Hemp Fight a Preview of 2015 Governor's Race

Yes, it's Jack vs. Jaime two years early, and this time the one in sync with the zeitgeist and pushing for progress is the repug, and the one standing athwart history shouting STOP is the dem.

Gregory Hall at the Courier:

The argument over whether Kentucky farmers can begin growing hemp — as soon as next year — got hotter on Wednesday with Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway issuing a written opinion that the crop is still illegal, and farmers who grow it could be prosecuted.

Anyone who intentionally grows the crop “will expose themselves to potential criminal liability and the possible seizure of property,” Conway’s opinion said.That prompted a challenge from state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer’s office, suggesting that neither the federal or state government would charge growers.“The law is that industrial hemp is legal in Kentucky. If the feds aren’t going to prosecute industrial hemp, surely the attorney general of Kentucky isn’t going to move forward with prosecuting hemp farmers,” said Holly VonLuehrte, Comer’s general counsel and spokeswoman.

Comer is leaving the Democratic gubernatorial field in the dust, and has been since he was inaugurated two years ago.

The only hope dems have to keep the governor's office is if I'm wrong about Crit Luallen not running.

Public Employee AynRandy Hates Public Employees

From Down with Tyranny:



Think Progress: 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) — who has relied on taxpayer funded health care since 2011 — plans to offer a constitutional amendment that would prohibit tax dollars from subsidizing the health care of government employees and require all federal workers to purchase insurance through the exchanges included in the Affordable Care Act.

The proposal comes as the senator still appears to be enrolled in government subsidized health care coverage.

“My amendment says basically that everybody including Justice Roberts — who seems to be such a fan of Obamacare — gets it too,” Paul told the Daily Caller. “See, right now, Justice Roberts is still continuing to have federal employee health insurance subsidized by the taxpayer,” Paul said. “And if he likes Obamacare so much, I’m going to give him an amendment that gives Obamacare to Justice Roberts.”

Translation: "Nyah, nyah, nyah, NYAH, nyah."

Wonkette explains:

See, Obamacare allows people who do not have health insurance to acquire health insurance through the magic of legislation that was passed by Congress and thumbs-upped by the Supreme Court. If you already have health insurance through your employer, good for you! Carry on! If you do not have health insurance through your employer, guess what? Now you can get some! That way, if you get sick, you do not have to die penniless from lack of access to health care — like, oh, say, this one dude who worked for Rand Paul’s dad that one time.

Obamacare is not about how much you love it and want to marry it and have all its gaybies. It’s not about the Supreme Court making you do anything. It’s just a way for all those Americans who have no way of getting their hands on health insurance to, you know, do that. Which wasn’t a problem back when it was the Heritage Foundation’s idea. But now that Obama’s name is on it, Republicans hate it and hate anyone who doesn’t hate it, and they think they’ve figured out a really super duper clever way of making some kind of point — we are not sure what kind, but there’s a point in there somewhere maybe. They will try to amend Obamacare SO HARD until it is a plan in which all Americans must participate, which makes them even dumber than they look because that starts to sound little bit like that universal health care some of us bleeding heart fascist marxist commie tree-hugging latte-sippers were arguing for to begin with.

Checkmate, assholes.

Huge Opportunity Now for Senate Dems to Fix the Budget

Now that Ted "I don't understand Senate procedure" Cruz has finished demonstrating his inability to grasp the meaning of Dr. Seuss, Senate Democrats can grab a repug-sent opportunity to cancel sequestration, ban austerity and restore budget sanity.

Steve Benen at Maddowblog:

Senate Democrats are expected to fix the Obamacare provision, leave the rest of the bill intact, and send it back with very little time left on the clock. At that point, House Republicans will either grudgingly pass the Senate version and renew their crusade during a debt-ceiling crisis, or shut down the government.
But Senate Democrats could, if they wanted to, pursue a better deal for themselves -- and for the country.

SNIP

Senate Democrats could, for example, push for a spending measure that scraps the House GOP's Obamacare plan and simultaneously fixes the sequestration policy that's hurting the country. No one can defend the sequester -- it was designed, after all, to impose mindless hardship nationwide -- so some Senate Republicans might even go along.

