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Loading...Republican Congressman Brags About Bill To Enable Animal Torture
Written by Zack Beauchamp
Representative Steve King (R-IA), who is the sponsor of an amendment to the House Farm Bill that is both astonishingly hypocritical and devastating to food safety laws that protect millions of Americans from illness, recently gave an interview to the Daily Caller to brag about what he had accomplished. The King Amendment would essentially prevent states from developing strong independent health, safety, and cruelty standards, even if local voters want them.
This isn’t an unintended consequence — King told the Daily Caller that his amendment “fixes the states and their political subdivisions regulating food production everywhere in America.” However, King might want to reconsider that position, as his amendment would legalize some of several horrific farming and food practices that some states have chosen to do away with:
- Florida, Ohio, and seven other states have banned confining pregnant pigs in cages that prevent them from moving their limbs or walking in a circle. Pigs confined in so-called gestation crates are forced to defecate where they stand, exposed to serious risk of traumatic injury as a consequence of immobility, and develop sores as a consequence of attempting to move against or bite the bars the bars that confine them. They live their whole lives like this.
- Seven states have banned similar confinement for baby calves. So-called veal creates are designed to atrophy muscles to improve the taste of meat, creating what the ASPCA calls “lives of agony and frustration” for the cows until they are slaughtered at four or five months.
- Three states have banned tail-docking, wherein parts of cows tails are lopped off, occasionally without anesthetic. The American Veterinary Medical Association opposes tail docking as unnecessary and highly painful.
- Maryland prohibits adding arsenic to chicken feed, which – besides the obvious problems – also spreads the poison into the surrounding soil.
King, thought, brags that his legislation “wipes out everything they’ve [animal rights advocates] done with pork and veal.” Indeed, King has a long record of opposing animal welfare legislation — he has, for example, been Congress’ leading advocate against anti-dogfighting legislation. He also believes that the Humane Society and other animal rights advocates are attempting to ban “production agriculture” and has fantasized about exposing vegetarians with “an agenda for our diets” on the House floor.
This post was originally published by ThinkProgress.
Related Stories:
Cruel Gestation Crates Are On Their Way Out
Horrific Conditions for Factory Farmed Chickens Exposed
The US May End Experiments on Chimpanzees
Read more: animal cruelty, cows, food safety laws, gestation crates, livestock, pigs, steve king
Photo: thomas pix/flickr
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Recent Comments from Causes
Poor baby needs some loving!
I wouldn't read the article; I knew i would go ballistic, but I say again that animals do NOT belong…
OMG SO PRECIOUS!!! TY for sharing!!!
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479 comments
+ add your ownThis creature is an Inferior Form of Life--and should be treated as such. Unfortunately, other politicians are not far removed from this type.
Steve King MUST no longer be a representative of the US. He is one brutal man. I hope he gets treatment like he espouses for animals.
This guy is one slice short of a sandwich. It's people like this who give politicians a bad name. It's very sad there are people who are willing to vote for this fool. Talk about living in the wrong century! Where are the animal advocates in IA and why aren't they doing something to stop this so called civilized congressman? His views are so outrageous I'm surprised he hasn't become a laughing stock and voted out of office for giving IA a bad name.
Hmmm... Psychopath?? Whenever I learn about heartbreaking practices like these, I think what a wonderful world this could be WITHOUT Mankind. I know there are others like myself who care, but we are never the ones"in charge" now are we? What sick depraved animals humans can be. I am at a complete loss.
A vote wasted in Congress. A so called man who brags about cruelty deserves to experience the cruelty he is imposing on animals.
in a cage and see how you feel when you sleep, stand in your own body waste. Ann
Evil, awful man. Its upsetting to know there are people like him in the world
What an evil man! He should be done away with.
Why do degraded people insist on electing psychopaths to control them? King is a lunatic whose only purpose is chaos, death and destruction..setting him loose in a political position is no differnt than inviting a serial killer into your home.
My apologies. I only wrote the comment below once, but somehow it posted 4 times.
We make progress to help put an end to needless suffering for those who cannot speak for themselves. Now we have a 5 star jerk in Congress who compares animal fighting to fighting by people who have the benefit of being able to take part or not take part in the brutality of beating another human being (which I have never been able to watch). When the day comes when a dog or rooster can speak up and say "I don't want something to chew on me or tear my flesh up" and be able to leave and not take part, then this congressional non-feeling 5 star jerk can say we gave them a choice! Until that happens, it is up to us to stop this jerk from adding more suffering to the animal kingdom.
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