The judge ruled against the beekeepers and public interest advocates in their lawsuit — which was seeking to protect bees, and the rest of the environment, from unregulated damages that may be caused by the Environmental Protection Agency’s rather sloppy policies regarding seeds that are coated with certain insecticides that are known to kill bees in large numbers.

Andrew Kimbrell, Director of the Center for Food Safety, said, “It is astounding that a judge, EPA or anyone with any common sense would not regulate this type of toxic pesticide use, especially when the seed-coatings are so broadly applied and there is so much at risk. Study after study has shown that seeds coated with these chemicals are a major culprit in catastrophic bee-kills. Now more than ever our country’s beekeepers, environment and food system deserve protection from agrichemical interests, and it is EPA’s job to deliver it.”

Kimbrell’s lamenting of the ruling is easily understandable; we know neonics are harmful pesticides and yet, our bureaucratic government is doing nothing to stop the damage.

Neonics have been linked to record all-time highs of colony deaths, water pollution, and are known to pose risks to other valuable species, like birds.

Earlier this year, the federal government itself released a report admitting that neonics are harmful and have been causing catastrophic bee deaths across the country. The findings were part of the first scientific risk assessment to conducted on this type of insecticide and their affect on bee populations. (Read more news about avoiding exposure to pesticides and other chemicals at GreenLivingNews.com)

Indeed, the government’s own report confirmed what many activists and beekeepers have been saying for years: neonics weaken, disorient and kill honeybees.

The analysis particularly highlighted the harmful nature of imidacloprid, showing that it clearly caused damage to beehives and honey production. The EPA itself confirmed that when bees are exposed to imidacloprid at concentrations of at least 25 parts per billion — a pretty standard amount on crops — they suffer grieviously.

“These effects include decreases in pollinators as well as less honey produced,” the EPA’s press release states.

The report on imidacloprid is very concerning — but what is perhaps even more concerning is the fact that this report focused on just one, singular neonictonoid, when there are in fact several used nation-wide. It is not just one form of this insecticide that has been indicated as harmful — it is the entire class of neonics that many have found to be problematic.

What is most concerning about seed coatings containing neonics is that they are not exactly regulated  well. The group of beekeepers who filed suit against the EPA did so for this exact reason. Seed coating is the most prolific form of neonic use — and yet the EPA has never conducted safety testing on this use.  Toxic dust floats in the air every spring after corn is planted, thanks to neonic seed coatings, and it is this dust that is what is often most problematic.

Beekeeper Brett Adee lost more than 6,000 hives last spring during corn planting. A state investigation concluded that his bees were poisoned by a neonic that was used on the seeds his neighbors had planted. Mr. Adee is not the first beekeeper to lose his bees to insecticides, and he surely won’t be the last — given that the EPA has exempted seed coating from regulation.

When dismissing the case filed by beekeepers and advocates, the judge proclaimed, “The Court is most sympathetic to the plight of our bee population and beekeepers. Perhaps the EPA should have done more to protect them, but such policy decisions are for the agency to make.”

What kind of country are we living in? (Related: See more examples of stupid government policies at Stupid.news)

Sources:

ENewsPF.com

March-Against-Monsanto.com

CenterForFoodSafety.org

A cashless society is one of the final planks in the architecture of the scientific dictatorship. The claws and tentacles are still gripping their agenda, regardless of who the President of the United States is, albeit, President- elect Trump may be able to slow the process down a notch. The NWO would like nothing more than to employ robots and become eternal transhuman gods. They’ll  keep the masses sick and uneducated,  satiating them with tainted water, vaccines, GMOs and chemtrails. The newest generation has been raised on social media, clouds and thumbs. Many only know division and war, surveillance and common core. Most would love the idea of not using that “dirty cash.”  Besides, they are already trained to use the phone to buy and sell, making every transaction available to the NSA and the other NWO minions.

