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http://www.ens ??
None if these links work?
http://www.ens
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9904b/monsantofda.html
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Revolving_Door.htm
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Typical of "politics ain't beanbag," looks as though Sen Obama is about to undergo
attacks for every possible misstep in his history. Unless you live and breathe American
electoral politics, you may not have seen all these.
The story most likely to blow up is his entanglement with Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a
Syrian-American contractor and builder under federal indictment
for allegedly shaking down firms seeking to do business with two Illinois state agencies.
Tony Rezko's close associate Nadhmi Auchi was the French bagman for Saddam's cash
extrusions of illegal oil-for-food rake-offs.
Mr Auchi, himself under indictment in France, now lives in London.
RezkoWatch, a blog that's about four or five days old now, seems to be run by Sen
Clinton's not-secret weapon for attacks and smears, Sidney Blumenthal.
Next, a nonprofit in Chicago named the Woods Fund was a funnel for public monies designated
to build affordable housing, and a lot of those dollars went to the builder Tony Rezko. It's very
much business as normal; however, the Chicago machine always looks a little ferocious to
outsiders.
In addition, the Obamas held extended social and professional associations with Bill Ayers
and Bernadine Dohrn, once active members of the 1970s group the Weathermen; and with
Rashid and Mona Khalidi. Rashid is now a full professor at Columbia who speaks plainly
about wiping Israel out of existence. I dimly recall that long ago Mona was more outspoken
than Rashid. All these are set to bite the hand that Sen Obama extended in friendship long
before he was a national candidate.
The pro's readying the attacks say of Sen Obama (redacted text): his story is rich, complex, incomplete, suggestive, and demanding. Obama has been facile and lucky so far, but his
spotty record back to 1993 shows an ambitious lightweight, a pliable, vain, cunning and
highly-motivated player on the make for fame and power.
Here we go.
_________________________
While the Illinois senator has never been accused of wrongdoing, some of the
associations he formed as a community organizer and politician in Chicago
may provide fodder for attacks, Democratic and Republican political experts
say.
Besides his relationship with indicted businessman Antonin Rezko, Obama
might face Republican criticism over contacts with a former leader of the
Weather Underground, a banker with ties to a convicted felon and even his
church.
``He has had relationships with individuals who are controversial, he has
had relationships with individuals who are in trouble,'' said Cindi Canary,
director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.
Canary says that ``there has been no link whatsoever that ties him to their
troubles.'' Even so, that may not immunize him from attack. In 2004,
Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry, the presidential nominee, was
subjected to unfounded criticism about his service in the Vietnam War.
`Inevitable'
``I think that it is inevitable that the media and Republicans will try to
resort to these tactics,'' said Julian Epstein, a Democratic strategist who
isn't affiliated with any campaign.
Alex Conant, the Republican National Committee press secretary, said that if
Obama ``wants to be commander-in-chief, he's going to have to answer to his
record in Illinois.''
Nothing in Obama's 11 years in public office rises to the level of the
scandal that embroiled the likely Republican nominee, Senator
John McCain of Arizona, in the 1980s.
McCain, 71, was among five senators who took contributions from
savings- and-loan executive Charles Keating, and were then accused
of seeking favors from regulators for him.
The Senate Ethics Committee reprimanded McCain, though it cleared
him of wrongdoing.Still, Obama's past endorsements and donors may
give opponents material to work with.
One target might be his 2006 backing of Democrat Alexi Giannoulias,
who was elected Illinois state treasurer.
Loans to a Felon During the campaign, the Democratic speaker of the state House and other
party leaders criticized Giannoulias because of loans his family bank made to Michael ``Jaws''
Giorango, a convicted felon. Obama stuck with Giannoulias after the revelations, though he
did call on him to explain the matter. ``I'm going to ask Alexi directly what is happening,'' Obama
said in April 2006, according to the Chicago Tribune.
More recently, Obama has conceded it was ``boneheaded'' of him to buy a home
in June 2005 for $1.65 million with the involvement of Rezko, who was under
federal investigation at the time. Rezko was indicted 16 months later on
unrelated corruption charges, and is awaiting trial in jail. Over the past
year, Obama, 46, has returned about $85,000 in campaign contributions given
or raised by Rezko.
