Cancer-Causing Sunscreen Sold In America

Summer just doesn’t get any better, does it?

First, the COVID-19, and then, just when you think it’s safe to go in the water… delta variant emerges.

Back to square one.

And now, as if sunburn wasn’t enough, there’s cancer-causing sunscreen.

It’s almost like the bizarre reducēs in the 1993 Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day.” By the way, the word “reducēs” (pronounced ree – doo – sees), is the nominative, accusative, and vocative masculine and feminine plural cases of “redux.” So now, you know.

Surely, by now, you’ve heard, or read, the news:

Carcinogenic substances, including benzene – a highly flammable industrial chemical – have been found in independent laboratory analyses performed upon 294 unique batches of sun care products from 69 different companies by Valisure a privately held New Haven, CT-based pharmaceutical analytical services company.

On May 25, 2021, Valisure published the laboratory findings that 78 sun screen and after-sun skin care products in which they found benzene, and in part, wrote that,

“Valisure LLC has tested and detected high levels of benzene, a known human carcinogen, in several brands and batches of sunscreen, which are

Size Matters: The Beginning Of America’s End Can Be Stopped

When in the history of our nation have you EVER heard of ANY President denigrating the FBI and other agencies of the United States government – for ANY reason whatsoever?

So, what’s the endgame for the far right?

Total anarchy & chaos, or are they actually going for an authoritarian state?

What’s the difference between “Big Government” and autocracy?

The derisive term “big government” is one used by anti-government anarchists, even though they’d NEVER call themselves that. But then again, White Supremacists don’t call themselves anti-Constitutional terrorists, either.

Frankly, I have long maintained that, contrary to the numerous assertions we’ve heard spouted, our government is NOT “too big,” but rather is TOO SMALL to be either effective, or efficient.

Think of it in restaurant terms.

Go to a 5-star Michelin restaurant, and you’d expect to find only one cook, and one wait staff… right?

OF COURSE NOT!

For such a fine dining experience, with a patronage seating of 100 or so (minus bar space), it would be REASONABLE to have AT LEAST 25, or likely even more, staff of all kinds – ranging from maître d’hôtel, to sous chef, to chef de cuisine, to line cooks, kitchen porters, to wait staff, to sommelier, to bus staff, dishwashers, and others – including bartenders, runners, housekeepers, and more.

The beginning of America’s decline began in earnest with Ronald Reagan, who, in his grandfatherly-like tones, and “aw, shucks” disarming humor, won American’s hearts, and their minds followed. That included Democrats who voted for him in almost unprecedented numbers over incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter who introduced America to Energy Independence, Energy Conservation, Renewable Energy, and placed solar collectors/solar hot water heater panels atop the White House… which were promptly removed by the Reagan administration.

In his first Inaugural Address, “the Great Communicator,” as he was monikered, stated bluntly that “government is the problem.” It never occurred to anyone that if government was the problem, the obvious solution that problem is the elimination of it. And that’s precisely what he and the GOP set out to do. But it wouldn’t be called treason.

Of course, as a VERY skilled orator, having traveled across America on GE’s dime years earlier, he frequently gave talks that were very much sympathetic to BIG BUSINESS interests, all couched in patriotic language.

With his blessing, and encouragement, and the insidiousness of Newt Gingrich of Georgia as Speaker of the House, and their misguided fallacious “Contract With America” the GOP began to

Beef, Pork, Chicken Prices to INCREASE Significantly

Concentrated American Business Operations Spell Economic Disaster

We apparently either forgot, or didn’t learn our lessons in the events which led up to the Great Depression.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-30/the-coronavirus-won-t-bring-the-end-of-big-meat-processing-plants

Colloquially, through our nation’s Federal laws governing business practice and ownership, etc., we’ve “put all our eggs in one basket.” As a result, when one factory or industry hiccups or sneezes, the entire system gets sick. The same principle is true for many other businesses and aspects of our economy.

You’ve probably read my expressions on a topic very much like this before.

“The concentration of America’s meat packing industry is ultimately a symptom of its weakness, rather than its strength.”

Despite being the world’s second-largest meat consumer after China, the U.S. slaughters almost all of its annual production of meat in just 835 facilities.

Five decades ago (in most American’s lifetimes) there were OVER 10 times as many such facilities. Anecdotally, an Epidemiologist friend share that, “Growing up in the 50’s there were dairy farms all over the South. There are very few now.”

