14 United States Governors : Prepare State Militia Defenses, To Be Ready Against Obama’s Rogue Federal Forces!

March 27, 2012

The Blade Report

By TBR

“Could this be the start of a real US revolution?” –KTRN

Obama fearing a revolution against him by the states, has moved swiftly by nationalizing nearly all National Guard Forces in multiple states; Georgia, Alabama, Kansas, Minnesota, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, South Carolina – to name a few. The Governors of the Great States of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia still have under their Command-and-Control the State Defense Forces to go against U.S. Federal forces should the need arise. Also important to note: There are NO U.S. laws prohibiting National Guard troops from also joining their State’s Defense Forces. This dilemma occurred during the Civil War with many “citizen soldiers” choosing to serve their states instead of the Federal Government.

Obama is angered by the several State Governors who have reestablished “State Defense Forces.” These forces are described as: “State Defense Forces (also known as State Guards, State Military Reserves, State Militias) in the United States are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government; they are not regulated by the National Guard Bureau nor are they part of the Army National Guard of the United States. State Defense Forces are authorized by state and federal law and are under the command of the governor of each state. State Defense Forces are distinct from their state’s National Guard in that they cannot become federal entities.”

Mr. Obama is fearful of these State Defense Forces, in that he does not have control of said forces, and with the U.S. Military stretched to near breaking from multiple deployments and theatre actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, these State military forces would be under the direct command and authority of the Governors in which states have said forces. In essence, the Governors would have “de facto control” of the United States.

Click here for the full report.

Recession is Causing Towns to Stop Polluting Water Supply with Fluoride

September 17, 2010

Information Liberation

By Chris

Who said the recession is all bad? On the bright side, it’s forcing some towns to stop adding fluoride to their water supplies. A small town in Alabama has decided to stop fluoridating their water due to economic reasons, they say it will save them 50k a year.

“I guess we wound up saving about 50-thousand dollars a year in the production of our water, and we’re a small system so 50-thousand dollars a year is a big savings,” said Joe Beasley, Red Bay Water and Gas Department.

Apparently, they actually looked at the science, so perhaps they felt the recession was as good an excuse as ever to stop force drugging everyone.

“They had officials look at several studies and never found any evidence that supported keeping the fluoride in the water.”

The Montgomery Advertiser reports 18 other water systems in Alabama have also put their forced drugging program on hold.

Goode said that unlike some states that mandate by legislation that public water systems add fluoride to their water, Alaba ma does not.

“Water systems may decide to discon tinue fluoridating, which is a concern for the department and the communities.”

Yes, what a terrible tragedy that the government doesn’t mandate by law people’s own tax money be used to forcibly drug their water supplies.

He told the members of the committee that the state might be “losing the battle on fluoridation.”

Williamson said that the economy might be causing some systems to decide that it is too costly to maintain the equip ment that provides the fluoride, or they have done away with the service all together.

“That’s a problem,” he said.

A problem for the state, yes. A problem for the people, no.

There is absolutely no evidence fluoride helps anyone, in fact, the opposite is true. To quote from an excellent exposé:

The history of forcing fluoride on humans through the fluoridation of drinking water is wrought with lies, greed and deception. Governments that add fluoride to drinking water supplies insist that it is safe, beneficial and necessary, however, scientific evidence shows that fluoride is not safe to ingest and areas that fluoridate their drinking water supplies have higher rates of cavities, cancer, dental fluorosis, osteoporosis and other health problems. Because of the push from the aluminum industry, pharmaceutical companies and weapons manufacturers, fluoride continues to be added to water supplies all over North America and due to recent legal actions against water companies that fluoridate drinking water supplies, precedent has been set that will make it impossible for suits to be filed against water suppliers that fluoridate. There is a growing resistance against adding toxic fluoride to our water supplies, but unfortunately, because fluoride has become “the lifeblood of the modern industrial economy”(Bryson 2004), there is too much money at stake for those who endorse water fluoridation . The lies of the benefits of water fluoridation will continue to be fed to the public, not to encourage health benefits to a large number of people, but to profit the military-industrial complex. - The Fluoride Conspiracy

A chronicle of the abuse of power and of the manufacture of state sponsored medical propaganda, The Fluoride Deception reveals how military and industry scientists and public health officials buried information about fluoride’s potential for harm, while promoting its use in dentistry.

The book reveals that fluoride pollution was the greatest legal threat facing the Manhattan Project and how a group of powerful Cold War industries, who all faced extensive litigation for fluoride pollution, collaborated with officials from the National Institutes of Dental Research, laundering fluoride’s public image.

