Saturday, April 25, 2015

All Monsanto’s Men: Part VI - The Russia China Derangement Syndrome


There’s the quote “the bigger the lie the more people will believe it” but the quote that fits the “new” American government would be “the more stupid the idea the easier it is to sell.”  The new American government smashed its way on to the world stage like a drunk with a broken beer bottle threatening everyone in the bar.



The Russia China Derangement Syndrome of the new American government came in with a bang.  The first victims, Japanese teenagers on a fishing trip.  From World Socialist Network:


Excerpt:


US sub joyride kills nine Japanese


The USS Greeneville and the arrogance of power


It is by now abundantly clear that the February 9 collision of the nuclear sub Greeneville with a Japanese fishing boat off the Hawaiian coast was an entirely avoidable tragedy, the result of gross recklessness and irresponsibility on the part of the US Navy. Nine people on the Ehime Maru, including four high school students, were killed when the sub broke the surface as it completed an “emergency blow….”


The potentially dangerous maneuver was executed by the commander of the sub not as a strategic military exercise, but rather to impress a group of 16 well-heeled civilians brought aboard the Greeneville as part of a public relations effort by the Navy to bolster support for its nuclear submarine program. Two of these civilian visitors were at control posts when the submarine rammed into the Japanese boat…


The Japanese victims' relatives released a list of 31 questions they want the United States to answer, including who was steering the Greeneville at the time of the collision and why the sub's crew did not “do their best” to assist survivors after the boat sunk. One of the relatives' questions reads: “Do you let the civilians experience the emergency blow to let them enjoy the thrill of a roller coaster ride?”


The victims’ families were very astute to compare billionaire donors, joy riding in a nuclear submarine as “the thrill of a roller coaster ride.”  The world and America in particular, has been on a roller coaster ride since the illegitimate government took over in 2001.


Next victim, China’s Air Force pilot.  Seems the new American administration just couldn’t wait to play with all of the toys in the American military toy box.  Next item on the agenda in the PNAC playground was flexing America’s muscles using a top secret sophisticated spy plane. 


On April Fool’s Day, 2001 Bush sent advanced American spy planes to buzz the Chinese, to display the power of the U.S. Air Force and to show who the new boss is.  But the U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese air defense plane and was forced to make an emergency landing.  From Daily Mail:


Excerpt:


Bush demands return of spy plane


American President George Bush has demanded that China releases a U.S. spy plane and its crew and said the future of U.S.-China relations are at stake.


In Washington yesterday, Bush warned that ties with Beijing could suffer unless it quickly releases the EP-3E and its crew…


Chinese state media has splashed pictures of the crippled U.S. surveillance aircraft sitting on the tarmac on a military base in Hainan, where it made an emergency landing on Sunday after a collision with a Chinese F-8 fighter.


Chinese President Jiang Zemin repeated a call today for an American apology for the mid-air collision.


But Bush continued his tantrum and refused to apologize, instead further digging in his heels and making threats, warning the Chinese not to board the spy plane. 

  
The incident threatened to renew Cold War hostilities and further weakened already sour relations between the Bush administration and Beijing.


The U.S. demanded the plane back before China tears apart the super-secret technology aboard the spy aircraft. "We expect that the [Chinese] government will respect the integrity of the aircraft and the well-being and safety of the crew,"


Needless to say, that didn’t go over too well, so the Chinese took their time and sent in engineers to dismantle the spy plane and capture the most sophisticated of America’s technology onboard the aircraft.  After Bush finally apologized to China for his reckless behavior, China boxed the pieces of the spy plane up and shipped them to Bush C.O.D.


But that wouldn’t be the end of the China Derangement Syndrome, the new America’s foreign policy was one of belligerence and threats to China, particularly with regard to Taiwan.  From Arms Control Association:


Excerpt:


On April 24, President George W. Bush authorized the sale of a major package of arms to Taiwan, including destroyers, diesel-powered submarines, and anti-submarine aircraft, but he deferred Taipei's request for U.S. destroyers equipped with the advanced Aegis combat system.


Striving to further show his strong support for Taiwan, the president stated the following day that the United States would defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack, abandoning the ambiguity that typically cloaks Washington's response to how it would handle such a scenario.


