American Made Sham Election: Koch Brothers Vultures Come Home to Roost

They say elections have consequences, well American made sham elections have deadly consequences for the world.  November 4^th was the first election to take place since the confluence of horrific Supreme Court decisions against individual voting rights.

The Vultures are picking America’s carcass clean and right behind the Monsanto Vultures are the Koch Brothers Vultures and they have come home to roost.  These aren’t your run of the mill vultures that feast off deceased carcasses, but a Monsanto-type, genetically modified hybrid vulture that devours live beings.  

From Live Science:

Excerpt:

A flock of vultures devoured the body of a woman just minutes after she fell to her death while hiking in the Pyrenees Mountains in France….

Vultures are known to be able to sniff out the gaseous chemicals emanating from a dead body more than a mile away.

When we first went out in the helicopter looking for the body, we saw numerous vultures, without realizing what they were doing," said Maj. Didier Pericou, of the local police, as quoted in the Daily Mail.

Numerous vultures, just like American made sham election vultures feeding off the emaciated carcass of America.

But by the time the police reached the body, there was little left to recover.

"There were only bones, clothes and shoes left on the ground," Pericou said. "They took 40 to 50 minutes to eat the body."

Monsanto and the Koch Brothers would never have left bones, clothes or shoes behind and since the November 4th election they are devouring America in record time.

The Griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus) that consumed the body have been under considerable stress, as their primary source of food — the carcasses of cattle or other livestock — are no longer available throughout much of Europe.

Due to concerns about the spread of "mad cow disease" (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE), animals carcasses are now burned per European Union regulations.

As a result, the scavengers are reportedly becoming increasingly aggressive, and some farmers claim vultures are now attacking live animals.

You know what that reminds me of?  You know, the part about the vultures attacking live animals because their primary food source has dried up.   That reminds me of the Koch Brothers vultures and Wisconsin is the live animal the vultures are devouring.  From the Bellingham Herald:

Excerpt:

MADISON, WIS. — Wisconsin would join five other states that impose special fees on owners of electric vehicles, in an attempt to help make up for revenue drivers of those fuel-efficient cars aren't paying in gas taxes, under a road-funding proposal put forward by Gov. Scott Walker's administration.

The $50 annual charge, which would raise about $4 million a year, is part of $751 million in new taxes and fees proposed Friday by Walker's Department of Transportation to pay for road projects. Walker hasn't commented specifically on the proposal, which he can alter before releasing his state budget early next year. The budget then goes to the Legislature for consideration.

Republican legislative leaders have said little about the transportation budget request, which would keep the $75 registration fee in place for owners of traditional gas-fueled vehicles. But environmental groups were sounding an alarm Monday about the new electric and hybrid vehicle fee.

Yep, I wonder who the winner here is, it certainly isn’t the people of Wisconsin. 

The budget request has drawn praise from the Transportation Investment Coalition, which includes road builders, labor unions, local units of government, chambers of commerce and others that support spending more on transportation.

The road building lobby is one of the most powerful in the Legislature.

Yes Wisconsin, you’re getting a bipartisan screwing. And it doesn’t stop there, Wisconsin Public Service is raising fees to make up for lost Koch Brothers revenue due to lower usage through conservation.  

WPS Rate Hikes (From Post Crescent)

Regulators approve $9 electric rate hike for WPS

MADISON – Hundreds of thousands of electric customers' bills will increase by $9 a month, as state regulators on Thursday sided with utilities that say they need low-use customers to pay their fair share of maintaining infrastructure.

Wisconsin Public Service Corp., which serves about 443,700 customers in northeastern and north-central Wisconsin, had asked regulators for permission to raise its monthly fixed rate from $10.44 to $25 and reduce variable usage fees by a couple cents per kilowatt hour.

Whoa, bend over Wisconsin, this is gonna hurt, and it’s extra for lubricant.

The utility said the increase was needed to ensure consumers who use less energy pay their fair share for maintaining infrastructure, such as transmission poles and power plants. Consumer advocates have countered the increase is designed to recoup revenue lost through conservation and punish low-usage customers.

The state Public Service Commission voted 2-1 to approve the request but limited the monthly increase to $9 rather than the $15 jump the utility wanted. Commission chairman Phil Montgomery and Commissioner Ellen Nowak voted to approve the package. Commissioner Eric Callisto voted against it, PSC spokesman Nathan Conrad said.

Together, the fixed rate increase and the hourly usage fee dip will translate to roughly a 3 percent increase in the average residential consumer's annual electric bill, Conrad said.

Well, there goes that 1.5% increase in your Social Security Benefits.  Move over WPS, Madison G&E and WE want to get their snouts in the trough.

