tagged w/ Campaign Promises
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“The crops that we grow are the basis of our civilization,” Todd Leake said. “If anything belongs in the public domain it is the crops we grow for food.”
President Barack Obama's administration has been investigating monopoly concentration in the seed business for over two years. But when the President spoke on the steps of the Seed Savers Exchange, an independent seed company, he didn't mention tht inquiry once. Nor did he talk about business concentration in other areas of agriculture, despite hearings held by his Department of Justice all over rural America.
Last week President Obama held a town hall meeting on the grounds of Iowa’s Seed Savers Exchange, an organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds.
The stop was part of a larger strategy to appeal to rural voters as the campaign season begins. The president spoke about job creation and the gridlock on Capitol Hill, both issues of concern, to be sure.
But what would have really resonated with rural America is a re-commitment to working toward fairness in our farm fields.
The President should know that growing economic opportunities in rural America will take confronting the concentrated market power (and thus political and legislative power) in several agricultural industries. It will take fulfilling a campaign promise to fight for family farmers and ranchers by ensuring fair and transparent markets.
The President couldn’t have picked a better spot to make this point. His venue, Seed Savers, is home to a trove of genetically diverse seed. It is the perfect counterpoint to the alarming extent to which ownership of this vital resource is privatized and concentrated. The top three firms, for example, account for more than 75 percent of U.S. corn seed sales.
Monsanto is the largest seed company in the world, receiving royalties from nearly every acre of corn, soybeans, and cotton planted in the U.S.; it also has a hand in much of the vegetable and sugar beet seed supply. Indeed, this level of control over our plant genetic resources and the narrowing of diversity makes the mission of groups like Seed Savers Exchange so much more important.
Out of Hand
Monsanto has a lock on the soy and corn seed market.
Confronting the business concentration in the seed business is paramount for the success of farmers, especially new farmers and businesses seeking to cultivate a niche in agriculture. But just as seeds as an organism are complex, so is untangling the roots of seed concentration.
And this gets us back to President Obama’s missed opportunity at Seed Savers Exchange.
President Obama’s administration initially signaled a willingness to tackle the problem of monopoly in the seed business. His Justice and Agriculture departments held workshops last year on all aspects of agricultural competition.
These hearings were unprecedented. Farmers, ranchers, farm advocacy organizations, small businesses, and consumers were encouraged that the agencies were investigating consolidation in the seed, livestock, dairy, poultry, and food retail industries.
“We’ve waited a long time for justice in the heartland,” said Missouri state senator and farmer Wes Shoemyer at the first Justice/Agriculture workshop in Ankeney, Iowa, which focused in part on problems in the seed industry.
But the hope was short-lived. There is no indication that either agency is furthering these investigations or taking meaningful action on outcomes of the investigations. The agencies don’t even seem inclined to publish a report in response to the thousands of public comments personally delivered at the 2010 workshops.
And then the President appears at Seed Savers Exchange to talk about the rural economy and doesn’t mention seeds or any of the other issues brought up in his own administration’s workshops.
It would behoove the President to look at the comments received at these workshops before he talks about the rural economy. Tucked within the thousands of comments the agencies received are both evidence of the problems with too much concentration in the seed business and reasonable solutions.
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“So how do we fix the industry?” Nelson asked. “I say we disallow any monopolies and the anticompetitive activities that come with them...I think we have to re-examine the safety and wisdom of granting long-term patents on living things.”
Indeed, even the assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, Christine Varney, who has since left Justice, highlighted the problem of patents in her opening remarks: “You know, patents have in the past been used to maintain or extend monopolies, and that's illegal, and you can be sure, Secretary, that we are going to be looking very closely at any attempt to maintain or extend a monopoly through an abuse of patent laws.”
Such abuse of patent law has come in a variety of forms. Nelson said he’s witnessed the misuse of confidential GMO seed contracts, aggressively enforced through patent rights.
Indiana farmer David Runyon took to the microphone to recount his experience of being wrongfully pursued by Monsanto for alleged patent infringement. It turned out his conventional varieties of soybeans were contaminated by GMO material. He laid out the need to transfer liability to the patent holder in such events so that farmers aren’t pitted against each other.
“In my case whom do I sue but my neighboring farmers?” Runyon asked. “Because they are taking the liability when they sign that contract. And that's wrong. That's why it should go back to [the] patent holder.”
