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Latest News and Articles Reference Information Special Reports Videos Radio Podcasts Cartoons Music Library RSS Feeds Store Spring 2014 NOSB meeting marked with protests, an arrest and controversial USDA powergrab Posted: May 9, 2014 Tweet The beginning of the Spring 2014 National Organics Standards Board Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, was marked by protests, an arrest and tumultuous parliamentary maneuvers. The meeting was opened by its new co-chair, Miles McEvoy of the USDA, who claims the right to co-chair the NOSB meeting as one of the new changes implemented by the USDA. This "power grab" was challenged almost immediately by meeting attendees from the Organic Consumers Association (OCA). Several OCA members moved to the front of the podium and began to chant "Don't change Sunset." The NOSB's Sunset Program was designed to allow non-natural ingredients to be phased out of organic agriculture as safe alternatives are introduced; however, the USDA controversially changed the program's rules so that non-organic ingredients can only be phased out with a majority vote, completely turning the program upside-down. The OCA's protest led to political director Alexis Baden-Meyer's arrest, which you can see in the video above. The Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 (OFPA) clearly mandates that the NOSB "shall select a Chairperson for the Board," so the USDA has no authority to appoint McEvoy as a co-chair of the board. NOSB member Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, called for a point of order, a parliamentary move made when procedure rules appear to have been broken, to challenge McEvoy's co-chair position. The meeting was temporarily suspended as USDA staff discussed the situation and McEvoy made some calls on his cell phone. He then approached Feldman and told him that he would cancel the entire meeting unless Feldman retracted his parliamentary move. Not wanting to waste the thousands of hours in preparation and tens of thousands of dollars spent on the meeting in private and taxpayer funds, Feldman withdrew his objection when the meeting resumed. Just days before the meeting, two of the primary authors of the OFPA, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon, urged USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to reverse the changes made to the Sunset process, saying the move was made "in conflict with both the letter and intent of the statute." Several other important topics were discussed at the Spring 2014 NOSB meeting, which you can read about at the Cornucopia Institute's website . New federal climate change report uses junk science to peddle alarmism Posted: May 8, 2014 Tweet ( http://www.climatedepot.com )The Obama administration has recently issued a new Federal Assessment of Climate Change which says that, due to "climate change" driven by carbon emissions from fossil fuels, "heat waves, huge floods, powerful storms, droughts and rising seas are on the verge of killing millions of us and destroying our civilization," wrote author John Coleman on his blog. The picture painted by the report implies that, before industrialization, the climate was steady and temperatures were just right. However, contradicting the concept of "climate change" is the fact that Earth's climate has never been "normal" or stable; it has always been changing. Powerful storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves, ice ages and more have continuously occurred throughout Earth's history. The "greenhouse effect" theory, in which fossil fuel exhaust causes temperatures to skyrocket, has failed to be verified or be supported by evidence. But the agenda-driven, politically funded scientists and lobbyists who've built a career around "climate change" refuse to give up the $2.6 billion a year in federal grants for climate research, so they continue to perpetuate their junk science. After it was found that temperature data don't actually support "global warming" (see the graphic above), they changed it to "climate change," and now they "blame every weather and climate event on CO2 despite the hard, cold fact that the 'radiative forcing' theory they built their claims on has totally failed to verify," Coleman wrote. The Heartland Institutes 9th International Conference on Climate Change will take place July 7-9 in Las Vegas. It will attract thousands of people like John Coleman who aim to debunk junk climate science, many of them with PhDs and on the faculties of major universities. Coleman will be a speaker at the breakfast session on Tuesday, July 8. You can learn more about the conference here: ClimateConference.Heartland.org . Coleman wrote further: A group of the powerful Ph.D.'s in the group have recently published a complete scientific document that totaling destroys the climate change alarmism of the US Democrat Party and the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. You can find that publication on line at http://climatechangereconsidered.org/ . Public school students forced to read violent sex fiction, father arrested for asking why Posted: May 8, 2014 Tweet William Baer is a hardworking attorney whose work in New York City's prosecutor's office has involved some of the country's most unsavory crimes. He is also a loving husband and father to three children, including a 14-year-old who attends ninth grade in the Gilford, New Hampshire, School District. And Baer was recently arrested for the first time in his life. He has been charged with "disorderly conduct" for going over the two-minute speech limit at a Gilford School Board meeting. What makes this incident even more outrageous are the events that led up to it. Baer decided to speak at the Board meeting after learning about a controversial book that was assigned to Gilford students, including Baer's 14-year-old daughter, to read. The book, Nineteen Minutes, explicitly details a fictional school shooting, homicide, gun violence, sexual acts featuring minors and a rape scene. Baer was understandably upset that his young daughter was assigned such a graphic book with neither his knowledge nor consent, so he contacted the school's principal, who refused to meet with him or speak on the issue. Baer had no other way to remedy the situation but to take it to the School Board. But the Gilford School Board was informed of Baer's intention to raise the issue at their regular Monday meeting, so they took a number of steps not taken in the past to prevent actually having to deal with the problem. Douglas J. Hagmann wrote: First, they stationed a Gilford Municipal police officer inside the meeting venue "to keep order." Then, they limited all public comments to two minutes only, and refused to answer any questions of the attendees. Ostensibly, this was done because of the multitudes of those present to speak out against the book, yet not more than a few dozen people were actually present. Also, the number who actually wished to speak remained in the single digits, including Mr. Baer. Accordingly, any sensible person would question the rationale behind such an arbitrary policy instituted for this particular meeting. When Baer was permitted to speak he noted that parents normally have to "opt-in" for their child to read a book such as Nineteen Minutes, but in this case, parents had to "opt-out" if they didn't want their child reading a book, though they weren't even made aware of it until a week after it had been assigned. He asked the principal present at the meeting to read page 313 of the book, which describes what many would call a rape scene involving two high school students. The principal refused to read the book, as did all other board members, calling it "inappropriate." Baer then attempted to ask the board members legitimate questions, but they reused to answer his questions, saying they would only allow speakers to make statements within a two-minute timeframe. Ultimately, Baer exceeded the two-minute mark by 18 seconds. The school board members gave him a stern warning and made it ...