Bribery and Graft abound, Reid attaches S.510 to clunkers

Dees Illustration

Marti Oakley, Contributing Writer 
Activist Post

It seems there is no stopping the nefarious Harry Reid (D) NV.  With the country screaming no to the ill conceived S.510 Fake Food safety bill, Reid was successful in attaching the agricultural police state bill to a non-related bill and rammed this piece of garbage through the senate once again.

And where were those Republicans who got the message from voters that things needed to change?  Well…they were right in there voting yes along with the Democrats.  Even Senator Tom Coburn (R) OK., jumped on the band wagon and voted to pass this attack on food production and supply into law.  Its just amazing what bags of corporate lobbying money  can do to politicians.

S.510 Fake Food Safety bill was passed quickly late Sunday afternoon; a vote taken when the Senate could be assured few were watching or even aware that the vote on the criminalization of independent and family agriculture was taking place.  Like rats scurrying across the deck of a sinking ship, senators lined up one by one to vote against the best interest of their districts and in favor of the industrialization of agriculture. And like rats, they hurriedly scurried away before their presence was detected.  Rats are like that.

“Tonight we unanimously passed a measure to improve on our current food safety system by giving the FDA the resources it needs to keep up with advances in food production and marketing, without unduly burdening farmers and food producers,” Reid said in a statement.

This statement by Reid is an outright lie.  He knows better than anyone else this bill has nothing to do with food safety.  What is relevant in this statement is the alluding to “marketing (exports) and “food production (gmo, cloning etc.,)   He also knows that the CDC report  that was withheld for more than a year prior to shoving this attack on America by its own government, indicated food borne illnesses were markedly  declining contrary to the phony emotional drivel of Senator Durbin on the senate floor prior to the last vote on S.510.

Reid went on to say that this was the first time in almost a century that the food safety system was updated.  This is also a blatant lie.

The FDA and USDA have routinely used the Federal Register to “update” the food safety system, always granting themselves far reaching authority and empowering themselves far beyond the intent of the original legislation that created these blights on America.  All S.510 will do is to unlawfully empower these agencies to openly construct a police state in agriculture with an eye on making the continuance of family and independent farming and ranching so untenable, so riddled with onerous regulations, reporting requirements, warrantless searches and seizure of private property, unnecessary licensing, property rights violations, and the abrogation of individual rights in order to benefit corporations and all the costs associated with these acts of aggression against independent agriculture, that many farmers and ranchers are already bailing out ahead of the FDA Gestapo plans.

Jean Halloran, director of Food Policy Initiatives at Consumers Union, said, “This is a wonderful day for consumers.”  Well, actually Jean…no it isn’t.

Unfortunately for Ms. Halloran, this bill will not relieve the problem of contaminated food.  This is not a wonderful day for consumers as this bill conspicuously did not contain any provision which identified or corrected the major causes of food borne illness.  All HACCP (self-inspection) protections for corporate industrialized producers and processors, the sector where most contamination occurs, remain in place.

Nothing in the bill punishes or halts trade from countries such as China who have a long and sordid history of shipping contaminated food products into the US.  There are no fines, penalties or other hindrances to prevent these contaminated products from being continually dumped into our food supply.

Halloran went on to say: This bill gives FDA essential tools like mandatory recall authority to insure that the food we eat is safe.”

This bill gave the FDA a lot more than mandatory recall authority, and the last place I would look to ensure food safety is the FDA.  We have only to look at the cancerous history of the FDA in regards to pharmaceuticals to know that this agency should have been the last one considered to stand guard on our food supply.  How many people have been harmed, maimed, or killed as a result of FDA approved drugs that were lethal, yet approved for use on the public?  Anything for a buck, right?   When will we see Senator Durbin on the floor of the senate lamenting that?

This bill also authorized the hiring of thousands of new agents but these new agents won’t be on the docks inspecting imports before they enter the food supply and they won’t be used to increase the number of inspections in processing plants.  No….these new agents will be attacking domestic farmers and ranchers and they will do it knowing all the while that they are infringing on idividual rights, property rights and in clear violation of multiple Constitutional protections meant to prevent this very kind of thing from happening.

This bill represents an overt assault on the people of the United States by their own government.  The groups chiming in, in support of this bill either didn’t read it, didn’t understand what they were reading or didn’t care. This is not and never was about food safety.

This is the theft and seizure of the US food supply on behalf of corporations, who were conspicuously protected in this bill.

One more time, Mr. Reid:
“Tonight we unanimously passed a measure to improve on our current food safety system by giving the FDA the resources it needs to keep up with advances in food production and marketing, without unduly burdening farmers and food producers,” Reid said in a statement.

And to think this man told this lie while staring blankly into a camera all the while knowing that what he had just done would adversely affect millions of lives and end any safe production of food from local sources.  The key to the private joke Reid is alluding to are the words “unduly burdening”.  I guess its all relative. If you aren’t likely to be affected by the egregious bills you concoct, the burden may not seem “undue” to you.

Senator Reid along with 99 other senators were not at all adversley affected by this attack on agriculture.  In fact, the majority of them profited quite well from voting for corporations and the eradication of domestic independent agriculture.

Shame on all of you!
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What Senators got paid off to pass S.510?
http://ppjg.wordpress.com/?s=senators+got+paid+off
CDC report on the decline of food borne illnesses
http://www.cdc.gov/media/transcripts/2010/t101215.html