Tag Archive for 'OUTRAGED'

Ohio Dairy Farm Brutality

May 25, 2010 3 Comments Tags: , , .

I’m waaaay too angry to write at the moment, I can only copy this straight from Mercy for Animals’ website.

Un-fucking-believable. This happened 30 minutes from where I live.

Chilling undercover footage recorded during a new Mercy For Animals investigation exposes dairy farm workers sadistically abusing cows and young calves.

Captured on hidden camera, the shocking scenes of abuse reveal a culture of cruelty at Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio.

During a four-week investigation between April and May, MFA’s investigator documented farm workers:

  • Violently punching young calves in the face, body slamming them to the ground, and pulling and throwing them by their ears
  • Routinely using pitchforks to stab cows in the face, legs and stomach
  • Kicking “downed” cows (those too injured to stand) in the face and neck – abuse carried out and encouraged by the farm’s owner
  • Maliciously beating restrained cows in the face with crowbars – some attacks involving over 40 blows to the head
  • Twisting cows’ tails until the bones snapped
  • Punching cows’ udders
  • Bragging about stabbing, dragging, shooting, breaking bones, and beating cows and calves to death

After viewing the footage, Dr. Bernard Rollin, distinguished professor of animal science at Colorado State University, stated:

“This is probably the most gratuitous, sustained, sadistic animal abuse I have ever seen. The video depicts calculated, deliberate cruelty, based not on momentary rage but on taking pleasure through causing pain to cows and calves who are defenseless.”

Immediately upon completion of the investigation, Mercy For Animals contacted the City Prosecutor’s Office of Marysville regarding the ongoing pattern of abuse at Conklin Dairy Farms. MFA is pushing for employees of the facility to be criminally prosecuted for violating Ohio’s animal cruelty laws.

The deplorable conditions uncovered at Conklin Dairy Farms highlight the reality that animal agriculture is incapable of self-regulation and that meaningful federal and state laws must be implemented and strengthened to prevent egregious cruelty to farmed animals.

Although many of the abuses documented at Conklin Dairy Farms are sadistic in nature, numerous MFA undercover investigations at dairy farms, pig farms, egg farms, hatcheries and slaughterhouses have revealed that violence and abuse to farmed animals – whether malicious or institutionalized – runs rampant nationwide.

Compassionate consumers can end their direct financial support of farmed animal abuse by rejecting dairy, and other animal products, and adopting a vegan diet.

Undercover Investigation Reveals “Family Farm” Pig Cruelty

November 16, 2009 0 Comments Tags: , .

Looking at an image of a happy pig eating grass on the Country View Family Farms website, you’d be inclined to think “this family farm takes care of their animals” — right?

Country View Family Farms Cruelty

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The latest undercover investigation by Mercy For Animals uncovered:

  • Workers grabbing piglets by their fragile ears or legs and throwing them across the room and slamming them into transport carts.
  • Workers tattooing sows by repeatedly driving sharp metal spikes into their flesh.
  • Sows with untreated rectal prolapses and deep, infected sores and scrapes from constant rubbing against the bars of their stalls.
  • Workers cutting off piglets’ tails with dull pliers and castrating them by ripping out their testes with their bare hands – all without anesthesia.
  • Thousands of pregnant pigs confined in two-feet wide metal stalls so small that they could only take one step forward or backward and could not turn around or lie down comfortably.
  • Injured, sick and runt piglets being tossed into overcrowded gassing kill carts, slowly suffocating from CO2.
  • Workers firing steel rods into sows’ heads, sometimes as many as four separate times, before the sows fell and died.

Does that mesh well with your vision of a traditional family farm?

Country View Family Farms cruelty

Believe it or not, the company has an “Animal Handling Philosophy”:

“To be responsible stewards of the animals placed in our care, educating and training our pork producers and transporters to constantly maintain the highest level of integrity in animal welfare and bio-security, while reinforcing our commitment to safe, wholesome product our consumers can trust.”