When Obama bought the home in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood,
Rezko's wife,Rita, purchased, for $625,000, adjoining land that the house's
owners insisted on selling at the same time. Seven months later, she sold the
Obamas one-sixth of her lot, for $105,000, so they could expand their yard.
`Vetted'
New York Senator Clinton, 60, points to the Rezko controversy as evidence
that Obama may be more vulnerable to criticism than she because her longer
tenure in the spotlight means she has been ``vetted.''
``I understand exactly what is coming at me, and there isn't any new
information,'' she said Feb. 11 in an interview with the Politico and an
ABC-TV affiliate. ``I don't think we can say that about my opponent.''
Still, the Clinton campaign has had its own embarrassments: In September, it
was forced to return about $800,000 raised by Norman Hsu, who was arrested
on charges stemming from a 1991 fraud case.
Besides Rezko and Giannoulias, Obama could face questions about his
relationship with William Ayers, a former member of the radical group the
Weather Underground who is now a professor of education at the University of
Illinois in Chicago. Ayers donated $200 in 2001 to Obama's Illinois state
Senate campaign and served with him from 1999 to 2002 on the board of the
Woods Fund, an anti-poverty group.
A Series of Bombings
The Weather Underground carried out a series of bombings in the early 1970s
-- including the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon. While Ayers was never
prosecuted for those attacks, he told the New York Times in an interview
published Sept. 11, 2001, that ``I don't regret setting bombs.''
Bill Burton, Obama's spokesman, said Ayers ``does not have a role on the
campaign.'' Ayers said he had no comment on his relationship with Obama.
Even the candidate's church, the Trinity United Church of Christ, and its
pastor, Jeremiah Wright, have come under scrutiny. Last month, Obama
``strongly'' condemned anti-Semitic comments made by Louis Farrakhan after
the church's magazine published an article praising the leader of the
Chicago-based Nation of Islam.
In what may be a preview of the attention to come, the church has been
barraged with so many questions about its association with Obama that it now
responds with an automated e- mail that describes the candidate as a member
``for nearly two decades.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Timothy J. Burger in Washington at
Tburger2@bloomberg.net February 15, 2008 00:18 EST
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(forward)
".............The website www.hillaryis44.com, widely viewed as an unofficial arm of the Clinton war room,
has taken up the scandal with gusto and is offering a Rezko for Dummies guide on its site. "Imagine
this," it crows. "A Chicago politician wants things he can't afford. Wifey likes expensive things and wants
a big mansion to live in."
"Saturday, January 12th, 2008
We've been scouring the internets all day yesterday looking for "questions and defenses from the
Obama supporters" regarding the REZKO. We will have the questions and answers on
REZKOposted later today in REZKO For Dummies, Part II.
But first we want to clarify a few matters that have been occurring this past week.
Barack Obama and his campaign staff in all likelihood were contacted by ABC News before Good
Morning America aired the news segment on REZKO. The Obama campaign, in other words,
knew beforehand that bad news was coming. The bad news they have been trying to sneak past until
after the primaries are over and it is too late for Democrats to consider Obama's record in Chicago.
To prevent any focus on REZKO the Obama campaign has tried to regain some momentum by announcing
endorsements. The endorsements for Obama are mostly from er? um?, shall we say "non-winning" former
candidates for public office. "
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Questions now in the wings, waiting to be asked:
_________
(forward) 1. Note that the reporter Burger did not get to mentioning
all the characters in the drama.
2. No mention of Ayers wife Bernadine Dohrn, and that the Obamas
knew the Ayers Dorhn couple since at least '95.
3. No mention of Woods Fund recipient and Obama fundraiser in 2000
Rashid Khalidi.
4. No mention of Rezko associate and billionaire fugitive from French
justice the Iraqi billionaire and BNP Paribas oil for food facilitator Auchi.
5. No mention of Auchi's April '04 visit to Illinois sponsored by indicted
Blagojevich.