We’ll sit with the famous doctor who reported in the 1950′s that fluoride was a systemic poison, with tens of thousands of citizens uniquely sensitive to even tiny doses. We’ll walk the cobbled streets of Donora, Pennsylvania, in the aftermath of the nation’s most notorious air pollution disaster in 1948, and meet the scientist who blamed fluoride for the deaths. And, when a superstar toxicologist is fired in 1995, after discovering that fluoride affects the central nervous system, we’ll uncover a stunning connection to the WWII atomic bomb program. Today that scientist joins a growing number of health experts who call fluoride a venomous and hydra-headed poison. They suspect its involvement in a host of modern illnesses, including arthritis, bone cancer, and emphysema, and a spectrum of central nervous system disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and attention deficit disorder.

Click Here For Full Report

What’s Happening to the Oil in the Gulf?

September 17, 2010

Washington’s Blog

BP and the government decided that millions of gallons of dispersants should be dumped into the Gulf to sink and hide the oil.

They succeeded in sinking it. As ABC, CBS and NPR note, huge quantities of oil are blanketing the ocean floor, killing virtually all of the sealife which lives there.

And giant new underwater plumes have been found in the water column itself.

But officials don’t want to hear about them. As one member of the oil spill recovery team said:

“My biggest concern is there’s [a plume of oil] five miles by 30 miles out there that was reported and no one responded. The Coast Guard said for days that they wanted to run tests, and if they don’t test it when it’s called in, they’ll never find it”

But didn’t the oil-eating microbes eat alot of the oil? No … they mainly ate gas.

And the oil is not staying underwater.Oil is suddenly emerging in many parts of the Gulf.

Oil “patties”, 1 to 3 inches across, have been discovered floating along the seawall in Alabama.

16 miles of beaches in Louisiana have been hit. And scientists say that the oil will arise and wash ashore in pulses, and will hit sensitive areas like coastal marshes.

As the Christian Science Monitor notes, oil can remain hidden under sand for decades:

Yet it takes only minutes of digging into the sand [at Louisiana's Grand Isle State Park] to reveal a menace that experts say permanently threatens this picturesquelandscape: pools of crude oil lurking less than a foot below the surface. …

Twenty-one years after the Valdez spill, oil remains submerged in the beaches of Prince William Sound in Alaska.

The same is true in Massachusetts’ Buzzards Bay, where a 1969 spill released 175,000 gallons of diesel fuel; 41 years later, sampling shows oil three to eight inches below the land’s surface.

Indeed, workers are just doing cosmetic clean-ups. They are pressure washing rocks with hot water so they look clean, just as they did with the Exxon Valdez spill. And the government’s targets for “cleaning up” beaches is very lax:

John Tarpley, chief scientific support coordinator for NOAA, says the agency’s goal is to clean beaches so they have “1 percent of oil or less.”

Oil that’s left in the environment can also seep into groundwater used for drinking by Gulf coast residents.

As CNN reports, we might be facing a worst-case scenario in Florida:

LARRY MCKINNEY, HARTE RESEARCH INST. FOR GULF OF MEXICO STUDIES: … [T]hey do tend to support some of our greatest concerns about the fate of these underwater plumes that were discovered back in June, and that is that they could be picked up and this conveyor belt that is upwelling in Desoto Canyon and bringing this oil from the deep waters up to the shallow, and thatseems to be what the Florida State folks are saying. …

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR:… [T]he USF study said, quote, “These findings, although preliminary, suggest that subsurface oil may be emerging on to the west Florida shelf through the Desoto Canyon.” So this is not just restricted to the extremely deep water. There’s enough welling as you mentioned before. How widespread could this become?

MCKINNEY: Well, it depends on how big those plumes are and how long they persist, but that conveyer belt moves water rather quickly. And so the fact that the Florida state folks are finding oil up on that shelf at the distance that they’re finding it is disturbing from that regard. That means that that oil plume could be moving up on the shelf and that’s sort of a worst case scenario. We would not like to see that at all.

While the government denies that they are connected with the oil spill, there have beenmassive fishkills in Louisiana (and see this). Oil can be seen at fishkill sites (and see this), and the EPA has discovered high levels of nickel near the biggest fishkill. There have also been kills of starfish and other sea animals, including whales and dolphins:

As I have previously noted, independent scientists state that the EPA’s toxicity tests for the Gulf oil and dispersant were a joke.