Knowing and controlling every single transaction requires they be digitized. Cash will eventually be outlawed. The road is paved for that conclusion. And it’s not just India that is “experimenting.”  In Sweden, “900 of 1600 banks no longer keep cash.” According to CNBC.com, Kenya has been using the M-Pesa, a mobile phone payment system since 2007. Out of population of 44 million, 19 million people depend on it. Venezuelan President Maduro also intends “to ban the 100 Bolivar note.” He says it will help him stop crime. Right.

According to Washingtonsblog.com, it was a USAID office, at the behest of President Barak Obama, that initiated the push on India to pull the rupees out of circulation.  The program is called “Catalyst: Inclusive Cashless Payment Partnership.” The director, Alok Gupta, is the same man who helped create India’s billion person biometric identification program.  The originators of the project believe Catalyst is a “sustainable and replicable model . . . ” And, of course, when globalist converge, Bill Gates can’t be too far behind. Just like vaccines, ole’ Bill thinks being cashless will improve people’s lives. Right.

Clean food for trade, anyone?

Sources:

WakingTimes.com

CNBC.com

WashingtonsBlog.com

BetterThanCash.org

(Photo credit: Wakingtimes.com)

As any genuine scientist or chemist knows, there is no such thing as a safe quantity or safe form of mercury for injecting into children. The continued advocacy of vaccines containing mercury — which continue to be pushed onto children and pregnant women all across America — is a crime against children and a gross violation of the American Medical Association’s code of medical ethics. (RELATED: Read more news about modern medicine’s ethical failures at Medicine.news)

As the lab science director of an internationally accredited heavy metals laboratory — CWClabs.com — I’ve personally tested vaccines for their mercury content, and I know more about heavy metals than most vaccine pushers will ever learn in their lives. (I wrote an Amazon.com #1 Science book on heavy metals in food called Food Forensics.) The simple truth is that mercury is a potent neurotoxin and it’s still being deliberately used in vaccines injected into infants, children and pregnant women all across America.

Mercury in vaccines is “chemical violence” against children

That’s a “chemical assault” and a form of violence against children. That’s why I’ve decided to start calling it “medical child molestation.” Hear my podcast below for more discussion. This means that medical hacks and vaccine propagandists like Dr. David Gorski and Calif. state Sen. Richard Pan are openly advocating a form of medical violence against children. Meanwhile, people like myself (the Health Ranger) are routinely vilified in the pharma-controlled media for practicing good science and working to protect children from a known neurotoxin. (Coming soon: News on Thimerosal at Thimerosal.news)

“There is no debate that mercury in any form is toxic. Scientists may debate the differences in toxicity between different forms of mercury, such as ethylmercury (which is an ingredient in Thimerosal) or methylmercury (from fish). But all would agree that mercury is a potent neurotoxin.” – Mark Hyman, M.D.

“The continued use of mercury, a known neurotoxin, raises particular concern for populations that are most vulnerable to neurodevelopmental harms, mainly a fetus in utero, infants, young children and the aged. When we speak of the health and safety of our children, our future generation, we speak of a societal responsibility, which we are privileged to bear… Many of the CDC’s own studies have demonstrated a link between increased Thimerosal exposures and the development of vocal and motor tics, which are generally recognized as autismlike features. This alarming association has been downplayed to the public.” — US Congressman Bill Posey

“That mercury is toxic cannot be disputed. To say otherwise is to pick a fight with the periodic table and the fundamental principles of physical chemistry. Consider the organization of electrons in atoms. Mercury is a large, heavy atom with more orbitals than lighter metals, like copper or zinc, and has a greater capacity to pick up and exchange electrons. …Mercury is thus a metabolic poison because it can insinuate itself into situations where it doesn’t belong.” – Martha R. Herbert, PhD, MD

“There is a broad consensus among research scientists that Thimerosal is a dangerous neurotoxin that should be immediately removed from medicines. Several hundred peer-reviewed scientific publications by the world’s leading research scientists, public health agencies, universities, and teaching hospitals have confirmed that Thimerosal is a potent neurotoxin that has never been proven safe for medical use and for which cost-effective alternatives exist.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. from his book Thimerosal – Let the Science Speak: The Evidence Supporting the Immediate Removal of Mercury – a Known Neurotoxin – from Vaccines.

