FDA-Approved Toxic Aspartame Sweetener In Your Dairy?

Tags

Aspartame, Aspartame milk, Dairy, Deadly, diseases, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, FDA, FDA-approved, Food and Drug Administration, Milk, milk supply, Monsanto, National Milk Producers Federation, Sweetener, Toxic, United States

The Deadly Deal: EPA’s Toxic Aspartame To Gain FDA Approval In YOUR Milk, Other Dairy?

https://johnniesblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/the-deadly-deal-epas-toxic-aspartame-to-gain-fda-approval-in-your-milk-other-dairy/

The FDA is requesting comments on this petition. You have until May 21st, 2013 to submit your comments. Click here for instructions.

U.S. dairy industry petitions FDA to approve aspartame as hidden, unlabeled additive in milk, yogurt, eggnog and cream

Monday, February 25, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com

(NaturalNews) You probably already know that the FDA has declared war on raw milk and even helped fund and coordinate armed government raids against raw milk farmers and distributors. Yes, it’s insane. This brand of tyranny is unique to the USA and isn’t even conducted in China, North Kora or Cuba. Only in the USA are raw milk farmers treated like terrorists.

But now the situation is getting even more insane than you could have imagined: the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) have filed a petition with the FDA asking the FDA to alter the definition of “milk” to secretly include chemical sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose.

Importantly, none of these additives need to be listed on the label. They will simply be swept under the definition of “milk,” so that when a company lists “milk” on the label, it automatically includes aspartame or sucralose. And if you’re trying to avoid aspartame, you’ll have no way of doing so because it won’t be listed on the label.

This isn’t only for milk, either: It’s also for yogurt, cream, sour cream, eggnog, whipping cream and a total of 17 products, all of which are listed in the petition at FDA.gov.

As the petition states:

IDFA and NMPF request their proposed amendments to the milk standard of identity to allow optional characterizing flavoring ingredients used in milk (e.g., chocolate flavoring added to milk) to be sweetened with any safe and suitable sweetener — including non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame.

This is all being done to “save the children,” we’re told, because the use of aspartame in milk products would reduce calories.

Milk industry specifically asks to HIDE aspartame from consumers

Astonishingly, the dairy industry is engaged in extreme doublespeak logic and actually arguing that aspartame should be hidden from consumers by not listing it on the label. Here’s what the petition says:

IDFA and NMPF argue that nutrient content claims such as “reduced calorie” are not attractive to children, and maintain that consumers can more easily identify the overall nutritional value of milk products that are flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners if the labels do not include such claims. Further, the petitioners assert that consumers do not recognize milk — including flavored milk — as necessarily containing sugar. Accordingly, the petitioners state that milk flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners should be labeled as milk without further claims so that consumers can “more easily identify its overall nutritional value.”

In other words, hiding aspartame from consumers by not including it on the label actually helps consumers, according to the IDFA and NMPF!

Yep, consumers are best served by keeping them ignorant. If this logic smacks of the same kind of twisted deception practiced by Monsanto, that’s because it’s identical: the less consumers know, the more they are helped, according to industry. And it’s for the children, too, because children are also best served by keeping them poisoned with aspartame.

Consumers have always been kept in the dark about pink slime, meat glue, rBGH and GMOs in their food. And now, if the IDFA gets its way, you’ll be able to drink hormone-contaminated milk from an antibiotics-inundated cow fed genetically modified crops and producing milk containing hidden aspartame. And you won’t have the right to know about any of this!

The FDA confirms this “secret” status of aspartame, stating, “If the standard of identity for milk is amended as requested by petitioners, milk manufacturers could use non-nutritive sweeteners in flavored milk without a nutrient content claim in its labeling.”

FDA requests comments

The FDA is requesting comments on this petition. You have until May 21st, 2013 to submit your comments. Click here for instructions.

This is a clue to stop drinking processed milk and milk products altogether

There’s a bigger story here than just the industry hoping to get FDA approval to secretly put aspartame in milk products while not listing aspartame on the label.

The bigger question is this: If an industry is pushing to hide aspartame in its products, what else is it already hiding?

How about the pus content of its dairy products? How about its inhumane treatment of animals who are subjected to torture conditions and pumped full of genetically engineered hormones? How about the fact that homogenization and pasteurization turn a whole food into a dietary nightmare that promotes obesity, autoimmune disorders and cardiovascular disease?

There are lots of dirty little secrets in the dairy industry of course, and that doesn’t even get into the secret closed-door conversations to encourage the FDA to destroy the competition of raw milk.

The only rational answer to all this is to stop buying and consuming processed dairy products, period!

I gave up ALL milk products many years ago and have never looked back. I drink almond milk, not pus-filled pasteurized cow’s milk. (Click here for a recipe to make your own almond milk at home.) I don’t eat yogurt. If I want probiotics, I get them from tasty chewable probiotics supplements such as Sunbiotics. I parted ways with processed dairy products many years ago, and as a result, my cardiovascular health, skin health, digestive health and stamina have all remained in outstanding shape.

There’s also a philosophical issue here: Don’t buy products from an industry that habitually LIES about everything. The dairy industry is like a mafia. They actively seek to destroy the competition, keep consumers ignorant and monopolize the market. They run highly deceptive ads with ridiculous claims like, “drinking milk helps you lose weight” and other nonsense.

The U.S. dairy industry is steeped in deception at every level, and now they want you and your children to unknowingly drink aspartame that’s secretly blended into the product.

The dairy industry is to food as Lance Armstrong is to sports. It’s all a big lie, laced with secret chemicals and false claims.

Stop drinking milk. Stop financially supporting the food mafia.

Recommended videos:
Raw Milk Rover (hilarious animation)
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=273C2497DFDE9F61CB9E8867113CA5CA

Got a PUStache? (satire)
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=C463AA940B9AEBA5D294F87FF0716579

Jonathan Emord raw milk freedom speech:
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=F8DF9A42CC5479D8829A2445C56AFEF3

Farmageddon interview with Kristin Canty
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=3340FCCC93B2C17EEFA43C7E6296728D

Sources for this article:
This petition was originally brought to our attention by a reader who says it was covered on Activist Post. I haven’t yet read that article but may update this article with a link to that article once I identify the URL.

FDA petition page:
http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/02/20/2013-03835/flavore…

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/039244_milk_aspartame_FDA_petition.html#ixzz2M1kHM9ul

Proven Unsafe But FDA-Approved: Are YOU Still Consuming This Man-Made Poison

Americans drink more soda than anyone else on the planet — well over 700 eight-ounce servings each year, on average, and an increasing amount of it is diet soda.

They might be more reluctant to do so if they knew about the safety questions still surrounding aspartame. A number of scientists responding expressed major concerns about aspartame’s safety at the time of its approval, and even more indicated areas where they believed more research is needed on aspartame to resolve their concerns — research on areas such as neurological functions, brain tumors, seizures, headaches, and adverse effects on children and pregnant women.

Grist reports:

“In a 1996 survey, Ralph G. Walton … looked at 166 peer-reviewed studies on aspartame undertaken between 1980 and 1985. He found that all 74 of the studies funded by the industry found no adverse effects from aspartame, while 84 of the 92 independently funded articles did find bad effects.”

Aspartame is the ingredient found in NutraSweet, It is also found in Equal, Spoonful, Equal Measure, AminoSweet, Benevia, NutraTaste, Canderel, and many popular “diet” sodas. This chemical is currently on the ingredient list of nearly 6,000 products worldwide. But since it was approved for use as a food additive in 1981, it has been dogged by complaints about its safety.

Was aspartame ever proven safe for human consumption before it gained FDA approval as a food additive?

Not according to Dr. John Olney, a researcher at Washington University in Saint Louis who first began studying aspartame in 1970. Dr. Olhney believes aspartame should not be on the market today “because it hasn’t been demonstrated to be safe.” Also in agreement with Dr. Olney are the FDA’s own investigations into the chemical from 1975 to 1980.

When the FDA was presented with Dr. Olney’s research, they assigned an outside public board of inquiry the task of deciding if aspartame should be allowed for human consumption. In 1980, the doctors on that board unanimously ruled that aspartame should not go on the market. An internal FDA panel concluded the same thing in 1980.

According to the FDA Chairman at that time, Dr. Gere Goyan, his next recommendation was to set up another FDA committee to study aspartame, composed people who played no previous part in the former studies of aspartame. Dr. Gere Goyan never saw the results of that 1980 FDA internal study, because he was forced to step down as FDA Chairman the day Ronald Reagan took office on January 21, 1981.

