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Monday, August 6, 2018

FAKE NEWS exposed: Media attacks Trump over pesticides and GMOs on wildlife refuges, but nobody links to the memo (here’s why)

08/05/2018 / By 

During the Obama era, the entire fake news media completely ignored the problem of GMOs and neocotinoid pesticides that devastate honey bee colonies. Suddenly under Trump, however, GMOs and pesticides have been weaponized by the fake news media to claim Trump will destroy the environment. The latest assault comes from a wave of extremely deceptive, misleading stories that now claim the Trump administration has reversed an Obama-era regulatory decision that banned the use of neonics and GMOs on national wildlife refuge lands. Yet a Natural News investigation finds that none of the media’s stories link to the memo in question, violating a basic rule of journalism.
Stunningly, no media organization links to the memo. Once you review the memo, you’ll discover why. In this story (below), we link to both the original 2014 memo as well as the 2018 memo that’s now being attacked. As you’ll see here, the use of GMOs outlined in both memos is practically identical.
Now you know why the fake news media refused to link to the memo. Reuters, the Huffington Post, Common Dreams, AlterNet, Yahoo News and thousands of newspapers and local media outlets are citing the claim of a non-profit that says they read a memo from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They claim the memo completely reverses the Obama-era pesticide ban. But a factual reading of the two memos (one from 2014, one from 2018) shows this interpretation to be highly inaccurate, if not deliberately deceptive.
For the record, this news organization is strongly opposed to both GMOs and synthetic chemical pesticides. In fact, we have been the trailblazers on these topics, even in the face of over a decade of denials by the fake news media which remains wildly uninformed about the real science on these topics. We are committed to ending the practice of poisoning our world with GMOs and pesticides… and we’re also committed to honest journalism, which is why we’ve fact-checked this story and found the media to be engaged in blatant deception, all for political reasons as you’ll see below.

Read the two memos yourself and see what the media won’t tell you

Here are the links to the memos that nobody in the fake news media bothered to post or link to:
Fish and Wildlife Service 2014 memo – “Use of Agricultural Practices in Wildlife Management in the National Wildlife Refuge System”
Fish and Wildlife Service 2018 memo – “Withdrawal of Memorandum Titled, ‘Use of Agricultural Practices in Wildlife Management in the National Wildlife Refuge System'”
The original 2014 memo, which is reported to have banned the use of neonicotinoids and GMOs across national wildlife refuges, states, “By January 2016, we will no longer use neonicotinoid pesticides in agricultural practices used in the System.”
However, the original 2014 memo states that there will be exceptions granted on a case-by-case basis, stating, “There can be appropriate and specialized uses of neonicotinoid pesticides and decisions for those uses in the Service are subject to review through all applicable laws, regulations and policies including, but not limited to, the National Environmental Policy Act.”
In other words, the memo says the government should stop using neonics, but backtracks and says they can be approved on a case-by-base basis, subject to review.
On the issue of GMOs, the original 2014 memo states, “we will phase out the use of genetically modified crops to feed wildlife,” but then explains GMOs will be allowed on a case-by-base basis as well:
Agricultural practices are sometimes used in habitat restoration and the techniques are variable for different locations, therefore, we will consider whether the temporary use of genetically modified crops in habitat restoration is essential on a case-by-case basis.
In other words, the 2014 memo that is widely described in the media as banning GMOs and neonicotinoids actually allowed their use on a case-by-case basis, across all of America’s wildlife refuges.
Now, let’s examine what the 2018 memo actually says. This is the memo being widely reported by the media as reversing the ban on GMOs and neonicotinoid pesticides.
First, the memo clearly agrees that phasing out GMOs and neonics is the right thing to do is certain cases, stating, “In some cases the phasing out of those practices was appropriate and expedient.”
The memo goes on to state that the decision about whether to use GMO crop seeds should be up to the local refuge managers rather than enacting a nationwide ban: “A blanket denial of GMOs does not provide on-the-ground latitude for refuge managers to work adaptively and make field level decisions about the best manner to fulfill the purposes of the refuge.”
The memo goes on to state that new decisions about GMOs will be reviewed “on a case-by-case basis, in compliance with all relevant and controlling legal authorities.”
So wait. Stop the presses. The original 2014 memo that “banned GMOs,” we’re told, said that the use of GMO crops would be allowed on a “case-by-case basis,” under review of all applicable laws. And today, the new 2018 memo that we’re told “reverses the original memo” says that the use of GMO crops will also be allowed on a “case-by-case basis” pending review over compliance with existing legal authorities.
These positions sound nearly identical.
Yet Defenders of Wildlife, the non-profit group that sounded the alarm over the memo, claims the new memo is an “abrupt change in policy.”
Defenders of Wildlife brazenly lies about the memos, claiming that reviewing GMOs on a case-by-case basis will, “place an undue burden on already understaffed refuges.” But the original 2014 memo also required case-by-case review under existing law, and nobody raised the alarm in 2014.
It bring up the obvious question? Did anyone in the news media bother to actually read the memos? Or did they just take the interpretation of Defenders of Wildlife as “fact,” without any actual fact-checking whatsoever?

Neonicotinoid pesticide use to also be decided on a case-by-case basis, just as before

The 2018 memo also says that use of neonicotinoid pesticides “should also be decided on a case-by-case basis, in compliance with all the appropriate authorities noted above.”
Again, the 2018 memo and the 2014 memo are essentially identical in their actual positions, both stating that GMOs and neonics can be used across National Wildlife Refuges on a “case-by-case basis.”
In other words, the claim that the 2014 memo banned GMOs, while the 2018 memo reversed the ban, is very fake news. Both memos allow the use of both GMOs and neonics on a case-by-case basis, and both memos require review. Thus, the Defenders of Wildlife claim that the Trump administration is placing a new “undue burden” on wildlife refuge mangers is a blatant lie.
Now we know why nobody in the media linked to the two memos.

