Mike Adams
Natural News
May 24, 2012
(NaturalNews) In a stunning and completely unannounced move, US Senator Rand Paul — who many agree represents the best hope for the restoration of liberty in America — has introduced an amendment to a key FDA funding bill that seeks to sharply rein in the FDA’s power. It would disarm the FDA and make the agency stop using guns against the American people; it would halt the FDA’s armed raids on raw milk farmers; it would also stop the FDA’s outrageous and longstanding censorship of truthful health claims of dietary supplements and medicinal herbs.
This is a big deal. While it may not pass, given its sudden introduction and lack of enough time to build grassroots support, the very fact that U.S. Senator Rand Paul has introduced such an amendment is proof positive that Rand Paul is exactly the kind of leader that can help take our nation out of the age of government tyranny and censorship and into a new era of transparency, accountability and liberty. Ending the FDA’s unconstitutional censorship of truthful health claims could, without question, help prevent disease and greatly reduce the out-of-control health care costs that are bankrupting America.
Here is the full text of the announcement from Sen. Rand Paul’s website:
Sen. Rand Paul’s press release
Today on the U.S. Senate floor, Sen. Rand Paul introduced an amendment to the Food and Drug Administration User Fee Reauthorization bill, which would curb the Food and Drug Associations overreach and abuse of power. Sen. Paul’s amendment, No. 2143, would disarm the FDA, put an end to raids on natural food stores and Amish farmers, and stop FDA censorship of truthful claims of dietary supplements.
Below is the video and transcript of his speech, as well as top-line points and background information regarding Sen. Paul’s amendment.
Watch a video of his speech at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT8waPM9yYw
ACTION ITEM: Post your comments in support of this on YouTube! We need to hammer YouTube with positive comments from people demanding health freedom and the end of FDA tyranny.
TRANSCRIPT:
President, today I’m offering an amendment to the FDA. I’m troubled by images of armed agents raiding Amish farms and preventing them selling milk directly from the cow. I think we have bigger problems in our country than sending armed FDA agents into peaceful farmers’ land and telling them they can’t sell milk directly from the cow.
My amendment has three parts. First, it attempts to stop the FDA’s overzealous regulations of vitamins, food and supplements by codifying the first amendment prohibition on prior restraint. What do I mean by that?
The first amendment says you can’t prevent speech, even commercial speech, in advance of the speech. You can’t tell cheerios that they can’t say there’s a health benefit to their Cheerios. Under our current FDA laws, FDA says if you want to market prune juice, you can’t say that it cures constipation.
You can’t make a health claim about a food supplement or about a vitamin, you can do it about a pharmaceutical, but you’re not allowed to do it about a health supplement.
I think this should change. There have been several court cases that show this goes against not only the spirit but the letter of the law of the First Amendment. So this amendment would change that.
This amendment would stop the FDA from censoring claims about curative, mitigative effects of dietary supplements. It would also stop the FDA from prohibiting distribution of scientific articles and publications regarding the role of nutrients in protecting against disease.
Despite four court orders condemning the practice as a violation of the First Amendment, the FDA continues to suppress consumers’ right to be informed and to make informed choices by denying them this particular information. It’s time for Congress to put an end to FDA censorship.
Second, my amendment would disarm the FDA.
Now, some of you might be surprised the FDA is armed. Well, you shouldn’t be.
We have nearly 40 federal agencies that are armed. I’m not against having police, I’m not against the army, the military, the FBI, but I think bureaucrats don’t need to be carrying weapons and I think what we ought to do, is if there is a need for an armed policeman to be there, the FBI who are trained to do this should do it. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to be arming bureaucrats to go on the farm to, with arms, to stop people from selling milk from a cow.
I think we have too many armed federal agencies, and that we need to put an end to this. Criminal law seems to be increasing, increasingly is using a tool of our government bureaucracy to punish and control honest businessmen for simply attempting to make a living.
Historically the criminal law was intended to punish only the most horrible offenses that everyone agreed were inherently wrong or evil, offenses like rape, murder, theft, arson – but now we’ve basically federalized thousands of activities and called them crimes.
If bureaucrats need to involve the police, let’s have them use the FBI, but I see no reason to have the FDA carrying weapons.
Today the criminal law is used to punish behavior such as even fishing without a permit, packaging a product incorrectly or shipping something with an improper label.
Simply said, the federal government’s gone too far.
The plain language of our Constitution specifies very few federal crimes. In fact, the Constitution originally only had four federal crimes and now we have thousands of federal crimes.
We’ve moved beyond the original intent of the Constitution. We don’t even know or have a complete list of all the federal crimes. It’s estimated there are over 4,000, but no one has an exact number.