If the Senate minority balked and mounted a filibuster, they'd be responsible for a government shutdown. If Senate Republicans backed off, Democrats could pass a better bill -- better for economic growth, better for job creation, better for struggling families, better for law enforcement, better for medical research, better for firefighters, etc.

And at that point, House Republicans would face an interesting dilemma.

The House GOP obviously wouldn't be happy, but don't forget, they're not going to like the Senate version anyway since it will fund the Affordable Care Act. So if Republicans are going to be angry no matter what Senate Dems do, shouldn't Democrats pursue a bill they actually like? One that better serves the nation's interests?

SNIP

Indeed, if a significant number of House Republicans are going to reject the Senate version anyway, and support from House Democrats will be necessary to get this bill across the finish line in time, the Senate could make it a whole lot easier to generate support from House Dems if they aimed a little higher in their ambitions.

There are 200 House Democrats. Faced with the prospect of a government shutdown that the GOP would be blamed for, there aren't 18 House Republicans who would vote for the Senate version that scraps a sequestration policy that Republicans say they don't like anyway? Of course there are.

GOP officials would howl, but (a) they're already howling; and (b) do Democrats really care? Should they? Were Republicans concerned about how Dems would react when they passed their ridiculous continuing resolution?

And the idea is catching on among Senate Democrats..

Alison May Be Stupider than AynRandy

Zandar nailed this one:

I'm not sure what Alison Lundergan Grimes is thinking in her lates line of attack against Mitch the Turtle, but not even I buy her argument that Obama administration EPA regulations are somehow McConnell's fault.

SNIP  

This is a nonsense attack coming from McConnell's right when his primary challenger Matt Bevin blames the guy for coal regs, but for Grimes to make the argument is not only disingenuous, it's stupid.  Running away from President Obama isn't going to make Democrats in the state vote for her.

SNIP

Grimes better figure out a smarter position on coal regs in Kentucky than "They're Mitch's fault."  It's insultingly stupid to the people who would want to vote for her.

Could not have said it better myself.

The Future Wall Street Wants is Happening Now in Qatar

Where there is great wealth, there is exploitation of labor.  Where there is extreme, obscene wealth for a tiny minority, there is slavery for everyone else.

Real, vicious, lethal, literal slavery.

Charles Pierce:

The Trade Union Confederation has had to count the corpses the hard way. It found that 83 Indians have died so far this year. The Gulf statelet was also the graveyard for 119 Nepalese construction workers. With 202 migrants from other countries dying over the same nine months, Ms Burrow is able to say with confidence there is at least one death for every day of the year. The body count can only rise now that Qatar has announced that it will take on 500,000 more migrants, mainly from the Indian subcontinent, to build the stadiums, hotels and roads for 2022.

Not all the fatalities are on construction sites. The combination of back-breaking work, nonexistent legal protections, intense heat and labour camps without air conditioning allows death to come in many guises. To give you a taste of its variety, the friends of Chirari Mahato went online to describe how he would work from 6am to 7pm. He would return to a hot, unventilated room he shared with 12 others. Because he died in his sleep, rather than on site, his employers would not accept that they had worked him to death. There are millions of workers like him around the Gulf. When we gawp at the wealth that allows the Qatari royals to buy the Olympic Village and Chelsea Barracks, we miss their plight, and the strangeness of the oil rich states, too.

Strangeness is one way to put it.

"Absolute monarchy" does not begin to capture a society such as Qatar, where migrants make up 99% of the private sector workforce. Apartheid South Africa is a useful point of reference. The 225,000 Qatari citizens can form trade unions and strike. The roughly 1.8 million migrants cannot. Sparta also comes to mind. But instead of a warrior elite living off the labour of helots, we have plutocrats and sybarites sustained by faceless armies of disposable migrants.

Obscene is another way.

