Ireland: Jim Corr Stands Up to the Bankers Who are Controlling the Production of Money and the Fate of Countries (“Message to the People of Ireland”…and Beyond)

~~InsightAnalytical-GRL

We’ve written about currency wars, the demise of the U.S. dollar , Goldman Sachs, etc. over the past year  (see March 2009 for several pieces on China, plans to dump the dollar, etc.).

But this video says it all.  It’s a passionate plea for people to WAKE UP and recognize what is happening in Europe and what is going to befall the U.S.  We have been handed over to the big bankers and are more concerned about watching a lot of reality TV shows and dancing fools, rather than paying attention as our economic security goes down the drain.

The brutal truth is that the the same bunch (IMF, World Bank) that has impoverished many developing countries with their “loans” and harsh demands has its sights on Europe. Iceland was the first to suffer.  Ireland is now losing its sovereignty.  Portugal? SPAIN??  Then what??

And all  meant to pad the pockets of the elite with the hard-earned money of the little people and for them to garner complete control over our lives…. It’s not just about Ireland, it’s about US, too!

Nobody voted for these people…as Corr says, this is about the privatization of money…our money…it is about theft.

He warns about many things….listen, if you have been fearing about “crackdowns.”

Visit Jim Corr’s website for more info on the current sad state of affairs…which goes beyond Irish shores.

http://www.jimcorr.com/

Surprise, Surprise: Our Goldman Sachs Buddies Are Knee Deep in the Greek Debt Crisis

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Well, here we go again!

Goldman Sachs had a role in creating the current debt crisis in Greece. Why am I not surprised?

From Spiegel Online International:

How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt

Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the country’s already bloated deficit.

snip

Now, though, it looks like the Greek figure jugglers have been even more brazen than was previously thought. “Around 2002 in particular, various investment banks offered complex financial products with which governments could push part of their liabilities into the future,” one insider recalled, adding that Mediterranean countries had snapped up such products.

Apparently Italy also hid its real debt, but with another U.S. bank which isn’t named in the article.

The article continues:

Greece’s debt managers agreed a huge deal with the savvy bankers of US investment bank Goldman Sachs at the start of 2002. The deal involved so-called cross-currency swaps in which government debt issued in dollars and yen was swapped for euro debt for a certain period — to be exchanged back into the original currencies at a later date.

Fictional Exchange Rates

Such transactions are part of normal government refinancing. Europe’s governments obtain funds from investors around the world by issuing bonds in yen, dollar or Swiss francs. But they need euros to pay their daily bills. Years later the bonds are repaid in the original foreign denominations.

But in the Greek case the US bankers devised a special kind of swap with fictional exchange rates. That enabled Greece to receive a far higher sum than the actual euro market value of 10 billion dollars or yen. In that way Goldman Sachs secretly arranged additional credit of up to $1 billion for the Greeks.

This credit disguised as a swap didn’t show up in the Greek debt statistics. Eurostat’s reporting rules don’t comprehensively record transactions involving financial derivatives. “The Maastricht rules can be circumvented quite legally through swaps,” says a German derivatives dealer.

more

“Fictional exchange rates.”  Incredible.

But not surprising if you’ve followed the recent actions and attitude of Goldman Sachs. You know, the guys who talk about “morality in the marketplace”…

Sigh….

***

This Would Be the Laugh of the Day if It Weren’t So Aggravating: Pious Rationalizations About “Morality in the Marketplace” from Our Buddies at Goldman Sachs 10/21/2009

Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO Says Company Is Part of a “Virtuous Cycle” With a “Social Purpose” Even as It Apparently Moves Markets in “Miraculous” Ways (SEC, Where Are You?) November 8, 2009

Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO Says Company Is Part of a “Virtuous Cycle” With a “Social Purpose” Even as It Apparently Moves Markets in “Miraculous” Ways (SEC, Where Are You?)

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

A couple of weeks ago we brought you this little ditty about how some executive at Goldman Sachs explained how moral the marketplace is (See: This Would Be the Laugh of the Day if It Weren’t So Aggravating: Pious Rationalizations About “Morality in the Marketplace” from Our Buddies at Goldman Sachs (Posted 10/21/2009). 

Goldman Sachs’s Griffiths Says Inequality Helps All

A Goldman Sachs International adviser defended compensation in the finance industry as his company plans a near-record year for pay, saying the spending will help boost the economy.