6. No mention of '03 fundraiser sponsored/paid by Rezko and the missing
list of US Senate donors (including Auchi?).
7. No mention of Obama law boss and Rezko colleague and housing
developer Alison Davies, who put Obama on Woods Fund and later
took money from Woods.
8. No mention of Feb '05 farewell dinner given for Khalidis with testimonial
by Obama, Blagojevich, Daley.
9. No mention of Jan 31 '08 bond revocation and jailing of Rezko because
of concealed $3.5 million loan from Auchi to Rezko for debt management. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Hillary & GMO
I really wanted to vote for a woman for president, but I think I will have to wait.
AN OPEN LETTER TO HILLARY CLINTON FROM A WELLESLEY COLLEGE ALUMNA Sunday,
03 February 2008 Submitted by a Truth To Power Subscriber From Yahoo News Groups
[This letter was written by a woman who has clearly done her homework, and confirms that no sane human being in
good conscience can cast a vote for Hillary Clinton CB]
Dear Hillary, By polling logic, I should be your supporter Democrat, older woman,white, liberal. I was even in a dorm
with you in college. I have pulled for you for years. But something this past summer fundamentally changed my
responsibility to my children and grandchildren. In the time I have left in my life to protect them and others, I need to
speak out. I saw a News Hour piece on Maharastra , India , about farmers committing suicide. Monsanto, a US
agricultural giant, hired Bollywood actors for ads telling illiterate farmers they could get rich (by their standards)
from big yields with Monsanto's Bt (genetically engineered) cotton seeds. The expensive seeds needed expensive
fertilizer and pesticides (Monsanto,again) and irrigation.
There is no irrigation there. Crops failed. Farmers had larger debt than they'd ever experienced
And farmers couldn't collect seeds from their own fields to try again (true since time immemorial). Monsanto "patents"
their DNA altered seeds as "intellectual property." They have a $10 million budget and a staff of 75 devoted solely to
prosecuting farmers.
http://www.grist.org/comments/food/2008/01/17/. Since the late
1990s (about when industrial agriculture took hold in India ),166,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide and
8 million have left the land. Farmers in Europe , Asia , Africa , Indonesia , South America , Central America and
here, have protested Monsanto and genetic engineering for years.
What does this have to do with you?You have connections to Monsanto through the Rose
Law Firm where you worked and through Bill who hired Monsanto people for central food related roles.
Your Orwellian named "Rural Americans for Hillary" was planned with Troutman Sanders, Monsanto's
lobbyists.
Genetic engineering and industrialized food and animal production all come together at the Rose Law Firm, which
represents the world's largest GE corporation (Monsanto), GE's most controversial project (DP&L's now Monsanto's
terminator genes), the world's largest meat producer (Tyson), the world's largest retailer and a dominant food retailer
(WalMart).
The inbred_ness of Rose's legal representation of corporations which own controlling interests in other corporations
there and of corporate boards sharing members who are also shareholders of each other's corporations there, is so
thorough that it is hard to capture. Jon Jacoby, senior executive of the Stephens Group one of the largest institutional
shareholders of TysonFoods, WalMart, DP&L is also Chairman of the Board of DP&L and arranged the Wal Mart deal.
Jackson Stephens' Stephens Group staked Sam Walton and financed Tyson Foods. Monsanto bought DP&L.
All represented at Rose.
You didn't just work there, you made friends. That shows in the flow of favors then and since. You were invited onto
Walmart's board, you were helped by a Tyson executive to make commodity trades (3 days before Bill became governor),
netting you $100,000, Jackson Stephens strongly backed Bill for Governor, and then for President (donating
$100,000). Food and friends, in Clinton terms: Bill's appointed friend Mike Espy, Secretary of Agriculture, who
immediately significantly weakened federal chicken waste and contamination standards, opening the door to major
expansion of Tyson's chicken factory farms. Espy resigned, indicted for accepting bribes, illegal contributions, money
laundering, illegal dispersal of USDA subsidies, .... Tyson Foods was the largest corporate offender.