His replacement? Dr. Arthur Hill Hayes.

Dr. Hayes is notable for two reasons. First, he had no previous history of dealing with the science of food additives. Second, he was apparently hand picked to head the FDA by a prominent member of Ronald Reagan’s political transition team, Donald Rumsfeld. Yes, the same Donald Rumsfeld who led the United States into the multi trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as Secretary of Defense during the Bush presidency. But in 1981, Rumsfeld had a different title: CEO of the G.D Searle company, the company that owned the patent on aspartame.

One of Dr. Arthur Hill Hayes first acts as FDA Chairman was granting aspartame approval for use in dry goods. Incidentally, one of Hayes’ last acts in office as FDA Chairman was to approve aspartame for use in beverages.

So was aspartame approved because studies ever showed it was safe for human consumption? Or was it approved thanks to the political influence of Donald Rumsfeld?

According to former Sentator Howard Metzenbaum, who reviewed the FDA’s approval process of aspartame in the Senate in 1987, “I think there were a lot of politics involved in its being approved.” Research scientist Dr. Olney is even more blunt, “the issue (aspartame) is really not an issue of science, it’s an issue of politics.”

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

So much has been written and said about the FDA approval process in the case of aspartame, as well as subsequent widespread reports of adverse reactions, related degenerative diseases and neurological afflictions associated with aspartame, it’s a wonder anyone still uses ANY product containing this potent neurological poison.

But guess what?

Aspartame is the most utilized artificial sweetener in the United States, with aspartame controlling over 50 percent of the market and sales of alternative sweeteners at $1.1 billion in 2010, according to a May report from market research firm Freedonia Group. And, shockingly, demand for artificial sweeteners is projected to grow 3.4 percent annually through 2013, according to the report.

Americans consume close to 50 billion liters of soda per year, which equates to roughly 216 liters, or about 57 gallons per person, much of this in the form of diet soda loaded with aspartame. People are no doubt still opting for this toxic synthetic chemical because of the mistaken belief that drinking diet soda will help fight weight gain.

The truth is that it doesn’t.

It never has and never will, despite the billions of dollars spent annually by the soda industry on public relations and advertising.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why Coca-Cola has to spend $3 billion a year on marketing? Could it be because they want you “feel good” about their products and not think about the actual ingredients?

I’ve gone on record saying that aspartame is a bigger public health threat than high fructose corn syrup and can lead to birth defects, cancer and weight gain.

Now let’s take a closer look at the politics behind the FDA’s approval of aspartame, and the reason the FDA and politicians have a very real financial incentive to keep aspartame available for human consumption. Along with what the scientific studies not funded by the aspartame or the diet soda industry actually reveal about this toxic neurological poison.

Since its Discovery, Aspartame has Been Linked to Brain Tumors

Dr. Adrian Gross, the FDA’s toxicologist who examined the aspartame research initially presented to the FDA by G.D. Searle, was “absolutely shocked” at the evidence according to Dr. Russell Blaylock, a retired neurosurgeon, showing “an enormous increase in tumors, particularly brain tumors.”

“And of course that’s exactly what we’re seeing now is this tremendous increase in brain tumors in this country. Which is completely unexplained by the neurological profession,” continues Dr. Blaylock.

Dr. Blaylock has written three books about the health dangers of excitotoxins (aspartame and MSG are excitotoxins), but has never been sued by the artificial sweetener industry over the facts he’s brought to light about the dangers of using these synthetic man-made toxic chemical sweeteners. Why hasn’t the aspartame industry gone after him legally? Or after me for that matter, for my expose on artificial sweeteners called “Sweet Deception”?

According to Dr. Blaylock:

“They all realized that they couldn’t answer my arguments. So they left me alone. They’re afraid that if it comes to a big standoff between me and them, they’re going to lose. What they’re doing is the old ploy of just ignoring and hoping it will go away. Of course, they put pressure on magazines, journals and newspapers not to interview me. They are trying to keep me in the shadows where they hope most people don’t hear anything I have to say. It only works for so long.”

If the FDA Approved Aspartame, it Must be Safe, Right?

The truth of the matter is the FDA rejected aspartame not once but multiple times. The scientific data just did not support it as a safe product. But the FDA is a federal agency subject to the political winds, and the people in charge of the agency have repeatedly and notoriously been accused of many conflicts of interest, both economically and ethically.

In 1975 the FDA came to the conclusion that aspartame should not be allowed on the market. They requested that further studies be conducted. The FDA’s next move was to set up a public board of inquiry composed of outside experts to investigate the safety of aspartame, and in 1980 that board unanimously rejected aspartame’s request for approval. According to a 60-Minutes story on aspartame, another internal FDA panel convened in 1980 also rejected aspartame for approval.

The Dangers of Aspartame

So it was three strikes against aspartame at this point, four strikes if you count the Bressler Report. This report was compiled in 1977 after FDA scientists looked into the field studies conducted on aspartame. The Bressler Report uncovered fraud and manipulation of data so serious that the FDA forwarded their files to the Chicago US Attorney’s office for prosecution.

How bad were the alleged crimes committed by G. D. Searle in an attempt to manipulate the safety studies on aspartame? Here is just one example contained in the Bressler Report:

“6) Observation records indicated that animal A23LM was alive at week 88, dead from week 92 through week 104, alive at week 108, and dead at week 112.”

In the 1996 60-Minutes story on aspartame, former Senator Howard Metzenbaum states:

“According to the FDA themselves, Searle, when making their presentation to the FDA, had willfully misrepresented the facts, and withheld some of the facts that they knew would possibly jeopardize the approval.”

Metzenbaum’s staff investigated the aspartame approval process in 1987. He goes on to explain that:

“FDA officials were so upset they sent the file to the US Attorney’s office in Chicago for the purposes of presenting it to the grand jury as to whether or not there should be indictments. But it wasn’t presented. It was delayed.”

Samuel Skinner, the U.S. attorney who led the grand jury probe ended up withdrawing from the case when he entered into job discussions with Searle’s Chicago law firm, Sidley & Austin – a job he later accepted. Subsequently, the investigation stalled until the statute of limitation ran out, at which point the investigation against Searle was dropped.

For more details on the story of how aspartame made it through the FDA approval process despite warning signs of potential health hazards and alleged scientific fraud, please watch the 60-Minutes report, as Wallace does a nice job of summarizing an otherwise long story.

So the results of the scientific data were fairly clear up until 1980: Aspartame was a dangerous, brain tumor causing man-made poison and the company trying to get it into the food supply was recommended for prosecution by the FDA. You would think that would be the end of aspartame, right?

Not by a long shot.

Aspartame Finally Receives FDA Approval

So it was four strikes against aspartame, but Searle had a blockbuster product on its hands that was sure to lead to millions of dollars in profits. So what did the CEO of the company do?

Perhaps he called in some political favors.

It is no coincidence that the FDA Chairman who stood in the way of aspartame’s approval was removed from office the day Ronald Reagan took office. His replacement was in part orchestrated by Donald Rumsfeld, CEO of G.D. Searle, in order to allegedly get a friendly rubber stamp on the approval of what some doctors have called “an addictive excitoneurotoxic carcinogenic drug that interacts with drugs and vaccines.”

But even with a friendly new FDA Chairman in place, the agency still rejected aspartame for approval by a 3-2 margin.  What reprehensible, bordering on criminal action did Chairman Hayes do next?  He added a sixth member to the approval board, who voted in favor of aspartame. Then, with a 3-3 tie on the issue, Chairman Hayes himself broke the deadlock with his own vote of approval for aspartame.

So he packed the board and then used his own vote as a tie-breaker. All apparently perfectly legal… And one of Hayes’ last acts in office before he left the FDA in1983 amid accusations that he was accepting corporate gifts for political favors, was to approve aspartame for use in beverages. Does this sound to you like a man-made synthetic chemical that should have ever been allowed into the world’s food supply?

If the FDA Keeps Aspartame on the Market, it Must be Safe, Right?

Once allowed on the market, the aspartame industry quickly became very profitable, creating a new multi-million dollar source of funds to influence the politicians in charge of overseeing and regulating food safety.

According to the video above, Searle and later Monsanto (who purchased the rights to aspartame), have spent thousands of dollars influencing the politicians who have been influential to keeping aspartame on the market, despite this toxic chemical being the number one source of side-effect complaints to the FDA, with over 10,000 complaints filed and over 91 symptoms documented that are related to its consumption.

