Aztec woman says her ‘Toxic Tour of Hell’ points out San Juan County sites that pollute the air
San Juan County officials say air quality is improving, complaints about pollution are few
by James Fenton The Daily Times
Updated: 03/31/2014 09:44:12 PM MDT
Environmental activist Shirley “Sug” McNall stands in front of an XTO Energy well on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. McNall added the well, which is near McCoy Elementary School, to her “Toxic Tour of Hell,” which includes sites in San Juan County she says are polluting the air. A spokeswoman for XTO Energy says a leak did not occur at the well site. (Megan Farmer — The Daily Times)
AZTEC — Shirley “Sug” McNall says the San Juan Basin can be an outdoors paradise for visitors. But for those who live here and breathe the air, she says, it’s just plain hell.
McNall, 69, is a member of an ad hoc environmentalist group — with friends Tweeti Blancett, Jan Rees and Kris Dixon — called the Four Grans.
“Tweeti’s family, like mine, were homesteaders and ranchers, with a long feuding history of dealing with the oil companies,” McNall said. “… Jan is our group’s expert on wildlife and the environment, and Kris is our statistician and organizer.”
The four Aztec grandmothers, who met at a clean-air conference more than a decade ago, work toward improving San Juan County’s air quality.
A well, which is owned by XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, is shown on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. Shirley “Sug” McNall says the well site was emitting strong gas fumes last month. An XTO Energy spokeswoman says there was no leak at the site. (Megan Farmer — The Daily Times)
For eight years, McNall has taken people on tours of the area in her small, sky-blue pickup truck, its tailgate plastered with progressive bumper stickers that stand out in Republican-dominated San Juan County. Her tour skips popular stops like Aztec Ruins or Quality Waters in favor of gas pads and waste disposal sites she says are guilty of polluting the air with noxious chemicals.
What McNall calls the “Toxic Tour of Hell,” began in 2005 after she attended a summit on oil and gas industry accountability in Farmington. She started with seven sites around the county she says are polluting.
“The summit brought together scientists, tribes, officials, and they wanted to actually see the sites they were hearing about, and I said I’d show them,” she said.
Over the years, McNall said she’s given the tour to a number of people, including film crews from Japan and South Africa and an official from the Natural Resources Defense Council’s office in Washington, D.C. She can also be seen in the 2010 HBO documentary on hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” — called “Gasland.”
McNall’s family homesteaded more than 700 acres in the Crouch Mesa area and moved to her home off of Navajo Dam Road near Tiger Park in 1976. In the years she has lived there with her husband, Warren, McNall says she has seen wells pop up around her property.
Shirley “Sug” McNall is pictured on March 6. McNall is a member of the Four Grans, an ad hoc environmentalist group of four Aztec grandmothers who say oil companies are polluting San Juan County’s air. (Megan Farmer — The Daily Times)
In 2010, McNall and a group of friends formed the San Juan Bucket Brigade, a local program of Global Community Monitor, a nonprofit human rights organization, to take air quality samples at three oil and gas facilities in the county. McNall said all three came back with elevated levels of carcinogens that are above what the Environmental Protection Agency recommends.
“This county has higher than average rates of asthma, especially among children, and elevated rates of cancer, which is alarming,” said McNall, who says the air pollution has caused her and others eye irritation and trouble breathing. “The problem is that a lot of the oil field workers know what’s going on, but they don’t dare say a word. Of course, the workers get protective gear to wear, but what do us residents get?”
San Juan County Operations Officer Mike Stark argues air quality in the area is cleaner than in the past and is showing signs of improving even more with the planned unit reductions at two major power plants, Four Corners Power Plant and San Juan Generating Station, both near Farmington.
“We should actually see some improved air quality in the Four Corners with these environmentally friendly unit reductions,” Stark said. “And oil and gas drilling has been light the last three years. So, once again, less pollution. Things should be getting better.”
McNall said she understands the need for energy. Born and raised in the area, her grandparents, uncles and first husband worked in the oil patch. Despite that, McNall says she is enraged refineries can get away with emitting carcinogens and chemicals that pollute the air and do so in close proximity to neighborhoods.
The latest addition to her tour, stop No. 8, is a well site near McCoy Elementary School’s playground along Martinez Lane.
McNall added the well site, owned by XTO Energy Inc., a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, early last month when her friend, former City Commissioner Jack Scott, drove by the school and smelled gas fumes.
“Warren and I got a call from Jack telling us that the gas pad was stinkin’ something fierce, despite their car’s windows rolled up when they drove by,” McNall said.
She said she quickly wrote to Aztec Municipal School District Superintendent Kirk Carpenter, Aztec City Manager Josh Ray and Brandon Powell, a field inspector with the Aztec division office of the Environment Department’s Oil Conservation Division.
Emily Snooks, a spokeswoman for XTO Energy, said no leak occurred at the well site.
Inspections of the company’s well sites by an XTO Energy Lease Operator are conducted approximately every other day, Snooks wrote in an email.
“In February, XTO Energy staff responded to a complaint of an odor,” Snooks wrote in an email. “An XTO employee met an inspector from the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division at the well site. No leak was detected and XTO Energy was not fined or sited by the NMOCD.”
Snooks said XTO staff reviewed several days of automated reports at the well and did not find a loss of gas volume or pressure, which would have indicated a leak.
“The XTO employee noticed a manual water dump valve on the separator was not as pliable as a new valve would be so just as a precaution, it was replaced,” Snooks wrote.
San Juan County Commissioner Scott Eckstein, whose district includes Aztec and Bloomfield, said that in his eight years of service he has only received about four or five complaints over air pollution.
“I refer people who have complained to the state’s Air Quality Bureau. They deal with refineries as far as emissions and regulations go,” Eckstein said. “The handful of complaints over the years (have been) over a strong chemical smell from a refinery, for instance, but the state is in charge of that.”
An air quality index report for San Juan County on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website gives the county a “good” rating, with pollution in the air posing no threat to human health.
Despite that, McNall is adamant more should be done to regulate the county’s oil and gas industry to ensure a clean and safe county for its residents, present and future.
“It’s my purpose on the tour to show how people have to live among the wells and refineries and what that means to their pursuit of happiness and well-being,” she said. “In this county, big oil always reins supreme.”
In this ongoing story surrounding cattle rancher Cliven Bundy, there are a series of questions mainstream media has ignored. For instance, in the 20 years Bundy hasn’t been paying his fees, why hasn’t he been taken to court? Why this year spend nearly $1,000,000 of taxpayer money to round up 400 cattle that ultimately have to be returned? Why didn’t the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) just place a lien on the cattle rather than attempting to take them by force and then auction them off?
The Bureau of Land Management has suffered a huge black eye this week because of their response to the Bundy situation. Perhaps though, there is a reason the BLM chose force over the courts.
In an exclusive interview with Benswann.com, Montana cattle rancher Todd Devlin says the BLM is now considering new ways of dealing with the Cliven Bundy situation. Devlin is not just a Montana cattle rancher but is also a County Commissioner in Prairie County, Montana and he has worked with the Department of Interior, having taught workshops for the agency in the past. On Monday, Devlin reached out to his contacts in the Department of the Interior to find out why the Bureau of Land Management has refused to work with Bundy rather than simply attempting to run over him.
Among the questions Devlin asked of the BLM: “Is it possible that this guy (Cliven Bundy) has prescriptive rights?”
The response from top officials at the BLM: “We are worried that he might and he might use that defense.”
So what exactly are prescriptive rights?
Prescriptive right to property is an easement that gives someone the right to use land owned by someone else for a particular purpose. An example is using a path through Party A’s land to get to your land; in this case a prescriptive easement is allowed which gives the user the right to get to his land through A’s property.
In most states, if a trespass or use of land occurs regularly for at least 5 years without the “owner” of the land taking legal action, prescriptive rights come into play. Because Bundy stopped paying his grazing fees to the BLM in 1993 but continued to use the land for over 20 years, it is possible he now has prescriptive rights to the land. That might explain why the BLM has not taken this issue to court and never bothered to file a lien against the cattle.
