Posts by Guest Blogger

The guest bloggers are a pool of people that blog for AlterNet and share their content. Got a tip? Send it to peek@alternet.org.

USDA Renews Approval of 46 Non-Organic Ingredients in "Organic" Foods
Posted by Guest Blogger, Natural News on May 8, 2008 at 1:21 PM.

This guest post was written by David Gutierrez.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has renewed its approval for 46 non-organically produced substances to be used in foods and beverages that are labeled "organic." At the same time, the agency withdrew its approval for a type of food coloring and a food additive.

Under the Organic Foods Production Act, the USDA's National Organic Standards Board is required to renew approval every five years for any non-organic ingredients that are allowed into organic foods.

The products renewed include five agricultural non-organic products and 41 non-agricultural, non-organic products. The agricultural produced products are corn starch, kelp, pectin, unbleached lecithin and water extracted gums. Some of these are not individual products, but categories; water-extracted gums, for example, include arabic, carob bean, guar and locust bean gums. Kelp may only be used as a thickener or a dietary supplement.

The 41 allowed non-agricultural products include common ingredients such as citric and lactic acid; calcium carbonate; calcium chloride; carnauba wax; bakers, brewers or nutritional yeast; dairy cultures; flavors; sodium carbonate; glycerin; mono- and diglycerides; and xanthan gum.

The USDA withdrew its approval, however, for colors derived from non-synthetic sources and for potassium tartrate derived from tartaric acid.

The organic industry is the fastest-growing agriculture sector in the United States, currently accounting for 3 percent of all food and beverage sales. Retail revenues have risen 20 to 24 percent each year since 1990, from $1 billion to nearly $17 billion in 2006. They are expected to reach nearly $24 billion by 2010.

At the same time, acreage of organic agriculture operations more than doubled from 2001 to 2005, to a current 4.05 million acres. The number of organic operations increased by more than 18 percent in the same period, to a 2005 value of 8.500 crop and livestock operations and 2,900 handling operations.

GOP '08 Candidates Take Their Creepshow to the Iowa Stage
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 5, 2007 at 10:18 AM.

This post was written by John Neffinger, Rachel Sklar and Drew Westen, and originally appeared on The Huffington Post

HuffPost's exclusive liveblog of ABC's GOP debate in Iowa is in progress. Join us now as nonverbal communication specialist John Neffinger and Eat the Press' Rachel Sklar offer their real-time reactions to the candidates' performances.

RACHEL: Hi and welcome to HuffPost's liveblog of the debate -- depending on where you are in the country, you are either watching this or the "The Ernest Angley Hour." Political Brain author and language expert Drew Westen will pipe up with his comments after viewing the debate on his local affiliate (Atlanta - 11 am) so keep checking back. In the meantime, we're off!

JOHN:So we are starting with some fireworks here, with George inviting Brownback to go after Romney. Romney weathered the attack well, keeping a pretty good smile on his face the whole time, not looking defensive.

RACHEL: It's Romney's to lose, apparently -- at least in Iowa. But it makes for a fun debate to go for the jugular at the outset. Though Brownback would have done well to show a bit more passion here - it seemed a little too modulated. Mitt wins this on the response, without even dealing with the specifics (note that he deflected Stephanopoulos' attempts to corner him with a point that he'd been honored for pro-life views). Romney won this.

DREW: Romney is refusing to answer any of the charges about his prior pro-choice stands. He switched to cloning when asked about his position on abortion. But he did it effectively with, "I'm tired of people who are holier than thou..." I suspect he may have been tapping into some latent sentiment on even the Republican side that they've gotten too extreme in their imposition of particular interpretations of Scripture on the rest of us. And immediately after, Giuliani got a lot of applause with Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton's stand on abortion: It's up to a woman, her doctor, and her faith, and we should try to reduce abortions.

JOHN: Tommy Thompson speaks strongly here at the beginning to his pro-life beliefs, but there is very little expression on his face at all, and he doesn't gesture much at all. He is a black hole of charisma.

RACHEL: Is it wrong to say that he reminds me a little of Mr. Potato Head? Giuliani reminds me of the Jim Carrey character in "The Mask" when he smiles. Hey, these are non-verbal impressions, they count.

Whoa - Stephanopolous throwing it down to McCain, challenging him with Rudy's strength. McCain doesn't respond with strength here, though -- just makes a weird and tenuous link between national security and being pro-life. He doesn't really sounds like he believes it worked, either.

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Newspapers Join Forces Against the War
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 4, 2007 at 6:33 PM.