Madison Gas & Electric and We Energies also have asked the PSC to let them dramatically increase their monthly rates as well, saying they, too, need to make sure customers pay their share for maintaining infrastructure. The commission is expected to make a decision on those requests later this month.

The Koch Brothers own the Wisconsin legislature, they birthed the Wisconsin legislature.  Oh, by the way America, meet Wisconsin’s new Congressional Representative, Glenn Grothman, crazier than a shithouse rat but not as cuddly.

From Mother Jones:

            Excerpt:

This Republican Who Wants to End the Weekend Is Probably Headed to Congress

Wisconsin State Sen. Glenn Grothman thinks days off are "goofy," says Sex Ed could make kids gay, and claims money is "more important for men."

Yep, crazier than a shithouse rat, old Glenn is the Koch Brothers/ALEC bill mill bagman.

Here is a roundup of what might be called his greatest hits. Read them and remember that Grothman is likely headed to Congress.

Days off from work are "a little ridiculous": In January, Grothman proposed rolling back a Wisconsin law requiring employers to give workers at least one day of rest per week….

"Right now in Wisconsin, you're not supposed to work seven days in a row, which is a little ridiculous because all sorts of people want to work seven days a week," he said.

Sex Ed could turn kids gay: In 2010, Grothman, who believes that homosexuality is a choice, proposed banning Wisconsin public school teachers from mentioning homosexuality in sex education classes because some teachers had an "agenda" to turn kids gay.

Planned Parenthood is racist: In January 2013, Grothman appeared on Voice of Christian Youth America, an evangelical talk show, and he called Planned Parenthood "the most overtly racist organization."

"Money is more important for men": After voting in 2011 to repeal Wisconsin's equal-pay protection law, Grothman argued that the male-female pay gap wasn't about discrimination in the workplace.

People on food stamps don't act poor enough: In a 2004 op-ed calling for new restrictions on the federal food stamps program, Grothman outlined the extensive research that informed his position. "I've interviewed over a dozen people who check out people who pay with food stamps," he wrote, "and all felt people on food stamps ate better—or at least more costly—than they did

Affirmative action is "offensive": Following the US Supreme Court's 2014 ruling in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, which upheld a ban on racial preferences in college admissions, Grothman said he would re-up a previous bill outlawing all race- and gender-based affirmative action programs in Wisconsin."

Glenn Grothman is truly the face of the Republican Party of Wisconsin.  If you want to see what Wisconsin is going to look like by the end of Scott Walker’s second term, look to the Koch Brothers’ crown jewel, Detroit.  From Think Progress:

            Excerpt:

After Sparking Outrage In Detroit, Koch Brothers’ Tar Sands Waste Now Piling Up In Chicago

Petroleum coke, a byproduct of tar sands refining, is building up along Chicago’s Calumet River and alarming residents, reported Midwest Energy News.

Petroleum coke is a high-carbon, high-sulfur byproduct of Canadian tar sands that are shipped from Alberta to the U.S. to be refined and is rapidly becoming a cause for concern in Chicago. “It’s growing by leaps and bounds,” Southeast Environmental Task Force member Tom Shepherd, told Midwest Energy News. “It’s coming at a breathtaking rate.”

Yes, gives new meaning to “breathtaking”.

The pet coke is owned by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch whose operations drew similar outrage from residents and elected officials in Detroit earlier this year. In July, a large black cloud of pet coke dust was spotted over the Detroit River and caught on camera by residents across the border in Windsor.

Members of the communities in close proximity to the piles were complaining of respiratory problems as the thick, black dust was blowing off the piles and into their apartments.

Koch Brothers own the government in Detroit.  What happens when a public utility such as water is privatized for profit?  From The Root:

Excerpt:

In Detroit: No Money, No Water

Detroit’s water utility supplied 20 percent less water in 2009 than it did in 2003. The obvious reasons why are a steep decline in Industrial activity and population. Michigan’s largest city–home to 820,000 residents, 1 million less than in 1950–is losing 10,000 residents annually.

But a third important source of the department’s diminishing market is that many poor residents simply can’t afford the basic service. Thousands of Detroit residents have had their water connections cut by the city, forcing people to adopt informal methods to gain access to drinking water.

What country are we living in?  A major U.S. city has water cut off to its citizens, what are they supposed to do get water from the river?  Oh wait, the water has been poisoned by Koch Brother’s tar sands slush from Alberta Canada, never mind.

“I’ve been to some neighborhoods where they run a hose through the window from their neighbor’s house,” said Maureen Taylor, chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO), which educates low-income workers and welfare recipients on social services rights.

More than 42,000 residences in 2005 lost their connection to the city’s water system, according to figures provided by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, Taylor said. The number of homes without access has decreased since then but, according to Taylor, the exact figure remains unknown because DWSD is reluctant to provide data about the shut offs.

