Archive for Divest Governement of Food Regulation – Page 2
Natural Solutions Foundation
Your Voice of Global Health & Food Freedom™
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.GlobalFoodFreedom.org
General Bert’s World Risk Assessment: Threats to Health and Food Freedom #1
Start with my co-trustee, counsel Ralph Fucetola JD’s cogent analysis of the new Free Speech about Science bill, HR 1364 (a pretty good bill) and S. 216 (a really, really bad bill). His blog entry is entitled “HR 1364, S.216 and the Struggle for Health and Food Freedom” and it is here: http://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2011/04/free-speech-about-science-act-hr-1364.html.
While cheering for HR 1364 is all the rage in Health Freedom circles at the moment, you won’t see Counsel Fucetola or the Natural Solutions Foundation joining the wild cheering, since, while supporting the bill, we are all too aware of the limits of trying to solve such problems piece-meal. He concludes:
“…FDA has ignored these legal restrictions, prompting Dr Ron Paul to remark that, when the Congress gives more power to FDA, the agency always engages in an “abuse of power…” A couple of years ago it ignored the 2007 restrictions to exceed its power and ban the interstate sale of certain vitamins. Just last year it sought to ban the entire Ear Candling industry and asked the Courts to recognize NO right of Americans to make their own dietary choices.
This is an agency run-amok. An agency that is so incompetent that about half of the dangerous drugs (including vaccines) it approves must be withdrawn from the market, or strictly curtailed, within 5 years of approval, thus proving that the Public has become the final stage in drug company research and development. All the while, supporting drug company exemptions from legal liability for the horrendous harm they cause the Public.
Meanwhile, what we call Sen. Leahy’s Criminalization of Food and Speech bill, which claims to “increase criminal penalties for certain knowing and intentional violations relating to food…” but applies only to SPEECH, has reared its ugly head again, as S.216. While that dangerous bill slid through the Senate, we hope it will stall in the House. But the Senate may have more surprises in store for us, with Sen. Durbin planning on introducing a new Dietary Supplement labeling bill that would, for the first time, subject vitamins to registration with the federal government prior to sale.
While all this is happening, Dr. Ron Paul continues to urge “legalization of freedom” with his recent Raw Milk Freedom bill, HR. 1830. Read more about this Interstate Commerce Bill, see my interview with him, and use the Action Item to support it, here: http://tinyurl.com/rawmilkfreedom.
Yes, Congress, can pass new laws to protect us from its agents — or subject us to even more harassment.
But better, DIVEST THE FDA OF FOOD AUTHORITY! Let it stick to messing up dangerous drugs and deadly vaccines… FREE US from this bureaucratic nightmare that leads to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths every year!
And that’s our gripe about a bill that’s been introduced with the best intent, but with hardly enough clout to do the job of restoring our Health and Food Freedoms…
We want to see a return to state, local and family food independence…“
That’s why we continue to post important videos and other information at the Food Freedom eJournal, www.FoodFreedomeJournal.org, which can now be accessed through LikeMinded at: http://likeminded.org/resource/the-food-freedom-ejournal.
DATA POINT 1 of the World Risk Assessment is, therefore, WATCH YOUR FOOD.
DATA POINT 2 has to do with the devastating, escalating disaster in Japan where and entirely new set of reactors, at Onagawa, Japan have cracked open and are leaking more radiation following a severe aftershock earlier this week.
I am very troubled by this development and urge you to watch Dr. Rima’s three important videos below and take the proactive steps she recommends here, http://tinyurl.com/radprotect, to protect yourself and family. This horrific threat is not going away anytime soon. The reactors at Fukushima have been classified as a “Chernobyl Level Disaster” but, in reality, the radiation levels are far higher than that at Chernobyl. During a trip to Russia in 1991, scientists there informed Dr. Rima and me that the “accident” at Chernobyl was, in fact, an astoundingly stupid experiment that ran amok. The information I have suggests strongly to me that the “accident” at Fukushima was a HAARP event intended to run amok. The quake that opened 3 additional nuclear reactors at Onagawa appears to have been an aftershock from that event. However they got there, 3 more TEPCO nuclear reactors are leaking radioactive water and ionizing radiation-producing materials into the environment. Once there, it reaches the US in just a few days, then the Atlantic, Europe, Russia and China, then back around.
