North Dakota, Montana and Kansas were the first to embark on what is known as Ag Gag back in 1990-91. Three more states elected to impair the First Amendment in 2012 when Iowa, Utah, and Missouri lost their independence to big-agri. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Mercy for Animals, The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) say ag-gag bills suppress their whistleblower activities, which often result in criminal convictions for animal cruelty. The six states listed above have clearly defined themselves as protectorates of the criminal class.
This legislative season, the animal groups enlisted a broader coalition of interests against the bill, from country stars in Tennessee to journalistic organizations in Washington D.C. In the end, they’d killed bills in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont and Wyoming.
“Ag-gag legislation threatens a wide array of public interests—including animal welfare and food safety—by silencing the very people in a position to document abuse,” said Nancy Perry, senior vice president of ASPCA Government Relations. ”We hope the defeat of these 11 bills encourages lawmakers to shift their focus toward achieving accountability for those who are inflicting abuse on animals and putting consumers at risk instead of focusing on misleading efforts to suppress whistleblowers who want to expose those problems.”
Consider the First Source!
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.