That’s:
🐖130 million pigs
🐄33.6 million cows
🐑2.3 million sheep

If anything, those figures significantly understate how extremely concentrated the slaughter industry is.

In fact, about 66% of America’s pork is processed through 24 giant facilities owned by just 4 companies:
1.) Smithfield Foods Inc.; 2.) JBS SA; 3.) Tyson Foods Inc., and; 4.) Clemens Family Corp.

Over 80% of beef comes from just 12 abattoirs owned by 4 companies:
1.) Tyson; 2.) JBS SA; 3.) Cargill Inc., and; 4.) Marfrig Global Foods SA.

And of the two groups of meat processors which represent 50% of the meat categories consumed in America, pork and beef, 2 companies – Tyson, and JBS SA – own or control a significant portion of that market, 25%, based upon the number of competitors in the 2 categories, pork and beef.

Tyson, which is headquartered in Arkansas, is American-owned, unlike Smithfield which is headquartered in Virginia, and owned by Chinese interests. However, a full 66% of Tyson’s operations are overseas, and the company boasts that they control 20% of the entire American market share of meat by writing that “1 in 5 pounds of chicken, beef, & pork in the U.S. is produced by Tyson Foods.”

Chicken farmers are modern-day sharecroppers, and Tyson acknowledges as much by writing that, “We supply the birds and feed, and provide technical advice, while the poultry farmer provides the labor, housing and utilities.”

The North American Meat Institute (NAMI), a Washington, D.C. based lobbying organization for the major players in the corporate-owned industrialized meat industry – NOT mom & pop-owned Family Farms, which are increasingly rare – writes this on their website about the meat industry in America:

Welcome to our Incestuous Fiscal Orgy – State Farm Privacy Policy

Take notice of this text of the upper area of the note:
“Why are we sending you a Notice of our Privacy Policy?

“Federal law permits banks, investment companies, and insurance companies to provide all their services under one organization. This same law requires State Farm to share our Notice of Privacy Policy in writing with you each year you are insured with us or maintain an account with us.”

Let me re-emphasize this point:
“Federal law permits banks, investment companies, and insurance companies to provide all their services under one organization.”

This law – the Glass-Steagall Act – since its inception in Great Depression era America in 1933, FORBADE the incestuous fiscal orgy under which this nation now suffers.

The Glass-Steagall Act was the subject of intense lobbying efforts by Banks, Insurance Companies and Stock Brokerage Houses to repeal the law, and especially intensified circa 1960’s, climaxing in the late 1990’s under a Republican-controlled House and Senate.

The 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act allowed commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to consolidate, or commingle, their business.

Previously, it prohibited any of those institutions (banks, insurance companies, and stock brokerage houses) from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, or insurance company.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, (Public Law 106-102, 113 Stat. 1338, enacted November 12, 1999), was signed into law by President Clinton.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT TO YOU and ME, AND HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOU and ME?

The recent financial melt-down in this nation – now being called “The Great Recession” – is due in large part to the elimination of the Glass-Steagall Act, because the banks that made bad loans, the insurance companies that insured the real estate and commercial paper, and the stock brokerage houses that traded the stocks of both, and owned both, were greedy for more gain, and eventually began to invent complex mechanisms and artificial commercial paper which came to be known as “derivatives.”

In essence, those “derivatives” were based upon Credit Default Swaps – another complex and inherently evil type of financial thing/device – which was described by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in March 2010 as “Credit-default swaps, where you insure your neighbor’s house just to destroy it and make money from it, that’s exactly what we have to curb. We must succeed at putting a stop to the speculators’ game with sovereign states.”

The types of investments that most people tend to be familiar with, such as stocks and bonds, involve betting that a company or government will do well. In stark contrast, a credit default swap (CDS) allows an investor to bet that a certain bond issuer will do poorly, or fail – not be able to meet its obligations. In financial markets, the CDS is sometimes thought of as a form of

Wall Street Pete Buttigieg’s Wine Cave Fundraiser

Imagine… being seated at an exclusively small underground club, with a polished onyx table, reflecting a chandelier with 1500 Swarovski crystals, and being served some of the finest cabernet sauvignon wine which sells for $900 a bottle, with only your closest 20 to 30 billionaire and multi-millionaire friends present.

