BEN AND BAWB'S BLOG- A blog of two brothers: published writers, gun nuts, former soldiers, and recovering Republicrats both. From the purple mountain majesties of Montana comes Bawb, bitterly clinging to God and his guns. From the fruited plain of Iowa comes Ben, a patriot Walter Mitty. Wielding the sacred power of the written word the way a three-year-old might wield his daddy's shotgun, these are their musings.*
As if the Cow Cops and Goat Gestapo weren't bad enough, now we have the Picnic Police. If anyone still thinks the government is not insanely out of control raise your hand. You, the Monsanto guy, you don't count.
Once State authoritarians learned that the farm was hosting a picnic without their permission, they descended like flies upon a dying carcass. The authoritarians demanded the farm purchase permission from them to host the event or face an enormous fine; which the farm agreed to do. But clearly, this just wasn’t good enough for the authoritarians.
After purchasing permission to host the event from the Nevada Health District, the farm was told that the permit would be delivered by a health inspector on the day of the event. So the farm went about preparing for the event as it normally would, fully expecting to be issued a permit on the day of the picnic. Well it turns out that Mary G. Oakes, the health inspector for the event, didn’t show up until their guests were arriving!
By the time the inspector showed up, the farm had already begun preparation of the food for the event. This threw the inspector into an authoritarian rage, who began yelling “NOTHING TAKES PLACE UNTIL YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION!” When the farmers asked why they couldn’t continue preparing food as the inspection was underway, the inspector simply stamped her feet and said “because I said so.” – no valid reason was ever provided.
What in the hell are they putting in the cheese these days? From Wisconsin, of all places.
In a court case sure to go down in history for one of the most bizarre rulings, a Wisconsin judge has heldthat American citizens do not have a "fundamental right to produce or consume foods of their choice."
The plaintiffs in the case argued that their right to privacy — which allows them to decline medical treatment, allow abortion, view pornography, and engage in consensual sex — should also translate into the right to “consume food of his/her own choice.”
Judge Patrick Fiedler remained unconvinced, claiming that the constitutionality of food rights is “wholly without merit.” He addedthat the plaintiffs' use of the Roe v Wade case as a precedent does “not explain why a woman’s right to have an abortion translates to a right to consume unpasteurized milk…. This court is unwilling to declare that there is a fundamental right to consume the food of one’s choice without first being presented with significantly more developed arguments on both sides of the issue.”
Judge Fiedler went on to clarify his ruling further:
“no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd;
“no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow;
“no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to board their cow at the farm of a farmer;
“no, the … Plaintiffs’ private contract does not fall outside the scope of the State’s police power;
“no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice.”
Now why do I get this mental image in my head of a top Monsanto executive in a lavish office somewhere tapping his fingers together and crooning, "Excellent."?
The Morgan Quitno Awards have, for the last eleven years, rated the 25 safest and most dangerous cities to live in per crime rate statistics. This year, Memphis made the list as the second most dangerous Metropolitan Area in the nation. In the past, they have made #1, and seem to continue jockeying to reclaim that spot.According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal in 2007:
"The Memphis metropolitan area, after coming in second last year, tops this year's ranking of metro areas by the rate of violent crime -- homicide, rape, aggravated assault and robbery."
So, what are the city fathers doing about all this crime? Going after backyard gardeners, of course! I can't even comment on this without blowing a gasket, so here is the full story from Hannah Sayle of the Memphis Flyer.
Seeds of Discontent
Code enforcement targets urban garden.
by Hannah Sayle
Left to right: Jarvis, Jovantae, Adam, and Shaquielle
Adam Guerrero and three kids from his neighborhood, Jovantae, Jarvis, and Shaquielle, hardly seem like lawbreakers as they turn over soil at Guerrero's Nutbush home.
But the city's code enforcement department has deemed their urban garden a nuisance, and a judge has ordered them to remove the small ecosystem they've been working on for the last two years.
According to the court summons, Guerrero, a math teacher at Raleigh-Egypt High School, was cited for violating city ordinances 48-38 and 48-87: He failed to "remove personal property" that is "unsightly" or a "nuisance," and he failed to maintain "a clean and sanitary condition free from any accumulation of rubbish or garbage."
Shelby County Environmental Court judge Larry Potter upheld the citation, ordering Guerrero to get rid of the "debris and personal property" stored outside his home and trim overgrown vegetation — including cutting down his 7-foot-tall sunflower plants.
"He said it's considered a neighborhood nuisance," says Guerrero, who is a member of the GrowMemphis board. "I asked him to define nuisance for me, and he said basically if it generates a complaint, it's a neighborhood nuisance."
Guerrero's home is certainly unique: eggplant, tomato, and pepper plants grow in the front yard; the backyard is lined with rows of wooden worm bins; barrels for collecting and storing rainwater are stationed next to his backdoor; his garage is stocked with equipment for making biodiesel and soap; and behind his garage are beehives quietly humming with industry. Elsewhere, passionflowers, butterflies, elderberry bushes, and sunflowers fill out the garden.
But with no visible trash or garbage and plants kept off the sidewalk and driveway, Guerrero doesn't understand why a judge would bring his operation to a halt.
"These are direct applications to math, biology, engineering," says Guerrero, who uses his garden as a sort of continuing education for Jovantae, Jarvis, and Shaquielle, the latter of whom is a former student of Guerrero's at Kingsbury High School. Jovantae and Jarvis attend the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering (MASE). "I'm proud to know that the students I work with are probably the only students in Memphis City Schools who know how to make their own biodiesel," Guerrero says.
