Op-Ed by Brett Redmayne-Titley
Are there any limits to American blood lust? This week America answered, “No!”
The shrill penetrating screams of innocent foreign children, in their death throes at the hands of an America gone mad, has become all too common – and under-reported. A self-absorbed nation cares not to hear the screams of the innocent.
As of this week the unheard cries of dying infant victims is no longer limited to human kind.
Now, the inherent evil that is the American Congress wants more of the blood of babes! If not stopped, this malignancy of conscience seeks new murders: within the tranquil silence of a mother bears winter lair and the peace and love of a momma wolf’s den! Just to enjoy the thrill of spilling the guts of these unsuspecting mothers and their sleeping, new-born cubs and pups. Like so many Palestinian, Yemeni, Somali, Iraqi, and Afghan families before, with the stroke of a pen these men of “exceptional” conscience seek to send death to the door of those who have committed no crime. All for the lust of blood!
As revealed just days ago in an article by Sarah V. Schweig for Global Research…
…the U.S. House of Representatives just voted to overturn a ban on cruel hunting tactics that previously protected animals on some of the most treasured wildlife refuges in America.
What?!
Wayne Pacelle, president, and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)concurred, stating emphatically,
What the House did today should shock the conscience of every animal lover in America, If the Senate and President concur, we’ll see wolf families killed in their dens, bears chased down by planes or suffering for hours in barbaric steel-jawed traps or snares.
American conscience – or lack thereof – is the problem!
The vote in favor of H.J. Resolution 69, authored by Alaska’s Rep. Don Young, was 225 to 193. Those 225 members voted to overturn a federal rule – years in the works, and crafted by professional wildlife managers at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. So, they can kill.
Surprisingly, this is not the first time wolves have been politically sacrificed to appease the blood-lust of a soulless Congress, ignorant US gun nuts, hateful ranchers, and hunters.
A mere six years ago President Obama foreshadowed his coming two terms of political weakness by sending over 1700 wolves – and then many more – to slaughter at the hands hunters and ranchers in Idaho and Montana. Never mind that these same wolves have been brought back from regional extinction due to forty years of dedicated work by conservationists. Obama signed their death warrant; not for sport. Not just for blood. No. Every wolf died for the sake of two congressional votes.
As previously reported on Jan. 7,2011 in an article by this author, “Another Death Nail for Democracy Kills 1700 Endangered Wolves”…
The dirty deal that will kill 1700 wolves came from the result of a desperate president, hungry to pass any federal budget, and two congressmen who well understood his weakness. With time running out to effect a budget pleasing to Republicans, President Obama sat just a few votes short. Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont ) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) were obviously mindful of previous gifts from Obama to their other congressional brethren. These two congressmen played their cards- and their president- once it was obvious that Obama was now “all in” on his proposed budget. And the price for seeing their cards, i.e. their vote, was to de-list only wolves from the Endangered Species Act.
Oh, but this surreptitious legislative act of first-degree murder was much worse than that. As the article reported, this same malignant Congress had, for the first time in US history…
by-passed all three branches of government and their inherent checks and balances as required by the Constitution. Review by the courts has been mandated away.
What?!
The wolf has for centuries been unfairly demonized by the ranchers and cattlemen of the Midwest including Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Only once in recorded US history has any wolf attacked a man. However, due to legislation in the 1800s and 1900s, bounties were introduced that allowed men to literally wipe the North American wolves from the Midwestern landscape. Sadly, by the 1920s the majestic sound of the wolf’s long howl was no longer heard south of the Canadian border in these parts of the country.
Similarly, just sixty odd years before this same government, hunters and ranchers had also eradicated the American Indian. For exactly the same reason: to kill.
Thankfully, legislation to protect and reintroduce the wolf to these areas came in the form of the Endangered Species Act. (7 U.S.C. § 136, 16 U.S.C. § 1531) In an unquestionable comparison to today’s corrupt, corporate-owned Congress, this Act is Federal legislation passed by Congress in 1973 and signed by Richard Nixon. Yes. Nixon! The Act allowed for the protection of individual endangered species from development, construction, public works … and bloodthirsty ranchers.
However, over the years the Endangered Species Act has been despised by developers, business entities, and ranchers since it has been an effective estoppel for environmentalists to use. To be considered for permits this Act caused exhaustive and expensive studies by any business wishing to move into the breeding grounds or habitats of threatened species. And if that business could not establish that it created little impact on the environment – which important at that time – then no permit to build was issued. This caused huge, lengthy, and very acrimonious law suits between big business and environmentalists. Thanks to the Endangered Species Act[ESA] environmentalists had big business well in hand. From the Delta Smelt to the Least Tern, from the Snail Darter to the Wolf, the Endangered Species Act has been reviled by big business and their lobbyists who, then, were not able to kill with impunity.