You betch yer ass, DWSD is reluctant to provide the data.  This is the government that was endowed upon us by the Supreme Court decision December 12. 2000.  God will anyone help Detroit?  According to an article by Diana Ozemebhoya dated Oct. 22 2014:   

Excerpt:

United Nations: Detroit Water Shutoffs Violate Human Rights 

After completing a fact-finding trip, the U.N. found that the city’s poorest residents are most affected by their lack of access to running water.

There’s a new player in Detroit who wants to bring attention to how the city has shut off the running water in thousands of homes because residents have been unable to pay their water bill. The water shutoff caused an outcry earlier this year from folks who believe the city’s response was severe and inhumane. Now the UNITED NATIONS has joined that chorus and stated that the water shutoffs violate human rights, Al-Jazeera is reporting.

“Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights,” U.N. officials Catarina de Albuquerque and Leilani Farha wrote to Detroit officials in June.

Hey, Leilani don't waste your breath talking to Detroit “officials”, you need to talk to the Koch Brothers, I heard on Rush Limbaugh that they’re some real philanthropists

On Monday the U.N. followed up that email with a press conference in Detroit, after having completed a fact-finding tour of the city. Officials wanted to see how several residents were coping without running water.

“We were shocked, impressed by the proportions of the disconnections and by the way that it is affecting the weakest, the poorest and the most vulnerable,” said de Albuquerque.

Wow, I’m surprised the people of Detroit aren’t picketing in front of the homes of the politicians who shut their water off.  But wait, what’s this?  From TruthDig:  

Excerpt:

In late October, a few days after local news cameras swarmed Detroit’s courthouse to hear closing arguments in the city’s historic bankruptcy trial, “Commander” Dale Brown cruised through the stately Detroit neighborhood of Palmer Woods in a Hummer emblazoned with the silver, interlocking-crescent-moon logo of his private security company.

Brown rolled down the window to ask a middle-aged woman walking her dog whether everything was okay (it was), and whether she had seen anything out of the ordinary (she hadn’t). Satisfied, he continued on, guided by a futuristic tablet map of the neighborhood’s languid streets. 

These had become even more impenetrable last year when the bankrupt city paid for and constructed a series of traffic barriers on the community’s edges. On his right, he pointed out, was the Bishop’s Residence, a 30-room Tudor Revival castle originally commissioned by a family of fabulously wealthy automobile pioneers who later sold their company to General Motors.

“This is the part of Detroit that most people are not aware of,” Brown told filmmaker Messiah Rhodes and me. And indeed, the turreted neighborhood did look far more like something you would find in Detroit’s mostly white suburbs than deep inside the city itself.

Brown is the founder of Threat Management, a private security company hired by the Palmer Woods’ neighborhood association to provide 24-hour protection to this elite enclave. He knows the two sides of Detroit more intimately than just about any of its residents. After a stint as an Army paratrooper, he moved to the city’s East Side in the mid-1990s and into a neighborhood dubbed “crack alley……”

Two decades later, Brown’s officers, with their distinctly paramilitary aesthetic, are among the most recognizable of a burgeoning number of private security personnel and surveillance systems scattered across neighborhoods in the former Motor City that people with money have decided are worth protecting.

All the RAND Corporation military equipment will come in handy with their privatized, militarized police.

But the future of the rest of the sprawling city—once the symbol of American industrialization and working-class power—remains at best insecure, physically and financially.

In the 1940s, President Franklin Roosevelt declared Detroit, then the nation’s fourth largest city, the “great arsenal of democracy” for churning out bombers for the Allied powers, as in peacetime it rolled out cars for the consumer economy. Then the auto giants began closing their urban factories and reopening their plants in white suburbs. In the same era, the industry, national unions, and the FBI all cracked down on the labor organizations founded by radical black workers.

Yes, that’s what happened to Detroit when the Koch Brothers Vultures came home to roost.  But there’s another chit the Koch Brothers have to cash in and it's big and it’s costly.  The Koch Brothers want their ecological nightmare, Keystone XL Pipeline.

The Louisiana Senate seat in America’s Parthenon is currently occupied by Mary Landrieu’s ample ass.  There’s no whore like an old whore and poor old Mary has a lot of miles on her. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum.  Senator Mary Landrieu faces a runoff having failed to garner 50% plus one to retain her highly lucrative Senate seat.  From National Journal:  

Excerpt:

With an Eye on Louisiana, Senate and House Race for Keystone Votes Mary Landrieu, who is in a tough runoff, wants a vote on the pipeline by the end of this week.