Finally, my amendment will require adequate mens rea protection. In other words, when you have a crime, you’re supposed to prove the intent. People have to have intended to harm someone, it can’t be an honest mistake where a businessman or woman have broken a regulation and didn’t intend to harm someone. If you want to convict someone of a crime and put them in jail, it should be a mens rea requirement.
This is something we have had for hundreds of years, it comes out of our common-law tradition.
This amendment would fix this problem by strengthening the mens rea component of each of the prohibited acts and the FDA acts by including the words “knowing” and “willful” before we address and accuse someone of a crime.
This I think would give protection to folks who are guilty of inadvertently guilty of breaking a regulation and would keep from overflowing our jails. We’ve got plenty of violent criminals without putting people in for honest breaches of regulations. If Congress is going to criminalize conduct at the federal level as it does with the FDA act, the least it can do have is have an adequate mens rea requirement. My amendment will attempt to do this.
It’s not that we won’t have rules at the federal level, but the rules ought to be reasonable. We ought to allow people to market vitamins. There’s no earthly reason why somebody who markets prune juice can’t advertise it helps with constipation.
We’ve gone too far, and we’ve abrogated the First Amendment and what we need to do is tell the FDA that the courts have ruled that the First Amendment does apply to commercial speech and the FDA has been overstepping their bounds.
TOP-LINE POINTS
Paul Amendment #2143 to S. 3187, the Prescription Drug User Fee Act
Part I: Health Freedom Act -
The amendment forces the FDA to at last comply with the commands of Congress, the First Amendment, numerous federal courts, and the American people by codifying the First Amendment prohibition on prior restraint.
Stops the FDA from censoring truthful claims about the curative, mitigative, or preventative effects of dietary supplements.
Stops the FDA from prohibiting the distribution of scientific articles and publications regarding the role of nutrients in protecting against disease.
Amends the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) to deem a food to be misbranded only when its label includes a claim adjudicated to be false and/or misleading.
Part II: Prohibitions on FDA Officials Carrying Firearms and Making Arrests Without Warrants
This section disarms FDA agents (and any and all employees of HHS).
Background:
The plain language of our Constitution specifies a very limited number of federal crimes. These include treason,[1] counterfeiting,[2] piracy or felonies on the high seas,[3] and offenses against the laws of nations.[4]
Yet today, we have over 4,450 criminal offenses in our federal statutes alone. This number does not include the thousands of criminal offenses scattered throughout federal regulations.
In order to enforce all these crimes, we’ve armed our federal agencies, and there are now over 30 federal agencies that have employees authorized to carry firearms and use them.
This cycle of criminalizing everything at the federal level and then arming all of our federal agencies needs to stop.
Recent FDA armed raids of Amish dairy farmers selling “raw” milk directly from the cow present high-profile examples of why we need to have fewer armed federal agents (and fewer federal crimes).
Part III: Mens Rea Component/Reform -
This section amends the “Prohibited acts” section of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 USC SS 331) to strengthen the mens rea (“guilty mind”) component of each of the prohibited acts. It adds the words “knowing and willful” to each of the prohibitions.
Background:
In 2010, the Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers conducted a study and issued a report regarding the problem of not only the massive proliferation of federal criminal law in general, but particularly the erosion of any meaningful mens rea (“guilty mind”) component to these federal laws.
This report-Without Intent: How Congress Is Eroding the Criminal Intent Requirement in Federal Law-found that over 57% of the offenses considered by the 109th Congress alone contained inadequate mens rea requirements, putting the innocent at risk of criminal punishment. The study also discovered consistently poor legislative drafting and broad delegation of Congress’s authority to make criminal laws to unelected officials in administrative agencies-”criminalization by regulation.”
If Congress is going to criminalize conduct at the federal level as it does in the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, then the least it can do is include an adequate mens rea component.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Me
Blog Archive
-
▼
2012
(1340)
-
▼
May
(135)
- Not So Fast Romney - You Don't Have What it Takes ...
- Chemtrail Sickness is an Inside Joke to the Elite
- Obama In Kenya: I Am So Proud To Come Back Home
- What Is Cognitive Dissonance? Obama Donates Nobel ...
- FACEBOOK AND COCA COLA BEHIND RFID !
- Reality Check Texas didn't secure Mitt Romney the ...
- Bloomberg Seeks To Ban 'Big Gulp' Sizes of Soda - ...
- Investigators stunned by child dismemberment
- Why Does The Mainstream Media Ignore The Bilderber...
- FOGGY MOUNTAIN BREAKDOWN - FLATT & SCRUGGS
- Fuel - Shimmer (live) best version*
- Is This Just a Ride?
- New Big Brother Cyber Weapon Can Turn on Your Comp...
- SOUTH BEACH CANNIBAL - "Like a scene from a Horror...
- House To Vote On Ron Paul Bill To Audit The Federa...
- Human Foot Mailed To Canada Politicians
- Drones Shot Down Over Texas
- Al-Qaeda Terrorists Airlifted From Libya to Aid Sy...