With the glycerin by-product from the biodiesel, the kids have learned to make soap. They suit up in beekeeping gear and harvest honey. They fill worm bins with kitchen scraps from Central BBQ and Huey's — a contract they have with Project Greenfork — and watch as it turns into nutrient-rich soil. Guerrero and the boys have also installed solar panels at the Midtown North Community Garden.
"One aspect of the schools is teaching that every child should be college-bound but [without] teaching them any skills. The kids don't even know how to use a ruler. I'm taking a different approach and teaching them skills," says Guerrero, who has his students at Raleigh-Egypt help with the garden as well, using geometry and basic tools to help craft worm bins, beehives, and small greenhouses from recycled materials.
Jovantae, a junior at MASE, estimates that he and his friends spend three or four days at the garden when school is out and at least one day a week during the school year. They are none too pleased with the judge's decision.
"I don't understand why it's a problem if it's in the backyard," says Shaquielle, a senior at Kingsbury. "We like coming here. We don't want it to go away."
Guerrero returns to court on September 23rd to demonstrate that he has complied with the judge's orders. Last Friday evening, staring out over his backyard, Guerrero was still hesitating to dismantle the project into which he's poured so much time and energy.
Coming soon! Genetically altered Red Chinese worker bees marching in Tiananmen Square.
As we’ve noted a couple of times before in The War on Farmers, overbearing government agencies seem to be on a campaign to wipe out small, independent food producers. Who the hell do you think you are, dear serf, to think you can just grow or consume whatever the hell you want, such as raw milk, organic eggs, almonds and walnuts, raw honey, or anything else not approved by the legions of nameless and faceless bureaucrats trying to justify their own existence at the FDA and USDA. You can, of course, consume all of the “government-approved” industrialized genetically altered Frankenfood you wish though.
And you can have all the Red Chinese Honey you want, since it is smuggled in and repackaged by large corporations.
What’s wrong with Communist honey, other than the obvious?
Food safety investigators from the European Union barred all shipments of honey from India [China ships their honey through India and other countries to avoid paying U.S. import tariffs] because of the presence of lead and illegal animal antibiotics. Further, they found an even larger amount of honey apparently had been concocted without the help of bees, made from artificial sweeteners and then extensively filtered to remove any proof of contaminants or adulteration or indications of precisely where the honey actually originated.
Another favorite con among Chinese brokers was to mix sugar water, malt sweeteners, corn or rice syrup, jaggery, barley malt sweetener or other additives with a bit of actual honey. In recent years, many shippers have eliminated the honey completely and just use thickened, colored, natural or chemical sweeteners labeled as honey.
"We're supposed to have the world's safest food supply but we're letting in boatloads of this adulterated honey that all these other countries know is contaminated and FDA does nothing."
Not that I’m for international organizations of any kind, especially the worthless UN, but the FDA says it has its own regulations prohibiting foods banned in other countries (such as the 27 nations in the European Union alone) from entering the U.S. But an agency spokesperson said they, “would not know about honey that has been banned from other countries." Government double-speak or sheer incompetence at its best, or both; it’s hard to tell with Fed.gov. Note that, as always, the government never seems to have to obey its own rules. Imagine that.
The FDA said it's doing the best it can with existing resources and will do more when the newly passed Food Safety Modernization Act is up and running.
“Existing resources” is a code word for the “Agency wants more money”. Perhaps if they spared some of the army of “resources” they use for busting Amish dairy farmers or little kids raising rabbits or whole food stores or…you get the picture…they could actually do something useful, such as interdicting Commie honey. But I guess it’s more important to devote year-long stings and raids to go after Eli and his Holsteins and their whole milk while they don't seem to be bothered by Chinese cows genetically modified to produce human breast milk.
"It's better for you because it's genetically modified."
As for the Food Safety Modernization Act, it amounts to little more than a whole buttload of more of bureaucratic red tape, fees, paperwork, and fines which would of course require a buttload more funding and employees for the FDA. .
For instance, all food production facilities in the U.S. will be required to register with Uncle Sam. No food will be allowed to be grown, distributed or sold outside this bureaucratic framework unless the FDA allows it. Any food that is distributed or sold outside of U.S. government control will be considered illegal smuggling.
Your annual “registration fee” will most likely be ruinously expensive for non-industrialized small timers. S. 510 will also give the FDA the power to conduct warrantless searches of the business records of small food producers and organic farmers, even if there has been no evidence at all that a law has been broken.
The bill will also place all U.S. food and all U.S. farms under the Department of Homeland Security in the event of a major "contamination" or an "emergency". What exactly would constitute a "contamination" or an "emergency"? Mind your own beeswax, peasant. It’s whatever the hellFed.gov says it is, at the moment. Kind of like how the ATF can define a shoestring…I kid you not...as a “machine gun”.
Speaking of definitions, despite inquiries from agricultural groups and senators, the FDA refuses to even issue a definition of what they consider honey.
"If we had an official description of honey then FDA would have to inspect everything we're importing to ensure it's legal. That's the last thing we want to do.”
Crackpots such as myself have been generating a lot of complaints and misinformation about natural, raw foods and the government’s crackdowns and raids on producers of same. I’m glad to say I have seen the light and now understand why the government needs to systematically eradicate these dangerous “foods” and the “farmers” who foist them upon an unsuspecting public.