SNIP

I don't want to hear anything about cultural imperialism. This is inexcusable in the 21st century. And, in the years since, we've pretty much turned Qatar into an aircraft carrier with luxury hotels. They're our plucky little ally. Sooner or later, the shit will hit the fan and we'll be startled by the ingratitude displayed. We do nothing but wrong over there. It's startling.

No taxes on the rich, of course - no need, what with all the no-cost "jobs" they create. It's the Galtian paradise the teabaggers are working so hard to make happen here, never realizing they'll be the first ones in chains.

What Happens When You Run a Repug-Lite Against a Real Repug

Real Democratic candidates are forced to run as independents.

Jack Brammer at the Herald:

Owensboro home builder Ed Marksberry has decided to run for the U.S. Senate next year as an independent rather than as a Democrat.

"I want to make sure my platform is not beholden to corporate money and any political party leadership," he said Monday during a telephone interview.

Marksberry has had "some disagreements" with Kentucky Democratic Party leadership, whom he contends ignored his campaign.

"I can now do what I want to," he said. "I may not win, but my voice will be heard."

Marksberry said he must change his party registration by Dec. 31 and get the signatures of 5,000 Kentucky voters by August to be on the November 2014 ballot for U.S. Senate as an independent.

He said he expected that supporters of the late Gatewood Galbraith, a perennial candidate from Lexington, would help him get the necessary signatures because he, like Galbraith, advocates legalization of marijuana.

More importantly, Marksberry is an economic populist, a strong supporter of unions, taxing the wealthy to create good middle-class jobs, expanding Social Security and Medicare, and a social safety net that protects society's vulnerable.

All true Democratic positions that repug-lite Alison Lundergan Grimes is running away from as fast as her DINO legs will carry her.

Yes, a vote in November 2014 for Ed Marksberry is undoubtedly a vote for the real repug - either Mitch McConnell or Matt Bevin.

But widespread support for Marksberry now might possibly force Grimes to at least try to attract Democratic voters who refuse to turn out for Blue Dogs.  Because if she doesn't turn them out, she doesn't have a chance in hell of beating a real repug.

Fairness Brings Economic Benefit to Vicco

It's always been true that extending civil rights brings economic benefits to those who ban discriimination. Gay rights in Vicco is no different.

Bruce Schreiner at AP:

Eight months after this tiny Appalachian town took a stand against gay-based discrimination, it's basking in a flurry of attention and even an infusion of much-needed cash. All that hoopla has its openly gay mayor dreaming of reviving a place that had long seemed past its prime.

Out-of-towners occasionally venture well off the interstate to make the trek to Vicco, a fading coal town of about 330 residents where an aging row of buildings lines one side of the block-long downtown. Railroad tracks run along the other side, though trains rarely pass by anymore.

Visitors pose for pictures in front of the Mayberry-like city hall or shake hands with Mayor Johnny Cummings, 51, a chain-smoking hair salon operator who grew up in the town, spent some time living on both coasts, and then returned home.

"I thought the 15 minutes of fame would have been over a long time ago," Cummings said.

Not even close

Shelbyville, Bowling Green, Elizabethtown, Berea, Richmond: What are you waiting for?  What the fuck are you afraid of?  Why are you letting Vicco show you up?

Tell your homophobic, hate-mongering freakazoid Baptists that jobs and economic growth come only to those who join the 21st century.

Beshear Still Protecting Poison Pipeline Promoters

Of course he doesn't think anything needs to be done.  Every second he delays legislation to close the eminent domain loophole or establish tough new regulations on natural gas liquids pipeline gets the motherfuckers closer to the point at which it will be too late to stop them from destroying the Bluegrass.

Erika Peterson at WFPL:

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear says he hasn’t made up his mind about whether a proposed natural gas liquids pipeline would benefit Kentucky.

If it’s built, the Bluegrass Pipeline would carry natural gas liquids—like butane and ethane—from drilling operations in the Northeast to processing plants on the Gulf of Mexico. Representatives from pipeline company Williams have been surveying in the state for the past several months, but the pipeline has met opposition from groups and citizens who say current regulations aren’t adequate.

Wrong.  There are NO regulations of natural gas liquids pipelines. Williams has successfully lied and obscured this fact, but Governor Cowardly Worm certainly knows better.

