Cannon Falls, MN Obama's First Stop

Obama’s Big Job’s Bus Tour… 3-days ending in Chicago and then back to Washington D.C. and off to Martha’s Vineyard…

Cannon Falls, MN Obama's First Stop
by TE

Under green trees in a peaceful setting with a river flowing in the background, President Obama made his first address to rural America on Monday, August 15, in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. The event appeared to be perfectly staged as he chastised  the "other side" for  "political problems", not "government problems"  in Congress.  After his address, ten questions asked by loyal Obama supporters fed the fuel for the man in the white shirt with kaki colored pants taking credit for everything good and accepting none of the blame for anything bad.

All of this was, of course, done under the pretext of not campaigning for the 2012 election.  This may have seemed somewhat believable, until toward the end of the questioning one man praised Obama and said:  "I don't think we should solve this debt crisis on the backs of the middle class and poor.  We should have the millionaires and billionaires to do this.  I campaigned and voted for you in 2008 and I will do the same in 2012."

Many rural listeners of  RFD TV  tuning in to hear the special televised program that had preempted the regular programming of the Julie Goodnight, Aaron Raslton, and Craig Cameron horse shows may have been disappointed because the president did not directly speak about Executive Order 13575 that he signed on June 9 designed to begin taking control of over almost all aspects of the lives of the 16% of our population that live in rural areas.

Around 200 people were in attendance sitting around picnic tables and folding chairs.  President Obama began his speech by recognizing the attendance of Governor Mark Dayton (Democrat); Senator Al Franken (D); Senior Senator Amy Klobuchar (member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, an affiliate of the Democratic Party.); Representative Tim Wallace ; Congressman Keith Ellison ( member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party; Agriculture Secretary Vilsack; and Major Robby Robinson

The address mainly consisted of praise from Obama by the hand selected questioners and a rehash of how $5 Billion in assistance to small and medium size farmers had been used  to  continue  programs for: expanding broadband service, biofuels, green energy, and job creation.

He began his speech by offering excuses for a bad economy.  Blaming the Arab Spring and Japanese Tsunami,  he said these things are not in our control, but the political climate is. He urged people to contact their representatives.  He said "We now have a political culture that doesn't want to move America forward, but want to place the burden on future generations... The debt ceiling is a self-inflicted wound and had his plan been put forth to fix the situation, the other side would rather see their opponents lose than have America win."  He warned:  "We cannot have patience with that kind of behavior anymore."

His five-step plan that he is hoping  Congress will implement includes:

    1.  Renewing  the payroll tax credit which, according to Obama, "would put $1000 in your pocket".

    2.  Rebuild America by passing the Infrastructure Bill

    3.  Corporations would be given tax credits for hiring veterans

    4.  Expanded trade deals to ship "Made in America" goods such as cars to other countries

    5.  Encourage entrepreneurs by investing in their ideas

Pushing the philosophy for "Taxing the Rich", he said that Warren Buffet had told him, "We got to stop coddling billionaires like me" (…after which Buffet admitted he had cheated on his taxes).  Obama wants more spending for investments in education, research, and infrastructure, but also believes we need to cut back on programs that don't work.  He compared the answer to our deficit problem as "much like running his own household, where if he told Michelle that she had to cut back on her spending, but he would keep his golf clubs... wouldn't work."

By the way, if an average were taken, Michelle Obama has taken one out of every nine days since they’ve been in the White House for vacation and Obama has golfed nearly every weekend.

Following the Cannon Falls event, the President will host a town hall event in Decorah, Iowa at Seed Savers Exchange.  Tuesday, August 16^th, he will travel to Peosta, IA for a Rural Economic Forum at Northeast Iowa Community College.  The economic bus tour will also feature events in Atkinson and Alpha, Illinois on Wednesday, August 17 before the President returns to Washington.

Maybe at one of these events he will begin to clue us in on  his Executive Order for Rural America which has undertones of a UN take over of our nation's Heartland.

Related:

Obama Begins Bus Tour in Minnesota (Fueled by Big Oil… Flies In On His Private Jet)

Donald Trump Demands that the Obama Campaign Pay for Bus Tour, “It’s a Fundraising (Campaign) Tour”

Obama Conversation With Tea Partier Gets Heated

Farming and Rural America

EXECUTIVE ORDER - -ESTABLISHMENT OF THE WHITE HOUSE RURAL COUNCIL

FOOD FIGHT - June 9th Executive Order: ALERT -- RURAL AMERICANS -- FARMERS -- ANYONE WHO EATS: BEWARE "We are from the Government and We are here to Help!"

