On Saturday, Oct. 16, nearly 100 anti-socialism Americans gathered at the intersection of Highways K and N in O’Fallon, Mo.
Like they have almost every Saturday for 18 months, these people — members of the K&N Patriots — gathered to offer a visual reminder to their fellow Americans that freedom isn’t free.
They gathered to encourage their fellow Americans to fight for their God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
They gathered to encourage their fellow Americans to fight against tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation, out-of-control government spending and more.
Wherever you are, gather with them, and vote like your future depends on it Nov. 2.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Earlier this month, I published a post (Missouri Prop B: ‘That Dog Don’t Hunt!’) that generated quite a bit of feedback, positive and negative on the issue. Because of the interest level shown, I decided to delve deeper into this issue. Below is the first in what I expect to be a series of posts I will publish before the Nov. 2 vote on Missouri’s Proposition B:
Open Letter to Animal & Pet Lovers from Missouri Farm Bureau
Missouri Farm Bureau is part of a coalition of other agricultural organizations who all oppose Proposition B, the so-called ‘puppy mill’ referendum, that will appear on the November ballot. The coalition is called Missourians for Animal Care, and is representative of livestock, row crop and other types of agricultural organizations.
While on the surface Proposition B may seem appealing, there is much more all of us as animal and pet lovers should know. Concerns with the proposal as it relates to Missouri’s dog breeders include:
– the increased regulations are unnecessary because Missouri already has specific laws and regulations governing dog breeders…what Missouri needs is more funding and better state enforcement, neither of which are provided by Proposition B;
– the proposal does absolutely nothing to help put disreputable dog breeders out of business….they ignore the current law and will likely ignore any new law and regulations as well;
– Proposition B will, however, put good dog breeders out of business… they comply with the current law and raise dogs in a healthy and clean environment, but as the Missouri Department of Agriculture indicates not one of Missouri’s 1,400 or so licensed and inspected dog kennels will be in compliance with the requirements of Proposition B;
– and, the proposal will decrease selection and increase prices of dogs available to the public.
As it affects animal agriculture, Proposition B may well be the first step for the radical animal rights organization called Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to further regulate livestock farmers in Missouri. HSUS did so in several other states, bringing economic harm to farmers with unnecessary laws and regulations.
HSUS, which has an annual budget of over $130 million, spends less than one percent of its funds on the actual care of pets. Instead, they use our human emotions and attachments to pets to raise millions of dollars annually to finance their campaigns against farmers and animal agriculture. HSUS and its president, Wayne Pacelle, have an agenda to not only eliminate animal agriculture but also pet ownership.
HSUS cleverly disguises the real intent of Proposition B by presenting it as a way to protect pets by ridding our state of unethical dog breeders. It will do no such thing. To punish the bad breeders and keep the good breeders, Missourians need to demand full funding dedicated to strict enforcement of the law already on the books.
Imagine the following scenario taking place on the world stage:
Scene 1: Employees of one of the world’s largest oil companies are found to be in league with a right-wing film producer in an effort to produce a documentary aimed at helping the company fend off a lawsuit in a third-world country’s court that, if lost, could cost the company more than U.S. $100 million.
Scene 2: New York-based lawyers, said to be working on behalf of thousands of poor plaintiffs in their suit against the oil company, ask a U.S. federal court judge to order the right-wing film producer to provide his court with outtakes from the documentary, and the judge says, “Yes.”
Scene 3: Recognizing that the outtakes are now part of the official court record, members of the news media request copies of them. In turn, the federal judge orders that copies of the outtakes should not only be provided to members of the media requesting them but to members of the general public.
Scene 4: After obtaining the outtakes, members of the media spend countless hours airing video snippets, painting the “Big Oil” company in the worst light possible and, in so doing, aiding and abetting the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Unfortunately, a real-world scenario diametrically opposite the one described above seems to be taking place now. Below is a list of the players involved:
Chevron Corporation is the defendant in a contentious lawsuit — now 17 years old — being tried in an Ecuadoran court;
The Amazon Defense Coalition, an Ecuador-based nonprofit that claims to represent thousands of poor citizens of the third-world country, is the plaintiff;
Representing the plaintiff in the lawsuit is a legal team headed by New York-based trial lawyer Steven Donziger;
Joseph Berlinger is the man who produced the controversial 2009 documentary, “CRUDE,” which, though only 1 hour and 45 minutes in length, seems endless in its criticism of Chevron; and
Members of the mainstream media have covered the lawsuit in anti-Chevron stories similar to a CBS News 60 Minutes segment, “Amazon Crude,” that aired May 3, 2009.