Governor Beshear didn’t heed the calls from environmental groups to put pipeline issues on the agenda for last month’s special session, but says he’d like to see the General Assembly take it up in January. Despite evidence that Williams is hoping to begin negotiating purchase agreements with landowners as soon as this month, Beshear says he doesn’t believe January is too late to resolve these issues, and he hasn’t made up his mind about whether the pipeline would benefit Kentucky.

“You know I’m gathering information on the pros and cons of this particular type of pipeline,” he said. “Obviously there would be construction jobs that would employ Kentuckians, and there would be lease payments that I guess landowners would get. But I’m trying to see if there are any other benefits to Kentucky.”

Lies. The construction jobs would be in the dozens, last just a few months, and be filled by out-of-staters.

Meanwhile, Williams is trespassing on private property to take illegal surveys, trying to intimidate landowners and conducting a mendacious PR campaign that would put even the tobacco industry to shame.

Vigil for Slain Ignores Guns; Pretends Prayer Would Help

I have never read anything more insulting to the memory of murder victims.

Mary Meehan at the Herald:

Heartbreak and hope filled the candlelit courtyard of the Boyle County Courthouse on Sunday as several hundred people celebrated the lives of three people who were shot to death Friday in a pawn shop.

Pastor Jason Kilby, wearing a bright red shirt that read "Live Love Now," urged the crowd to use the deaths as a springboard to making God a priority in the life of the community. Kilby, who leads Centerpoint Church and is a lifelong Danville resident, said the slayings were just the latest example of evil in the form of drugs and violence that seems to be encroaching on the town of 16,000.

But Kilby, and the six other pastors who spoke, each preached on the theme that those who had died too soon were in a better place and that God had the power to heal those left behind. Their message was amplified with inspirational videos shown on an inflatable screen propped against the brick courthouse wall, electric cables snaking through the grass.

Not one mention of what killed Michael and Angela Hockensmith and Daniel Smith: a man with a gun. Not one mention of the guntard culture that floods our society with guns and turns multiple slayings into daily occurences. Not one mention of the desperate need for national guns control that would actually prevent gun violence. 

Danville had a reputation for civilized culture and liberalism. That's as dead as the three people killed by completely preventable gunfire. 

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/09/22/2837859/hundreds-attend-vigil-in-danville.html#storylink=cpy

Let Them Eat Shame

Repugs know damn well their proposed $40 billion in cuts to food stamps will never fly. They don't care.  Because the immediate cuts are not their goal.  Their goal is demonizing people so poor they can't afford to eat. Their goal is shaming people whose two minimum wage jobs do not provide enough income to feed their children.  Their goal is to ensure that the unemployed victims of Wall Street greed get all the blame for the economic devastation caused by rich people.

David Atkins at Hullabaloo:

The next time someone talks about how food stamps create a "culture of dependency", remind them almost half of the people on SNAP, otherwise known as the food stamp program, are children. And nearly half of those kids belong to parents who have jobs, but are in poverty anyway.

SNAP provides families with an estimated 22 million children with resources to purchase a nutritionally adequate diet. This represents close to 1 in 3 children (29 percent) in the United States. Almost half of all SNAP recipients are children (47 percent), and an additional 26 percent are adults living with children. (See Figure 1.) Forty percent of all SNAP recipients live in households with preschool-age children (ages 4 and below). 

Over 70 percent of SNAP benefits go to households with children. In 2011, SNAP provided an estimated $51 billion in benefits to families with children, over half of which went to families with preschool-age children.

SNAP families are low-income. A typical family with children that is enrolled in SNAP has income (not including SNAP) at 57 percent of the poverty line. For a family of three, 57 percent of the poverty line corresponds with an annual income of $10,785 in 2012. A typical family with children on SNAP spends close to three-quarters of its income on housing and/or child care costs. Families with children currently receive an average of $420 a month in SNAP benefits, or about $5,000 a year. 