When will it stop? There is no indication that it will. Radiation WILL go up up, first in the Northern half of the planet, then all over it. That is why we are calling on you to take action to call for a ban on this inherently disastrous technology, along with the other DNA-destroying technology, GMOs here: http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=8845 . More news about these matters is posted below.
DATA POINT 3 is the increasing probability of a financial meltdown in the United States if Congress is unable to hold the line on the Federal Debt Limit. Breaking through the $14+ billion figure may very well trigger the hyperinflation that has been building pressure. Obama Care legislation gave the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius, a $16Billion “Slush Fund” which will only be funded IF the Federal Debt Ceiling is raised.
With that fund, she will find the Food Fascism bill which was sneaked through Congress at the last moment of a lame duck session in 2010. If the Federal Debt ceiling is NOT lifted, then this disastrous blow to health and freedom cannot be funded. Take this Action Item, http://tinyURL.com/NoDebtIncrease, to make sure that it is NOT funded so that your food, your farmers and your seed remain yours to choose and use. In Europe, the saving of seeds is being criminalized. In the US, it is being regulated into a crime. This battle is too important to lose!
Another part of Data Point 3 is the steady march of the US government toward your pension, IRA, 401 or other retirement money. Since retirement monies represent sent that last pool of “real money” in the US economy, it is a ripe plum for the picking by the greedy and chaotically faltering US government. If you have dollar-denominated assets (such as 401, IRA, trust ofr similar funds) now is the time to consider safer havens like the Valley of the Moon Eco Demonstration Project in Panama. Please visit http://tinyurl.com/4v95t37 to learn more about these options.
Right now, other data points that we have considered in the past, such as weaponized pandemics and dangerous forced vaccine campaigns seem to be in temporary hiatus… but eternal vigilance is still required. Each and every one of these data points could reactivate at any time and, in fact, the WHO and CDC are trying, once again, to beat the drum for a Bird Flu pandemic. It doesn’t seem to be attractive to a stress-weary MMD (Media of Mass Deception), but they are trying, so expect another go-round of “We’re all gonna die if we don’t take the shot RIGHT NOW!!!” in the very near future. We also continue to “keep score” at Codex Alimentarius meetings and, with your generous financial support, expect to have observers at next month’s Codex meeting in Canada; please donate here: http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189.
DATA POINT 4 is the continued spread of world-genome (DNA) destroying GMOs while other environmental toxins continue to escalate: Genomicide – the destruction of the world’s natural genome through GMOs, nuclear power and similar toxic risks. Take this vitally important Action Item to ban both of them NOW, and then take it viral. It is our world. Let’s protect it for ourselves and ALL future generations: http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=8845.
We have important Action Items covering each of these risk points, since we know that PUSH BACK works. Please use the Action Items here daily : Our “7 + 1 Action Items: http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=8653.
DATA POINTS 1-4 will, I believe, help you understand the future as it unfolds. More importantly, they will help you focus your PUSH BACK so we can choose the better future we all seek!
And, while we are pushing back, remember to support the Push Back Engine! Make your generous recurring donation, large or small, here, now, while you are thinking of it: http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189.
DONATIONS: THE PUSH BACK ENGINE:
http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189.
4.20.11 UPDATE: S.216, the bill that would put you in jail for ten years if the FDA later decides your speech about food was intentionally false and put people at risk, has passed the US Senate and has been sent over to the House. The food controllers attempted to include this criminalization of speech about food bill in the so-called FDA “Food Safety” (actually food control) Modernization Act of 2010, but with regard to that provision and other similarly draconian provisions, your PUSH BACK worked… last year. Now it’s a new year and a new Congress up to its old tricks! Please use our revised Health and Food Freedom of Speech Action Item here, daily: http://tinyurl.com/healthfreespeech.
General Bert’s World Risk Assessment: Genomicide Warning #2 is here:
http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=9217
General Bert: Genocidal and Genomicidal Maniacs:
http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=9593
Natural Solutions Foundation
Your Voice of Global Health & Food Freedom™
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.GlobalFoodFreedom.org
Waiter: “Shhh! Be Quiet! Or Every One Else Will Be Wanting One, Too!
