House of Representatives Passes Bill H.R. 1599 That Could Block States 'Permanently' From Labeling GMO Food

""This afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of a controversial bill that seeks to set a unified standard for the labeling of foods containing biotech ingredients. The bill (H.R. 1599) overturns state-level laws that require foods containing genetically modified organisms or GMOs.

The bill passed in a 275 to 150 vote.

One procedural amendment from Colorado representative Jared Polis proposed changing the title of the bill from the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015 to the Deny Americans the Right to Know act. The “DARK act” is the rallying cry for opponents of the bill, who say the bill makes it more difficult for Americans to decide for themselves whether or not to eat GMOs. The proposed name change was not adopted, and an amendment to prohibit the use of the term “natural” on foods containing GMOs also failed.

The bill establishes a new USDA voluntary program for GMO-free labeling, similar to the existing organic program. It also prevents state from requiring food manufacturers to state whether or not their products contain GMOs. So far only Vermont has such a law, although labeling is being debated in many other states.

Some supporters of the bill say that those who want to avoid food containing GMOs may do so already by eating certified organic food. “This bill doesn’t deny any consumer the right to know,” Mike Pompeo, the bill’s sponsor, said during the debate.""

http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/us-house-representatives-passes-national-gmo-bill.html

Prolonged Media and White House Blitzgrieg Attacks Against Gun Owner Rights

The current anti-gun president and his allies are moving forward with an apparent multi-pronged attack on gun owners as they seek to ban online ammo purchases, ban gun-related online internet communications, and to mandate firearms insurance.

Here’s more information about what your government is doing in this regard:

Online Ammo Purchase Ban

Barack Obama’s anti-gun allies in Congress are moving right now to effectively OUTLAW your freedom to purchase ammunition online.

The “Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act of 2015″ was recently introduced and it already has cosponsors.

This crippling new law would:

FORCE you to submit a photo ID in-person every time you purchase any ammunition;

REPORT you to Obama’s anti-gun U.S. Attorney General if you purchase more than 1,000 rounds within a five day period;

REGISTER ammunition buyers like you in a database maintained by Obama’s bureaucrats at the Department of Justice.

According to the bill’s chief sponsor, this new law would give the Obama administration the power to “monitor” law-abiding gun owners and “flag them for law enforcement.”

Ban Gun-related Communication on the Internet

A State Department proposal may make information-sharing on guns illegal as part of the proposed regulations of the Arms 

Export Control Act.

What these regulations would do is to define “export” to include potentially any gun-related communication on the Internet or social media. The regulation would apply to all private communications, so long as the “network” (e.g., the Internet) is, in general, publicly available.

With this in place, the Obama Administration would have the regulatory framework to comprehensively regulate gun-related speech in cyberspace, to whatever extent it desires. In the hands of an anti-gun administration such as Barack Obama’s, the regulations have the potential of granting the State Department an expanded ability to regulate and license gun-related speech on the electronic media.

Mandatory Firearms Insurance

Barack Obama’s gun-hating allies in Congress have just unveiled a new bill (H.R. 2546) that would force YOU to buy government-mandated liability insurance before you would be allowed to purchase a firearm.

And if you can’t afford this expensive new insurance mandate?

***You would be FINED up to $10,000***

http://www.patriotnetdaily.com/obama-multi-pronged-attack-against-gun-owners/

Owning a Gun in House Banned in a Neighborhood Near You: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Rejects NRA Challenge

""Local governments now have the right to tell you how to store your guns thanks to the inaction of the US Supreme Court.

The court Monday refused to hear an appeal of a US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld a San Francisco ordinance requiring owners in their own home either to store firearms in a locked container or disable them with trigger locks when not in use. Gun owners can wear the gun in a holster, but other than that, the gun must be put away.

As is usual, the Supreme Court did not explain why it didn’t hear the case, although two justices argued the court should have heard it.

“San Francisco’s law allows residents to use their handguns for the purpose of self-defense, but it prohibits them from keeping those handguns operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense when not carried on the person,” US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a six page dissent about the case,Jackson v. City & County of San Francisco.

Justice Antonin Scalia joined Thomas’ dissent.