Obama Administration’s Food Safety, Profitability, Monopoly and Enforcement Czar Michael R. Taylor, and let me note here that it is completely irrelevant that he’s a former Monsanto attorney, sent me these helpful tips on how to know which foods are good for you…and which are NOT.
First, however, for those of you namby-pamby health food nuts (nuts…ha-ha; get it?) who whine about that pesky ol’ Constituion and all these “rights” you think it gives you, the FDA has helpfully offered these OFFICIAL LEGAL GUIDELINES on the subject.
"There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food."
"There is no 'deeply rooted' historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds."
"Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish."
FDA's brief goes on to state that, "…even if such a right did exist, it would not render FDA's regulations unconstitutional because prohibiting the interstate sale and distribution of unpasteurized milk promotes bodily and physical health."
"There is no fundamental right to freedom of contract."
Next, here is a simple one-question test to see if you are a raw food fanatic who is unable to tell what’s good for you and thus require government guidance in selecting what you should put into your body or if you are a good citizen.
Which of the following foods will make you healthy, happy and obedient?
A. This yummy and nutritious genetically modified bundle of wholesomeness brought to you from the good of Big Ag's heart and the genuine concern for your well-being felt by their own personal politicians. Oh, and it's "for the children" too.
If you answered A, you are a good little serf and may wish to consider a career as a drone, hack or bureaucrat with the United States Federal Government, the largest employer in the country.
If you answered B, you are a dangerous crackpot and probably a domestic terrorist. You should report immediately to a government office near you for a free trip to the closest Re-education Camp.
Oh, and I’m also supposed to tell you that the new petroleum-based synthetic straw in the cattle cars is much healthier for you than that dusty, scratchy old oat straw and that these marks on my head are certainly not from electrodes.
Genetically altered cows giving human breast milk at an assembly line dairy in China. They claim their product is perfectly safe, but Western Big Ag says there is the possibility of harmful side effects because, "We didn't think of it first. But if you were to put some Roundup in it, it would probably be alright."
You heard me right, boys and girls. Those wacky Reds are messing with food DNA just like the Western giant ag corporations and their pet politicians in order to bring us...God only knows what. This is just so wrong on so many levels.
BEIJING- Chinese scientists have genetically modified dairy cows to produce human breast milk, and hope to be selling it in supermarkets within three years.
My favorite quote from the article:"It's better for you because it's genetically modified."
Not to worry, though, folks. The Nanny State will protect us from any possible harm, just like they did with Chinese drywall.
If you need proof no harm will come from this new Frankenfood, fed.gov is after those pesky Amish and their deadly raw milk again. This stuff is deadly! It is dangerously all natural, has been used by humans for a few thousand years, and gives people a choice about what they can or cannot put into their own bodies.
Is it just me, or does this all seem completely bass ackwards?
Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Yoder Brothers...has been approved.
I can't even make jokes about this one. The USDA is attacking a Missouri family for raising rabbits! The Federal government is completely out of control in so many ways it's not even funny. This shit has got to stop. Here's the article in full.
(NaturalNews) When the Dollarhite family of Nixa, Mo., first started raising and selling bunnies as part of a lesson to teach their teenage son about responsibility and hard work, they had no idea they would eventually meet the heavy hand of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). According to a recent article covered in Breitbart's Big Government, the USDA recently ordered the Dollarhite family to pay more than $90,000 in fines because they sold more than $500 worth of rabbits in a year -- and if they fail to pay the fine by Monday, May 23, the fine will multiply to nearly $4 million.
It all started back in 2006 when John Dollarhite and his wife Judy rescued two rabbits that ended up breeding. The family cared for and raised the new rabbits, and eventually began to sell them to neighbors, friends, and others for $10 or $15 each. Having started by first selling the animals for meat, and later for show, the Dollarhites carefully and humanely raised the small creatures on their three-acre homestead, all while teaching their son honest values in a business environment similar to running a small lemonade stand.
Eventually, the Dollarhites developed such a highly-respected reputation across Missouri that the popular Branson, Mo., theme park Silver Dollar City, and even a local pet store, Petland, began purchasing bunnies from the family in 2009. And according to John, individuals from both Silver Dollar City and Petland, as well as a rabbit competition judge, told him that the family's bunnies were among the best they had ever seen -- healthy, beautiful, and very well-cared for.
All seemed well until a USDA inspector showed up at the family's home in the fall of 2009, and asked to do a "spot inspection" of the rabbitry. The inspector made no indication that anything was amiss, but only that she wished to see the facility. After meandering the premises, the inspector claimed that a few very insignificant aspects of theraising facility were in violation of USDA standards, even though the Dollarhites were not USDA certified, nor were they required to be. She then asked if the Dollarhites wished to be part of the voluntary USDA certification system, upon which they told her they would look into it.
After the inspector left, the Dollarhites heard nothing more from the USDA until January 2010 when a Kansas City-based USDA inspector called the family and said he needed to have a meeting with them because they sold more than $500 worth of rabbits in a single year. When the Dollarhites asked why this was a problem and what law this violated, the man refused to offer an explanation over the phone.
Upon meeting in person, the inspector said he was only there to investigate the rabbitry and take notes for a report, upon which he instructed the family to contact another USDA office if they failed to hear anything further from the USDA after six weeks. As the eighth week arrived without any communication, John called the office and was redirected to the Washington, DC, office where a lady shockingly and bluntly explained to him that she had his report, and that the USDA planned to prosecute him and his family "to the maximum that we can" in order to "make an example" out of him.
