posted March 30, 2013 04:52 PM            

Some are undoubtedly harmful, most haven't been researched enough to know. the patent side of the issue is most upsetting, and the brazen disregard for the rights of their consumers.

posted April 01, 2013 12:45 AM            

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I still don't see how a veto on this would interfere as extensively with the government and economy as you and Kat are arguing. It seems like you are resorting to hyperbole to defend his disappointing signing of this.

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The article you posted in your defense cites the government crisis, too. What's widely reported isn't typically hyperbole. Perhaps you should rethink that.

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Pardon me, but why do you even mention this partisan bull, especially when the RT link you posted says:

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Occam's Razor. Apparently, you wouldn't understand.

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Evidently unknown? This excuses something? Why not vote against anything you weren't given enough time to read? Wouldn't that make sense...then our government wouldn't be shaped by blind, wild guesses about the contents of the bills.

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But if everyone had read it, and then voted overwhelmingly for it, then it would be alright?

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OR the President did it knowingly and wilfully. That's also a possibility!

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That fact has already been granted. However, if that's the case, you've been given reason for why that might be.

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Of course it's asking too much for him to handle both.

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You act as if the Presidency is an easy job filled with easy choices with a side of no conflict, and no fragility. That's a fantasy.
Your conspiracies fuel an idea that you're on top of things, but when confronted with anything sensible or moderate, you immediately seek to reject it.

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Your questions seem "belligerently sarcastic."

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And incredibly reasonable given your objections.

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Oppose the GMO Riders: Must-pass 'fiscal cliff' bill could end up becoming 'Monsanto Protection Act'

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From your own article:

According to ANH-USA, Monsanto and its cronies already know that any proposed fiscal cliff bill will more than likely pass with flying colors because the "crisis" it addresses is urgent, so the industry is heavily lobbying Congress to add special provisions for GMOs that must be stopped.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/038336_fiscal_cliff_Monsanto_Protection_Act_GMO.html#i xzz2PBJ6HSXS

You tried to make it out as if this bill doesn't have anything to do with an imminent government shut-down.

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That article is overwhelmingly pro-Monsanto, and to pin the blame for the bill's opposition on shady wrangling by the neocons is totally absurd

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Is it? Do you wish to prove something here, or just speculate?
I personally liked the part where it acknowledged: "Not only that, but this bill passed both houses of Congress with a filibuster proof majority. Even if it was as bad as some people are claiming the President couldn’t have vetoed it if he wanted to."
Puts the veto threat into perspective, doesn't it?

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I really don't see why you expend so much effort "shooting the messenger."

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Since the author is pro-Monsanto, of course he or she is only looking at the judicial circumstances with an eye to efficiency and convenience, NOT the vehement opposition some people legitimately have against these plants.

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And since you're anti-Monsanto, of course you are only looking at the opposition some people have against these crops, not the regulatory inefficiencies that may legitimately be in place. It goes both ways.

posted April 01, 2013 08:04 AM            

You and AG can defend it all you want.

posted April 01, 2013 08:10 AM            

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
Is it? Do you wish to prove something here, or just speculate?
I personally liked the part where it acknowledged: "Not only that, but this bill passed both houses of Congress with a filibuster proof majority. Even if it was as bad as some people are claiming the President couldn’t have vetoed it if he wanted to."
Puts the veto threat into perspective, doesn't it?

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I believe that is factually wrong, as other points in the article are wrong; to pretend this author is "the authority" is kind of ludicrous. The President could have vetoed it.

Petition Requesting Veto

I'm sure if a provision banning all abortions had been "anonymously" slipped in, he would have found and vetoed it.

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
Occam's Razor. Apparently, you wouldn't understand.

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LOL, to blame Republicans for a measure with bipartisan support does "simplify" things, but that doesn't bring you any closer to the truth.

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
Everyone entertains you, but you only entertain ideas that are in accord with your own.

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posted April 01, 2013 09:51 AM            

Some of what I'm reading intimates that the injunctions happen automatically whenever there is a lawsuit. Other articles say that a judge has to order the injunction, and has some control over how the injunction is handled. If the latter, the GMO farmers are protected from lawsuits insofar as the judge is competent and weighs all the consequences of the injunction.

Which is what happened here:
Judge Revokes Approval of Modified Sugar Beets http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/business/14sugar.html?_r=1&

Looks like the judge attempted to protect the land and the public from gross inadequacy at the USDA, while granting them leeway to get their act together without disastrous economic consequences:

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The Agriculture Department and its allies had argued that the approval of the crop should not be revoked, saying the department’s mistakes were not that serious and that the crop was going to be eventually approved anyway. At the least, they asked for a nine-month delay in revoking the approval to give the department time to put interim measures into place.

But Judge White disagreed, writing in his opinion that the Agriculture Department’s errors “are not minor or insignificant” and that it had already had time since his initial ruling in September to put interim measures into place.

The judge said it was not clear legally if he could consider the economic consequences of revoking the approval, but that even if he could, the Agriculture Department had not adequately demonstrated there would be a severe impact.

In his previous ruling, Judge White said the department had not adequately assessed the consequences from the likely spread of the genetically engineered trait to other sugar beets or to the related crops of Swiss chard and red table beets.

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More:

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“The Court has already found that the approval of this engineered crop was illegal,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. ”Rather than complying with the court’s order, the USDA is once again acting as a rogue agency in illegally allowing these crops to be planted without the required hard look at their environmental and economic dangers.”