And as McClatchy points out, the EPA’s toxicity findings don’t hold up in the real world:

[University of South Florida chemical oceanographer and lead scientist on the mission David Hollander's] team took water samples and fed them to marine plankton in experiments onboard the research vessel in August. Even in greatly diluted form, a lower concentration than what the EPA considers acute toxicity, the oil in the water caused a toxic effect…

The findings raised new questions about what concentrations and what compounds federal scientists should be concerned about, he said. “In spite of the low concentrations, something is in there.”

A marine biologist warns that in a worst-case scenario – the effects on the Gulf could be catastrophic:

[Marine biologist Edith] Widder, senior scientist and CEO at the Ocean Research and Conservation Association, compared the spill to pushing on a light switch. If the switch flips, she said, the rich diversity of species in the Gulf will be replaced by a system in which the only things able to survive are jellyfish and bacteria.

Instead of admitting that there is a problem, BP and the Coast Guard’s spin doctors have come up with code words for oil: instead of “oil sheen”, they call it “fish oil”; instead of “oil mousse”, they call it “algae”. And alot of black oily substances are just labeled “mysteries“.
And fishermen, shrimpers and crabbers are still catching contaminated seafood, although the authorities don’t want to hear about it. And the authorities don’t seem to be thrilled at independent scientists who are finding contamination in seafood, either:

There have also been reports of continuing health problems in Gulf coast residents. See thisand this.

But at least BP has stopped spraying dispersant in the Gulf … right?Unfortunately, numerous vessel of opportunity program participants have said it is still being sprayed (see this and this). And there allegations have been confirmed by chemists and photographers.

Okay, but at least the well has been capped, so that no new oil flows into the Gulf … right?

Its hard to know.

BP has shut off 16 out of 17 of its underwater cameras. The only remaining camera shows a small – but continuous – stream of leaking materials:

There are still problems with the well. See this, this, and this, and Admiral Thad Allen is now saying that the relief well might not be completed until October.

But remember, one of the world’s top oil industry accident experts says that the well maynever be killed.

I hope and pray that the relief well is successful. But if there were insurmountable problems in capping the well, do you think we would hear about it before the November elections?

Radiation Scan Problems Only Noticed When Patients’ Hair Falls Out

July 20, 2010

Natural News

By: David Gutierrez

New concern over lack of regulation in medical radiation has been spurred by a case in which more than 300 patients received excessive levels of radiation, but doctors only uncovered the problem when patients’ hair began to fall out.

The radiation errors occurred at three hospitals in Los Angeles and one in Alabama, during heart tests performed with a special form of computed tomography (CT) scan. Some patients received more than eight times the intended radiation dose.

Since the case became public, there has been a growing call for tighter regulation of diagnostic and therapeutic radiation techniques. The American Society for Radiation Oncology, the country’s foremost radiation oncology association, recently called for new safety measures, including a central database where technicians can report any errors in CT scanners or the linear accelerators that produce medical radiation. The New York Times has printed features documenting the severe health problems that can result from the improper use of medical radiation, especially in women and children.

This concern is made all the more urgent by the ever-growing popularity of diagnostic radiation. Largely because of a vast increase in the use CT scans and similar tests, the average U.S. resident’s lifetime radiation dose has increased to seven times above 1980 levels. Even if no errors occur in any of these tests, harm may still result simply from the overuse of inherently risky procedures.

Congress is investigating why oversight into medical radiation remains so weak in the United States. Many observers have attributed the problem to the lack of a clear regulatory framework, with the New York Times noting that laws and rules designed to protect patients from excessive radiation exposure are weak, unevenly applied, and inconsistent across states and institutions. For example, some states do not even require the reporting of radiation accidents involving medical scanning devices.

“There is a patchwork of licensure and registration across the country,” said David N. Fisher, managing director of the Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance, a manufacturers’ group, “and we believe in setting standards for physicians, physicists, technologists — all sorts of operators, the whole shooting match.”

Although the FDA technically has jurisdiction over all medical devices, it has rarely made use of its authority. Consumer groups have criticized the agency for failing to make manufacturers even perform safety tests before putting radiation scanners or other medical devices on the market.

Spurred in part by the recent scandal, however, the FDA is moving to impose some measure of federal regulation on the use of radioactive imaging machines.

“These types of imaging exams expose patients to ionizing radiation, a type of radiation that can increase a person’s lifetime cancer risk,” the FDA said in a press release. “Accidental exposure to very high amounts of radiation also can cause injuries, such as skin burns, hair loss and cataracts.”