This video will familiarize you with some of the terrifying side-effects and health problems you could encounter if you consume products containing this chemical. Unfortunately, aspartame toxicity is not well-known by doctors, despite its frequency. Diagnosis is also hampered by the fact that it mimics several other common health conditions, such as:

Multiple sclerosis	Parkinson’s disease
Alzheimer’s disease	Fibromyalgia
Arthritis	Multiple chemical sensitivity
Chronic fatigue syndrome	Attention deficit disorder
Panic disorder	Depression and other psychological disorders
Lupus	Diabetes and diabetic complications
Birth defects	Lymphoma
Lyme disease	Hypothyroidism

So why is aspartame still on the market? In all likelihood, it was allowed on the market and remains on the market for political and economic reasons. According to Former Senator Metzembaum,

“I think the Chairman of the FDA (Hayes) wound up having some sort of economic relationship, beneficial to himself, with Searle Manufacturing, who at that time owned the rights to aspartame.”

And what about Donald Rumsfeld? Did he benefit financially from the approval of aspartame? He reportedly received a $12 million bonus when he left G.D. Searle, no doubt related to his ability to gain regulatory approval for what until 1981 had been a toxic poison that caused brain tumors in laboratory rats.

Are You Now the Lab Rat?

The answer unfortunately is yes, if you consume any of the more than 6,000 products that contain aspartame. And aspartame is not just in the food supply, it’s also added to pharmaceutical drugs to sweeten them. We are now beginning to see an explosion of unexplained brain tumors worldwide. Is it related to aspartame? This is certainly a possibility, as according to Dr. John Olney, “aspartame hasn’t been demonstrated to be safe.”

The “Real-World” Case of Edith Johnson

This issue isn’t a merely a theoretical debate about food safety versus politics, or about an industry poisoning the world for the sake of profits. This issue is about real people in the real world ingesting a potent neurotoxin on a daily basis, and the damage aspartame is causing to real people.

“I was horrified, I was panic stricken, I was scared to death,” says Edith Johnson in the video above. “Within a matter of moments I went completely blind.”

Edith is talking about the experience she had while drinking a cup of low-calorie hot chocolate. “All of a sudden I couldn’t see. My eyes went out of focus. I think it’s very deliberately because of aspartame.” Continues Edith, “they had no right to market it (aspartame). My message to people is to drink water. You don’t need aspartame in your life.”

The “Real-World” Case of Kate Randall

Kate Randall, also featured in the video above, drank nine Diet Cokes a day for five years and developed a twitch in her eye that several doctors could not explain, although the doctors did apparently rule aspartame out as a cause of the afflictions.

“I started popping in my hands and twitching in my feet. My legs, my knees, my upper legs and shoulders and arms and everywhere. My chin, neck and temples started to twitch.”

All of the tests the doctors ran came back negative, so she decided to do her own research into her strange symptoms.Continues Kate, “I absolutely believe that it (aspartame) was (responsible for) the breakdown of my health for two years.”

What would Kate like to tell people about aspartame?

“Avoid it.”

The Trouble with the Phenylalanine and Aspartic Acid in Aspartame

Aspartame is a synthetic chemical composed of three ingredients – two amino acids and a methyl ester bond. The amino acids are phenylalanine and aspartic acid, two common components of many foods that are usually completely safe for consumption. But not in the case of aspartame.

Why?

Forgetting for a moment that aspartame is metabolized inside your body into both wood alcohol (a poison) and formaldehyde (which embalms tissue and is not eliminated from your body through the normal waste filtering done by your liver and kidneys), the trouble with the component parts of aspartame is one of volume.

In a normal protein like meat, fish or eggs, phenylalanine and aspartic acid comprise 4-5 percent each of the total amino acid profile. This is how nature intends the human body to encounter these two amino acids and there is nothing wrong with these substances if they occur naturally in a proper balance with other amino acids.

But in aspartame the ratio of these two amino acids is 50 percent phenylalanine and 40 percent aspartic acid (with 10 percent methyl ester bond, aka wood alcohol, a known poison). In other words, on a percentage basis this is a massive quantity of two unnaturally isolated amino acids that are simply not found in this ratio in nature, bonded together by a known poison.

The result of this chemical cocktail is a sweet tasting neurotoxin. As a result of its unnatural structure, your body processes the amino acids found in aspartame very differently from a steak or a piece of fish. The amino acids in aspartame literally attack your cells, even crossing the blood-brain barrier to attack your brain cells, creating a toxic cellular overstimulation, called excitotoxicity. MSG is also an excitotoxin, and works synergistically with aspartame to create even more damage to your brain cells.

This is how aspartame causes brain tumors. Adding to the problem, according to Dr. Blaylock:

“Excitotoxins have been found to dramatically promote cancer growth and metastasis. In fact, one aspartame researcher noticed that, when cancer cells were exposed to aspartame, they became more mobile, and you see the same effect withMSG. It also causes a cancer cell to become more mobile, and that enhances metastasis, or spread. These MSG-exposed cancer cells developed all of these pseudopodians and started moving through tissues.“

Aspartame Included on the EPA’s Potentially Dangerous Chemicals List!

As rates of learning disabilities, autism and related neurological disorders like lupus and MS skyrocket in the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to release a roster of the pollutants likely to contribute to these or other neurological disorders. Aspartame has been included on this list.

In an ongoing, three-year effort, an EPA team has determined which developmental neurotoxicants — chemicals that damage a fetal and infant brain — may pose the biggest risk to the American public.

A partial listing of chemicals that will be included on the EPA’s dangerous chemicals list:

• Aspartame, an artificial sweetener found in sodas, and in other foods and drinks;
• Bisphenol A, a chemical widely used in consumer goods, including the resin lining of most food and beverage cans; products made from polycarbonate plastics, which include water bottles and baby bottles, and some dental sealants;
• Cadmium, a heavy metal that is used in batteries, coatings and pigments, and is plentiful in tobacco smoke.
• PBDEs a class of chemical flame retardants.
• Pesticides and insect repellents, including aldicarb, DEET, lindane, (used for lice and scabies), maneb, and paraquat.
• Trichloroethylene, formerly used in dry cleaning but still available as a cleaning and degreasing agent and a contaminant in drinking water.

Are You Ready to Ditch Artificial Sweeteners?

You may think you’re making a healthy choice by swapping out sugar for artificial sweeteners but the truth is that you’re not

Your body, when given artificial sweeteners, begins craving sweets because you are not giving it the proper fuel it needs. Finding out your nutritional type will tell you exactly which foods you need to eat to feel full and satisfied. It may sound hard to believe right now, but once you start eating right for your nutritional type, your sweet cravings will significantly lessen and may even disappear.

Meanwhile, be sure you address the emotional component to your food cravings using a tool such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). More than any traditional or alternative method I have used or researched, EFT works to overcome food cravings and helps you reach dietary success. And, if diet soda is the culprit for you, be sure to check out Turbo Tapping, which is an extremely effective and simple tool to get rid of your soda addiction in a short amount of time.

Healthier Alternatives

For those times when you just want a taste of something sweet, there is a healthier alternative called Stevia that you can use in moderation. Stevia is a natural plant and, unlike aspartame and other artificial sweeteners that have been cited for dangerous toxicities, it is a safe, natural alternative that’s has been around for over 1500 years and is ideal if you’re watching your weight, or if you’re maintaining your health by avoiding sugar.It is hundreds of times sweeter than sugar and truly has virtually no calories.

Stevia is my sweetener of choice. However, like most choices, especially sweeteners, I recommend using it in moderation, just like sugar. I prefer to use it in its liquid flavored form and my favorite flavors are English Toffee and French Vanilla. I want to emphasize, however, that if you have insulin issues, I suggest that you avoid sweeteners altogether, including Stevia, as they all can decrease your sensitivity to insulin.

So if you struggle with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or extra weight, then you have insulin sensitivity issues and would benefit from avoiding ALL sweeteners.

But for everyone else, if you are going to sweeten your foods and beverages anyway, I strongly encourage you to consider using regular Stevia, and toss out all artificial sweeteners and any products that contain them immediately.

Report Adverse Reactions!

For more information on the dangers of aspartame, visit http://aspartame.mercola.com.

By all means, also please forward this article to your friends and loved ones who are still drinking diet sodas and poisoning themselves. You can make a difference on this issue by helping to spread the word. You may help save the life of someone you love, if you can get them off this toxic neurological poison before they too experience strange symptoms that their doctor or doctors simply cannot explain or mistake for something else.

And if you experience an adverse reaction to any aspartame product, I urge you to call the FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator in your area.