November 12, 2014 Within minutes of the start of the lame-duck session Wednesday, Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu took to the Senate floor to push her colleagues on a vote to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, as she faces a difficult reelection battle—the last of 2014—in energy-rich Louisiana.

Yes, Mary will royally screw the American people and then the Koch’s will toss her aside for a younger fresher face, like Glenn Grothman.

"I want to come to the floor to ask Senator Cornyn from Texas, particularly, and Senator McConnell and Senator Reid and others if they would join me in moving forward on the Keystone XL pipeline," Landrieu said, as Cornyn left the floor. "This has been a project that has lingered far too long. It is clearly supported by sixty or more members of this body.… And I believe with a push, a significant push in the next few hours, that we could actually get the votes we need to pass the Keystone pipeline."

So why, as Mary Landrieu says, has the Koch Brother’s Keystone XL Pipeline lingered for so long?  Maybe the answer lies in some of these articles from Tar Sands Solutions: 

Excerpt:

Tar Sands oil spills

The unsavory impacts of the tar sands are not limited to northern Alberta. Rapid tar sands expansion is creating a growing network of pipelines and oil tankers that make rivers, coastlines and communities all over North America vulnerable to the devastating impacts of tar sands oil leaks and spills.

The most recent spills in Marshall, Michigan and Mayflower, Arkansas show tar sands pipelines leak a kind of oil that is much more toxic and difficult to clean up than conventional crude, and a massive spill from an oil tanker loaded with tar sands crude would devastate fisheries, communities and economies along the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

Yes, Mary Landrieu needs 60 votes in the Senate to pass the Keystone XL Pipeline to transverse across America to deliver the Koch Brothers tar sands to American refineries for shipment to China.  From Tar SandsSolutions:

Excerpt:

Groups ask why no charges have been laid a year after Alberta coal mine spill

Conservation groups want to know why no federal or provincial charges have been laid over a massive spill from a coal tailings pond in west-central Alberta.

An estimated 670 million litres of waste water spilled into tributaries that feed into the Athabasca River after an earth berm broke at the Obed Mountain mine on Oct. 31, 2013.

The mine was owned at the time by Sherritt International, which has since sold it to Westmoreland Coal Company.

Groups including the Alberta Wilderness Association say Sherritt should be charged under the federal Fisheries Act.

They also say they want both governments to make public what was in the tailings, how the spill has affected the rivers and how it may affect the health of people who live downstream.

Federal officials and staff at the Alberta Energy Regulator were not immediately available for comment.

Fat chance that either the government of Canada or America are going piss off the Koch Brothers. 

Excerpt:

NAFTA’s regulatory bodyshould investigate Canada’s inaction on tar sands tailings

Within the next few weeks the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), an environmental review body established under NAFTA, will decide whether to investigate the Canadian government’s continuing failure to regulate its tar sands industry. In 2010, the CEC received a petition from NRDC, Environmental Defense Canada, and three Canadian citizens asking the CEC to address water contamination from tar sands waste, known as tailings….

Tar sands extraction, an industrial behemoth in Canada, is among the most ecologically destructive energy sources in the world. It carries a heavy environmental impact that includes habitat destruction, substantial greenhouse gas emissions, and vast water consumption. One of the most devastating impacts comes not from the extraction itself but from the disposal of toxic liquid byproducts known as tailings. For every barrel of usable bitumen extracted, approximately 1.5 barrels of tailings are produced.

The Keystone XL Pipeline crosses America’s most sensitive aquifers that supply fresh water throughout America.

 

Toxic and Tax Exempt

So how’s old Mary doing in smashing through the Koch Brothers’ Keystone Pipeline?  According to 5 News Online:  Excerpt:

Louisiana’s Landrieu Says She Has 60 Votes To Advance Keystone Pipeline

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu says she has the 60 votes she needs for the Senate to advance a measure Tuesday that would authorize construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Landrieu has been scrambling to attract at least 15 Democrats to join 45 Republicans to reach the critical 60-vote procedural threshold. She told reporters at the Capitol on Monday night that she’d reached that mark.

 

I don't feel so comfortable

“I feel very comfortable,” Landrieu said….

If she can shepherd the legislation through the Senate, it would allow Landrieu to demonstrate her influence one last time ahead of a Dec. 6 run-off election in Louisiana, where she faces Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, who sponsored the bill authorizing the pipeline when the House approved it on Friday.

Yes, there’s no whore like an old whore and Mary knows all the tricks.  I wonder what she’s hiding that she’s so frightened of losing her seat.  If she’s hiding cash, just stick it in your freezer that seems to be an old Louisiana trick.

In this article from Rolling Stone you can see the Koch Brothers Vultures have invested well.

