[PAA-Discuss] Big Win for Biotech: USDA Deregulates Monsanto Alfalfa

[Juli3 at aol.com]

(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=JNUpi6zPsLdgQw3/9VaKKknI205e2y2X) 
Monday 7 February 2011 

Big Win for  Biotech: USDA Deregulates Monsanto Alfalfa
Mike Ludwig,  Truthout: "After nearly five years of legal and regulatory 
battles, the US  Department of Agriculture (USDA) has fully deregulated 
Monsanto's Roundup  Ready alfalfa that is genetically modified (GM) to be 
resistant to Roundup  herbicide. The decision squashed a proposed compromise between 
the biotech  industry and its opponents that would have placed geographic 
restrictions  on Roundup Ready alfalfa to prevent organic and traditional 
alfalfa from  being contaminated by herbicide sprays and transgenes spread by  
cross-pollination and other factors." 
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=mQJh0tz6YoaPwzTmrlGaWknI205e2y2X)  

Despite Talk of Concessions, Egyptian Military Cracking  Down
Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers: "Besieged  by two weeks of 
protests, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's regime has  offered once-unthinkable 
political concessions and started negotiations  with its fiercest adversaries. 
Some things in Egypt, however, don't change  so quickly. The Egyptian 
military has rounded up scores of human rights  activists, protest organizers and 
journalists in recent days without  formal charges, according to watchdog 
groups and accounts by the  detainees. While most arrests have been brief - 
lasting fewer than 24  hours - experts say they're a sign that the regime's 
notorious tradition  of extrajudicial detentions is continuing even as 
Mubarak appears to be on  his way out of power." 
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=5KCt7iER6CWZ4zA9eQ6xDEnI205e2y2X)  

Corporate Media Push Wrong Story on Obama's Relationship  With Business 
Rose Aguilar, Your Call: "President  Barack Obama is hoping to 'mend ties' 
with big business by speaking to the  US Chamber of Commerce (COC), 
Washington DC's top lobbyist. That's the  frame we're hearing in the corporate media 
even though the President has  extended the Bush tax cuts, recently named 
JP Morgan Chase executive and  former COC board member William Daley as his 
chief of staff, and chose  General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head the 
new 'White House Council  on Jobs and Competitiveness.'" 
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=yijK4RP6hEyl8HRyXZqQdbH4xKQA8w63)  

Our Market Regime and Public  Education
Joseph Natoli, Truthout: "If we accept the  assumption that we think inside 
a personally determined box which is  itself inside a 'Let Markets Rule' 
larger box, we need to acknowledge that  such a state of affairs has much 
affected conditions 'here on the ground.'  I mean that what we think comprises a 
'good education' has already been  affected by market values. An example: 
we think of 'problem solving' and  not 'critical thinking.'"
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=m0Y8IvCLU/mp3w/lmnJOt0nI205e2y2X)  

Report: 2002 Taliban Peace Offer Damages Myth of Al-Qaeda  Ties
Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service: "The central  justification of the 
U.S.-NATO war against the Afghan Taliban - that the  Taliban would allow al 
Qaeda to return to Afghanistan - has been  challenged by new historical evidence 
of offers by the Taliban leadership  to reconcile with the Hamid Karzai 
government after the fall of the  Taliban government in late 2001." 
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=dkKxJxk1B0M6R2qDaRJ8cknI205e2y2X)  

News in Brief: Sudan Votes to Split Into Two Countries,  and More ...
Southern Sudan will create the world's  newest nation after a vote by the 
Southern Sudan Referendum Commission  showed 98.3 percent of southern 
Sudanese favored independence; Mubarak's  new cabinet approves 15 percent raise for 
government employees; Rep. Jane  Harman (D-California) will resign from 
Congress to join the Woodrow Wilson  Center; Tunisia's Interior Minister, 
Fahrat Rajhi, suspended all  activities of the country's former rulers after its 
autocratic leader,  Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, went into exile; United Israel 
Appeal canceled a  plan to invite President George W. Bush to a gala event 
in Geneva as human  rights groups reportedly planned protests for the event. 
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=+1MXAjz9t58nvhWyWE3q2knI205e2y2X)  