Listen to my full podcast on Thimerosal, vaccines and the “medical child molesters” who push them

Hear the full podcast at my Health Ranger Report website, or listen below, and be sure to check Vaccines.news daily for more breaking news about vaccines.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the GOP plan is to strip hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding by adding it to legislation repealing much of President Obama’s signature legislation.

The Speaker said that cutting off taxpayer funding to the organization will be part of a “reconciliation” bill that also repeals the core elements of Obamacare, The Hill reported.

“Planned Parenthood legislation will be in our reconciliation bill,” said Ryan in recent days, without providing more details beyond that.

While insane Leftists like President Obama and most of his Cabinet, along with the vast majority of Democrats in Congress and some “centrist” Republicans, are dead set on providing abortions on demand, and at any point during pregnancy, pro-life and religious organizations have long opposed providing taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood.

“If the same liberals that champion Planned Parenthood really had any faith in the ‘healthcare’ they claim is provided through the organization, then they would have no problem dipping into their own, private funds, in order to keep the lights on in their local abortion mills,” RedState noted.

“As it is with liberals, however, they’re rather insistent that the public be compelled to fund their irresponsible lifestyles.” (RELATED: Find more news about sick, twisted agendas at Twisted.news)

To be sure, it is against federal law to use taxpayer funding to pay for abortions, except in certain cases to save the life of the mother. This is known in congressional circles as the “Hyde Amendment,” for the late Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., which was signed into law in 1976. But when an organization is given $500 million a year in taxpayer funding to pay for infrastructure—salaries, building rent, utilities—it is a backdoor way of funding abortion, because actual abortion funds from other sources don’t have to be used for those expenses.

Nevertheless, Democrats even want this minor protection repealed, even though, as The Federalist reported, it has saved millions of very young lives. It’s just the latest effort in the Left’s war against the unborn and children.

Already Democrats led by Obama have begun criticizing and even mocking Republican repeal efforts. In recent days the president stepped out of his Ivory Tower and made a rare visit to Capitol Hill, where he huddled with congressional Democrats to strategize how to save a law that has become completely un-affordable for tens of millions of Americans, while reducing health access, insurance choices and other options for nearly everyone.

He was parried by Vice President-elect Mike Pence, former governor of Indiana, who was also on Capitol Hill meeting with Republican members to strategize a way forward in getting the law gutted, at a minimum, and replaced with a better plan as is the goal.

“It was a promise made on the campaign trail,” Pence said at a press conference after meeting with House Republicans. “The first order of business is to repeal and replace Obamacare … People voted for a better health care system, and we owe them that.”

“It will be a legislative and executive action agenda to assure an orderly transition to something better,” Pence added.

As for Planned Parenthood, it’s federal funding should have been cut with President Obama’s blessing after the Center for American Progress—in an undercover investigation—released a series of damning videos depicting, among other things, high-ranking officials with the organization discussing harvesting and selling of aborted fetal tissue and body parts.

Many of those discussions, between Planned Parenthood officials and CMP investigators posing as buyers for a phony research firm, were made casually over dinner and wine.

In retaliation, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit against CMP, which a federal judge in California allowed to proceed to the discovery phase in October.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for Natural News and News Target, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

TheHill.com

TheFederalist.com

Evil.news

NaturalNews.com

FoxNews.com

CenterForMedicalProgress.org

Feminist.org

Police, military veterans, the founding fathers, Christians and traditional American values like capitalism, individualism and freedom are regularly shunned and mocked, while non-traditional figures and principles – like communist revolutionary Che Guevara and socialism – are revered and held up as standards.

Guevara is an especially beloved figure by the American Left, as exemplified by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick recently. The football player-turned-activist wore a T-shirt to a post-game interview depicting an early 1960s meeting between black American Leftist civil rights leader Malcolm X and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

When asked about the shirt, Kaepernick intimated that it was part of his effort to make more people aware of what he says is inherent racism in American (Kaepernick is black; he was raised by white parents). But the goof is on him – as reported by The Daily Caller, the young footballer likely had no idea that Castro banned complaining about racism. (RELATED: See more news about twisted minds at Twisted.news)

And so the hypocrisy goes. The Left loves Guevara – Cuban Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist – but most either have no idea what a brutal authoritarian he really was, or they do know, but simply don’t care.