Shortly thereafter, the Dollarhites received a letter from the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) ordering them to pay a fine of $90,643 for supposedly violating a mystery law that prohibits the selling of more then $500 in rabbits within a year, even though the Dollarhites were in full accordance with Missouri state law, did not sell their rabbits across state lines, and raised their rabbits humanely and in excess of minimum requirements. The letter outlined that the Dollarhites had until May 23 to pay the exorbitant fine, or else face additional fines totaling nearly $4 million -- all for selling about $4,600 worth of rabbits that netted the family a mere $200 in profits.
The whole scenario proves, once again, that the USDA is nothing more than a tag-team terrorist duo with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Both agencies' insatiable lust for power and control over private affairs is never satisfied, as they continue to prowl around like bloodthirsty predators seeking whoever and whatever they can devour. When will Americans finally stand up to their tyranny and say enough is enough?
According to FBI statistics as per 2009, in one year in these United States, there are 1,318,398 crimes of violence, 15,241 murders, 89,000 rapes, 408,217 assaults and 794,616 cars stolen. Using statistics other than fed.gov’s fiction, there are around 40 million illegal aliens in the country costing the taxpayer around 8 billion a year on illegals for law enforcement, welfare, education and medical. As a nation, we are over 14 trillion in debt, and Chinese children can play Monopoly using real U.S. currency. Even some of the lamestream media grudgingly admit the real unemployment rate is more like 17.3%, although even that is probably low.
Yet the ruling class in the District of Criminals shriek that there is absolutely no fat to be cut from the budget.
So what are we getting for our money? Not to worry, folks. The government is watching out for our best interests and working hard to protect us. For instance, we find this little tidbit from The Washington Times.
"A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.
The product in question: unpasteurized milk."
Don’t they have any other crimes to investigate and prosecute with year-long stings and undercover agents? You know, real crimes, ones with victims.
Of course not. Just who the hell do you think you are, anyway? What gives you the right to put what you want into your own body, including a product humans have been consuming for thousands of years? Actung! The Nanny States knows better, you peasant.
"It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed,” said Tamara N. Ward, spokeswoman for the FDA.
So rest easy, fellow serfs. They’re here from the government and they’re here to help us. Whether we want it or not.
We continue to note how the Cream Police, Cow Cops and Goat Gestapo, receiving their marching orders from Big Ag and their bought-and-paid-for congresscritters, are cracking down on the deadly threat of agricultural-related dangers to our well being, such as the Amish, organic food, raw milk, 4-H projects, granny's vegetable garden, etc. so that we may be safely nourished by factory farms and genetically modified food. One gigantic Big Ag entity, under the guise of different brand names, essentially controls every aspect of agriculture in this country from seed to slaughter.
But it's not enough to have a 99% monopoly. No, now Big Ag's duly purchased politicians are trying to make it a violation of the law to photograph or film Big Ag violating the law. THIS links to the proposed law in Iowa; Florida is trying to enact a similar bill. As Orwell said, some animals are more equal than others.
The video below may perhaps not be totally in line with the rest of the story, but it does amuse me, so I don't really care.
So, I’m fresh back from a week in hunting camp, pursuing some of the most expensive meat on the hoof you can possibly find. It was, as always, more about wall tents and wood-stoves, starlight and sunrise, campfires and companionship than it was about snuffing Bambi. Although that was fun too. Along with the farting contests, dirty jokes and the eternal “mine’s bigger” firearms debate.
The experience of hunting camp which struck me the most and which still remains with me, though, was having a very long talk to a rancher who let us hunt deer on his land. The guy was exactly my age, with three kids ranging from junior high school to a college freshman. The ranch was only average sized by Montana standards, and had been in his family since his great grandfather first came to Big Sky country from the Ould Sod (North Dakota). In the beginning, there was a log cabin of Douglas fir from the mountains, and then a barn built of rough planks ripped out of Cottonwood trees with a crosscut saw, a raised platform, a neighbor man and a lot of sweat and blisters.
Present day, it is a beautiful ranch. The guy takes pride in it, and in the assets, and it clearly shows. All the buildings were neatly painted; the yards immaculate. The well-watered hayfields still showed green alfalfa despite the lateness of the season. The machinery was probably well kept, too. I couldn’t tell as it was all neatly put away from the weather behind closed doors in a big pole building. The stackyard had the big round hay bales lined up dress-right-dress like soldiers on parade. The fenceposts were straight and solid, with the wire all stretched tight as a drum, a job that takes a great deal of time and work (and makes it hard on hunters’ crotches).
The Black Angus cattle were fat, dumb and happy. As were the mule deer, whitetails, coyotes, beavers, muskrats, jack rabbit, waterfowl and all the other critters we saw in our hikes across the ranch lands. He said the elk come down when the weather turns bad to feed on the hayfields and grain stubble. Some of the old wooden fenceposts sported nesting boxes for Western bluebirds, and no doubt furnished perches for meadowlarks in the spring.
It would sure be a heart-breaker to lose a place like that, especially after it had remained in family hands for so many generations.
But the rancher, you see, is “rich” and the politics and politicians of socialism and class envy demand that we must “soak it to the rich”.