Sources:  http://www.naturalnews.com/039244_milk_aspartame_FDA_petition.html

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/08/03/just-how-bad-is-aspartame.aspx

Greece hires `BLACKWATER`to keep peace on the streets

Greece hires `BLACKWATER`to keep peace on the streets.

50 Signs That The U.S. Health Care System Is A Gigantic Money Making Scam That Is About To Collapse

Tags

2014, America, Americans, Appalling, Bankrupt, Bankruptcy, Big Pharma, Billionaires, Care, catastrophic, CEOs, collapse, Congress, Costly, Crisis, Death, decline, devastating, Doctors, fraud, fraudulent, greed, Health Care, Health Care System, House of Representatives, hurt, legislators, life expectancy, lifespan, middle class, millionaires, money, most, Obama, Obamacare, over-priced, overhaul, pharmaceutical companies, Poor, Poorest, profits, record, Rich, scam, Senate, spending, U.S., U.S. citizens, U.S.A., United States, Unnecessary, Wealthiest

The following are 50 signs that the U.S. health care system is a massive money making scam that is about to collapse…

#1 Medical bills have become so ridiculously large that virtually nobody can afford them.  Just check out the following short excerpt from a recent Time Magazine article.  One man in California that had been diagnosed with cancer ran up nearly a million dollars in hospital bills before he died…

By the time Steven D. died at his home in Northern California the following November, he had lived for an additional 11 months. And Alice had collected bills totaling $902,452. The family’s first bill — for $348,000 — which arrived when Steven got home from the Seton Medical Center in Daly City, Calif., was full of all the usual chargemaster profit grabs: $18 each for 88 diabetes-test strips that Amazon sells in boxes of 50 for $27.85; $24 each for 19 niacin pills that are sold in drugstores for about a nickel apiece. There were also four boxes of sterile gauze pads for $77 each. None of that was considered part of what was provided in return for Seton’s facility charge for the intensive-care unit for two days at $13,225 a day, 12 days in the critical unit at $7,315 a day and one day in a standard room (all of which totaled $120,116 over 15 days). There was also $20,886 for CT scans and $24,251 for lab work.

#2 This year the American people will spend approximately 2.8 trillion dollars on health care, and it is being projected that Americans will spend 4.5 trillion dollars on health care in 2019.

#3 The United States spends more on health care than Japan, Germany, France, China, the U.K., Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Australia combined.

#4 If the U.S. health care system was a country, it would be the 6th largest economy on the entire planet.

#5 Back in 1960, an average of $147 was spent per person on health care in the United States. By 2009, that number had skyrocketed to$8,086.

#6 Why does it cost so much to stay in a hospital today?  It just does not make sense.  Just check out these numbers…

In 1942, Christ Hospital, NJ charged $7 per day for a maternity room. Today it’s $1,360.

#7 Approximately 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are related to medical bills.

#8 One study discovered that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

#9 The U.S. health care industry has spent more than 5 billion dollarson lobbying our politicians in Washington D.C. since 1998.

#10 According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the U.S. is  currently experiencing a shortage of at least 13,000 doctors.  Unfortunately, that shortage is expected to grow to 130,000 doctorsover the next 10 years.

#11 The state of Florida is already dealing with a very serious shortage of doctors…

Brace yourself for longer lines at the doctor’s office.

Whether you’re employed and insured, elderly and on Medicare, or poor and covered by Medicaid, the Florida Medical Association says there’s a growing shortage of doctors — especially specialists — available to provide you with medical care.

And if the Florida Legislature goes along with Gov. Rick Scott’s recommendation to offer Medicaid coverage to an additional 1 million Floridians — part of the Affordable Care Act that takes effect next January — the FMA says that shortage will only get worse.

#12 At this point, approximately 40 percent of all doctors in the United States are 55 years of age or older.

#13 In America today, many hospital executives make absolutely ridiculous amounts of money…

In December, when the New York Times ran a story about how a deficit deal might threaten hospital payments, Steven Safyer, chief executive of Montefiore Medical Center, a large nonprofit hospital system in the Bronx, complained, “There is no such thing as a cut to a provider that isn’t a cut to a beneficiary … This is not crying wolf.”

Actually, Safyer seems to be crying wolf to the tune of about $196.8 million, according to the hospital’s latest publicly available tax return. That was his hospital’s operating profit, according to its 2010 return. With $2.586 billion in revenue — of which 99.4% came from patient bills and 0.6% from fundraising events and other charitable contributions — Safyer’s business is more than six times as large as that of the Bronx’s most famous enterprise, the New York Yankees. Surely, without cutting services to beneficiaries, Safyer could cut what have to be some of the Bronx’s better non-Yankee salaries: his own, which was $4,065,000, or those of his chief financial officer ($3,243,000), his executive vice president ($2,220,000) or the head of his dental department ($1,798,000).

#14 Health insurance administration expenses account for 8 percent of all health care costs in the United States each year.  In Finland, health insurance administration expenses account for just 2 percent of all health care costs each year.

#15 If you can believe it, the U.S. ambulance industry makes more money each year than the movie industry does.

#16 All over America, people are reporting huge health insurance premium increases thanks to Obamacare.  The following example is from a recent article by Robert Wenzel…

A California small businessman tells me that he switched healthcare insurance carriers in 2012.  The monthly premium for him and his wife was about $400, but when he received his first bill in January of this year it was for $1,200.  He hasn’t been to a doctor in years, his wife has only gone for minor care.

Apparently there is some clause in the Affordable Healthcare Act that results in health insurance firms using a new method to calculate premiums. Those who have health insurance plans that have been in effect since at least 2010 are grandfathered under the old calculation method, but insurance carriers are using a new formula for new plans.

#17 Blue Shield of California has announced that it wants to raise health insurance premiums by up to 20 percent this year in an effort to keep up with rising health costs.

#18 Aetna’s CEO says that health insurance premiums for many Americans will double when the major provisions of Obamacare go into effect in 2014.

#19 Close to 10 percent of all U.S. employers plan to drop health coverage completely when the major provisions of Obamacare go into effect in 2014.

#20 According to a survey conducted by the Doctor Patient Medical Association, 83 percent of all doctors in the United States have considered leaving the profession because of Obamacare.

#21 Approximately 16,000 new IRS agents will be hired to help oversee the implementation of Obamacare, and the Obama administration has given the IRS 500 million extra dollars “outside the normal appropriations process” to help the IRS with their new duties.

#22 During 2013, Americans will spend more than 280 billion dollarson prescription drugs.

#23 Prescription drugs cost about 50% more in the United States than they do in other countries.

#24 In the United States today, prescription painkillers kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined.

#25 Nearly half of all Americans now use prescription drugs on a regular basis according to the CDC.  Not only that, the CDC also says that approximately one-third of all Americans use two or more pharmaceutical drugs on a regular basis, and more than ten percent of all Americans use five or more pharmaceutical drugs on a regular basis.

#26 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.

#27 In 2010, the average teen in the U.S. was taking 1.2 central nervous system drugs.  Those are the kinds of drugs which treat conditions such as ADHD and depression.

#28 Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants as children in Europe are.

#29 There were more than two dozen pharmaceutical companiesthat made over a billion dollars in profits during 2008.

#30 According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.

#31 According to a report by Health Care for America Now, America’s five biggest for-profit health insurance companies ended 2009 with a combined profit of $12.2 billion.

#32 The top executives at the five largest for-profit health insurance companies in the United States combined to bring in nearly $200 million in total compensation for 2009.

#33 The chairman of Aetna, the third largest health insurance company in the United States, brought in a staggering $68.7 million during 2010. Ron Williams exercised stock options that were worth approximately $50.3 million and he raked in an additional $18.4 million in wages and other forms of compensation.  The funny thing is that he left the company and didn’t even work the entire year.

#34 It turns out that the financial assistance that Barack Obama promised would be provided for those with “pre-existing conditions” under Obamacare is already being shut down because of a lack of funding…

Tens of thousands of Americans who cannot get health insurance because of preexisting medical problems will be blocked from a program designed to help them because funding is running low.

Obama administration officials said Friday that the state-based “high-risk pools” set up under the 2010 health-care law will be closed to new applicants as soon as Saturday and no later than March 2, depending on the state.

#35 In America today, you are 64 times more likely to be killed by a doctor than you are by a gun.

#36 People living in the United States are three times more likely to have diabetes than people living in the United Kingdom.

#37 Today, people living in Puerto Rico have a greater life expectancy than people living in the United States do.

#38 According to OECD statistics, Americans are twice as obese as Canadians are.

#39 Greece has twice as many hospital beds per person as the United States does.

#40 The state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.