“We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all,” Brian Griffiths, who was a special adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said yesterday at a panel discussion at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The panel’s discussion topic was, “What is the place of morality in the marketplace?”

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., based in New York, set aside $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2009, up 46 percent from a year earlier and enough to pay each worker $527,192 for the period. The amount set aside this year is just shy of the all-time high $16.9 billion allocated in the first three quarters of 2007. Goldman Sachs spokesman Michael DuVally in New York declined to comment.  (MORE)

Now, we’re in for ANOTHER treat from the grand poobahs at Goldman…From The Sunday Times (U.K.) profile on Goldman’s chairman and CEO, Lloyd Blankfein:

November 8, 2009

I’m doing ‘God’s work’. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs

John Arlidge

…

Luckily for him and his firm, he’s a damn good salesman. He starts with a little humility. He understands that “people are pissed off, mad, and bent out of shape” at bankers’ actions. Goldman played its part in the meltdown that almost destroyed the global financial system. It, like most other banks, lent too much money, made its first quarterly loss for more than a decade last year and ended up taking bail-out cash from Washington. “I know I could slit my wrists and people would cheer,” he says. But then, he slowly begins to argue the case for modern banking. “We’re very important,” he says, abandoning self-flagellation. “We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It’s a virtuous cycle.” To drive home his point, he makes a remarkably bold claim. “We have a social purpose.”

Social purpose? Those who have lost their jobs or seen their pay slashed thanks to bankers who flogged dodgy mortgages and dreamt up investments so complex not even they understood them, would gladly tell him where to stick his social purpose…

This piece goes on for 7 web pages and gets deep into the secretive Goldman Sach spider web and its political force, so it’s worth taking your time to rummage through it all.

Meanwhile, over at one of my favorite sites, Chris Martenson has been doing some analysis in a piece out on 11/6/200 titled “Market Recap – Ridiculous Productivity“. The start of the piece takes a look at Goldman Sach’s pattern of amazing level of investment success in the current financial markets (italics mine). (And, just for the record, Goldman Sachs profit last quarter was $3.2 billion and the average pay of the 30,000 on staff is going to be around $700,000 this year with top earners making LOTS more…)

After digging around and sifting through the things both said and not said, I have come to the conclusion that what we are seeing are the likely effects of a rescue operation.

By this I mean a large injection of stabilizing cash to one or more parties, possibly related to the recent large bankruptcies.  Two of my friends, who have been actively trading for more than 20 years between them, threw in the towel this week, as their patterns and methods are no longer working.

Their conclusion is the same as mine; this market is not trading like it used to.  It is trading chaotically, counterintuitively, and as if there’s some sort of distorting influence involved.

First, we might just wonder if this isn’t the impact of a rogue firm with entirely too much power moving the market for its own benefit.

When we examine the results of Goldman’s latest quarterly trading results, obviously we have a strong suspect.

He quotes from a piece discussing how Goldman Benefits from Trading Bonanza and concludes:

Only one day with trading losses out of the entire quarter?  A 98.5% win-rate?  Sorry folks, this is so far beyond the realm of statistically possible that we must search for other reasons.  There can be no doubt that Goldman is enjoying an advantage not shared by the rest of the market.

He has a chart up which shows some of the shenaigans in the market following certain data reports.  But there’s one market move in particular that seems to have resulted from perhaps a bit of advance knowledge?

We see the volatility as the market first surged on the GDP report and then slumped the day after.  Then there was a spike on the ISM (mfg) data that also gave up the gains shortly thereafter.  Then we had the FOMC follies where the market looked like an EKG of a heart attack victim for a while before finally slumping away all the day’s gains.Today’s [Friday, November 6] 200 point Dow spree was said to be due to favorable unemployment data and excellent productivity gains, but if you were watching the overnight futures, you noticed that the lift-off actually began at 3:00 a.m.  As a trader, I am quite familiar with this pattern.  When large futures gains are recorded beginning at 3:00, you can nearly always count on those gains holding through the day.

Inquiring minds would like to know how the future traders seemingly know about the excellent economic news that has not yet been released.  Hello, SEC?  I have a job for you.

Well, apparently, part of doing God’s work involves getting a nice leg-up so that markets can move in miraculous ways.