Last January, the estate tax or, as it is commonly known, the Death Tax, was temporarily eliminated last January, but is scheduled to come back with a vengeance this January. An arbitrary limit of a one million dollar exemption is followed by a 55% tax on all remaining assets. The liberal elite and their media lackeys are all for this as a just and equitable scheme, making those rich bastards pay “their fair share”.
The problem with farms and ranches is that they are “rich” in assets but actually quite poor in the way of cash. The land is only worth real money to the farmer when he sells it to raise capital; some temporary cash, but the asset is now gone forever. That American-made John Deere combine in the shed may technically be worth $200,000 but is only of value to the ranchers for a couple short weeks in the fall Just a few pieces of modern farm machinery can hit that million dollar limit real quick, but like a new car driven off the lot, just try to get blue book price on that tractor if you have to sell it to pay taxes. Those Angus out in the slough grass are worth a lot on the ground and on paper, but not too damn much at the grocery store. The time, the purchase of sterile seed from a monopoly, the equipment, fertilizer, work and spraying required for a healthy crop of wheat works out to waaayyyy less than minimum wage when the profits are realized at harvest time.
The man in question has already had to deal with the death of his 52-year-old cousin and his father this past year. The ranch reverted to his mother, who still lives in her own original house on the place, where she can see her children and grand-children and the land she has lived for the past fifty years. When she passes on, well, despite lawyers and estate planning, the government still demands 55% of what the son hopes to continue ranching with, and to pass on to his own children. He must sell his assets to raise the cash to pay the government its blood money, leaving him with neither cash nor assets, and the prospect of selling out what remains because he won’t be able to make a living from it.
We talked for quite some time, three of us leaning on the hood of the pickup truck. As we bid farewell, he said, “I’ll let you guys hunt again next year…if I’m still here.”
So, to the remaining 3% of the American population still engaged in feeding the world, with a dozen USDA employees “serving” each one of you, I urge you to care for your land, be frugal, and work hard. The government wants to confiscate some real good stuff, you rich bastards.
I don't think even ol' John Wayne could have stopped these modern day rustlers and land barons operating under the guise of government.
OMG! A THREAT TO THE VERY FOUNDATIONS OF THE NATION ITSELF! CALL THE GOAT GESTAPO!
Of all the problems going on in the world and the nation today, especially economic, you would think the fed.gov might just have something important to do rather than hassling the few people left who are engaged in the business of farming in general and milking in particular.
“We have a very small farm in the middle of nowhere. This morning we were doing morning chores and just starting to milk (goats) when a car pulls in the driveway and out come 3 people from the USDA wanting to know if we sold raw milk. I said no. They went on to ask why we advertised (Realmilk.com) and I told them that at one time we sold milk a long while ago. I did not want to answer their questions. They stated that they could go and get a warrant if I did not answer their questions. Now we have not sold raw milk in about 2 years and live just outside a town of about 2500 people. If the USDA can come all this distance to harass us for selling a food product, what is the government capable of?”
What the hell do these idiots have against milk anyway? And where in the Constitution does it say Fed.gov has any right whatsoever to dick around with it? But wait, there’s more, further proof that the government is completely out of control and has to create business for itself.
Then we have SENATE BILL 510, or the “Drop your overalls and bend over, Farmer Jones” bill, a 12-point plan to destroy the remaining 8 independent farmers in the country.
#1 All food production facilities in the United States will be required to register with the U.S. government. No food will be allowed to be grown, distributed or sold outside this bureaucratic framework unless the FDA allows it.
#2 Any food that is distributed or sold outside of U.S. government control will be considered illegal smuggling.
#3 The FDA will hire an army of new inspectors to enforce all of the new provisions in the bill.
#4 The FDA will be mandated to conduct much more frequent inspections of food processing facilities.
#5 The fees and paperwork requirements will be ruinously expensive for small food producers.
#6 S. 510 would place all U.S. food and all U.S. farms under the Department of Homeland Security in the event of a major "contamination" or an "emergency". What exactly would constitute a "contamination" or an "emergency" is anyone's guess.
#7 S. 510 mandates that the FDA facilitate harmonization of American food laws with Codex Alimentarius, which impinges on US sovereignity.
#8 S. 510 imposes an annual registration fee on any facility that holds, processes, or manufactures food. It also includes draconian fines for paperwork infractions of up to $500,000 for a single offense. Just one penalty like that would drive a small food producer out of business.
#9 S. 510 would give the FDA tremendous discretion to regulate how crops are grown and how food is produced in the United States. Basically, farmers will now be forced to farm exactly how the federal government tells them to. This could be a particular problem for small farmers selling direct to the public, many of whom are organic farmers because that is what their market wants to buy. It is feared that the U.S. government would soon declare that many organic farming methods are "unsafe" and would outlaw them.
#10 S. 510 will give the FDA the power to impose a quarantine on a specific geographic area. Basically the FDA would have the power to stop the movement of all food in an area where a "contamination" has been identified. This would be very close to being able to declare martial law.
#11 S. 510 will give the FDA the power to conduct warrantless searches of the business records of small food producers and organic farmers, even if there has been no evidence at all that a law has been broken.
#12 Many farmers are concerned that S. 510 would eliminate the right to clean and store seed. Saving and using your own seed is a traditional frugal practice of many farmers.
Then there’s a few more nails in the small farmers’ coffins from, you guessed it, the EPA.