SNAP benefits help working families support their children. Nearly half (48 percent) of children who receive SNAP live in low-wage working families. A typical working household with children receives an average of $400 a month in SNAP benefits, representing about 30 percent of the family’s average income.

This is not a rational disagreement about public policy. This is a gulf of basic decency, a demand by fearful people for the sacrifice of innocents to sate a perversely sadistic form of cosmic justice.

Interestingly, most people demanding the starvation of children so that billionaires can buy more yachts call themselves Christian. Perhaps they're reading a Biblical translation that calls for blood sacrifice of innocents so that the rich may enjoy more fruits of Mammon. I missed that part in my copy.

 Sorry, David, but the problem is not their failure to read their Bronze Age mythology correctly. The problem is the ubiquity of religions that prevent the poor from killing the rich.

Ellison: "Food assistance for working families fulfills a promise we make to each other: if you fall on hard times, your neighbors, friends and fellow Americans will help you get a meal. Eighteen companies dodged $92 billion in taxes last year, which is more than double the cut passed by Republicans today. Let’s cut corporate waste, not meals for our nation’s children."
- See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/#sthash.IHdWWTJW.dpuf

Is Thomas Massie a Racist Sociopath?

The evidence is hard to deny.

Down with Tyranny:

Some Republicans just want to say NO to everything... even when there's no reason to. Many of them are dangerous anti-government nihilists. Several have unresolved struggles with heavy drugs like Paul Broun (GA) and domestic terrorism suspect Steve Stockman (TX).

Tuesday the House, just back from a long summer vacation, took up Bob Menendez's bill-- which was cosponsored by Bob Corker (R-TN), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Tom Udall (D-NM) and passed the Senate without controversy and without even obstructionists like Cruz, Lee, Sessions and the nuts in that chamber objecting-- to tidy up and renew the U.S. participation in the OAS, the Organization of American States. The bill simply states that "it is U.S. policy to: (1) promote democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in the Western Hemisphere; and (2) support the practices and principles expressed in the Charter of the Organization of American States, the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man, the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and other fundamental instruments of democracy [and] expresses the sense of Congress that the Organization of American States (OAS) should be the primary multi-lateral diplomatic entity for regional dispute resolution and promotion of democratic governance."

Cantor took one look at it and figured the House could just suspend the rules and pass it without any objections. In this House? With flaming, raving racists like Gohmert? There were no objections from the Democrats. All 181 in attendance voted YES. And so did 202 Republicans. But two dozen nuts-- predominantly the lunatic fringe-- voted NO. Even Bachmann and Steve King voted for this. Below were the NO votes. If you see your congressman's name on this list, there's a good chance you're being represented in Washington by a sociopath:

Justin Amash (R-MI)
Paul Broun (R-GA)
John Duncan (R-SC)
Stephen Fincher (R-TN)
John Fleming (R-LA)
Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
Tom Graves (R-GA)
Richard Hudson (R-NC)
Tim Huelskamp (R-KS)
Walter Jones (R-NC)
Jack Kingston (R-GA)
Raul Labrador (R-ID)
Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
Tom Massie (R-KY)
Scott Perry (R-PA)
Ted Poe (R-TX)
Reid Ribble (R-WI)
Tom Rice (R-SC)
Matt Salmon (R-AZ)
Mark Sanford (R-SC)
Steve Scalise (R-LA)
Steve Stockman (R-TX)
RandyWeber (R-TX)
Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA)

 Fourth District Democratic voters who sat at home last year and let Massie take that seat: are you proud of yourselves now?

Siegleman, DeLay and Repug Injustice

You can always identify the powerless in society by measuring their treatment by the criminal justice system. Minorities, the poor and the mentally ill are imprisoned far out of line with their population for minor offenses that their white and wealthy counterparts commit with impunity.

To those groups add Democratic politicians who dare to win elections in red states.

Brad Friedman:

Ironically enough, I had the opportunity to speak for a few minutes with former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman in federal prison over the weekend. Siegelman, a Democrat, has so far served nearly two years for a "crime" * that had never before been considered a crime before he was found guilty of it. He is likely to serve many more years in prison for the charges brought by Republicans, including a federal prosecutor whose husband was the Chief of Staff of Siegelman's gubernatorial rival Bob Riley, a team of folks, including the judge, who are all good friends of Karl Rove and who are said to have "coached, cajoled and threatened" the star witness in the case.

