TV News LIES

Many Americans who thought that the health care debate was important must have wondered where their congressmen were in early August during the first two weeks of the House of Representatives recess.  It turns out they were not hosting town hall meetings or listening to constituents because many of them were in Israel together with their spouses on a trip paid for by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told a Massachusetts audience at a recent town hall that the House will pass legislation this fall mandating a "complete audit" of the Federal Reserve.

The bill to audit the Fed, H.R. 1207, was introduced by libertarian Fed critic Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and is backed by well over a majority of the House. Frank's comment suggests it won't just be left to languish in committee.

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TVNL Comment: Do YOU know who owns the Fed?  Find out here....

Anyway, here are some startling lesser-known facts, pulled together by two diligent Bloomberg News reporters, Lizzie O'Leary and Jonathan Salant:

Every one of those 534 members of Congress now has six (6!) lobbyists working on them -- and that's just for healthcare.

A total of 3,300 lobbyists have registered to drive the sizzling healthcare issue in Washington -- three times the brigade of lobbyists representing the entire defense industry.

But towards the end of the Wisconsin Democrat's health care forum something a bit peculiar happened. A woman who initially identified herself as "just a mom from a few blocks away" who was "not affiliated with a political party" was outed by a reporter as a GOP operative who worked for Kagen's election opponent John Gard as well as the Republican Party of Wisconsin and the Republican National Committee.

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A new food safety bill is on the fast track in Congress-HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. The bill needs to be stopped. HR 2749 gives FDA tremendous power while significantly diminishing existing judicial restraints on actions taken by the agency. The bill would impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme on small farms and local artisanal producers; and it would disproportionately impact their operations for the worse.

HR 2749 does not address underlying causes of food safety problems such as industrial agriculture practices and the consolidation of our food supply. The industrial food system and food imports are badly in need of effective regulation, but the bill does not specifically direct regulation or resources to these areas.

To read a detailed account of the bill, go to: http://www.ftcldf.org/news/news-15june2009.htm (Read the section on tracing. That is NAIS, isn't it? ­ highly disguised yet triggered by the word "trace." ) Alarming Provisions:

Some of the more alarming provisions in the bill are:

After weeks of secretive talks, a bipartisan group in the Senate edged closer Monday to a health care compromise that omits a requirement for businesses to offer coverage to their workers and lacks a government insurance option that President Barack Obama favors, according to numerous officials.

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TVNL Comment:  Insurance companies and Big Pharma get their way. What a shock.