Nobody in the media bothered to read the memo

Here at Natural News, we’ve fought the fake news media for 15 years, publishing the truth about the toxicity of GMOs and pesticides, all while being attacked, censored and slandered by the very same media that’s now using the issue to attack the Trump administration.
So we attempted to find a news story that linked to the memo being quoted by Defenders of Wildlife. Guess what? Nobody linked to it, and nobody quoted from it.
In fact, we checked Reuters. They didn’t link to it.
We checked the Huffington Post. No link to any memo.
We checked Yahoo News. It was just a regurgitation of the Reuters story, with no new links or sources.
We checked The Guardian. They didn’t link to the memo, either.
We checked Common Dreams. Again, no link, no memo, no document, no nothing.
We even went to The Hill, which claimed that the Trump administration “reverses rule that banned pesticides use in wildlife refuges.” In the second paragraph, The Hill pretends to link to “an internal memo posted online,” but the link, to no one’s surprise, doesn’t work. In fact, it’s a link to somebody’s local file on their C: drive, which of course doesn’t work on the ‘net. Go figure.
When I checked the National Wildlife Refuge Association non-profit website, I did find something related: A press release entitled, “President Signs the “Keep America’s Refuges Operational Act” into Law. (See the PDF here.) That document explains:
H.R.3979, the Keep America’s Refuges Operational Act (KARO) of 2017, was signed into law by President Trump yesterday evening, after being passed by the Senate on April 9th and the House in December. Both chambers of Congress passed this bill by voice vote, meaning it passed without opposition. The bill reauthorizes the Volunteer and Community Partnership Act, allowing continued access to the public for recreational and volunteering opportunities on wildlife refuges through 2022.
Don’t you find it interesting that all these fake news organizations claim to report what the memo says, but none of them link to the memos in question? That’s because if you read the 2014 and 2018 memos, their positions aren’t all that different.
In truth, both the Obama and Trump administrations are filled with pro-Monsanto deep state swamp creatures, and these people continue to push GMOs, pesticides and other toxins that are murdering the ecosystem and poisoning our food. Obama didn’t do a single thing to push for the labeling of GMOs, the banning of pesticides or honest public disclosure about the “science” of pesticides invoked by the corrupt USDA and EPA. In fact, under Obama, the EPA approved all sorts of toxic pesticides for use across the human food supply.
Those pretending that Obama was anti-GMO are engaged in a twisted, demented form of revisionist history. Obama was pro-GMO and Clinton was so deeply in bed with Monsanto that she actually served as an attorney for the corporation. Sadly, the pro-GMO swamp bureaucrats continue to wield power within the Trump administration, where RINO Republicans are deeply in bed with Bayer / Monsanto, Syngenta and other poison pushers.
Trump hasn’t done anything to fight against Monsanto, either, but he’s too busy fighting against the Russia collusion hoax that was fabricated by the corrupt deep state to try to overthrow the results of a U.S. election. It’s kind of hard to fight GMOs when you’re fighting for survival in the White House.

Nobody in the media conducted basic fact checking on this story

As it turns out, everybody across the entire fake news media simply relied on the Defenders of Wildlife claim about the memo without linking to it themselves. They all reported stories that utterly failed to cite any memo or link to any memo, and their reporting was stilted and utterly lacked the contextual reporting that’s required in honest journalism.
Shouldn’t an honest news organization post the memo so that their own readers can read it? Apparently, nobody in the media cares about the basic rules of journalism anymore. “Facts” are whatever the lynch mob says they are. Even worse, the public instantly believes the headlines even though zero fact-checking has taken place at Reuters, Huffington Post, Common Dreams, etc.
This is beyond sloppy journalism. It smacks of the very same tidal wave of very fake news the media has been directing at the Trump administration from day one. Think about it: If we reported this story without linking to the memo, we would be accused of publishing “fake news,” right? So why is it okay for Reuters, The Hill, the Huffington Post, Yahoo News and everybody else to report this story without a single link to the memo they claim says all this?

The media doesn’t care about GMOs or pesticides unless the topic can be weaponized to attack Trump; and nobody cares about facts anymore

As you know, Natural News is strongly opposed to both GMOs and neonicotinoid pesticides, but what we’ve observed in attempting to cover this story is that:
#1) Nobody in the fake news media does any fact checking anymore. Not one news source has published the “memo” in question, and no news organization is linking to any memo except, apparently, Natural News.
#2) Facts don’t matter to the media anymore. What matters is whether they can use the issue to attack Trump.
#3) The media doesn’t care at all about poisoning wildlife with GMOs or pesticides. The media remains 100% pro-Monsanto, pro-Bayer, pro-Syngenta, etc. The media maintains a nationwide blackout on the March Against Monsanto, for example. Anyone who opposes GMOs is widely branded “anti-science,” and nobody in the media cared about any of this until Trump became President.
The next time you see a sensational headline from Reuters, Huffington Post, Yahoo News, The Hill or any other fake news establishment rag, check the story for a link to the document it claims to be citing. As we found out today, nobody has any link to it. And that leads me to believe very few news organizations even read the memo.
And that’s exactly why nobody trusts the fake news media anymore.
You see, it turns out that any non-profit can fabricate anything they want that makes Trump look bad. It will be heavily repeated across the media — whether it’s true or not — simply because it’s anti-Trump. Don’t pretend for a minute that anyone in the media cares one iota about the toxicity of GMOs or pesticides, because they’ve been conspiring to cover up that truth for decades.
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