How Will Sibelius Use Her $16 Billion Slush Fund?
http://teapartyorg.ning.com/profiles/blogs/rajjpuuts-folly-105464-billion
“In section 402 Health and Human Services Director Kathleen Sibelius was given a $16 Billion slush fund to use as she sees fit…”
Will this slush fund provide the cash needed to hire the 4,000 new FDA agents authorized by the lame-duck 2010 Congress when it passed S.510, the Food Control Law? Tell Congress, “No!” – Action Item here: http://tinyurl.com/ nofoodcontrol
Hey, Kathleen! Just how did you get a $16 Billion slush fund and can I have one, too?
I need to help farmers all over the world reclaim their food production to stop the failure of their farms and the resulting famins around the world. I need to fund natural health research which has not been funded because there is no way to patent natural products (unless, of course, one is a Biotech company like Monsanto, given permission by a scientifically illiterate court system and a massivly corrupt regulatory agency to do just that – and hide it from the American people).
I need resources to hire staff to share real, scientific information with people who need to know that information about the cure, treatment and prevention of the huge cash cows of the illness management organization in the US, often known by the incorrect name “Health Care”. I need a modest amount, say, $100Million, to create urban sustainable, chemical-free food growing programs around the United States, giving the newly homeless, the newly poor and their long-time counterparts the seeds, soil and skills to grow their own clean food to feed themselves and share with others while the dollar is collapsed around their ears.
I need some funds to hire a team of researchers and international lawyers and communications folks to visit governments of the poorest.most nutritionally vulnerable people in the world and share with them the solution to the globalists’ genocidal agenda – Oh, but I have a question to ask you before I tell you what I would like you to make available some of your slush fund, perhaps 1/12 of it. That would be a billion dollars. Given that you already have a Health and Human Services Department budget of hundreds of billions, you probably have a bit more than even you need.
The question:”Ms. Sebelius, have you been, as they say in all the spy and national security novels, ‘read into the program’? Do you know about the genocidal agenda of the World Health Organization, with which your agency works so closely or are you an ignorant dupe, too besotted with the power you are allowed to wield and totally disconnected from common sense or honest analysis by the career trajectory you have followed to see what is really happening and protect the people of the country as you have taken an oath to do?”
Our vocal analysis of your inner realities shows that you really want to do the right thing but that you are, quite literally, besotted by misinformation and the deceit you have been handed. But, unlike many at various helms, it does not show you to be an evil, malignant or cruel person.
Given that, Secretary Sebelius, I would like to ask no only for a small portion of your slush fund (slightly more than twice the combined national budgets for the Pitcairn Islands, Zimbabwe, Wallis and Fortuna and Todelau combined). Now it is true that they are small countries, but how about if you do the following things, Secretary Sebelius:
1. Donate 1/12 of your discretionary slush funds to the Natural Solutions Foundation to promote healthy food, healthy choices and health promoting information in the US and abroad. After all, such health promotion is part of your Agency’s charter, which states “FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.” on your official website, http://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/whatwedo/default.htm.
You are also concerned with food and medicine as a counter-terrorism strategy but seem to have neglected the connection between weakening the nation’s collective immune system through dangerous drugs, contaminated foods and irresponsible vaccinations, but everyone has those lapses!
INTERRUPTION OF PREVIOUS COMMUNICATION
[While writing this letter to Kathleen Sibelius, Dr. Rima, the Queen of Multi-Taskers, was also in a meeting with a Panamanian cattle farmer. You can see where the discussion went and then return to her letter to Secretary Sebelius, below.]
Alonso is here to talk about stuff and we need to get to the formulator we discussed to make a product sample for the udders of drying cows. We are talking about a masters project in which Alonso is involved. The project is that they want to study the influence of the levels of energy and protein from the feed we give to the cows and all the influences from food on reproduction.
They want to study how long it takes the cow to be breeder based on food inputs.
There are different things that influence this: most important is the precalving period.
They want to study how we do it and how long it takes the calf to become estrous
This is from National University: They want to measure the body condition, weight, blood samples, rectal palpation.I think the food is important, but also the presence or absence of drugs, vaccines and similar.
Now, 20 days previous to calving, Alonso analyzes for worms, I put some vitamin E and selenium and magnesium injected into the cow. Then we feed it with a formula with minerals which makes the cows take calcium from their bones (anionic minerals) so that the cows have enough calcium to give birth. Then you get a lot of diseases like placental previa, if there is a calcium failure, they get “downed cow syndrome” and they will not be able to let down their milk. In t he 9 months previous they accumulate the calcium in the bones. The signal in the brain is from selenium to help her take Ca from the bones.