It’s clear that while Goldman Sachs is apparently the OTHER “chosen one” (with Barack Obama the one placed in the White House), the rest of us who are trying to restore our personal wealth so that we’ll be able to eat during our golden years are plainly stuck somewhere near hell…

Globalization/U.S. Decline Right on Schedule Courtesy Obama Backdown…Summer 2010 Projected Completion of Integration of NAFTA with EU to Counter BRIC/ASEAN Bloc

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

A couple of days ago I posted some thoughts on “Globalization in Pictures: Courtesy AT & T”.

Then I stumbled across an update of a something far more “under the radar” that I had found back in March of 2009. See below for the link to that post, specifically the section titled “Canada-EU Free Trade?”

The gist of that tidbit from March follows:

Friday I received the daily newsletter from Radio Canada International and once again there were squibs included that I couldn’t find at either the RCI site or when I searched around the CBC’s news area.

Read these with an eye to several posts that will be starting tomorrow, with American Lassies’s post entitled “THE PROPOSED NORTH AMERICAN COMMUNITY/NORTH AMERICAN UNION: 2010 Is Just Around the Corner.”

OTTAWA: CANADA, EU AGREE ON FREE-TRADE AGENDA

Canada and the European Union have agreed on a framework for negotiation of a free-trade accord after six months of discussions. Canadian Trade Minister Stockwell Day says the two parties will discuss goods and services, investment rules, intellectual property and free circulation of workers. The minister says Canada’s provinces will take part in the negotiations. Bilateral trade last year was worth $90 billion, an increase of seven per cent over 2007.

***

Well, guess what? Things have been moving along…and  include MORE than Canada and the EU.

From Fortune at money.cnn.com:

Plotting the biggest trade deal of the 21st century

Tax-free Champagne, anyone?

European and North American politicians are plotting the biggest trade deal of the 21st century: a $35 trillion, duty-free region encompassing the E.U., the U.S., Canada, and Mexico

by Erik Heinrich, contributor

Last Updated: October 29, 2009: 2:17 PM ET

TORONTO (Fortune) — Not even Franz Kafka could have dreamed this one up.

This past spring, prime ministers Stephen Harper of Canada and Mirek Topolanek of the Czech Republic met with European Union mandarins from Brussels. The setting was Prague’s medieval castle — made famous by Kafka in what is perhaps the darkest novel in his moody oeuvre — where they hatched a plan for the biggest free-trade deal of the 21st century.

How could a development of this magnitude result from a fairly routine conference between Canada and the EU? (At the time, the Czech Republic was responsible for the trading bloc’s presidency, which rotates between member states every six months.) The short answer is that after decades of spinning their wheels, Canada and the EU finally agreed to begin negotiating a free-trade agreement (FTA).

Immediately after declaring these talks as “hatching” the plans for “the biggest free-trade deal of the 21st century,” the reporter immediately shifts gears:

That’s far from a Bond-villain plot for world domination. But fast forward to last week in Ottawa, Canada, where the first round of Canada-EU negotiations reached a successful conclusion, with both sides optimistic that a deal can be signed as early as the summer of 2010.

Wow, I’m so relieved! No “plot for world domination” here!

But it all boils down to trying to save the neck of the U.S. apparently (my bolding):

When that happens, a push will begin for the ultimate goal behind the Prague agreement: a NAFTA-EU trade zone to counterbalance the growing economic power of Fortress Asia, and the ascendancy of the so-call BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) group of countries.

“The U.S. will lose its leadership position in trade unless it comes up with a new strategy,” says Steven Schrage, a specialist in international business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. “It makes sense to integrate NAFTA with the EU.”

Annual two-way trade between Canada and EU is about $100 billion, less than 20% of the total between Canada and the U.S. under NAFTA. But a trans-Atlantic NAFTA-EU trade zone would encompass nearly 1 billion people and account for $35.2 trillion in annual GDP, more than half the world’s total.

The article continues by noting that  China, India, and the 10 ASEAN nations (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) are “not standing still.” Our buddies at Goldman Sachs opine that “by 2050 the world’s three biggest economies will be China, the U.S. and India in that order, compared to the U.S., Japan and Germany today. That represents a clear shift away from the G7.”

A NAFTA-EU trade deal may get stiff opposition here in the U.S.  Why?

However with protectionist sentiment in the U.S. gaining momentum, helped in part by President Obama’s controversial Buy-American position, getting the world’s biggest economy to expand its free-trade frontier could be an uphill battle. At least for the near term.

But wait a minute…

Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic provided a transcript of Obama’s musings in his piece of February 3, 2009 titled  Obama Wants “Buy American” Out Of Stimulus Bill and you can find more stories on the “back down” below!