Tact and diplomacy have left the building, America had lost its mind.  The military industrial complex of think tanks and defense contractors’ now owned America’s treasury.


In congressional testimony in March, Admiral Dennis Blair, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, noted that the decommissioned Kidd-class destroyers, originally built for the Shah of Iran before he was toppled from power, could be ready for Taiwan within roughly two years, whereas the Aegis-equipped destroyers would not be available until around 2008 or later….


Hmmm, so the Kidd-class destroyers were originally built for the Shah of Iran, under Reagan.  No sense crying over spilled “military complex” milk, we can sell those to Taiwan to attack China.


The Clinton administration declined to sell submarines to Taiwan, considering them to be offensive rather than defensive weapons. Though committing itself to provide Taiwan with the arms necessary to "maintain a sufficient self-defense capability" in the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act


Washington has also sought to avoid providing Taipei with weapons that it could use offensively and thereby provoke a Chinese attack….


The new American foreign policy was no longer defensive, but offensive with the goal of destabilizing governments around the world to ensure American domination. 


Although the proposed package did not include the Aegis-equipped destroyers, it is being touted as the biggest U.S. arms deal for Taiwan since 1992, when the elder George Bush authorized the sale of 150 F-16 fighter aircraft to the island.


Every stupid, proven failure of an idea that the think tanks who suckle at the teat of the military industrial complex was now dusted off and was presented as the new “foreign policy.”  There’s a new sheriff in town baby, and this one is armed, mentally unstable and extremely dangerous.


One of the most disturbing of the stupid neocon ideologies of untethered fascistic attacks on the environment was to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol citing lack of scientific evidence of global warming.  Had Al Gore, the winner of the 2000 Presidential election, assumed the Presidency there may never had been a Fukushima Nuclear Disaster in Japan.  From the Nuclear Information and Resource Center:



Excerpt:


The Exclusion of Nuclear Power From the Kyoto Protocol


What the Bonn Decision Means For Nuclear Power


The exclusion of nuclear power from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol is both a financial and political blow to the nuclear industry. It prevents it from using "carbon credits" to help fund new reactors in developing countries and Central and Eastern Europe, and denies them the PR benefit of being a Kyoto-endorsed "clean development" technology.


While new construction in developing countries could continue and the debate about nuclear power as a climate response will carry on in Europe and North America, this outcome is undeniably a major defeat for the nuclear industry….


For a number of European countries it was one of their only "bottom lines", and they made it clear that they would not accept a pro-nuclear Protocol.


Back in 2000 the world was turning away from nuclear power, the dangers were too great and the benefits to small.  Today, Japan has been suffering since the tsunami disabled the nuclear reactor in Fukushima and contaminated the Pacific Ocean. 


An accident that according to Wikipedia “The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission found the nuclear disaster was "manmade" and that its direct causes were all foreseeable.”


So I would imagine a trade deal like the TPP would help Japan get back on their feet and rebuild their economy.  So what is the new America offering Japan to sweeten the deadly poisoned pill Japan will have to swallow if they accept America’s terms for the Trans Pacific Partnership? 


America’s new Secretary of Defense, the neocon nut job, Ashton Carter is setting up a militarized Pacific rim around China and Japan is pivotal in surrounding China.   From Washington Post:


Excerpt:


Revised defense rules would give Japan new powers to aid U.S. military


TOKYO — The United States and Japan are close to concluding a set of bilateral defense rules that if finalized would give Japan’s military new powers to act when U.S. forces are threatened by a third country, U.S. officials said Wednesday.


By U.S. forces being threatened by a third country, they mean China.


Under a previous bilateral arrangement, Japanese forces could protect the U.S. military only if it was operating in Japan’s direct defense in areas close to the country. U.S. officials say the new rules, once given final approval, would broaden the geographic scope and, significantly, allow Japan to respond to an attack on the U.S. military even if the American forces are not acting in defense of Japan at the time.


A senior defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, called the new rules “a big, big deal.” He said they were also intended to empower Japan to use its missile defense systems to protect U.S. military assets under a greater range of circumstances.