#41 According to a doctor interviewed by Fox News, “a gunshot wound to the head, chest or abdomen” will cost $13,000 at his hospital the moment the victim comes in the door, and then there will be significant additional charges depending on how bad the wound is.

#42 It has been estimated that hospitals overcharge Americans by about 10 billion dollars every single year.

#43 One trained medical billing advocate says that over 90 percent of the medical bills that she has audited contain “gross overcharges“.

#44 It is not uncommon for insurance companies to get hospitals to knock their bills down by up to 95 percent, but if you are uninsured or you don’t know how the system works then you are out of luck.

#45 According to a study conducted by Deloitte Consulting, a whopping875,000 Americans were “medical tourists” in 2010.

#46 Today, there are more than 56 million Americans on Medicaid, and it is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#47 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

#48 Today, there are more than 50 million Americans on Medicare, and that number is projected to grow to 73.2 million in 2025.

#49 When Medicare was first established by Congress, it was estimated that it would cost the federal government $12 billion a year by the time 1990 rolled around.  Instead, it cost the federal government $110 billionin 1990, and it will cost the federal government close to $600 billion this year.

#50 Even if you do have health insurance, that is no guarantee that medical bills will not bankrupt you.  Just check out what a recent Time Magazine article says happened to one unfortunate couple from Ohio that actually did have health insurance…

When Sean Recchi, a 42-year-old from Lancaster, Ohio, was told last March that he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his wife Stephanie knew she had to get him to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Stephanie’s father had been treated there 10 years earlier, and she and her family credited the doctors and nurses at MD Anderson with extending his life by at least eight years.

Because Stephanie and her husband had recently started their own small technology business, they were unable to buy comprehensive health insurance. For $469 a month, or about 20% of their income, they had been able to get only a policy that covered just $2,000 per day of any hospital costs. “We don’t take that kind of discount insurance,” said the woman at MD Anderson when Stephanie called to make an appointment for Sean.

Stephanie was then told by a billing clerk that the estimated cost of Sean’s visit — just to be examined for six days so a treatment plan could be devised — would be $48,900, due in advance.

By the way, that hospital down in Houston made a profit of 531 million dollars in one recent year.

So what can be done about all of this?

Well, the truth is that the status quo is a complete and total disaster, and every “solution” being promoted by politicians from both major political parties would only make things worse.

In the end, the U.S. health care system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, but we all know that is not going to happen.

Instead, our politicians and the health care industry will just find additional ways to extract money from all of us, and the level of care that we all get will continue to decline.

If you don’t believe this, just check out what Paul Krugman of the New York Times had to say recently…

We’re going to need more revenue…Surely it will require some sort of middle class taxes as well.. We won’t be able to pay for the kind of government the society will want without some increase in taxes… on the middle class, maybe a value added tax…And we’re also going to have to make decisions about health care, doc pay for health care that has no demonstrated medical benefits . So the snarky version…which I shouldn’t even say because it will get me in trouble is death panels and sales taxes is how we do this.

Others are urging us to become more like Europe.

But do we really want what they have in the UK?…

Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’.

Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults.

But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.

One doctor has admitted starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in the neonatal unit of one hospital alone.

Writing in a leading medical journal, the physician revealed the process can take an average of ten days during which a  baby becomes ‘smaller and shrunken’.

In the end, my philosophy is just to avoid the U.S. health care system as much as possible.  Most doctors are just trained to do two things – prescribe drugs and cut you open.  In an emergency situation where you are about to die, those may be your best options, but otherwise I would just as soon avoid the gigantic money making scam that the U.S. health care industry has become.

But just don’t take my word for it.  The following is some very sound advice from Dr. Robert S. Dotson…

Avoid contact with the existing health care system as far as possible. Yes, emergencies arise that require the help of physicians, but by and large one can learn to care for one’s own minor issues. Though it is flawed, the internet has been an information leveler for the masses and permits each person to be his or her own physician to a large degree. Take advantage of it! Educate yourself about your own body and learn to fuel and maintain it as you would an expensive auto or a pet poodle. One does not need a medical degree to:

1. avoid excessive use of tobacco or alcohol or, for that matter, caffeine;
2. avoid poisons like fluoride, aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, and addictive drugs (legal or illicit);
3. avoid unnecessary and potentially lethal imaging studies (TSA’s radiation pornbooths, excessive mammography, repetitive CT scans – exposure to all significantly increases cancer risk);
4. avoid excessive cell phone use and exposure to other forms of EMR pollution where possible (the NSA is recording everything you say and text anyway);
5. avoid daily fast food use and abuse (remember: pink slime and silicone) ;
6. avoid untested GM foods (do you really want to become “Roundup Ready?”):
7. avoid most vaccinations and pharmaceutical agents promoted by the establishment;
8. avoid risky behaviors (and, we do not need a bunch of Nanny State bureaucrats to define and police these);
9. exercise moderately;
10. get plenty of sleep;
11. drink plenty of good quality water (buy a decent water filter to remove fluoride, chloride, and heavy metals);
12. wear protective gear at work and play where appropriate (helmets, eye-shields, knee and elbow pads, etc.):
13. seek out locally-grown, whole, organic foods and support your local food producers;
14. take appropriate nutritional supplements (multi-vitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin D3);
15. switch off the TV and the mainstream media it represents;
16. educate yourself while you can;

And, lastly…

17. QUESTION AUTHORITY!

Doing these simple, common-sense things will add healthy years to a person’s life and help one avoid most medical encounters during his or her allotted time on earth.

So what do you think?

Do you believe that the U.S. health care system is a gigantic money making scam that is about to collapse?

Source:  http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/50-signs-that-the-u-s-health-care-system-is-a-gigantic-money-making-scam-that-is-about-to-collapse

STOP THE WISCONSIN OPEN PIT MINING BILL

Tags

Arsenic, Big Oil, Billionaires, centuries, children, Conservation, Credo Action, Creeks, crime, criminal, deception, Depletion, devastating, Divest, environment, environmental disaster, environmental standards, Environmentally-friendly, families, finite, fossil fuels, fraud, Geothermal, go green, Governor, Great Lakes, greed, green, green energy, Health, Human Rights, Hydro-electric, Indian, infinite energy sources, interests, Invest, Iron Ore, kids, Koch Brothers, Lakes, Lead, legislators, legislature, Majority, Mercury, Mining, Native Americans, natural gas, Open Pit Mining Bill, other, Penokee Hills, people, poisoning, pollution, power, region, Rights, Rivers, SB1, Scott Walker, Sellout, Solar, States, Streams, tourism, Toxic, Traitor, Tribes, Voters, waterways, weakened, wetlands, wildlife, will, Wind, Wisconsin

Please Take Action Here:  http://org.credoaction.com/petitions/stop-the-wisconsin-open-pit-mining-bill

---

Campaign created by Eric Ming 

The open pit mining bill (SB1) is a sellout to out-of-state mining 
interests and must be stopped. It will have a devastating impact on 
the environment, our families' health, and the state's tourism 
industry.

Why is this important?

As someone who grew up in Wisconsin, I was taught at a young age the tradition of conservation.

Our natural landscape and environment

are a source of pride and tradition for every Wisconsinite.

This bill threatens to undermine that completely. The land for the 
proposed mine contains rare birds, the largest undeveloped wetland in the upper Great Lakes region,
and has among the highest quality waters in Wisconsin providing a great habitat for tourism and wildlife
alike. But this proposed mining legislation is not just an enormous environmental disaster, it also has
the potential to be devastating to the health of our families. The Penokee Hills, where the first mine
would be based, provide drinking water for nearby communities and houses, and wild rice fields that
local Native tribes have harvested for centuries. With the weakened environmental standards found in
this bill, the mining companies would be allowed to release harmful substances like lead, mercury, and
arsenic into these waterways. We cannot let a bill written by out-of-state mining industries undermine
our families' health and Wisconsin's history of conservation. It has to be stopped!

Category: environment

Source:  http://org.credoaction.com/petitions/stop-the-wisconsin-open-pit-mining-bill?r=10197109&id=55268-4718040-njH%3DIFx

The Good, The Bad, and…….Red Wing mayor resigns in face of pressure over frac sand industry role

Tags

America, American, CIA, citizens, Crooked, crooked politics, DEA, Dennis Egan, DNR, EPA, Ex-mayor, FBI, FDA, greed, justice, Lawful, liar, liars, Mayor, Minnesota, MN, politicians, politics, power, Red Wing, Served, Shrew, Taming of the Shrew, thieves, U.S., U.S. Government, U.S. Government Agencies, U.S.A., United States, United States of America, unlawful, USDA

Update 02-25-2013

Email to Egan:

My blog I posted after writing to you on February 6th regarding

your mayoral job and your second job with the Sand Fracking Industry

was a big hit!  Apparently, Red Wing, MN residents as well as online

readers from around the area and far away, did not like your suggestion

that you could be mayor AND Executive Director of the Minnesota Industrial

Sand Council!  Your conflict of interest has made you look like nothing

more than a dumb-ass, typical greedy politician/corporate whore, who

deserved a giant boot in the ass out of office!  I’m sure you will make

tons of money with Sand Fracking, while it lasts, but SE Minnesota is

a new hotbed of anti-Fracking sentiment among a majority of the residents.