Today, in the meantime, Tom DeLay, the former Republican leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, who was convicted of money-laundering hundreds of thousands of corporate dollars in Texas to give them to candidates --- something which has been an actual crime for decades in the state --- was acquitted of all charges by a 2 to 1 decision of a Texas appeals court.

DeLay never served a day in prison. Siegelman, on the day he was convicted, before the appeals process could even begin, was shackled and carted away. The basis for Siegelman's conviction has subsequently been challenged in a letter signed by a group of 113 bi-partisan former state attorneys general.

 Where conservatives control the legal system, justice dies.

*That would be the "crime" of doing political favors for campaign contributors. There's not an elected official in the country - state, local or federal - who does not commit this "crime" every single day.  It's how the political system works. Yet of those tens of thousands of elected officials, only one has been prosecuted and imprisoned for it.

Protecting the Ones Who Take Care of Us

Still think there's no difference between Democratic presidents and Republican ones?  Here it is.

Digby:

When I was in college I worked as a staffer for a home health agency for a while. And I learned what a terribly difficult job it is. These people care for the elderly and disabled in their homes often under very difficult conditions and they almost always do it with a generosity of spirit that comes from the heart, not from any pecuniary interest. They are dramatically underpaid and overworked and they care for some of our society's most vulnerable citizens. That's a reflection of America's misplaced priorities.

Anyway, President Obama did something about it (this week) which was long overdue. And good for him:

The Obama administration announced on Tuesday that it was extending minimum wage and overtime protections to the nation’s nearly two million home care workers.

Advocates for low-wage workers have pushed for this change, asserting that home care workers, who care for elderly and disabled Americans, were wrongly classified into the same “companionship services” category as baby sitters — a group that is exempt from minimum wage and overtime coverage. Under the new rule, home care aides, unlike baby sitters, would be protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s main wage and hour law.

Just goes to show you that the presidency and the executive branch have the juice to make progressive change without GOP nihilists after all.

Congratulations to all the people who worked on this issue for over 30 years to make it happen.

The next step President Obama should take around Congress is raising the minimum wage for all federal employees and employees of federal contractors. Say $1 per hour per year - plus inflation - until it reaches $15 per hour.

That would not only goose the economy and lift millions of workers and their families out of  poverty, but put pressure on state and private employers to match that wage.

Not to mention the repug heads exploding all over Congress and Faux News.

Faith Is A Cop-Out

Divine Irony:



It's the get-out-of-responsibility-free aspect of faith that enrages me.

"Why did you shave off the beard you've worn for 20 years?"  "God told me to do it."

"Why are you making us invade a country that hasn't attacked us?"  "God told me to do it."

No act is too big and horrific or too small and irrelevant to blame on an invisible sky wizard who can't be challenged or questioned.

So fucking convenient.

Shocker: McConnell Makes "Most Corrupt" List

Of course he's corrupt. Of course he's among the most corrupt. The question is whether Kentucky voters care.

Firedoglake:

New CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) report finds the “most corrupt” in Congress. No surprise that Bachmann and McConnell are in the list. Full report here.

 Here's what CREW says:

The report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) names 13 lawmakers in all — six Democrats and 11 Republicans — for allegedly breaking campaign laws or congressional ethics regulations. Six of the people named in the report, including McConnell, have been cited by CREW at least three times for possible violations.

“Why are we still talking about these six? If the Department of Justice (DOJ), the House and Senate ethics committees, and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) were doing their jobs, we wouldn’t be,” CREW said in a statement accompanying the annual report. “The glacial pace of investigations into misconduct means many cases have dragged on for years and some have been dropped entirely with no explanation, despite strong evidence.”

SNIP

McConnell was named in the report for the fourth time following the discovery of secret audio from a February 2013 meeting in which members of his staff used official resources to put together research on prospective political opponents, which would break Senate rules.