But what Bill did for Monsanto "genetic engineering" goes beyond inadequate concepts of giving corporate friends
influence: He unleashed genetic engineering into the world. And then he helped
close off people's escape from it.
Genetic engineering is many orders of magnitude different from "normal" (even polluting) business in its potential
biologic ramifications. The warning myth of Pandora'a Box letting irretrievable things rush out into nature has
become real.
The harrowing change to the world from nuclear fission and fusion is the closest parallel. What
did Bill do? 1. Bill's put Monsanto people in at the FDA, as US Agricultural Trade Representatives,
on International Biotechnology Consultive Forums, and more ...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/072600_03.htm
http://wwwmonitor.net/monitor/9904b/monsantofda.html
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Revolving_Door.htm
2. Bill's FDA gave Monsanto permission to market rBGH (a GE bovine growth hormone), the first genetically
engineered product let loose on us (or did tomatoes with fish DNA get there first?).
3. Despite reports of bovine illness and death,Bill's FDA did not recall it or put warnings on it. Even "a very angry,
very vocal nationwide consumer base" had no impact. "
4. Bill's FDA wouldn't even label rBGH as "present" in milk.
5. When dairy farmers tried to label their own milk rBGH free so the public could choose, Bill's USDA threatened all
dairies that their products could be confiscated from stores. Michael Taylor, USFDA Deputy Commissioner, was
formerly Monsanto's counsel.
6. How were consumers to protect their family, given Bill's FDA enforced public blindness, except to buy only organic?
But Bill's FDA tried to close off that last escape, proposing to
include in "organic" standards, "the dirty three" a :genetic engineering of plants and animals, use of irradiation in food
processing and use of municipal sewage sludge as a fertilizer. (My emphasis.) The FDA backed down.
Had this gone through, Monsanto could have finally labeled rBGH milk ... as "organic." And animal waste from factory
farms, a pollution nightmare for Tyson and others, could have been sold as fertilizer. USDA head Dan Glickman:
"This is probably the
largest public response to an [Agriculture Department] rule in modern history." In fact the response was 20 times
greater than anything ever before proposed by the USDA. Personally, I resent years of effort to protect my children
and now grandchildren, from that crap. Politically, Bill sided against small farmers and against the public's right to
know, and with Monsanto. A snap shot of our food: Oils: Sheep died in India after feeding on Bt cotton fields.
We feed our children Bt cotton, as cottonseed oil in peanut butter and cookies. Grains: 49% of US corn acreage was
planted in Bt corn in 2007. A French study proved Monsanto's GMO corn causes kidney and liver toxicity.
Soft drinks and candy have highly concentrated Bt corn, in the form of high fructose Bt corn syrup. The US food system
depends most on two crops, soy (90% GMO, 90% of traits owned by Monsanto) and corn, the largest crop (60% GMO,
nearly 100% Monsanto traits). "[E] ssentially our entire food supply is genetically modified, to the benefit of one company."
The Grocery Manufacturers of America in 2000 estimated that 70 percent of US food contains GM traits.
Meat: Steroids bulk up atheletes. Monsanto steroids bulk up animals more weight, more profit. We feed our children
steroids in meats. Is this why our children are fattening, like Hansel and Gretel?
Poultry: Bill's USDA weakened chicken waste and contamination standards and attempted to allow sewage sludge as
fertilize crops. I will say more about disease from industrialized poultry farms waste, at the end of this letter. Milk: Over
30 scientific publications have shown increased levels of IGF1 in milk with rBGH increases risks of breast cancer by up
to seven_fold, also increasing colon and prostate cancers risks. Canada, 29 European nations, Norway, Switzerland,
Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa ban U.S. rBGH dairy products. Bill's USFDA put no restrictions, no
warning labels (not allowing labels at all). (My emphasis.) American children eat that food and drink that milk, Hillary.
Coincidentally, American children are increasingly at and sick.
