Stora tråden om amerikansk inrikespolitik

seeeg321 skrev

Trump spelar golf med Abe och någon luffare från Tv 4.


http://www.expressen.se/noje/har-spe...-tv4-profilen/


Trump ser ut som pingvinen från batman filmen från 90-talet.

USDA scrubbing of animal records may have been sparked by horse lawsuit
Former Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack said Tuesday that his senior staff informed him toward the end of his term that the agency division responsible for enforcing the Horse Protection and Animal Welfare acts was recommending pulling the records from the website and instead making them available via Freedom of Information Act requests. He said one rationale was that doing so would reduce staff time spent on the documents. Litigation was also a factor, he added, though he could not recall a specific court case.

But Vilsack did not sign off on the recommendation — not because he disagreed with it but because he believed it had major implications that he didn’t have time to consider fully, he said. “There was not enough time for us to properly vet the recommendation, and I was concerned about transparency,” he explained.

So why did USDA change its mind? Marty Irby, the Senior Director of Rural Outreach and Equine Protection for the Humane Society of the United States in Washington, D.C., and the former president of the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders and Exhibitors Association

“They can’t win in the court of public opinion, so they have tried to influence legislators instead.”

The turning point, Irby believes, came when the Trump administration hired Brian Klippenstein to lead the USDA transition team. Klippenstein is the executive director of Protect the Harvest, a Columbia, Missouri–based pro-agriculture group that has supported Right to Farm bills, which protect the agriculture industry from certain lawsuits and regulations, including those involving animal welfare. The group has also opposed restrictions on large-scale dog breeding operations—sometimes referred to as “puppy mills”-- which are regulated under the Animal Welfare Act. USDA’s decision to remove documents relating to violations of both the Horse Protection Act and Animal Welfare Act would be consistent with Protect the Harvest’s policy goals, Irby notes.

Joe Watson, the CEO of Petland, which sells puppies at about 80 stores nationwide, said his company requires commercial breeders to have two years of clean USDA inspection records and depended on the database. He said Petland will now have to ask breeders to supply the reports.
Dan Ashe, the president and chief executive of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said in an interview that the removal “creates an impression that licensees by the Department of Agriculture have something to hide.” The organization Speaking of Research, which defends the use of animals in research, said the change means “researchers must devote even more resources to combating the public perception that they are not transparent.”

These heroic guerrilla scientists and librarians are racing to save environmental data from Trump