Giffords shooter shows pattern of psychiatric derangement; no clear political affiliation

(NaturalNews) Of all the senseless acts of violence we’ve seen over the years, today’s shooting at a Gabrielle Giffords public event in Tucson really strikes home. I spent time in the company of “Gabby” Giffords and met many members of her staff during her first run for Congress. I saw her as a “balanced” representative (a former Republican turned Democrat who still, for example, supported Second Amendment rights) who I thought could bring some new energy into Washington, which seems to perpetually suffer from “Good ‘Old Boys” syndrome. That she has been violently attacked by an individual who is obviously mentally deranged is shocking and extremely disturbing. Almost as disturbing is how the mainstream media has latched onto this story as a way to demonize anyone who believes in the U.S. Constitution. The shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner , is, by any sensible interpretation, mentally deranged. Yes, he mentioned the Constitution among his various ramblings, but he also listed the Communist Manifesto as being among his favorite books. In addition, he released a YouTube video containing unintelligible ramblings of repeated nonsense phrases, including references to the government taking away “grammar,” of having a colorful bird on his shoulder, brainwashing and what he called “conscience dreaming.” The utterly false and irresponsible accusation floating around certain circles on the ‘net that Loughner was some sort of extreme right winger who targeted a Democrat is extremely irresponsible and hateful. Giffords was pro Second Amendment and publicly supported the right of the People to keep and bear arms. She’s actually a gun owner who urged the U.S. Supreme Court to protect Second Amendment rights. She was also a huge supporter of a stronger border with Mexico , which has traditionally been one of the key positions of Arizona conservatives. Giffords can’t be pigeonholed into a label, you see. Her views are far more complex than “Democrat” vs “Republican.” She is certainly no “left-wing liberal,” and the attack on her doesn’t appear to be politically motivated at all (see below). A pattern of psychiatric intervention? What’s clear from the shooting is that Loughner was gunning for EVERYBODY , not just Giffords. He unloaded multiple rounds (15 – 20 rounds, according to press reports) on anybody and everybody standing nearby: Children, adults, etc. Does this ring a bell for anyone? A young white male, disillusioned, confused, mentally deranged… and opening fire on innocent people? That’s the pattern we saw in the Columbine High School shootings in 1999, and it turned out that the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were on psychiatric medications . (http://www.naturalnews.com/025826_Antidepressants_school_shootings.html) In fact, numerous public shootings have been carried out by those who are either on psychiatric medications or who have recently stopped taking them (which can be just as dangerous in the short term). Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold talked about how their world had become like a dream, where they couldn’t tell the difference between the dream world and the waking world. Those are now virtually the same words as Jared Lee Loughner who, in his various ramblings, talked about “sleepwalking” during the day and “conscience dreaming [sic]” at other times. While we have no proof yet that psychiatric drugs are involved here, we do see a very suspicious pattern of mental instability that suggests a likely connection. The sleepwalking behaviors Loughner describes are, in fact, common side effects of psychotropic drugs such as Ambien , which is famous for causing people to actually “sleep drive” into town and suddenly awake in the middle of the road, driving their car in their pajamas, with no knowledge of how they got there (http://www.naturalnews.com/019413.html). I must stress that we don’t yet know whether Loughner was on sleeping medications or psychiatric drugs, but his behavior fits the pattern of someone who was: The lack of touch with reality, the violent and indiscriminate shooting, and the interweaving of the dream world with the real world. These are red flags of someone who is either suffering from a severe nutritional deficiency that affects brain function (vitamin D, for example, is important for preventing schizophrenia) or someone whose brain has been chemically altered through pharmacological intervention. The phrase “young white male” should scream out the obvious statistical link to ADHD drugs, by the way. NaturalNews is attempting to determine whether Loughner was previously on psychiatric medications. What is VERY clear at this point is that Loughner was not of the presence of mind to be rationally affiliated with ANY political party: Not on the left, nor the right. His apparent psychosis takes him way out of the realm of rational participation in any particular philosophy. Even his favorite books listed on his Myspace page adhere to no particularly consistent overriding philosophy. He was, however, fascinated with the question of what is real versus what’s just an imaginary dream. He was a fan of Alice in Wonderland , for example, as well as George Orwell’s Animal Farm . Don’t be fooled by the MSM coverage of this story Although there is still much more to emerge from this tragic event, it is clear that this is not some simple story about a disgruntled patriot who wanted to kill a Democrat. In fact, Loughner was no patriot at all: He openly talked about burning the American flag . Rather, this is really a story about mental illness in America , and the roots of this mental illness are undoubtedly partly found in these elements: • The chemical contamination of our food and water (fluoride, food additives, etc.) • Widespread nutritional deficiencies that promote mental illness • The scourge of the psychiatric drug industry and the widespread drugging of teens and children … and also, quite possibly: • The “programming” of young males with extremely violent video games which are now also used in the military to desensitize young adults to the violence of killing. Loughner, by the way, was reportedly a military recruit. As more facts emerge from this story, we will do our best to cover them here on NaturalNews. I am personally angered by these events as well as the mainstream media’s outrageously dishonest attempts to twist this story into some sort of “gun nut” angle, which it most definitely is not. I am also extremely saddened at the loss of life that occurred today, right in Tucson, virtually right next door to where I used to shop for organic produce at the Whole Foods on Oracle (used to be Wild Oats). That was not a “bad” part of town. That whole section of Tucson is actually the safer part of the town. In many ways, it is the “yuppie” part of town where the wealthier folks lived, with their high-end schools. Loughner attended one of those high schools on the northwest side of Tucson, I’ve been told. He was not part of the far rougher schools on the South side of that city. My heart goes out to Giffords, her family, and the other victims of this senseless crime. Most especially to the young child who was reportedly shot, and the federal judge who was reportedly killed. Several Giffords staff members were also harmed or killed (we don’t have solid details yet). I can tell you that, from my personal experience, the Giffords staff members are very dedicated, hard-working honest people and none of them deserve this kind of treatment. I may not agree with all the political decisions of Giffords (she voted for Obamacare, for example), but neither do I condone any use of violence to settle such disagreements. But remember, this was not an act of political activism . This was an act of madness carried out by a mentally deranged individual. I do not believe Giffords’ political positions had anything to do with it at all. After all, Loughner shot at all the other people in the crowd, too, and he had no way to know their political views either. Tucson cops, concealed carry firearms and more There is a report that one individual in the crowd was carrying a concealed firearm and managed to bring it to bear in an effort to stop Loughner from committing further violence. This may have been a lifesaving action. Many people in Arizona carry concealed firearms legally, acting as a sort of “citizens response team” to prevent such violence from taking place. In fact, the Tucson police department, for which I helped raise thousands of dollars as part of my non-profit volunteerism there, is desperately short on cash and actually recruits citizens to help law enforcement do their jobs more effectively there. I will write more about the dynamics of this, and the Tucson police force, in follow-up articles right here on NaturalNews. As someone who used to attend law enforcement meetings in Tucson, I know many of the high-ranking police officials on a personal basis, and I know them to be some of the most dedicated local law enforcement professionals I’ve ever met. Watch NaturalNews for more follow-up reports as we attempt to dig into this story and find out what could have possibly led to such an act of senseless violence. We will also take part in any fundraising efforts that get organized to help the victims of this shooting. But the most important thing we can do right now is try to get to the bottom of what’s behind this shooting and then take action to prevent such a terrible act of violence from occurring again.