“In an emergency situation, the delay imposed by this law could prevent San Francisco residents from using their handguns for the lawful purpose of self-defense,” Thomas stated. “And that delay could easily be the difference between life and death.”

Thomas added, “The law thus burdens their right to self-defense at the times they are most vulnerable – when they are sleeping, bathing, changing clothes, or otherwise indisposed. There is consequently no question that San Francisco’s law burdens the core of the Second Amendment right.”

According to the San Francisco ordinance, violators could face up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Six San Francisco residents joined the NRA and the San Francisco Veteran Police Officers Association in 2009 in challenging the law in federal court.

Conflicts with Landmark Heller Ruling

Thomas contended that the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Jackson conflicts with a landmark US Supreme Court ruling, District of Columbia v. Heller.

In that case, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Second Amendment gives citizens a right to own firearms and possess them within the home for self-defense. Heller struck down a Washington, D.C. law that banned the possession of handguns.

The court’s ruling means that the San Francisco ordinance and similar laws in states and territories in the Ninth Circuit can be enforced. The Ninth Circuit covers Hawaii, Alaska, California, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington state.

But the law also gives a boost to gun control advocates outside of the Ninth Circuit who want to see other cities pass similar ordinances.""

http://www.offthegridnews.com/current-events/the-supreme-court-may-have-just-banned-using-a-gun-in-your-home-and-virtually-no-one-noticed/

White House 4 Sale: America is an Oligarchy, Big Banks the Criminal Syndicates

""Senior SEC employees spent up to 8 hours a day surfing porn sites instead of cracking down on financial crimes
Nuclear Regulatory Commission workers watch porn instead of cracking down on unsafe conditions at nuclear plants
NSA spies pass around homemade sexual videos and pictures they’ve collected from spying on the American people

NSA employees have also been caught using their mass surveillance powers to spy on love interests, such as girlfriends, obsessions or former wives … and to eavesdrop on American soldiers’ intimate conversations with their wives back home. And see this  (“routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted” …  “‘Hey, check this out … there’s good phone sex’”)
An employee of the Transportation Security Administration admitted that TSA agents share – and laugh at – nude scans of passengers.

Investigators from the Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General found that some of the regulator’s employees surfed erotic websites, hired prostitutes and accepted gifts from bank executives … instead of actually working to help the economy

The Minerals Management Service – the regulator charged with overseeing BP and other oil companies to ensure that oil spills don’t occur – was riddled with “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity”, which included “sex with industry contacts”
Agents for the Drug Enforcement Agency had sex parties with prostitutes hired by the drug cartels they were supposed to stop
Federal agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Secret Service investigating Bitcoin money laundering extorted and stole over $1 million in Bitcoin

Police have been busted framing innocent people
Warmongerers in the U.S. government knowingly and intentionally lied us into a war of aggression in Iraq.  The former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – the highest ranking military officer in the United States – said that the Iraq war was “based on a series of lies”. The same is true in Libya and other wars
The government lied when it said it doesn’t conduct mass surveillance on Americans, lied about the extent of the torture program, and lied when it said torture was aimed at protecting America against terrorists

The government made sure that false claims were made about the amount of oil spilled by BP in the Gulf
The government has framed whistleblowers with false evidence
The Pentagon falsely smeared USA Today reporters because they investigated illegal Pentagon propaganda

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has conspired with big banks to manipulate commodities prices for decades
The government-sponsored rating agencies committed massive fraud (and see this)

The Treasury department allowed banks to “cook their books”
Regulators knew of and allowed the use of debt-hiding accounting tricks by the big banks

The Secretary of Treasury (Tim Geithner) was complicit in Lehman’s accounting fraud, (and see this)

The former chief accountant for the SEC says that Bernanke and Paulson broke the law and should be prosecuted

The government knew about mortgage fraud a long time ago. For example, the FBI warned of an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud in 2004. However, the FBI, DOJ and other government agencies then stood down and did nothing. See this and this. For example, the Federal Reserve turned its cheek and allowed massive fraud, and the SEC has repeatedly ignored accounting fraud. Indeed, Alan Greenspan took the position that fraud could never happen