On April 30, attorneys for the San Ramon, Calif.-based oil giant asked Judge Lewis A. Kaplain in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to order the release of outtakes from Berlinger’s flick, arguing that they might contain incriminating information that might help settle the case sooner than later. Within days, the judge granted Chevron’s request and ordered the release of outtakes from “CRUDE.”
Several months passed until, lo and behold, the folks at Chevron were proven right!
Fast forward to Oct. 7, 2010, some five months after Judge Kaplan declared the outtakes were fair game. In a memo to his court clerk, he stated that copies of the outtakes should be provided to three requesters — Thomson Reuters, American Lawyer Magazine and ALM Media — as well as to “any member of the public who requests (them) upon payment of the reasonable cost of duplication and blank media.”
As of today, I could find no evidence that any of the outtakes have been published. Not by any of the requesters. Not even by CBS News!
Why? Because the amount Chevron would have to pay if it loses the lawsuit is estimated at $113 billion — up from $27 billion figure reported in previous reports about the case — and nothing would make members of the left-wing media happier than to take a huge financial chunk like that out of “Big Oil.”
I close with two messages:
To the mainstream media, I say, “Your bias is showing!”
To Mr. Berlinger, I say, “I hope you remember how much emphasis you placed on your First Amendment freedom of expression when you were vehemently opposing the release of outtakes from your film [To refresh your memory, click here or here]. When people start to air the outtakes from your film in YouTube videos, remember that those outtakes are now part of the public record and, therefore, protected by federal law.”
Stay tuned!
EDITOR’S NOTE:For more background about this case, read more than three-dozen posts I’ve written about it during the past 18 months.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today waived a limitation on selling fuel that is more than 10 percent ethanol for model year 2007 and newer cars and light trucks. The waiver applies to fuel that contains up to 15 percent ethanol – known as E15 – and only to model year 2007 and newer cars and light trucks. This represents the first of a number of actions that are needed from federal, state and industry towards commercialization of E15 gasoline blends. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson made the decision after a review of the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) extensive testing and other available data on E15’s impact on engine durability and emissions.
What does that mean for American consumers accustomed to gasoline that already contains up to 10 percent ethanol? Plenty! In fact, the decision could do more harm than good, according to Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.
In August, Gerard said this decision — made even before key safety and effectiveness studies have been completed — “could threaten vehicle performance and safety, void manufacturers’ warranties, confuse consumers – and create a public backlash against renewable fuels.”
“Consumers need to be assured that the gasoline they purchase will not damage vehicles, void warranties or erode air quality gains,” Gerard added. “And we as an industry want to continue producing safe and reliable fuels for consumers now and into the future.”
Borrowing a variant of some now-famous words Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart used to craft his opinion about a landmark 1964 case, I say,“I know it when I see it!” and what I see is this: “Corn Ethanol Equals Cornography!”
Eighty-seven percent of 1,400 physicians said they are not well represented in the halls of power (a.k.a., government), and that’s not all, according to recently-released results of The Great American Physician Survey 2010. More troubling, however, is that nearly half think primary care physicians will eventually be extinct, replaced by cheaper non-physician providers.
Something else I found troubling among the survey results was that 48.3 percent of physicians plan to vote for Democrats in the upcoming mid-term elections while 45.3 percent plan to vote for Republicans and 6.4 percent for third-party candidates.
These survey results come 11 months after thousands of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals, many of whom are not “political animals,” attended “Million Med March” events in cities across the country. They come as the first troubling aspects of ObamaCare begin to take effect.
Below is a reminder of what doctors and others who attended the St. Louis rally in November 2009 shared as concerns about ObamaCare (a.k.a., the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act):
Vote wisely Nov. 2. Elect people to Congress who will vote to repeal ObamaCare.
"Yikes! I Might Be...Militia!"
