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Roundup-Cancer lawsuit exposes cozy relationship between the EPA and Monsanto

Derrick Broze
The Mind Unleashed
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 13:37 UTC
Monsanto
A third lawsuit related to claims that Monsanto's Roundup causes cancer has revealed new details about the cozy relationship between the biotech giant and U.S. regulators.

On Monday, Monsanto Co. corporate spokesman William Reeves admitted the corporation has regularly communicated with U.S. regulatory agencies regarding reviews of the controversial Roundup herbicide. Reeves denied that Monsanto had given the agencies orders to follow. Reeves' testimony came about during the latest lawsuit against biotech giant Monsanto, as Alva and Alberta Pilliod fight to prove that Roundup caused their cancer.

The Pilliods are both living with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after spraying the herbicide Roundup on their properties for nearly 30 years. The septuagenarian couple were diagnosed with the most common form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, in 2011 and 2015. Now the couple is seeking damages related to their use of Roundup after recent studies have linked the world's most popular herbicide to cancer.

Comment: The EPA & Monsanto - A love story
It would be easy to believe the Environmental Protection Agency's mission "to protect human health and the environment" - after all, environment is right, smack in the government agency's very name - but that would be quite the mistake. In fact, judging the EPA's magical manipulation of testing and data concerning glyphosate - the chief ingredient in Monsanto's weedkiller, Roundup - it's arguable the government 'watchdog' functions primarily as a de facto propaganda division for the agrichemical behemoth.
That said, newly unsealed court documents released earlier today seemingly reveal a startling effort on the part of both Monsanto and the EPA to work in concert to kill and/or discredit independent, albeit inconvenient, cancer research conducted by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)


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Briefcase

Cop convicted of murder after video showed him needlessly taser boy riding ATV - from his patrol car - killing him

Matt Agorist
Free Thought Project
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
tasing murder of Damon Grimes
After horrifying video showed a cop kill a boy on an ATV by firing his taser from his patrol car window, the cop has been convicted.

It took nearly nine months and several petitions by the Detroit Free Press until Michigan State Police (MSP) and Detroit Police allowed the body camera and dash camera footage to be released showing the minutes leading up to and the hours following the tasing murder of Damon Grimes by MSP Trooper Mark Bessner. The 16 hours of recordings show the horror, outrage, and insensitive comments made by many officers on the scene. One video even recorded the moment of his death. Now, Bessner has finally been convicted for his actions.

Last year, Bessner was charged with second-degree murder for tasering the teen on the ATV. On Wednesday, a jury convicted him of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, despite the horrific nature of the incident.

"There can be no question that Mark Bessner knew that (he) was going to cause some serious harm to Damon Grimes," assistant prosecutor Matthew Penney told jurors.

After his conviction, Bessner was taken into custody and is awaiting his sentencing on May 2.
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Stock Down

We have seen incredibly high corporate and bank debt previously - right before the last 3 recessions

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Sun, 14 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
chasing money
Since the last financial crisis, we have witnessed the greatest corporate debt binge in U.S. history. Corporate debt has more than doubled since then, and it is now sitting at a grand total of more than 9 trillion dollars. Of course there have been other colossal corporate debt binges throughout our history, and they all ended badly. In fact, the ratio of corporate debt to U.S. GDP rose above 40 percent prior to each of the last three recessions, but this time around we have found a way to top that. According to Forbes, the ratio of nonfinancial corporate debt to U.S. GDP is now nearly 50 percent...
Since the last recession, nonfinancial corporate debt has ballooned to more than $9 trillion as of November 2018, which is nearly half of U.S. GDP. As you can see below, each recession going back to the mid-1980s coincided with elevated debt-to-GDP levels-most notably the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the 2000 dot-com bubble and the early '90s slowdown.
You can see the chart they are talking about right here, and it clearly shows that each of the last three recessions coincided with the bursting of an enormous corporate debt bubble.

This time around the corporate debt bubble is larger than it has ever been before, and risky corporate debt has been growing faster than any other category...
Through 2023, as much as $4.88 trillion of this debt is scheduled to mature. And because of higher rates, many companies are increasingly having difficulty making interest payments on their debt, which is growing faster than the U.S. economy, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF).

On top of that, the very fastest-growing type of debt is riskier BBB-rated bonds-just one step up from "junk." This is literally the junkiest corporate bond environment we've ever seen.
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Black Cat

Merck Pharmaceuticals' Julie Gerberding selected industry 'Woman of the Year' award for putting profits ahead of human health

Richard Enos
Collective Evolution
Wed, 17 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Julie Gerberding

Julie Gerberding
If you are not already clear about how the Corporatocracy that we live in is able to consistently serve their own power and wealth interests at the expense of our heath, well-being and prosperity, then the case of Julie Gerberding should provide some excellent insight. Her career path makes her the poster child for people who want to succeed in the world by embracing the corrupt, deceitful system that is currently in place.

Here is the blueprint: first, become an expert in a very specific area through a good old fashioned Western education. Use the talent and intelligence you have been blessed with to move up the ranks in your chosen industry to gain a position of power within the highest government agency in your field. Work in close collaboration with the corporations you are supposed to be the watchdogs for, and display a particular talent to get away with murder, not only deflecting obvious conflicts of interest and preventing them from materializing into lawsuits, but also demonstrating a highly developed ability - and willingness - to garner public trust around the safety and effectiveness of the products being pushed by the corporations you are colluding with.
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Heart - Black

Michelle Obama is 'hopelessly out of touch' with the reality of divorced families

Suzanne Venker
Washington Examiner
Fri, 19 Apr 2019 10:17 UTC
Laura bush michelle obama and husbands
© Zach Gibson/AFP/Getty
My husband, a child of divorce, texted me after hearing Michelle Obama compare the Trump presidency to spending time with a divorced dad: "I had many great times with my dad; but they weren't always fun, and I never got sick."

