goods, according to the USDA. California’s $43 billion agriculture industry is
the largest in the country by revenue, so what happens here matters to consumers
and to the agriculture industry nationwide….
Nice little gig Monsanto, Dow Chemical
and the lot have going. I wonder how
much profits the destruction of the organic food industry will put into their
coffers. And don’t forget the “PROPOSED California pest-management program they say
enshrines a pesticide-heavy approach for decades to come, including compulsory spraying of organic crops at
the state’s discretion.”
Many
groups challenging the plan complained that it seems to authorize state
agriculture officials to launch pesticide treatments without first carrying out
the currently standard separate environmental-impact review.
But
Steve Lyle, a spokesman for the agriculture department, said the outline doesn’t
give state crop-pest programs any power they don’t already have by law.
If the proposed
plan doesn’t give the agriculture department any power it doesn’t already have
by law, why is the plan needed? I don’t
get it.
 |
Honest, I Already Have the Power I Seek
|
For
some conventional growers as well as some organic ones, the fate of the
pest-management plan outlined by the state isn’t a theoretical concern. It’s an immediate issue of their economic
survival due, in part, to a disease-carrying pest that’s a little bigger than a
pencil point…
The
standard treatment for the citrus pest is conventional pesticides, including neocotinoids linked to the
decline of crop-pollinating bees. The citrus industry and federal
government also have spent $25 million to try to find, without major
breakthroughs so far, less toxic controls for the citrus pest, said Joel
Nelsen, head of the California Citrus Mutual industry trade-group.
Organic
farmers are asking the state to give more consideration to non-toxic controls,
including long-term methods to strengthen crops and habitats in advance against
marauding tropical species, said Kelly Damewood, policy director for California
Certified Organic Farmers….
“They treat this in a crisis mode
in the same way they would an earthquake or a fire,” Carey said. “Most times
there’s not that kind of urgency at all.
“Every
pest that comes in they request federal money for, run out of money for, and it
just kinds of fades away.”
You know, the chemicals and
poisons have been only marginally successful in pest control, so is it really
worthwhile to destroy the soil, plant life and water? While I was looking around at the SanFrancisco CBS page I came across this article from February 2013:
Excerpt:
 |
California Consumer Watchdog
Consumer Watch: Calif. Watchdog Keeping Grocers Accountable Shut Down
SAN
FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — The government watchdog that is supposed to ensure
consumers are not overcharged at the grocery store has stopped doing its job.
KPIX 5 ConsumerWatch has learned the state’s Price & Quantity Verification
Program has been shut down, pending closed door meetings with the grocers and
retailers it is supposed to be regulating.
Investigations
by the state’s Price & Quantity Verification program have led to dozens of
lawsuits against nationwide retailers, amounting to millions of dollars in
fines and fees. Not only did the lawsuits serve as a deterrent for
overcharging, but they often result in new consumer protections.
A
2008 lawsuit against Safeway included an injunction that now requires the store
to provide most overcharged items for free (items overcharged more than $5 are
subject to a $5 gift card).
Similar
injunctions were recently issued in settlements with other retailers including
CVS, Walgreens, Fresh and Easy, Staples, and Wal-Mart. But these lawsuits may
be the last of their kind.
Wow, sounds like
that watchdog agency was taking on some pretty powerful companies, you know the
kind of companies that can buy elections.
Following
cuts to the state’s general fund, California
Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross convened a Weights and
Measures-specific consortium to decide which programs should face funding cuts
and which, if any, should be defunded completely.
The consortium, including representatives
from Wal-Mart, The California Grocers Association, California Retailers
Association, and Proctor and Gamble, chose to defund the Price Quantity
Verification program that had previously led to numerous lawsuits against its
members.
The
groups are now meeting to debate whether to fund the programs themselves with
industry-paid fees. The state has denied KPIX 5 access to those meetings.
Yep, sounds like
some favors need to be called in.
The
Director of Measurement Standards Kristin Macey said the industry groups that
were hand picked by Ross need privacy to speak freely. “They’re helping to work with us to replace the general funds that were
lost,” said Macey….
 |
We Need Our Privacy to Screw You
|
So, the powerful
retailers, who according to the U.S. Supreme Court are “people”, fund political
campaigns and in return receive massive tax breaks and subsidies from those
politicians. Then to fill the revenue gap,
the agencies that regulate the retailers are either underfunded or eliminated.
Internal
memos revealed the California Grocers Association and the California Grocery Manufacturers
Association have been “vocal opponents” of the program….
Macey
denies industry opposition. “They’ve been very supportive,” said Macey.
However,
she made contradictory statements in a speech at a Weights & Measures
conference last month. Macey was quoted as saying “The Grocers Association refused to discuss any funding” and that they
believed “they were capable of policing themselves.”
So the retailers who bought
the politicians now tell the politicians to buzz off, we’ll police ourselves, if
you don’t like it we’ll just replace you.
So anyway, I’m still trolling around and I find this 2012 article at
Hoards Dairymen:
 |
Bob Giacomini and Family
Excerpt:
CDFA
Secretary Karen Ross Completely Misses the Point
Today,
Milk Producers Council’s General Manager Rob Vandenheuvel put out the following
comments in response to a “Statement on Milk Pricing” published by the
California Department of Food and Agriculture:
“As many
California dairy families stood on the State Capitol steps this morning
demanding a fair price for the milk they produce, the California Department of
Food and Agriculture (CDFA), led by Secretary Karen Ross, put out an extremely
disappointing ‘Statement on Milk Pricing.’