Video:  ALERT! RURAL AMERICANS - FARMERS - ANYONE WHO EATS: BEWARE

Something we all need to know about!!

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release June 9, 2011
EXECUTIVE ORDER
- - - - - - -

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE WHITE HOUSE RURAL COUNCIL

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America and in order to enhance Federal engagement with rural communities, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. Sixteen percent of the American population lives in rural counties. Strong, sustainable rural communities are essential to winning the future and ensuring American competitiveness in the years ahead. These communities supply our food, fiber, and energy, safeguard our natural resources, and are essential in the development of science and innovation. Though rural communities face numerous challenges, they also present enormous economic potential. The Federal Government has an important role to play in order to expand access to the capital necessary for economic growth, promote innovation, improve access to health care and education, and expand outdoor recreational activities on public lands.

To enhance the Federal Government's efforts to address the needs of rural America, this order establishes a council to better coordinate Federal programs and maximize the impact of Federal investment to promote economic prosperity and quality of life in our rural communities.

Sec. 2. Establishment. There is established a White House Rural Council (Council).
Sec. 3. Membership. (a) The Secretary of Agriculture shall serve as the Chair of the Council, which shall also include the heads of the following executive branch departments, agencies, and offices:
(1) the Department of the Treasury;
(2) the Department of Defense;
(3) the Department of Justice;
(4) the Department of the Interior;
(5) the Department of Commerce;
(6) the Department of Labor;
(7) the Department of Health and Human Services;
(8) the Department of Housing and Urban Development;
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(9) the Department of Transportation;
(10) the Department of Energy;
(11) the Department of Education;
(12) the Department of Veterans Affairs;
(13) the Department of Homeland Security;
(14) the Environmental Protection Agency;
(15) the Federal Communications Commission;
(16) the Office of Management and Budget;
(17) the Office of Science and Technology Policy;
(18) the Office of National Drug Control Policy;
(19) the Council of Economic Advisers;
(20) the Domestic Policy Council;
(21) the National Economic Council;
(22) the Small Business Administration;
(23) the Council on Environmental Quality;
(24) the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs;
(25) the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs; and such other executive branch departments, agencies, and offices as the President or the Secretary of Agriculture may, from time to time, designate.
(b) A member of the Council may designate, to perform the Council functions of the member, a senior-level official who is part of the member's department, agency, or office, and who is a full-time officer or employee of the Federal Government.
(c) The Department of Agriculture shall provide funding and administrative support for the Council to the extent permitted by law and within existing appropriations.
(d) The Council shall coordinate its policy development through the Domestic Policy Council and the National Economic Council.
Sec. 4. Mission and Function of the Council. The Council shall work across executive departments, agencies, and offices to coordinate development of policy recommendations to promote economic prosperity and quality of life in rural America, and shall coordinate my Administration's engagement with rural communities. The Council shall:
(a) make recommendations to the President, through the Director of the Domestic Policy Council and the Director of the National Economic Council, on streamlining and leveraging
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Federal investments in rural areas, where appropriate, to increase the impact of Federal dollars and create economic opportunities to improve the quality of life in rural America;
(b) coordinate and increase the effectiveness of Federal engagement with rural stakeholders, including agricultural organizations, small businesses, education and training institutions, health-care providers, telecommunications services providers, research and land grant institutions, law enforcement, State, local, and tribal governments, and nongovernmental organizations regarding the needs of rural America;
(c) coordinate Federal efforts directed toward the growth and development of geographic regions that encompass both urban and rural areas; and
(d) identify and facilitate rural economic opportunities associated with energy development, outdoor recreation, and other conservation related activities.
Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) The heads of executive departments and agencies shall assist and provide information to the Council, consistent with applicable law, as may be necessary to carry out the functions of the Council. Each executive department and agency shall bear its own expense for participating in the Council.
(b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(c) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(d) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
June 9, 2011.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/2011ruralcoun...