“With missile defense, the more radars you have and the more shots you have, the higher the probability of a kill is,” he said, referring to the likelihood that a missile could be intercepted.


Ely Ratner, a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security, a Washington think tank, said the changes will create “a more equal alliance of mutual defense, rather than simply the defense of Japan.”


Eventually, “this has the potential to open up a variety of new defense activities for Japan in Asia and beyond that are CURRENTLY FORBIDDEN,” he said.


Jeepers, those dimwitted neocons from the Reagan Administration are imbeciles.  A missile defense shield for Japan??  One of the most ignorant of ideas that was scrapped after billions of dollars were spent on failed test after failed test was Reagan’s missile shield system. 


Basically, the military think tank boondoggle’s wet dream was to have a “shield” of missiles in Alaska pointed at Russia. The genius idea was, if Russia lobbed a nuclear missile at America, we would launch a missile to hit their missile head on before it got here.  From Wikipedia:


The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983…


The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of Mutual assured destruction (MAD). The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the United States Department of Defense to oversee the Strategic Defense Initiative….


The ambitious initiative was widely criticized as being unrealistic, even unscientific, as well as for threatening to destabilize MAD and re-ignite "an offensive arms race".[3] SDI was derided, largely in the mainstream media, as "Star Wars", after the popular 1977 film by George Lucas.


In 1987, the American Physical Society concluded that a global shield such as "Star Wars" was not only impossible with existing technology, but that ten more years of research was needed to learn whether it might ever be feasible.[4]


The same clowns that usurped power in 2000 had been told in 1987, your missile shield idea is impossible, it’s like a 12 year-old’s idiotic plan to build a space ship out of soda cans and circle the earth.  So Americas and the people of the world are beginning to feel the kind of fear and dread that makes your scalp feel too small for your head.


I can only imagine what Putin must have thought when George W. Bush claimed he was able to look into Putin’s eyes and see his soul.  Bush gave his personal, divine seal of approval based on his faith-based evaluation of Putin.    



The “new” America has destroyed every relationship formed over centuries in favor of a bully on the block policy that has endangered the world war beyond anything ever imagined.  From Top Info:


Excerpt:


Russia Demands Removal of U.S. Nuclear Missiles


The demand comes after Denmark was threatened with a potential nuclear attack.


MOSCOW, March 24 (UPI) – Russia increased tension over NATO nuclear missiles Tuesday with a demand that the United States remove all non-strategic nuclear weapons from Europe…


He added that deployment of U.S. missiles in European NATO countries is a violation of the 1968 Treaty on Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation


Lukashevich’s remarks came after tensions, already ratcheted upward by Russia’s contention that it could place nuclear weapons in Crimea, increased over the weekend with the suggestion by a Russian diplomat that the Danish Navy’s inclusion of radar on one ship, to involve it in NATO’s missile shield, could make Denmark a nuclear target.


“If this happens, Danish warships become targets for Russian nuclear missiles,” Russian Ambassador Mikhail Vanin wrote in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten on Sunday.


Danish Foreign Affairs minister Martin Lidegard called Vanin’s comments “unacceptable,” adding, “Russia knows full well that NATO’s missile defense is defensive and not targeted at them.”


Sounds like the Danish Foreign Affairs minister is unfamiliar with the “new” America.  The “new” America’s foreign policy has the world on the brink of a full blown arms race and the only winners will be the new American industrial military complex and the many think tanks that populate them.  Russia and China have now been forced to respond to the threat.  From Popular Science:


Excerpt:


CHINA SIGNS HUGE ARMS DEAL WITH RUSSIA, BUYS WORLD'S BEST MISSILE


China and Russia, as part of closer strategic ties, have finalized a long-awaited deal for very long range S-400 surface to air missile (SAM) system


The deal is not only the largest Sino-Russian arms deal in over a decade, but S-400 missile defense capabilities would provide China with a quick missile defense upgrade at the moment neighboring states like North Korea acquire more ballistic missiles, and the U.S. and Japan look to buy stealthy anti-ship missiles…


The deal is significant to regional security as well as geopolitics. China's improved air defense capabilities will greatly complicate any efforts to conduct aerial operations or missile attacks against the Chinese mainland, even with stealthy drones, longer-ranged cruise missiles, or new bombers, all part of the new US "third offset" plan.