- Beware July 10, 2012 Fukushima Webbot Prediction
- Ron Paul versus Barack Obama, on Weed
- 70 Non-Violent Inmates Released After Dozens of Pr...
- Flesh-Eating Bacteria - IllumiatiI Card Game Shows...
- Gun Control in Australia - Watch and Weep
- Obama Twice Mistakenly Mentions ‘My Sons,' While D...
- A User's Guide To Smoking Pot With Barack Obama
- Nazareth - "Holiday"
- Buddy Guy playing Cream & Hendrix & Hooker
- Australians Face Huge Fines For Speaking Ill Of Ne...
- 'Facebook terrorism' fuels murder mafia in Syria
- Monsanto buys leading bee research firm after bein...
- Stephen king's IT (1990) Part 1 HD
- London Olympics 2012 Illuminati Card Game NWO Zion...
- Obama won't apologize for deadly raid in Pakistan ...
- US Senator Rand Paul offers surprise amendment to ...
- Florida Judge Rules Motorists May Flash Headlights...
- After the Bullfight
- Jennifer Love Hewitt
- Penn's Obama Rant
- Obama impeachment bill now in Congress
- Dead Alien Discovered In Chile?
- Hepatitis B Vaccine Linked to Onset of Diabetes
- Revolt Against Vaccines Leads to Mass Exodus From ...
- Bluebeam Scheduled for 2012 Olympics?
- New York Bill Outlaws Internet Political Speech
- 47% Favor Legalizing Pot, Cocaine To Reduce Border...
- Timeshift: Did Reality Reset After 911?
- What If Zimmerman Walks Free?
- No Smoking
- "If you do not get out of America by July 1st, YOU...
- Student faces suspension for shaved image of Matt ...
- "If I wanted America to fail"
- Paul power takes over state GOP convention
- News You Need To Know [Episode 1] Vaccines/Researc...
- From 2010 - Kenyan official: Obama born here + K...
- Evidence Obama Born In Kenya Goes Beyond 1991 Broc...
- Kelly Brook reveals her assets
- The Doors-Riders on the Storm - OKC Thunder in L.A...
- Ghost Stories- Railroad Spirits
- Officer Andrew Blomberg cries in Court apparently ...
- Pushing back against tyranny: Judge rules indefini...
- Obama Said He Was Born in Kenya Up Until 2007!
- Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down
- The next false flag attack: A fake assassination a...
- Secret rogue planet may be hiding behind Neptune
- etta james I'd Rather Go Blind
- This is Your Brain on Tapeworms
- Scorpions - Wind Of Change (From "Moment Of Glory")
- Jon Butcher - Wishes
- zz top- blue jean blues
- EVERYONE NEEDS TO SEE THIS : OBAMA'S DRONES WAR ON...
- Bilderberg Group/Trilateral commission upset about...
- Sugar Makes You Stupid: UCLA Study Shows High-Fruc...
- Ron Paul Not Suspending Campaign, It is a Media Hoax
- Tex Calls For Compulsory Birth Control For The Dut...
- Bilderberg Scheme To Save The Euro
- Open Borders: Fast and Furious
- Kelly Thomas Beating Video
- Feinstein: Get Ready for More Aggressive Molestati...
- BREAKING NEWS: Oklahoma GOP Cheating Ron Paul In D...
- After complaints about "illegal" activity, Ron Pau...
- Unsolved Mysteries - Face on Mars
- Obama to Start a Race War?
- DHS Whistleblower: Obama Will Commit Reichstag Eve...
- Rodney Dangerfield March 1995 (Leno)
- Doctor of Death to Strike Chicago?
- Soldiers and Heroin
- Cop boots pregnant woman in stomach; Dept. says it...
- 2012 Secret Revealed: Mass Bio-Terror Pandemic By ...
- Obama agency rules Pepsi’s use of aborted fetal ce...
- Was Zimmerman Purposely Overcharged?
- Obama Gets Something Right - Gay Marriage
- Political Advise for the Obama Campaign
- VW and Ford makes Cars that get 75 MPG - U.S. gove...
- Hoover Dam expected to be the next 9/11
- Only Eyewitness to Breitbart’s Death Disappears
- TSA Agent Whacks Congressman in the Testicles - Or...
- Underwear Bomber 2: Return of The Patsy
- Obama - the professor of Keynesian economics
- Obama & the planned racial divide
- Paul Wins Nevada and Maine Despite Sabotage Effort...
-
▼
May
(135)
2 comments:
This amendment makes total sense. Thanks for posting this Tex.
Hi Diane.
Yeah you know something is wrong when the government harasses peaceful people minding their own business.
Almost sounds like I was talking about non-violent drug offenders instead of milk.
Possession of milk with intent to distribute.
They might charge the cow with manufacture of milk.
Post a Comment