“Lincoln ticked off examples of onerous EPA intrusions: unworkable "spray drift" pesticide regulations; proposed ambient air-quality standards that would impose impossible dust-reduction requirements on farmers; "wetlands" regulations that put even bone-dry areas off-limits to agricultural use; an ideological bias toward environmentalists when resolving Clean Water Act lawsuits.”
Who seems to be miraculously untouched by all of this? You guessed it again. MONSANTO! Now, apparently it’s just not enough to have a complete monopoly on everything ag from seed to slaughter and a nice collection of the best politicians money can buy. No siree. Now they need mercenaries (many of them former Federal agents…go figure) from Blackwater to infiltrate and spy on groups who oppose genetically altered foods.
All of this could be a backdoor approach to gun control, as well. In Frenchtown, Montana, a woman defended herself and her dog against a raiding black bear with a ZUCCHINI! Just imagine if Fed.gov hadn’t “allowed” this woman allowed to have a garden! She would have been defenseless against the 200-pound beast, and probably killed.
The blood will be on your hands, Fed.gov!
First they came for the zucchini, then they came for the milk, then they came for vegetables people actually like to eat, then they came for the assault rifles…
"Some people balk at restrictions on selling unprocessed milk and other foods. 'How can we not have the freedom to choose what we eat?' one says. Regulators say the rules exist for safety and fairness." "They want almonds cracked fresh from the shell, not those run through a federally mandated pasteurization process that uses either heat or a chemical to kill off salmonella and other possible contaminants. They hunger for meat slaughtered on the farm. And they're willing to pay a premium — $6, $8 or more — for a gallon of milk straight from the cow.So despite research outlining the dangers of consuming raw milk and other unprocessed foods, they're finding ways to circumnavigate federal, state and local laws that seek to control what they can serve at the dinner table. Such defiance, they said, comes from growing distrust of a food sector that has become more industrialized and consolidated — and whose products have been at the root of some of the country's deadliest food contamination cases.
"This is about control and profit, not our health," said Aajonus Vonderplanitz, co-founder of Rawesome Foods. "How can we not have the freedom to choose what we eat?" The Cream Police link ABOVE has a video of jackbooted thugs entering Rawesome food with guns drawn, apparently fearful of an Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or the musk melons opening fire on them.
I can recall our neighbor's dairy farm as a kid. There, we drank milk straight out of the cow. We sometimes took the milk home in jugs for our own use. Later, my family drank plenty of raw goats' milk, and ate goat cheese, and chicken and emu eggs, right out of the bird butts. We eat veggies right out of the garden; they've never seen chemicals. Since boyhood on the farm, I've loved to stand in the garden snapping open pea pods and popping them right into my mouth. We butcher our own deer and antelope in the fall. In college, I worked at a nature center. The county road crews brought us roadkill deer to feed to the various raptors and carnivorous critters. If the roadkill was fresh, I took the backstraps before the animals got the rest. I've eaten just about every species of freshwater fish straight out of the water. We've pick raspberries, thimble-berries, and dwarf huckleberry. We find morel mushrooms the next year after a forest fire by the bucketful.
Yet not once have we gotten sick from all of this. I did, however, once get a bad case of food poisoning from store-bought pastrami. But now we need "safety" and "fairness"?
It's odd. The government happily allows to take things out of our bodies, such as unborn children; it's Choice. Yet we are now apparently not allowed to decide what we can put into our bodies. Apparently choice is a rather nebulous thing.
Thumbing through my copy of the Constituion, I can find nothing that says, "The government shall decide what kind of food you can eat, and where you can buy it."
Well, if outlawing your choice of food isn't enough to convince you our government is completely and utterly out of control and gleefully becoming a totalitarian police state, how about this?
The government now says it OWNS RAINWATER and you can't have it, peasant scum.
This just in: Rawesome Foods from the above raid has been formally charged in Federal court with "Failure to have a large and powerful lobbying group".
Whoops. We have directed one of the rain gutters on our house into a plastic kiddie pool for our dog. Now I see several people dressed in black with ski masks and shotguns and MP-5s in the backyard, measuring the water. What's that sound I hear? Sounds like a jackboot kicking the in door.
We've noted in the past about the government's Amish ass-kicking "War on Milk". Well, it seems the fight goes on. Like FDR at Yalta, the thugs are demanding the unconditional surrender of those who don't eat at the table of Big Ag and dare to raise, eat, and sell animals in the way mankind has done for several thousand years, and pretty much everyone else on the globe still does.
With the Amish Milk Maquis of Pennsylvania now apparently under control, the Dairy Detectives have gone on the offensive against other enemies of the state.
Most recently, a deadly threat to national security, Sharon Palmer, was raided...again...because of what started as a squabble over how she labeled her goat cheese. Agents from the LA County DA's office, the LA County Sheriff, the Ventura County Sheriff, and the CA Department of Food & Agriculture conducted a five-hour raid on Palmer's farm and took both her milk and her computer.
It is estimated that the Goat Gestapo drove by a meth lab, three dope fields, and 327 illegal aliens en route to Palmer's farm, Sharon and her goats apparently being considered the greatest threat.
The same day as the Palmer raid, more Cattle Cheka raided Rawesome Foods in Venice, CA, a membership-only private food club that sells such public health menaces as unpasteurized milk and organic eggs. This time, in addition to the usual thugs, the FDA and, having apparently rid the nation of Islamic extremists and now with nothing else to do, the FBI.