It has already spread into neighboring Wisconsin.

 

Good luck lining your pockets with money at the expense of human health and

environmental safety!  Your thanks will come when our earth is so toxic that

not even the likes of you, who helped cause environmental catastrophe and

massive species extinction to include humans, will be able to escape the

poisonous consequences of your greed-laden actions!

John Loeffler

https://johnniesblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/the-good-the-bad-and-red-wing-mayor-resigns-in-face-of-pressure-over-frac-sand-industry-role/

 

 

Talk about selling your soul & that of your city’s soul down the road for money = $greed$!!

Remember this post that I wrote back on February 6, 2013:  

Red Wing, MN’s Mayor Moonlighting For Sand Fracking Industry!

https://johnniesblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/red-wing-mns-mayor-moonlighting-for-sand-fracking-industry/

It seems that between Red Wing’s news coverage, and the potential for things to go “viral” including a email address directly to the party in question, one Dennis Egan:

Red Wing mayor resigns in face of pressure over frac sand industry role

• Article by: TONY KENNEDY , Star Tribune
• Updated: February 24, 2013 – 7:49 AM

Facing a recall effort and an inquiry, Egan chose to stay in his role as lobbyist.

[Barn Bluff rises above the Mississippi river town of Red Wing, Minnesota]

Photo: Special to the Star Tribune, Photo by Jim Umhoefer.

Two weeks after Red Wing Mayor Dennis Egan insisted that he could ethically work a second job as a frac sand lobbyist, the mayor will step down in the face of a recall effort and a City Council investigation of his business relationship with the Minnesota Industrial Sand Council.

“I think it is the right decision,” Red Wing Council Member Peggy Rehder said Saturday. “I just think it is unfortunate that it took this long.”

Egan said he could have continued as mayor based on the city’s attorney legal interpretation, but will resign by April 1 because his job as the sand council’s executive director had become a distraction to the city and his family.

“I believe that a mayor must live to a higher standard than just avoiding conflicts of interest,’’ he said. “If a mayor’s activities serve as a distraction or roadblock for the city, the public is not well-served.’’

Rehder said parameters for a special election to replace Egan, the city’s former Chamber of Commerce president, will be discussed at Monday’s City Council meeting. The council will drop its initiative to have an independent, private firm investigate the full nature of Egan’s business dealings with the frac sand industry, she added. The proposed inquiry was to collect details of when Egan started consulting for mining companies, how much money he was making and what his contract said.

Without knowing any of those details, Red Wing City Attorney Jay Squires had advised the council that he could not see a legal conflict in violation of state statute.

A contentious hearing
But City Council President Lisa Bayley called the dual employment a “pretty massive inherent conflict.” Bayley told Egan at a showdown City Council meeting on Feb. 11 that she resented the fact that he wouldn’t resign at the request of fellow council members.

Egan, who gets paid $9,800 a year as the city’s mayor, has earned a living for years as a professional lobbyist and political consultant. He told the City Council it was unfair for members to ask that he choose between abandoning a client or quitting as mayor. If frac sand matters came up at City Hall, he would recuse himself, he said.

But Kent Laugen, a Red Wing resident and local attorney, said the mayor’s argument was “superficial and inadequate.” There’s no way he could reconcile his city duties against his loyalty to sand companies, Laugen said. He predicted there will be pressure for the mayor to resign immediately, not weeks from now.

The political tension that Egan said he could avoid came to life at the State Capitol last week at a crowded public hearing before a joint Senate and House committee considering frac sand legislation. Rehder testified on behalf of Red Wing that the state should adopt a moratorium on new frac sand developments until a comprehensive environmental review can be conducted. Egan wasn’t there, but the sand council testified in direct opposition.

In the wake of that hearing, Rehder said Saturday: “And he [Egan] still says he has no conflict?”
Red Wing resident Dale Hanson had vowed to carry out a petition drive for a recall vote. “I am grateful that [Egan] will resign,” he said Saturday. But he said he believes that the city should go ahead with its investigation “to ensure that if there was corruption, ethics violations, or other vital issues that we have an accurate sense of how much damage may have been done.”

Red Wing is in the heart of frac sand territory. The rush to mine the ancient quartz started about four years ago with a national oil and gas boom using a technique known as hydraulic fracturing. The spherical, crush-resistant pebbles are vital ingredients in the drilling process.

A debate will start this week at the Legislature over a proposed statewide environmental review of the industry and the possible formation of a regional frac sand board for uniformity in regulation.

• 

  Egan

  Source:  http://www.startribune.com/local/192750521.html

The DOW Will Come Crashing Down!

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed closer to its recently set all-time high with a close on Friday, February 22, 2013 at 14,000.57

This facade will not last much longer!  The amount of “insider trading” going on is so big that Google’s own CEO sold off 42% of his total portfolio – all Google shares! Market analysts on the inside track are sounding alarm bells, so that certainly cannot be good!  Talks of ‘major’ “corrections,” otherwise known as “crashes,” are growing in intensity and numbers.  Europe is falling apart including our close ally England, and countries like Spain, Italy and France are bankrupt!  Last week, Spain begged for another bailout, but the EU, at Germany’s nudging, said “NO!”  “We don’t have the funds to prop you up” were supposedly uttered.  The U.S. economy is not any better!

Our GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, dropped last month.  The last time it dropped the market hemorrhaged.  It’s one leading indicator of where our economy is really at, and a helpful warning of a possible and substantial drop in the Dow and all other markets across the globe.  Unfortunately, what goes up so far (and the Dow will likely peak high one more time before it crashes and burns) must come down to equally sustain a balance.  Here’s the problem though.

The U.S. Government has been fudging its economic books for far too long.  “Cooking the books” as the old adage goes!  You can only make crap up for so long before it over-spills into the general public.  That process is just barely beginning, but it has begun.  Americans want to know the truth from their leaders, but the web of deception is so twisted and tangled that citizens are unlikely to hear the full truth of what is really going on?

We are mostly adults.  We can handle the lies, mass corruption, the raping of the middle class along with the poor class, again.  But, listening requires too much effort these days!  Americans are interesting.  We have been brainwashed into having the attention spans of gnats, so we forget about the really urgent issues our country faces thanks to the CEOs, big banks and mega-corporations running our U.S. Government and running the U.S. into a brick wall with reinforced steel and concrete! The U.S. economy will come to a complete standstill after it collapses and/or China and Russia flip the switch and completely stop buying up U.S. dollars and debt.  THEN, we will have no other choice to pay attention, because it will be a matter of life and death.  Our dependence on oil, our addiction to it, has made it very hard to stop our govt. from gobbling up the world’s natural resources like a cocaine addict following a white line!  After all, oil makes up most of what consumers buy these days, from a toothbrush to a car tire.  We passed the peak, finite fossil fuel oil’s maximum output for the rest of earth’s existence back in 2008.  Saudi Arabia is running low on oil now, because we consume such massive quantities of it.  They had 25% of the world’s oil. We could use a little oil or lube right now.

The historical collapse of the U.S. markets and the economy is going to happen.  It’s inevitable that the false economic security bubble that we are living in is going to burst which will cause a massively painful slide into a negative abyss.  Worst of all, we may not have the resources to just jump-start the burnt out motor of the U.S. economy. Buy seeds, and not Monsanto’s GMOs!  Buy organic.  You’ll be planting your own food in the near future!