It seems as though gas chambers, tossing of babies, extreme confinement, agonizing slaughter and overall hell is now part of being a “responsible steward.”

This investigation is but another nail in the coffin of the “humane meat” myth. Consumers are frequently duped into thinking they aren’t supporting cruelty if they buy their meat from Whole Foods, a family farm, or look for a “humanely raised” sticker on the packaging.

But there is no such thing as humane animal consumption. Factory farmed or not, ALL those animals die, some just have less hellish lives than others. The word humane is a facade, like “family farm“, unregulated labels designed to fool consumers into paying higher prices for the same tortured animal products.

Country View Family Farms cruelty

As is always the case with animal cruelty investigations, words will never fully convey what raw video shows. Some parts are so horrific, Fox News will not show it on the air.


(Can’t see the video? Click here.)

If this video is hard to watch, makes you cringe, makes you cry, makes you angry, or all of the above — I strongly suggest you opt out of this disgusting food system and go vegan. It’s easy to get started, click here to order a FREE vegetarian starter kit.

If you can afford it, please also consider making a donation to Mercy for Animals. They need our support in order to keep doing critical undercover investigations.

Obama, Remember That “Five Day Review” Promise?

February 14, 2009 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

I guess you’re CHANGEing some things huh? And here I doubted you.

Disclaimer: In my previous post I gave the impression I would completely stop being political. That’s not exactly the case. I can’t stop paying attention, stop caring completely, or stop being pi$$ed off because I still have a working brain and heart. But I AM drastically toning it down and sticking to the big stories. Most of the White Flag changes are happening offline, as Congress motivates me every day to spend less time pointing out the obvious and more time prepping for the culminating disaster. I no longer see light at the end of the tunnel, I see an oncoming train. If you want more news stories like I used to post, I suggest checking out my News page, where I’ll continue to highlight events and stories that deserve attention.

As I said, I’m sticking to the big stories now. And this Spendulus bill is REALLY big. Equal to a third of our annual budget, in fact. It is indeed the Democrats’ own Patriot Act (which Mr. Obama voted for in 2006):

Congress has done this before and apparently hasn’t learned their lesson. Another year, another Congress, another President. OBAMA = BUSH = CLINTON.

I’ve already ranted about how completely ineffective and wasteful this bill is, in fact it only got worse since that posting. But I haven’t yet mentioned how its passage is breaking an important campaign promise made by Obama back in 2007.

He LOVES to talk about transparency. It gets the zombies excited. So excited they forget to actually demand it.

BEFORE:

“When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it.”

Barack Obama
June 22, 2007, Manchester, N.H.

AFTER:

“Approved earlier by the House, the [Spendulus] plan — which went through multiple permutations as it bounced back and forth on Capitol Hill over the past week — now goes to Obama’s desk, where he plans to sign it into law by Presidents Day.”

- CNN

B R O K E N .

The bill passed the Senate on Friday night and will be signed Monday? That’s 48 hours at the MOST. And why should we have to work on the weekend when the government doesn’t have to? Fortunately the bill is a light read, just 1,100 pages, so you only have to read 550 pages a day to finish it by Monday. If you read quicker than that, you’ll have enough time to write up some feedback to send to Obama beforehand, I’m sure he’ll take it into serious consideration.

I’d like to start reading except right now I can’t find it anywhere on Whitehouse.gov and there’s nothing on Recovery.gov. Found it, sort of, it wasn’t easy — plus one of their links is broken so only 998 pages will load. They’re even soliciting comments, acting like they actually care what you think. Not that it’ll make a difference, but tell them anyway, maybe we can blow up their server. Thank god for the people at ReadTheStimulus.org who are devoting their time to making it at least somewhat accessible. But why isn’t Obama’s team doing that?