But, then America began its slow, yet ever increasing turn to madness. Thirty-nine years hence a Congress, now infected without conscience or moral compass, knew just what to do: eliminate the courts. Forever.
Conveniently buried from public view by the supposed exigent circumstances of the 2011 federal budget battle was a rider, earmark and/or attachment to that same budget. But, as usual, the subversion of legislative process that defines the “rider” had nothing to do with the budget. This rider thus took away protections for the wolf by requiring only the wolf to be de-listed from the Endangered Species Act within 60 days. When this did happen as planned, the ranchers have since been free to reap slaughter on the defenseless wolves in all manner of barbaric ways. Just, to kill!
“Zero,” boasted Ron Gillett, spokesman for the Idaho Anti-Wolf Coalition, when asked in an LA Times article how many wolves should be spared. In what today has become all-to-familiar self-serving double-speak, Gillett further stated that his main reason for killing wolves was that the wolves were killing local elk before he was able to do so. Therefore, irrationally, he and the rest of the Idaho ranchers needed to kill all the wolves, so … they could kill more elk.
What?!
Of course, as is also the case regularly today, inconvenient facts were not important or going to get in the way of a good kill. Gillett failed to note that, unlike the ranchers, wolves kill a far smaller percentage of the elk population than hunters do, only to eat when hungry and/or in need of feeding their pack and pups. Additionally, should a hungry wolf take a lamb, sheep, calf, yearling or cow the ESA guarantees the rancher is reimbursed fully for the full adult at-market value. There is no financial loss to the rancher.
The ranchers need to kill wolves found its saviors, however, in the form of a desperate and pliable president Obama, two disloyal wolf-hating congressmen, and the best friend of desperate presidents and a corrupt Congressmen: the rider.
With time running out to pass a budget pleasing enough to Republicans, President Obama sat just a few votes short. Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont ) and Rep. Mike Simpson ( R-Idaho) were well aware of their presidents well established weakness for bartering for votes and obviously mindful of previous gifts to their other congressional brethren. These two congressmen played their president on his proposed budget and the price for vote was to de-list only wolves from the Endangered Species Act. Because they wanted to kill wolves!
A desperate Obama allowed these two Congressmen to slip the rider into the Budget bill, thereby sentencing 1700 wolves, and many future wolves, to death at the hands of the thrill seeking ranchers.
Oh, but this was a very special rider; an ominous foreshadowing of the next six years of presidential failure and congressional dereliction of sworn duty, to come.
For the first time this Congress and their little-known rider contained specific language restricting any review by the US courts of their same sneaky rider. This effectively destroyed the third branch and last check-and-balance of the US government: the judiciary.
Riders, attachments, and/or earmarks need to be properly viewed as what they are; underhanded circumventions of democracy. The use of riders has grown almost exponentially in recent presidencies. Rarely do they have any relevance to the legislation they are attached to right before a presidential signature. What do wolves have to do with a federal budget? Since these riders are not subject to the process of the legislature they amount to the side deal between the individual legislators and a president, usually on behalf of some special interest alone. Such as killing wolves.
Never before had a piece of federal legislation – much less a rider – been mandated outside the review of the courts. The US constitutional checks and balances include the judiciary for obvious reasons. Sadly, these reasons were lost on our constitutional scholar president because, for perhaps the first time in history, this rider specifically prevented any intervention by the courts.
Defenders of Wildlife, an environmental group that portends to defend, among other species, the wolf, showed why many US non-profit organizations don’t deserve the donations they pander for. When contacted about this rider and its circumvention of the courts their representative explained that they had consulted with their chief legal counsel and that their opinion was that “there was no point in filing a (court) challenge.”
What?!
But, here we are with today’s US Congress, and the effort to now increase the joy of the kill by increasing a hunter’s barbarity of new techniques has already slipped through a corrupt, soulless House. Republican lawmakers did this for the NRA, the Safari Club, and some hunting guides and outfitters. Worse, this barbarity will now be allowed on our country’s national wildlife refuges, including on sixteen national wildlife refuges covering 76 million acres in the state of Alaska. Among the many new allowable atrocities, this overturning of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) ban would also allow hunters to lure animals with food and shoot them at point-blank range.
Next stop: the Senate
By extension, is this not a further shocking example of America’s decline into oligarchy and depravity? Using the example of the wolves: where is democracy or the Constitution still in effect? And doesn’t this also send a dire warning about potential rider-style legislation that the lobbyists wish to pass despite the will of the voters, Congress…or the courts?