Chris Hedges | Recognizing the Language of  Tyranny
Chris Hedges, Truthout: "Empires communicate in  two languages. One 
language is expressed in imperatives. It is the  language of command and force. 
This militarized language disdains human  life and celebrates hypermasculinity. 
It demands. It makes no attempt to  justify the flagrant theft of natural 
resources and wealth or the use of  indiscriminate violence. When families 
are gunned down at a checkpoint in  Iraq they are referred to as having been 
'lit up.' So it goes. The other  language of empire is softer. It employs the 
vocabulary of ideals and  lofty goals and insists that the power of empire 
is noble and benevolent."  
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=I7AIFz1xbegXOrsHMFvozknI205e2y2X)  

State Budget Cuts: Starting at the  Top
Dean Baker, Truthout: "The elite media are on yet  another jihad. They are 
determined to cut the pay and benefits of  public-sector workers who can 
still enjoy a middle-class lifestyle. The  idea that a schoolteacher or highway 
worker can retire with a pension of  $2,000-$3,000 a month is directly at 
odds with their view of government.  They believe that government exists to 
redistribute income from everyone  else to those who already are rich and 
powerful. To these people, the  money that is going to pay the wages and 
pensions of ordinary workers is  money that could be in the pockets of the rich."
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=KRoZnfupEYQHepBUSkRWVUnI205e2y2X)  

Tom Engelhardt | Driving Through the Gates of Hell and  Other American 
Pastimes in the Greater Middle East
Tom  Engelhardt, TomDispatch: "As we've watched the dramatic events in the  
Middle East, you would hardly know that we had a thing to do with them. Oh  
yes, in the name of its War on Terror, Washington had for years backed  
most of the thuggish governments now under siege or anxious that they may  be 
next in line to hear from their people. When it came to Egypt in  particular, 
there was initially much polite (and hypocritical) discussion  in the media 
about how our 'interests' and our 'values' were in conflict,  about how far 
the U.S. should back off its support for the Mubarak regime,  and about 
what a 'tightrope' the Obama administration was walking."
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=SnfFX3Xv9mk+XEEB7JK0LEnI205e2y2X)  

In  Eastern Afghanistan, at War With the Taliban's Shadowy  Rule
C. J. Chivers, The New York Times: "Midway through  December, Afghan police 
officers arrested a man who had hidden a fake bomb  near a government 
office in Miri, a village in eastern Afghanistan. The  man, who gave the name 
Muhammad Mir, confessed, saying he wanted to gauge  the security force's 
reactions to a Taliban attack, according to American  intelligence officials. A 
paper found in his pocket, though, proved more  significant than evidence of 
the Taliban's reconnaissance. It was  handwritten in Pashto, and when 
translated here, it revealed a  tax-collection ledger of the Islamic Emirate of 
Afghanistan - the  resurgent Taliban."
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=tKdWKUoBlt/o+GkxzDCw30nI205e2y2X)  

Bush, Rumsfeld and Iraq: Is the Real Reason for the  Invasion Finally 
Emerging?
Russ Baker, WhoWhatWhy.com:  "In Donald Rumsfeld's new book, Known and 
Unknown, out February 8,  Rumsfeld offers an account of George W. Bush's early 
interest in Iraq.  This was just days after the 9/11 attacks. There were no 
apparent reasons  for Bush to focus on Iraq, instead of on the actual 
perpetrators of the  attacks."
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=i1CW8RqHIFXTG7d+0G752UnI205e2y2X)  