On Thursday June 9th, same date as the EO above, Glenn sat down with legendary investor and author Jim Rogers, to talk about what he thinks is in store for America. What, if anything, can be done to save her and keep her competitive with the rest of the world in the future? And more importantly, what can you do to prepare for what could be coming? He talks quite a bit toward the end about the woes of Farming in the U.S..  How the average farmer is 58 years old, nobody is majoring in agriculture and how nobody has been able to make money on farming in the US for years. Japan is in the same situation.

Video:  Jim Rogers on the state of farming and agriculture

Video:  Organic Farms and Gardens Destroyed by HR 875: The Food Safety Modernization Act. Glenn Beck

Related: 

Jim Rogers: Dollar Is Doomed, Own Real Assets (Video) 

Beck: An Hour With Jim Rogers

Video:  "This Is The Most GUTLESS Institution!" Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur  -  on 2012 Agriculture Department Spending Debate

Resources:

A Gift to My Children: A Father's Lessons for Life and Investing

Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market

Michael Pollan for Farmer In Chief - Secretary of Agriculture

Farmer In Chief

 

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.

Complicating matters is the fact that the price and abundance of food are not the only problems we face; if they were, you could simply follow Nixon’s example, appoint a latter-day Earl Butz as your secretary of agriculture and instruct him or her to do whatever it takes to boost production. But there are reasons to think that the old approach won’t work this time around; for one thing, it depends on cheap energy that we can no longer count on. For another, expanding production of industrial agriculture today would require you to sacrifice important values on which you did campaign. Which brings me to the deeper reason you will need not simply to address food prices but to make the reform of the entire food system one of the highest priorities of your administration: unless you do, you will not be able to make significant progress on the health care crisis, energy independence or climate change. Unlike food, these are issues you did campaign on — but as you try to address them you will quickly discover that the way we currently grow, process and eat food in America goes to the heart of all three problems and will have to change if we hope to solve them. Let me explain.

After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study. Whenever farmers clear land for crops and till the soil, large quantities of carbon are released into the air. But the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.

In addition to the problems of climate change and America’s oil addiction, you have spoken at length on the campaign trail of the health care crisis. Spending on health care has risen from 5 percent of national income in 1960 to 16 percent today, putting a significant drag on the economy. The goal of ensuring the health of all Americans depends on getting those costs under control. There are several reasons health care has gotten so expensive, but one of the biggest, and perhaps most tractable, is the cost to the system of preventable chronic diseases. Four of the top 10 killers in America today are chronic diseases linked to diet: heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and cancer. It is no coincidence that in the years national spending on health care went from 5 percent to 16 percent of national income, spending on food has fallen by a comparable amount — from 18 percent of household income to less than 10 percent. While the surfeit of cheap calories that the U.S. food system has produced since the late 1970s may have taken food prices off the political agenda, this has come at a steep cost to public health. You cannot expect to reform the health care system, much less expand coverage, without confronting the public-health catastrophe that is the modern American diet.

The impact of the American food system on the rest of the world will have implications for your foreign and trade policies as well. In the past several months more than 30 nations have experienced food riots, and so far one government has fallen. Should high grain prices persist and shortages develop, you can expect to see the pendulum shift decisively away from free trade, at least in food. Nations that opened their markets to the global flood of cheap grain (under pressure from previous administrations as well as the World Bank and the I.M.F.) lost so many farmers that they now find their ability to feed their own populations hinges on decisions made in Washington (like your predecessor’s precipitous embrace of biofuels) and on Wall Street. They will now rush to rebuild their own agricultural sectors and then seek to protect them by erecting trade barriers. Expect to hear the phrases “food sovereignty” and “food security” on the lips of every foreign leader you meet. Not only the Doha round, but the whole cause of free trade in agriculture is probably dead, the casualty of a cheap food policy that a scant two years ago seemed like a boon for everyone. It is one of the larger paradoxes of our time that the very same food policies that have contributed to overnutrition in the first world are now contributing to undernutrition in the third. But it turns out that too much food can be nearly as big a problem as too little — a lesson we should keep in mind as we set about designing a new approach to food policy.  Continued:  

Michael Pollan, a contributing writer for the magazine, is the Knight Professor of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author, most recently, of “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.”

Posted:  TrueHealthIsTrueWealth

Permalink:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

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Michael Pollan Answers Readers’ Questions

Please go to http://change.gov and urge President Elect Obama to select Michael Pollan for the Secretary of Agriculture... Farmer in Chief.

Michael says he doesn't want the job, but could probably be convinced.  And this would be a real and positive Change!