Political theater clouds US debt ceiling vote

US lawmakers Tuesday hold a certain-to-fail
vote on raising the government's borrowing limit
© AFP/File Shawn Thew

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US lawmakers Tuesday hold a certain-to-fail vote on raising the government's borrowing limit, revealing political posturing on a issue the White House warns could have "calamitous" economic consequences.

The Treasury says that unless Congress votes to raise the $14.29 trillion debt ceiling by August 2, Washington could be forced to default on its obligations, in a move that would send shockwaves through the global economy.

Opposition Republicans, who won the House of Representatives last November amid a public mood of steep anxiety over the ballooning size of government debt, will only back raising the debt limit in return for steep cuts in the deficit.

Is America on the path to 'permanent war'?

John Blake
CNN

When the president decided to send more troops to a distant country during an unpopular war, one powerful senator had enough.

He warned that the U.S. military could not create stability in a country "where there is chaos ... democracy where there is no tradition of it, and honest government where corruption is almost a way of life."

"It's unnatural and unhealthy for a nation to be engaged in global crusades for some principle or idea while neglecting the needs of its own people," said Sen. J. William Fulbright, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in 1966 as the Vietnam War escalated.

Fulbright's warning is being applied by some to Afghanistan today. The U.S. is still fighting dubious wars abroad while ignoring needs at home, says Andrew J. Bacevich, who tells Fulbright's story in his new book, "Washington Rules: America's Path To Permanent War."

As the Afghanistan war enters its ninth year, Bacevich and other commentators are asking: When does it end? They say the nation's national security leaders have put the U.S. on an unsustainable path to perpetual war and that President Obama is doing little to stop them.

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Monsanto candidates win election

Ethan A. Huff
Natural News

Washington, D.C., is a hotbed of political lobbyists whose primary goal is to sway politicians to do their bidding. Multinational biotechnology giant Monsanto is one such lobbyist with a Political Action Committee (PAC) that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to buy off candidates to support its agenda. And in the most recent U.S. election cycle, most of the company's funded candidates won their races.

According to a recent report from the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), ten of the 15 Congressmen that Monsanto helped fund won their seats, including Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina and Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Monsanto even gave money to a number of candidates that were either retiring or not up for reelection, most likely as a "thank you" for previous political favors.


Based on information contained in disclosure reports, Monsanto spent over $470,000 on the overall mid-term election cycle, with just under $128,000 going to Congressional Democrats and over $121,000 going to Congressional Republicans. To see if your Congressmen accepted money from Monsanto, check out the OpenSecrets Monsanto contributions page:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac...

Monsanto darling Bill Northey, who was just reelected as Iowa's Secretary of Agriculture, also has a history of financial ties with Monsanto. Northey, a Republican with a strong allegiance towards biotechnology, unsustainable industrial agriculture, and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), beat out Francis Thicke, a Democrat who operates an organicdairy farm and believes in bringing local, sustainable, family-scale farming back to Iowa and the U.S.

NaturalNews recently covered a story on Francis Thicke that provides some interesting background into the importance of the Iowa Secretary of Agriculture race, as well as a link to a free E-book written by Thicke about sustainable agriculture:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030206_F...

According to a recent report in the Iowa Independent, former Iowa Democratic Party and Polk County chairman Jerry Crawford, announced his support for Northey just a few days before the election, which may have helped sway voters against supporting Thicke. Crawford has strong ties to both U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, as well as Monsanto.

So no matter what side of the aisle a politician is on, if he or she can be purchased and controlled by Monsanto, then the money starts flowing. To help combat this corrupt practice, OCA has put together a petition to send to your elected officials demanding that they "Say NO to Monsanto's Dirty Money".

You can access that petition here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/...

Sources for this story include:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/art...
http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac...

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