Excerpt:

Inside the Koch Brothers' Toxic Empire

Koch is also long on the richest – but also the dirtiest and most carbon-polluting – oil deposits in North America: the tar sands of Alberta. The company's Pine Bend refinery, near St. Paul, Minnesota, processes nearly a quarter of the Canadian bitumen exported to the United States – which, in turn, has created for Koch Industries a lucrative sideline in petcoke exports.

Denser, dirtier and cheaper than coal, petcoke is the dregs of tar-sands refining. U.S. coal plants are largely forbidden from burning petcoke, but it can be profitably shipped to countries with lax pollution laws like Mexico and China….

Over the past dozen years, the company has quietly acquired leases for 1.1 million acres of Alberta oil fields, an area larger than Rhode Island. By some estimates, Koch's direct holdings nearly double ExxonMobil's and nearly triple Shell's. In May, Koch Oil Sands Operating LLC of Calgary, Alberta, sought permits to embark on a multi-billion ­dollar tar-sands-extraction operation. This one site is projected to produce 22 million barrels a year – more than a full day's supply of U.S. oil….

Coming to aquifers near you, thanks Mary Landrieu.

In fact, it appears the very essence of the Koch business model is to exploit breakdowns in the free market. Koch has profited precisely by dumping billions of pounds of pollutants into our waters and skies – essentially for free. It racks up enormous profits from speculative trades lacking economic value that drive up costs for consumers and create risks for our economy.

I wouldn’t say they pollute for free, but buying politicians is relatively cheap.

The Koch brothers get richer as the costs of what Koch destroys are foisted on the rest of us – in the form of ill health, foul water and a climate crisis that threatens life as we know it on this planet.

So on November 4^th we had yet another American made sham election and this time the Koch Brothers Vultures have come home to roost.

By Patricia Baeten

American Made Sham Elections: Monsanto Vultures Come Home to Roost

The American made sham election conducted in the 2014 mid-term has opened up America to billionaire vultures picking America’s carcass clean.  While there are many vultures that are feasting on the corpse of America, the most powerful is Monsanto, and the vultures have come home to roost.

The historic 2014 mid-term elections in the United States had the lowest number of voters who were allowed to participate since the 1940’s.  An historic amount of money was funneled into Republican campaigns; $3 billion dollars was funded by a handful of billionaires to purchase the American government.  According to theACLU, The Voting Rights Act passed in 1965 guaranteed the fundamental right of our citizens to choose their own leaders.

               Excerpt:

The Voting Rights Act continues to protect the voting rights of millions of voters across the country today. This landmark civil rights legislation is a critical safeguard to ensuring equal access to the ballot and guaranteeing our most fundamental right as Americans. Since its passage in 1965, the Voting Rights Act has guaranteed millions of minority voters a chance to have their voices heard and their votes counted.

Poll taxes and literacy tests were among the many discriminatory laws that were enforced to keep African Americans from voting. In an effort to tear down these historical barriers and to protect the guarantee that the right to vote is not denied "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.

Section 5 of the Act required jurisdictions with significant histories of voter discrimination to "pre-clear," or get federal approval from the Department of Justice (DOJ), for any new voting practices or procedures, and to show that they do not have a discriminatory purpose or effect.

In June 2013, in a huge blow to democracy, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula used in Section 5. Section 5 of the Act requires jurisdictions with significant histories of voter discrimination to "pre-clear," or get federal approval from the Department of Justice (DOJ), for any new voting practices or procedures, and to show that they do not have a discriminatory purpose or effect.

In states where the legislatures are controlled by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), new restrictive voter I.D. laws written by the ALEC bill mill disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters in 2014.  In Texas alone, it is estimated that over 600,000 people were denied the right to vote.    From New York Times:

Excerpt:

As New Rules Take Effect, Voters Report Problems in Some States

Some longtime voters in Texas reported on Tuesday that they were refused a ballot because they lacked newly required photo identification. In North Carolina, voters who showed up at the wrong precinct were unable to vote, reflecting a new policy. And in Georgia, hundreds of frustrated people called a hotline to say they were unsure if their voter registrations had been processed, some of the thousands of would-be new voters who reportedly faced uncertainty.

Yep, no need to protect the hard-fought rights of citizens to exercise the most fundamental of rights, the right of the people to select their leaders.

Most of the new policies were adopted by Republican legislatures in the name of electoral integrity, even though evidence of voter fraud has been negligible. They are opposed by Democrats who say tighter rules are aimed at discouraging minorities, poor people and college students, groups that tend to prefer Democrats, from voting….

In Florida’s Broward County, for example, technical malfunctions and voter confusion about polling sites led to delays and an emergency request by Charlie Crist, the Democratic candidate for governor, for a two-hour extension of voting hours. A Florida judge denied the request….