Here, Bill ignored pleas for labeling. Abroad, Bill ignored intense international objections over the same issue unlabeled
US food exports badly straining trading relations. Monsanto's "good ole boy," he betrayed American families at the deepest
levels conceivable their family's health and their democratic right to know. He betrayed our rural life and American family
farmers backing corporation deceit and control, over honesty and clean farming But, HIllary, it is one thing to not label a
regular ole food product to sell it, and quite another to sell a suspected dangerous food product (rBGH), but Bill's
administration didn't label (or stop) a well known, terrifying threat Mad Cow Disease.
Bill's FDA's August, 1997 regulation permitted "known TSE positive [Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy] material
to be used in pet food, pig, chicken and fish feed," only requiring the label to read "Do not feed to cattle and other
ruminants" in the US. Monsanto added to the problem. "There is evidence that rbST use [Monsanto's GE bovine growth
hormone] reduces the useful lifespan of a dairy cow. ... Given that the incubation period for BSE is at least three to five
ears and perhaps longer, rbST treated cows could harbor "hidden" BSE. That is, they might be infected but still
asymptomatic when sent to slaughter." (My emphasis.)
http://www.consumersunion.org/food/bgh_codex.htm
Bill let TSE into our entire food chain. And who owned the feed and slaughter and genetic engineering corporations
whch benefitted? Please, tell me, Hillary, what he could possibly have gotten in friendship or favors, that could ever
justify his exposing millions of people to this?
With genetic engineering itself, Bill did something to the whole world, which tried to object. Words are inadequate to
express how astoundingly immoral, beyond human bounds and conceit and power, that was. "Even for the biggest
"winners," it is like winning at poker on the Titanic." Jerry Mander: Facing the Rising Tide He had no right.
Do you hear that?
Bill had sex from Monica Lewinsky. That's "dinky immoral." That's chicken feed immoral excuse the Tyson pun,
excuse the TSE laced pun. Bill let genetic engineering lose on NATURE itself.
"Our way of life is likely to be more fundamentally transformed in the next several decades than in the previous
one thousand years...Tens of thousands of novel transgenic bacteria, viruses, plants and animals could be
released into the Earth's ecosystems...Some of those releases, however, could wreak havoc with the planet's
biospheres."
Jeremy Rifkin, Biotech Century Bill did this to us, like it was some nothing and he, some big dumb
ass Southern boy, just smiling and getting in good with the Big Boys, thinking about as much about
the consequences of
something this immense and about us human beings out here, as he thought about you, when he
was unfaithful with Monica. Just one big fool getting off on the power and used to getting away
with things.
Terminator genes, developed by DP&L, a Rose Firm client, prevent seeds from "working" after only one season. Farmer "must" repurchase (patents and suing not certain enough control, it seems).
Those "killing" genes pose the apocalyptic risk of breaking out into nature. Natural seeds could fail, too.
Nature could fail. Far fetched? GMO fields are already contaminating normal species Berkeley Professor
of Microbiology, Ignacio
Chapela, wrote an open letter, warning the Mexican government about just this breaking out phenomenon
happening in maize And it has already happened with weeds pesticide resistant GMO seeds break lose and
weeds become pesticide resistant Superweeds.
But Bill's USDA spokesman, Willard Phelps said the USDA wanted the technology to be `widely licensed and
made expeditiously available to many seed companies.' "Genetic Engineering is often justified as a human
technology, one that feeds more people with better food. Nothing could be further from the truth. With very
few exceptions, the whole point of genetic engineering is to increase sales of chemicals and bio_engineered
products to dependent farmers." David Ehrenfield: Professor of Biology, Rutgers University Hillary, one third
of the world's bee colonies have collapsed. Gone. Farmers in India are killing themselves. Farmers and bees.
Since organic farmers in India are fine and organic farmers report no colony collapse, what does these farming
catatrophes say about "industrial agriculture"?
Mad Cow Disease is another direct result of industrial agriculture. And now ....... transnational poultry factories
are implicated as the source of bird flu. ... Small scale poultry farms and wild birds seem not to be the problem
[ just as small farmers are not the issue in Mad Cow Disease], and yet "initiatives are multiplying to ban outdoor
poultry, squeeze out small producers and restock farms with genetically modified chickens. . http://www.ens http://www.ens/_newswire.com/ens/feb2006/2006_02_27_01.asp
"Of the few outbreaks that did occur in [ Laos ], more than 90% broke out in commercial poultry operations,
not free_ranging flocks."
