Montana governor: USDA a ‘bunch of stooges’

[Rose Siding]

CROW AGENCY, Montana - Montana’s governor, who has fought the importation of young Canadian cattle, Saturday said U.S. states need to oversee federal inspectors of Canadian beef because the U.S. Department of Agriculture is acting in the interest of beef companies.

“A few years ago, the four big meat companies, they expanded their role in this country. They bought a U.S. company called the United States Department of Agriculture,” Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said in an interview. “They are a bunch of stooges.”

“The USDA crawled right into bed with them (the meat companies) and they run our internal policy and our international (beef) policy,” Schweitzer said.

Schweitzer, a Democrat in a majority Republican state, has led a state fight against imports of Canadian cattle under 30 months of age after a federal appeals court lifted a two-year ban on Canadian cattle in July.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9023712/

[leyton]

1. Alright Schweitzer!

I don't care if he's in a majority-Republican state, politicians who put the interests of the people over the interests of the corporations and who explain that to the public can succeed anywhere.

[Robert Oak]

2. nail it buddy

Ya really gotta like this guy, he just doesn't mince his words.

[Maple]

3. Dear Governor Schweitzer

Go suck eggs.

The cattle found with the problem in Canada...came from the US.

And you have many more of them right in your back yard.

Except you believe in 'shoot, shovel and shaddap' as a public health policy

[kestrel91316]

6. It's not Schweitzer who is into "shoot, shovel, shut-up" - that would be

those patriotic Republican cattle industry barons and their hired lackeys.

[LiviaOlivia]

8. Please

Big Can ag and livestock are complict. It's one big fucked up world.
Did I tell you about the Alberta oil company that bulldozed a Denver historic site and made it into a parking lot?

[Maple]

9. Sorry, it's lobbying and protectionism again

Only this time we know where the cattle came from.

And that there are many more in the US they just don't tell you about.

[LiviaOlivia]

10. Yes Bush lies.

And that war criminal and his worldwide web of corporate thugs screws you, me and the poor dumb beasts.

[Maple]

12. Going on for years

long before Dubya.

I don't like him either, but this isn't a new stance by the US 'free traders'

The US always claims to be big on free trade and competition...until someone actually competes...then suddenly the rules change, and protectionism kicks in.

[Hawkeye-X]

16. Which Denver historic site?

Can you refresh my memory? I'm in Denver.

[LiviaOlivia]

19. Hi Hawkeye

Yes, the Cosmopolitian Hotel. It was very close in appearance and across the street (NE) from the Brown Palace. The oil company that bought it in the 1980's demolished the old beauty about 1985. It was still a parking lot when I worked in the downtown area in 2000.

The old Cos was built with that same beautiful reddish stone like the Brown Palace.

http://www.coloradohistory-oahp.org/guides/architects/bowman.pdf

There used to be a Trader Vic's there on the ground floor. This was the 1970's and I had many a good time there.

Somewhere on-line is a great article about the fight of preservationists
against the oil company. What's the Denver paper that's like the Phoenix New Times?

[Maple]

21. That was Continental Oil

owned by Standard Oil, but nothing to do with Alberta.

[Rex]

4. Wow, tell us something we don't know!

At least he said it. Corporations own American politicians and the government. Been going on since the 80s.

[SpiralHawk]

5. D'oh - BushCo and Big Meat = Big Buddies

And please note that I am making no explicit references to Bush White House gay male Republican prostitute and visitor (200 times according the Secret Service Records), Jeff "Bulldog" Gannnon.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000796790

[havocmom]

14. LOL Bueno!

:thumbsup:

And 3 cheers for my Gov!

[DS1]

7. duh!