 Way past time to send the turtle back to his algae-filled Alabama pond.

The Fight Against Monsanto: Winning Overseas, Losing Here at Home

Remember: the danger of Monsanto's Genetically Modified Organism seeds is less to individual health (which has not been proven) than to the global food supply when expensive, single-season GMO monoculture destroys the diversity of heirloom, self-propagating seeds.

Don't get distracted by the health arguments. Concentrate on protecting the food supply.

In Europe:

Hungary has destroyed 1000+ acres of GMO corn– for the second time.  So far, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Spain, Austria and Peru have bans on GMO crops.

And the French president is maintaining the ban on Monstanto's GM Corn.

In India:

As India’s government prepares to make the controversial Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) bill a law, enhancing the hold that biotech companies like Monsanto have over the nation’s food production, the tiny bee may be emerging as a potential savior by offering ways to increase crop yields naturally.

Thanks to efforts by the Mumbai-based organization Under the Mango Tree, bees have been incorporated into the fields of small farmers and food growers in communities in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Through its Bees for Poverty Reduction program, UTMT is helping farmers increase their incomes and agricultural productivity through India’s indigenous honeybee Apis cerana indica.

But in the U.S., Monsanto's corruption contaminates everything from social media to elections.

Washington state agriculture officials confirmed that a farmer’s alfalfa crop was contaminated with a genetically modified trait, a “low-level” presence that nonetheless has prevented him from exporting it.

SNIP

The “mixup” points to a larger controversy brewing in Washington state over the presence of genetically modified crops, Reuters reports:

USDA and GMO proponents have said biotech and non-biotech crops can co-exist successfully. But opponents said the incident in Washington state shows that non-GMO farmers have to bear the burden and cost of any lost sales if their crops get contaminated, even at low levels.

“Co-existence is a myth,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for the Center for Food Safety, which sued USDA to try to stop its approval of biotech alfalfa. “We don’t know how to control contamination. They say biotech is just another tool in the toolbox. That is not true. It’s a tool that takes over all the other tools and makes them worthless.”

The furor it’s inspired will likely influence an upcoming ballot initiative that would mandate labeling of GMO foods in the state. It’s popularly known as “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.” Monsanto, along with DuPont Pioneer, have dedicated millions of dollars to defeating it.

Big Coal WATB Already Bitching About Future Regs

Seriously, morons: if you're still planning to build new coal plants you are too disconnected from reality to be making any decision more consequential than what to have for breakfast.

John Cheves at the Herald:

Nobody is likely to build more coal-burning power plants in the United States under strict emission limits proposed Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Kentucky coal and utility officials predicted.

That could further weaken demand for the coal of Eastern Kentucky, which has seen mines close and thousands of mining jobs disappear over the last few years. Coal counties in the mountains suffered official unemployment rates this summer between 11 and 18 percent.

Coal country unemployment is caused by falling demand, the difficulty and expense of reaching remaining seams, and the lack of non-mine employment in towns wholly owned and operated by Big Coal.

President Obama's long-overdue proposed rules have nothing to do with unemployment and everything to do with reducing the frequency of climate-change catastrophes like last week's drowning of central Colorado.

The Obama administration (pressed) ahead Friday with tough requirements for new coal-fired power plants, moving to impose for the first time strict limits on the pollution blamed for global warming.

The proposal would help reshape where Americans get electricity, away from a coal-dependent past into a future fired by cleaner sources of energy. It's also a key step in President Barack Obama's global warming plans, because it would help end what he called "the limitless dumping of carbon pollution" from power plants.

Although the proposed rule won't immediatedly affect plants already operating, it eventually would force the government to limit emissions from the existing power plant fleet, which accounts for a third of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Obama has given the Environmental Protection Agency until next summer to propose those regulations.

"For power producers and coal mining companies that reject these standards, they have no reason to complain, and every excuse to innovate," said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the author of a 2009 bill to limit global warming. The legislation, backed by the White House, passed the House, but died in the Senate.

