You can never find a plumber when you need one, it sometimes seems, but that hasn't been a problem for the puppy mill crowd in Missouri. Joe the Plumber, who found his name repeated again and again by Barack Obama and John McCain during one of the 2008 presidential debates, has somehow bubbled up, like some kind of backflow, into the debate over Proposition B, the ballot measure to bring commonsense standards to large-scale dog breeding operations in the largest of the puppy mill states. He's casting himself as a Tea Party man, and the talk is that the Missouri Tea Party wants to beat Prop B.
In siding with the puppy millers and doing so with false and white-hot rhetoric, Joe the Plumber has made it clear he's not actually interested in the welfare of dogs. He needs to roll up his sleeves and look carefully at the report we issued this week on Missouri puppy mills -- short-haired dogs shivering in the cold, dead dogs among the living, feces-caked enclosures, animals matted beyond belief, and all of it documented by government inspectors at state and federally licensed large-scale dog breeding facilities. Kind of hard to argue that all is well with the industry, with these inspection records staring you in the face.
USDA
Matted dog at a Missouri puppy mill.
Joe's an opportunistic crank, and that's being charitable. But what's really odd is that the puppy millers and their allies are rallying under the banner of the Tea Party, which has, as a general matter, expressed more than its fair share of skepticism about public officeholders. Apparently, the Tea Partiers have a short memory about their new-found friends in the puppy mill industry.
It was the puppy mills and their pals in agribusiness that lobbied state lawmakers to refer a measure to the ballot to take away voting rights in the state and make sure only politicians, not citizens, could make decisions on animal issues. They unsuccessfully tried to block the puppy mill initiative from appearing on the ballot and to prevent any future initiative that would restrict the raising of domesticated animals. If there's any group that should believe in unfettered access to the initiative process, and to vest power in the people rather than the legislators in the pay and in the pocket of special interests, it should be the Tea Party. Putting all their faith in politicians and denying the voice of the people seems precisely the opposite of what they stand for.
The names of the people and the parties have changed, but the situation reminds me of the debate over cockfighting 12 years ago. Then, as now, state lawmakers failed to do the right thing, and it required the action of the people to push ahead with a ballot initiative to correct an awful abuse. In their campaign against the cockfighting measure, the cockfighters, the puppy millers, and agribusiness said a ban on cockfighting would be the first step to outlaw all animal uses, invoking rhetoric that Joe the Plumber uttered last week. In the 12 years since Missouri voters approved the ban on cockfighting, all of the critics' predictions proved false and overblown. That will be true 12 years from now again if voters approve Prop B, as they should.
Joe the Plumber's clumsy entrance into the Missouri debate isn't likely to amount to anything more than a clown act, but it has made for good sport for bloggers and other commentators, including my colleague John Balzar, who had a few choice words for Joe.
Missouri voters -- whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Tea Party enthusiasts, or others -- love their pets. And they wouldn't treat their own dogs like the mills treat theirs. They want to see a correction, and that's what Prop B is all about. It's not a party issue for them. It's an issue of decency, and what's at stake with Prop B is a baseline principle on which all people of conscience agree.
This post originally appeared on Pacelle's blog, A Humane Nation.
And JustJes and David also have really honed in to an important part of all of this...where will the money come from to enforce this law when it's already difficult enough to enforce the existing animal cruelty laws on the books? Why are we applauding and congratulating the fact that HSUS is spending/has spent more than $1 million in lobbying for this bill?
Couldn't that money have been used for more important, existing issues? Like hiring more inspectors to enforce current law?
The money for inspection currently comes from licensing fees. I'm not sure how you thought the HSUS funds could be used to explicitly hire state employees.
With the new law, inspectors will have greater control over being able to shut down existing kennels. In addition, with fewer dogs in a kennel, each kennel should require less work rather than more. In addition, several breeders will most likely decide not to continue, which should mean fewer kennels to investigate.
I reviewed current law and Prop B, after reading your refinement statement and have to admit I don't see it. It's all there now, control and regulation both.
I'm beginning to think it's more of a power play on someone's part. And beginning to think that someone is HSUS.
As "PetDocs" asks "why are we congratulating HSUS?"
You aren't sure how the HSUS funds could be used explicitly to hire state employees. It could have been done as a grant or bequest...this sort of thing is done with shelters around the country, I'm sure it could have been done for this with a little thoughtful effort
"My goal is the abolition of all animal agriculture." JP Goodwin, employed at the Humane Society of the US,
"We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding. . One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding." Wayne Pacelle CEO HSUS
funny they want to deny they have ever said these things.. or that they said them but "heck fire.. we didn't really mean it"..
They mean it.. more than ever
NO ON PROP B
You also have misread Proposition B, or you have read, and are seeking to obfuscate its contents by misquoting the provisions. Not very effective when one can easily find the text of the bill, which is also quite easily readable.
And your "puppies dying in the freezing rain" -- seriously? Blatant falsehoods may appeal to those who support your belief, but others are going to seem them for what they are: desperate attempts to mislead potential voters.
And seriously -- what newborn puppy can get through a dog door created for its mother? You have seen dog doors, haven't you? You know the requirements for them, don't you? You know that a newborn puppy cannot get through a dog door, or trapped by them. They are installed for the mother to push her head through, which means the bottom comes to the top of her shoulder.
And sterilize the bowls? Right.
Not supporting Prop B doesn't mean you are anti animal.
The fact is that Prop B makes enforcement more likely. Each of these new criminal provisions better lend themselves to easy identification and prosecution by local law enforcement, because the officer can easily count the number of breeding dogs, etc., and could testify in court that the property had more than 50 breeding dogs without the need for experts. Likewise, it is readily apparent to local law enforcement if someone is failing to provide outdoor access for dogs. Under existing law, you need a tape measure, a calculator, and animal handlers to determine if the space requirements are being violated. This is one of the many many reasons that the Humane Society of Missouri and more than 100 Missouri veterinarians urge a YES vote on Prop B. You can find more of the facts at www.yesonpropb.com
follow Barbaras link and tell me which law YOU would rather see in place.. and ENFORCED and law is only as good as its enforcement ans so far I have not seen HSUS donating toms of money to ENFORCE the laws we have now to protect dogs..
all show.. no go.. at least Joe the plumber knows crap when he sees it..
And last I heard, a private and/or charitable organization cannot pay for government's inspectors.
As for Joe the Plumber, well, until I know who is paying his bills, I take what he says with a grain of salt.
that's my point. It is in force. It makes much more sense to enforce the laws in place, train those in the capacity to enforce it, put the time and money toward increasing those doing the job.
I just don't understand the reasoning behind a new law
I'd like Mr. Pacelle to explain clearly why throwing a new law in will help the puppy mill situation.
And please don't discuss the messenger (i.e.Joe) That's not important to me.....how this new law will improve on existing law IS important.
http://www.totaldobe.com/propb_acfa.pdf