Florida’s voter disenfranchisement after years of Republican rule are “epic” with the 2000 Presidential election as the template for voter disenfranchisement.

While several of the new laws have been challenged or ruled unconstitutional by lower courts, the final limits remain to be sorted out by the Supreme Court.

This Supreme Court would not exist were it not for the ultimate sham election of 2000.  With the government solidly in control of ALEC sponsored politicians, expect to see more voter restriction laws written by ALEC.

The Supreme Court allowed disputed changes to take effect for this election in Ohio, which cut early voting on a Sunday that was popular with black churches; in North Carolina, where early voting was curbed and same-day registration abolished; and in Texas, which adopted the country’s most stringent photo identification rules.

Last year’s Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, ending direct federal oversight of voting laws in regions with histories of discrimination, allowed Texas to proceed with its photo ID requirement.

A federal district judge — noting evidence that more than 600,000 registered voters in the state, mainly poor, black and Hispanic, did not have the specified documents — struck down the law, calling it the modern equivalent of a poll tax.

So, what are the ramifications of American made sham elections of 2014?  From The Intercept:

               

Excerpt:

HOW VOTER SUPPRESSION HELPED PRODUCE THE LOWEST TURNOUT IN DECADES

On Tuesday, older, white voters — who traditionally support Republicans — went to the polls in droves, while turnout among traditionally Democratic groups — the young, the minoritized, and women — was down. Indeed, overall turnout declined to an estimated 36.6% of eligible voters, the lowest rate of participation since the 1940s, despite the $3 billion spent by candidates, political parties, and super PACs.

Yes, President Barack Obama’s poor performance and approval rating undoubtedly played a role in the lower turnout. But the evidence is piling up that systematic voter suppression, including voter ID laws and dubious vote-fraud prevention software, played a significant part in keeping people from casting ballots, as well.

Surprise, surprise.  Big winner, Monsanto, the Monsanto sham election vultures have come home to roost.  An army of ALEC soldiers of fortune, Fortune 500 that is, won elections across the United States.  From Source Watch:  

Excerpt:

Monsanto is considered the mother of agricultural biotechnology. The company produces biotechnology, genomics and herbicides for corn, cotton, oil seeds, and vegetables. It produces genetically altered seeds to tolerate its flagship product, Roundup….

Monsanto has been a corporate funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). [4]

ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wish lists to benefit their bottom line.

Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills

Within days of the 2014 mid-term sham election, organic farmers in California were handed a fatal blow, the ALEC bill mill has proposed wiping out California’s organic farming community.  From San Francisco CBS Local: 

             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.

Oh joy, joy, joy.  The corporate celestial heavens have opened and the Monsanto nightmare of control over the food supply, not only in America but across the world is fast becoming a reality.  Monsanto’s war on organic farmers just won a major battle in that war. 

Well, move over California according to the New York Times the U.S.D.A. has just approved GM potatoes for one of ALEC’s members Simplot, the biggest producer of French Fries for McDonald’s. 

Excerpt:

U.S.D.A. Approves Modified Potato. Next Up: French Fry Fans

A potato genetically engineered to reduce the amounts of a POTENTIALLY harmful ingredient in French fries and potato chips has been approved for commercial planting, the Department of Agriculture announced on Friday.

Yeah, sounds like preemptive war on American potato farmers.

The potato’s DNA has been altered so that less of a chemical called acrylamide, which is suspected of causing cancer in people, is produced when the potato is fried.

The new potato also resists bruising, a characteristic long sought by potato growers and processors for financial reasons. Potatoes bruised during harvesting, shipping or storage can lose value or become unusable.

Yep, that what it's all about profits.  

The biotech tubers were developed by the J. R. Simplot Company, a privately held company based in Boise, Idaho, which was the initial supplier of frozen French fries to McDonald’s in the 1960s and is still a major supplier. The company’s founder, Mr. Simplot, who died in 2008, became a billionaire….

Bingo, McDonald’s major supplier of French fries has now gotten the go ahead from our government to taint the potato crop.

But the approval comes as some consumers are questioning the safety of genetically engineered crops and demanding that the foods made from them be labeled. Ballot initiatives calling for labeling were rejected by voters in Oregon and Colorado this week, after food and seed companies poured millions of dollars into campaigns to defeat the measures.

Of course they don’t want you to know you are buying Frankenstein crops that are genetically modified and raise serious concerns about their safety.    If Monsanto and the ALEC gang are so cocksure their GM crap is so great, why not label it and let the American consumers decide if they want to risk their health eating your product?

Genetically modified potatoes failed once before. In the late 1990s, Monsanto began selling potatoes genetically engineered to resist the Colorado potato beetle. But the market collapsed after big potato users, fearing consumer resistance, told farmers not to grow them. Simplot itself, after hearing from its fast-food chain customers, instructed its farmers to stop growing the Monsanto potatoes.