Industry bought Congressional votes to pass S. 510 food safety bill

(NaturalNews) Despite an incredible outpouring of public opposition to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “Food Safety Modernization Act”, or S. 510, the Senate voted 73 to 25 to pass the bill anyway. And data presented by Maplight.org, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, shows that big industry groups and large food producers spent millions of dollars buying off Congressmen to garner support for it. According to the site, Senators that ended up supporting the bill received nearly $10 million in political contributions from interest groups that also supported the bill. This amount was more than four times as much as groups opposed to the bill spent on overall contributions. Some of the supporters of S. 510 that made these significant monetary contributions in order to buy support for the bill include Kraft Foods North America, the American Beverage Association, General Mills, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, and the Snack Food Association. Interestingly, the top four receivers of contributions from groups that supported the bill actually voted against it, most likely because they are all Republicans and the bill was authored by Democrat Richard Durbin. Even so, these include Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) who received $503,700, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who received $415,899, Jon Kyl (R-AZ) who received $335,377, and Richard Burr (R-NC) who received $317,086. The top receivers of contributions from groups that supported the bill, and who ended up voting in favor of it, include Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) who received $301,776, Ben Nelson (D-NE) who received $245,906, Charles Schumer (D-NY) who received $179,435, and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) who received $149,278. To see a full list of the Senators who supported S. 510, visit: http://www.naturalnews.com/030577_Senate_Bill_510_voting_record.html Sources for this story include: http://maplight.org/us-congress/bill/111-s-510/880093/total-contributions