Monsanto (and others) is currently working with the USDA to force small farmers to tag every animal with a
global tracking device (NAIS _ National Animal Identification System). Allegedly related to food safety, Monsanto
and others would be creating a vast corporate digital library
on every move of small farmers's livestock.
But small farmers do not create the contaminated environments, do not supply the feed, do not grind up diseased
animals into feed (how Mad Cow began) and then sell it. In fact, their farming methods, free range and small scale,
are significantly healthier and safer for animals and food than the massive concentration of animals bycorporate
industrial agriculture.
Monsanto is also aggressively pushing for state laws to limit farmers' right to choose what to plant and the public's
right exclude GE plants from their communities.
Cattle bloated by steroids, lapse and loss of 10,000 year old normal seeds, immense pollution from factory farms,
deadly_disease_ridden feed, world_wide bee colony collapse, poisoned soil and depleted water supplies,
Superweeds, lawsuits against farmers, loss of family farms, and ... India farmers killing themselves in what may
be the largest mass suicide in recorded human history (on average ... one farmers' suicide every 30 minutes
since 2002 _The Hindu 1.30.08) _ that is industrial agriculture.
Monsanto and Tyson are two of the largest industrial agricultural corporations in the world. Industrial agriculture
is represented by your Rose Law Firm.
Your claim to care about food safety is terrifying double_speak given what Bill did and who you take donations from.
Your idea of a Department of Food Safety would centralize control of food _ in whose corporate connected hands?
You talk tough about labeling food _ ah, but "foreign" food _ a sleight of hand tricking a public desperate for safe
US food. You talk about food safety but Bill degraded food in every imaginable way and prevented minimally sane
labeling.
I am a person before I am a woman. Your gender means nothing. It is a media distraction. Your policies on health
and food and women and children, are meaningless in the face of connections that have threatened those groups
profoundly, connections you have never denounced.
Monsanto uses child labor in India, primarily veryyoung girls, exposing them to a lethal pesticide 13_14 hours a day,
for pennies in pay. But you take donations from their lobbyists.
You say you care about black people but as the poorest people in this country, they are least able to buy organic
and are forced to eat the contaminated foods Bill let into our food system. The National Black Farmers Association
has a boycott out on all Monsanto products. Do you eat organic? So, who are you with, hapless black consumers
and black farmers, or Monsanto? Mothers left to give their children rBGH milk, or Monsanto?Women exposed to 7
times greater risk of breast cancer, or Monsanto?
Desperate farmers in India and young children forced into child labor in cottonseed factories there, or Monsanto?
Animals suffering from lives in filthy cages and disgusting feedlots, shot up with steroids and hormones and antibiotics,
or Monsanto? Our children who eat candy with high fructose Bt corn syrup associated with kidney and liver toxicity,
or Monsanto?
Edwards was right about your corporate connections. I just didn't understand until I saw that PBS show and read
about Monsanto, how personally affected my children and grandchildren, and all people around the world, have
been. I will not vote for you. I will vote for someone who will commit themselves to work on behalf of small farmers
and real food and decent treatment of animals and to end this industrialized agricultural nightmare that is taking
us off a cliff. Linn Cohen_Cole Atlanta
Disclaimer. I am not a scientist. I have read for months on this subject, and am including only a tiny portion of the
horrifying things I have learned. I am expressing my opinion as person and may be wrong. Perhaps things are swell
out there and BGH is fabulous and TSE_laced feed is great, and genetic engineering is the best thing since manna.
But I am scared for my family and I have not only a right to say so but an obligation to do so. I am angry that Monsanto
was allowed the influence it had and has done the things it definitely seems to have. I am disgusted by industrialization
of every tender and beautiful part of our world and hope, for all our children's
sake, we are not too late to pull back.
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