As documented by the website, IHateTheMedia.com, there are several things Guevara is quoted as saying during his time on earth that the Left would rather you didn’t know. Here are just a few of them:

— “A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the The Wall!” The Wall is a reference to the wall where Che’s enemies stood before his firing squads

— “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary … These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution!”

— “In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm.”

And so on. In fact, what Guevara stood for was Leftist tyranny. He was an authoritarian who banned books and music, did not like blacks and murdered homosexuals. (RELATED: See more examples of how the “sheeple” fall for left-wing fascist tyrants by reading Sheeple.news)

But the Leftists of today who support – or think they support – Guevara while claiming our forefathers were all bad because they were white and did not initially ban slavery, are themselves full of hypocrisy. In the 1960s, Left-wing “revolutionaries” were admonishing their followers and supporters to question authority, and “Down with the establishment!” Today, they instruct supporters to obey the government without question or be labeled racist, bigoted, homophobic, etc.

There’s a term for this kind of behavior: moral narcissism. A new book, I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already, by Roger L. Simon, noted that few people will change their political views, “even in the face of literally earthshaking world events” like 9/11.

In his book, reviewed by The American Thinker, Simon explains his concept by using the Seinfeld character “Elaine,” played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. In the comedy, Elaine is a woman who obtains her moral worth from opinions that line up with fashionable progressivism – that is to say, what the shallow, progressive Left-wing thought of the day is.

Elaine is all for environmentalism, hates people who wear fur, judges those who claim to be Christians, and so on. Meanwhile, her own personal life is promiscuous, self-centered, faithless and shallow, yet she convinces herself she’s a “good humanitarian” and “proves” it by purposely complimenting a waitress on “doing a great job.”

Other examples Simon provides are not fictional in nature, which is the center of the problem; the behavior has had disastrous, perhaps irrevocable effects on the country. They include: Fashionable anti-capitalist Marxism; racism nostalgia that stokes racial hatred by inventing micro-aggressions that allegedly “explain” and “excuse” black criminality (and racism); climate change ideologues who say the issue is “settled science” when it’s demonstrably a hoax; and so on.

Guevara encompasses all of these “principles,” if you want to call them that, and the belief that his, and not our founders’ visions of justice, equality and fairness are right is dooming America.

Sources:

AmericanThinker.com

TheFederalistPapers.org

IHateTheMedia.com

Evil.news

Freedom.news

After the immediate backlash, however, the federal government has continued to spy on United States citizens. As bad as it has been, things have the potential to get even worse on that end, though. The NSA is currently pushing to destroy any semblance of email privacy within the United States. The organization hopes to completely change the U.S. Constitution – particularly the Fourth Amendment – in order to allow unreasonable searches and seizures of information stored in people’s emails.

Of course, there has been some serious outcry over such an attempt. Joseph Menn of Reuters reports, “Civil liberties groups and some other legal experts said the attempt to expand the ability of law enforcement agencies and intelligence services to sift through vast amounts of online data, in some cases without a court order, was in conflict with the Fourth Amendment because many innocent messages are included in the initial sweep.”

This is why the American people can no longer trust the federal government to have our best interests at heart. All they want is to help themselves and the massive corporations that pay them to make fascistic decisions. This is a dangerous situation. The Obama administration has been trying to slowly strip the rights of American citizens away, and this is just the latest example of that. Since the brainwashed masses refuse to acknowledge the truth of the situation, the federal government has gotten away with this; now is the point where we all have to demand that it be stopped.

The NSA and the federal government in general have been abusing their power for far too long. The people of this country need to be reminded that they are the ones who should be in charge of their own destinies. Big Brother’s control over us is finite as long as we continue to fight back against the establishment, the globalists and the feds.