The agency has introduced a three-pronged plan to regulate the use of three radiation scanning devices: CT scans, nuclear medicine studies and fluoroscopies. It is currently considering several options for ways to make devices safer, allow doctors and patients to make informed decisions about their use, and increase patient awareness about the devices’ risks.

The FDA’s effort has been well received by workers in the field.

“I think it is very timely in light of concerns about radiation exposure and the possibility of overexposure,” said James Thrall, chair of the American College of Radiology. “I think it will nudge the industry.”

The Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance has said it supports the FDA’s plan. It is asking the agency to impose mandatory accreditation for all facilities that carry out advanced imaging, and minimum standards for all health workers who use devices that deliver radiation.

click here to read full article

9 States Back Arizona Immigration Law

July 15, 2010

My Way

By: David Runk

States have the authority to enforce immigration laws and protect their borders, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox said Wednesday in a legal brief on behalf of nine states supporting Arizona’s immigration law.

Cox, one of five Republicans running for Michigan governor, said Michigan is the lead state backing Arizona in federal court and is joined by Alabama, Florida, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia, as well as the Northern Mariana Islands.

The Arizona law, set to take effect July 29, directs officers to question people about their immigration status during the enforcement of other laws such as traffic stops and if there’s a reasonable suspicion they’re in the U.S. illegally.

President Barack Obama’s administration recently filed suit in federal court to block it, arguing immigration is a federal issue. The law’s backers say Congress isn’t doing anything meaningful about illegal immigration, so it’s the state’s duty to step up.

“Arizona, Michigan and every other state have the authority to enforce immigration laws, and it is appalling to see President Obama use taxpayer dollars to stop a state’s efforts to protect its own borders,” Cox said in a statement.

Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, in a statement released by Cox’s office, said she was thankful for the support.

In a telephone interview, Cox said the nine states supporting Arizona represents “a lot of states,” considering it was only Monday that he asked other state attorneys general to join him. The brief was filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona on the same day as the deadline for such filings.

“By lawsuit, rather than by legislation, the federal government seeks to negate this preexisting power of the states to verify a person’s immigration status and similarly seeks to reject the assistance that the states can lawfully provide to the Federal government,” the brief states.

The brief doesn’t represent the first time Cox has clashed with the Obama administration. Earlier this year, he joined with more than a dozen other attorneys general to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of federal health care changes signed into law by the Democratic president.

Like with his stance on health care, the immigration brief again puts Cox at odds with Democratic Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Granholm, who can’t seek re-election because of term limits, disagrees with the Arizona law, her press secretary Liz Boyd said. The Michigan primary is less than three weeks away on Aug. 3.

“It’s a patently political ploy in his quest for the Republican nomination for governor,” Boyd said.

click here to read full article

Gulf Coast Skeptical Of Obama’s ‘Plan’

June 15, 2010

My Way

By Brian Skoloff and Matthew Daly

PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (AP) – President Barack Obama promised that life would return to normal for people living on the stricken Gulf Coast, and BP said by the end of the month it would contain more than three times as much oil spewing from a ruptured undersea well.

The pledges didn’t placate some residents.

“I think that as long as BP is still in control, there’s not a lot he can do other than show support for the residents of these Gulf states,” Jennifer Jenkins, 34, of Long Beach, said of Obama.

The president visited Mississippi and Alabama Monday as part of a two-day stop. He sought to assure residents – and the country – that the government will “leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than it was before.” He visits Florida on Tuesday ahead of a national address on the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, which has become a stern test of his presidency.

His trip coincided with BP announcing that it could trap a maximum of roughly 2.2 million gallons of oil daily by the end of June as it deploys additional containment efforts, including a system that could start burning off vast quantities as early as Tuesday.

It also came as documents revealed that BP made a series of money-saving shortcuts and blunders that dramatically increased the danger of a destructive spill from a well that an engineer ominously described as a “nightmare” just six days before the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

Investigators found that BP was badly behind schedule on the project and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars with each passing day, and responded by cutting corners in the well design, cementing and drilling mud efforts and the installation of key safety devices.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released dozens of internal documents that outline several problems on the deep-sea rig in the days and weeks before the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and set in motion the catastrophe. The committee has been investigating.

Click here for the full report.

Oil Could Reach Florida Today

June 2, 2010

PalmBeachPost.com

By Melissa Nelson

A Florida beach might get hit with oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident for the first time Wednesday as sheen likely caused by the accident was reported less than 10 miles off Pensacola Beach.