A side note: Ohio’s own Senator Brown was the deciding vote. It’s safe to say he will NEVER AGAIN get my support (as he did in 2006), and I vow to financially support anyone that runs against him in the future. Mr. Brown, you’ve sold out the people of Ohio and the rest of this country, you should be ashamed. As should all the Senators and Representatives who supported it. You have failed us. Again.

Before I step away from this and start enjoying my weekend, I will leave you with a glimmer of hope. Somehow Congressman Ron Paul manages to fight on and speak the truth, and thank god for that. Ron Paul is my President. Buck Farack.

(Can’t see the video? Speech transcript here.)

Obama’s First Big Failure: Spending Us Into Oblivion

January 29, 2009 10 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

It’s official, President King Obama has taken his first steps towards ruining our country, seamlessly picking up where George W. Bush left off.

Last night his $825+ BILLION “Stimulus” bill was passed. NONE of the House Republicans voted for it (for once Ron Paul did not stand alone), and all but 11 Democrats voted for it (including Mary Jo Kilroy, new Representative for Ohio’s 15th District, who will NEVER AGAIN get my vote.)

Congressional Democrats had no problem rushing through a spending bill that they surely didn’t read (it’s 1,588 pages.) It seems all a President has to do now to get their agendas passed is claim that it’s an emergency (DO IT NOW, OR ELSE!!!) and threaten that “it’ll be worse if we do nothing.” Hmm, I think that’s the same line they used to justify rushing the TARP bailout plan through. And look how successful that’s been, aren’t we all much better off now?

So what’s in this bill that’s supposedly going to bring back jobs, fix our broken mortgages, and put more money in our wallets? Let’s examine some of the ridiculous things Mr. Obama has deemed urgently necessary:

  • $1 Billion for Amtrak (the federal railroad that hasn’t made a profit in 40 years)
  • $650 Million to pay for digital TV conversion coupons (on top of the billions already doled out)
  • $600 Million for the federal government to buy new cars
  • $150 Million for The Smithsonian
  • $20 Million for new sod at the National Mall
  • $4.5 Billion for Federal management/oversight of the funds (money needed to monitor the money)
  • $2.1 Billion for Offices of Inspector General for management/oversight of funds (more money needed to monitor the money)
  • $25 Million for salaries and expenses for the Government Accountability Office for oversight activities relating to this Act (money to pay the people using the money to monitor the money)
  • $50 Million for watershed rehabilitation by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (is this an emergency?)
  • $1 Billion for Periodic Censuses and Program by the Bureau of the Census (why does the census bureau need a stimulus, they’re already part of the budget?!)
  • $350 Million for salaries and expenses for National Telecommunications and Information Administration (gotta pay the guys that tap our phones and read our emails.)
  • $100 Million for NIST Scientific and Technical Research and Services (these are the guys who can’t recognize a controlled demolition when it’s right in their face)
  • $100 Million for NIST Industrial Technology Services (more for them)
  • $300 Million for construction of NIST research facilities (still more?? Again, is this really an emergency?)
  • $400 Million for habitat restoration and mitigation activities by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (emergency?)
  • $600 Million for accelerating satellite development and acquisition, acquiring climate sensors and climate modeling capacity and establishing climate data records by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (emergency? jobs?)
  • $400 Million for science by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (emergency funding for NASA?)
  • $50 Million for cross-agency support by NASA ($50 million for other agencies to talk to NASA? Haven’t they heard of e-mail?)
  • $2.5 Billion for research and related activities by the National Science Foundation (emergency? jobs?)
  • $100 Million for education and human resources for the National Science Foundation (emergency? jobs?)
  • $400 Million for major research equipment and facilities construction by the National Science Foundation (wow, they really made out nicely!)
  • $4.5 Billion for improvement, repair and modernization of Department of Defense facilities, restore and modernize Army barracks and invest in the energy efficiency of DOD facilities (apparently over half the federal budget isn’t enough for these guys.)
  • $350 Million for DOD energy research and development (they need a lot of money to research how to kill people.)
  • $2.4 Billion to demonstrate carbon capture and sequestration technologies by the Department of Energy (that much just to “demonstrate” a technology? How many jobs is this going to create, really?)
  • $500 Million for Defense Environmental Cleanup (stop dropping depleted uranium and you won’t need this.)
  • $200 Million for FEMA emergency food and shelter programs (yay, more FEMA prison camps!)
  • $500 Million for Bureau of Indian Affairs construction (is this an emergency?)
  • $800 Million for EPA Hazardous Substance Superfund Remedial program (is this an emergency?)
  • $200 Million for EPA Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund Program (I wish this were a joke.)
  • $550 Million for Indian Health Service facilities (is this an emergency?)
  • $3 Billion to establish a Prevention and Wellness Fund (the Era of Personal Responsibility means having the government tell you how to be healthy, and we need yet another federal agency to do this.)
  • $6.0 Billion for DOD Military Construction (MORE for the military?)
  • $500 Million for Native American Housing Block Grants (emergency?)
  • …and the list goes on, I hope by now you get the picture.