List of U.S. Senators who voted for S 510 Food Safety Act

(NaturalNews) Senate Bill S 510 – the “Food Safety Modernization Act” – was passed by the U.S. Senate today (http://www.naturalnews.com/030576_Food_Safety_S_510.html). If signed into law, it would unleash a new era of FDA tyranny over farmers, food producers and even small family farms, many of which already exceed the “small farms exclusion” written into the bill. Here’s the list of US Senators who voted to approve final passage of S.510. Remember these names when the next election comes around: Akaka (D-HI) Alexander (R-TN) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Begich (D-AK) Bennet (D-CO) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Brown (R-MA) Burr (R-NC) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Coons (D-DE) Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Enzi (R-WY) Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) Franken (D-MN) Gillibrand (D-NY) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hagan (D-NC) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Johanns (R-NE) Johnson (D-SD) Kerry (D-MA) Kirk (R-IL) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) LeMieux (R-FL) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lugar (R-IN) Manchin (D-WV) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR) Mikulski (D-MD) Murkowski (R-AK) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (D-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Udall (D-CO) Udall (D-NM) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (D-VA) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR) Additional commentary about the vote Notably, there was not a single Democrat who opposed the bill. This bill was also supported by Food, Inc. authors Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, who have become the favored food commentators of the left. It’s now clear why: In supporting this bill, they have aligned themselves against Constitutional freedoms and in favor of increased Big Government (FDA) authority over food, seeds and farmers. Change.org also strongly supported S.510, although its online petition pitifully attracted only 1,662 signatures. The Libertarian groups who opposed the bill, in contrast, generated hundreds of thousands of emails and phone calls to U.S. Senate offices. These Libertarian-minded groups include NaturalNews, the Alliance for Natural Health (www.ANH-USA.org) and the Natural Solutions Foundation (www.HealthFreedomUSA.org), among others. As you well know, I personally don’t trust Democrats nor Republicans, but this fight over S.510 has shown yet again that, to the left, Big Government is always thought to be the solution, even if it means stripping away the Constitutional rights of Americans. The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans will take away your rights and money as an excuse to take care of the rich people. Democrats, on the other hand, will take away your rights and money as an excuse to take care of everybody. Remember: Republicans gave us the Patriot Act. And now Democrats have given us the Food Safety bill. Both laws are unconstitutional expansions of government power that the American people will come to regret.