Granted, there have been court actions over the years. In 1998 a federal judge issued a permanent injunction against Bundy, ordering him to remove his cattle from the federal lands. He lost an appeal to the San Francisco 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Yet, the “trespass cattle” remained on the BLM land. In fact, it took until August of 2013 for a court order to be issued saying Bundy had 45 days to remove his cattle from federal land. 15 years went by from the time of the last court case over the cattle, until the BLM attempted to remove the livestock.
Of course, Bundy has not made the claim that he will not pay the fees, he simply says he will not pay those fees to the BLM because he doesn’t recognize federal authority over the land. Bundy has said that in the past, that he would pay fees to Clarke County, Nevada, though Clarke County has refused to accept them. The BLM has insisted that Bundy owes $1.1 million dollars in grazing fees for his trespass cattle. “The actual number is probably around $200,000. The $1.1 million claimed by the BLM is probably mostly interest and penalties for trespass cattle.” says Devlin, who goes on to say that it is unlikely that Clarke County would be able to collect those penalties.
When Devlin reached out to the BLM, he suggested that the federal agency just allow Bundy to pay the fees to the county rather than continuing with these aggressive tactics to confiscate his cattle. “I got a call back from the liaison saying ‘Yes, pursue it’, says Devlin. Devlin reached out to contacts in Nevada to get that process moving forward. If that were to happen, Clarke County could collect the grazing fees and if it desired to do so could hand those fees over to the BLM.
Finally, Devlin says instead of allowing the situation with Bundy’s cattle to grow completely out of control, the BLM could have simply placed a lien on the cattle in the first place. Of course, that lien might have been rejected in court if Bundy were able to demonstrate those prescriptive rights. Then again, the courts so far have sided with the government, therefore it is even more baffling why the lien wasn’t placed on the livestock.
Days after the BLM has claimed they will stand down, they are now reportedly considering a lien on the cattle. “I asked why they didn’t put a lien against the cattle… They hadn’t thought about that but they are considering it now”.
Who Actually “Owns” America’s Land?
Here we see a modern representation of Americans awakening to the insidious growth of our Federal Creature. Over the weekend, the fierce stand-off between Bundy Ranch militiamen and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) came to a dramatic end – for now – with the protesters chasing government representatives off the disputed land.
But this situation raises the important question…. Does the Constitution make provision for the federal government to own and control “public land”? This is the only question we need to consider. Currently, the federal government “owns” approximately 30% of the United States territory. The majority of this federally owned land is in the West. For example, the feds control more than 80% of Nevada and more than 55% of Utah. The question has been long debated. At the debate’s soul is Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of the Constitution, which is know as the “Property Clause”. Proponents of federal expansion on both sides of the political aisle argue that this clause provides warrant for the federal government to control land throughout the United States.
The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States….
Those who say this clause delegates the feds control over whatever land they arbitrarily decide to lay claim to are grossly misinterpreting even the most basic structure of the Constitution.
It is said the Constitution is “written in plain English”. This is true. However, plain English does not allow one to remove context. Article IV does not grant Congress the power to exercise sovereignty over land. Article IV deals exclusively with state-to-state relations such as protection from invasion, slavery, full faith and credit, creation of new states and so on.
Historically, the Property Clause delegated federal control over territorial lands up until the point when that land would be formed as a state. This was necessary during the time of the ratification of the Constitution due to the lack of westward development. The clause was drafted to constitutionalize the Northwest Ordinance, which the Articles of Confederation did not have the power to support. This ordinance gave the newly formed Congress the power to create new states instead of allowing the states themselves to expand their own land claims.
The Property Clause and Northwest Ordinance are both limited in power and scope. Once a state is formed and accepted in the union, the federal government no longer has control over land within the state’s borders. From this moment, such land is considered property of the sovereign state. The continental United States is now formed of fifty independent, sovereign states. No “unclaimed” lands are technically in existence. Therefore, the Property Clause no longer applies within the realm of federal control over these states.
The powers of Congress are found only in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. With the exception of the less than two dozen powers delegated to Congress found within Article I, Section 8, Congress may make no laws, cannot form political agencies and cannot take any actions that seek to regulate outside of these enumerated powers.
Article I, Section 8 does lay forth the possibility of federal control over some land. What land? Clause 17 defines these few exceptions.
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over suchDistrict (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings– (Emphasis added).
Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 is known as the Enclave Clause. The clause gives federal control over the “Seat of Government” (Washington D.C.) and land that has been purchased by the federal government with consent of the state legislatures to build military posts and other needful buildings (post offices and other structures pursuant to Article I, Section 8). Nothing more.
State permission being a requirement, state authority was explicitly emphasized while drafting this clause. The founders and respective states insisted (with loud cries) that the states must consent before the federal government could purchase land from the states. Nowhere in this clause will you find the power for Congress to exercise legislative authority through regulation over 80% of Nevada, 55% of Utah, 45% of California, 70% of Alaska, or any other state. Unless, of course, the state has given the federal government the formal authority to do so, which they have not.
If a state legislature decides sell land to the federal government then at that point the Enclave Clause becomes applicable and the federal government may seize legislative and regulatory control in pursuance to the powers delegated by Article 1, Section 8.
In America’s infancy, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Founding Fathers’ understanding of federal control over land. Justice Stephen J. Field wrote for the majority opinion in Fort Leavenworth Railroad Co. v. Lowe (1855) that federal authority over territorial land was “necessarily paramount.” However, once the territory was organized as a state and admitted to the union on equal ground, the state government assumes sovereignty over federal lands, and the federal government retains only the rights of an “individual proprietor”. This means that the federal government can only exercise general sovereignty over state property if the state legislatures formally grant the federal government the power to do so under the Enclave Clause with the exception of federal buildings (post offices) and military installations. This understanding was reaffirmed in Lessee of Pollard v. Hagan (1845), Permoli v. Municipality No. 1 of the city of New Orleans (1845) and Strader v. Graham (1850).
However, it did not take long for the Supreme Court to begin redefining the Constitution and legislating from the bench under the guise of interpretation. Case by case, the Court slowly redefined the Property Clause, which had always been understood to regard exclusively the transferring of federal to state sovereignty through statehood, to the conservation of unconstitutional federal supremacy.
Federal supremacists sitting on the Supreme Court understood that by insidiously redefining this clause then federal power would be expanded and conserved.
Through the centuries, by the hand of corrupt federal judges, we arrive and the Bundy Ranch in Nevada. The Founding Fathers never imagined the citizens of a state would be subject to such treatment at the hands of the federal government. Furthermore, they certainly never imagined the state legislatures themselves would allow such treatment to go unchecked. The latest updates appear to show that Bundy has won his battle against the feds– for now. However, it remains a damn shame that the state of Nevada would allow for such a situation to arise in the first place.
What does Nevada’s Constitution say about property? Section 1, titled “Inalienable Rights,” reads:
All men are by Nature free and equal and have certain inalienable rights among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty;Acquiring, Possessing and Protecting property and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness. [Emphasis added]
In Section 22 of the Nevada Constitution, eminent domain is clarified. The state Constitution requires that the state prove public need, provide compensation and documentation before acquiring private property. In order to grant land to the federal government, the state must first control this land.
Bundy’s family has controlled the land for more than 140 years.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is an agency created by Congress, claimed that Bundy was “violating the law of the land”. Perhaps the agency has forgotten that the law of the land is the Constitution, and the only constitutional violation here is the very modern existence of the agency’s presence in Nevada.
A look at what utility companies, PUCs, and the former CIA director have to say about the ‘smart’ meters, data-mining, and surveillance — sans propaganda.
It’s always a drag to find out when a friend is saying one thing to your face, and another to your back. As uncovered in our film Take Back Your Power, the way in which most utilities are now delivering the lies and propaganda — with your individual rights, security, and potentially health on the line — is elevating the trait of “two-faced” to a completely new level.
It’s important to note that the first 4 of these references have to do with the smart meters / grid infrastructure capabilities as of this time. According to the sum of my research over the past 3 years, the plan involves achieving a greater and greater level of granularity and extraction of in-home data over time — see #5 and #6 below as examples (as well as my article on Google’s Nest acquisition). So as far as privacy and surveillance go, according to utilities’ own documentation and writings, ‘smart’ meters are effectively a trojan horse.