This post, written by Max Follmer, originally appeared on The Huffington Post

A growing number of newspapers across the country are calling for the Bush Administration to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Among them are newspapers from red states, including several (such as the Roanoke Times in Virginia and The Olympian in Washington state) that circulate in areas with large concentrations of military families.

Perhaps the most surprising paper to join the chorus calling for a troop withdrawal is the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, owned by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. In a July 15 editorial, the Tribune-Review labeled the Bush Administration's plans to stay the course in Iraq "a prescription for American suicide."

Other papers, such as the Dallas Morning News, have stopped short of calling for a complete withdrawal, instead advocating a redeployment of troops to within 100 miles of Iraq' borders. The Morning News also suggested reducing troop levels to 60,000 to 80,000 personnel.

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Gen. Wesley Clark: "We Are Not Questioning the Generals. Mr. President, We Are Questioning You!"
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 3, 2007 at 1:00 PM.

This post, written by Taylor Marsh, originally appeared on The Huffington Post

"That makes me feel awfully good and I haven't even announced yet." -- Former General Wesley Clark

When Clark entered the place went wild, thus the statement above. He was kidding.

Wesley Clark unloaded both barrels today and gave a tremendously powerful keynote speech this morning. This man has learned a lot since his 2004 presidential run. The way he speaks and delivers his message is nothing short of exhilarating and inspiring. Hope to have the full audio a bit later.

Clark spoke widely of U.S. foreign policy. One of the subjects he touched more than once is the importance of negotiating between the Israelis and the Palestinians and getting a settlement between them.

When it came to Iraq, Clark didn't mince words.

"We are not questioning the generals. Mr. President, we are questioning you! Stop hiding behind Dave Petraeus."- Wesley Clark

That rally brought a standing ovation from the entire room, with cheers from front to the back of the grand ballroom.

Clark also didn't miss a moment to go at one of the '08 contenders.

"It seems everything reminds Rudy Giuliani of 9/11." -- Wesley Clark

One of the common threads I'm hearing from a lot of military men and veterans, all Democrats, is that we need to get out of Iraq, but we have to careful about how we do it. To paraphrase Clark, history doesn't stop when the last soldier walks down the road to Basra. We will still have interests in the region after Iraq. I'll be addressing this discussion, which is opening out on the most important aspect of what we're about to face in Iraq, how we redeploy when Republican support for this disaster crumbles in the fall, a bit later today on my blog.

Clark also talked about the argument against Iraq and how to mount our debate against what Bush is doing. He advised us to not play on Bush's turf, because it's not about the troop force. The troops have done an amazing job. It's about putting the intelligence back in our policy.

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Is Hillary On Rupert Murdoch's Side?
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 3, 2007 at 12:00 PM.

This post, written by Ari Berman, originally appeared on The Nation

Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the Wall Street Journal this week is drawing the ire of some Democrats running for President.

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd called the deal "a serious threat to our democracy." John Edwards urged fellow Democrats to oppose and block the merger and refuse campaign contributions from News Corp execs.

But the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, hasn't said a peep. Perhaps that's because Clinton has been courting the Aussie billionaire since she became a New York Senator---and vice versa. Murdoch threw a lavish fundraiser for her at the News Corp tower last year. And he and son James, the heir apparent, both wrote big checks to Clinton's presidential campaign this June. Nine News Corp executives have thus far given a total of $20,900 to Clinton this election cycle.

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The Truth About Pat Tillman: Murder Is Not "Friendly Fire"
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 3, 2007 at 11:00 AM.

This post, written by RJ Eskow, originally appeared on The Huffington Post

Once again, the Administration is pulling the old magician's trick of misdirection, this time in the Pat Tillman case. And once again, the press is falling for it. Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers focused on "what they knew and when" -- to borrow the Watergate phrase -- rather than the core issue at the heart of the Pat Tillman matter, which is this:

Pat Tillman was almost certainly murdered, and fratricide is not "friendly fire."

Yet a Google News search on the terms "Tillman" and "friendly fire" yielded 1,044 hits today, all from the last 24 hours. That's after the facts behind the fratricide are widely known - and after a number of clues that suggest the entire command structure, from the White House on down, concealed a murder from the public and took no steps to investigate it.

There's your story.

Friendly fire is commonly understood to mean the accidental death of a U. S. soldier through weapons fired by U.S. or allied troops. (See this definition.) The facts in the Tillman case make friendly fire highly unlikely. He died from three bullet holes grouped together in his forehead, fired from a M-16 that was no more than ten yards away.

Three bullet holes. In the forehead. From a M-16. That was ten yards away.

That's not "friendly fire." That's murder. (Unless Cpl. Tillman stood up in the path of another soldier's fire, took three hits precisely in the forehead, then fell before being hit again.)

