I haven’t handed out a Pack of Putrid Punditry Award in a long while. But this week, we have someone fully deserving of the (dis)honor. Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas Tweeted the following recently –
“The best thing about the Earth is if you poke holes in it oil and gas come out.”
For him, apparently it’s not good people or the beauty of nature of even that he believes God created the Earth. None of that is the best thing for him. Apparently, the best thing about the Earth for him is the fact that Big Oil can make massive profits off drilling into it. And he must think that this is the best thing, even if the process horribly pollutes the Earth.
And he must think this even in the wake of the huge pipeline oil spill in Arkansas or even the BP Oil Gusher in the Gulf.
It just doesn’t matter, as long as Big Oil and GREED win the day. This is Putrid Punditry on a whole new level. I think Mr. Potter from “It’s a Wonderful Life” would applaud Stockman with a big greedy smile on his face.
The news on the topic of puppy mills is pouring into the Pack News Wire in-box. Today, let’s look into a horrible ruling in the Hawaiian puppy mill case:
Puppy mill manager in Hawaii given very light sentence: The manager of a dog-breeding facility in Hawaii was sentence this week to only six months in jail, on 153 counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty. (For one thing, the terms ‘misdemeanor’ and ‘animal cruelty’ to do not match up.)The prosecutor in the case had requested five consecutive one-year jail terms, a fine him $306,000 and an order for the accused to repay the Hawaiian Humane Society a sum of $370,701.
Circuit Judge Glenn Kim was quoted in a Star Advertiser article as saying – “What this means is that the trial of this single misdemeanor case, a case less legally serious than that of a person accused of shoplifting a $301 pair of sunglasses, would have almost certainly cost the taxpayers more dollars and consumed more scarce judicial resources than any other trial in recent memory.”
This statement disqualifies Kim to be a judge. If he believes the suffering of 153 dogs is “less legally serious” than shoplifting, then he has a serious case of logic deprivation. No one who makes a comparison like this should be allowed to judge criminal or civil court cases.
And if that wasn’t enough, Kim also stated restitution to the Humane Society was not appropriate because the organization was not a victim in the case. Of course, that was not the point. The cost were incurred due to the defendant’s actions. Kim is living in the 1600s and he gets a special Pack of Putrid Punditry Award.
I haven’t been dishing these out of late, but today I’ve got a Pack of Putrid Punditry Award to present – and it’s a major one.
Representative Steve King of Iowa has stepped in it. With King’s statements last week in support of dog fighting, he suddenly manages to look worse than Michael Vick, who at least was speaking out against the horrible industry after his release from prison. King was speaking out against – yes against – legislation to make it a federal crime to attend a dog fight.
When asked at a town hall meeting about his opposition to legislation to prevent animal cruelty, King replied – “When the legislation that passed in the farm bill that says that it’s a federal crime to watch animals fight or to induce someone else to watch an animal fight, but it’s not a federal crime to induce somebody to watch people fighting, there’s something wrong with the priorities of people that think like that.”
It is hard to find words strong enough to explain how clueless, idiotic, cruel, heartless and anti-compassionate that statement is. Can it be that anyone could ever vote for this individual after reading this statement? King’s volume of stupidity on this subject would not fit inside a good-sized galaxy. And yet he sees something wrong with the “priorities” of people who want to stop dog fighting.
How could anyone be that cold, heartless and completely uneducated? No one with a functioning moral compass should ever vote for any politician with views such as this.
Writer Jason Linkins rightfully refers to a recent study about those who engage in dog fighting, in his Huffington Post editorial. The Chicago Police Department found that 70 percent of these individuals also have records that include felonies such as domestic and aggravated battery, illegal drug trafficking and sex crimes.
On her Examiner.com piece, Penny Eims notes – “Somehow, King fails to realize that human fighters choose to engage in their “sport,” dogs do not – they are forced into the ring.”
And of course, boxers and MMA fighters and Olympians are not routinely tortured to death in civilized nations for failing to win fights.
The Daily Shame out of the UK hammers King. And PetPardons.com editor Jeromie Williams writes – “Unfortunately, King is a longtime advocate for legalizing dogfighting, cockfighting, and other forms of animal torture. Most recently, he fought legislation that would make it illegal to bring a child to an animal fight.”
The Baltimore Sun quotes from actor Josh Charles’ Twitter feed – “I like to think of Iowa as the Field Of Dreams, not as the Field Of Idiotic Congressmen. Shame on you @SteveKingIA.”
We have a double-winner this week. The Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC) gets both a Wacky Mentality Award and a Pack of Putrid Punditry Award for calling the movement to end the sale of puppy mill puppies – an “anti-pet movement.”
The reference is actually to the banning of the sale of puppies in pet stores, which is really, basically the same thing.
I thought I’d heard it all in watching political debates over the past decades. But this one has to take a special place in the annals of idiocy. It would be like calling laws to protect kids from child abuse – an “anti-child-birth movement.”
So let’s get this straight. Some people think that an effort to ensure that breeders take proper care of their breeding dogs and cats means people who love dogs and cats don’t want people to include dogs and cats in their families? – Huuh?
