A coalition of 80 U.S. agricultural, consumer, environmental, public health, and worker groups sent a letter Thursday to key figures in the Biden administration calling for them to "Respect Mexico's sovereignty and refrain from interfering with its right to enact health-protective policies"-specifically, the phaseout of the herbicide glyphosate and the cultivation of genetically modified corn.
"Almost all of that is yellow corn for animal feed and industrial uses. López Obrador's commitment to reducing and, by 2024, eliminating such imports reflects his administration's plan to ramp up Mexican production as part of the campaign to increase self-sufficiency in corn and other key food crops." The groups' letter on the Mexican policies and U.S. interference-published in English and Spanish-is addressed to recently confirmed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
The letter highlights Guardian reporting on U.S. government documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The documents revealed that CropLife America and Bayer AG-which acquired glyphosate-based herbicide developer Monsanto in 2018-worked with U.S. officials to lobby against Mexico's plans.
According to journalist Carey Gillam's mid-February report: The emails reviewed by the Guardian come from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other U.S. agencies.
The records then show the USTR does exactly that, telling Mexico its actions on glyphosate and genetically engineered crops raise concerns "Regarding compliance" with USMCA. Citing discussions with CropLife, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency joined in the effort, discussing in an inter-agency email "How we could use USMCA to work through these issues." The Guardian also noted correspondence involving the Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
As the letter to Vilsack and Tai points out: "This interference and pressure from the agrochemical industry is continuing. On March 22nd, industry representatives sent a letter directed to your attention as leaders of USTR and USDA, identifying Mexico's planned phaseout of glyphosate and genetically modified corn as a 'leading concern' for agribusiness interests and the pesticide industry." "We strongly object to any interference by U.S. government officials or agribusiness interests in a sovereign state's right to enact policy measures to protect the health and well-being of its people," the letter states.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to discern fact from fiction, and unfortunately the media has a strong bias. They spin stories to make conservatives look bad and will go to great lengths to avoid reporting on the good that comes from conservative policies. There are a few shining lights in the media landscape-brave conservative outlets that report the truth and offer a different perspective. We must support conservative outlets like this one and ensure that our voices are heard.
Sunday, May 2, 2021
80 Groups Blast US Interference in Mexico's Phaseout of Glyphosate and GM Corn
When Politicians Panicked
We knew so little» is the excuse, and with so many deaths expected, can anyone blame local, state and national politicians for panicking? The answer is a resounding yes.
To see why, imagine if Ferguson had predicted 30 million American deaths, and hundreds of millions more around the world.
Death predictions aside, the other justification bruited in March of 2020 was that brief lockdowns would flatten the hospitalization curve.
The common sense that we're to varying degrees born with, along with our genetic predisposition to survive, dictates that a fear of hospitalization or death would have caused us to take virus-avoidance precautions that would have well exceeded any rules foisted on us by politicians.
In not doing what the allegedly wise among us will, low information citizens will, by their contrarian actions, teach us what behavior is most associated with avoidance of sickness and death, and more important, what behavior is associated with it.
The lockdowns destroyed tens of millions of destination jobs, destroyed or severely impaired millions of businesses, not to mention the hundreds of millions around the world who were rushed into starvation, poverty or both as a consequence of nail-biting politicians in rich countries that chose to take a break from reality.
John Tamny John Tamny is Vice President at FreedomWorks, editor of RealClearMarkets, and author of the new book «When Politicians Panicked: The New Coronavirus, Expert Opinion, and a Tragic Lapse of Reason.
https://themarket.ch/meinung/when-politicians-panicked-ld.4152
5 white Midwest farmers sue over loan forgiveness only for minorities
Like a lot of farmers, Baird has direct loans through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency.
He joined four other white farmers Thursday in suing federal officials over being left out.
Only "Socially disadvantaged" farmers may apply for some of the $4 billion in loan-forgiveness funds, which include direct payments to farmers of up to 20% of the value of the loan.
Baird is among five white farmers from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, and South Dakota who are suing Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and FSA Administrator Zach Ducheneaux, alleging racial discrimination and violation of their right to equal protection under the Constitution.
Should farm loan forgiveness be only for minorities?