Sources:

Reuters.com

News.AntiWar.com

TheIntercept.com

A new bill, SB-18, has been introduced by Senator Richard Pan, seeking to give the government the right to seize children from their parents if they are making medical decisions that the state feels are “not in the child’s best interests.” (RELATED: Read more news about evil bureaucrats at Evil.news)

Dr. Pan, of course, was also behind the state’s current mandatory vaccination bill, SB-277. When taking both bills into consideration, one cannot help but wonder if they will be targeting parents who have unvaccinated children, or perhaps those who homeschool their kids. One thing is clear: The state of California is all but trying to outlaw dissent.

SB-18 is still in its early stages and will not be enacted until 2022, if it somehow manages to pass. While that may seem far off in the future, it is only a few short years away.

One of the more puzzling aspects of SB-18 is its blatant acknowledgement of existing laws to protect children. The bill itself acknowledges that there are already laws to provide for the “care and welfare of children and youth in various contexts, including, but not limited to, child welfare services, foster care, health care, nutrition, homeless assistance, and education.”

In what some might call rather unsettling language, the bill declares that the state of California will be seeking to “achieve specified goals to create an optimal environment” for the children’s “healthy development.”

Critics say that the language of the bill is really what is most concerning. Under the guise of doing what is best for the child, Section 1(a) of Pan’s bill outlines a seven-point list of rights children ought to have:

(1) The right to parents, guardians, or caregivers who act in their best interest.
(2) The right to form healthy attachments with adults responsible for their care and well-being.
(3) The right to live in a safe and healthy environment.
(4) The right to social and emotional well-being.
(5) The right to opportunities to attain optimal cognitive, physical, and social development.
(6) The right to appropriate, quality education and life skills leading to self-sufficiency in adulthood.
(7) The right to appropriate, quality health care.

This list may seem innocuous, but it is also incredibly vague. These are all basic things that children should indeed have. The problem is that the state is also seeking to grant itself the right to determine what does and does not meet its own arbitrary standards.

The bill is also seeking “to establish a comprehensive framework that governs the rights of all children and youth in California, outlines the research-based essential needs of California’s children, and establishes standards relating to the health, safety, well-being, early childhood and educational opportunities, and familial supports necessary for all children to succeed.”

The vagueness of this bill is truly what is most concerning, as it almost doesn’t really say anything at all – leaving plenty of room to the imagination of whoever is deigned to enforce it. For example, the rights to “appropriate, quality education” and “social development” could be said to be infringed upon by homeschooling your child. Not vaccinating your kid, of course, is also likely to be considered a violation of several of these rights. (Read more about government assaults on your liberty at Liberty.news)

As Modern Alternative Health notes, the bill could also pave the way for more new laws, programs, taxes and other such government tripe.

Allowing a small group of people to decide what is “best” for the rest of population is never a good idea – especially when they all but give themselves carte blanche to do so. One must also wonder, how will any independent thought survive under such circumstances?

Sources:

YourNewsWire.com

ModernAlternativeHealth.com

LegInfo.Legislature.CA.gov

NaturalNews.com

The most recent grab, as reported by The National Sentinel, involved designating 1.6 million acres of land in Nevada and Utah new national monuments, to prevent them from being developed commercially.

These come on top of earlier land grabs by Obama—the most ever for a president, using the century-old Antiquities Act—which now total enough to form the state of Texas three times over.

As reported by The Hill, reversing Obama’s latest (and previous) land grabs may prove difficult, legally, with Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, telling the newspaper that the Antiquities Act does not contain any language specifically allowing a follow-on president to undo federal land designations made by previous presidents. (RELATED: See more news on Obama’s treason against America at Treason.news)

Environmental groups also say such designations can’t be undone, though some Republican lawmakers have disagreed. And therein lies the rub.

Obama, throughout his tenure, pushed the limits of his executive powers. There’s no reason to expect that Trump, who is not beholden to any special interests but only to the American people, won’t do the same thing in an attempt to devolve power from Washington and its massive bureaucracy.