That is standard practice.
We feed with a ration that is similar to the milking cow but different becuase of the minerals and a lower energy level than milking cows. Milking cows get more energy because they are producing milk. IF there is too much energym they get too fat.
After calving we check the cow for placenta and if not expelled in 24 hours, give Ca and Vit B12, 3 different types of calcium. IF that does not work, then we use antibiotics intravaginally. Right now if the cow is doing fine, they only get feed and observation. If the cow has a problem, sometimes they expel the placenta but still get milk fever. In the 15 days after calving they can get detosis, then we use dextrose and calcium 5%, then 50% dextrose. Ketosis from previous programs. Previous partum problmes because they do not eat enough feed in the right way.
Maybe sometimes when a cow has a higher condition score, that is the best. 5 is the best. If you get 4, you have ketosis and retained placenta and if it gets worse, then you get torsion and death.
We will have the opportunity to put our methods into practice and the student will study two types of rearing and feeding. He wants to know about our working and our minerals and about his shot. Minerals by mouth are fine, these are from Brazil. I want to make sure that the injection minerals are working in the organic way.
Most common worms in mature cows. They can have pulmonary worms.
Right now Alphonso is no longer treating with ivermectin because there were some complaints in the food industry about it; some cows get virus earlier, they get ivermictin, if later, we use something to which people do not have allergies.
Used to give ivermictin when they got dry because the time before milking is longer, now using f-albendisol which works against mature and eggs; both mature and immature forms. Only check the eggs in feces. The people who see the eggs in the lab tell us whether they are pulmonary or intestinal. We give the selenium as prevention because we know if they do not get it, some cows do not do well.
This is not a disease that effects humans now. It only effects the cows. The thing is that it lowers the defense of the cow so they lose the ability to fight pathogens.
END OF INTERRUPTION – The above is an example of what we mean when we say we are seeking to “discover, develop, document, demonstrate and disseminate natural solutions…
Anyway, Madam Secretary, the point is that as far as I can tell, health and health freedom are more like four letter words to your agency than concepts to be supported and developed.
Take vaccines, for example. Your agency appears to pretty much never have met a vaccine it did not like. Why, without a disease of note, you purchased half a billion dollars worth of an adjuvant, squalene, also known as Freund’s Adjuvant, to mix into 6 billion dollars worth of unapproved vaccines to make them go further and do more damage. We are talking about the biggest non event of the 21st century here, Swine Flu.
And then there is Rotovac, which causes pneumonia AND meningitis in babies who didn’t need the vaccine in the first place. And there’s the mrecury whiich is used in pediatric vaccines to “wash” the vials leaving dangerous “trace” levels, and is full strength in flu vaccines, which is allowed because of shameless corporate shenanigans back in the early 20th century when your agency was just a baby.
Rima Laibow, MD: And there is the pesky fact that the flu vaccines are associated with increased levels of dangerous diseases like asthma and neurological and learning problems in the young, the old, the middle aged, in us all, with an increased all-cause mortality in people who get them compared with people who do not. And the autism white wash.
Then there are the scientifically and physiologically disastrous GMOs and other poisoned “PHUDES” [“They look a bit like food; they may even smell and taste a bit like food, but they aren’t!”] with which your agency is literally killing us and spreading your contagion of false information and deadly profits around the world.
Your war on the wellness industry is simply breathtaking. You have teamed your agency, already a pit bull guarding Big Pharma and Big Agribiz, Big Biotech and Big Chema, all in the service of Big Medica, of course, up with the FTC to make sure that small and medium sized manufacturers of vitamins and supplements, healthy foods and other dangerous commodities would be driven out of business. After all, if they manged to survive your draconian and rather batty “Good Manufacturing Practices” regulations (against an industry without health problems in its products, instead of against the pharmaceutical industry that kills hundreds of thousands of people each year), they will go under in your 2 agency united front against them.
