Are GMO-free Cheerios, Grape-Nuts a ploy by Grocery Manufacturers Association to kill mandatory GMO labeling?

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(NaturalNews) Two of the largest breakfast cereal companies in the nation, General Mills and Post, recently announced that they will soon be removing all genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from two of their most popular cereal brands, Cheerios (General Mills) and Grape-Nuts (Post). But this sudden move toward transparency in food labeling may be nothing more than a ploy by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), of which both General Mills and Post are members, to shift the public conversation away from mandatory GMO labeling.

As you may recall, the GMA is the same group that fought tooth and nail to defeat Proposition 37 in California and Initiative 522 in Washington, both of which would have required GMO labeling on foods sold at the retail level in their respective states. The GMA was also caught operating an illegal money laundering scheme that involved funneling large amounts of cash from big food manufacturers to the No on I-522 campaign.

More recently, the GMA was exposed for filing a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urging the agency to declare all GMOs as “natural” so that they can continue to be added to food products sold at high-end grocers like Whole Foods Market and Sprouts. The GMA is also busy working toward the passage of legislation that would actually bar individual states from ever passing their own GMO labeling laws, as we recently reported.

The nefarious activities of the GMA with regard to the issues of GMO labeling and transparency have been so devious in recent days that some media sources have actually started using the word evil to describe the organization, likening it to the agribusiness giant Monsanto. And yet two prominent GMA members that also vehemently oppose mandatory GMO labeling are suddenly and voluntarily embracing a transgenic-free approach, at least for some of their products. So what gives?

The truth of the matter, as we recently pointed out, is that both Cheerios and Grape-Nuts have been largely GMO-free all along. The former is made primarily from oats, for which there are currently no GM commercial varieties, and the latter is made mostly from wheat, which is also non-GM. With the exception of having to change a few extraneous additives like corn starch to non-GM varieties, in other words, it was really not that hard for either General Mills or Post to make these two cereals GMO-free.

Since both companies have also indicated their intention to keep adding GMOs to all their other cereal formulas, it appears as though the whole charade is more of a publicity stunt than a major shift of opinion about the continued use of unlabeled GMOs in the food supply. One popular health blogger believes that the GMA will use this voluntary labeling initiative, as trite as it is, to argue against the need for mandatory GMO labeling.

“[I]t’s more likely that come next GMO-labeling initiative, one of the tools in the GMA’s ‘no’ campaign will be to point at Cheerios and Grape-Nuts and whatever other cereal brands declare their non-GMO status,” writes Jill Ettinger for Eat Drink Better. “Their argument will sound a little something like: ‘Why push a mandatory label law forward when brands are voluntarily doing the work already? This is cheaper, dear taxpayers.’”

Voluntary GMO labeling, no matter what the true agenda behind its adoption by major food corporations, is still a positive step forward in raising awareness about the existence of GMOs. It is also indicative of shifting public perception and increased demand for cleaner foods produced on farms rather than in labs. But it is important to remain vigilant about the sinister tactics of an industry that we know is inherently dishonest and hellbent against having to be transparent with consumers.

Sources for this article include:

http://eatdrinkbetter.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://science.naturalnews.com

Articles Related to This Article: • Non-GMO Project responds to OCA over GMOs, coexistence and effective activism • Whole Foods caught in GMO marketing deception, false advertising – here’s the proof • Consumer alert: Most common vitamins, including children’s vitamins, found to contain GMOs • Analysis: Rand Paul’s response to GMO labeling and the proper role of limited government • Wikileaks cable reveals U.S. conspired to retaliate against European nations if they resisted GMOs • Non-GMO Project announces October as ‘Non-GMO Month’ – How will you and your family celebrate?

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Related Articles: • Non-GMO Project responds to OCA over GMOs, coexistence and effective activism • Whole Foods caught in GMO marketing deception, false advertising – here’s the proof • Consumer alert: Most common vitamins, including children’s vitamins, found to contain GMOs • Analysis: Rand Paul’s response to GMO labeling and the proper role of limited government • Wikileaks cable reveals U.S. conspired to retaliate against European nations if they resisted GMOs • Non-GMO Project announces October as ‘Non-GMO Month’ – How will you and your family celebrate?

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Are GMO-free Cheerios, Grape-Nuts a ploy by Grocery Manufacturers Association to kill mandatory GMO labeling?

Daily English News - Ethiopian mandatory birth control scandal prompts outrage in Israel

Daily English News - Ethiopian mandatory birth control scandal prompts outrage in Israel

Bloomberg seeks mandatory fingerprinting for NYC public housing residents

Published time: August 17, 2013 09:38

The 620,000 residents living in public housing projects should be fingerprinted as a crime-prevention measure, said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but many city residents protest that the proposal is an invasion of privacy.

Bloomberg, 71, who has acquired a reputation for promoting controversial ideas, including imposing a ban on the sale of large soft drinks, says his latest proposal will make public housing safer.

“The people that live (in public housing), most of them, want more police protection,” the three-time mayor said on his weekly WOR radio broadcast Friday. “They want more people. If you have strangers walking in the halls of your apartment building, don’t you want somebody to stop and say: ‘Who are you, why are you here?’”