Virtual Warfare Escalates on US-Mexico  Border
Kanya D'Almeida, Inter Press Service: "In the  quiet desert community of 
Nomirage, located just 20 kilometres east of San  Diego, the sounds of 
impending war creep over the silent landscape. Armed  with a 100-million-dollar 
budget and over 1,000 acres of desert space,  Brandon Webb, ex-Navy Seal and 
chief executive officer of the San  Diego-based firm Wind Zero Inc., is 
forging ahead with plans for a  law-enforcement and military-training facility, 
which, once completed,  will be capable of firing a whopping 57,000 bullets on 
an average  day."
_Read the Article_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=JCIo1E5KIfuNvpXYUuITqEnI205e2y2X)   
_Click here for more Truthout  articles_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=VUz20DT82ImhGk/xbWrQw0nI205e2y2X)  
     
TRUTHOUT'S BUZZFLASH DAILY  HEADLINES

_Robert Kuttner just wrote a column_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=S+7cDRQ/6sJwQ6hQPvT4XUnI205e2y2X)  in which he  stated a 
point BuzzFlash has been driving home recently: "America's  corporations no 
longer need America's workers." 
As BuzzFlash has _recently criticized_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=kPwn8xuHWMlppMw1uVwjDknI205e2y2X) , President Obama's 
response  has been to appoint the CEO of GE, an expert at exporting jobs and  
avoiding corporate taxes, to be his "jobs czar." 
Even more detrimental to those in disproportionate need of work, Obama  is 
going to _cut federal assistance for grassroots organizations that aid  the 
impoverished_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Yw3LmtXwcwhMZJUxeJDnm7H4xKQA8w63) : 
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob "Jack" Lew  
wrote in an opinion article for The New York Times that Obama is willing  to cut 
financing in half, saving $350 million, for community service  block grants 
that cities and towns that allocate to grassroots groups  for them to 
provide basic necessities for poor people. 
This is the kind of work Obama did as a community organizer at the  outset 
of his political career, so "this cut is not easy for him," Lew  wrote.
Well, imagine how it feels to black males who are experiencing  
double-digit unemployment. We don't imagine that they feel the president's  pain; they 
feel their pain. 
The chronically destitute of urban and rural America have been left so  far 
behind that they are hardly even considered newsworthy anymore. 
About the only "free market" capitalism left for them to engage in is  
selling drugs. 
That's entrepreneurial, isn't it? 
Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout 
GOP Taking Marching Orders From Corporations Using "Jobs" as a  Cover
_Read the Article at The Washington  Post_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=6ihrw6NWmr1mFWmeEYQemUnI205e2y2X)  
Socialism Triumphs at the Super Bowl as Class War  Looms
_Read the Article at  BuzzFlash_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=SzRzSLfVPvbLcZD4c2NC8knI205e2y2X)  
Greg Palast on Ronald Reagan: Killer, Coward, Con  Man
_Read the Article at  GregPalast.com_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=t3ytV6s04JVemSA3NiMkZEnI205e2y2X)  
Ominous Expansion of "Anti-Terrorism" Law
_Read the Article at Z  Magazine_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=hafg3nAowZwKjMmf00w0gknI205e2y2X)  
The US Censors Al Jazeera for No Good Reason
_Read the Article at  BuzzFlash_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=onyeHP0FEdx43KmhS8OHkknI205e2y2X)  
Mergers and Spinoffs Shake Up the Defense  Industry
_Read the Article at The Washington  Post_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=vNW/1QReavA1IXIwsIB60EnI205e2y2X)  
Reagan Led America Into the Death of Main Street and Middle  America While 
He Championed Their Glory
_Read the Article at  BuzzFlash_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=eaGY0C2tlGwxfYgKKwsRDknI205e2y2X)  
_Click here for more BuzzFlash  headlines_ 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Qar6W+mJGeJmuedSp6hUeEnI205e2y2X)  
 
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=tZdooK+cuwYRbKk79CQEvEnI205e2y2X) 
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