POLITICO– Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) is making a renewed push to apply insider trading laws to Congress after a newspaper report showed that at least 72 congressional aides traded shares of the companies that their bosses helped oversee.

But Baird says his congressional colleagues have flatly indicated that they would block his legislation, which is aimed at preventing members of Congress and staff from trading stocks in companies where there’s a potential conflict of interest.

“There are some members who seem to think the rules just shouldn’t apply to us,” said Baird in an interview with POLITICO. “There’s money to be made, lots of it, and in ways that aren’t clearly illegal.”

Baird’s comments were spurred by a Monday report from the Wall Street Journal, which analyzed trading activity by Capitol Hill staffers between 2008 and 2009 and found market bets were made by high-level aides whose bosses helped influence related policy. Among those implicated in the story were a top policy advisor to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who traded environmental company stock and a Republican aide who traded Bank of America Corp. stock while working for a Senate Banking Committee member. The Journal report did not reveal huge profits – in some cases it was a few thousand dollars – but Baird believes the story did show a hole in congressional ethics.

Currently, insider trading laws that apply to the corporate world do not apply to Congress, allowing members and their aides to exchange information and buy stock based on inside information coming from Capitol Hill. The corporate world, however, is held under severe penalities for insider trading, often resulting in extraordinary fines.

Read full article HERE.

Written by: Erika Lovely, POLITICO

Photography by: Loop_oh, Flickr

© POLITICO, 2010

HUFFINGTON POST– Has the FDA gone completely mad? Why are they trying to open the flood gates to genetically engineered (GE) salmon- a move that will go down in history as one of the most asinine and dangerous ever made by our government? What’s it going to take for them to actually start protecting public health?

Frankenfish can promote disease

The FDA is reviewing data submitted by AquaBounty, the company that spliced a growth hormone gene into Atlantic salmon, forcing it to grow up to five times faster, and reach market size in about 18 months instead of 3 years. But according to the evidence, their buff salmon might have higher levels of a cancer promoting hormone IGF-1, more antibiotics, and more of a potentially life-threatening allergen(s).

The FDA failed to learn their lesson with their idiotic approval of genetically engineered bovine growth hormone. It also has higher levels of IGF-1 and more antibiotics. Now it’s condemned by the American Public Health Association and the American Nurses Association, banned in most other countries, and has been banished by most US dairies. Even Wal-Mart won’t allow the stuff into their milk.

The GE soy and corn on the market, which the FDA continues to pretend is just the same as the natural stuff, also has higher levels of allergens, and has been linked to numerous disorders. Now the American Academy of Environmental Medicine condemned genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and urged all physicians to prescribe non-GMO diets. “GMO-Free” is one of the fastest growing health claims among US brands for the past two years, and a tipping point of consumer rejection of all GE ingredients appears to be just over the horizon.

Then there is the threat of Frankenfish escaping into the wild. Here too, the FDA ignores the lessons from GE crops which, in spite of early assurances to the contrary, have been contaminating non-GE crops and wild relatives all over the world for more than a decade. Their self-propagating genetic pollution is irreversible; it can outlast the effects of global warming and nuclear waste. But somehow escaped GE salmon carry an even greater hazard.

Continue reading about GE Salmon? Are You Out of Your Mind?!

To help stop GE salmon, please sign petitions to the food industry and Congress.

Written by: Jeffrey Smith, international best-selling author and filmmaker as the leading consumer advocate promoting healthier non-GMO foods

Photograph by: Julia Manzerova