So, in 1990 the Frankenstein potato market collapsed because people didn’t want GM potatoes, so don’t tell the people their buying potentially dangerous crap, and problem solved. 

Yes, it pays to own a government. And you have to wonder how that referendum was worded in Colorado and Oregon that the people would vote against labeling GM crops.  According to Source Watch:

An issue of growing concern is the Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods [8]. Many have questioned why it is that while consumers in all of Europe and about fifty other countries around the world including Japan, India and China are guaranteed the right to know through strict labeling standards what foods contain GM ingredients,[22] while consumers in the United States are denied this same right. Polls indicate that the great majority of Americans who are aware of the issue want labels.[23][24]

So, in Japan, India and China citizens are protected with strict labeling standards that are denied to the citizens of the “greatest Democracy” in the world. 

So let’s take a look around the world at Monsanto’s successes and failures in poisoning the food supply.  From Global Research: 

               Excerpt:

The Seeds Of Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys Farming

“Producing more, Conserving more, Improving farmers lives.”

These are the promises Monsanto India’s website makes, alongside pictures of smiling, prosperous farmers from the state of Maharashtra. This is a desperate attempt by Monsanto and its PR machinery to delink the epidemic of farmers’ suicides in India from the company’s growing control over cotton seed supply — 95 per cent of India’s cotton seed is now controlled by Monsanto.

Control over seed is the first link in the food chain because seed is the source of life. When a corporation controls seed, it controls life, especially the life of farmers…

Through patents on seed, Monsanto has become the “Life Lord” of our planet, collecting rents for life’s renewal from farmers, the original breeders…

The entry of Monsanto in the Indian seed sector was made possible with a 1988 Seed Policy imposed by the World Bank, requiring the Government of India to deregulate the seed sector…..

In 1988 India was forced to deregulate the seed sector by the World Bank, nice.

Monsanto’s seed monopolies, the destruction of alternatives, the collection of super profits in the form of royalties, and the increasing vulnerability of monocultures has created a context for debt, suicides and agrarian distress which is driving the farmers’ suicide epidemic in India. This systemic control has been intensified with Bt cotton. That is why most suicides are in the cotton belt….

That is why we have started Fibres of Freedom in the heart of Monsanto’s Bt cotton/suicide belt in Vidharba. We have created community seed banks with indigenous seeds and helped farmers go organic. No GMO seeds, no debt, no suicides.

Then there’s this article in Nation of Change:

               Excerpt:

Monsanto’s GMO Seeds Contributing to Farmer Suicides Every 30

Minutes

“Many families are now ruined thanks to the mass suicides, and are left to economic ruin and must struggle to fight off starvation.”

In what has been called the single largest wave of recorded suicides in human history, Indian farmers are now killing themselves in record numbers. It has been extensively reported, even in mainstream news, but nothing has been done about the issue. The cause? Monsanto’s cost-inflated and ineffective seeds have been driving farmers to suicide, and is considered to be one of the largest — if not the largest — cause of the quarter of a million farmer suicides over the past 16 years.

A quarter of a million farmers dead because of Monsanto.  Let’s take a stroll over to Mexico and see how Monsanto’s GM Corn/Maise plants are faring.  First of all in December 2013 a judge in Mexico banned Monsanto’s Frankenstein corn seeds.  According to Sustainable Pulse:  

               Excerpt:

               Mexican Judge Throws out Monsanto Appeal to Confirm GM Maize Ban

A Mexican judge has thrown out the appeals of Mexico’s SEMARNAT (Environment and Natural Resources Ministry), and Monsanto, who were attempting to overturn a September court ruling that banned the planting of GM maize in Mexico…

The Mexican federal government had allowed trial crops of GM maize to be planted in Mexico since 2009 before the shock decision in September made by the Twelfth Federal District Court for Civil Matters of Mexico City. Judge Jaime Eduardo Verdugo J. cited “the risk of imminent harm to the environment” as the basis for the decision.

The Judge’s ruling means that multinationals such as Monsanto and Pioneer are legally banned from releasing GM maize into the Mexican countryside.

Well, I guess that should be that, but what’s this?  According to an April, 2014 article in SustainablePulse, Monsanto wants the judge thrown off the case.  I guess the Mexican judicial system hasn’t been packed with lunatics like in America’s.  

Excerpt:

Monsanto Request Removal of Mexican Judge over GM Maize Ban

Monsanto have requested the removal of an Appeals Court Judge in Mexico, who ruled against them in the ongoing legal battle on the prohibition of GM Maize in the country.