Congratulations “New” America, your ignorant Russia/China Derangement Syndrome has put the world on a course of total annihilation.  


By Patricia Baeten
en





Monday, April 20, 2015

All Monsanto’s Men – Part V: Will Hillary Clinton Save the World from the TPP Fast Track to Fascism Hell?





Will Hillary Clinton step up to the plate, stop triangulating and denounce the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership sham for what it is?  In the 2004 Presidential Primary, Howard Dean claimed to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.  It’s time for Hillary to go back to her roots and become the champion for people’s rights that she was in 1993.


Where does Hillary stand on TPP?  To quote the Riddler:


"It's a mystery. Broken into a jigsaw puzzle. Wrapped in a conundrum. Hidden in a Chinese box. A riddle."


 The Riddler, The Long Halloween


The Democratic establishment of the late Senator Ted Kennedy and present Senator Chuck Schumer despised President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton.  The Clintons came into office with an agenda of promoting the right of Americans to universal healthcare, family leave, 401k’s for retirement to supplement Social Security, dignity for retirees and a social safety net that promoted financial stability for workers through earned income tax credits and child care credits.


In the 2008 Democratic primary, it was Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy that rigged the election to preserve the Wall Street rape of the American people they had worked so hard to accommodate.  Through no child left behind, Ted Kennedy ensured the destruction of public education in favor of Wall Street profit driven charter schools. 


The private public partnership of student loans that Joe Biden had pushed through congress ensured a generation of students and their families would be shackled to crushing debt that would extend even after the student’s death.  This is the new Democratic Party formed by the trinity of corrupt Democratic leadership of Schumer, Biden and Kennedy.


Now prominent Democrats from the Democratic wing of the party like Senator Sherrod Brown are demanding Clinton make clear once and for all, are you from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party or not? 



Chuck Schumer is collecting his quid pro quo, his 30 pieces of silver for his role in the December 12, 2000 US Senate/Supreme Court coup.   From the New York Times:


Excerpt:

A Champion of Wall Street Reaps Benefits


WASHINGTON — As the financial crisis jolted the nation in September, Senator Charles E. Schumer was consumed. He traded telephone calls with bankers, then became one of the first officials to promote a Wall Street bailout. He spent hours in closed-door briefings and a weekend helping Congressional leaders nail down details of the $700 billion rescue package.


Good old UpChuck, champion of crooked bankers greased the skids to deregulate Wall Street Banks.  Then old Chuck gave cover for the Federal Reserve Bank to secretly bail out their American and European private banks to the tune of $43 trillion dollars.  $43 trillion dollars that was put on America’s credit card at Federal Reserve Bank interest rates.   


An exceptional fund raiser — a “jackhammer,” someone who knows him says, for whom “ ‘no’ is the first step to ‘yes,’ ” — Mr. Schumer led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the last four years, raising a record $240 million while increasing donations from Wall Street by 50 percent….


But in building support, he has embraced the industry’s free-market, deregulatory agenda more than almost any other Democrat


Senator Dick Durbin, strongly encamped in the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, is next in line for Harry Reid’s position of Democratic leader in the Senate.  Wall Street has thrown their support behind Schumer, to ensure the corrupt Senate continues to be subservient to Wall Street, rather than have a watchdog like Durbin in charge. 





So let’s take a look at the TPP that is so popular with Republicans and the Obama Administration.  In my blog post called Trans Pacific Partnership:  Deliver Us From Evil, I described TPP as such:


Excerpt:


The TPP is a nightmarish amalgam of every horrific nightmare you may have ever had.  According to Public Citizen, this is the TPP:


Excerpt:


Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Job Loss, Lower Wages and Higher Drug Prices


Have you heard? The TPP is a massive, controversial "free trade" agreement currently being pushed by big corporations and negotiated behind closed doors by officials from the United States and 11 other countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam….


The TPP would even elevate individual foreign firms to equal status with sovereign nations, empowering them to privately enforce new rights and privileges, provided by the pact, by dragging governments to foreign tribunals to challenge public interest policies that they claim frustrate their expectations.