1) US Congressional Research Service report, “Smart Meter Data: Privacy and Cybersecurity” (February 2012)
With smart meters, police will have access to data that might be used to track residents’ daily lives and routines while in their homes, including their eating, sleeping, and showering habits, what appliances they use and when, and whether they prefer the television to the treadmill, among a host of other details.
2) Colorado Power Utility Commission report, “Smart Metering & Privacy: Existing Law and Competing Policies” (Spring 2009)
First, the privacy concerns are real, and should be addressed proactively in order to protect consumers. Second and related, a salient privacy invasion—were it to happen and get press—could create significant opposition to smart grid deployment efforts.
3) California Public Utility Commission press release, “California Commission Adopts Rules to Protect the Privacy and Security of Customer Electricity Usage Data” (July 2011)
Our action today will protect the privacy and security of customer usage data while enablingutilities and authorized third-parties to use the information to provide useful energy management and conservation services to customers.
I support today’s decision because it adopts reasonable privacy and security rules and expandsconsumer and third-party access to electricity usage and pricing information. I hope this decision stimulates market interest.
4) SF Chronicle article, “California Utilities Yield Energy Use Data” (July 2013)
California’s electric utilities last year disclosed the energy-use records and other personal information of thousands of customers, according to reports the companies filed with state regulators.
The vast majority of those disclosures – 4,062 – were made by one utility, San Diego Gas and Electric Co. In 4,000 of those cases, the information was subpoenaed by government agencies.
New digital smart meters being installed throughout the state can measure a home’s energy use hour by hour, showing when residents leave for work, go to sleep or travel on vacation. Older analog meters, which measured cumulative energy use over the course of a month, couldn’t do that.
“Before smart meters, what happened inside houses couldn’t be revealed unless there was a police officer inside with a warrant,” Ozer said.
6) Wired.com, “CIA Chief: We’ll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher” (15 Mar 2012)
‘Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,’ Petraeus said, ‘the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.
“Petraeus allowed that these household spy devices “change our notions of secrecy” and prompt a rethink of “our notions of identity and secrecy.” All of which is true — if convenient for a CIA director.”
Did we really think that the technocratic oligarchy would stop at collecting information about how we use our phones, who we call, and where we’re located? If we did, we were naive. Plainly, there is a corporate intention to effectively colonize your home.
However, there is also a rising awareness, and resistance, as new solutions are uncovered. The first step is to remove your consent, in writing.
The following is actually written into the California Civil Code. Not only do these provide a strong clue at how the corporatocracy functions (and gets away with what it does), but they also outline a basis for remedy: (notes in parentheses, italics)
California Civil Code (2009)
1619. A contract is either express or implied. (If you didn’t say no, you said yes.)
3515. He who consents to an act is not wronged by it.(The way they do business is in writing. If you didn’t send them a letter or notice to remove your consent, you have agreed to their terms, and thus have agreed to a reduction in rights.)
3521. He who takes the benefit must bear the burden. (Utilities and their executives – and many public servants – are taking the benefit. They must, according to their law, accept the liability for all harm if the liability is enforced.)
3523. For every wrong there is a remedy.(We are not bound into something which would have us be as slaves, if we do not want to be.)
3527. The law helps the vigilant, before those who sleep on their rights.
What statutes are YOUR utilities and governments bound by?
The French National Assembly has made a sweeping declaration with a new bill, effective immediately. No more genetically modified crops.
On Tuesday, the French lower house of parliament adopted a law immediately banning cultivation of any GMO corn, due to environmental safety concerns.
Recently, they also made a halt decree to prohibit planting the only GM crop allowed in the EU – Monsanto’s MON810 corn, with built-in insect resistance.
Jean-Marie Le Guen, the minister in charge of relations with parliament, said:
It is essential today to renew a widely shared desire to maintain the French ban. This bill strengthens the decree passed last March by preventing the immediate cultivation of GMO and extending their reach to all transgenic maize varieties.
Farmers and seed companies are challenging the rule, as they have blocked similar decrees before, viewing safety concerns insufficient. But Le Guen bound the rule so that member state decisions could not be litigated against.
The ban heads back to the Senate for final approval – if rejected, the French National Assembly gets to cast the final ruling. Future strains will be banned even if the EU states approve more.
Of course big biotech companies are not satisfied to let bans rest. If companies like Monsanto have any say, they’ll be back. The EU actually wants to give them that final say.
Additionally, DuPont and Dow Chemical are poised to crash the EU again, if allowed. They already jointly developed Pioneer 1507 GM corn and most of the member states did not gather enough votes to block it.
It appears these companies have money, power and persistence on their side to keep pushing despite wide-spread consumer and safety concerns.
(NaturalNews) In the aftermath of round one of the Bundy Ranch armed siege by the U.S. government, I have decided to offer the federal government an intelligent analysis of the new rules of engagement. People like Daniel P. Love, Special Agent in Charge of BLM Region 3, desperately need to review and learn these rules. Other federal agents also need to understand the tectonic shift of power that has just taken place and how it will impact their operations from here forward.
Why am I doing this? Because the BLM, through its astounding incompetence and arrogance, very nearly initiated a massacre at Bundy Ranch which would have been disastrous for the BLM agents actively engaged there. The incident very nearly came to a shooting war, and it is the outdated, ill-informed government playbook that inflamed the situation and brought it to a flashpoint of violence. At every step, BLM escalated the situation beyond reason: who brings snipers to a tortoise dispute? Who unleashes attack dogs on unarmed pregnant women and cancer survivors? The BLM, that’s who!
I know there remain many good agents in many different departments of the federal government. But there are also many incompetent agents who are still living in the 1990’s and think they can run an armed ranch siege in 2014 the same way the ATF ran the Waco, Texas siege in 1993. But the rules have changed. As proof of that, consider the now-historical fact that BLM agents publicly surrendered and retreated from hundreds of armed citizens near Bunkerville, Nevada. How did this happen, exactly? To understand that, you must understand the new rules of engagement between the feds, the media and the citizens.
So if you have any friends who are feds in any department — BLM, ATF, DEA, FBI, etc. — make sure they get a copy of this article… and we all might spare ourselves some bloodshed in the near future.
Personal context: As far as my own background, I am a long-time supporter of local law enforcement, a fan of certain individuals within the FBI who are still part of “the good guys” pulling for America, and an outspoken critic of overzealous abuse of power in any agency, including the ATF, DEA and of course the BLM. My personal beliefs on current events can best be summarized by the words of Judge Andrew Napolitano in this video interview.
Old rules of engagement? Coercion, intimidation and overwhelming show of force
The reason BLM just got hoodwinked at Bundy Ranch was because they were playing by the old rules of engagement which are based on “might makes right.” BLM foolishly thought that if they closed down the air space, threatened citizens with arrest, brought snipers to the scene and ordered the mainstream media to run a total blackout on the story, they would control the situation and easily be able to assert their will (which was to seize control of the land).
They were wrong. As we all now know, BLM Special Agent Daniel P. Love vastly over-estimated the strength of his position and wildly under-estimated the strength of his opposition. How did he make that mistake? He thought this was a war of kinetic action, but it was actually a war of information flow (more discussion below).
Federal agents are intentionally misinformed during their training
Much like Dan Love, most federal agents are still running on playbooks which are wildly outdated. Change is always slow to make its way into government training manuals, operational tactics and rules of engagement. Citizens, patriots and indy media journalists, on the other hand, are incredibly adaptable, technologically savvy and enjoy an ever-growing base of support which has only expanded due to the extreme abuses of liberty and freedom that have taken place under the Obama administration. The harder the feds push, the more they grow the popular resistance to coercion. Thus, the very application of the old rules of engagement automatically leads the feds to inevitable defeat in situations where federal rules conflict with core American values.
Feds are also wildly misinformed by their superiors about the truth of their opposition, and so they are handicapped from the start with disinfo that impedes their operational efficiency. Case in point: if you’re a federal agent, nearly all the people who are described to you as “anti-government” are actually pro-Constitutional government people. They are not anarchists, and they are not irrational. They are opponents of criminal corruption and die-hard advocates of honest, limited government.