In June in Minnesota the State Ag Stasi, "escorted by police and also bearing search warrants, raided and shut down Traditional Foods Warehouse, a popular food club in Minneapolis specializing in locally-produced foods. They also raided two farms suspected of illegally selling raw milk. And in a national first among such raids, agents searched a private home and made off with computers; the family's offense appears to have been that it allowed one of the raw dairy farmers to park in its driveway to distribute raw milk to area residents who had ordered it."
In late 2008 and early 2009, the representatives of state agriculture agencies in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois met via phone conferences with representatives of the FDA to map a plan for targeting raw-milk buying clubs in the Midwest. The meetings came to light after Max Kane, the owner of a Wisconsin buying club who was subpoenaed by Wisconsin authorities for the names of his customers and suppliers, obtained email accounts of the sessions via a Freedom of Information request to Wisconsin's Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection department. (Kane has since been prosecuted by Wisconsin authorities for contempt of court for failing to give up the names; his case is under appeal after he was found guilty last December.)
In a telephone interview, BBB caught up with the Dairy DINA agent in charge, Jack B. Thug, who explained: THUG: This is all about public safety.
BBB: Are you sure? I mean, you can leave a horse carcass festering out in the yard for a week in the sun and it's perfectly acceptable to cut a slab off and give it away. But if you charge a penny for that same hunk of flesh, it's a horrible threat to life. THUG (squirming uncomfortably): But it's for the children.
BBB: Ah. So it's not about control. It's for the "Greater Good?" THUG: YES! Yes. That's it. The Greater Good.
BBB: Hmmm. Would this be the "Greater Good" as in when Joseph Stalin unleashed deliberate famine and genocide to crush the small independent farmers in the Ukraine?
THUG: Whew! Look at the time! Gotta go! But don't worry. My friends from Big Ag, Vito and a guy we just call "The Iceman", will be paying you a visit soon and they will explain everything. Everything. In graphic detail. CLICK
Mexican gun-runner. No problem. Perfectly Harmless
Dairy cows! Aiiieeee! Heinous threat to life, liberty and the American Way.
As the frenzied bashing of Arizona state laws that no one in the Obama Justice Department has actually read, two Mexican ILLEGALS were busted (by local authorities) in Texas. The ILLEGALS, Damaso Alberto Rueda Cabrera and Arnulfo de la Cruz Sanchez, caught in possession of some 147 assault rifles with 10,000 rounds of ammunition and various sundry gun-related items.
Being felons in possession of firearms, if they were American citizens they could be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison or $250,000 per violation, or a maximum of 735 years and $36,750,000. But, since they were ILLEGALS, they apparently have more rights than mere American citizens, so they were sentenced to terms of TEN DAYS and FORTY FIVE DAYS for pleading guilty to entering the United States illegally. Of course, the ATF is involved. You didn’t have to even ask, did you?
Ten and 45 days? Why even bother. If it were you or me, American Citizens, we would have been buried so far under a federal prison that we would pray for a cockroach just to have some company. Hell, they killed Randy Weaver’s wife and son over a sawed-off shotgun. Seventy six branch division men, women, and children were roasted alive because the BAT-men believed that, even though they had not done anything illegal at that point, they could possibly be modifying legal arms into illegal arms. There are people still in prison because the ATF managed to define shoestrings, a single spring, or malfunctioning weapon as a MACHINE GUN.
In fact, since the judge scoffed at their asinine conspiracy theory regarding the Hutaree, the Feds took some time off to regroup and have now filed an entirely new set of charges involving illegal weapons and bomb-making materials. By BATF definition, if you have a shoestring and a piece of plumbing in your garage you are probably guilty of possessing a machine gun and bomb-making materials. They’re probably considered weapons of mass destruction, too. I wouldn’t doubt that the Hutaree’s suddenly unearthed “unregistered short-barreled rifles” as claimed by the Feds have fresh hacksaw marks in the metal.
Other dangerous threats the Federal government is protecting is from lately are those pesky Amish again. The Environmental Protection Agency, showing it too can be as rogue as the ATF, is using its own unconstitutional rules and regulations to go after Amish dairy farmers in Lancanster County, Pennsylvania. If they can’t sop the Amish from producing whole milk, I guess they’re just gonna stop them from farming altogether.
The EPA is charging the Amish with polluting Chesapeake Bay with cow poop. Almost a century of huge industrial complexes in the area dumping their untreated wastes into streams and tributaries flowing to the Bay until caught and fined (if at all) apparently has no environmental impact whatsoever. Major cities dumping all kinds of unspeakable filth into lakes and rivers get a pass for monetary and political reasons. Big $$$$ payoff covers up much if any media attention while Amish farmers are now targeted to distract from the Mega-Agribusiness, big industry and large metropolitan areas dumping.
Yes, it is ironic that the Amish and Mennonites fled Europe in the 1700’s to avoid government persecution and believe that they should take care of their own and are mistrustful of outsiders in general and government in particular. Could their freedom and anti-establishment beliefs be contributing to the Feds’ need to whip them into line? Perhaps they are seen as a threat to Big Ag and its governmental mercenaries. Or maybe it’s just some more good old-fashioned Christian bashing. I’ll bet if they were a Muslim sect Uncle Sammy Obammy wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole.
What is it about dairy farmers that so pisses the government off? The Department of Fatherland, er I mean Motherland, er I mean Homeland “Security” is threatening to use Eminent Domain to confiscate land from another family dairy farm. What with all the gunfights, border incursions, chaos, and ruin going on at the international borders, Uncle Sammy has finally seen that it need to use a wad of “stimulus” money to build a fancy new border checkpoint.