The tribunals would be authorized to order taxpayer compensation to the foreign corporations for the "expected future profits" they surmise would be inhibited by the challenged policies.





One has to ask, why would any Trans-Pacific country be interested in a trade deal that ensures poverty, higher infant morbidity and mortality rates from chemical poisoning and loss of sovereignty as a nation?   And that Keystone Pipeline that that’s going to transverse America’s aquifers, across farms polluting all the way.  From Desmogblog:


Excerpt:


How State Department Secretly Approved Expanding Piece of Enbridge's "Keystone XL Clone"


DeSmogBlog has obtained dozens of emails that lend an inside view of how the U.S. State Department secretly handed Enbridge a permit to expand the capacity of its U.S.-Canada border-crossing Alberta Clipper pipeline, which carries tar sands diluted bitumen (“dilbit”) from Alberta to Midwest markets.


The State Department submitted the emails into the record in the ongoing case filed against the Department by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. Collectively, the emails show that upper-level State Department officials hastened the review process on behalf of Enbridge for its proposed Alberta Clipper expansion plan, now rebranded Line 67, and did not inform the public about it until it published its final approval decision in the Federal Register in August 2014.


Environmental groups have coined the approval process an “illegal scheme” because the State Department allowed Enbridge to usurp the conventional presidential permit process for cross-border pipelines, as well as the standard National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, which allows for public comments and public hearings of the sort seen for TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline.


Hillary, you owe the Democratic Party nothing but you owe the America you love everything.  Are you going to allow the once proud Party of Eleanor Roosevelt destroy America?  Look where the new Democratic Party has taken America since you and Bill left the White House.  According to Truthdig:




Excerpt:


Although the United States, in the words of columnist Nicholas Kristof, is “the most powerful colossus in the history of the world,” it lags significantly in quality of life for its citizens. In the Social Progress Index 2015 the U.S. does not make the top 10, or even top 15. The global study measured “basic human needs,” “foundations of wellbeing” and opportunity.


Overall, the U.S comes in at 16th, and some indices are particularly startling.


As Kristof writes in The New York Times: “The index ranks the United States 30th in life expectancy, 38th in saving children’s lives, and a humiliating 55th in women surviving childbirth. …  we have a high homicide rate…  higher suicide rates than 80. We also rank 32nd in preventing early marriage, 38th in the equality of our education system, 49th in high school enrollment rates and 87th in cellphone use.”


Hillary, I know those statistics have to break your heart.  It’s time for you to girl up and answer the call of Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders.  Stop triangulating and denounce the TPP for what it is.  Stand up for the rights of the women, men and children of the world.  Be a champion for us, after all that is why you got into politics in the first place.


By Patricia Baeten

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

All Monsanto’s Men Part IV: The Prophecy - Monsanto Sues God Over Water Rights



Fresh off their latest lawsuit victory claiming proprietary property rights over seeds, Monsanto has set their sights on property rights to the world’s fresh water supply.  Just last year, the Russia Times reported:  


Excerpt:


Supreme Court hands Monsanto victory over farmers on GMO seed patents, ability to sue


The US Supreme Court upheld biotech giant Monsanto’s claims on genetically-engineered seed patents and the company’s ability to sue farmers whose fields are inadvertently contaminated with Monsanto materials….


“If Monsanto can patent seeds for financial gain, they should be forced to pay for contaminating a farmer’s field, not be allowed to sue them,” said Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now!, in a statement “Once again, America’s farmers have been denied justice, while Monsanto’s reign of intimidation is allowed to continue in rural America.”


“Monsanto has effectively gotten away with stealing the world’s seed heritage and abusing farmers for the flawed nature of their patented seed technology,” said Murphy. “This is an outrage of historic proportions and will not stand.”


The new American government that took power after the 2000 Senate/Supreme Court coup has morphed into something out of the 1970’s film The Prophecy, an ecological fable about the evils of industrial pollution.  But The Prophecy is no longer is a fable in America and the world, but a fact of everyday life. 