In December, Judge Marroqun Zaleta threw out the appeals of Mexico’s SEMARNAT (Environment and Natural Resources Ministry), and Monsanto, who were attempting to overturn a September court ruling that banned the planting of GM maize in Mexico.

Monsanto wants to judge shop for a more favorable judge.  In the meantime, France was rejecting enslaving their farmers to Monsanto’s Frankenstein seeds.  From Global Research:

Excerpt:

Geopolitics of Organic Food: Russia, China and France Ban GMOs

Russia’s RT reported in an article titled, “Russia will not import GMO products – PM Medvedev,” that, “Russia will not import GMO products, the country’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said, adding that the nation has enough space and resources to produce organic food.” The article would quote Russia’s prime minister who stated specifically, “if the Americans like to eat GMO products, let them eat it then. We don’t need to do that; we have enough space and opportunities to produce organic food.”

I agree with Medvedev, but Americans aren’t eating GM products because they want to, they don’t know what they are eating because ALEC politicians won’t allow labeling.

The article would also state that products in Russia containing more than 0.9% genetically modified ingredients must be labeled, as opposed to US laws where no labeling is required for genetically modified products despite steadily growing public opposition to the practice.

All the world knows that Monsanto’s Frankenstein seeds are a killer, in every way.  And what’s really crazy is that on October 30th, 2014 just days before the November 4th election a previously pro-GM Monsanto scientist has reported to Info Wars  GM seeds are a health hazard.

 

Eating genetically modified corn (GM corn) and consuming trace levels of Monsanto's Roundup chemical fertilizer caused rats to develop horrifying tumors

Excerpt:

FORMER PRO-GMO BIOTECH SCIENTIST ADMITS GMOS AREN’T SAFE, REFUTES CLAIMS BY MONSANTO

Former Biotech Scientist Speaks Out

In comes Dr. Thierry Vrain, a former GMO biotechnologist who has come out with a lot of information that should open people’s eyes about the real dangers of genetically modified foods and crops.

Vrain will be the first to admit that Monsanto has conducted a lot of studies showing that GMOs are safe, but he changed his own tune about ten years ago when he started reading scientific journals from other countries.

“I started paying attention to the flow of published studies coming from Europe, some from prestigious labs and published in prestigious scientific journals, that questioned the impact and safety of engineered food.”

You know, America once led the world in science and industry, now after the overthrow of the United States Government, December 12, 2000 we are just a third world country when it comes to science and innovation.  Our government is packed with anti-science climate deniers who believe Jesus rode on dinosaurs.

No longer can American produce be trusted, because American people are not allowed to have sunlight when it comes of the integrity of the food products grown in America.  How long will it be before American farmers are committing suicide because American crops are banned around the world for lack of labeling?

Here is what he thinks about his former industry now:

“I refute the claims of the biotechnology companies that their engineered crops yield more, that they require less pesticide applications, that they have no impact on the environment and of course that they are safe to eat…

“The Bt corn and soya plants that are now everywhere in our environment are registered as insecticides. But are these insecticidal plants regulated and have their proteins been tested for safety? Not by the federal departments in charge of food safety, not in Canada and not in the U.S.

There are no long-term feeding studies performed in these countries to demonstrate the claims that engineered corn and soya are safe. All we have are scientific studies out of Europe and Russia, showing that rats fed engineered food die prematurely.

But, there was one bright spot in the November 4th, 2014 election, Maui has banned Monsanto Frankenstein seeds.  From WordPress:

Excerpt:

They got into Monsanto’s face. They accused Monsanto/Dow of spreading poison.

They didn’t say, “You have a right to know what’s in your food and we’re all nice people, and reasonable people have a right to disagree.”

They hit it hard.

The Maui SHAKA Movement and voteyesmaui.org and other activists won by a very narrow margin—and instituted a temporary ban on new Monsanto/Dow GMO crops in Maui County.

Their corporate opposition spent $300 for every vote they got. And lost.

A tip of the hat and a bow to Maui County activists.

It would be one thing if American made sham election results stayed within our shores, but the election results have a long deadly reach across the world.  From TruthDig:

Excerpt:

How can it be just that so few dictate the lives of so many? I’m not referring to the 1 percent and the 99 percent. I’m speaking of the voting population in the United States and in its minions Canada and Britain. Meanwhile, the billions of people around the world whose lives are directly impacted by the decisions made by elected officials in these wealthy nations have virtually no voice. The US Empire is far from democratic. It is authoritarian! It is imperialist! It is unjust! And a revolution is needed.

So while the world moves to protect their citizens and environment from Monsanto, America is once again left behind.  With ALEC’s anti-science politicians doing the bidding of Monsanto, the Monsanto Vultures have come home to roost.

By Patricia Baeten