If that sounds too far-fetched, think again.

That was a recent closed-door Pete Buttigieg fundraiser in Napa Valley, California.

No, it’s not a joke.

Here are a couple screenshot images of an Instagram posting which has now been removed which shows the South Bend, Indiana Mayor rubbing elbows with the filthy rich and powerful.

THIS was the reason “wine caves, $900-dollar-per-bottle wine, and $5000 selfies” were mentioned in the Democrat’s December debate.

And, no, it’s NOT a joke when he’s called “Wall Street Pete.”

Turns out, there’s a good reason for it.

According to Fortune magazine’s October 4, 2019 article entitled “Pete Buttigieg Takes Lead as Big Business Candidate in 2020 Field,” “Buttigieg caused controversy this week when Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that he had emailed the mayor and his team resumes for campaign positions. The pair overlapped during their time at Harvard and have a number of mutual friends.

“In Silicon Valley, the former McKinsey consultant has attended fundraisers hosted on his behalf by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Nest Labs co-founder Matt Rogers, and Chelsea Kohler, director of product communications at Uber.

“Buttigieg has also racked up donations from a number of top Facebook executives, as well as Scott Belsky, chief product officer at Adobe, and Wendy Schmidt, the wife of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. He leads the 2020 field in the amount of online donations he’s received online from California tech employees. Biden, meanwhile, didn’t crack the top five.

“Buttigieg, meanwhile, has been making himself known to the Wall Street set. The combat veteran out-raised all of his political rivals in Connecticut during the third quarter of this year, according to Federal Elections Commission filings. Connecticut is the wealthiest state in the U.S., largely because of its large concentration of Wall Street and Hedge Fund luminaries.”

At the Democrats’ December debate, which

POTUS Obama: Sen. Warren is “absolutely wrong” on Trans-Pacific Partnership. But is she?

Editor’s Note: This article was originally written 11 May 2015, though unpublished. The TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), is/was a “free-trade” pact among the nations of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and United States signed on 4 February 2016, though it was NOT ratified, and thus, did NOT take effect. All 12 members nations signed the TPP 4 February 2016.

However, because it was NOT ratified by all signatories before 4 February 2018, it will become effective ONLY after ratification when at least 6 nations with a combined GDP of more than 85% of the GDP of all signatories have signed.

Further, because the United States withdrew from the TPP, it also significantly and adversely affected it. The TPP agreement will become active only after all signatories have ratified it within two years of signing.

—//—

President Obama recently criticized Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) for her clarion call warning of the potential damage the Trans-Pacific Partnership could do to United States’ economy.

Sen. Warren has said that “This is hardly a hypothetical possibility: We are already deep into negotiations with the European Union on a trade agreement and big banks on both sides of the Atlantic are gearing up to use that agreement to water down financial regulations.”

The President countered saying, “This is pure speculation. She and I both taught law school, and you know, one of the things you do as a law professor is you spin out hypotheticals. And this is all hypothetical, speculative.”

President Obama further dismissed her criticisms out of hand saying, “she’s absolutely wrong,” about the concerns she and others have raised, and appeared to throw down the gauntlet for open, frank discussion of the still-secret trade pact which would include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.

The President gives the USTR broad power to keep secret information about the trade policies it advances and negotiates.

United States Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) said, “More than two months after receiving the proper security credentials, my staff is still barred from viewing the details of the proposals that USTR is advancing.”

A Senate bill – S. 3225 – which would require the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to disclose all its TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) documents to every member of Congress was introduced May 23, 2012 by Sen. Wyden, who is Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness. In that capacity, his office is responsible for conducting oversight over the USTR and trade negotiations.

Speaking from the Senate floor, Sen. Wyden said the purpose of the bill was “to ensure that the laws and policies that govern the American people take into account the interests of all the American people, not just a privileged few. Congress passed legislation in 2002 to form the Congressional Oversight Group, or COG, to foster more USTR consultation with Congress. I was a senator in 2002. I voted for that law and I can tell you the intention of that law was to ensure that USTR consulted with more Members of Congress, not less.”

Offshoring American Enterprise: Good, Bad, or Indifferent?

I may step on a few toes with my next remark, but I can always apologize, and ask forgiveness if it so be the case that my remarks are found offensive.