 Coal is dead. Has been for years. But the industry and Big Power refuse to bury it, so the stinking corpse continues to poison the planet with lethal carbon and the political system with stupidity and lies.

"I will not negotiate over the full faith and credit of the United States"

You certainly sound like you've learned the lesson of the 2011 debt ceiling fight, Mr. President. You even sound like you finally acknowledge that congressional repugs are not rational beings. I sincerely hope that is enough to make you hold firm.



Full transcript here.

Three Deaths in Danville Because There Was a Gun

Witnessed by the nine-year-old and 14-month-old children of two of the victims, in one of Kentucky's quietest and most civilized small cities.

Greg Kocher and Valerie Honeycutt-Spears at the Herald:

Police learned about a triple homicide Friday morning when a 9-year-old boy called 911 shortly after 9 a.m. from the ABC Gold, Games and More pawn shop, Danville police Chief Tony Gray said.

Gray identified two of the victims as Michael Hockensmith, 35, and his wife Angela Hockensmith, 38, both of Lincoln County. Michael Hockensmith was a co-owner of the pawn shop and ran it on a day-to-day basis, and his wife often helped out, friends said.

Gray identified the third person as Daniel P. Smith, 60, of Richmond, who media reports have described as a customer.

SNIP

Gray said police are looking for a heavyset white man, 40 to 50 years old, with a pot belly. He was wearing a green camouflage jacket. No one was in custody as of Friday night, Gray said.

Danville is the home of Centre College and 16,000 residents.  Friday's three murders equal the total number of homicides in the town in the past 10 years.

Regardless of the motive for the killings, Michael and Angela Hockensmith and Daniel Smith died for one reason: because the killer had a gun.

David Atkins at Hullabaloo:

Gun lovers will say that knives and hammers kill just as effectively as guns do. If someone means to kill someone else, they can and will. While this isn't actually the case, most arguments along this line tend to devolve toward the relative efficiency of guns versus other weapons.

While the efficiency and simplicity of the gun is certainly greater than for other weapons, that's not actually what makes the gun so pernicious and dangerous. What makes it dangerous is the fact that the gun gets in the way of our moral reasoning in a way that the knife does not. For most of us, if we are in a heated argument with a cheating spouse or a friend who betrayed us, there is something deep-seated in our psyches that won't let us actually hurt that person up close with kinetic force, much less strike them repeatedly as it usually requires to kill someone with the first dangerous object we can get our hands on. Our monkey brains say "no, this is bad. No matter how angry you are, this is not acceptable." Even if we want to, most of us can't push that man onto the tracks. Better to let the five on the trolley die through inaction.

But the gun is different. It's easier. The gun is that switch that we pull to intentionally doom the man on the tracks with an action. It bypasses the moral circuitry that usually prevents us from taking the actions it would have required for us to kill another human being through countless generations, giving us a significant remove from the moral consequences of our actions. Rationally it's still the same. Emotionally it isn't.

That's not to say that people don't kill one another by hand all the time. Many people are psychopaths, many become so enraged or greedy that even instinct is overwhelmed, and many people would push the man off the bridge onto the tracks in any case. But it's a numbers game. Statistically speaking, there are a great many people who, even if their chance of killing their victim were 100% with either a knife or a gun and did not fear failing in their attack, would stop short of using the knife for reasons of evolutionary psychology alone. Tens of thousands of victims are dead who should not be, and tens of thousands become murderers when they could have gone to their graves as productive members of society, simply because a gun was available when it should not have been.

In the story of human society and evolution, the gun itself is a villain that robs us of our own finely tuned instinctual morality. A society that makes guns harder to acquire is a society that not only allows more of us to continue to live, but also allows us to be more fully human in those rare moments that threaten to turn fatal.

 

It's Your Money - The Rich Just Stole it

From Firedoglake:

“That’s right, the government is cutting services and laying off hundreds upon hundreds of thousands in the name of cutting deficits, while handing more than $1 trillion a year to the wealthiest. The rest of us pay taxes and suffer cuts in jobs and services to make up this lost money” The government, for some strange reason (i.e. capitalism) hands over $1 trillion to the wealthiest in America.