As abhorrent as it was for the Administration to delay telling the family, the handling of the fratricide question was even worse. A killer's trail went cold. Now we may never know the truth.

As for the narrative that Rumsfeld and Myers offered yesterday, let's look at it in detail - together with the known facts:

1. Pat Tillman dies. Medical examiners request a fratricide investigation sometime thereafter. Their request is denied.

2. Gen. McChrystal sends a cable to Gen. Abizaid and another general on April 22 urging them to notify the President of this probable fratricide "in order to preclude any unknowing statements by our country's leaders which might cause embarrassment if the circumstances of Cpl. Tillman's death becomes public."

3. Gen.Abizaid claims he didn't receive it for 10 or 12 days, because he was in Iraq. (They don't have email, or even secure pouches for urgent memos?) Defense Department records later show that Gen. Abizaid was not in Iraq, but was actually in Qatar and Afghanistan -where the killing occurred - during that 10 to 12 days.

4. Gen. Myers learns the true nature of Cpl. Tillman's death in late April, yet - according to his testimony - did not feel the need to inform either the Secretary of Defense or the President.

5. Military records show that dozens of officers knew of the true nature of the Lieutenant's death within days, yet senior officers and Pentagon officials still maintain they didn't know for weeks. (Surprisingly, they did not undertake a massive review of military procedures in order to determine how such a massive series of communications failures could occur - one that eerily affected every single senior officer with responsibility for this case simultaneously.)

6. The military continues to press the story that Tillman was killed while courageously leading a counterattack in an Afghan mountain pass. (Nice poetic touch, that "mountain pass" - good for recruitment.)

7. A national memorial service is held for Cpl Tillman several days later. The President and others talk about Cpl. Tillmans heroism in that mythical mountain pass - yet Gen. Myers, per his own testimony, still felt no need to inform either the SecDef or the President .

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Edwards Slams Bush's Arms Deal With the Saudis
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 3, 2007 at 12:28 AM.

This post, written by Ari Berman, originally appeared on The Nation

At least one high-profile presidential candidate has come out against the Bush Administration's proposed $20 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

"Congress needs to stand firm against the president," John Edwards said in a press release this week. "The administration's proposed arms deal with Saudi Arabia isn't in the long-term interests of our country or the region. This deal has serious shortcomings--it doesn't force Saudi Arabia to stop terrorists from going into Iraq, make a real effort to help stabilize Iraq, lead regional security talks or assure the arms will not be used for offensive purposes. Congress should do the right thing and block the deal."

A group of Democrats in the House are preparing to introduce legislation to block the deal "the minute Congress is officially notified," according to Reps. Jerry Nadler and Anthony Weiner. Democrats picked up their first GOP co-sponsor when New Jersey Republican Mike Ferguson announced his opposition to the deal on Tuesday.

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Are Bush, Pawlenty and Norquist Accessories to Murder in the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse?
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 3, 2007 at 12:27 AM.

This post, written by Howie Klein, originally appeared on Down With Tyranny!

I just went upstairs to get dressed for my morning hike and CNN was on. I saw Minnesota Tim Pawlenty speaking. He made a vapid, shallow political speech about the goodness of Minnesotans, upon whose goodwill his career depends. He also talked about the debris removal process. For the sake of the safety of all Americans-- in Minnesota and elsewhere-- that process should include the removal of every elected official who subscribes to the Republican Party ideology voiced by Republican Party Chief Propagandist Grover Norquist (AKA- "Field Marshall of The Bush Plan")

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

If you want Republicans in government, you get the inability for a society to act effectively and efficiently in the case of unforseen tragedies like Katrina or you get bridges with structural problems not being attended to. And low taxes for the very wealthy. You get greed and avarice run wild and contempt for the common good.

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The Weekly Standard's Reliable Sources: Male Prostitute Matt Sanchez and Web Weirdo "Throbert McGee"
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 2, 2007 at 8:38 PM.

This post, by Max Blumenthal, originally appeared on The Huffington Post.

The war in Iraq has sparked a parallel war between two of Washington's most prominent partisan political publications. The war began on July 13, when The New Republic published a "Baghdad Diary" by "Scott Thomas," an Army private writing under a pseudonym about US atrocities in Iraq. Thomas described his participation in the mockery of a female soldier disfigured by an IED, claimed he witnessed troops intentionally running over dogs in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and alleged that another soldier played with the skulls of dead Iraqi children.

In attempt to challenge the wild notion that atrocities could occur amidst a violent occupation, the neoconservative Weekly Standard's Matthew Goldfarb published an article declaring that TNR's Baghdad Diary was "looking more like fiction." Goldfarb's piece relied on a series of letters supposedly sent to him by active-duty soldiers that raised questions about the veracity of TNR's story.