Despite massive protests, US Senate passes S 510 Food Safety Bill

(NaturalNews) The new Food Tyranny Act — called the “Food Safety Modernization Act” in the U.S. Senate — has been passed by the senate today. It would give the FDA vast new powers to criminalize and imprison farmers and food producers while doing absolutely nothing to address to real root of the food contamination problem: Factory animal farm operations (which are regulated under the USDA, not the FDA). The bill passed 73 to 25, with Sen Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) emerging as the greatest “voice of reason” in the debate. His last-ditch amendment to reduce the scale of the bill was defeated this morning. Here’s the official vote record: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00257 Notably, there wasn’t a single Democrat who opposed the bill . This bill, as originally written, would have outlawed most nutritional supplements through “harmonization” with European laws. It also would have authorized ten-year prison sentences for farmers selling raw milk to their neighbors. Both of those provisions were eventually stripped out of the bill thanks to some last-minute amendments, but it gives you an idea of the outright police state mentality of the original bill authors who attempted to put in place complete government control over food, gardens, raw milk and more. To give you an idea of how clueless U.S. Senators are about food, the New York Times is reporting that when Senate staff members met to discuss this bill, they would eat Starburst candies and jellybeans. As the NYT reports, “In the midst of negotiations, the negotiators — nearly all women — took a field trip to a nearby food market so that a Republican staff member could teach the Democrats how to buy high-quality steaks.” So what we have here is a new food tyranny law that was essentially negotiated by a group of women who eat dead foods , animals products and candy. No wonder they still don’t get it. The contamination of lettuce and other fresh produce is caused by factory animals farms , not by produce farms. (E.coli can only thrive in the digestive tracts of animals, not plants.) The “small farms” exclusion will soon be meaningless The Tester Amendment of the bill did manage to exclude some smaller farmers from the more tyrannical provisions of the bill. As currently stated, this would exclude small farms that sell less than $500,000 worth of food and which sell most of their food locally. However, Senators failed to consider what’s going to happen when the Federal Reserve keeps printing counterfeit money, devaluing the dollar and causing massive food price inflation. A farm that right now produces merely $100,000 worth of food (which could be a small, two-person farm) will soon find itself producing $500,000 worth of food (or more) due to the rapidly falling value of the U.S. dollar. This is how the Federal Reserve’s money counterfeiting actions will further destroy America and place small family farms under the tyranny of the FDA. What’s next: Defeat the bill in committee The Senate version of the bill must now be reconciled with the House version that was passed last year. This reconciliation committee must hammer out the differences between the two bills. Democrats are urgently rushing to do this during their “lame duck” session in order to avoid more Republicans getting involved who would seek to scale back the power and size of the federal government. Some House Democrats are even suggesting they would support passing the Senate version of the bill as it is written, without requiring any changes whatsoever, just to rush it through before the end of the year. NaturalNews and other health freedom organizations intend to fight this effort, hoping to stall the bill until the new Congress can enter the picture and hopefully interject some common sense into the negotiations. Please don’t feed the monster If signed into law by the President (who is sure to sign it), this Food Safety Bill would provide yet more power and funding to one of the most dangerous monsters our nation has ever known: The FDA. This is the agency responsible for the death of more Americans than all the wars our nation has ever been involved with — combined! (http://www.naturalnews.com/030461_Senate_Bill_510_Food_Safety.html) The idea that we’re going to save a few lives from food poisoning while subjecting everyone to yet another layer of Big Government tyranny is so abhorrent and downright evil that if our country’s founding fathers saw all this going on, they would be stunned into silence that it’s happening in “the land of the free.” Fresh milk being criminalized? You’ve got to be kidding… Only they’re not kidding. The FDA is the agency that has raided vitamin companies (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html), arrested nutritional supplement manufacturers and ordered the destruction of books containing stevia recipes. This is the agency that censors the scientific truth about natural foods like cherries and walnuts (http://www.naturalnews.com/029698_censorship_FDA.html) while promoting the outright fraud and quackery of the pharmaceutical industry. And now the FDA is to be rewarded for its malfeasance with yet MORE power and authority? This is how Washington works, folks. The government always thinks it’s here to save you, and the Democrats want Big Government to be your nanny and “take care of you.” (The Republicans, for their part, just want to bail out the wealthy banksters with your money.) And yet, when it all comes down to it, these people are just tyrants who have forgotten American history and abandoned the Constitution and its founding principles. Mark my words: Five years down the road, when the FDA’s armed “food police” are running rampant across America, arresting farmers and imprisoning lettuce growers, people will be appalled, and they’ll wonder, “How could we have let this happen!?” The answer is right here: You let it happen because you allowed Big Government to rule over the food supply. And if there’s one thing we know about Big Government, it’s that it always wants to get bigger. It always wants more power. More authority. More funding. And more excuses to function as a dictatorship that rules over the American people. The Food Safety Modernization Act is to the food supply what the Patriot Act is to the Bill of Rights. We must make every effort to prevent this from becoming law, lest we find ourselves living under a food dictatorship where only dead, fumigated or irradiated food will be allowed to be sold to the public. The “food irradiation plot” has been the plan from the very beginning of all this (http://www.naturalnews.com/023015_food_foods_USDA.html). Of course, once the real food is all criminalized and outlawed, there’s always soylent green . That might not be too far off, come to think of it.

Monsanto candidates win election

(NaturalNews) Washington, D.C., is a hotbed of political lobbyists whose primary goal is to sway politicians to do their bidding. Multinational biotechnology giant Monsanto is one such lobbyist with a Political Action Committee (PAC) that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to buy off candidates to support its agenda. And in the most recent U.S. election cycle, most of the company’s funded candidates won their races. According to a recent report from the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), ten of the 15 Congressmen that Monsanto helped fund won their seats, including Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina and Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Monsanto even gave money to a number of candidates that were either retiring or not up for reelection, most likely as a “thank you” for previous political favors. Based on information contained in disclosure reports, Monsanto spent over $470,000 on the overall mid-term election cycle, with just under $128,000 going to Congressional Democrats and over $121,000 going to Congressional Republicans. To see if your Congressmen accepted money from Monsanto, check out the OpenSecrets Monsanto contributions page: http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2010&cmte=C00042069 Monsanto darling Bill Northey, who was just reelected as Iowa’s Secretary of Agriculture, also has a history of financial ties with Monsanto. Northey, a Republican with a strong allegiance towards biotechnology, unsustainable industrial agriculture, and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), beat out Francis Thicke, a Democrat who operates an organic dairy farm and believes in bringing local, sustainable, family-scale farming back to Iowa and the U.S. NaturalNews recently covered a story on Francis Thicke that provides some interesting background into the importance of the Iowa Secretary of Agriculture race, as well as a link to a free E-book written by Thicke about sustainable agriculture: http://www.naturalnews.com/030206_Francis_Thicke_Iowa.html According to a recent report in the Iowa Independent , former Iowa Democratic Party and Polk County chairman Jerry Crawford, announced his support for Northey just a few days before the election, which may have helped sway voters against supporting Thicke. Crawford has strong ties to both U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, as well as Monsanto. So no matter what side of the aisle a politician is on, if he or she can be purchased and controlled by Monsanto, then the money starts flowing. To help combat this corrupt practice, OCA has put together a petition to send to your elected officials demanding that they “Say NO to Monsanto’s Dirty Money”. You can access that petition here: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25335 Sources for this story include: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21936.cfm http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2010&cmte=C00042069