Most of what you are being told about these people is propaganda, not factual truth. As a result, when you think you are about to go toe-to-toe with what you’ve been taught are “low IQ, inbred anti-government extremists,” the truth is that many of these people are actually far more cognitively accomplished than your own agents. For example, members of the Bundy family possess well-developed philosophical ideas about liberty, personal perseverance and spiritual courage. At the same time, most lower-tier federal agents have never spent any real time pondering ethics, values, courage or philosophy at all. Most federal agents, factually stated, are ignorant of the Bill of Rights and have almost no knowledge of the limitations of federal power. They are not taught, after all, to limit their reach but instead to find ways to work around such limitations and assert their power in any way possible. Such is the nature of every government agency and department. Most young men working as front-line agents in these departments have almost no knowledge of what they are truly facing.
Furthermore, federal agents are almost never instructed that their adversaries might be thoughtful, courageous, honorable people who primarily just want to be left alone. These people are also highly disciplined and principled. As the Bundy Ranch scenario clearly demonstrated, so-called “extremists” are willing and able to hold their fire and act with extraordinary self-discipline, even in the face of extreme escalations of violence perpetrated by government agents. Obviously, then, they are not extremists at all. What’s extreme is the BLM’s decision to bring snipers and government helicopters to a dispute they claim was about a desert tortoise.
Federal agents are almost never taught these truths about the everyday citizens they are facing in these scenarios. Instead, federal training programs go out of their way to vilify and smear rural white people as, for example, “low-IQ extremists” rather than the thoughtful, principled Americans they truly are. Just because somebody works on a ranch does not make them stupid. I own multiple John Deere tractors and raise chickens, yet my own cognitive function ranks in the top one-tenth of one percent of all Americans. Do not make the mistake of equating rural living with stupidity, and do not think that people only live on farms because they have no other choice. Many of us have gone to great lengths to deliberately pursue rural lifestyles because rural living is more in tune with our well-developed philosophies of happiness and purpose.
Background: The balance of power; weapons, information and decentralization
To understand the new rules of engagement, you need to understand how the American Revolution was won. And to understand that, you need to understand how the invention of interchangeable parts in firearms manufacturing allowed everyday men to attain fairly accurate rifles which could counter rifles held by centralized government personnel (in ANY government, not just the British government).
It was the proliferation of easy-to-make, easy-to-repair rifles — along with barrel rifling advancements — that allowed everyday people to rise up against government oppression and tyranny. This is how the United States of America came to be born, of course — by taking a stand against the tyranny of the King of England. That’s also why standing firm against tyranny is something that can never be taken out of the American spirit because it runs in our blood.
The ease of manufacturing and maintaining rifles shifted the balance of power from the hands of the few (government) to the hands of the many (Democracy). This is why the invention of the rifle unleashed a global wave of revolutions and revolt against centralized authority. Grassroots rifle manufacturing was, in fact, the first peer-to-peer offensive weapons manufacturing network of the modern world. If you don’t understand this trend in history, you will never understand what’s happening in America today.
Today, of course, government has far more advanced weapons than the common man. Government commands Hellfire missiles, Apache attack helicopters and even nuclear weapons. No common citizen’s group possesses such weapons, and because of this, government believes it now controls the balance of power. But that’s playing the old game from the 1700’s. Today, what matters is not so much who has the better weapons, but who has the better ability to share information. Information warfare is the paradigm of 2014 and beyond, not kinetic warfare.
The Pentagon already understands this, of course, which is why journalists are strictly controlled (“embedded”) when covering wars in the Middle East. The information war is far more important to shape and control than the kinetic war. Because it doesn’t really matter where the bombs land as long as you control which VIDEOS of the bombs get broadcast. Guiding the news coverage is far more important than guiding the ordinance, in other words. (Oops! Did ya just blow up a civilian hospital? Don’t worry, CNN will agree not to show it, aren’t they awesome?)
Government can no longer control the narrative
Centralized government can no longer control the news narrative for events taking place on U.S. soil. What’s happening today in information sharing now mirrors what took place over 200 years ago with rifle manufacturing sharing. When information can be passed from person to person, in a decentralized, peer-to-peer network with no central authority and no central point of control, facts, photos and videos easily bypass the usual firewalls government places upon mainstream media outlets. While it is exceedingly easy to control videos and photos in a foreign country, it is all but impossible to control such information when events are unfolding on U.S. soil (as they did near Bunkerville, Nevada).
The widespread ownership of video recording devices in 2014 mirrors the widespread ownership of rifles in 1775. Nearly every citizen today has a mobile phone recording device, and nearly everyone has an ability to post videos, photos, audio and tweets to the internet in near-real time. This is tactically equivalent to the ability of any citizen in 1775 to own and operate rifles capable of going head-to-head with the rifles carried by British soldiers who occupied the colonies of the Americas.
If you understand this concept of decentralized, readily-available technologies that shape the big trends of history, the you are ready to grasp the following NEW rules of engagement.
Rule #1) You no longer control the narrative
At Waco, Oklahoma City, Ruby Ridge and 9/11, the U.S. government wholly controlled the narrative. The centralized media institutions in place at the time exhibited total control over all media broadcasts in the nation. There was no social media. There was no Twitter. There was no Facebook. There were no blogs. Mainstream media’s control over information was absolute, and therefore so was White House control over the mainstream media.
Today, the mass decentralization of news media is nearly complete. While centralized news sources may agree to be obedient and complicit in broadcasting propaganda (or running a media blackout on a particular story), citizens now have ready access to multiple vectors through which information can be accumulated or shared. As I have said here on Natural News, social media allows us to share the news faster than the government can cover it up.
Almost by definition, no centralized authority can exercise timely and effective control over organic, decentralized news sharing fueled by extreme curiosity, interest and sometimes outrage by the public. The very things that make Facebook addictive to many people — the “wow” factor when learning new facts — also make people want to share those facts with others. The structure of social media is viral by its very nature. This structure is the antithesis of centralized government control over narratives of unfolding news events.
Freedom of information, in other words, constantly counteracts the inherent desire of tyrants to oppress and control information. The very existence of electronic, decentralized media is anti-tyrannical by its very nature. The democratization of information automatically leads to the democratization of power, which is the exact opposite of what the U.S. government really wants. Remember: the U.S. government strongly supports freedom fighters in Kiev, but is terrified of freedom fighters in America. Ever wonder why?
Rule #2) Your mainstream media blackouts will backfire and make alternative media more popular than ever
During the Bundy Ranch affair, mainstream media was ordered by the White House to completely refrain from covering the story. This, again, is a laughable mistake from an old-school playbook.
While the White House thought that erecting a blackout across the mainstream media would cause the story to vanish from national consciousness, what actually took place was precisely the opposite: the story took off like wildfire across the ‘net. But instead of Pulizer-prize-winning mainstream journalists going on scene and reporting live from Nevada, all the journalism glory went to citizen journalists like Pete Santilli and David Knight, both working for independent online media groups that can never be controlled by government authority.
At Bundy Ranch, the mainstream media blackout backfired, causing enormous rises in popularity for indy media and alternative media. I happen to know firsthand, for example, that one of my own stories on Bundy Ranch was read by over 3 million people. And that’s small compared to a story by Kit Daniels of Infowars which went so viral that it became the single most-shared story of the year, across ALL media.
I also happen to know that indy video networks like Next News Network attracted hundreds of thousands of new subscribers. The mainstream media blackout, it turns out, was an incredible gift to alternative media which enjoyed unprecedented viewership, ad revenues, new subscribers and new fans. The mainstream media blackout was the best news of the year across alt. media. The White House, in other words, just added huge viewership numbers to the very same independent media groups it is constantly trying to discredit.
Rule #3) You can’t stop the alternative media by stopping its leaders
The alternative media is a phenomenon of spontaneous, decentralized, peer-to-peer journalism. It’s not based on specific individuals, because there is always upward pressure from others to take the place of any individuals are might be intimidated into silence. Even if top voices of alternative media were to die or disappear, they would be immediately replaced by others who are ready to assume their roles.