Woven within many comments was a plea for USDA to protect genetic diversity in seeds and breeds, and to keep germplasm public and accessible to our public land grant universities.
“The crops that we grow are the basis of our civilization,” Todd Leake said. “If anything belongs in the public domain it is the crops we grow for food.”
Fred Kirschenmann operates an organic farm in North Dakota and also serves as a distinguished fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. He told the Obama administration officials, “We have lost about three-fourths of our crop seed stock -- that is the varieties of seeds that farmers have had available -- and about 30 percent of our livestock breeds, and as we move into a more uncertain future with more uncertain climates…we're going to need more diversity, not less, that are going to be locally adapted to these local conditions.”
Kirschenmann and others also pointed out that the future of our food supply relies on bringing young people into agriculture, which means ensuring they have a fair fighting chance at a profit.
“I believe our government has an obligation written in law not to pick winners and losers but to act as a referee and ensure the laws and regulations dealing with anticompetitive practices are enforced,” Nelson said.
These farmers’ messages were loud and clear, but they appear to have fallen on deaf ears. There has been no action (or even a peep) out of the Department of Justice. And President Obama didn’t mention his administration’s two-year investigation into the seed business when he spoke at the front door of an independent seed company.
More at the link“The crops that we grow are the basis of our civilization,” Todd Leake... more
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It's time to take action and end the wars.
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Obama has not kept one campaign promise, since taking office! The wars are continuing, the renditions are continuing, there is more spying on the people! There is no balancing of the budget, in fact for the first time in history, the Congress did not even bother doing a budget for 2011, which started October 1st. The spending is out of control! Obama's base is now fully realizing he has not done anything for the people, he continues to out Bush, Bush! Even his solid media base is starting to come out in the open, including Olbermann, who has always been behind Obama. But he even blasted him last night for all his campaign promises broken, he took Obama to task on the tax breaks for the rich! In fact Olbermann, said Obama is a failure in so many words and says, he doubts he would even be nominated for the 2012 Presidential election by the Democrats!
We have been going down a socialist road in a police state. If people don't realize that... then they are totally asleep. Even those who have stood behind Obama, need to wake up and see where this country is headed. I will say, I voted for Obama. I bought all that "Hope and Change and Yes We Can"! I believed we would get back to the free country we once were. I was sadly wrong, and somehow I knew that instinctively at his inauguration. I have never watched an Obama speech etc. since.
We have gone down a road of losing most of our freedoms. If people still think we are free, they need to take a closer look at the policies enacted the last couple of years and all the bills the Congress and Senate have passed. Also look at the things they have not done, including any federal budget for 2011. Has one MSM outlet taken the government to task on us carrying on without a Federal budget? NO! It has not been discussed. Why? It is our constitution that keeps being trampled on. In fact is there much left of the constitution lived by, from this government?
http://sherriequestioningall.blogspot.com/Obama has not kept one campaign promise, since taking office! The wars are... more
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A review of Resident Evil: Afterlife, which is the first live-action movie based on a video game to be presented in 3-D.A review of Resident Evil: Afterlife, which is the first live-action movie based on a... more
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"We are the best" -- this satirical video is made by Iceland's Best party, endorsing comedian Jón Gnarr Kristinsson for Mayor of Reykjavik in 2010. Among his campaign promises? Iceland's very own polar bear, wow!"We are the best" -- this satirical video is made by Iceland's Best... more
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This former campaigner for Obama points out how he has reversed nearly all of his campaign promises. Her friends are die-hards who literally worship Obama as they ask her to 'keep the faith'.
She makes a lot of great points and even claims Obama's mother would ask him what he thinks he's doing if she were alive.This former campaigner for Obama points out how he has reversed nearly all of his... more
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In a Daily Beast exclusive, Larry Flynt, the notorious publisher of Hustler magazine, tells the president to toughen up, keep his campaign promises, and start whacking the Republicans.In a Daily Beast exclusive, Larry Flynt, the notorious publisher of Hustler magazine,... more
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The new sheriff in town may have to face down the the Big Guns to get his badge.
If confirmed as the head of the agency, Cass Sunstein will supervise the implementation of much of President Obama's consumer safety, health, and environmental agenda. Because regulations in these fields are often opposed by big business, Sunstein will play a huge role in managing the Obama administration's relationship with industry.The new sheriff in town may have to face down the the Big Guns to get his badge.