Vote NO for Congress – why Congress has failed the People on health care, debt and freedom

(NaturalNews) Ah, election season is upon us again, and the nation — ever in dire need of some new disorder to treat with drugs — is suffering from electile dysfunction . Nobody seems to know which political party or congressional candidates might lead us out of the national mess we’re in today, with debt spiraling out of control and health care reform only leading (so far) to huge rate increases in health insurance premiums. Job losses in America over the last year have been staggering, and there’s no indication that things are going to get better anytime soon. From this, many people are crying for change in Washington. But this idea of sending new people to Washington, I submit, is merely another gimmick foisted upon the American people by members of Congress who seem more interested in looting America than saving her. Because the real secret in Washington is that it doesn’t matter whether Democrats or Republicans are in charge . It’s the corporations that control both parties in the end. Why the corporations are in control The corporations, you see, have been running Washington for decades — on both sides of the political fence. It was the Bush Administration, you may remember, that rigged a secret back-room deal with Big Pharma to make it illegal for the U.S. government to negotiate discount pricing for large-scale Medicare drug purchasing. This locked in a Big Pharma monopoly that has already cost the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars in the years since. The Obama Administration went one step further with health care reform, making sure Big Pharma maintained its monopoly position while forcing tens of millions of Americans to participate in the failed conventional medicine system (or else be fined by the IRS for choosing to opt out). Health care reform should have been called “the Big Pharma Profit Assurance Act.” Both Democrats and Republicans push vaccines onto the People. Both parties refuse to make any effort to investigate the health hazards of aspartame, MSG, fluoride or sodium nitrite. Both parties support the conventional cancer industry, with all its medical quackery, mammography and chemotherapy that poisons and kills hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. The Obama Administration, by the way, won’t even take a stand on vitamin D deficiency and black Americans. The “dirty little secret” of the health industry — that black Americans could drastically reduce their disease rates with low-cost vitamin D supplements — remains hidden even with Obama as President! The truth is, folks, neither political party cares about your health . Neither party believes in disease prevention, nutritional literacy or public health education. And the sad, blunt truth of the matter is that no one in Washington will save us . If We the People wish to save ourselves from the disastrous management of our country that has been demonstrated in Washington D.C., we are going to have to take America back from the corporations and the special interest groups . We need to put the power back into the hands of the People and keep it out of the hands of the dishonest, corrupt members of Congress who consistently betray the People for their own personal gain (they will sell us out just to stay in office). Why disbanding Congress makes good sense While I recognize there are a few exceptions to my negative characterization of members of Congress — Dr. Ron Paul comes to mind — I think most NaturalNews readers will agree that Congress, when in session, is a threat to our freedoms and our pocketbooks. The logical thing to do would be to disband Congress . That it even exists at all is a throwback to a pre-telegraph world where long-distance communications were impossible, so people actually sent someone to Washington to represent their interests. These “representatives” then joined together in the “House of Representatives” and later become known as Congressmen (and women). But today, with instant online communications, the People don’t really need anyone to represent them in Washington anymore. Voters could simply vote directly on proposed legislation, without the House and Senate getting in the way. That’s called a “Direct Democracy,” and it would eliminate Congress entirely, reverting the power to pass legislation back to the People. A Direct Democracy would seem more fitting for our modern world than our current outmoded “horse-and-buggy” system of representation. Besides, it’s fairly obvious that our “representatives” in Washington don’t represent our interests anyway. Instead, they represent the special interests of the corporations that keep them in power. So the very body that was supposed to represent the People has sold them out and become a tool of the corporations that are poisoning and exploiting the People for profit. (Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Agriculture, etc.) Interestingly, Congress believes that the American people are just too stupid to understand and vote on their own legislation. And to prove just how much smarter they are, members of Congress created a 1,900-page health care reform bill that none of them read, even as the Speaker of the House announced that they should pass the bill first so they could all find out what was in it. Personally, I believe the People could do a better job of voting on legislation than members of Congress . For one thing, the People can’t be bought out by corporate interests because there are simply too many people to buy off. Secondly, members of Congress are so out of touch with the real people of America that they really have no clue what’s going on in the districts they claim to represent. Sure, it’s easy to CLAIM you represent the people while you’re flying around in luxury jets and getting free health care on the Congressional health insurance benefits program, but that doesn’t qualify you to know anything about what’s really happening in the homes and on the streets back home. I say, why not let the American people just vote on legislation directly? Of