A charter boat captain reported the oil Tuesday afternoon and state and local environmental officials confirmed that it was about 9.5 miles offshore. Winds are forecast to blow from the south and west, pushing the outer edges of massive slick from the spill closer to western Panhandle beaches.

Emergency crews began Tuesday scouring the beaches for oil and shoring up miles of boom. Escambia County will use it to block oil from reaching inland waterways, but plans to leave beaches unprotected because they are too difficult to protect and easier to clean up.

The spill’s arrival coincides with the beginning of the Panhandle’s summer tourism season, which normally brings millions of dollars to the region.

“It’s inevitable that we will see it on the beaches,” said Keith Wilkins, Escambia’s deputy chief of neighborhood and community services.

The oil has been creeping toward Florida since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and eventually collapsing into the Gulf of Mexico. An estimated 20 million to 40 million gallons of oil has spewed into the Gulf, eclipsing the 11 million that leaked from the Exxon Valdez disaster. The rig was being operated for petroleum giant BP, which has tried unsuccessfully for six week to stanch the oil.

The Florida report followed an orange and oily mess washing up on Alabama’s beaches earlier Tuesday. Crews cleaned up the oil that they described as having the consistency of a “tarry mousse,” but health officials closed the beaches to swimming.

Pensacola Beach officials said their request for about $150,000 from BP to buy sifting machines and a tractor to help remove oil from the beach’s famous white sands has lingered unanswered for more than three weeks. BP has promised it will pay any expenses, but Panhandle officials say the bureaucracy has been slow. Some think the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be running the cleanup operation, not BP.

“We need the sifters and we haven’t gotten them approved yet,” said W.A. “Buck” Lee, Santa Rosa Island Authority’s executive director. “It’s been three weeks and the oil is coming. In my opinion, this entire thing should have been a FEMA project all along. If a hurricane blows the roof off your jail, you shouldn’t have to wait and send a letter to BP to replace the roof on your jail.”

Lee said BP has spent money on public relations, but not on preparations for beach cleanup. The company has provided the sate with $25 million to promote tourism. Escambia approved $700,000 in emergency funding for tourism promotion Tuesday, with another $700,000 to be allocated in 45 days.

Lee said the bureaucratic process set up at the federal staging centers in Alabama and Louisiana have also made it difficult to get information about his pending request.

Coast Guard Chief Peter Capelotti, spokesman for the Mobile, Ala.-based command center, did not have an immediate answer late Tuesday about the delay in approving Escambia county’s request for the tractor and other equipment.

Capelotti said command center officials expect more oil to make landfall in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle through Friday.

On Pensacola Beach, emergency crews are prepared for a long summer of oil clean up. They plan to remove oil in cycles after it is pushed onshore and the winds shift. Removing oil while it’s moving onshore doesn’t make sense, Wilkins said.

“It would be like trying to go out and clean up in the middle of a hurricane,” he said. “We will wait until after the bands make their way onshore and the weather shifts and then we will clean up before the next band hits.”

Click here for the full report.

Kevin Comes to Sweet Home Alabama!

April 14, 2010 – CHICAGO, IL – The Kevin Trudeau show is proud to announce that starting April 17th, it will be airing on WFEB 1340 AM in Sylacauga and April 18th, on WFPA 1400 AM in Fort Payne.

You can find Kevin on WFEB on Saturdays from 10am – 12pm and on WFPA on Sundays from noon – 3pm.

Listeners have compared Kevin Trudeau’s radio show to the best parts of Michael Savage, Howard Stern, Art Bell, John Tesh and Rush Limbaugh.

Mr. Trudeau is one of the most read authors of all time. His books have all been best sellers and have sold over 30 million copies globally. Mr. Trudeau’s most controversial book, Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About was number 1 on the New York Times best sellers list for 26 weeks in a row becoming the best selling health book of all time.

The Kevin Trudeau Radio Show originates from studios at Trudeau’s World Headquarters in Chicago. For information regarding affiliate relations visit http://www.kevinonair.com/

Congressman Switches Sides Over Health Care & Policy

December 23, 2009

ABC News

By Jay Reeves

A U.S. House Democrat who opposes the health care overhaul announced Tuesday he is defecting to the GOP, another blow to Democrats ahead of the midterm elections.

U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith spoke to reporters at his home in northern Alabama, a region that relies heavily on defense and aerospace jobs.

