hr 875 – Moe Lane

FDA hassling Amish over raw milk.

Interstate commerce strikes again!

There is no such thing as a libertarian Democrat.

“They came in the dark, shining bright flashlights while my family was asleep, keeping me from milking my cows, from my family, from breakfast with my family and from our morning devotions, and alarming my children enough so that the first question they asked my wife was, ‘Is Daddy going to jail?’”

That’s how Amish farmer Dan Allgyer described an early morning visit last week from two FDA agents, two U.S. Marshals, and a Pennsylvania state trooper. Apparently, investigating a single farmer for possibly trafficking raw milk across state lines requires a show of force.

(via The DC Trawler) Pretty much by definition. You can have libertarian Republicans – and, as libertarians are no doubt eager to point out, you can certainly have hypocritical ‘libertarian’ Republicans – but the Democrats are a liberal-run political party these days, and liberals like to expand the state. That’s what liberals do. This can be disconcerting to counter-culture types that are not on the Left’s list of protected lifestyle choices. Continue reading FDA hassling Amish over raw milk.

I see that the libertarians are starting to notice HR 875.

I hadn’t heard of the animal tagging angle.

(Via The Other McCain)

Anyway, for those coming in late… yeah, they’re planning to gut the organic food industry, not least of which is because of (of all things) raw milk. Personally, I’m not particularly concerned about either Monsanto or GMO foods – but as I noted last month, it’s no skin off of my nose if somebody wants to pay through his for an organic tomato; and keeping the Democrats from regulating yet another industry out of usefulness is always a mitzvah.

Moe Lane

PS: You can also link DeLauro to the White House via Rahm Emanuel quite easily.
You’re welcome.

Crossposted to RedState.

Democrats in Congress poised to wipe out organic food industry.

No, really.

That’s the thing about regulating everything. You end up regulating everything. From Natural News (and won’t their server logs be confusing them today):

(NaturalNews) The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund recently reported the unveiling of the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 (H.R. 875) on Feb. 4, 2009, by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), to both the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the House Committee on Agriculture. Cosponsored by 36 other Congressmen, all Democrats, H.R. 875 would essentially transfer all state control over food regulation to the Food Safety Administration (FSA), a newly-established federal bureaucracy to be created within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Its implications point to the elimination of all independent, family farms as well as all organic farming operations due to overbearing federal regulations subjectively determined by FSA in favor of corporate factory farms.

Via Protein Wisdom, and Is this blog on? (here and here). See also the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. Rep. DeLauro – and her husband Stan Greenberg – are familiar to our readers; they’re the people that gave Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel free rent for several years. Turns out that one of Greenberg’s clients is biotech giant Monsanto… and elements of the Left have been sparring with that company over genetically altered foodstuffs for over a decade. Note that Greenberg’s materially involved in that dispute, thanks to some reports that he’s written on the topic. So there’s definitely a question here over whether this legislation regulating food production has been, ah, given a certain impetus. And in case you’re wondering what’s affected by this, well, here you go:

(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY- The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.

As Darleen over at Protein Wisdom said, “No exclusions, no limitations. You grow it, you’re included.”

Continue reading Democrats in Congress poised to wipe out organic food industry.