So, the Fortune report seems to have “forgotten” what went on in February.  Which begs the question–how “uphill” will be this “battle” to integrate NAFTA with the EU in the “near term”?

In my last post I listeda series of posts related to globalization and here’s the link to the post by American Lassie titled  THE PROPOSED NORTH AMERICAN COMMUNITY/NORTH AMERICAN UNION: 2010 Is Just Around the Corner (March 9, 2009) that was mentioned above.

So, do you think all this NAFTA-EU “conflict” will be settled sometime next year?

Well, silly me!  The Fortune article actually informs us that “both sides optimistic that a deal can be signed as early as the summer of 2010.”

DUH!

Everything right on schedule!!!

***

Related Post on Canada-EU Free Trade from March 2009:

The Past Week: March 1-7, 2009 (More on Sinclair Lewis; Canada-EU Free Trade?; China Eyeing the Big Three Automakers’ “Juicy Bits”?; Palin’s “Troopergate” Foe Winds Up In Obama Administration)

Related Posts from February 2009 on Obama’s backdown on “Buy America”:

President Obama to water down ‘Buy American’ plan after EU trade war threat (The Times, UK)

Obama backs down over ‘Buy America’ after EU warns him not to start a global trade war (Daily Mail, UK)

Don’t worry about ‘Buy American’: Obama (Rediff India Abroad)

A Stolen Victory During the Beer Summit–OR, How to Rewrite Congressional Votes While No One is Really Looking (It’s About Our Food)

~~By Grail Guardian

Virtually unnoticed this last week by the MSM (who’d a thunk?) while the Resident hoisted a cold one with his new BFFs was the seemingly unremarkable failure of a bill that hasn’t been in the news much, HR2749: Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. Right about now you’re probably yawning and asking, “So what, Grail?” But before you click your browser button, let’s review exactly what this bill that InfoWars.com referred to as “Totalitarian Control of the Food Supply”. (I know, I know; it’s Alex Jones. But as a friend of mine used to say, “Every once in a while even a blind squirrel gets a nut”! This time he’s got lots of company.)

[Author’s note: I apologize for all the links, but it’s hard to accuse a monster corporation with attempted genocide without backing it up.]

Let’s start with the basics: Monsanto. You know who they are, right? If you’re not familiar, they’re basically the agricultural equivalent of Goldman Sachs. Big business, big restriction of competition, big health issues (in case you forgot Monsanto owned the rights to Aspartame when it was patented), and most importantly big buddies with the big “O”. Monsanto is the largest grower of fruits and vegetables in the world. They also manufacture the herbicide RoundUp. Sounds innocent so far, right? Bzzzzt! After RoundUp became the most widely used weed killer in the world, the sneaky little bastages at Monsanto decided that since virtually no one pays attention to agriculture anymore they could stealthily take over not only the marketplace, but literally the world’s food supply. They started making GMOs or Genetically Modified Organisms. And yes, that’s as spooky as it sounds.

There are basically 2 GMOs we need to be worried about: RoundUp Ready seed and Terminator Technology (basically sterile seeds that do not reproduce after one season so the farmer must purchase more seed – from Monsanto, of course – each year). Let’s take them one at a time:

RoundUp Ready seed has been genetically altered by Monsanto so that if it is sprayed with RoundUp, the desired plant won’t be killed by the herbicide. Sounds pretty good, at least until you think that through a bit. You probably have used RoundUp yourself to kill a few weeds growing between the cracks in your driveway or back yard patio, right? Me too. You take the bottle and aim at the weed, then in a few days it withers and dies. So the rocket scientists at Monsanto decided, “Well if a little works, a lot would be much better, right?” They engineered crop seeds so that instead of targeting the weeds, farmers can spray their whole crop and kill just the weeds while the corn, soy, or canola would survive to be harvested without all the hassles. But if you follow that thought through to its logical conclusion, what that means to you and me is that farmers are now dousing our food with RoundUp before they send it off to the local store or giant food processing plant. Now I’ve never tasted the stuff, but I can tell you from the smell that RoundUp is not something I want included in my diet. Shades of DDT anyone? What’s worse, neither the farmer nor the food processing plant need to disclose to us as consumers that this food was soaked in a chemical designed to destroy living organisms. Makes me feel all warm inside. (Or is that merely the burning of my digestive tract being slowly destroyed by the simple act of eating?)