Online audiences easily transfer from one alternative media outlet to another. A single super-viral story, for example, can gain an alternative media person over half a million new followers. This is partly why attempts to suppress alternative media via individual character assassination are all but useless. Alternative media followers already know everything printed in the mainstream media is pure propaganda, so running a hit piece on an alt. media personality in the mainstream media accomplishes nothing.
Furthermore, there is no central authority over alternative media. Thus, there is no single point of control or influence over the network of peer-to-peer alt. media publishers and broadcasters. While the mainstream media can simply be ordered into total silence by the White House — and this is exactly what happened with the Bundy Ranch story — alt. media by definition adhere to no such obedience or demands.
Notice, too, that in this case of the Bundy Ranch, one of the top alt. media personalities, Alex Jones, was not even at the forefront of the effort: it was his reporters — David Knight and Kit Daniels — who broke the biggest stories. This is by design. Alex has always sought to encourage his reporters to rise up and cover the really big stories while establishing their own independent credibility as investigative journalists. Do not misinterpret this as a mistake; it is AJ’s intention that his reporters pursue such paths. AJ has always had the intention that Infowars would continue on even if he were killed.
Rule #4) Escalations of coercion only encourage greater resistance
The single most important factor leading to the rise of the armed citizen’s revolt at the Bundy Ranch was the Youtube video showing attack dogs unleashed by BLM agents against unarmed citizens. This video has now become legendary, having been viewed many millions of times in all its renditions and copies.
This video clearly and unambiguously shows a BLM agent giving multiple verbal and body language commands to an attack dog, directed against unarmed civilians. It was the widespread sharing of this video that led to the uprising which ultimately led to BLM surrendering to American patriots.
In realizing this, the natural tendency of government tyrants and oppressors is to say, “We’ll just ban mobile devices or confiscate them all at gunpoint!” This is the same sort of abysmal thinking that led the BLM to somehow think erecting a “First Amendment Zone” would be acceptable to Americans. Apparently, the BLM believes the American people are so incredibly stupid that won’t remember the First Amendment applied everywhere in America, not just some temporary zones defined by a delusional gang of armed tyrants. The very idea that BLM would even attempt to set up such an area of so utterly offensive and disrespectful to the spirit of America that I still shake my head in disbelief over the fact that they tried it.
Rule #5) You will only have the cooperation of the People by their choice, not by coercion
The final rule in all this is something most feds will never quite understand. In most cases, federal agents receive cooperation from citizens by choice, not by force. For example, I have voluntarily provided information to the U.S. Department of Justice on criminal scams taking place in the natural products industry. I do this by choice, not by force, because it is the right thing to do and because it serves the public interest.
When federal agents make requests upon American citizens, there is a moment in which those requests are parsed for congruency with a person’s perceived understanding of both the law and moral justice. If a federal agent’s request is in alignment with law and moral justice, it will likely be voluntarily followed. For example, I (lawfully) carry a concealed firearm every time I visit the Austin airport. If a crazy person goes nuts with a machete at the airport, and I find myself side by side with an armed federal agent, have no doubt I will voluntarily cooperate with federal law enforcement officers in a joint armed effort to halt the violence of the armed assailant and thereby protect innocent people. (And being Austin, Texas, the machete-wielder will likely find himself riddled with bullets because hundreds of honorable, armed citizens carry concealed weapons at the Austin airport every single day.)
On the other hand, if a federal agent approaches me and orders me to rob a bank for him, I will tell him no. Why? Surely the agent can claim he is “giving me a lawful order” and I therefore must obey under law, correct? Yet when that “lawful order” stands at odds with what I know to be morally right, I will choose not to obey that order, regardless of what excuse the agent invokes.
This is precisely what happened at Bundy Ranch. BLM showed up with “lawful orders” backed up by two different (federal) courts. But the People did not perceive those order as being morally justified. Therefore, they chose not to recognize those orders as being lawful. As was the case at Bundy Ranch, Americans can and do think for themselves in such scenarios, and at any moment, they may decide that YOUR actions as a federal agent are grossly unlawful, immoral or unconstitutional. If enough people arrive at the same conclusion, you will sooner or later find yourself surrounded and possibly arrested by the People at gunpoint.
This concept does not compute with many federal agents because they were not taught the real roots of power in a free society. They are taught that a law written on a piece of paper is an absolute, irrefutable power which can never be questioned by lowly “civilians.” In reality, a law is nothing more than mutual consent of the governed. That consent, it turns out, can be invoked at any time if those who apply the law do so in a way that is egregious or unreasonable. All government power comes from the People, after all, and can therefore be revoked by the People if government becomes abusive or overreaching in its exercising of that power.
Laws mean nothing, after all, if they are not based on a sense of justice which can be recognized by the Common Man (or woman). The U.S. government, for example, once had laws on the books which said that blacks were not fully recognized as people. Such laws fly in the face of spiritual truth, and had I been an independent media reporter in the 1820’s, I would have been aggressively arguing for equal rights among all people, regardless of their skin color (and I would have been aggressively attacked by the establishment for defending such a “crazy” idea, of course).
Those are the new rules of engagement. Please send this article to your favorite fed. The more of them who read this and understand it, the greater chance we all have for lasting peace and avoidance of bloodshed caused by an arrogant, out-of-control federal government that has lost its way.
DEA Raided This Woman’s House After She Shopped At A Garden Store
Posted: Updated:
Angela Kirking never thought shopping for garden supplies would lead to agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration waking her up with guns drawn, but that’s what happened last October.
“I bought a bottle of organic fertilizer, a 16-ounce bottle,” said Kirking, a 46-year-old face-paint artist. “Three weeks later I was raided by DEA.”
The DEA is refusing to answer questions about the law enforcement operation targeting an Illinois garden store that has netted Kirking and at least 10 other people. But Kirking and her lawyer contend it’s a case of misplaced priorities and federal overreach. They’re asking why the DEA is treating ordinary customers of a garden store selling hydroponic equipment as if they were major drug dealers.
The Oct. 11, 2013, raid on Kirking’s house, first reported by Patch, involved four DEA agents and five Shorewood, Ill., police officers, according to a police report. Its alleged yield from Kirking’s art room, whose entrance is guarded by beads: 9.3 grams of marijuana, or less than one-third of an ounce.
Now Kirking’s defense lawyer, former Will County (Ill.) prosecutor Jeff Tomczak, is trying to have the search warrant and the two misdemeanor charges it produced thrown out.
Kirking’s visit to the garden store, Midwest Hydroganics, was the predicate for the whole investigation of her, according to Tomczak. “100 percent nothing else,” he said, calling that far too thin a thread on which to base a search warrant.
In the search warrant application, a Braidwood, Ill., police officer assigned to the DEA, Donn Kaminski, wrote that he had observed Kirking exit the garden store “carrying a green plastic bag containing unknown items.” Kaminski stated he had “previously conducted numerous investigations that involved the surveillance of Midwest Hydroganics and persons purchasing items at Midwest Hydroganics, which has led to the arrest of suspects for production of cannabis sativa plants and production of cannabis.”
A man answering the phone at the Midwest Hydroganics store declined to comment on the DEA operation.
Kaminski wrote that he then sifted through Kirking’s household trash, detecting “a strong odor of green cannabis” in one plastic trash bag, and compared her home’s electrical bill to that of her neighbors, finding that it was higher. Another officer conducted a field test on a green plant stem, which allegedly tested positive for marijuana. That was enough for a judge to sign a warrant.
An application for a search warrant for a different Midwest Hydroganics customer, Tomczak noted, stated that police had found no evidence of marijuana plant residue in the trash — and suggested that was evidence a suspect was covering up his marijuana grow.
The result in Kirking’s case was an early morning raid on her home.
“They were in full attack mode, came at me guns raised, flashlights. Just like you see in the movies,” Kirking said. “I had to ask them for a warrant. I said, ‘Who are you,’ when they came in the bedroom. Somebody said, ‘DEA.'”
A spokesman for the Will County State’s Attorney described Kirking’s case as just one among many resulting from surveillance of the store.