However, suffice it to say, that our nation’s Congress, has, for at least the past 20 years, or so – and even moreso in the past decade plus – embarked upon a very

Radical Republicans, TEApublicans and other Governmental Deconstructionists

“Audits, liens, garnishments: the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) goes to amazing lengths to ensure you comply with your taxes but what happens when they turn that energy to making sure you also comply with their political agenda? As recent scandals have shown, that’s exactly what they are doing! Our response: its time we abolished the IRS.

“The IRS has admitted to unfairly targeting conservatives, hassling adoptive parents, throwing lavish conferences, attempting to censor pro-life groups and has leaked confidential tax information for political ends — and this is the agency we are going to trust with enforcing Obamacare?”

Tear it down.

Break it up.

Destroy it.

Kill it.

We hate it.

That’s the message of the modern Republican party.

We hate you.

We love BIG BUSINESS.

We think you ought to believe the way we do, think the way we do, act the way we do.

Be different!

Join the crowd!

Yes, the irony is abundant.

The message quoted above is a direct e-mail message from

Deep Data Mining & Personal Privacy: The NSA has NOTHING on BIG BUSINESS

Much ado about nothing.

That’s how I describe the recent ruckus & hullabaloo made about the recent UK news story that “revealed” the U.S. National Security Agency is “spying” on American citizens at home.

The reality is, that the information the NSA is creating is called “metadata,” is a set of data that describes & gives information about other data. Phone numbers called, dates, times & length of calls is NOTHING by comparison to what BIG BUSINESS knows about us already.

Why do you get certain junk mail?

Ever got junk mail from the AARP?

If you’re near age 50, or older, you probably already have.

Ever gotten junk mail from Social Security, Medicare, FDIC, or even your Congressman or Senator?

I dare say you have NEVER.

When you bought your car, if you borrowed money to purchase it, the bank or credit union which loaned the money to you performed a background credit check on you before they loaned their money to you.

Where do you think they got such information? The federal government?

Please… don’t insult my intelligence.

When you applied for a credit card, did you happen to list your age or birthdate on the application?

What about the life, health, auto, or house insurance policies you have? Did you mention your relationship status, number of children, their ages, specifics of your health including medicines, treatments, surgeries, income & source, length of residency, height, weight, or even the size, color & consistency of your last bowel movement?

I would imagine the answer to ALL those questions – at one time or another – has been “yes.”

And yet, unless you’ve served in the Armed Services, or as a

Foreign Corporation, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, denies selling watered-down beer, intimidates whistleblower, remains silent

Does this genuinely surprise anyone… that Budweiser – which is NOT an American-owned company – would sell not only lousy beer, but lousy, watered-down beer?

I think not.

—

Ex-Bud Worker Accuses Company of Shakedown Over Complaint

By Sophia Pearson – Apr 1, 2013 5:35 PM ET

A former Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ABI) (ABI) employee who claimed the company sells watered-down beer told a judge the brewer is out to punish his whistle-blowing with a lawsuit alleging he divulged trade secrets.

Budweiser beer. Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

AB InBev sued James Clark, a former director of operations support, one week after the company was accused of overstating the alcohol content in several of its beers. The case, which accuses Clark of misappropriating trade secrets, should be dismissed because California law bars using so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation as a means of intimidation, Clark said in papers filed March 29 in federal court in Sacramento.

The lawsuit “is designed to silence Mr. Clark and to punish him for standing up for consumers,” Clark’s attorney Robert Carichoff said in the filing. “To allow AB to proceed with this vindictive litigation would

Taxpayers’ $182B TARP bailout of AIG Now Fully Recovered

As the president and others – nonpartisan and partisan alike – have noted, BIG BUSINESS should NOT need a bailout. They should be operated in such a manner as to allow the Free Market to decide how, to what extent, and if they prosper. As part of that process, ironclad and strong regulation to prevent fraud and abuse should be vigorously enforced. And chief executives

Something Stinks in Denmark: “TOO BIG TO FAIL,” Bank Corruption, LIBOR, and the Federal Reserve

No… no… no…

Banks don’t need to be regulated.

They’re doing quite fine with all the money they’ve stolen from you already.

No, they don’t need regulation.

