Comcast-NBC merger OK’d: US censorship plan moves forward

By FreePress.net

Comcastrophe: The decision was handed down moments ago,¹ and you should be mad as hell.

The FCC just blessed the merger of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable and home Internet provider, with NBC Universal. The Justice Department approved the merger, too, leading to the unprecedented consolidation of media and Internet power in the hands of one company.

There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Wherever you live, the Comcast-NBC merger is a disaster.

S 510 is hissing in the grass

BUZZ THIS!

Guest Blogged by Steve Green

S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US. It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money.

“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.” ~Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower

Ex Monsanto Lawyer Clarence Thomas to Hear Major Monsanto Case

By D. Snodgrass
Celsias

In Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case which could have an enormous effect on the future of the American food industry. This is Monsanto’s third appeal of the case, and if they win a favorable ruling from the high court, a deregulated Monsanto may find itself in position to corner the markets of numerous U.S. crops, and to litigate conventional farmers into oblivion.

Here’s where it gets a bit dicier. Two Supreme Court justices have what appear to be direct conflicts of interest.

A Predatory System- The Health Insurance Monopoly

By DON MONKERUD                         Counterpunch

Like pathetic knights of another era jousting at windmills, industry shrills attack health care reform, claiming it “tramples individual liberty” and stifles “free enterprise.”

Far from protecting individual liberty or promoting free enterprise, these forces uphold monopoly control of health care insurance that has a stranglehold on American consumers. And they pay huge sums to control the debate and twist legislation to their advantage.

Monsanto’s monopoly exposed in Iowa and Copenhagen

Pesticide Action Network

Monsanto’s aggressive control of markets and policy was in the spotlight this week in two places of import for its business: Iowa, and the community of nations gathered in Copenhagen. First, The Des Moines Register published an Associated Press expose, saying, “confidential contracts detailing Monsanto’s business practices reveal how the seed giant is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops.” Kathryn Gilje, Executive Director of Pesticide Action Network North America, noted, “Monsanto has long used aggressive bully tactics to control the terms of farming and food around the world so that as our world gets hungrier and faces the climate crisis, their monopoly and revenue grow. This kind of bad behavior is long overdue for public scrutiny.”

Dems want to end Health Insurance Co’s monopoly exemption

Should Health Insurance companies continue to hold monopoly control of regional health insurance coverage and also be allowed to cream the young and healthy and deny coverage to everyone else? 

This sounds more like the Mafia than like any “regulated” industry.  But it’s what we have now.

Dems target health industry anti-trust

By DAVID ESPO      October 21, 2009

Top Senate Democrats intend to try to strip the health insurance industry of its exemption from federal antitrust laws, according to congressional officials, the latest evidence of a deepening struggle over President Barack Obama’s effort to overhaul the health care industry.

Conrad’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield Wants to Be Your Local Monopoly Co-op

By Scarecrow

So, BlueCross/BlueShield controls 90 percent of the market, and it wants to be the exclusive not-public-plan Conrad Co-op to provide an alternative to . . . itself.

Do Seed Companies Control GM Crop Research?

By Matt Collins

By Scientific American 

It is impossible to verify that genetically modified crops perform as advertised. That is because agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers. Scientists must ask corporations for permission before publishing independent research on genetically modified crops. That restriction must end.