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Obama and Nukes: Why Is This News?
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 2, 2007 at 4:30 PM.

This post, by Chris Bowers, originally appeared on OpenLeft.

So, Obama says that he won't nuke Afghanistan or Pakistan:

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday he would not use nuclear weapons "in any circumstance" to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance," Obama said, with a pause, "involving civilians." Then he quickly added, "Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table."

Obama was responding to a question by the Associated Press about whether there was any circumstance where he would be prepared or willing to use nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat terrorism and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Um, OK. Do we live in a sick enough country where swearing off the use of nuclear weapons against poor countries from South Asia at which we are not at war (although we are occupying one)? Is this, for some reason, a radical enough position to be worthy of news? Apparently it is, since there are now over 400 results for "Barack Obama" nuclear on Google News. The reason, as Jerome Armstrong explains at MyDD, is because it seems someone in the "mainstream" press corps is leaking things to Drudge, who then quotes Obama out of context:

It's also telling of a shift in the way that the press is handling Obama now. When a politician says "strike that" it's supposed to mean a 'do-over' that isn't brought out into the public by the reporter. This was dished to Drudge with the lead out of context in order to cause maximum harm.

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Shockingly Predictable: White House Snubs Congress ... Again!
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 2, 2007 at 9:22 AM.

This post, by christy Hardin Smith, originally appeared on Firedoglake.

White House thumbs nose at yet another Congressional hearing. H/T to nolo for the find:

. . .Accordingly, we conclude that Mr. Rove is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters (such as the U. S. Attorney resignations) that arose during his tenure as an immediate presidential adviser and that relate to his official duties in that capacity. Therefore, he is not required to appear in response to the Judiciary Committee subpoena to testify about such matters. . .

As nolo points out, they aren’t relying on any case law precedent to make this claim but, rather, a musty old memo that former Justice Rehnquist penned back in his DOJ days. Um…yeah…that’s some solid ground you found there. doofus.

More on this as I dig it up. In the meantime, the NYObserver has a piece on the Bush White House’s favorite nag:

In truth, the front-running Democratic candidates, all of whom favor a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, are doing just fine ignoring Mr. Lieberman's electoral prescription. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all generally come out on top of the likely Republican nominees in polls measuring hypothetical match-ups between specific candidates. Moreover, with President Bush's approval ratings in the toilet--thanks mostly to Iraq--surveys show that voters lopsidedly prefer a generic, unnamed Democrat to an unnamed Republican for President.

In all, Mr. Lieberman's This Week appearance lasted about 11 minutes, and if anything became clear in that time it's how decreasingly relevant to the national political debate he's becoming--a decline that not many foresaw last November, when Connecticut's voters returned him to the Senate, prompting talk that a new power-broker, coveted equally by both parties, had been born.

Given the Senate's partisan balance--49 Republicans, 49 Democrats (one still recuperating from a December cerebral hemorrhage), and two tie-breaking independents who caucus with the Democrats--Democrats are still technically at Mr. Lieberman's mercy, their fragile control of the chamber dependent on his continued willingness to live up to his campaign pledge to side with his old party for organizational purposes.

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Giuliani's Health Care Plan Will Make You Sick
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 2, 2007 at 5:30 AM.

This post, written by Howie Klein, originally appeared on Down With Tyranny!

I speak with Democratic congressmembers and candidates every week. When I asked them what their constituents back in their districts are telling them what's important in the '08 election not a single one has failed to mention health care. Americans are very worked up over it, although millionaires... less so. Giuliani only knows millionaires, although he's heard there's some restiveness about the health care thing and that Michael Moore did some kind of Commie movie about it. Yesterday morning's NY Times lays out what should be the obituary for Giuliani's absurd attempt to perpetuate Bushism in the White House.

Hillary, Edwards and Obama couldn't have asked for a better present-- nor, could the American people. Giuliani is clear: he doesn't have any idea-- not a clue-- about the depths of despair the health care system is causing in this country. And, obviously, he has no idea how to approach it outside of tired, worn-out, right-wing slogans. The contrast with what he's pushing and what each of the Democrats has proposed sounds like its geared to raise money from Big Pharma lobbyists. It won't win any votes though.

In a shameful partisan speech in New Hampshire "he excoriated Democrats for advocating a 'socialist' solution to solving the problem of the nation's 44.8 million uninsured, saying the party's candidates encouraged a 'nanny government' by proposing a greater government role in health care."