Read Fast Food Nation, and you'll never undercook your food again

[0rganism]

11. No more small planes for you, Gov. Schweitzer

Watch what you say
Watch what you do
Watch what you think
there are Bushes in the bushes

[OKthatsIT]

13. There is no 'meat inspection' in the USA

This new effort is entirely new. The USDA has been feeding downed cows to school lunch rograms since the 80's.

recent: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050815/ap_on_he_me/mad_cow
historic: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0503-07.htm

[wellstone dem]

15. When I traveled through Montana last week

one of the big stories was inspections by USDA of small independent packing houses. The locals believe the inspections were intended to shutdown the small owner operated plants so that only the big packing houses could process meat.

[Maple]

17. What they didn't tell anyone

is that because of the lock out, Canada built it's own meat packing plants...and because they're new, they're big and clean and state of the art...and now Americans are switching their business here for the speed, efficiency and sterile conditions such new plants provide.

Lots of meat packing plants in the US will disappear because of it.

The special interest lobbyists shot themselves in the foot on this one. Well...they shot US workers in the foot anyway...

[Eloriel]

18. Good for Canada

Sounds good to me.

[Sgent]

20. Agricutural policy

in this country has ben abysmal since the 50's at least.

This is nothing new, and nothing that hasn't been done under every president in the last 50 years (or some other, equally piss poor policy).

Ag policy is controlled by the farmers and ag industry, not by the government and people who eat it.

[Hekate]

22. Why don't you tell us what you really think, Governor?

:-) Don't hold yourself back!

Hekate

[Soup Bean]

23. "Big Meat"

*sigh*

[tiptoe]

24. "Idaho officials...do not expect to find a link there to Mad Cow." Ohh???

Montana governor: USDA a ‘bunch of stooges’ Aug. 20, 2005

...The deaths of five women in the same rural area of neighboring Idaho from Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a rare brain-wasting disease that typically afflicts only one in a million people, have also fueled mad cow fears.

That illness differs from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human form of mad cow disease. But Idaho officials have said they do not expect to find a link there to mad cow disease.

This, 9 months ago, from Europe:

For humans, a new scare linked to beef
December 19, 2004 Atlanta Journal-Constitution by DAVID WAHLBERG

Despite what federal health officials have said, a fatal illness similar to human mad cow disease could also come from eating meat, according to new studies.

The studies, from Europe, follow other research suggesting the illness may be more widespread than officials say, possibly accounting for some misdiagnosed cases of Alzheimer's disease.

The unsettling claims resonate after last month's mad cow scare, when a cow that would have been the nation's second known to have the disease eventually tested negative, after two preliminary positive tests. And locally, the illness similar to human mad cow gained attention in September, when more than 500 patients at Emory University were told they may have been exposed by surgical instruments used on an infected patient.

Both human conditions are known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. A form called "variant" CJD, the known human version of mad cow, comes from infected cattle. Health officials say the other form, "sporadic" CJD, occurs spontaneously and does not occur in beef.

Both are fatal and have similar symptoms: loss of balance, memory and mental control. Variant CJD has killed about 150 people in Great Britain and a few in other countries since 1995. Sporadic CJD is thought to claim about 300 Americans a year.

The new European studies say beef could cause some cases of sporadic CJD. The troubling assertion, published in prominent medical journals, joins a growing list of findings challenging assumptions about both forms of the disease: the first-ever cases of variant CJD spread by blood transfusion; clusters of sporadic CJD some suspect are linked to meat; and studies suggesting that some Alzheimer's patients may actually have CJD.

Another puzzle complicating the CJD picture: autopsy studies. Some suggest that up to 13 percent of people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease while alive may actually have CJD. Alzheimer's has similar symptoms, though the progression of the illness is usually longer.

A study in 1989 by Dr. Laura Manuelidis, chief of brain pathology at Yale University, found that six of 46 cases, or 13 percent, thought to be Alzheimer's were proved upon autopsy to be CJD. A similar study the same year at the University of Pittsburgh found that three of 54 patients, or 6 percent, diagnosed with dementia had CJD.
...

[Wetzelbill]

25. Brian always likes to give 'em hell

and I like that. :)