The farmers' lawyer, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, seeks a temporary injunction preventing the Biden administration from applying racial classifications in determining eligibility for loan modifications and payments.
The farmers suing the USDA argue that a program that excludes them is just more discrimination.
https://www.wnd.com/2021/05/5-white-midwest-farmers-sue-loan-forgiveness-minorities/
More Than Enough Blame To Go Around
From the Titanic crashing to the Challenger exploding, from the 1918 flu to the 2019 coronavirus, Ferguson argues that "All disasters are in some sense man-made"-or rather men-made.
More trade meant more networks for the virus to transmit, and it was the cities at the center of those networks-Siena, London, Paris, Avignon, Venice-that saw the most deaths.
The resulting medical revolution, Ferguson writes provocatively, "Is intelligible only in an imperial context." Africa and Asia became "Giant laboratories for Western medicine," which soon improved life expectancy across the world, including the colonized regions.
Ferguson doesn't see the pandemic as a one-off.
The administrative state, Ferguson writes, "Has produced pathologies every bit as harmful, and perhaps in the long run more so, than the virus SARS-Cov-2." One such pathology is the diffusion of decision-making.
Leadership matters too, of course, and Ferguson hardly exonerates Trump, whose gaffes come in for appropriate criticism.
Such decisions happen "Far from the presidential conferences and cabinet meetings that historians tend to study," Ferguson writes.
https://freebeacon.com/culture/more-than-enough-blame-to-go-around/
Dem. Sen. Hirono Exposes Herself As Hypocrite On Filibuster – Admits She Supported It But It’s ‘A Vestige Of The Jim Crow Days’
While appearing on "The Daily Show" on Thursday, Sen. Mazie Hirono exposed herself as a massive hypocrite on the filibuster, as she admitted that she supported it when Democrats were the minority in Congress.
Now that Democrats are in power Hirono told Host Trevor Noah that she "Learned from" how Sen. Mitch McConnell conducted himself when he was in the majority "And also that the filibuster is a vestige of the Jim Crow days."
"Previously, and correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like in the past, you were one of the Democrats who said the filibuster needed to be protected," Noah said.
"You know, and a lot of Democrats said the filibuster needs to be protected so that the minority always has a say in which laws are being passed," he added.
Hirono then admitted that she had indeed supported the filibuster in the past, yet she now sees it as racist.
"So, I learned from that and also that the filibuster is a vestige of the Jim Crow days. And so, we need to move on, away from this rule that's not even anything that is in law or in the Constitution."
So Hirono was a big fan of the filibuster when she could use it to her advantage as a member of the minority, but now that Democrats are in power, she sees it as racist.
Joe Biden needs to stop lying about the cause of the border crisis and start fixing it
President Joe Biden on Friday laid fresh blame for the border not-a-crisis at the feet of his predecessor.
In an NBC interview, Biden complained he inherited "One god-awful mess at the border" from President Donald Trump, one made worse by "The failure to have a real transition - cooperation from the last administration, like every other administration has done."
Team Trump gave Team Biden a very public warning that doing so would bring chaos, so the core "Transition" problem is on you, Joe.
Biden ignored the advice - and we're now seeing 6,000 encounters a day.
"We've now got control," Biden claimed to NBC. Bull: The numbers keep climbing with no sign of a slowdown.
Three times as many people think border security is worse under Biden than it was under Trump.
It's long past time for Biden to stop offering lame excuses instead of action and actually fix the "God-awful mess" he created.
Biden's New Death Tax
This week, President Biden proposed taxing capital gains at death at a tax rate of 39.6 percent plus the 3.8 percent investment tax.
President Biden's new death tax would result in estates that currently are not remotely close to having sufficient net worth to pay a death tax paying a death tax.
It can be named a 'capital gains tax at death'; it is a new death tax.
For many others, estates that would have been passed tax-free to children would see very, very large percentages of their estates reduced by Biden's new death tax.
The Biden capital gains tax at death would eliminate the taxpayer's entire estate.
In other cases, Biden proposes to take most and in all cases, Biden proposes a new death tax out of whole cloth.
As a result, after the million dollar exclusion, Biden is proposing a new 43.4% death tax on existing royalty interests.
https://townhall.com/columnists/hankadler/2021/05/01/bidens-new-death-tax-n2588825