If... more
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Barack Obama, in his first weekly address as President, has mentioned plans to set up a website for tracking "how and where we spend taxpayer dollars."
Details about the website, Recovery.gov, are available within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (PDF). The website "shall provide data on relevant economic, financial, grant, and contract information in user-friendly visual presentations to enhance public awareness of the use funds made available in this Act," and will also "provide a means for the public to give feedback on the performance of contracts awarded for purposes of carrying out this Act."
The site itself currently contains a placeholder until the passage of the Act.Barack Obama, in his first weekly address as President, has mentioned plans to set up... more
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Do elected members of the House and Senate keep their campaign promises?
I would've never guessed the correct answer (according to this study), but I suppose when the logic plays out, it makes sense.Do elected members of the House and Senate keep their campaign promises?
I... more
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Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse gas emissions.
The Democratic senator from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview. President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the government may do so.
Why is this a big deal? It means that Obama can jumpstart serious U.S. action on greenhouse gas emissions without having to wait for complex legislation to wind its way through the House and Senate — and then without waiting even longer for that legislation to actually create a CO2 price high enough to change utility decision-making. It allows him to act quickly to address the single most important first step that developed countries must act upon — new coal plants:
Placing heat-trapping pollutants in the same category as ozone may lead to caps on power-plant emissions and force utilities to use the most expensive systems to curb pollution. The move may halt construction plans on as many as half of the 130 proposed new U.S. coal plants.
Actually it could stop even more than half the plants, once people realize that the president is serious about immediate climate action.
Here are some of the comments Grumet made:
Obama “would initiate those rulemakings,” Grumet said in an Oct. 6 interview in Boston. “He’s not going to insert political judgments to interrupt the recommendations of the scientific efforts….”
“The U.S. has to move quickly domestically so we can get back in the game internationally,” Grumet said. “We cannot have a meaningful impact in the international discussion until we develop a meaningful domestic consensus. So he’ll move quickly….”
Obama adviser Grumet, executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, said if Congress hasn’t acted in 18 months, about the time it would take to draft rules, the president should.
“The EPA is obligated to move forward in the absence of Congressional action,” Grumet said. “If there’s no action by Congress in those 18 months, I think any responsible president would want to have the regulatory approach.”
I would make an even stronger statement. Even if Congress is able to pass a bill within 18 months, it seems very unlikely that it would start to restrict the emissions for another five years — and like Boxer-Lieberman-Warner it might well contain rip-offsets and other cost control provisions that restrict the price of carbon dioxide from rising too rapidly (see “Boxer-Lieberman-Warner update: Probably no U.S. CO2 emissions cut until after 2025” and “Dingell and Boucher draft climate bill: Likely no CO2 cut until near 2030“). Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be... more
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WASHINGTON — A key adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.
The paper, obtained by The New York Sun, was written by Colin Kahl for the center-left Center for a New American Security. In “Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement,” Mr. Kahl writes that through negotiations with the Iraqi government “the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000–80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground).”
Mr. Kahl is the day-to-day coordinator of the Obama campaign’s working group on Iraq. A shorter and less detailed version of this paper appeared on the center’s Web site as a policy brief.
Both Mr. Kahl and a senior Obama campaign adviser reached yesterday said the paper does not represent the campaign’s Iraq position. Nonetheless, the paper could provide clues as to the ultimate size of the residual American force the candidate has said would remain in Iraq after the withdrawal of combat brigades. The campaign has not publicly discussed the size of such a force in the past.
This is not the first time the opinion of an adviser to the Obama campaign has differed with the candidate’s stated Iraq policy. In February, Mr. Obama’s first foreign policy tutor, Samantha Power, told BBC that the senator’s current Iraq plan would likely change based on the advice of military commanders in 2009. She has since resigned her position as a formal adviser.
WASHINGTON — A key adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign is recommending in... more
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This is why it is so unbelievable when I hear anyone promise that this war will end in 2009. It simply isn't going to happen under present conditions, and it is disingenuous to me to promise something that is simply not feasible. As a thinking person and not someone who simply supports a candidate based on "hope", if it is feasible I would like to know specifically how that is going to happen now. This is why it is so unbelievable when I hear anyone promise that this war will end in... more
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