Democracy died in America on December 12, 2000 and corporate fascism was unleashed.  Elections in America do not result in the will of the people prevailing according to Ellen Brown at Web of Debt:

Excerpt:


The Magna Carta, considered the first Bill of Rights in the Western world, established the rights of nobles as against the king. But the doctrine that “all men are created equal” – that all people have “certain inalienable rights,” including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – is an American original.


And those rights, supposedly insured by the Bill of Rights, have the right to vote at their core. We have the right to vote but the voters’ collective will no longer prevails.


The judicial system in America after the 2000 coup is a fascist, corporate dream that has allowed Corporations to gain complete control over every facet of government policy, foreign and domestic. 


Take Florida, the “scene of the crime of the century.”  In 2000, immediately after the United States Court, overturned the ruling of the Florida State Supreme Court and ordered the recount to be stopped and awarded his brother, George W. with the Presidency, Jeb Bush handed Florida’s State pension funds to W’s donors.  From International Business Times:



Excerpt:


Jeb Bush's Administration Steered Florida Pension Money to George W. Bush’s Fundraisers


Four years before the financial collapse, Goldman Sachs executive George Herbert Walker IV had much to be thankful for. "I've been fortunate to be a small part of teams leading U.S. restructurings, European privatizations, global pension management and now hedge fund and private equity investing,” he said in the annual report of a banking colossus that would soon be known as the “great vampire squid” of Wall Street…


At the same time he was raising $100,000 for his cousin George W. Bush’s successful presidential re-election effort, the administration of another cousin, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, returned the family favor, delivering $150 million of Florida pension money to an alternative investment fund run by Walker’s firm. 


As Jeb Bush oversaw the State Board of Administration (SBA) that runs Florida’s massive public pension system, the state shifted billions of dollars into higher-risk, higher-fee alternative investments, benefiting the same sector of the investment industry he would work in upon leaving office.


Along with the pension funds of the people of Florida, came the water resources for sale to the highest bidder.  Among the highest bidders are the Bush Family, Monsanto, the Koch Brothers and T. Boone Pickens.  From Global Research:




Excerpt:


The New “Water Barons”: Wall Street Mega-Banks are Buying up the World’s Water


A disturbing trend in the water sector is accelerating worldwide. The new “water barons” — the Wall Street banks and elitist multibillionaires — are buying up water all over the world at unprecedented pace.


Familiar mega-banks and investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, among others, are consolidating their control over water.


Wealthy tycoons such as T. Boone Pickens, former President George H.W. Bush and his family, Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing, Philippines’ Manuel V. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, and others are also buying thousands of acres of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world.


One of the pioneers that championed the overthrow of the American government that opened up the Everglades to billionaire polluters was Congressman “Sugar Daddy” Clay Shaw.  From CounterPunch




Excerpt:


Shaw served 26 years in Congress, at a time when the GOP perfected polarization tactics as well as any southern Democrat. It is not enough to note, in passing, a Republican leader who stood up for protecting one of the most threatened ecosystems in the United States. 


How Clay Shaw was a friend of the Everglades deserves a closer reading and involves the story of a Republican who braved dissent of the Jeb Bush orthodoxy at the time and in a state that determined the outcome of the most contested presidential election in US history…


Scarcely six months earlier, ON THE SAME DAY THE US SUPREME COURT DECIDED IN FAVOR OF GEORGE W. BUSH, Jeb signed with President Bill Clinton in the Rose Garden the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Bill….


Governor Bush attempted a significant re-write of Florida water quality law. In April 2001, Sierra Club issued a state-wide alarm: “The Florida Legislature is now considering a law that would eliminate the standards for total coliform and other biological and chemical contaminants in our underground drinking water supply when water is pumped down from the surface. Our drinking water supply, the Florida Aquifer, would become a septic tank….”


On May 20. 2003 Gov. Jeb Bush brushed off the federal judiciary and signed the Everglades bill into law. He also spurned a massive outcry by civic leaders, environmentalists and every newspaper editorial board in the state. 



Along with the installation of George W. Bush as President of the United States came a spate of laws and presidential orders weakening environmental laws, particularly the Halliburton Loophole.  From FrackWire:

Excerpt:


The “Halliburton Loophole” refers to legislation introduced in the 2005 Energy Policy Act that exempts hydraulic fracturing and oil and gas drilling from certain sections of the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 and the Clean Water Act of 1972.  As such, the Halliburton Loophole legislation represents a significant reduction in federal oversight of drilling and fracking operations…


The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was implemented in 1974 with the goal of preserving the purity and safety of the limited supply of potable water in the United States. 