And no, we don’t need to re-enact the Glass-Steagall Act – the federal law that kept Wall Street Brokerage Houses, Insurance Companies, and Banks separate and out of each other’s business. Right now, as things stand with them, they’re enjoying an incestuous fiscal orgy. And that’s good. We need more incest. We need more orgies. They’re all good. In fact, the more mammon… er, money you have, the more holy you are, the more the Almighty has blessed you – and not someone else (those lazy slobs who don’t deserve anything). {/sarcasm}

But there’s really no reason to worry… the banks will get what’s comin’ to ’em – and the ‘what’ is NOT your money. They have that already.

Come a-courtin’ time (that’d be in the court room), the Banksters be ruled against in a BIG way.

Just wait.

It’s coming.

Next thing you’ll hear in the news are the BIG BANKSTERS wanting legal protection from Congress for the wrongdoing they’ve done.

Just wait.

—

Losing With LIBOR: One Trader’s Story

by David Kestenbaum

Listen to the Story All Things Considered [3 min 18 sec] Download

We’ve been talking a lot lately about what’s been dubbed the “LIBOR rate fixing scandal,” where some of the biggest banks in the world have been accused of manipulating a key global interest rate.

London-based Barclays Bank agreed to pay a $453 million fine over charges it manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate — LIBOR — a key global interest rate. Oli Scarff/Getty Images

If those words — “manipulation of a key interest rate” — leave you wondering what the big deal is, and who would be harmed, meet Dan Sullivan. He says the manipulation of LIBOR cost him a million dollars, in just 24 hours.

Dan Sullivan used to work

Riches, Wealth, Avarice, Power, Abuse and Vice: An Occupy Wall Street redux

John Adams, 1823–24, Second President of the US. Painting by Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828).

Perhaps you’ve read the previous entry in this blog. If not, I encourage you do so.

Why?

For several reasons, not the least of which are that what you’ll read in the conclusion of this entry speak overwhelmingly to the issue addressed by the protestors.

Following is an entry I made in another forum, the content of which – as I considered it – was worthy of a separate post.

Your thoughtful commentary is encouraged.

I particularly like your earlier remark, and found it quite erudite. To wit, and to clarify, it is this one: “I believe in capitalism,

Occupy Wall Street

The MainStream Media CANNOT ignore this!

What is Occupy Wall Street?

Twitter hash tag: #OccupyWallStreet

OccupyWallStreet.org

If you’re tired of the lies, the deception, the failed mortgages, bail-outs, TARP, jobs shipped overseas, inferior imported goods,

Rand Paul, Conscription, Slavery, & Health Insurance Reform

Recently, U.S. Senator Rand Paul, a “TEA Party” Republican from Kentucky, and ophthalmologist specializing in cataract and glaucoma surgeries, LASIK procedures, and corneal transplants, was quoted as saying that “a right to healthcare… means you believe in slavery.”

Dr. Paul is the ranking member of the Senate HELP Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging subcommittee, and made his comments at a Wednesday, May 11, 2011 hearing about emergency room use in American hospitals.

He said that, “With regard to the idea whether or not you have a right to health care you have to realize what that implies. I am a physician. You have a right to

Feds OK Big Business Tax Exemptions; No Regulations Allowed

Note: In a later paragraph, the article’s author used the declarative and active voice, rather than the passive voice in reporting what the lobbyists claim. Thus, it made the clause seem as if the assertion WILL BE true, rather than reporting the concern as an opinion of those expressing the idea.

Companies using derivatives as hedge get exemption

By MARCY GORDON
The Associated Press, April 12, 2011, 4:00PM ET

WASHINGTON – Companies that trade derivatives solely to guard against volatile price swings won’t have to meet new federal collateral requirements.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission advanced the exemption Tuesday as part of new regulations for derivatives, investments whose value depends on the future price of some other investment.

The rules, which were included in last year’s financial regulatory law, require banks and businesses that trade derivatives to

A note on Illegal Immigration

Image via Wikipedia

The following is one of the typical e-mail “you must do something now!” kind of messages that so many of us receive in our e-mail in boxes.

In such typical fashion, they are either contain a type of ‘the world is going to end’ (and soon, if you don’t act now!), or either “the sky is falling!,” type of message.

While the motivation for the message, or the idea behind them may – at times – be worthwhile, often the delivery is suspect.

Following is the message, and – NOT TO BE MISSED – is

The best government money can buy

Overturning a nearly-century-long trend of limiting BIG BUCK$ from BIG BU$INE$$ and UNION$ to influence elections, the Supreme Court Of The United States (SCOTUS) overturned