He added: “What we really should have is fingerprinting to get in, since there’s an allegation that some of the apartments aren’t occupied by the people who originally have the lease.”

Just 5 percent of New York’s population lives in public housing, but 20 percent of the city’s reported crime is committed by residents of government-subsidized housing projects, Bloomberg said.

“We’ve just got to find some way to keep bringing crime down there.”

His spokesman said Bloomberg wants to introduce biometric security technology that would include the introduction of a citywide electronic keycard system for housing residents, AP reported.

Critics say Bloomberg’s latest proposal is a political step too far, especially as it comes on the heels of the highly divisive stop-and-frisk legislation, which opponents say amounts to racial profiling on the part of the police.

“We live here all these years, I mean, what seems to be the problem? This is not jail,” Deborah Gatling, a resident of Chelsea Houses, told CBS.

US District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin on Monday ruled that the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk searches are a violation of constitutional rights, according to documents filed in a Manhattan court.

The federal court found that stop-and-frisk represented a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which forbids unreasonable searches. The court presented statistics that police conducted at least 200,000 such searches without reasonable suspicion from 2004 through 2012.

Bloomberg, whose estimated fortune is $ 27 billion, making him the US’s 7th-wealthiest person, defended the stop-and-frisk policy, arguing it had contributed to a falling murder rate in the city. Murders have been halved since he took office nearly 12 years ago, he noted.

New York City officials say they will file an appeal against Scheindlin’s decision.

In a recent poll conducted by The New York Times, people were asked to rate Michael Bloomberg’s 12 years as the city’s 108th mayor: 52 percent described his performance as fair or poor, compared with 46 percent who described it as excellent or good.

Meanwhile, the controversial stop-and-frisk tactic, which city officials say has also reduced gun violence, has split the electorate: 50 percent approve and 47 percent disapprove of it, the poll found. Public approval for the policing tactic that critics slam as racial profiling is lowest among black residents (28 percent), compared with whites (55 percent) and Hispanics (59 percent).

Following the global financial crash of 2008, Bloomberg requested that restrictions on term limits for New York mayors be relaxed to enable him to run again to bring the city out of the crisis. In October 2008, the City Council voted 29–22 in favor of extending the limit to three consecutive four-year terms, thus allowing Bloomberg to run again.

The next New York City mayoral election is scheduled to occur on November 5, 2013.

RT – USA

Bloomberg seeks mandatory fingerprinting for NYC public housing residents

Holder"s "mandatory minimums" gamble

If the Obama administration succeeds in its new drive to rein in mandatory minimum prison sentences, it will be a sign Democrats have carried out a kind of political exorcism — finally putting to rest any lingering anxiety over the “soft on crime” label that terrorized the party back in the 1980s and 90s.

There are signs the country may be ready to bury the trope that savaged Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988, and which Bill Clinton managed to ride to power in the 1990s via an unflinchingly tough approach to criminal justice and the death penalty.

Continue Reading

Now street crime — and fear of it — is waning, bulging prison populations are a ripe target for budget hawks, and Republicans have largely substituted the soft-on-terrorism mantra for the garden-variety violent-crime version they used to bash Democrats a couple of decades ago.

However, there are reasons to doubt how committed President Barack Obama is to the issue. He did little on the subject during his first four years in office, and has sometimes seemed wary of the potential racial overtones of the first African-American president of being identified as an advocate for leniency toward the disproportionately black population in U.S. prisons.

As Attorney General Eric Holder outlined the sentencing reform plan in San Francisco Monday, he peppered this speech with references to Obama. He insisted that the president is fully on board with his plan to avoid charging some low-level drug dealers with offenses that lead to “draconian” prison sentences, and vowed to work with Congress on measures to give judges more discretion in sentencing.

(QUIZ: How well do you know Eric Holder?)

“These are issues the president and I have been talking about for as long as I’ve known him – issues he’s felt strongly about ever since his days as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago,” the attorney general said. “The president and I agree that it’s time to take a pragmatic approach.”

Stalwart critics of mandatory minimums welcomed Holder’s speech, but said they’re not counting on the White House to do heavy lifting to make sentencing reform legislation a reality.

“In general, I think the message is very positive,” said Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. “Do I think the president will support it? Yes, but I don’t think he’ll go out on a limb…I don’t think he’s probably going to work very hard on it.”

One supporter of mandatory minimums said Holder’s announcement that he’s instructing prosecutors not to file charges that carry minimum sentences against some low-level offenders largely encompasses a change in sentencing law made back in 1994 known as the “safety valve.”

(WATCH: Eric Holder’s remarks at American Bar Association)

“It’s less than meets the eye,” said William Otis, who spent 18 years as a federal prosecutor. “It’s not now and has never been the case that all low-level drug offenders are being swept up and charged with minimum mandatory sentences….It’s actually not going to change the on-the-ground reality very much at all.”

A Justice Department official insisted Holder’s move does go further than existing law, by allowing some of those with more than minimal criminal backgrounds to escape mandatory sentences and by not requiring defendants to come forward with full details on their actions.