course, to do so would require disbanding Congress , and that would take a Constitutional amendment. So don’t hold your breath — members of Congress will surely do whatever it takes to hold on to their power. Most likely, the only way a Direct Democracy ever comes into play is if the current system of government collapses and a new one takes its place. Some say that such a day isn’t far off, actually. I’m not sure how much I agree with that, but every time Ben Bernanke cranks up the counterfeit printing presses at the Fed, I become increasingly convinced these people may be right. One thing I do know for sure is that the current health care system operating in America will bankrupt America . It is utterly non-sustainable and must be radically reformed before it drags the whole nation into a toxic financial tar pit. (No nation can afford to keep paying for degenerative disease forever…) I also know — and please take this in its full context — that who you vote for in the upcoming elections probably doesn’t matter as much as you hope it would . Whether a Democrat or a Republican lands a new seat in Washington doesn’t matter one iota to the corporate interests that really run this nation. They can buy off a Democrat just as easily as a Republican. Both parties stands for more debt spending, more sick care and the continued erosion of your freedoms. Sure, we can hope to make some small difference by replacing a truly corrupt person with someone who is hopefully less corrupt. Personally, I’d like to see Senator Reid defeated solely because of his deep ties to Big Pharma (I don’t care what party he belongs to, but he happens to be a Democrat in this case) (http://www.naturalnews.com/029450_Harry_Reid_Big_Pharma.html). But there’s no guarantee that whoever replaces him won’t be just as corrupt six months down the road. I’ve personally met members of Congress on the election trail, before they won a seat in Washington. They all seem so genuine, so honest, so passionate and full of drive to make a difference. They are sincere and they mean well, but once they get to Washington, the system changes them . In Washington, you learn very quickly that if you don’t play ball, you get marginalized almost immediately. And if you vote against corporate interests, you find yourself running out of campaign funds at your next reelection effort. Funny how that works, huh? The bottom line in all this is that Americans must remember: Congress will not save us from the messes in which we find ourselves today. To vote for a member of Congress is in one sense a wasted vote because that person, once he or she gets to Washington, will almost certainly turn around and vote against you and your best interests. Such is the nature of our outmoded, almost ancient system of “representative democracy” in which the People hold virtually no power and are, instead, ruled over by a class of elite power brokers who write laws of such complexity that even they have no clue what they’re voting on. I say the whole system is broken and real progress can only come when we find a way to enact a Direct Democracy where the People are put back in charge over their own future. Expecting Congress to solve our problems is a form of insanity To put your faith in one new representative operating inside a broken, corrupt system of representative democracy is to bet against the impossible. Congress can no more protect the People’s interests than a basement rat can recite Shakespeare. To wait for Congress to solve the very problems that Congress has created is a form of insanity — repeating the same actions over and over again while expecting different results. Every two years, America repeats the same action of replacing a few of the crooks in Washington and then somehow expecting things to really change. But things don’t really change. Debt, disease and wars continue to burden us all, and no one in Washington has the courage and leadership to stand up and actually make the tough choices that America needs to make in order to ensure its future. Choices like ending conventional medicine’s ridiculous monopoly over health care, or banning the use of all harmful food and beverage ingredients that are poisoning our children. Or ending the FDA’s tyrannical censorship of nutritional science (http://www.naturalnews.com/029698_censorship_FDA.html). Trust me on this point: Real change will never come from within our current system of broken government . It will come not from an evolution of Congress but rather a revolution of social change leading to more participatory government (such as a Direct Democracy) where the People are able to express their hopes and dreams through the direct voting on national legislation. Remember: We are supposed to be a government of the People, by the People and for the People. So why are the People currently kept out of the loop when it comes to voting on the legislation that shapes our nation? Why are we running America in 2010 on a system of representative horse-and-buggy government developed over two thousand years ago in the age of the Roman Empire? Isn’t it time that the People of America took back the power of government they once delegated to representatives and disbanded the very Congress that has put us in this mess in the first place? That’s why I say vote NO for Congress . It’s time to end representative democracy and put the American People back in charge of their own future. The best thing we could all do right now for the future of America is retire Congress , send them all back home with a basket of flowers and a nice thank you card, enact a Direct Democracy amendment to the U.S. Constitution and then start the laborious process of unwinding all the legislative damage that Congress has burdened us with over the last hundred years or so. There’s a lesson in all this, by the way. Never give away your power to government. Once you do, it’s almost impossible to ever get it back. The American People have given away their power for so long that most Americans have forgotten the power was theirs to begin with. (And that’s the way Congress would like to keep it, no doubt.)