In fact, Obama’s impetus for stealing land from states was to eliminate any chance they could develop it economically. Given Donald Trump’s campaign motto, “Make America Great Again,” combined with his business acumen, that is motivation enough for the president-elect to find ways to reverse as much of the damage Obama has done as possible: To provide new opportunities for American workers while strengthening our economy and security.

Those who don’t think Trump has a prayer of reversing the Obama land grabs are forgetting one key element: Trump is used to getting things done, and he has the pieces in place—GOP majorities in the House and Senate—to be successful. That could include reforming land-grab and land use laws in a way that would make the Bureau of Land Management dormant or, better still, extinct:

* Trump and the GOP Congress could amend the Antiquities Act, giving presidents specific authority to designate or repeal federal land designations, and make the repeal authority retroactive;

* The Legislative and Executive Branches could pass legislation defunding the BLM and its land-management activities, rendering the agency irrelevant;

* Congress could pass legislation granting states new authority to manage federally designated land as they see fit, including developing natural resources on said land;

* The Trump administration could go to court and test the parameters of the current Antiquities Act after President Trump reverses Obama’s land grabs via his own executive orders.

There are a number of things Congress and President Trump could do—and should do—to render the BLM unnecessary and return the land to the people. Not only would returning land to states save billions of dollars in annual management costs for taxpayers, but the opportunities being able to utilize and develop those lands will provide are limitless.

Then again, states could opt to leave those lands alone—to leave them as natural preserves, for habitat and wildlife to enjoy instead.

They should have the choice, is the thing; outside of building post offices, highways, military bases and other necessary infrastructure, the federal government should not be designating land as “preserves” without state approval, at a minimum.

The Trump administration, along with Congress, can and should make changes to current law that would give local governments more control over how best to use the land surrounding them.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for Natural News and News Target, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

TheNationalSentinel.com

TheHill.com

ZeroHedge.com

Intellihub.com

BigGovernment.news

NaturalNews.com

Monsanto propaganda holds that GMOs have been proven safe, but the truth is that few real safety studies have ever been conducted, while much of the existing scientific literature on the subject is bogus industry-backed drivel. However, despite Monsanto’s efforts to control the narrative, independent researchers have been finding evidence that contradicts the company’s claims.

GM Watch recently published the results of one such study, conducted by two researchers at the Faculty of Medicine at Tanta University, Egypt.

The researchers fed Monsanto GM corn – a genetically-altered version of a local Egyptian corn variety – to laboratory rats over a 90-day period, with a control group being fed a non-GM variety of local corn. (RELATED: Stay informed about all the news on GMOs at GMO.news)

Researchers find ‘alarming signs’

The rats which were fed the GM corn (MON810: Ajeeb YG) developed “serious damage to the surface mucous membranes of the jejunum (part of the small intestine).”

From GM Watch:

“In the GM-fed rats, some areas of the villi – finger-like structures in the intestine that absorb nutrients from food – were damaged. They were distorted and flattened, with some cells joined together. The damage can clearly be seen in the images included in the study. The crypts (mucosal glands) were disrupted and blood vessels were congested. Signs of inflammation – white blood cell infiltration – were seen around areas of damage. In addition, the cells of the intestinal lining were abnormal in structure.

“Other signs of damage included increased shedding of mucosal cells, increased numbers of mucous-secreting goblet cells, and higher rates of division of cells lining the crypts.”

The researchers concluded that despite Monsanto’s assurances, the consumption of GM corn “profoundly altered the histological structure of the jejunal mucosa at many levels and revealed several alarming signs.”

Two earlier Egyptian studies involving rats that consumed the same Monsanto GM variety corn revealed other types of damage. One of the studies found “differences in organ and body weights and in blood biochemistry” between rats that consumed MON810: Ajeeb YG and those which ate a non-GM version of the same variety, suggesting that the GM corn might produce “potential adverse health/toxic effects.”

The second study, conducted by the same research team, found “toxic effects” in several organs of lab rats caused by the same GM variety – including damage to the liver, kidneys, intestines and testes.