But the article does shine the light on why some in the “pet industry” don’t want to shut down the sale of puppy mill dogs. Michael Maddox, PIJAC’s vice president of governmental affairs was quoted as saying – “Clearly, if we have fewer pets, you’re going to see the industry adversely affected because we’re going to see less demand for pet products and see less sales.”
So some industry insiders equate fewer puppy mill puppies being sold with fewer sales of pet products. That’s an important admission. What these people don’t understand or don’t have the capacity to understand is the fact that millions of dogs and cats are dying EVERY YEAR in shelters across the nation.
Millions of available pets – from pure bred dogs and cats of all varieties to the great and wonderful mutt and standard stray cat – never find homes each year. We are VERY far from having a supply problem for pets in this economic equation.
What we do have is suffering problem and anyone fighting against legislation to ease this suffering is either completely uninformed, guided only by profit or is lacking in a compassion gene.
In the article noted about, Maddox was also quoted as saying – “There is no single best place to get an animal.”
Wow. Unbelievable. To call this one-dimensional and out of touch would be an understatement. The top two places “to get” a pet are shelters and rescue organizations.
One of my favorite all-time musical artist, Sarah McLachlan, has written a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, calling for an end to the country’s annual seal hunt. The the so-called ‘hunt’ is actually the clubbing of baby seals – the brutal beating of defenseless baby seals.
The Globe and Mail notes Russia banned the import of seal fur last year, joining the European Union and the United States with bans. Russia was buying 95 percent of Canadian seal fur. But the cruelty continues despite these facts.
McLachlan wrote – “This business is about as lucrative as an eight-track tape factory.”
But Harper is a full-blown supporter of this cruel and barbaric industry. The Globe and Mail also reported back in February on the PM’s trip to China, when he was set to make it priority to promote the sale of seal products.
At the time, Harper was quoted as saying – “Our government will continue to vigorously defend this humane and highly regulated industry and to seek new international markets for Canadian seal products, including China.”
So he gets a major-league Pack of Putrid Punditry Award. “Humane?” – really? No one with the ability to form even a tiny sliver of logical thought would call clubbing baby seals to death a “humane” act. This guy was really elected as the Canadian Prime Minister? Do they vote on that in Canada?
Sarah McLachlan, on the other hand, is officially awarded a Pack of Justice Award and a Pack of Compassion Award and a Wow Isn’t She Fantastic Award. (Okay … I just made that last one up, because it’s Sarah McLachlan we’re talking about here.)
Florida legislature and Gov. approve dying of animals for Easter sales: A Pack of Putrid Punditry Award goes out this morning to the Florida State legislature and Governor Rick Scott, who took part in passing a law which reverses a 45-year ban on artificially dyeing birds and other small animals.
It is amazing what some people will do for profit. While we need to be working on improving animal welfare, elected officials in Florida are looking to promote the sale of artificially colorful chicks and bunnies during holiday seasons. These folks are clueless as to what happens to so many of these “pets” a little later in their short lives.
And they are clueless as to what happens in some of the animal mills that breed these pets for sale to the public.
What is it with Florida? The state seems to be perpetually in the news – and not in a good way – from being the greyhound racing capital of the US – to the 2000 election debacle – to the Casey Anthony trial debacle – to the investigation controversy in the Trayvon Martin case – to pulling back important animal-welfare regulations.
Come on Florida, get it together. A few oddballs in your state are damaging your overall reputation – in a huge way.
Game-show host Bob Barker, actress “CSI” star Jorja Fox, Animal Defenders International (ADI) and Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) have joined forces to promote legislation to ban the use of wild animals in circuses.
The Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act would “restrict the use of exotic and wild animals in traveling circuses,” according to an article published Thursday on Inquisitr.com. It is a bill I fully support.
The story quotes Barker as saying “Exotic animals cannot be healthy and can’t even approach being happy in a traveling circus. They never know a day that is really pleasurable. We all have problems, but we all have good days. These animals don’t have good days.”
GREY2K USA has released a video showing the manager of the Tucson Greyhound Park refusing a media request to visit the kennel area of his operation.
A previous undercover video had shown greyhounds living in a dark kennel, in cages with only pieces of carpet to rest on – and muzzled. Photos from a subsequent county inspection showed the same scenes.
Scientists at the Seoul National University Hospital for Animals in Korea have developed a genetically-altered beagle that glows in under ultraviolet light. The studies are reportedly focusing on health benefits in human medicine, such as new techniques for tracking diseases.
But a very disturbing quote is included at the end of an article on the Discovery News website. Chemyong Jay Ko, an associate professor in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Kentucky, offers another take in a possible byproduct of this research.
While awareness of animal cruelty is on the rise – I believe – some people remain clueless. Add a state government in India to the ranks of the clueless.
Officials in one region are backing a plan for a new greyhound racetrack in Punjab, India.
Coupled with another track in the area, a writer calls the news a “double delight” in a story posted July 24 on The Times of India website. For that clueless remark, let’s award the writer and the state government proposing this double horror a boxed set of Pack of Putrid Punditry Awards.