The purpose of the Clean Water Act was to “preserve the purity and safety” of the LIMITED supply of potable water in America.  But that was the old America, in the new America poisoning the water is an “opportunity” for an entrepreneur. 


So how did that work out for Florida?  Fast forward to the year 2015.  According to Daily Kos:


Excerpt:


EXCLUSIVE - Koch Brothers, Rick Scott And Jeb Bush Exposed In Florida Pipeline Scandal


Tons of toxic waste is being dumped into St. Johns River, daily, by the Koch Brothers company, Georgia-Pacific. Aspects of the deal allowing Georgia Pacific to massively assault the environment, were misleading, sometimes illegal, and unbeknownst to the local citizens. Florida Governor Rick Scott and former Governor (and Republican presidential hopeful), Jeb Bush, are also involved….


These actions in turn reach back into the Jeb Bush administration (1999-2007), when then Governor Bush and the Florida Cabinet, over the objection of then Attorney General Charlie Crist, gave preliminary approval for a Georgia-Pacific pipeline from its Palatka paper mill to the St. Johns River…


Tons of toxic waste travel through the pipe to the heart of the St. Johns River every day. The approval was “finalized” through what Florida citizens and environmental groups are calling a grossly misleading newspaper public notice that aimed to cut-off public challenges to the pipeline easement, which the Trustees’ agent, the FDEP, eventually granted.


Another result of the 2000 election heist in Florida is sink holes across the world.  People are losing homes, cars, roads, their lives from sinkholes.  From the End of American Dream:


Excerpt:


In a previous article about sinkholes, I talked about a sinkhole that recently formed in Ohio that was the size of four football fields and that was more than 30 feet deep.  It caused part of State Route 516 to collapse and authorities were projecting that the road would continue to stay closed for months to come…


The giant Louisiana sinkhole in Assumption Parish that made headlines all over the nation last year is now more than 800 feet in diameter.  It just continues to grow, and authorities have no idea when it will stop growing….


Just recently, large sinkholes forced roads to close in New Jersey and in Arizona.  Of course those incidents will soon be forgotten because there are more news stories about major sinkholes in the United States almost every single day now.  Giant sinkholes have been happening with such regularity that people hardly take notice anymore.


And it’s not just Florida’s aquifers that have been awarded to Bush pioneers, but aquifers across the US have chemical wastewater from “frack” mines pumped directly into their aquifers with abandon, like in California.  From Desmogblog:


Excerpt:


After California state regulators shut down 11 fracking wastewater injection wells last July over concerns that the wastewater might have contaminated aquifers used for drinking water and farm irrigation, the EPA ordered a report within 60 days.


It was revealed yesterday that the California State Water Resources Board has sent a letter to the EPA confirming that at least nine of those sites were in fact dumping wastewater contaminated with fracking fluids and other pollutants into aquifers ….


Fracking has been accused of exacerbating California's epic state-wide drought, but the Central Valley region, which has some of the worst air and water pollution in the state, has borne a disproportionate amount of the impacts from oil companies' increasing use of the controversial oil extraction technique.


News of billions of gallons of fracking wastewater contaminating protected aquifers relied on by residents of the Central Valley for drinking water could not have come at a worse time.


And Pioneer, T. Boone Pickens is just one billionaire tycoon who makes huge profits from destroying the water in the United States while being protected by the politicians they installed in office.  There’s the Koch Brothers coal ash repurposing scam.  That is, repurposing the highly toxic coal ash into materials used in road construction. Voila, lemonade, from Earth Justice.


Excerpt:


Clean Wisconsin’s new report, Don’t Drink the Water, demonstrates that coal ash reuse may pose significant public health threats. Today’s report highlights the risks to residents of southeast Wisconsin, where more than one million tons of toxic coal ash has been used in building projects near drinking water wells. The report documents how dangerous chemicals have made their way into the drinking water of hundreds of Wisconsin citizens….