The publication of the study comes as the European Commission pushes plans to begin growing MON810 corn in 2017. A vote is scheduled for January 17.

Monsanto GM corn strain poses genetic contamination risk

Interestingly, there appears to be another problem with MON810. Independent nonprofit research institute Test Biotech has reported that MON810 poses a risk of GM transgenes spreading to other plant species, and is calling for a withdrawal of Monsanto’s application to the EU for approval of its cultivation.

It’s become increasingly evident that GM technology has turned out to be – as many predicted – a dangerous experiment gone completely awry. GM crops have failed to produce the promised yields, while more and more studies are uncovering health risks associated with the technology.

Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup – an herbicide essential to the whole Monsanto biotech equation – is a highly toxic and carcinogenic chemical. Glyphosate has now become the most widely used herbicide in history, and roughly 19 percent of all glyphosate produced since it was first introduced in 1974 has been dumped on the United States alone. (Related: We also cover glyphosate “RoundUp” news at Glyphosate.news)

It’s time for a complete global ban on GM agriculture and the use of glyphosate.

To stay informed on all the nefarious people pushing these poisons on humanity, read MonsantoMafia.com.

Sources:

GMWatch.org

TestBiotech.org

Truth-Out.org

EcoWatch.com

EcoWatch.com

If your idea of “getting away from it all” entails visiting a national park, however, you might soon find that it is less of an escape from corporate America than it once was. While you were busy enjoying the holidays with your family and friends, a controversial set of rules was quietly granted approval that will allow advertisements to intrude on the parks’ natural beauty.

Order lifts ban on ads in national parks

The new order signed by National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis on December 28, puts an end to the ban on commercial advertising in national parks and removes restrictions on naming rights. The order, which is known as Order #21 on Donations and Philanthropic Partnerships, expands commercial contracts with private firms and corporate sponsorships. (RELATED: Read more examples of total stupidity at Stupid.news)

The National Park Service controls 412 parks, monuments, recreational areas and battlefields that together cover 84 million acres of land, which means an influx of new marketing opportunities will be opened up to corporate sponsors. The National Park Service recently said it was launching a fundraising campaign to the tune of $350 million; the federal budget set aside nearly $3 billion for the agency in 2016.

Public outcry

More than 200,000 people have signed a petition against the controversial move. Kristen Strader, the coordinator of the advocacy group, Public Citizen, who organized a campaign against these proposed reforms, said the move was “disgraceful.” In addition to the petition, hundreds of individuals have lodged official objections with the National Park Service.

Public Citizen joined forces with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood to publish public comments on the proposal after the Parks Service failed to do so. They say that 78 percent of commenters were opposed to the policy.

“Now that this policy has been finalized, park visitors soon could be greeted with various forms of advertisements, like a sign reading ‘brought to you by McDonald’s’ within a new visitor’s center at Yosemite, or ‘Budweiser’ in script on a park bench at Acadia,” Strader said.

The park service is now trying to allay people’s fears by implying that the public does not fully understand the order. While it will allow donors to be recognized by the parks with labels on some items, corporations and other types of sponsors will not be allowed to rename parks. They also point out that logos and ad language will not be allowed. They liken these provisions to those found in hospitals, museums and universities whereby certain rooms might be temporarily renamed in recognition of a donor that supported renovations, for example. The NPS director must approve of all signage.

Despite these assurances, opponents insist that the move is opening up our national parks to a previously unseen amount of commercial influence, and many fear this is only the beginning. This approach embodies much of what is wrong with America these days. Commercialization already reaches us everywhere we go, and the value of nature is being increasingly marginalized in favor of the all-important bottom line. Whether it’s the push by Big Pharma to make people think their toxic prescriptions are superior to the healing plants provided by the earth, or the ongoing global deforestation to clear land for other money-making endeavors, governments around the world are turning a blind eye to corporate tactics that destroy our planet’s natural resources and beauty.

Sources include:

CommonDreams.org

FoxNews.com

Consumerist.com

AJC.com