By John Loeffler

02-23-2013

EPA Ex-boss (Lisa) Jackson Caught Breaking Law, Scamming U.S. Taxpayers

Tags

"Fast and Furious", "Richard Windsor", "sue and settle", "war on coal", "Windsorgate", 1970, accounts, action, activists, Activities, administrator, Administrator Jackson, agency, agenda, agendas, alias, Allies, America, American, Americans, analyst, answers, arm, arming, Attorney General, avoid, beneficiaries, beneficiary, blackout, bogus, boss, cartel, cartels, caught, CEI, cement plants, chairman, cheaters, cheating, chemical firms, Christopher Horner, Competitive Enterprise Institute, comply, conceal, concealment, Concerns, Congress, congressional, congressional oversight, contempt, controversial, controversy, corruption, Court, court order, cover-up, created, criminal, criminal prosecutions, critics, Daily Caller, dealings, demands, Department of Energy, deserve, destruction, disgrace, Documents, dodge, DOE, DOJ, dollars, drug, Drugs, E.P.A., Earthjustice, Economy, email, email accounts, emails, environment, environmental, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, Eric Holder, estimates, evade, evidence, ex, exposed, exposure, extremist, fake, federal, federal courts, federal law, Forbes, formal, fraud, Freedom of Information Act, GAO, GOP, greed, green, groups, headlines, House Science Committee, identities, incriminating, industries, investigation, Jobs, justice, Larry Bell, law, law-enforcement, lawless, lawmakers, laws, lawsuit, letter, letters, lies, Lisa Jackson, lives, mandatory, mass media, media, media coordinator, Mexican, millions, mining operations, money, name, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nicole Ciandella, nightmare, non-disclosure, NRDC, Obama, Obama Administration, Obama Justice Department, obey, Officials, organization, oversight, Policy, policymakers, power, power plants, PR, President, propaganda, prosecution, Public, public relations, questions, radical, record, record-keeping, Records, refineries, refusal, refuse, regulations, reign, release, reports, Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Republicans, request, requirements, research, researcher, resignation, restrictions, Richard Nixon, ripoff, rogue, scandals, scheme, schemes, scrutiny, secret, secret email accounts, secret emails, sectors, Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana), Senior Fellow, settle, settlements, shady, studies, study, success, successful, sue, suspicion, suspicious, tax, Tax Dollars, taxpayer-funded, taxpayers, terror, The New American, the Sierra Club, timely, top, transparency, trust, truth, U.S., U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, unacceptable, Unconstitutional, unconstitutional executive order, United States, unlawful, violating, violations, Washington Examiner, watchdog

Tuesday, 19 February 2013 12:59 written by Alex Newman

EPA Ex-boss Jackson Caught Breaking Law, Scamming U.S. Taxpayers

The Environmental Protection Agency and its disgraced former boss Lisa Jackson are under fire from lawmakers and activists for, among other reasons, having recently been exposed violating federal law by using bogus identities and e-mail accounts to coordinate propaganda and policy with media allies, “green” groups, and policymakers to advance the Obama administration’s radical “environmental” agenda. Other EPA corruption is also still in the headlines, too, with the agency being criticized for ripping off U.S. taxpayers and foisting more unconstitutional regulations on the economy by working with extremist pseudo-environmental groups using a controversial scheme dubbed “sue and settle.”

The most recent major scandal, which began unraveling late last year after a federal court ruling, involves former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who conveniently announced her resignation in late December. The self-styled “most progressive EPA chief in history” was caught, apparently in violation of federal law, using the fake name “Richard Windsor” and a bogus e-mail account to conspire with allies in the establishment media and friendly policymakers. The shady dealings were part of an effort to promote Jackson and the Obama administration’s wildly unconstitutional policies without being exposed to public scrutiny.

The pseudonym and fake e-mail account scandal, already being called “Windsorgate,” was essentially aimed at skirting federal record-keeping laws barring the use of fake names in official government dealings, according to analysts. The other purpose of the unlawful scheme, first uncovered by a researcher at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, was to conceal the lawless EPA boss’s activities from mandatory public and congressional oversight. After a Freedom of Information Act request and a successful lawsuit by CEI, however, the whole plot is slowly coming to light.

Unsurprisingly, the EPA — created in 1970 by an unconstitutional “executive order” issued by then-President Richard Nixon — is still trying to hide as much of the incriminating evidence as possible using bogus justifications. Among other concerns, the agency has been redacting — blacking out — massive segments of the documents it was forced to release under court order. It flat out refused to release hundreds more.

Indeed, CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner told the Washington Examiner his organization estimates that about 85 percent of the “Richard Windsor” e-mails released last week were redacted. The concealment of the information was “justified,” according to the EPA, under the FOIA’s exemption for documents dealing with a “deliberative process” used in formulating policy — possibly including the lawless policies surrounding the administration’s so-called “war on coal.”

Now, however, lawmakers and watchdog groups are starting to ask serious questions and demand answers. “For the sake of transparency, and of easing the road ahead for the next EPA administrator, we hope the EPA starts providing some answers,”noted CEI media coordinator Nicole Ciandella in a statement published by the Daily Caller, pointing out that the agency continues to stonewall all efforts to get to the truth. Other officials are publicly hammering the EPA as well.

Aside from the CEI, members of Congress are also trying to find out just what was going on at the EPA. Last month, for example, Republicans on the House Science Committee sent yet another letter to Jackson demanding that she hand over the documents — the third official request from the committee lawmakers since November of last year, when the scandal was first becoming a major public concern and a PR nightmare for the agency.

“The use of a false identity raises serious questions about whether the EPA has adequately preserved related records. Despite these legitimate concerns, the EPA has thus far refused to comply with the Committee’s request,” states the January 23 letter signed by six congressmen, adding that continued refusal to comply was “unacceptable” and could result in formal action to force the agency to obey.

The House committee’s letter continued, demanding answers. “As we mentioned in our previous letter, the public trusts that its government will operate in an open and transparent manner,” the lawmakers wrote. “EPA regulations have a significant impact on the everyday lives of Americans, and the agency should implement them in a manner that respects the public’s trust.”

The committee chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), has also been vocal in demanding answers, but so far, few have been forthcoming. “The American public deserves to know whether Administrator Jackson’s secret email accounts were appropriately maintained by the agency according to requirements by federal law. If they have nothing to hide, why not comply with our request?” Rep. Smith wondered. “EPA’s refusal only adds to suspicion that Administrator Jackson’s secret email accounts were intended to evade transparency and circumvent congressional oversight.”

In the Senate, lawmakers are speaking out, too. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), for example, said he thought the EPA alias scandal was the real reason for Jackson’s well-timed resignation in late December. “I think this e-mail issue clearly spurred Lisa Jackson’s resignation,” Sen. Vitter was quoted as saying. “But it’s much broader than her. It’s about a culture of hiding an extreme agenda from Americans because it can’t be sustained in public debate.”

Some critics of the administration are even calling for a proper law-enforcement investigation and potential criminal prosecutions, saying it was obvious that federal law had been violated. However, with Attorney General Eric Holder already facing criminal contempt of Congress charges for covering up the Obama Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” scheme arming certain Mexican drug cartels, the chances of justice being served, at this point at least, appear slim. Holder, in fact, is currently abusing his position as DOJ boss to avoid prosecution himself.

Meanwhile, despite repeatedly promising to run the “most transparent” and “open” administration in history, this is not the first time President Obama’s top officials have been caught trying to unlawfully avoid federal record-keeping laws. As The New American reported in August, scandals swirling around the Department of Energy, for example, are strikingly similar. Top officials there were exposed using private e-mail accounts for official business — again in an apparent effort to unlawfully conceal their shady dealings from the public and Congress.

Another EPA scandal back in the headlines this week is the so-called “sue and settle” scam, used by various agencies and especially the EPA, to rip off taxpayers, provide public money to extremist groups, and implement unconstitutional regulations by fiat. Essentially, the process works like this: A radical green group sues the EPA in court demanding that the agency do something — pass more unconstitutional, economy-destroying regulations, for example. Then, the agency agrees to “settle,” taking the lawless actions that were already being sought by the administration while offering huge taxpayer-funded “settlements” to the organization that sued.

Millions of tax dollars have been funneled to extremist “green” groups using this tactic in recent decades, according to a 2011 official report by the GAO cited by Forbes energy and environment analyst Larry Bell. Among the largest beneficiaries of the scam — aside from the administration in its efforts to foist more lawlessness and pain on the American people — were organizations such as Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce studied the issue and concluded in a report that the “sue and settle” scam was responsible for many of the EPA’s “most controversial, economically significant regulations that have plagued the business community for the past few years.” The study found that among the regulations imposed on the American people using the strategy were restrictions on power plants, refineries, mining operations, cement plants, chemical firms, and numerous other industries and sectors, Bellreported.

Members of Congress have been meekly trying to rein in the out-of-control EPA for years. However, with each successive administration, the rogue, unconstitutional entity continues to usurp more and more power — destroying countless jobs and lives in the process. Critics of the agency, however, say it is time for lawmakers to abolish the EPA altogether. Not only is there no constitutional authority for such an agency, its lawless reign of terror is contributing to the destruction of the already-battered American economy — all with virtually no real benefits to the environment.