Allow me to remind you: it’s NOT the federal government’s job to make sure you have digital TV service, museums, and trains. If you can find this clause in the Constitution, I’ll give you $100. It’s obvious that 98% of these items don’t have anything to do with emergencies or job-creation, they’re just going to expand an already overweight federal government and feed its bureaucracy.

What Obama hasn’t told you is that this bill has added an additional $6,700 of debt for every man, woman, and child in this country. Do you really want new sod that badly? What about your kids, how do you feel about enslaving them without their permission? It’s been said the tax cuts in this bill will put an extra $12 a week in the wallet of every American. Which number is bigger: 12 or 6,700? At $12/week it would take 10+ years to get that $6,700 back, and you can bet it will be worth WAY less than it is now thanks to inflation.

Needless to say, I’m beyond angry at this point, our political “representatives” (along with the American people) are RUINING this country with their apathy and lack of education on basic economics. Piece by piece we are building our own graves, and people are actually applauding it. The basics are simple to understand, and yet Americans still can’t grasp how it works. We are $10+ TRILLION in debt (counting unfunded obligations, that number is $50+ trillion), so Obama proposes tax cuts and spending INCREASES? He never once considered spending LESS on our military budget, pre-emptive wars, and empire-building, of course. I suppose once you get above $10+ trillion, the number is incomprehensible anyway, who cares how much higher it goes, right? (Unless you’re aware of what happens when you expand the money supply by trillions of dollars.) Americans see nothing wrong with this. We can spend, spend, spend, it’s all okay!

No, it’s NOT okay. Let me try making an analogy using these same principles, free from political terms that confuse and turn off most Americans:

Joe the Plumber is $500,000 in debt. He ran up his credit cards buying a bunch of things he didn’t need, lives in a house that he can’t afford, and financially supports a family in another neighborhood that constantly tries to attack the people next door to them. He’s lived this way for years and years but suddenly now he’s FREAKING OUT because he can’t make his monthly payments so the credit card companies are getting very angry, threatening to take away all of his assets, and the power company is threatening to turn off his electricity. He had to fire his pool boy, the dog’s private yoga instructor, and his private chef. Times are tough.

Joe comes up with a plan to fix this problem: he’s going to take a pay-cut at work and spend $100,000 using another credit card. He uses that $100,000 to buy a fancy new BBQ grill, some new trees for his yard, a new car, presents for the family in the other neighborhood, and other non-essential amenities. Joe the Plumber is now making less money each month, and is another $100,000 in debt. Do you think his plan will work? Will Joe wake up next week and suddenly be debt-free, with his pool boy and Spot’s yoga trainer back on the job?