“I believe our nation is at a crossroads and I can no longer align myself with a party that continues to pursue legislation that is bad for our country, hurts our economy, and drives us further and further into debt,” Griffith said as his wife Virginia stood by his side.

The 67-year-old radiation oncologist was narrowly elected last year in a district that includes Huntsville and Decatur. President Barack Obama lost badly there to Republican John McCain.

Griffith also slammed the health care overhaul making its way through Congress. He was one of 39 House Democrats to vote against a version of the bill that narrowly passed.

“I want to make it perfectly clear that this bill is bad for our doctors,” he said. “It’s bad for our patients. It’s bad for the young men and women who are considering going into the health care field.”

He said after the press conference that his defection had nothing to do with concerns about whether he could win re-election as a Democrat. He also said he had not talked to any fellow Democrats about switching parties along with him.

“If they do, I hope it’s on conviction and not politics,” he said.

Alabama Democrats defended Griffith against GOP claims that he was soft on terrorism during the 2008 election, and the head of the state party said he is disappointed by Griffith’s defection now.

“Democrats of every stripe and philosophy sweated and bled for this man,” said Joe Turnham, chairman of the state party. “He narrowly became a congressman through the hard work, votes and financial contributions of thousands of Democrats. Today, they feel betrayed.”

Turnham said Griffith should return money to Democratic donors — something the congressman said he would be happy to do.

Griffith had accumulated one of the most conservative voting records of any House Democrat. He was one of seven Democrats to oppose Obama’s economic stimulus measure early this year and also voted against an anti-global warming bill pushed strongly by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Democrats will hold 257 House seats to the GOP’s 178 after Griffith’s switch.

Several veteran House moderates have announced their retirements next year, giving Republicans hopes of picking up a significant number of seats in the November elections.

Jim Spearman, executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party, said the switch “shouldn’t come as a surprise” with the way Griffith voted.

“We will be working strongly to put a Democrat in there,” Spearman said.

Click here for the full report.

Mississippi’s Still Fattest But Alabama Closing In

July 1, 2009

Associated Press

by Lauran Neergaard

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mississippi’s still king of cellulite, but an ominous tide is rolling toward the Medicare doctors in neighboring Alabama: obese baby boomers.

It’s time for the nation’s annual obesity rankings and, outside of fairly lean Colorado, there’s little good news. Obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year and didn’t decline anywhere, says a new report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

And while the nation has long been bracing for a surge in Medicare as the boomers start turning 65, the new report makes clear that fat, not just age, will fuel much of those bills. In every state, the rate of obesity is higher among 55- to 64-year-olds — the oldest boomers — than among today’s 65-and-beyond.

That translates into a coming jump of obese Medicare patients that ranges from 5.2 percent in New York to a high of 16.3 percent in Alabama, the report concluded. In Alabama, nearly 39 percent of the oldest boomers are obese.

Health economists once made the harsh financial calculation that the obese would save money by dying sooner, notes Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust, a nonprofit public health group. But more recent research instead suggests they live nearly as long but are much sicker for longer, requiring such costly interventions as knee replacements and diabetes care and dialysis. Studies show Medicare spends anywhere from $1,400 to $6,000 more annually on health care for an obese senior than for the non-obese.

“There isn’t a magic bullet. We don’t have a pill for it,” said Levi, whose group is pushing for health reform legislation to include community-level programs that help people make healthier choices — like building sidewalks so people can walk their neighborhoods instead of drive, and providing healthier school lunches.

“It’s not going to be solved in the doctor’s office but in the community, where we change norms,” Levi said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has long said that nearly a third of Americans are obese. The Trust report uses somewhat more conservative CDC surveys for a closer state-by-state look. Among the findings:

_Mississippi had the highest rate of adult obesity, 32.5 percent, for the fifth year in a row.

_Three additional states now have adult obesity rates above 30 percent, including Alabama, 31.2 percent; West Virginia, 31.1 percent; and Tennessee, 30.2 percent.

_Colorado had the lowest rate of obese adults, at 18.9 percent, followed by Massachusetts, 21.2 percent; and Connecticut, 21.3 percent.

_Mississippi also had the highest rate of overweight and obese children, at 44.4 percent. It’s followed by Arkansas, 37.5 percent; and Georgia, 37.3 percent.

_Following Alabama, Michigan ranks No. 2 with the most obese 55- to 64-year-olds, 36 percent. Colorado has the lowest rate, 21.8 percent.

Click here for the full story and links from the Associated Press.