“There are 11 total cases based upon search warrants that were written and charged based upon this type of surveillance in Will County by the DEA,” said Charles Pelkie, director of public affairs for the state’s attorney’s office. “Eleven of those cases are charged, eight have been prosecuted in Will County.”
Kirking’s alleged marijuana stash was paltry. But Pelkie said other searches have produced more serious amounts. The largest of these in Will County, he said, yielded 120 marijuana plants, 290,510 grams of cannabis and 178 Ecstasy pills. That raid has resulted in one person pleading guilty to a felony.
Pelkie said the Will County State’s Attorney makes its decisions on charges when the DEA presents its evidence. He refused to comment on whether targeting a garden store was the best use of the agency’s resources.
“With regard to how the DEA conducts its investigations, you really have to refer to them,” said Pelkie.
But on that count the federal agency is not being helpful. Special Agent Owen Putman, spokesman for the DEA’s Chicago Division, declined via email to comment on the operation targeting Midwest Hydroganics.
The Illinois law enforcement operation seems to follow the same pattern as a two-state operation out of Kansas City, Mo., that also involved the DEA. The effort dubbed “Operation Constant Gardener,” led by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, also staked out hydroponic garden stores and eventually arrested 14 people. To maximize publicity, those raids happened on April 20 of 2011 and 2012 — 4/20, also known as “Weed Day.”
After the initial favorable headlines, however, the other side of Operation Constant Gardener came into focus: Innocent gardeners had been harassed, and garden stores saw diminished business.
In the Kansas City suburb of Leawood, Kan., law enforcement agents clad in bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles raided the home of a couple and their two children. The parents turned out to be former CIA employees. Even after no marijuana was found, police allegedly suggested to Adlynn and Robert Harte that perhaps their 13-year-old son used marijuana.
“These folks have never used drugs at all. They have the cleanest backgrounds ever,” said the couple’s lawyer, Cheryl Pilate. “They used a SWAT team — or a bunch of deputies dressed up like SWAT officers using SWAT tactics — which was totally inappropriate.”
Pilate said the couple’s ordeal started after the husband went to the hydroponic garden store to buy supplies for an educational indoor vegetable garden he planted with his son. The Hartes are now suing for damages.
In many cases, Pilate argues, the police rely on inaccurate and unreliable field tests like those used to identify alleged traces of marijuana in suspects’ trash. Her clients contend in their lawsuit that the supposed “marijuana” found in their trash was actually discarded tea leaves.
Pilate said police departments are quick to put out press releases when such raids turn up drugs or marijuana plants.
“What you hear about are the people who are charged. You generally don’t hear about the people who aren’t,” said Pilate.
In Illinois, the Will County State’s Attorney has so far not answered HuffPost’s request for statistics on how many search warrants were executed as part of the Midwest Hydroganics investigation that did not result in prosecutions.
Kirking, the face-paint artist who faces two misdemeanor charges for the small amount of marijuana found in her home, is hopeful the judge in her case will throw out the warrant. She thinks the garden store operation should stop.
“You feel very violated. I mean extremely violated. My husband and I were in shock for days afterwards — how did this happen?” she said. “It’s sad that they are resorting to this method.”
HuffPost Readers: Have you encountered problems after shopping at a hydroponic garden store? Contact Matt Sledge by emailing sledge@huffingtonpost.com.
UFO ET Dulce Base Revealed From A Scientist Now In Hiding
Last updated on April 11, 2014
Dulce, New Mexico is a quite little town located about 7,000 feet on the Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation. It is home to about 900 people with one major motel and a few stores. It’s not your typical resort town and it is not bustling with activity. However, this sleepy town harbors a deep, dark secret hidden below the tangled brush of Archuleta Mesa. A secret so deep, that it involves a joint government-alien biogenetic laboratory designed to carry out bizarre experiments on humans and animals.
The Dulce Base is believed to be the largest Reptilian and Grey Alien base in America where there are allegedly conducting experiments including: atomic manipulation, cloning, mind control, animal/human crossbreeding, chip implantation, abduction, and feeding off of humans.
The video below contains extraordinary notes taken by a scientist who was commissioned by the government to visit alien crash sites and observe alien life (the scientist is now in hiding). In it he reveals top secret information on the Dulce Base and its inner workings. HOWEVER, I must warn you, the information is the video is top secret, and just by reading it, it puts a target on your back, people have been killed for sharing this knowledge. So please watch with caution….
These pictures were allegedly smuggled out of the base by a Dulce security officer named, Thomas Costello. He and his family are missing & presumed dead by the public.
The following document is the alleged result of the actions of one or more scientists creating a covert, unauthorized notebook documenting their involvement with an Above Top Secret government program. Government publications and information obtained by the use of public tax monies cannot be subject to copyright. This document is released into the public domain for all citizens of the United States of America.
March 27, 2014: For people in the United States, an extraordinary series of lunar eclipses is about to begin.
The action starts on April 15th when the full Moon passes through the amber shadow of Earth, producing a midnight eclipse visible across North America. So begins a lunar eclipse tetrad—a series of 4 consecutive total eclipses occurring at approximately six month intervals. The total eclipse of April 15, 2014, will be followed by another on Oct. 8, 2014, and another on April 4, 2015, and another on Sept. 28 2015.
“The most unique thing about the 2014-2015 tetrad is that all of them are visible for all or parts of the USA,” says longtime NASA eclipse expert Fred Espenak.
A new ScienceCast video explains the lunar eclipse tetrad of 2014-2015. Play it!
On average, lunar eclipses occur about twice a year, but not all of them are total. There are three types:
A penumbral eclipse is when the Moon passes through the pale outskirts of Earth’s shadow. It’s so subtle, sky watchers often don’t notice an eclipse is underway.
A partial eclipse is more dramatic. The Moon dips into the core of Earth’s shadow, but not all the way, so only a fraction of Moon is darkened.
A total eclipse, when the entire Moon is shadowed, is best of all. The face of the Moon turns sunset-red for up to an hour or more as the eclipse slowly unfolds.
Usually, lunar eclipses come in no particular order. A partial can be followed by a total, followed by a penumbral, and so on. Anything goes. Occasionally, though, the sequence is more orderly. When four consecutive lunar eclipses are all total, the series is called a tetrad.
Click to view a complete visibility map of the April 15th lunar eclipse.
“During the 21st century, there are 9 sets of tetrads, so I would describe tetrads as a frequent occurrence in the current pattern of lunar eclipses,” says Espenak. “But this has not always been the case. During the three hundred year interval from 1600 to 1900, for instance, there were no tetrads at all.”
The April 15th eclipse begins at 2 AM Eastern time when the edge of the Moon first enters the amber core of Earth’s shadow. Totality occurs during a 78 minute interval beginning around 3 o’clock in the morning on the east coast, midnight on the west coast. Weather permitting, the red Moon will be easy to see across the entirety of North America.
Why red?
A quick trip to the Moon provides the answer: Imagine yourself standing on a dusty lunar plain looking up at the sky. Overhead hangs Earth, nightside down, completely hiding the sun behind it. The eclipse is underway.
You might expect Earth seen in this way to be utterly dark, but it’s not. The rim of the planet is on fire! As you scan your eye around Earth’s circumference, you’re seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once. This incredible light beams into the heart of Earth’s shadow, filling it with a coppery glow and transforming the Moon into a great red orb.
Mark your calendar for April 15th and let the tetrad begin.
Sylvia Burwell, replacement for resigning Kathleen Sebelius, ran Common Core, Bill Gates vaccines and GMOs in Africa
(NaturalNews) Kathleen Sebelius, HHS Secretary who oversaw the disastrously botched Obamacare website and rollout, has finally resigned. In line with the sheer delusion being invoked to try to call Obamacare a “success,” even this resignation is being called another success story. “Kathleen Sebelius Is Resigning Because Obamacare Has Won,” tweeted the White House (1) — a claim met with sheer derision by nearly anyone who can still think straight.