Paulson and Bernanke falsely stated that the big banks receiving Tarp money were healthy, when they were not. The Treasury Secretary also falsely told Congress that the bailouts would be used to dispose of toxic assets … but then used the money for something else entirely

A high-level Federal Reserve official says quantitative easing is “the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time”
The non-partisan Government Accountability Office calls the Fed corrupt and riddled with conflicts of interest. Nobel prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz says the World Bank would view any country which had a banking structure like the Fed as being corrupt and untrustworthy. The former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said said he worried that the failure of the government to provide more information about its rescue spending could signal corruption. “Nontransparency in government programs is always associated with corruption in other countries, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be here,” he said

Arguably, both the Bush and Obama administrations broke the law by refusing to close insolvent banks

Congress may have covered up illegal tax breaks for the big banks
The biggest companies own the D.C. politicians.  Indeed, the head of the economics department at George Mason University has pointed out that it is unfair to call politicians “prostitutes”.  They are in fact pimps … selling out the American people for a price.""

http://www.globalresearch.ca/government-corruption-has-become-rampant-america-is-an-oligarchy/5439709

FOIA White House Transparency None: Freedom of Information Act Void

""The administration of Barack Obama, feted as the most transparent in American history, has elected to continue contradicting itself by exempting the Office of Administration from FOIA requests. This removal of a federal regulation makes official a policy by the Bush and Obama administrations to reject FOIA requests made to that office.

This office handles, among other things, the archival of emails and other housekeeping duties. Considering the various email scandals that have involved the executive branch–Hillary’s private email server, the Lois Lerner saga–this exemption, which the White House maintains is backed by court precedents, looks especially problematic.

The announcement of this move comes during the tenth annual Sunshine Week, dedicated to preserving, protecting and expanding the right to know through FOIA. Liberal activist Anne Weismann, of the Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, told USA Today that “The irony of this being Sunshine Week is not lost on me” and that “It is completely out of step with the president’s supposed commitment to transparency.”

Supposed, indeed.

Although most offices in the White House have been legally exempt from FOIA for decades, the Office of Administration answered FOIA requests  for 30 years. Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch told USA Today that “This is an office that operated under the FOIA for 30 years, and when it became politically inconvenient, they decided they weren’t subject to the Freedom of Information Act any more.”

That change in policy–the refusal of FOIA requests–began in the late Bush administration. A federal court ruling in 2009 argued that the office lacked sufficient independent authority to be subject to FOIA guidelines. Instead, the White House has to archive their emails, but those emails are released under the Presidential Records Act, which means that the emails will be released at least five years after the end of the Obama, or any other presidential, administration.

The White House has not disclosed why it waited six years to update its internal regulations to match the court ruling, or why it continued to voluntarily respond to FOIA requests to that office up until this point. The ruling itself eliminates any formal process that allows the public to request that the White House voluntarily release records as a part of discretionary disclosure.

In another example of exactly how much the apparently-transparent Obama administration cares about the opinion of the public or the public’s right to know, the White House said that there would not be a 30-day public comment period on the rule, making this new rule final""

http://watchdog.org/206883/foia-obama-office-administration/

Homemade Percussion Instrument with PVC Pipes: Music Played Live - House / Trance / Dubstep / Electro-rock

Adelaide, Australia “acoustic bass synth” player Jake Clark, aka Pipe Guy. Clark plays his DIY instrument by whacking it with a pair of flip-flop sandals. Recorded live in Rundle Mall, Adelaide, South Australia. 


Jake Clark began playing drums in High School. Back then, he had no clue where his skills would lead him.

The 25-year-old Australian native is a full-time street performer who has been amazing pedestrians with an instrument that can only be described as a maze of pipes. He made the instrument -- which he calls either a 'tubulum' or a 'thongaphone' -- two years ago, and has been playing drums for over ten years.

In the video above, which was uploaded to Clark's personal YouTube page Pipe Guy, he is jamming out on his homemade PVC pipe instrument with a pair of flip-flops. Amazingly, the sound Clark produces is completely acoustic. In other words, there are no tricks and nothing amplifying the music.

"I make my whole living playing music," Clark told A+. "I hope to travel with my pipes in the near future."


You can also check out Clark's band, Mokomo Soda, where he plays guitar.

http://aplus.com/a/pipe-guy-techno