So I am proposing, in the interests of the First Amendment, fairness, common sense, common decency and the basic human right of self determination granted by the UN Charter on Human Rights (oops! scratch that one: the US is not a signatory to that document or to the Nuremberg Convention prohibiting experimentation on people without informed consent, which is what your sub agency, the CDC, now admits they and you have been doing with fluoride and other goodies) that you share the wealth provided to your agency by the Obamacare legislation and, since you have $16 Billion to play with in your slush fund, that you share the wealth and give the other side, the loyal opposition that wants to have the research and the tools to make their case to the people – and to you, if you will listen, for natural health and clean food and natural health care options (like cancer treatment that works, for example) even though, gasp, the money might must take profits out of the hands of the gigantic industrial forces that are killing us all.
One final note, Madam Secretary, your body, and that of your family and loved ones, will need natural treatments or already do. What will you do when the antibiotics you permit in the vicious factory farm industy and the out-of-control medical industry no longer work for the newly resistant organisms that are eating your flesh, or destroying your organs? Will you have made nano silver illegal as your counterpart in Europe has done?
What will you do when anti depressants do not work? Will you seek in vain for the nervine tonics an herbalist might have made for you had you not made the herbs needed illegal?
What will your daughters and sons do when they are injected with Gardasil or Cevarix and develop a brand new disease, never before seen on the planet: juvenile ALS?
Or when your mother develops Alzheimer’s Disease because of the ful shots she dutifully took – or you do – and you have driven the chelating doctors out of business by criminalizing their knowledge and communication about what they do and what they know?
Seems like a good bet to me, Kathleen. You have so much money. Give us a $1Billion crumb and let us see what we can do to help you pick up the pieces when your disastrous, short sighted, unscientific and anti-physiological methods fail, as they already are doing.
Action Item here: http://tinyurl.com/ nofoodcontrol
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima Laibow, MD: Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
Protecting Your Health and Food Freedom!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5303
In addition to the Continuing Resolution, sent to the Senate after being passed by the House (HR. 3082, which had the fake “food safety” bill S.510 hidden in it) the Senate “leadership” is considering an omnibus budget bill, crabbing together all of the 12 sectional budget bills Congress failed to pass, and putting S.510’s new food-control bureaucracy into the witches’ brew for good measure!
Opposition to the Omnibus Bill is running about 1,500 people an hour through the Health Freedom USA educate-decision-makers, easy to use, email system; just put in your zip code and a bit more info, and your emails are on their way to your Senators and the White House. Various patriot and civic groups are urging their supporters to express opposition, so the total PUSH BACK is even stronger.
The Continuing Resolution or Omnibus Bill can only pass over the minority’s objection if the majority forces the issue through cloture (limiting debate). Since the majority party lost its 60 vote super-majority, needed to invoke cloture, the only way either bill will pass is if certain faint-of-heart members of the minority party support it! It took several Senators — including Massachusetts’ new Sen. Scott Brown who was elected with Tea Party support — to pass S.510 the first time in the Senate. If these Senators hold firm, this will not happen again! If they side with the majority party, we expect the voters will remember. And even six years from now Sen. Brown will be held to the promises he ignored!
The email system’s action item against the Omnibus Budget-Busting Bill with S.510’s fake “food safety” bureaucracy tucked into it, is here: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5303
Says General Stubblebine, President of Natural Solutions Foundation:
“The smell of victory is in the air… we must encourage the faint-of-heart Senators to persevere. And get ready to blast ’em if they turn-tail to run! By the end of any battle, both sides are exhausted, but the side that perseveres just a little longer… wins! That is where we are now, and that is why massive Push Back is more important now than before! We are flooding the Senate with a clear message: No New Programs in the Continuing Resolution or Omnibus Bill; Strip S.510 out of any funding bill! Keep at it! Victory is within our reach. Keep pressing forward while you recruit your contacts to act with you now!”
Natural Solutions Foundation
Your Voice of Global Health & Food Freedom™
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org – www.HealthFreedomPortal.org
Action Item Updated:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5303
For those of you who didn’t follow Wednesday’s events on Twitter or C-Span, the House lame-duck “leadership” pushed the “Food Safety” Bill, formerly known as S.510 into the “Continuing Resolution” Funding Bill to keep the Federal Govt running for another year, passing this Hot Potato to Senate again.
It is apparent how important this fake “food safety” bill is to The Powers That Be — it is very unusual to attach a major regulatory initiative to the Continuing Resolution.