Over the past several years, California dairy
farmers have expressed growing frustration over how CDFA establishes monthly
prices for milk sold in the State. However, what was once just a frustration
has now culminated into financial devastation, with scores of California dairies
reportedly already in bankruptcy, and the rest in dire financial straits.
Hmmmm, CFDA Secretary Karen Ross again, doesn’t
sound like she cares much about the people of California.
“The economic challenges that face dairy
families in California and throughout the U.S. are well-documented. Dairy farms
are being squeezed between record high feed costs and milk prices that have
failed to cover those costs month-after-month, leaving the dairies swimming in
losses. However, adding insult to injury in California, our Department of Food
and Agriculture, which is tasked with establishing on-the-farm milk prices that
are in a ‘reasonable and sound economic relationship’ with what comparable milk
is being sold for around the country, has overseen more than two years of a
steep discount in what a large portion of our milk is sold for in California.
In other words, while the U.S. dairy industry has certainly been having a
difficult time, Secretary Ross has seen fit to sit idly by as her State’s dairy
farmers go through utter devastation, with CDFA’s own policies much to blame.
Yes,
it pays to buy a government. It just
occurred to me, the “new” corporately owned U.S. Government sends its military
and spooks to cash poor, resource rich countries around the world and overthrows
their governments like Ukraine.
Then they export
our “democratic elections” to their country where we put up a roster of U.S.
government approved candidates, eliminate voters unlikely to vote “the right
way” and voila you have a “authentic” American made sham election.
To see how it
works, just look at Scotland. Scotland
recently had an opportunity to break away from the U.K. In September a referendum vote took place on
whether or not to leave the United Kingdom and return to being an independent
country. From National Geographic:
Excerpt:
In Record Turnout
Demographics Shape Scotland's Emphatic No Vote
The
dream of Scottish independence died at 6:17 a.m. (BST), when an exhausted Alex
Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the moving force
behind independence, conceded defeat.
The
final tally, delivered by chief counting officer Mary Pitcaithly, was 55.4 percent
for No and 44.6 for Yes.
It
was the end of a boisterous and sometimes rancorous two-year campaign that
engaged Scotland and the rest of the British Isles like no other political issue
since the end of World War II…..
Wow, independence
voted down by around 10.8% with record turnout.
That’s pretty decisive.
For
the Yes camp, it meant heartbreak. "It's sad for the brave nation of
Scotland to succumb to fear," sighed Audrey Gillies, a former care worker
from Hawick, in the Border country. "I feel very emotional."…
Glasgow,
a predominantly working-class city with about 11 percent of the total
electorate, delivered for the Yes campaign, as expected.
Shortly
before 6 a.m. (BST) Edinburgh voted emphatically No, with 61 percent.
Aberdeenshire,
Salmond's backyard and home of the North Sea oil industry, emphatically
rejected independence.
Looks like the
working class was more for the “yes” vote.
Salmond
immediately blamed scaremongering by London. But there are other, more
rational, reasons for the defeat. Faced with opposition from most of the
traditional media, the Yes campaign relied on social media to get out its
message (and, often, trash its opponents).
So the campaign
had to be run on social media because the traditional media opposed the
independence. Yep, that sounds like an
American made sham election.
The
biggest winner has been British democracy. More than four million Scots, 81
percent of the population, registered to vote, and the turnout on polling day
was above 85 percent.
In
many places it exceeded 90 percent, breaking all records, and on the island of
Jura, where George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, 100 percent of residents
cast their votes.
The
democratic franchise was also extended to 16- and 17-year-olds for the first
time. They seized their chance, debating the issues in class and voting in
their school uniforms on the way home.
That’s odd, they
allowed 16- and 17-year olds to vote. I
wonder why they would change the age for voting, just for this referendum. It’s odd because they refused to allow 1.15
million ex-Pats to vote. From Sydney MorningHerald:
Excerpt:
Scottish expats excluded from
vote on independence
London:
The issue of whether Scottish expatriates should be allowed to vote on the
country's future has become a source of fevered debate.
An
estimated 1.15 million Scots will be
watching from the sidelines on Thursday when the country decides whether or not
to break away from the United Kingdom - including many high-profile campaigners
such as James Bond actor Sean Connery, a pro-independence champion.
While
many accept the terms of the referendum agreed by London and Edinburgh, which allows only current residents of
Scotland to vote, others are furious that they will have no say on Scotland's
future, with some declaring their exclusion illegal.
Don’t waste your
breath, this is an American made sham election, illegal exclusion is the
hallmark of “Made in America Sham Elections.”
In
March, London-based solicitor Aidan O'Neill sent Scottish First Minister Alex
Salmond and British Prime Minister David Cameron legal opinion arguing that the terms violated Scottish expats' right to
freedom of movement under European law.
The
challenge was backed by former Scotland rugby player Kenny Logan and national
football manager Alex McLeish.
But the Scottish government dismissed it,
saying the agreement between London and Edinburgh "has put the referendum
beyond effective legal challenge".
Sounds like the
corrupt U.S. Supreme Court.
The
researcher added that many expats "feel extremely aggravated" that
foreign nationals resident in Scotland - some for only a matter of weeks - would
have more of a say than them on Scotland's future.
Just like ACORN
the group that signed up voters for Obama.
So citizens of Scotland are denied a vote, while children and foreign
nationals in Scotland for a couple of weeks get to vote, I’m surprised that the
“no” vote wasn’t about 90%.
So that’s how you
run an American-Made Sham election. So
the American made election vultures have come home to roost and payback is a
real bitch.
By Patricia Baeten
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