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached atanewman@thenewamerican.com.

Related articles:

House Committee Investigates EPA’s Secret E-mail Accounts

Behind EPA Chief Lisa Jackson’s Resignation

The Case for Ending the EPA

EPA’s Plans for Implementing UN’s Agenda 21

Just Freeze! EPA Says Burning Wood Is Bad, but so Is Natural Gas, Coal, Oil

EPA Offers Cash for Propaganda

EPA Declares Human Breath (CO2) a Pollutant

The EPA’s Property Wrongs in America

Dozens of Power Plants Closing Due to New EPA Rules

Obama “Green Energy” Scandals Widen as Lawmakers Probe Deeper

The Real Green in Fedgov’s “Green Energy”

Obama Vows to Bypass Congress on Climate Change

Top 10 “Most Corrupt” List Dominated by Obama Administration

Source:  http://thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/14564-epa-ex-boss-jackson-caught-breaking-law-scamming-us-taxpayers

Newly-Released Memo by Donald Rumsfeld Proves Iraq War Started On False Pretenses

Tags

20 years, 2001, 9/11, Afghanistan, AFRICOM, Al Qaeda, Alan Greenspan, amnesty, Anthrax, Arabs, army, attacks, Barack Obama, Big Oil, biological weapons, blame, Bush Administration, change, chemical weapons, Chief of Staff, CIA, coalition, Colin Powell, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, command, commands, communications, Congress, Cuba, cut, D.C., deadlines, Declassified, defection, details, Dick Cheney, Director, Donald Rumsfeld, executive order, false justification, FBI, fear-mongering, FL, Florida, George Tenet, George W. Bush, government insiders, Guantanamo Bay, Guards, high-level, History, Hoax, inadequate, inspections, investigate, investigative, Iraq, Iraq War, Iraqi forces, Israel, Issues, John McCain, Jordan, Kurds, marines, memo, Michael Isikoff, Middle East, military, missiles, National Security Council, NBC News, neoconservatives, Newsweek, North Africa, November 2001, Obama, Obama Administration, Officer, Officers, Officials, oil, Oil Fields, Oval Office, Patriot Act, Paul O'Neill, politics, PTSD, radio, regime, rendition, reporter, reporting, Republican, Saddam Hussein, Sarah Palin, Saudi Arabia, scare tactics, SCUD missiles, Secretary of State, Secure, Securing, September 11, soldiers, source, structure, t.v., Tampa, Tampa Bay, terrorist attacks, Top Secret, torture, torture program, Treasury Secretary, troops, Turkey, Turkish, two decades, U.N., U.S. soldiers, U.S. troops, Unclassified, United Nations, Unjust, veterans, War, war crimes, Washington D.C., Weapons of Mass Destruction, White House, WMD, world news

Newly-Released Memo by Donald Rumsfeld Proves Iraq War Started On False Pretenses

Posted on February 20, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog

Everyone Knew Iraq Had No WMDS … and Was Not Behind Anthrax Attacks or 9/11

Everyone knew that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction.

Indeed, Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff – Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson – just said that Powell knew that there were no WMDs:

I wonder what will happen when we put 500,000 troops into Iraq and comb the country from one end to the other and find nothing

 

It has been extensively documented that the White House decided to invade Iraq before 9/11:

• Former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted “crap” in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill – who sat on the National Security Council – also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. Top British officials say that the U.S. discussed Iraq regime change even before Bush took office. And in 2000, Cheney said a Bush administration might “have to take military action to forcibly remove Saddam from power.” And see this.

• Cheney made Iraqi’s oil fields a national security priority before 9/11. And the Sunday Heraldreported: “Five months before September 11, the US advocated using force against Iraq … to secure control of its oil.” (remember that Alan Greenspan, John McCain, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, a high-level National Security Council officer and others all say that the Iraq war was really about oil.)

Indeed, neoconservatives planned regime change in Iraq – and throughout the Middle East and North Africa – 20 years ago.

George W. Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin, a high-level National Security Council officer, Alan Greenspanand others all say that the Iraq war was really about oil.

But war is sold just like soda or toothpaste … and so a false justification needs to be concocted.

The government tried to falsely blame the anthrax attacks on Iraq as a justification for war:

When Congress was originally asked to pass the Patriot Act in late 2001, the anthrax attacks which occurred only weeks earlier were falsely blamed on spooky Arabs as a way to scare Congress members into approving the bill. Specifically:

• The FBI was actually told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials

• High-level government insiders pointed towards Iraq as the source of the anthrax, even though there was absolutely no reason to think that the anthrax had come from Iraq

And:

George Bush throughout 2002 routinely featured “anthrax” as one of Saddam’s scary weapons.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush and VP Cheney all falsely linked Iraq with 9/11 … and the entire torture program was aimed at establishing such a false linkage.

A new book by NBC News and Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff adds details, including a memo written by Rumsfeld in November 2001 – a year and a quarter before the start of the Iraq war – asking how to start a war against Iraq, and suggesting as one potential “justification” for war:

• How start?

***

US discovers Saddam connection to Sept. 11 attack or to anthrax?

The Bush administration launched the Iraq war under false pretenses … unfortunately, Obama is no better.

This entry was posted in Politics / World News – Source:   http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/02/newly-released-memos-of-donald-rumsfeld-prove-knowing-iraq-war.html 

Veterans Receiving Letters From VA Prohibiting Firearm Ownership!

Tags

2nd Amendment, affairs, America, Americans, ammo, ammunition, attorney, Attorneys, ban, both, Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, conditions, Constitution, constitutional, Department of Veterans Affairs, executive, financial, fines, firearms, Freedom of Information Act, Gun, guns, head, Health, imprisonment, Issues, justice department, Lawyers, mental, Michael Connelly, non-specific, notices, physical, prohibit, Prohibition, Rights, U.S., United States, United States Justice Foundation, USJF, VA, veterans, violation, weapons ban, written

CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER: VETERANS RECEIVING LETTERS FROM VA PROHIBITING FIREARM OWNERSHIP

According to a respected constitutional lawyer and executive head of the United States Justice Foundation (USJF), veterans have begun receiving written notices from the VA that they are not competent enough to handle their personal firearms — or even their own financial affairs.

Letters reportedly obtained by attorney Michael Connelly, J.D. state that veterans determined to be ‘incompetent’ by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs will face fines, imprisonment, or even both if they continue to hold onto their firearms or ammunition after the reception of the letter. The first page even boldly states that the VA agency has determined certain veterans are no longer able to ‘handle’ their VA benefits due to ‘physical or mental’ conditions.

Threatening legal action against veterans who fail to comply or ‘prove’ they are capable of keeping their firearms within 60 days of receiving the letter, the second page reads:

“If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub.L.No. 103-159, as implemented at 18, United States Code 924(a)(2).”

The letters, which do not contain any specifics behind the issuance or reasoning behind branding many veterans as incompetent, can be read online as provided by Connelly (page one, page two, page three). In the report, Connelly reveals that the letters have been issued to hundreds if not thousands of veterans across the United States. If they do not respond within 60 days, as the second page states, the VA will determine for themselves a course of action regarding the VA benefits and firearm collection of the individual.

Meanwhile, it’s not even clean what they’re verifying or denying when it comes to physical or mental health. It’s a blatant disregard for not only the Second Amendment and the legal processes that have been established to protect citizens, but for the affected veterans who have laid their lives on the line for the very same Constitution that is supposed to protect them. With no clear criteria to designate whether or not a veteran is ‘incompetent’ by the VA, these letters could be issued for everything from something overheard at the VA to a bodily injury. Some could be due to serious health issues that are debilitating, but no specifics are given.

Instead, it is now up to all the veterans who receive these letters to defend themselves against their rights being stripped away — along with their financial benefits.  Connelly says that he will be filing a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Veterans Affairs through the  United States Justice Foundation.

by Anthony Gucciardi
February 22nd, 2013
Updated 02/22/2013 at 1:31 am

Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/constitutional-lawyer-veterans-letters-va-prohibiting-firearm-ownership/#ixzz2LjWh9YzT

Running Out Of Time…….

I will be writing a lengthy story starting this weekend on what is REALLY going on in America, and it will fully explain why our economy, and our way of life is on the verge of a total meltdown which will take decades to fix.  You will be able to send forth your comments to every elected official after the story is finished, and trust me, you will be angry and feel betrayed!

Don’t say that I did not warn you.

John Loeffler