Stewart said she thinks the action will have an impact, but more is needed. “I, of course….don’t think it goes far enough to address the underlying mandatory minimums writ large. Holder’s comments only address drug crimes and don’t take account of other people subjected to mandatory minimums,” such as those charged with having a gun or even ammunition in their possession.

Holder’s move amounts to a bet that criminal justice reform can divide budget hawks and tough-on-crime types in the Republican caucus, much as the GOP has split in recent months over cuts to the defense budget.

The attorney general noted Monday that many states have cut back on mandatory sentences in recent years, in part due to budget woes.

“Although incarceration has a significant role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state, and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable,” Holder said. “It imposes a significant economic burden — totaling $ 80 billion in 2010 alone — and it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate.”

New strategies, he said, have “attracted overwhelming, bipartisan support in ‘red states’ as well as ‘blue states.’ And it’s past time for others to take notice.”

Some in Congress certainly have — but there’s little sign that the issue has yet achieved the kind of consensus that it’s found at the state level. Powerful Democrats like Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and Sen. Dick Durbin are in favor of major reforms, but so far the main support on the Republican side has come from Tea Party favorites like Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah.

Paul himself made clear Monday that his legislation faces an uphill battle in Congress.

POLITICO – TOP Stories

Holder"s "mandatory minimums" gamble

Holder"s "mandatory minimums" gamble

If the Obama administration succeeds in its new drive to rein in mandatory minimum prison sentences, it will be a sign Democrats have carried out a kind of political exorcism — finally putting to rest any lingering anxiety over the “soft on crime” label that terrorized the party back in the 1980s and 90s.

There are signs the country may be ready to bury the trope that savaged Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988, and which Bill Clinton managed to ride to power in the 1990s via an unflinchingly tough approach to criminal justice and the death penalty.

Continue Reading

Now street crime — and fear of it — is waning, bulging prison populations are a ripe target for budget hawks, and Republicans have largely substituted the soft-on-terrorism mantra for the garden-variety violent-crime version they used to bash Democrats a couple of decades ago.

However, there are reasons to doubt how committed President Barack Obama is to the issue. He did little on the subject during his first four years in office, and has sometimes seemed wary of the potential racial overtones of the first African-American president of being identified as an advocate for leniency toward the disproportionately black population in U.S. prisons.

As Attorney General Eric Holder outlined the sentencing reform plan in San Francisco Monday, he peppered this speech with references to Obama. He insisted that the president is fully on board with his plan to avoid charging some low-level drug dealers with offenses that lead to “draconian” prison sentences, and vowed to work with Congress on measures to give judges more discretion in sentencing.

(QUIZ: How well do you know Eric Holder?)

“These are issues the president and I have been talking about for as long as I’ve known him – issues he’s felt strongly about ever since his days as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago,” the attorney general said. “The president and I agree that it’s time to take a pragmatic approach.”

Stalwart critics of mandatory minimums welcomed Holder’s speech, but said they’re not counting on the White House to do heavy lifting to make sentencing reform legislation a reality.

“In general, I think the message is very positive,” said Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. “Do I think the president will support it? Yes, but I don’t think he’ll go out on a limb…I don’t think he’s probably going to work very hard on it.”

One supporter of mandatory minimums said Holder’s announcement that he’s instructing prosecutors not to file charges that carry minimum sentences against some low-level offenders largely encompasses a change in sentencing law made back in 1994 known as the “safety valve.”

(WATCH: Eric Holder’s remarks at American Bar Association)

“It’s less than meets the eye,” said William Otis, who spent 18 years as a federal prosecutor. “It’s not now and has never been the case that all low-level drug offenders are being swept up and charged with minimum mandatory sentences….It’s actually not going to change the on-the-ground reality very much at all.”

A Justice Department official insisted Holder’s move does go further than existing law, by allowing some of those with more than minimal criminal backgrounds to escape mandatory sentences and by not requiring defendants to come forward with full details on their actions.

Stewart said she thinks the action will have an impact, but more is needed. “I, of course….don’t think it goes far enough to address the underlying mandatory minimums writ large. Holder’s comments only address drug crimes and don’t take account of other people subjected to mandatory minimums,” such as those charged with having a gun or even ammunition in their possession.

Holder’s move amounts to a bet that criminal justice reform can divide budget hawks and tough-on-crime types in the Republican caucus, much as the GOP has split in recent months over cuts to the defense budget.

The attorney general noted Monday that many states have cut back on mandatory sentences in recent years, in part due to budget woes.

“Although incarceration has a significant role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state, and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable,” Holder said. “It imposes a significant economic burden — totaling $ 80 billion in 2010 alone — and it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate.”

New strategies, he said, have “attracted overwhelming, bipartisan support in ‘red states’ as well as ‘blue states.’ And it’s past time for others to take notice.”

Some in Congress certainly have — but there’s little sign that the issue has yet achieved the kind of consensus that it’s found at the state level. Powerful Democrats like Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and Sen. Dick Durbin are in favor of major reforms, but so far the main support on the Republican side has come from Tea Party favorites like Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah.

Paul himself made clear Monday that his legislation faces an uphill battle in Congress.

POLITICO – TOP Stories

Holder"s "mandatory minimums" gamble