Sen. Harry Reid key player in Big Pharma’s control over Washington

(NaturalNews) Corruption in Washington is nothing new. Lobbyists for special interests have been padding the pockets of amoral politicians for longer than most of us have been alive, and they’ve been doing so with the help of a controlled media that rarely presents the facts without shrouding them in terms of “left” or “right” in order to confuse people. But as you’ll see in this story, the corruption goes far deeper than most people realize, and a perfect example of this is the dishonorable legacy of Nevada Senator and U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. Reid was recently exposed for accepting large sums of money from Big Pharma in order to craft and guide the recently-passed health care bill in Big Pharma’s favor. Reid’s political career dates back to the 1960s. He’s been a member of Congress since 1982, and a Nevada Senator since 1986. And since the early days of his career, Reid has been accepting contributions from lobbyists as payment for political favors. One of the earliest stories I found about Reid accepting money from lobbyists is a 1987 Washington Post article about how Reid and several other Nevada politicians had accepted money from mob sources that had connections to the Nevada gaming industry. (The full text of the article is available for purchase, but the part about Reid is visible in the abstract for free). In 2006, Reid ranked tenth in Judicial Watch’s Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians . According to the allegations, he failed to report a $700,000 land deal to Congress, and accepted $30,000 in bribe money from Nevada Indian gaming. Again in 2007, Reid made the same top ten list . This time, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times that year, Reid abused his power in Washington to negotiate a lucrative real estate deal for developer Havey Whittemore. The same report explained that Whittemore had contributed “tens of thousands of dollars” to Reid’s campaign, and hired Reid’s son, Leif, to act as the company’s lawyer in order to “negotiate” the deal with federal officials. There are likely other historical scandals involving Reid, but these should give you a taste of the type of activities in which you might typically find him engaged. (And you may want to check out Judicial Watch for yourself to see who else is on these lists; you might be surprised to see that politicians from both sides of the aisle regularly appear there). But the biggest issue I want to bring to your attention is Harry Reid’s open and obvious connections to Big Pharma, particularly in relation to the recent health care bill. This is perhaps the most damning and far-reaching scandal in Reid’s history yet, illustrating just how powerful Big Pharma is when it comes to controlling Washington for its own gain. Big Pharma used politicians like Harry Reid to steer health care reform According to a recent Washington Examiner article , Big Pharma has had its tentacles deeply intertwined in health legislation for years, and the industry has been involved in virtually every aspect of crafting the recent health care “reform” bill. Last summer, Billy Tauzin, then President of the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), visited the White House to work out a deal on the health care bill. Mind you, PhRMA is the largest single-industry lobbying group in the nation. According to reports, he negotiated with government officials to make sure all existing drug industry favors would remain intact in any proposed health care legislation. But this wasn’t all. Tauzin was able to convince Democrat politicians — many of the same ones who promised during the Obama campaign to rid Washington of special interest control — to add to the bill additional drug industry perks including subsidies, mandates, and a complete monopoly on complex drugs that will last 12 years. So much for transparency and reform, huh? When all was said and done, PhRMA got what it wanted and Big Pharma won yet another long-term financial victory in the name of “reform.” So how does Harry Reid play into all this? Well for starters, Reid successfully stopped Byron Dorgan’s drug reimportation amendment from being added to the bill, which would have helped to reduce drug costs for consumers (and cut Big Pharma’s profits). The Dorgan amendment was basically a government price control option that would have reduced drug prices for consumers and limited Big Pharma’s complete monopoly over drugs. Even though it was a far cry from a true free market that would lower drug prices through real competition, the amendment would have cut costs for consumers, employers and states at the expense of Big Pharma’s monopoly. Nevertheless, Big Pharma quickly squashed the amendment through one of their right-hand men, Harry Reid, who coordinated a Democratic filibuster of the bill until PhRMA could convince the politicians who supported the amendment to change their minds. One of the ways PhRMA achieved this was by convincing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to write a letter to the Senators who were about to vote on the bill. Throughout this entire process, Reid was the primary catalyst for guiding health care reform legislation the way PhRMA wanted it to go, and in the end, he made sure it got passed the way Big Pharma wanted. A far cry from actual reform, the health care bill drastically expanded Big Pharma’s control over health care under the guise of being a “public option”. Follow the money to Sen. Reid’s office Big Pharma rewarded Reid nicely for his services by paying him tens of thousands of dollars. In fact, the money began flowing almost immediately after Tauzin first visited the White House back in July 2009. According to news reports , drug giant Eli Lilly sent Reid a $5,000 check just two days after Tauzin’s first visit to Washington. By the following Monday, Reid received two more $5,000 checks, one from PhRMA and one from Pfizer, the nation’s largest drug company. And by the end of the following week, Merck and Astra-Zeneca sent their checks as well. So in less than two weeks after a visit from a Big Pharma lobbyist, a single politician receives at least $23,000. But that’s just the money Reid received for the initial meeting. After successfully getting the bill passed, Big Pharma sent Reid plenty of “thank you” money for his compliance with their agenda. As of May 30, 2010, Reid’s Big Pharma gifts totaled at least $154,000 , setting him one place behind Big Pharma’s number one man, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC). It’s important to note that Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat, and Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican, hold the top two positions on Big Pharma’s political donation payroll. Both political parties, you see, are deep in bed with Big Pharma. Reid’s re-election campaign being driven by Big Pharma Naturally, the passage of Obamacare has sent shock waves throughout the nation, including in Harry Reid’s home state of Nevada. Reid’s support for re-election dropped tremendously in his home state following the passage of Obamacare, with approval ratings hovering in the 30 percentile. Fortunately for Reid, part of Big Pharma’s payment for his services includes funding an ad campaign for his re-election this fall . One of the ads they’ve made for Reid includes laud and praise for the many supposed ways that he’s helped Nevada families and improved the condition of the state, but the ad was bought and paid for by, guess who? PhRMA. It’s exactly this type of apparent corruption in Washington that the Obama campaign spoke so heavily against on the campaign trail. But in its actions, the Obama administration wholly supported handing Big Pharma even more monopolistic control over America’s health care system. This type of doublespeak seems sadly typical in Washington, and it comes from both parties. Reid, and countless other Washington politicians from both sides of the aisle, regularly accept money from powerful lobbyists like Big Pharma that control our government and shape our public health care policies. Big Pharma operates a multi-billion dollar monopoly on medicine that it uses to financially influence politicians who write industry laws. And the facts show that this type of corruption exists on both sides of the aisle. Those whose campaigns are the most heavily funded are almost always the same candidates receiving money from the pharmaceutical industry, regardless of their political affiliations. Real candidates like Representative Ron Paul will always be marginalized because they refuse to be political prostitutes for the corporate elite who want to control our nation. They serve based on principle, not based on which industry hands them the most money. Sadly, both the Republican and Democratic party have been largely hijacked by pharmaceutical interests, and until we get the corporations out of politics — and the crooks out of Washington — this situation is unlikely to change.