Mr. Giuliani's vision stands in stark contrast to the plans offered by the leading Democratic candidates. Both Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina have proposed bolstering the employer-based system by requiring corporations to buy insurance for their workers, and raising taxes or rolling back tax cuts to increase subsidies for health care for the poor.

The decision by Mr. Giuliani to address health care so early in the campaign season is a recognition of the resonance the issue has among voters.

Using explicitly partisan language, perhaps intended to stir memories of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's failed bid to reform health care as first lady more than a decade ago, Mr. Giuliani cited horror stories and selective statistics about health care in foreign countries that provide universal coverage. Mr. Giuliani said that a "socialist" model would bankrupt the government.

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The Right's Hate Site Hypocrisy
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 2, 2007 at 4:39 AM.

This post, written by Phoenix Woman, originally appeared on FireDogLake

The nameless fellow(s?) and good friend of Michelle Malkin's behind the right-wing blog aggregator Volunteer Opinion Journal thinks he's caught us all being naughty. Pretty mild stuff, compared to what his comrades were and are saying about Scott Thomas Beauchamp (for more, go here and here), but hey, you work with the "hate speech" you have, not the hate speech you wish you had -- such as what regularly issues from the posts and comments over at Michelle Malkin's shop.

These people are the Republican base, and as TRex points out, this is precisely why the Republicans don't dare do a YouTube debate in which their base has any sort of say: It would hand the presidential election to the Democrats the same way that Pat Buchanan's Republican-pleasing froth-at-the-mouth speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention guaranteed that Bill Clinton would be our next president.

Of course, what our nameless commentator doesn't mention is that the vast majority of non-righty bloggers and commenters talking about Roberts' seizure, such as Digby and our own Pachacutec in my respectful post on the subject, urged our readers to play nice with regard to Roberts. I've gone poking about the VOJ looking for his thoughts on Scott Thomas Beauchamp, and I've yet to see him -- or any other right-wing blogger or radio host, with the sole honorable exception of John Cole (for which he got flamed, repeatedly, by other righty bloggers and their readers) -- tell his fan base and other conservative personalities to play nice where Beauchamp is concerned. (I've also yet to see Mister VOJ, or any other conservative commentator of any sort, condemn Michael Savage for trying to blame John Roberts' health problems on a Democratic conspiracy.)

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Right Wing Nut Mike Savage Blames Roberts' Seizure on Democrats
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 2, 2007 at 4:12 AM.

This post, written by Steve Benen, originally appeared on The Carpetbagger Report

Once in a great while, the right surprises me.

On the July 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage reacted to news that Chief Justice John Roberts had suffered a seizure that day by raising the possibility that "his health was in some way tampered with by the Democrats." Savage said, "Something's wrong with this picture," after noting that Roberts' seizure occurred just three days after Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said he would seek in general to reject any future Supreme Court nomination made by President Bush. Schumer told the American Constitution Society (ACS) in a July 27 speech: "I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances." Schumer said that, since the confirmation of Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the court had come to represent "what a diminishing clique of conservative ideologues wish for."

Savage asked, "Am I to believe there's no connection between Charles Schumer on Friday saying he would never appoint, or never, excuse me, approve another Bush appointment to the court, to any court? And then the chief justice suffers a so-called seizure two days later? You're telling me there's no possibility of a conspiracy by the Democrats to have caused this seizure in some manner?" He added: "Tell me it's not possible, and I'll tell you you're a liar."

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Rove Refuses to Testify, Gonzales Refuses to Make Sense
Posted by Guest Blogger on August 2, 2007 at 4:04 AM.

This post, written by Pam Spaulding, originally appeared on Pam's House Blend

Did anyone think he'd actually show, given the continual corruption, lies and obfuscation coming out of this White House? (Raw Story):

White House senior adviser Karl Rove has rebuked a Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena and will not appear Thursday to testify about his role in the firing of nine US Attorneys, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said late Wednesday.

...The House Judiciary Committee initiated criminal contempt of Congress charges against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton last month after they refused to comply with subpoenas demanding their testimony.

It remains unclear whether Rove will face similar charges. A Judiciary Committee spokeswoman told RAW STORY Wednesday night that if Rove followed through in refusing to testify, the committee could decide to issue criminal charges later. The aide said no decisions had been made yet.

And what would be the reason NOT to bring the hammer down on Turdblossom?

Meanwhile, Gonzo is redefining the word "lie" as he realizes his posterior is in the fire:

With potential perjury accusations hanging over him, embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sent a letter to Senate leaders Wednesday acknowledging he "may have created confusion" in his previous testimony.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales writes of his concern with "suggestions that my testimony was misleading." But he said he did not mean to mislead senators and was "determined to address any such impression."

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