With Obamacare, all failures are “successes” merely because the White House says so. Even the enrollment numbers are largely faked.(2)
The replacement for Kathleen Sebelius is none other than Sylvia Burwell, “a key aide to Microsoft founder Bill Gates,” reports Breitbart News (3). “Burwell served as both chief operating officer and head of the global development program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”
Sylvia Burwell steeped in biotech industry collusion, biopiracy and western domination of developing nations
“Sylvia Mathews Burwell is president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Development Program,” says her profile page on a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website (4). That same page goes on to describe how she is helping U.S. corporations destroy the world, using code words that sound like peace-loving efforts (translated here):
“She oversees efforts to help the world’s poorest people lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty.” Translation: She supports Monsanto, GMOs and biotech domination of third world nations.
“Burwell leads Global Development’s grantmaking and advocacy in various foundation initiatives.” Translation: She pays local groups to help U.S. corporations dominate and control their local farms (GMOs), health care (vaccines) and water supplies (hygiene).
Burwell was also a director of the industry-colluding group Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a front group for pushing GMO dominance into developing nations. As GM Watch reports (5), “On October 12, 2010, representatives from the Seattle based group ‘AGRA Watch’ joined colleagues from South Africa and Kenya to critique the actions of the Gates foundation and its Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) colluding with industry to promote GMOs and pressure African countries to legalize them.”
Sylvia Burwell also worked closely with AGRA’s chief financial officer, Alexander Friedman, founder and president of Accelerated Clinical, a “biotechnology services company dedicated to accelerating the clinical trial process for biotechnology firms.” (6)
AGRA Watch is a Seattle-based group that, according to their website:
[is] challenging the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s questionable agricultural programs in Africa, including its Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The Gates Foundation and AGRA claim to be “pro-poor” and “pro-environment,” but their approach is closely aligned with transnational corporations, such as Monsanto, and foreign policy actors like USAID. They take advantage of food and global climate crises to promote high-tech, market-based, industrial agriculture and generate profits for corporations even while degrading the environment and dis-empowering farmers. Their programs are a form of philanthrocapitalism based on biopiracy.
AGRA Watch goes on to explain, “The [Gates] Foundation promotes industrial farming, inappropriate technologies, and pro-corporate policies that will make things worse for the hungry, for small farmers, consumer health, and the environment in Africa.”
Sylvia Burwell also has strong ties to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin. (7)
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Stealth vaccines, sterilization programs and Common Core
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, of course, has also been aggressively pursuing global vaccination programs linked to spreading polio-like symptoms among children in third-world nations.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has also been a key funding partner for the Common Core effort to hijack the education system and replace education with confusion and disinfo. As Natural News has publicized, Common Core mathematics problems are intentionally written to make children mentally ill by making them doubt they can think clearly. Many of the Common Core lessons and word problems for students are written in the same kind of bizarre, nonsensical word riddles that White House operatives use to claim Obamacare is a success.
That a person with longstanding ties to these destructive campaigns that destroy the bodies and minds of human beings should be selected to run HHS is no coincidence. HHS oversees the FDA, and the FDA is tasked with making sure no natural cures or nutritional supplements can ever tell the truth about their ability to prevent disease and support healing. The FDA also runs the Big Pharma monopoly racket that bans affordable drugs from licensed Canadian pharmacies from entering the United States or being purchased by U.S. cities, companies and individuals. The FDA even fined Google $500 million for merely running ads from Canadian pharmacies.
With the help of incoming HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell, there’s little doubt that the full force of the U.S. government will now be directed to attacking both Americans and children of third-world nations with mandatory enforcement of toxic vaccine injections and mandatory deployment of Common Core anti-education efforts to ensure that children don’t acquire real mathematics or problem-solving skills. You are witnessing the official roll-out of the “world dumbing-down initiative” to reduce the population and keep people as stupid as possible so they can’t rise up against corruption and evil.
Wish You Could Fertilize Crops with Pee? Urine Luck
By Dr. Mercola
Story at-a-glance
Human urine is naturally rich in nitrogen (N), potassium (K), and phosphorus (P), the three components of most synthetic fertilizers (NPK)
In the first US trial using human urine as fertilizer, hay grew greener, more lush, and with significantly increased yields
For the average person, a year’s worth of urine contains about eight pounds of nitrogen and nearly one pound of phosphorus – enough to grow about one year’s worth of food, naturally
For the use of urine fertilizer to become widespread, sewage systems would have to be radically redesigned to separate liquid waste from solid, a practice that requires the use of separating toilets
Industrial agriculture has veered far from the basic sciences of soil cultivation and plant nutrition; advancements like urine fertilizer and other natural methods that nourish soil health naturally are an important step in the right direction
Modern synthetic fertilizer consists of varying amounts of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), which are added to croplands to replace these depleted nutrients in the soil. There are several problems with this method, one of the primary ones being that these are finite resources.
Nitrogen, for instance, must be captured through a process that requires natural gas. And, unlike nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium cannot be synthesized, and our aggressive large-scale farming methods, which deplete soils of nutrients that then must be replaced, are quickly burning through available phosphorus and potassium stores.
We’re now hearing discussions of “peak phosphorus and potassium” in the way we discuss “peak oil,” and, according to some, we may soon be facing looming shortages of these two critical fertilizer ingredients. According to well-known investor Jeremy Grantham, writing for Nature:1
“These two elements cannot be made, cannot be substituted, are necessary to grow all life forms, and are mined and depleted. It’s a scary set of statements. Former Soviet states and Canada have more than 70 percent of the potash [potassium]. Morocco has 85 percent of all high-grade phosphates [phosphorous]. It is the most important quasi-monopoly in economic history.
What happens when these fertilizers run out is a question I can’t get satisfactorily answered and, believe me, I have tried. There seems to be only one conclusion: their use must be drastically reduced in the next 20-40 years or we will begin to starve.”
Urine May Represent the Future of Fertilizer
Human urine is naturally rich in nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, and with about 30 billion gallons produced every year in the US alone,2 it’s certainly in abundant supply. For the average person, a year’s worth of urine contains about eight pounds of nitrogen and nearly one pound of phosphorus – that’s enough to grow about one year’s worth of food!3
I am in complete agreement with this concept and for the last year have been collecting all my urine and putting it in the compost tea that I feed my fruit trees, vegetables, herbs, and aloe. It works wonderfully with biochar, as the nitrogen in the urine helps balance the carbon in the biochar.
According to the Rich Earth Institute, which is running an experiment in nutrient reclamation, using source-separated urine as a fertilizer, getting urine out of wastewater and into agriculture will not only help reduce pollution but also represents a viable natural fertilizer for the future. They state:4
“The average person flushes the toilet five times a day, and four of those times are just for urine. This means that 80% of our flushwater—or over 4,000 gallons of clean water each year per person—is used just to get rid of urine! That is a lot of clean water used to transport ‘liquid gold’ into the sewer, where it becomes pollution. If we save it instead of flushing it, we can harvest a valuable resource that we can use in agriculture.”
The Rich Earth Institute experiment is the first legally authorized community-scale “urine reuse” project in the US, but field trials involving urine fertilizer are already underway in many other countries, including Europe, Africa, and Asia.
As for the “yuck factor,” human urine isn’t nearly as “gross” as it seems, since it’s virtually sterile when it leaves your body. Just to be sure (since urine can become contaminated by fecal particles), the Rich Earth Institute “pasteurizes” collected urine in solar heaters prior to sprinkling it on crops. The first experiment, conducted in 2012 on a hayfield, yielded impressive results…
Urine-treated hay was darker green in color and more lush than control plots
Hay treated with the most urine (100 pounds of nitrogen/acre) yielded 5.8 times as much hay as the control plot
Hay treated with the mid-level amount of urine (50 pounds of nitrogen/acre) yielded 3.8 times as much hay as the control plot
In 2013, the field trial was expanded, both in the number of volunteers donating urine and the scope of the field trials. The group began testing for optimal dilution rates of urine when applied to hay and they’re now working with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) testing the use of urine fertilizer on vegetables.
The idea seems to be catching on quickly, as they now have three additional farms using urine fertilizer, along with a waiting list that’s only hindered by how much urine they can collect. Ultimately, they’re hoping to create “peecycling” programs that other cities and states can copy, but this will require some major changes to regional and national policy and wastewater treatment facilities.