The sugar beet seed crop will be grown in and around Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where farmers also grow seed for other crops.

Judge White had found that the GE sugar beets, which can cross-pollinate table beets and Swiss chard, may contaminate organic and conventional crops and threaten these farmers’ livelihoods, and deprive farmers and consumers of the choice to grow and consume non-genetically engineered food.

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posted April 01, 2013 12:14 PM            

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I believe that is factually wrong, as other points in the article are wrong; to pretend this author is "the authority" is kind of ludicrous. The President could have vetoed it.

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It's factually correct that the numbers of yeas exceeded a two-thirds majority in both houses.

Did Congress Just Give GMOs A Free Pass In The Courts?

by Maria Godoy
March 21, 2013 5:59 PM

Tucked inside a short-term funding measure that Congress approved Thursday is a provision that critics are denouncing as a "Monsanto Protection Act."

The so-called "biotech rider" was included in legislation that won final approval from the House, avoiding a shutdown of the federal government on March 27, when the current funding was set to expire. The provision was slipped into the legislation anonymously. It explicitly grants the U.S. Department of Agriculture the authority to override a judicial ruling stopping the planting of a genetically modified crop.

On the face of it, that sounds pretty bad. And when environmental and organic farming groups got wind of it earlier this month, they mounted a campaign urging voters to call and email their senators and voice their outrage over the provision, which they denounced as a "giveaway to genetically engineered seed companies" and even an act of "fascism." Also dismayed was Montana Democrat Jon Tester, the Senate's lone active farmer, who had offered an amendment to strike the provision from the funding resolution.

The provision "tells USDA to ignore any judicial ruling regarding the planting of genetically modified crops," Tester said in remarks prepared for delivery on the Senate floor last week.

But a closer look at the language of the provision suggests it may not be granting the USDA any powers it hasn't already exercised in the past.

"It's not clear that this provision radically changes the powers USDA has under the law," Greg Jaffe, director of the Biotechnology Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, tells The Salt.

If you read the provision closely (it's on page 78, Sec. 735, of this PDF), you'll see that it authorizes the USDA to grant "temporary" permission for GMO crops to be planted, even if a judge has ruled that such crops were not properly approved, only while the necessary environmental reviews are completed. That's an authority that the USDA has, in fact, already exercised in the past.

Back in 2010, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the USDA had approved genetically modified sugar beets for commercial planting without adequately assessing their potential environmental impact. The ruling effectively banned future plantings of GMO sugar beets — which made up most of the country's crop — and raised the specter of a sugar shortage.

So two giant biotech seed producers — Monsanto and Germany's KWS — petitioned the USDA to issue a "partial deregulation": Essentially, farmers got the go-ahead to keep planting the beets until the USDA's environmental assessment of the crop was complete.

At the time, the USDA's decision infuriated environmental groups and the organic industry. So it's easy to see why these same groups now take umbrage at an act of Congress that seems to encourage the USDA to approve first, assess later when it comes to GMO crops involved in a legal dispute.

Says Jaffe: "It clearly is a strong statement from Congress that USDA should exercise those powers, maybe in more situations than they might otherwise do it."

But unlike controversial biotech language inserted into the farm bill last year that never made it into law, Jaffe notes, the newly enacted provision does not seek to limit the government's ability to conduct environmental reviews of biotech crops.

posted April 01, 2013 01:20 PM            

After researching this a bit more, I see that Congress rarely attempts to override.

Usually the President threatening a veto is sufficient to have a bill drawn up according to his liking, but I don't recall Obama threatening any such thing over this matter, despite all its publicity.

And, AG, you and I have been split over the matter of codification before. The USDA exercising powers it didn't clearly legally have was bad enough; that they now have been explicitly granted such powers is worse.

posted April 01, 2013 03:11 PM            

If he had vetoed it, it wouldn't have changed the process apparently, so while it might have been a nice political stunt to please some people, it might have actually been costly to shut the government down temporarily to make a point over something that was already happening regardless of the bill. All in all, it's tough not to see the move as pragmatic. The opportunity continues to exist for reform of that process.

posted April 06, 2013 12:58 PM            

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/state ments/2013/apr/05/facebook-posts/group-says-monsanto-law-skirts-courts-requires-app/

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We learned from experts that the USDA issuing temporary permits for products in litigation is not new with this law. That was already the agency’s practice. And in the sugar beet case that went to court, the dispute was not over the safety of the food but the environmental review procedure.

However, the language in the law saying the USDA "shall" issue permits escalates that policy, with one expert telling us it "compels" the agency to allow the use of disputed products while litigation proceeds. And now the USDA itself is now questioning whether that provision is enforceable.

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posted April 08, 2013 05:00 PM            

"(Agriculture) Secretary (Tom) Vilsack has asked the Office of General Counsel to review this provision as it appears to pre-empt judicial review of a deregulatory action, which may make the provision unenforceable."

posted April 08, 2013 05:15 PM            

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
It's not, "Obama signs 'Monsanto Protection Act' into law, but rather Obama signed a bipartisan budget bill to keep the government open.

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posted April 09, 2013 07:17 PM            

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what was already being practiced

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That is the crux, AG

It has been welcome news that Monsanto practices are in the MSM though, a whole lot of people are aware now. Let us hope that increased awareness lasts for longer than 15 min.