If you support Obama’s plan, I have 3 assignments for you:

  1. Find where in the Constitution it says the federal government is allowed to use tax-payer money for these things.
  2. Read the Stimulus Bill for yourself. All 1,588 pages.
  3. Report back to me in a few months and tell me how many jobs have been created and how much better off we are thanks to this emergency pillaging.
  4. EXTRA CREDIT #1: Research how FDR’s New Deal programs actually prolonged the Great Depression.
  5. EXTRA CREDIT #2: Research the Weimar Republic and how hyperinflation affected them.

The kicker of this whole thing is that Obama has said over and over again that it’s time for an Era of Personal Responsibility. This means NOT RELYING ON THE GOVERNMENT TO DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU.

If you really want to follow the King’s advice, quit begging for help from the government and then crying even louder when they make it worse. Quit asking for more debt. Quit asking for less control over your life. Try some COMMON SENSE, America.

Immediate Action Item: Oppose the $825 Billion Stimulus Package!

January 28, 2009 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

A vote is expected today on Obama’s $825 billion economic stimulus package (H.R. 1). Check out this list of 200 Economists who are opposed to this bill, something neither Obama or Congress wants you to see.

All Americans who are concerned over the fiscal irresponsibility of Congress and the inflationary effects of its trillion dollar deficits, trillion dollar bailouts, and trillion dollar stimulus package, MUST contact their representative immediately in opposition to H.R. 1, the economic stimulus package.

“There is a lot of stimulus and growth in this bill – that is, of government.  Nothing in this bill stimulates the freedom and prosperity of the American people.  Politician-directed spending is never as successful as market-driven investment.  Instead of passing this bill, Congress should get out of the way by cutting taxes, cutting spending, and reining in the reckless monetary policy of the Federal Reserve.”

- Congressman Ron Paul

Rep. Ron Paul issued a statement yesterday regarding this bill which makes it clear what type of bill it is and some of the reasons why we must oppose it. Here are some highlights:

  • “In reality, this bill is just an escalation of a government-created economic mess. As before, a sense of urgency and impending doom is being used to extract mountains of money from Congress with minimal debate….. We are again being promised that its passage will help employment, help homeowners, help the environment, etc.  These promises are worthless.  This time around especially, Congress should know better than to pass anything of this magnitude without first reading the fine print.”
  • “At least $4 billion is allocated to expanding the police state and the war on drugs … and the COPS program, both of which are corrupt and largely ineffective programs.”
  • “To help Big Brother keep a better eye on us and our children, $20 billion would go towards health information technology, which would create a national system of electronic medical records without adequate privacy protection.”
  • “$79 billion bails out states that haphazardly expanded their budgets during the bubble years, but refuse to retrench and cut back, as their taxpayers have had to, during recession years.”
  • “Of course the bill is rife with central planning projects.”
  • “This bill delivers an additional debt burden of $6,700 to every American man, woman and child.”
  • “There is a lot of stimulus and growth in this bill – that is, of government.  Nothing in this bill stimulates the freedom and prosperity of the American people.  Politician-directed spending is never as successful as market-driven investment.  Instead of passing this bill, Congress should get out of the way by cutting taxes, cutting spending, and reining in the reckless monetary policy of the Federal Reserve.”

The bottom line is that Americans need to help preserve their freedom and prosperity by opposing this nearly trillion dollar economic stimulus package.

Speak out against this, contact your Representative immediately!

Action Item: SWAT Raids Co-Op in Rural Ohio

December 5, 2008 1 Comment Tags: , , , .
12/22 FINAL UPDATE: I’ve been too busy to keep up with all the new developments in this story, but the good news is that the Buckeye Institute is suing the ODA and the Lorain County Health Department on behalf of the Stower Family. I highly encourage you to check out The Bovine blog’s coverage and watch the video of the Stowers family telling their story.

—–

UPDATE #2: The Cleveland Plain Dealer has finally decided to give this story some attention, even quoting this blog at one point. Unfortunately, they dismiss all reports of the SWAT team, deciding it’s just some crazies on the internet spreading rumors. Yes of course, believe the police, they’re always innocent and well-intentioned! Don’t do anything silly like wait for the family’s statement to come out…

Reason magazine has also picked up the story, also mentioning my humble little blog:

“The folks over at Peace Chicken (yes, that’s a real site, complete with chicken death doomsday clock) are seriously peeved.”