Terminator Technology or sterile seeds are the Big M’s other grab to take over the world food supply. Monsanto uses genetic engineering to develop plants that are incapable of reproducing after 1 season. This means that poor farmers throughout the world will be left without the ability to use seeds from their current crop to start next year’s crop – they must buy new seed from Monsanto each year in

In India, this is a cause for some concern as scientists fear for the livelihood of 400 million farmers and for food security in the country. Already some poorer Indian farmers have been driven to suicide. It is feared that this type of technology could be used to make the poorer farmers even more dependent.

So much for solving the world hunger crisis. Now on to our innocuous bill, HR2749. The summary provided by the Congressional Research Service tells us that our bill

Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to: (1) issue science-based performance standards to minimum…

Hmmm. “Science-based standards”. Now just who might be in the business of creating these standards? Could it possibly be the scientists at good ol’ Monsanto?

(3) inspect facilities at a frequency determined pursuant to a risk-based schedule; (4) establish a food tracing system; (5) assess fees relating to food facility reinspection and food recall;

A“food tracing system”? Seriously? Am I going to break a tooth on an RFID chip? Will this be added to my electronically distributable Health Care records gathered under HR3200:America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009? Will my food be held up until it starts to rot while it is properly” inventoried?

and (6) establish a program for accreditation of laboratories that perform analytical testing of food for import or export.

I guess this leads us to the conclusion that current labs are not accredited. Yikes!

Authorizes the Secretary to: (1) order an immediate cessation of distribution, or a recall, of food; (2) establish an importer verification program; and (3) quarantine food in any geographic area within the United States.

In other words, it’s up to the sole discretion of the Secretary (it’s not real clear to me if this refers to Tom Vilsack, the Monsanto fed Secretary of Agriculture or Obama lapdog Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services – not that there’s a difference) whether anyone can distribute food, or if food can be quarantined without due process of law. Winston? Is that you?

Provides for unique identifiers for food facilities and food importers.

There is not limitation on this. It could be required, under this law, for small farmers that sell fruit on a roadside stand, or even for people who grow their own tomatoes in the back yard. Kiss your local farm market goodbye unless they’ve got compliance bucks.

Deems a food to be adulterated if an inspection is delayed or refused.

Here’s the government double dip; first they can delay the food to be properly traced and inspected, then they can commandeer it after they held it up too long to still be fresh.

Gives the Commissioner of Food and Drugs subpoena authority with respect to a food proceeding.

Great. The FDA, who brought you such medical wonders as Aspartame, Fen Phen, and Vioxx gets to issue subpoenas against Farmer Jones down the road that had the audacity to try to grow his crop without using RoundUp on it.

Aside from my personal commentary, the less-snarky folks at FoodRenegade.com also point out:

A careful reading of the bill also reveals that HR 2749:

1. Will create duplicate fees & requirements for certified organic producers.

2. Will erode wildlife habitats in a misguided attempt to keep produce “clean” — when it is clear from the scientific evidence that it is industrialized animals that spread E.Coli 0157:H7 and Salmonella, not wild animals.

3. Will greatly increase the costs associated with safely composting manure and using it as a fertilizer for natural and organic crops.

4. Will interfere with and possibly prohibit small-scale farmers adding value to their products. This includes washing and cutting produce, creating canned jams or jellies, anything really.

5. Will require a costly electronic filing system that may well put farmers using paper records out of business, including many of our Amish brothers and sisters who can not comply with the electronic filing standards without violating their religious principles.

6. Will give the federal government the power to ban raw milk sales.

Ironically, it was the politicians own attempts at back door deals and sneakiness that appears to have sunk this ship during the legitimate House vote.

The bill was voted on by suspending the rules, limiting discussion to less than an hour, and not allowing any amendments that could have clarified who these new rules should affect. In the course of the last 24 hours, the language of the bill had been changed three times, and most representatives didn’t have the chance to read the latest version before being required to vote.

The only reason this bill is NOT the current law of the land is that it did not win enough of a majority to pass.

If you’re paying attention to the above quote written on July 29th, you should be scratching your head and saying, “huh?” So now it’s time for the kicker. The bill was voted on in the House of Representatives on July 29, 2009, and here is a direct copy from govtrack:

Jul 29, 2009: This bill failed in the House of Representatives by roll call vote. The vote was held under a suspension of the rules to cut debate short and pass the bill, needing a two-thirds majority. This usually occurs for non-controversial legislation. The totals were 280 Ayes, 150 Nays, 3 Present/Not Voting. Vote Details.