Urine Plus Ash Makes Beets Grow Nearly 30 Percent Larger Than Conventional Fertilizer
Separate studies have also shown promise in using urine as fertilizer. In one experiment, researchers compared beets grown in four different ways: one with conventional mineral fertilizer, another with urine, a third with urine and wood ash, and a final control group grown with no fertilizer.5
The beets fertilized with urine were 10 percent larger, and those fertilized with urine/ash were 27 percent larger than those grown in mineral fertilizer. As for nutrient content, all the beets were similar, and in a blind taste test the beets were rated as equally flavorful.
The researchers concluded that urine is a perfectly viable source of fertilizer, and one that is readily available and sustainable (the average American urinates 500 liters a year). Urine has also been used to fertilize cabbage, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and cucumbers, with similar favorable results, and it’s free – unlike synthetic fertilizers that some farmers around the world can scarcely afford.
Setbacks to Widespread Use of Urine Fertilizer
There are some issues that must be overcome before urine fertilizer can become “mainstream.” Although urine is technically sterile, it does contain traces of pharmaceuticals, which are not removed at wastewater treatment plants. The Rich Earth Institute is currently working with the EPA to track how the soil is absorbing these types of contaminants from urine fertilizer.
So far, research suggests that any residual hormones or pharmaceuticals are likely to be negligible and basically non-existent in urine-fertilized crops.6 In fact, there may be benefits to spreading such urine contaminants on land, as opposed to depositing them in waterways, as is currently done. The Rich Earth Institute explained:7
“When we use flush toilets that are connected to sewers, these residual drugs pass largely unchanged through the treatment plant in about twenty-four hours and then go directly into rivers, lakes, or the ocean, where they can harm sensitive aquatic life and end up in our drinking water. If we spread the urine on agricultural land instead, the robust soil ecosystem has a chance to break down the drugs and biodegrade them over a much longer period of time, greatly reducing or eliminating their levels before they ever reach a body of water. In this way, soil application is a great improvement over current practice.”
Another issue is the fact that sewage systems would have to be radically redesigned to separate liquid waste from solid, a practice that requires the use of separating toilets that have a divided bowl and independent pipes to keep the urine separate. There are other benefits to using separating toilets as well, such as less water usage and less energy requirements in sewage treatment. However, neither the toilets, nor the sewage systems, are in widespread use in the US. As reported by the Rich Earth Institute:8
“Using specially designed toilets that collect urine separately from feces, urine can be collected in a storage tank instead of being flushed down the drain. After being sanitized, it can be used as a high-nitrogen liquid fertilizer, taking the place of chemical fertilizers.
This system is more efficient than sewer-based sanitation at getting all the nutrients from the urine to the farm, because the source-separated urine is directly collected and transported. In municipal wastewater, the nutrients in the urine are incredibly dilute, and so it is very challenging to extract them again. In fact, many treatment plants let most of the nitrogen and phosphorus pass through untreated. Some do capture the phosphorus, but most which treat for nitrogen drive it off as a gas, rather than capturing it as fertilizer.”
However there is nothing that is preventing you and your family from implementing this system now. If you have a garden, it is relatively easy to collect your urine and apply it to the garden. This will present less of a burden on your water filtration facility, but, more importantly, it puts the nutrients where they belong, back in the soil, not in the water system. It is easy to collect the urine in one-quart wide mouth Ball jars and then transfer them to larger 2.5-gallon containers if you need to. Just be careful to dilute it about 5:1 before you apply it to the soil that surrounds the plants you want to nourish.
Biological Agriculture Is the Future of Food
The use of urine as fertilizer is a major improvement over chemical fertilizers. However, according to Dr. Elaine Ingham, an internationally recognized expert on the benefits of sustainable soil science, the real nutrition your plants require is actually derived from microorganisms in the soil. These organisms take the mineral material that’s in your soil and convert it into a plant-available form. Without these bioorganisms, your plants cannot get the nutrients they need. So what you need is not more soil additives; what you need is the proper balance of beneficial soil organisms.
According to Dr. Ingham, there’s no soil on Earth that lacks the nutrients to grow a plant. She believes the concept that your soil is deficient and needs added phosphorus or nitrogen in order to grow plants is seriously flawed, and largely orchestrated by the chemical companies, because it’s based on looking at the soluble, inorganic nutrients that are partly present in your soil.
Interestingly enough, you can use a starter culture to boost the fermentation and generation of beneficial bacteria much in the same way you can boost the probiotics in your fermented vegetables. For compost, this strategy is used if you want to compost very rapidly. In that case, you can use a starter to inoculate the specific sets of organisms that you need to encourage in that compost. This is but one example of high-performance agriculture methods, which are a FAR superior alternative to attempts at “improving” agriculture through the use of genetic engineering and chemical fertilizers. In order for plants to flourish, the soil must first be made hospitable for beneficial microorganisms. To accomplish this, you need to:
Have the right nutrient balance in the soil
Inoculate the soil. This can be done by adding soil probiotics or basic fermentation products such as compost tea
Apply proper food (fertilizer) for the microorganisms to consume and thrive. The microbes in turn will then feed the proper nutrients to the plants grown in that soil. The better you’re able to fertilize the microbes, the healthier your plants will be, and the fewer plant diseases, pest infestations and weed problems you’ll have
Biological Gardening/Farming Aims to Bring Health Back to Soil
Urine fertilizer may have an important place in high-performance agriculture, but there are other exciting advancements as well, including things like humic acid or humates, which promote the proliferation of beneficial microorganisms in the soil, as well as sequester carbon in the soil.
The application of biochar (charcoal created by slowly heating biomass such as wood and plant materials in a low-oxygen environment) to soil may also help sequester carbon for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years, and radically improve soil fertility by serving as a substrate for beneficial soil microbes. Biochar works particularly well with urine as it captures the nitrogen like a magnet and releases it slowly to the microbial community that will feed the plants. Otherwise, the nitrogen can easily leach away.
Worm farmers are also creating a natural product known as “vermicompost,” which greatly improves plant growth and make plants more resistant to disease and insects than plants grown with other composts and fertilizers. Personally, one of my new passions is sustainable, biological farming, and Dr. Arden Andersen is a world leader in this field
It’s important to realize that modern industrial agriculture has veered quite far from the basic sciences of soil cultivation and plant nutrition. According to Dr. Andersen, the reason they’ve been able to make such great strides in increasing the nutritional density and yield of their crops is by returning to those basic sciences using synthetic fertilizers, etc. But this is better done naturally. For more information, including how to try biological agriculture in your own backyard, watch my interview with Dr. Andersen below.
If you want to use urine to fertilize your backyard garden, feel free. But keep in mind that urine should be diluted with water for most plants and should be separated from solid waste to avoid contamination (so collect your urine in a bottle or bucket, or invest in a urine-separating toilet). You can also add urine to your compost heap to enhance its nutritional content, or like I do, add it to your compost tea that you add to nourish your plants.
![Environmental activist Shirley "Sug" McNall stands in front of an XTO Energy well on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. McNall added the well,](https://i0.wp.com/extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site567/2014/0330/20140330__TDT-L-HELL-0331~p1_500.jpg?resize=500%2C335 "Environmental activist Shirley "Sug" McNall stands in front of an XTO Energy well on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. McNall added the well,")
![A well, which is owned by XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, is shown on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. Shirley "Sug" McNall says the](https://i0.wp.com/extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site567/2014/0330/20140330__TDT-L-HELL-0331~p2_300.jpg?resize=300%2C216 "A well, which is owned by XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, is shown on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. Shirley "Sug" McNall says the")
![Shirley "Sug" McNall is pictured on March 6. McNall is a member of the Four Grans, an ad hoc environmentalist group of four Aztec grandmothers](https://i0.wp.com/extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site567/2014/0330/20140330__TDT-L-HELL-0331~p3_300.jpg?resize=300%2C227 "Shirley "Sug" McNall is pictured on March 6. McNall is a member of the Four Grans, an ad hoc environmentalist group of four Aztec grandmothers")