Proposed bill aims to reform pet insurance industry

(NaturalNews) California state Assemblyman Dave Jones, a Democrat, has proposed a bill that, if passed, will reform the way pet insurance companies operate. Most pet insurance companies do not explain policy details to policyholders because the industry is largely under-regulated. But the terms of the new bill require pet insurance companies to disclose to policyholders all policy information on their websites. Like human health care, pet health care costs have steadily increased over the years as scientists have developed expensive new treatments to treat serious illnesses. As a result, pet owners have had to fork over increasing amounts of cash to provide health care for their pets, driving many to pursue the insurance option. But after purchasing policies, many policyholders have come to realize that certain procedures are not covered, that companies often increase rates based on the amount of claims filed in previous policy periods, and even that the “reasonable and customary costs” covered by insurance are far lower than the actual costs of procedures. Consider the case of Gary Lucks, who got stuck paying over $3,000 for his dog’s cancer treatments after finding out that his dog’s insurance did not cover the 85 percent of treatment costs that he expected. “It was just an outrage,” Lucks explained to reporters. “There needs to be full disclosure, so the unwary consumer is aware of what they’re paying and what they’re getting.” There are also reports that people who purchase policies have no idea that their pets may be exempted from coverage due to pre-existing conditions. “A number of pet owners have complained to me that they bought a policy, and they weren’t told about pre-existing conditions,” explained Jones in an MSNBC article. Part of Jones’ bill will also require that pet insurance be added as a separate line in the state’s insurance code. Sources for this story include: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38311966/ns/health/

Maine May Require Cell Phones to Carry Cancer Warnings

(NaturalNews) Representative Andrea Boland, a Democrat from Maine, has introduced legislation that would require all mobile phones sold in the state to bear a label warning people that the devices may cause brain cancer. Citing studies that highlight such risks, Boland plans to make her case before the legislature in January in favor of the bill which, if enacted, would make Maine the first state to mandate hazard warnings for mobile devices.

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