That was the way the page read yesterday when I started to write this article. When I went back to source some material, I suddenly noticed a spiffy little amendment:

Jul 30, 2009: This bill passed in the House of Representatives by roll call vote. The totals were 283 Ayes, 142 Nays, 8 Present/Not Voting. Vote Details.

That’s right, America! While you were watching Obama, Gates, Crowley, and Biden sing “Ein Prosit”, Congress was busy changing the vote on this bill because they (read Pelosi, Obama, Monsanto) didn’t like the outcome!

A little critical analysis of the changed votes shows that a couple of different things:

1) The members of the “Blue Dog Democrat Coalition” were obviously strong-armed into submission (along with a few non-proclaimed Blue Dog-type friends) when the Speaker didn’t get the results she wanted .

2) The RINOS (Republicans in Name Only) were easily bought off once again. There is no difference between the 2 major parties.

3) John Murtha needs to take his Alzheimer’s medications.

Here’s the breakdown:

Congressional District	“Representative”	Change in Vote	Designation
AL-2	Bright, Bobby [D]	Nay to Yea	Blue Dog Coalition
CA-47	Sanchez, Loretta [D]	Not Voting to Yea	Blue Dog Coalition
CO-3	Salazar, John [D]	Not Voting to Yea	Blue Dog Coalition
FL-5	Brown-Waite, Virginia [R]	Nay to Yea	RINO
FL-8	Grayson, Alan [D]	Yea to Not Voting	Almost grew a spine
FL-10	Young, C. W. [R]	Nay to Yea	RINO
GA-7	Linder, John [R]	Nay to Not Voting	RINO
IL-8	Bean, Melissa [D]	Nay to Yea	Chicken
MN-2	Kline, John [R]	Nay to Yea	RINO
MS-4	Taylor, Gene [D]	Nay to Yea	Blue Dog Coalition
MO-2	Akin, W. [R]	Nay to Not Voting	RINO
NJ-3	Adler, John [D]	Yea to Not Voting	Confused
NY-23	McHugh, John [R]	Not Voting to Yea	RINO
NC-9	Myrick, Sue [R]	Nay to Yea	RINO
OR-3	Blumenauer, Earl [D]	Nay to Yea	Chicken
PA-12	Murtha, John [D]	Yea to Not Voting	Confused as hell
TN-4	Davis, Lincoln [D]	Not Voting to Nay	Blue Dog Coalition
TX-24	Marchant, Kenny [R]	Yea to Nay	Woke up from his nap
WI-8	Kagen, Steve [D]	Nay to Yea	Chicken

Here’s the breakdown:

So, my friends, we’ve been bamboozled again. We had a victory, but just like during the Democratic primaries, when TPTB didn’t get their way they simply changed the vote. Just like that. And the residents in Florida should be ever so happy to learn that they were screwed by both political parties once again. Um, guys – 3 of your non-representing Representatives changed their votes after the fact; think you might want to consider a change in 2010? Like None of the Above!

Now comes the question, “What can we do about it?” There are several things:

1) This bill has not passed the Senate yet. Get on the phone/fax/email and hammer them! Let them know there’s no way you’ll let anyone forget if they vote to starve America and the world.

2) If you live in one of the districts listed above, get on the phone and scream at these bastages! Let them know that you’re paying attention and you know they changed their vote. Demand to know why?

3) Join the march on Washington, D.C. on September 12, 2009. We need to let those inside the Beltway know that America does not support their thieving stealing lying condescending flip flopping actions against our wishes.

4) Boycott Monsanto. Shelly Roche from ByteStyle TV started this seemingly impossible (but in reality simple) idea. Check out her video here for one way to beat them at their own game.

If all this talk about Monsanto determining what you can eat has gotten to you, Shelly has also put together a dynamite list of how to recognize GMO foods that’s worth checking out. To induce you to read her article, I’ll share one I didn’t know about:

Look at the stickers on fruit – there is a PLU code with either 4 or 5 numbers. If your fruit’s label has 4 numbers, it is conventionally grown. 5 numbers starting with a 9 means it was organically grown, and 5 numbers starting with an 8 means GMO.

Last, but not least, if you really want to be vigilant about avoiding GMOs, corn is an important yet difficult thing to avoid (thank you Tom Daschle). Check out the Emergency Guide to Avoiding Corn from findsafefood.com. You might be surprised at where it’s hiding.