The world is now well aware of this shocking new mind-set of the US presidency: That the executive can do what it damn well pleases. The most clearly stated, and perhaps the most threatening, example of this was America’s new neo-nazi president, Donald J. Trump, filing a federal appellate court challenge of the the lower courts protective order of his outrageous immigration ban of seven politically and tactically selected Muslim nations. Here the courts have won. However, Trump’s core argument to the court is clearly stated: that he and his legislation is above and beyond the purview of the courts and…. he can do whatever he damn well pleases.
The wolves had no voice to be heard by Congress. Is not the voice of the American voter just as moot? Few would argue that both houses of Congress are not beholden to big business and their lobbyists. With this being the case, is not the voter as silent as the wolves? Without the ability to turn to the courts the voter is indeed silenced and the forces of big business free to assail the Endangered Species Act, civil liberties, religious freedoms, social programs, the environment, and wolves.
Summer nights are quiet these days in Idaho and Montana. The beautiful howl of the wolf is again virtually absent from these natural surroundings. In that silence perhaps one may take pause to ponder: as went the wolf, so went democracy.
But must those few remaining wolves – and this time, bears as well – be subjected the barbarity of helicopter shooting, irresistible high-pitched calls, baited traps, and now the threat of slaughtered in their dens – during spring when these heathen mobs know full well the pack is denning through the winter and unable to travel due the newborn pups and cubs!
What!?
Daily, innocent infants die. They die at the hands of a soulless American-inspired Empire that has transgressed all semblance of conscience. In a court of law – a court of rational men – the charge of Criminal Insanity is in part defined by, “Depraved Indifference to Human Life.” To this charge, an ever-more-exceptional America is guilty every day. Has the sane world had enough of this insanity? Killing wolf families and bear families in their homes like so many Afghan families before… just to kill?! America: you have now gone too far!
Is it not time you rose up to act? Is it not time you stood for something? Or… are you part of this same growing madness? In one single minute you can put a stop to this barbarous legislation. You can. It takes less than one minute.
Or…. the oh, so lonesome howl of the lone wolf who sings his sad, mournful song ten dark nights in a row, to his mother, his father, his brothers, his sisters…gone.
Is it not time to say…America: YOU HAVE NOW… GONE… TOO… FAR!
One minute!
It is time.
In one minute you can go to this link and select the senator of your state and cut and paste his/her e-mail address into a new message. Send what ever Heading and Message you like, or for convenience please cut and paste the following:
(HEADING): STOP THE SLAUGHTER OF WOLVES AND BEARS IN THEIR DENS!
MESSAGE: (cut and paste)
Senator,
As a voting member of your state I am OUTRAGED to hear that the US House of Representatives has recently passed legislation that will wolves and bears to be slaughtered in new barbaric ways including during spring when these heathen mobs know full well the pack is denning through the winter and unable to travel due the new born pups and cubs!
As a voting member of your state I demand that you vote, ”NO” when this bill is introduced into the US Senate. Further, I encourage you to share your decision to vote NO decision with your colleagues in the Senate.
Please stop hunters from killing wolves and bears in their dens and lairs. In passing this legislation, the US House of representatives has gone…TOO FAR!
*******
(Now, PLEASE … Share this article on Facebook and Google, etc.)
It Is Time!
-The End-
About the Author: Brett Redmayne-Titley has authored over 150 in depth investigative articles and on-scene reports. He as reported live in multi-part series from the KXL Pipeline, NATO Summit, Occupy DC, TPP Negotiations, Porter Ranch Methane gas disaster, Mayflower, AR tar sands spill, among others. His many have been published by over two dozen news services many of which have been translate for international publication. The author can be reached via his web-site:watchingromeburn.com
It isn’t just the soulless Congress, as you put it, who have lost any shred of humanity. The American public are also exhibiting depravity on a grand scale. I despair every time I see a so called war hero being celebrated. No one even questions or considers what today, constitutes heroism. In a recent case, a navy seal was honoured in Congress. What wasn’t mentioned was what this seal did before he died. he was part of an assassination team sent into a very poor Middle East nation to kill. What he ended up doing was die in service to his exceptional nation after helping to kill little innocent children. My take is that honouring such evil is exhibiting degeneracy, social dystopia and mindless “patriotism”! When a nation’s national security can only be protected by the murder of innocent children, than that’s nation’s security is unworthy of such protection!
Excellent article. Topics that need exposure but rarely get any. Please, people, support this by sharing widely AND signing the convenient message to your senator at the bottom of the article!