Of course, this is not in Texas or Arizona. It’s in VERMONT! Yes, a border station that sees an average of FORTY vehicles per day needs to be expanded…at the expense of taking land from a local family dairy farm…to protect us from the insidious and violent Canadian border invasion.
DHS spokesperson Obergruppenfuhrer Barb Wire stood up for the decision. “Why, just last year this important border security post intercepted and apprehended some three Canadians, two of whom were trying to smuggle non-American bacon into the country, and one who was armed with an unregistered hockey sick.”
"Don't worry. We know what's best. We're from the government, and we're to help you. So shut your face and take this chip in your forehead."
It’s funny. Our beloved government, after a decade of the public asking for it, couldn't figure out how to pass a “country of origin labeling” bill for meat, but now they can form a whole new bureaucracy to enforce “food safety” laws…whether you like it or not. As we’ve noted, the fed has already been putting the jackboots to the dreaded Amish and their Holsteins of terror. But of course, it’s OK for companies like Monsanto and their federal “regulator” buddies to contaminate milk. Now the unregulated regulators are coming after…well, just about everybody else.
With some 6,432 bills introduced by the 109th Congress, it’s very hard for the public to keep track of all the mumbo jumbo and very easy for the politicians to sneak in backdoor actions, regulation, and pork. Most Congresscritters in the House and Senate never even read the text of the bills they’re throwing their John Hancocks on. The “Stimulus” bill for instance…a thousand page monstrosity with only five actual print copies for the whole House and only a couple of days for the den of 435 thieves to read it before passage. With such a system, individuals can sneak almost anything through the system. The more corrupt the society, the more numerous its laws.
The bill we are presently concerned with is HR 875, benignly titled The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. This is actually halfway honest as Congressional titles go. Not to call our beloved elected “representatives” liars, but if they had a bill dedicated to rounding up every third person and sending them to be made into Soylent Green it would be titled something like “The Sunshine, Puppies and Soft Pillows Act”.
Never mind the fact that we already have multiple government agencies responsible for food safety (and a bang-up job they’ve been doing he says, spitting out a contaminated peanut and some lettuce an illegal farm worker pooped on). When our intelligence agencies failed us miserably before 9/11 because they are big, bloated bureaucratic behemoths, the Bush administration’s clever solution was to form an even bigger and more bureaucratic behemoth.
Now, since the same applies to food safety entities, we must create an even bigger entity. And no federal agency ever solves a problem, no matter how simple, because then they would be out of work. Neither do they confine themselves to doing what they were originally charged with doing. I guaren-goshdarn-tee you that the Forest Circus does next to nothing in the way of “Caring for the land and serving the people” anymore. The new motto is “increasing and perpetuating the bureaucracy.” No matter what agency or corporation we refer to, we should always remember, as Edward Abbey noted, ‘Growth simply for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”
Before we get to the “meat” (ha-ha...get it?) of the bill, let’s take a quick peek at who sponsored it. Representative Rosa L. DeLauro (D - CT) just happens to be married to Stan Greenberg, who is a Monsanto “subcontractor”, received $180,000 from Corporate Ag’s PACs, and is best buds with our old friend Obama flunky Rahm Emanual.
Coincidentally, Monsanto is all over this bill like stink on hog crap. (No jokes at the moment about $2,000,000 in “pork” to study said stink.) They currently only have about a 95% monopoly on food growing in this country, but that ain’t enough for them. There’s plenty of stuff on Monsanto and their evil antics. Aside from all the genetic mutations they design into our food crops, grains especially, (could this be why honeybees are dying in disturbing numbers around the continent?) they are also making plant seed sterile. This means the seeds are either non-existent or will not reproduce. You then sell the Franken-seeds all over the world, at first at very cheap prices. Then, once all the real seed stock is gone and Monsanto is the only source available, you can really jack the price up. It looks like Europe at least is starting to wake up to the game. I believe Germany recently outlawed the cultivation of mutated American seed.
Anyway, the bill itself, in its convoluted wording, seems at first glance benign enough. To battle detractors who claim this bill could in effect outlaw organic farming, backers note that the term "organic" does not appear in the bill. It doesn’t need to be. Some definitions can be interpreted so broadly that the government can make them mean anything they want.
For instance, during the Roosevelt (the Socialist, not the eugenics fan with the big stick) administration the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a farmer growing his own corn on his own land to feed his own pigs was engaged in interstate commerce!!! By not purchasing corn, he was affecting the interstate market for it.
As for HR 875, Section III defines Food Production Facility as “any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.” That could include anything from a half a dozen laying hens in the backyard to grandma’s zucchini garden. Section 206 gives the feds the “right” to come onto your place at will to “inspect” your chickens or zucchinis. Other “safety” definitions in this section could be interpreted to mean food has to be treated with Big Ag’s herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, genetic alterations, chemical processes, etc. to be made “safe”.
At any rate, the full text of the bill can be found here. Sections 103, 206, and 207 bear scrutiny in particular. The Campaign for Liberty also discusses it yonder.
Unfortunately, with the denizens of Sodom on Potomac throwing around about 40 new bills per day, it’s getting almost impossible for the public to have any representation of their voice among their, well, representatives. I’m getting so tired of living in interesting times.