The House vote appears to have been 212 to 206, with no Republicans voting for the bill. The next step is to continue inundating the Senate with voter outrage.
1. It is bad legislative practice to combine a controversial regulatory bill with the Continuing Resolution needed to fund govt activities.
2. It is unprincipled to push this bill against the clear will of the voters that the Federal govt is too big and must stop over-regulating.
3. A clean Continuing Resolution is needed so that Congress can decide to continue funding at a certain level without muddying the process with extraneous matters.
4. The vote was nearly a pure partisan vote, with no Republicans in favor of this maneuver, and only a few Democrats standing against the lame-duck “leadership.” We will remember!
5. The People will keep a close eye on all GOP Senators and expect them to act from principle and not add this budget-busting bill, with its 4,000 new FDA agents to harass local food production and distribution.
We were “on the Hill” today to let our friends in Congress know that “CAM” health care practices (what we prefer to all “Complementary and Advanced Modalities”) need to have a voice in the debate over health care and to re-enforce our opposition to S.510, the fake food safety bill.
We agree with Congressman Paul (who we also saw today) that it is bad legislative process to tack a a very controversial regulatory bill to the Continuing Resolution needed to fund govt activities.
This bill will impact dietary supplements. That is clear from the way the FDA used section 301(11) of the 2007 FDA “enabling act” to outlaw a form of Vitamin B-6, although Congress put a clause in that bill “exempting” DSHEA products.
FDA will use any new food authority to attack supplements and natural remedies, just as it used its enhanced powers under the 2007 FDA “enabling act” to ban the interstate sale of a form of Vitamin B-6.
Please help us stop S.510 as a tack-on to HR 3082.
Action Item Updated:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5303
Ron Paul, me and some of our Heroes…
Rion Paul and Ralph Fucetola
NATURAL SOLUTIONS FOUNDATION
Your Global Voice of Health & Food Freedom™
www.HealthFreedomPortal.org
Why S.510 Does NOT Protect Local, Natural Food… or Freedom!
S. 510 Hits A Snag
by: Doreen Hannes Dec. 4, 2010
Reprinted with permission from www.naisstinks.com
Senate Bill S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, passed the Senate on November 30th, 74-23. Not a single Democrat crossed party lines. This bill is the coup on food in the US. Even though the Tester Amendment was included to dupe those who think it will stop small farmers and processors from being put right out of business, it will only slow down the demise of some small farms.
Then it came to light that a Constitutional issue that had been staring all of us in the face was present. The Senate did not pick up HR2749, which passed the House in July of 2009; instead they took up their own monster in S 510. They also began revenue generation in the Senate (Section 107 of the bill), which is expressly forbidden by the Constitution.
Faced with a patently un-Constitutional bill, that violates Constitutional process, we have to remain vigilant until BOTH houses have adjourned for the winter recess prior to the next session of Congress. Talk about roller coasters.
If the Constitution means anything at all, the House should blue slip S. 510, which would preclude them from taking the bill up and very likely run out the clock for passage in this session.
However, there are four choices available for the legislation to move forward before they adjourn on December 24th. The first is for the Senate to bring it back and get unanimous consent to remove the offending section. Since Senator Coburn of Oklahoma will not consent, that avenue is cut off.
Second is for the Senate to bust S. 510 down to the original a compromise amendment, remove the funding section and the Tester amendment and try to ram it through the entire senate process again before the 24th. This seems unlikely, but do not trust them as far as you can throw a semi trailer loaded with lead.
Third, the Senate could take HR2749, which has already passed the House, and rush it through the Senate, and it would go straight to the Presidents desk with no process with the House necessary. This also seems rather unlikely. The bills are very similar and would have the same detrimental effects for everyone, but the Senators are not familiar with the bill, so it could be really tough.
Fourth, the House Ways and Means committee could pass the bill through and forgive the Constitutional infraction and refuse to blue slip the bill, then vote on it before the 24th and we would have the bill albeit there would be legal issues brought forth that could possibly ensnare the regulations they want to write under this bill. This appears to be the most likely potential for S. 510.
Make no mistake about this, SB 510, or HR 2749 are worse than the Patriot Act, the Health Care bill, and the Federal Reserve Act combined. We can all live without little pieces of paper, and many of us can live without doctors, and we have been living with the increasing police state since 911, but none of us can live without food and water. If we lose food and water, we will not be able to fight anything else.
