There’s a cockfighting lobby?
Posted by R. Neal
As part of the government’s all-out assault on bird flu, the Senate is waiting for the House to pass legislation that further restricts importing of fighting cocks and transportation of same across state lines. So what’s the holdup? Apparently, House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner thinks it’s a waste of time:
OK, then.
As part of the government’s all-out assault on bird flu, the Senate is waiting for the House to pass legislation that further restricts importing of fighting cocks and transportation of same across state lines. So what’s the holdup? Apparently, House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner thinks it’s a waste of time:
But the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has not brought the bill, which has passed the Senate, to a vote. Cockfighting is banned in every state except Louisiana and New Mexico.Maybe so, but according to the article Sensenbrenner supported the legislation last year. What changed his mind?
"That's a bit of a stretch to say that the animal fighting bill should be an important part of any avian flu efforts," said Jeff Lungren, spokesman for Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.
Issues such as the Patriot Act and immigration have kept the committee busy, Lungren said, who played down the idea that the bill would do much to keep bird flu from reaching the U.S.
Last year, U.S. cockfighters formed Citizens for Preserving Historic Animal Use, which spent $60,000 lobbying against the legislation from mid-2004 through mid-2005, federal records show.It sounds like the cockfighting lobby has emerged as a powerful special interest in Washington. Then there’s this:
[..]
Cockfighters also established a political action committee, Citizens for the Humane and Ethical Treatment of Animals, or CHETA, which gave $1,000 each to then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, and Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas.
Last year in Thailand, an 18-year-old man who raised fighting cocks died from avian flu. According to health authorities, he would suck mucus and blood from his injured roosters' beaks, a practice not uncommon in that part of the world.I wonder if they are aware of this up in Cocke County (no, seriously, I am not making that up) Tennessee, where heavily armed FBI and ATF and U.S. Marshals swooped in with black helicopters and SWAT teams to bust up a huge cockfighting operation earlier this year? I hope those guys were practicing safe cockfighting. And does Rick Santorum know about this man-on-rooster-beak action? Maybe we need a Constitutional Amendment to protect the sanctity of poultry breeding...
Also, the fights themselves can spread disease because the birds slash each other in the pit.
A recent report by the New England Journal of Medicine found that most bird flu victims in Southeast Asia were people who had direct contact with birds, including people who handled and groomed fighting cocks.
OK, then.
9 Comments:
Damn, what am I gonna do on weekends, now? Funny, if you actually look at the conditions that chickens we eat are raised under, I'm not so sure it's any better tha cockfighting.
Couple things:
1 - 'further restricts importing of fighting cocks and transportation of same across state lines.'
Why do the even pretend there is a commerce clause anymore?
2 - where heavily armed FBI and ATF and U.S. Marshals swooped in with black helicopters and SWAT teams
Why is the ATF involved in that?
-SayUncle
It was members of a new lobbying group called ALL THAT FRIES
So, how would one pronounce "CHETA"? Sounds too much like "cheater", no? Especially if said with a Louisiana accent...
R. Neal,,LOL,,please,,who cares about a damn chicken when we got kids on Meth, kids in this country hungry, and soldiers dying in Iraq. Focus you new laws on shit like that. If people want to fight chickens so be it, who cares. I just want my tax dollars spent on saving HUMANS,,not CHICKENS!!! Why so many idiots in this country??
Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King has declared he will not support any animal welfare legislation until Roe v. Wade is overturned. This is somewhat of an oxymoron, because it's the republicans who will ensure Roe v. Wade NEVER gets overturned. (And lose all those single-issue voters? I mean, come on!)
King is not only an embarrassment to Iowans, he's a national disgrace. And not just over these animal cruelty issues; we're talking about the U.S. House's least-educated congressman whose hero for all times is Sen. Joe McCarthy.
(King also has stubbornly opposed efforts to stop the slaughter of more than 90,000 horses every year, which are brought to the U.S. for slaughter and then exported to connoisseurs in France, Belgium and Japan. Since, of course, it's illegal to consume horse flesh in America.)
As any intelligent individuals knows, cockfighting (or any other animal fighting) as a spectator sport does nothing but spawn other kinds of crimes. Gee, I'm surprised King hasn't praised the late Jeffrey Dahmer as a hero; after all, Dahmer not only tortured animals as a child, but he also feasted on -- uh hum -- "types of flesh" that no decent human would consider.
The guy who said we shouldn't worry about chickens while kids are doing meth seems to have missed the point. The people that fight chickens and dogs are often the very ones making and selling the meth!
That a man died somewhere because he was handling fighting cocks is another great lie of the animal lovers/human haters. Nothing has been proved, they just throw the lie like spreading a venom and since there is so much ingnorance about this sport, then every body believes them.
I don't know what rock you people climbed out of but cockfighters built this country. Law-abiding citizens all across this great country are having there rights taking away by the new home grown terrorist organizations promoting animal rights. All they really wants is for animals to have the same rights as humans.
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