Use of coal ash as construction fill has caused water contamination at sites across the nation. Each year, more than 20 million tons of coal ash are placed as fill without adequate safeguards to prevent hazardous chemicals from entering our water.


Yes, indeed, no money, no water.  Water wars are just another method of asset stripping according to Ellen Brown at Web of Debt:


Excerpt:


Today the water wars continue on a larger scale with new players. It’s no longer just the farmers against the ranchers or the urbanites. It’s the people against the new “water barons”  – Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Monsanto, the Bush family, and their ilk – who are buying up water all over the world at an unprecedented pace…..


At a news conference on March 19, 2015, California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon warned, “There is no greater crisis facing our state today than our lack of water.”


Jay Famiglietti, a scientist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La CaƱada Flintridge, California, wrote in the Los Angeles Times on March 12th:


Right now the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing. California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain.


Maps indicate that the areas of California hardest hit by the mega-drought are those that grow a large percentage of America’s food. California supplies 50% of the nation’s food and more organic food than any other state.


Western Growers estimates that last year 500,000 acres of farmland were left unplanted, an amount that could increase by 40% this year. The trade group pegs farm job losses at 17,000 last year and more in 2015.


T. Boone Pickens’ massive water contamination due to fracking isn’t the only threat to humankind caused by “fracking”, seems that there is now a shortage of frack sand.  Sand is vital to sustenance of human life, is finite and suddenly there is a shortage. 





Wisconsin has the largest deposit of the type of sand required for fracking. From Conservation Voters:

Excerpt:


Frac sand mining is literally booming in western Wisconsin – and it’s wreaking havoc on air and water quality and public health…


Wisconsin currently holds 75% of the frac sand market in the entire United States. If you are at all concerned about the booming, polluting, unregulated hydraulic fracking practices occurring across the United States, you should definitely be concerned about the booming, polluting, unregulated frac sand mining practices happening right here in Wisconsin….


The inhalation of silica sand can cause silicosis, an incurable disease that has also been known to cause cancer. Because of this threat, the federal government regulates workers’ exposure to the dust, but there are no limits set for the general public.


That’s right there are no federal or state laws that protect the public from airborne carcinogens caused by open pit sand mines in Wisconsin or any state.  And guess, what?  The sand war is turning out to be as deadly if not more so than water wars.  According to PRI.org:


Excerpt:


The world's deadly war over sand: 7 things you need to know:

Sand is finite. And people are starting to kill for it…


 “We use so much of it. We use 40 billion tons of sand each year. And that number is just growing and growing. And we’re running out of the stuff we can use for construction….”


 “The most common form of sand, the one that is about 70 percent of everything you see is made from quartz. It’s basically just teeny-tiny little rocks. And that’s the stuff we use in concrete. That’s the biggest thing we use sand for. But we also use it for windows. Every piece of glass you see is basically made out of sand. Every silicon chip in your computer is made out of sand."



Desert sand doesn’t work in construction… “Because it’s been eroded by wind, rather than water, it’s shaped a little too round to stick together properly…


 It’s happening all over the world...  “There are criminal gangs that are making huge money illegally mining sand. They do what mafias do everywhere. They bribe police. They bribe courts. They bribe government officials. And when they need to, they kill people who get in their way.”


People are dying in the sand wars.


The bloodiest battles are in India. “They estimate hundreds of people have been killed in the last few years. Its gangs. Its different sand mafias fighting each other over turf. But also, they’ve killed at least a dozen police officers, government officials, environmental activists and just ordinary folks all over India.”


In an article in Bloomberg in 2008 T. Boone Pickens was described as such:


If water is the new oil, T. Boone Pickens is a modern-day John D. Rockefeller. Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property.


By the mid-1990s, though, Pickens had fallen…  He went through an expensive divorce from his second wife and retreated to his ranch. It was in the midst of this that he acquired a newfound regard for water as a commodity that should be bought, sold, and traded for the benefit of those who own it and those who can afford it.


That is life in the new America.  The new America resembles something from your worst nightmare, and it is infecting the entire world.  So here we are, living in The Prophecy and we can only hope God has a damned good lawyer or we’ll all be damned.


By Patricia Baeten