The Tester-Hagan Amendment Lipstick on a Pig
The largest deception played on the public in S. 510 is the inclusion of the Tester Amendment. This amendment was sold as the complete exemption for all small farms grossing less than $500,000 per year. But if one reads the actual amendment, it is evident that it will not do what it is purported to do for the vast majority of small producers.
The Tester Amendment has strident restrictions on those who may be exempted from HACCP (Hazard and Critical Control Point) implementations. HACCP is 50 pages of instructions that require a certifier to sign off on the plan, and a team to be trained in ensuring the plan is followed on the farm. The requirement of this plan put about 40% of small meat processors out of business several years ago. If you fall under the protection of the Tester amendment, you will not have to do it….but let us see how protective the Tester Amendment really is.
First, the Tester Amendment purports to exempt farms with less than $500,000 in sales from the requirements of S.510. However, to be exempt one must sell more than 50% of their products directly to consumers or restaurants within a 275-mile radius from production, and keep records substantiating those sales. The records are open for inspection and verification of the exemption. In other words, you have to prove you are playing by their rules through record keeping and approval of those records, or meet the more onerous requirements of S.510.
You must apply to be included in the protections of the Tester amendment. You must substantiate through your records for three years that you fit the category of selling more than 50% of average annual monetary value within this 275-mile radius. So, if you sell on the roadside or at a farmers market, you must have a map handy and ask for ID from everyone who purchases from you or lose your exemption. Nice, huh?
Proof of Residence for Food? Really?
I can see it now….A lovely early June day, with the birds singing and the smell of freshly mown hay hanging in the air like the best memory from childhood. A young mother pulls into the Farmers Market and readies herself for a wonderful shopping experience.
She approaches the first stand with her mouth nearly watering at the bright display of fresh produce. I would like 3 cucumbers, please, says the lady with her 3 kids and cloth grocery bag.
Great! Can I see your ID? replies the guy in bibs.
Oh, I am paying with cash she replies with a smile.
No matter, says the farmer, We have to make sure you are within a 275 mile radius of our farm in order to sell to you.
She looks perplexed and says, Well, we are not. We are on our way to visit my parents and I wanted to make a special dinner for all of us, using their locally produced foods so they could remember how good home grown veggies are….So I can not buy from you without an ID?
The farmer scratches his head and says, Now see, I have to be very careful. I belong to a CSA that sells to a Chipotle that is 276 miles from us, so all of my sales at market have to be local or I lose my exemption and will have to hire 5 people to take care of the paper work and then I just go out of business. So no, I can not sell to you. What is more, all the vendors here are part of the CSA, so no one here can sell to you. You have a nice day now!
No Surprises-It is Locally — Global
What we have in Tester is local Agenda 21 Sustainable Development. In sum, control over all human impact on the environment. Everything will need to be within the food shed, and if you are outside of the food shed, too bad for you. It is a great way to surveille and monitor food production and distribution. And you still fall under the broad based reason to believe of the Secretary with the Tester amendment. If the Secretary, meaning the head of the FDA or HHS thinks you may have a problem, or deems what you produce to be high risk, you will be shut down until they say you can begin again. All of your product is subject to mandatory recall; that is why you have to keep records of everyone you sell to. And you will have to register as a facility under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, referred to as Sec 415 throughout the bill. (Knock knock—this is premises identification as in NAIS)
So please, do not tell me how great the Tester Amendment is, and that the expansive powers being granted to the DoD, DHS, HHS, FDA and USDA in this bill will be helpful to small farmers and local food production and make my food safe. Wake up and smell the coffee!!! Oh, wait. The only state that could produce coffee within 275 miles of itself, is Hawaii. Never mind. Wake up, and smell the tyranny, please.
(The best thing to do right now is to call the members of the House Ways and Means Committee as well as your own Representative and tell them they MUST blue slip S. 510. While I know it gets frustrating to call the Congress critters, the more they know that we know, the better the chance at slowing down the destruction they have planned for us. The switchboard number for Congress is 202-224-3121.)
[Note from REL: you can also use our automated email system to message all your representatives in both houses of Congress; in fact, please to both! Click Here for Action Item: http://tinyurl.com/3xdz3lp.