—–

UPDATE #1: Here’s a good update on this story, including the fact that the husband of the family wasn’t present for the raid because he was in IRAQ. And here is a letter from the family themselves, which includes ways you can help.

[Thanks to LewRockwell.com, Intel Daily, OpEdNews, and NowPublic for carrying this story.]

Below is an OUTRAGEOUS story of a Cleveland-area rural co-op that was raided by a SWAT team earlier this week for a supposed Ohio Dept. of Agriculture violation.

It reeks of police state, lack of Constitutional Rights, and excessive use of force. Unfortunately, this is not a new occurrence, it happens all the time, you just don’t hear about it in the news (big surprise.)

The immediate question that comes to mind — why was the SWAT team used to enforce an alleged Ohio Dept. of Agriculture rule violation? According to the Lorain County Sheriff’s SWAT page, they are intended to be used for these reasons:

  • Hostage Situations: the holding of any person(s) against their will by an armed or potentially armed suspect.
  • Barricade Situation: the stand-off created by an armed or potentially armed suspect in any location, whether fortified or not, who is refusing to comply with law enforcement demands for surrender.
  • Sniper Situations: the firing upon citizens and/or law enforcement officers by an armed suspect, whether stationary or mobile.
  • High-Risk Apprehension: the arrest or apprehension of armed or potentially armed suspects where the likelihood of armed resistance is high.
  • High-Risk Warrant Service: the service of search or arrest warrants where the warrant service matrix or policy recommends or requires the use of SWAT.
  • Personal Protection: the security of special persons, such as VIP’s, witnesses, or suspects, based on threat or potential threat to the well being of those persons.
  • Special Assignments: any assignment, approved by the SWAT Operations Commander, based on a high level of threat and/or need.

Was the private selling of organic food by the Manna Storehouse REALLY one of those instances??

We must stand up for our fellow citizens and refuse to allow a transition from Buckeye State to Police State. After the story you’ll find a list of Cleveland news sources. PLEASE contact them and demand they investigate this story. I strongly believe people would be appropriately outraged if they only knew what was going on.

On Monday, December 1st, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM.

The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized. At some point, the “bad cop” SWAT team was relieved by another team, a “good cop” team that tried to befriend the family. The Stowers family has run a very large, well-known food cooperative called Manna Storehouse on the western side of the greater Cleveland area for many years.

There were agents from the Department of Agriculture present, one of them identified as Bill Lesho. The search warrant is reportedly supicious-looking. Agents began rifling through all of the family’s possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family’s personal stock of food for the coming year. All of their computers, and all of their cell phones were taken, as well as phone and contact records. The food cooperative was virtually shut down. There was no rational explanation, nor justification, for this extreme violation of Constitutional rights.

Presumably Manna Storehouse might eventually be charged with running a retail establishment without a license. Why then the Gestapo-type interrogation for a 3rd degree misdemeanor charge? This incident has raised the ominous specter of a restrictive new era in State regulation and enforcement over the nation’s private food supply.
Continue reading ‘Action Item: SWAT Raids Co-Op in Rural Ohio’

Be On the Lookout Ohio: These People Are Wanted For Treason

October 4, 2008 1 Comment Tags: , , .

These people are now wanted for treason against the United States of America (Article III, Section 3.)

They’ve sold out the republic and all of its citizens to the bankers. They are no longer deserving of the labels “Senator” or “Congressperson” and should never be voted for again.

Senators


Sherrod Brown
(D) Senator – Ohio


George Voinovich
(R) Senator – Ohio

Representatives


John Boehner
(R) Ohio’s 8th – House Minority Leader
Continue reading ‘Be On the Lookout Ohio: These People Are Wanted For Treason’