Obama announced at a London event to a room full of laughter, "We come from a broken family. We're a teenager. ... Sometimes, you spend weekends with divorced dad. That feels like it's fun, but then, you get sick."

Obama just over-generalized divorced dads as frivolous parents who put their own selfish desires above their children's health. Not only is that a malicious lie, implicit in the statement is the assumption that mothers, not fathers, are the "real" parents who meet children's needs.
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Eye 1

So much for 'humanitarian reforms': Saudi Arabia SECRETLY decapitates two Indian men


RT
Fri, 19 Apr 2019 10:17 UTC
Shi'ite Muslims blood religious festival Saudi Arabia
© Reuters / Stringer
Shi'ite Muslims with swords during the religious festival in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has secretly beheaded two Indian nationals without notifying either the embassy or the men's relatives of the brutal executions. To add to the shock, the Kingdom will not surrender the remains to the families.

Satwinder Kumar of Hoshiarpur and Harjeet Singh of Ludhiana were decapitated on February 28, in connection with the case of the murder of another Indian man back in 2015. The verdict was reached without the knowledge of the Indian embassy and without any prior warning issued to the men's families.

The news of the capital punishment only surfaced after Satwinder's wife, Seema Rani, approached the Indian government asking them to contact the Kingdom to seek clarification on her husband's fate, after hearing rumors of his demise in a Saudi jail. This week, India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) finally confirmed the beheadings, which Punjab's chief minister has called "barbaric and inhuman."
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Megaphone

Bangledeshis demand reform after schoolgirl who reported abuse is set on fire by her classmates


RT
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 23:31 UTC
nusrat justice
© Getty Images / Mamunur Rashid
Protesters rally against the murder of Nusrat Jahan Rafi in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The tragic murder of a school girl, lured onto a roof and set on fire by classmates for reporting sexual abuse by her principal, has provoked outrage across Bangladesh and beyond, with politicians and the UN voicing disgust.

Nusrat Jahan Rafi was pinned to the ground by a group of students and teachers wearing burqas and doused in kerosene before being set alight on the roof of her school in Feni on April 6. The 18-year-old student died from the severe burns, that covered 80 percent of her body, five days later.

As her singed body was rushed to hospital, Rafi knew death coming so the brave girl made a recording on her brother's phone, "The teacher touched me, I will fight this crime till my last breath."
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Stock Down

Germany cuts economic growth forecast for second time as slowing world economy, trade disputes and Brexit uncertainty take their toll

Michael Nienaber
Reuters
Wed, 17 Apr 2019 05:16 UTC
German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier
The German government is eyeing incentives to boost corporate research and development after cutting its forecast for 2019 economic growth for the second time in three months, reflecting a worsening slowdown driven by a recession in manufacturing.

German exporters are struggling with weaker demand from abroad, trade tensions triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" policies and business uncertainty caused by Britain's planned departure from the European Union.

The difficult trade environment means that Germany's vibrant domestic demand, helped by record-high employment, inflation-busting pay increases and low borrowing costs, is expected to be the sole driver of growth this year and next.

To counter the slowdown, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz plans to support corporate research and development with incentives worth 1.27 billion euros ($1.43 billion) annually from 2020, a draft law seen by Reuters showed on Wednesday.

Companies doing basic research or industrial development can apply for a bonus of up to 500,000 euros per year, with the incentives not limited to small- and medium-sized firms as originally planned, according to the draft law.

Comment:

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Stop

Facebook bans British far-right groups


France 24
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 15:00 UTC
Facebook bans British far-right groups
© AFP
Social media giant Facebook on Thursday banned various far-right British groups including the English Defence League from its network for promoting hate and violence.

Other groups kicked off both Facebook or Instagram include Knights Templar International, Britain First, the British National Party (BNP) and the National Front.

The tech titan banned the groups for contravening its policy forbidding "terrorist activity, organised hate, mass or serial murder, human trafficking or organised violence or criminal activity".

"Individuals and organisations who spread hate, or attack or call for the exclusion of others on the basis of who they are, have no place on Facebook," a spokeswoman for Facebook said.
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NPC

SJW librarian accuses libraries of 'promoting and proliferating whiteness'

Helen Buyniski
RT
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 21:28 UTC
book burn
© Pexels / Movidagrafica
White men and their ideas take up too much space in libraries, a social justice-obsessed librarian has declared, stopping just short of suggesting we burn all those oppressive white men's books to make way for diversity.

"White dudes writing about white ideas, white things, or idea, people and things they stole from POC [people of color] and then claimed as white property" are hogging all the space in American libraries, and it's perpetuating centuries of racial inequity, Massachusetts Institute of Technology librarian Sofia Leung has claimed in a post that tiptoes around the question of what is to be done with this "so-called 'knowledge.'" Her outburst was retweeted by the Library Journal - a publication normally devoted to discussing the preservation of knowledge rather than the rejection of entire categories of it.

"Libraries filled with mostly white collections indicates that we don't care about what POC think, we don't care to hear from POC themselves, we don't consider POC to be scholars, we don't think POC are as valuable, knowledgeable, or as important as white people," she writes. While she conspicuously avoids finishing the thought - squirming out of the obvious conclusion with the excuse that "I still have some thinking to do around this topic" - it's pretty obvious where she's leading, especially when she mentions "Swedish death cleaning," the practice of getting rid of one's possessions upon realizing one is near death, so as not to leave a mess for loved-ones to clean up.

Comment: An anti-knowledge librarian? What has this world come to?

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