TX Progressives critique bullet trains, wingnuts, conspiracy theorists, Ross is Boss

The Texas Progressives hope no readers blew off fingers or other things last week, while helping George Washington fight The Battle of Dulles Airport.

Now that special Fourth of July political mayhem is over, we return you to regular political mayhem, of which Donald Trump still delivers.

State politics

ConservaDem Chris Bell is officially running for the Democratic nomination to challenge John Cornyn for the Senate. I think he brings little to the table, especially after his Bill King endorsement in the last Houston mayoral election. Kuff gushes over him, even though a week later he points out the latest Helltown craptaculartude of said Bill King, starting with the unwarranted assumption that the Democratic primary, up to this point, looked uncompetitive, and moving from there to the point that with Bell in, it’s now competitive. Of course, Kuff is aided in his gushing by the dean of Dallas political conventional wisdom, Gromer Jeffers (now that Robert Garrett is retired) ignoring the name of Sema Hernandez, as well as that of Michael Cooper and other announced and semi-serious to serious candidates. (Note to Kuff and Gromer: In mid-May, when the Bell speculation started, there were four declared candidates.)


Dallas

Jim Schutze talks the future of South Dallas, especially vis-a-vis the bullet train, which in Dallas he says will be a land deal first, transportation deal second.


Houston

David Bruce Collins discusses getting the Houston Green Party going, and working to avoid pitfalls that plagued Harris County Greens.


Dallas-Houston

Homelessness is up in Big D but down in Helltown. The Trib explains why.


Texana

RIP Ross Perot.

While everybody focuses on Ill Eagles, plus their sickening concentration camp confinement under Trump (which also happened, albeit less severely, under Dear Leader), legal immigrants on guest visas continue to get exploited in agricultural work in Texas and elsewhere.

A woman licking a pint of Blue Bell in a Lufkin WallyWorld could get 20 years in the Texas slammer, but as a juvenile, may not be prosecuted as an adult. OTOH, this is surely no more unsanitary than the multiple rounds of listeria Blue Bell willingly inflicted on nearly all 50 of our states. Gov. Strangeabbott has since weightlessly weighed in.

Grits hands out his summer reading list.

Utah recently lowered its blood-alcohol content level to determine DWI from 0.08 to 0.05. Could Texas follow suit?


National, with Texas twists

Brains has his weekly update on Democratic candidates.

Ten of those Dems came to Houston; Bob O'Rourke and Julián Castro played reasonably nice in English and none of them said anything bigly new.

Dos Centavos was impressed by Julian Castro's Houston appearance.

Progress Texas picks out its top ten moments from the two Democratic Presidential debates.

Off the Kuff tells of the off-again, on-again Census citizenship question litigation.

Stephen Young lists Texas' biggest presidential flameouts.


National

Socratic Gadfly says that, regarding some actions of the so-called "antifa," violence is not the answer.

Russia's foreign intelligence service was reportedly behind Seth Rich conspiracy theory mongering all along, according to Michael Isikoff. See all my major Seth Rich reporting at this tag.

Think Progress is up for sale. The New Republic semi-connected to think tank Center for American Progress is almost certainly not worth whatever asking price Neera Tanden will spew out.

Therese Odell catches up on the E. Jean Carroll accusation.

RIP Mad Magazine; here's a good take.

Transgriot rewrites Frederick Douglass' speech about the meaning of the Fourth of July for trans people.

Leah Binkovitz follows the numbers on cyclist and pedestrian deaths around the country.

World

Per Trump and Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador cutting a deal on Central American immigrants, the "remain in Mexico" is raising tensions and problems there. More on the issues here.

#BlueBell is coming back ... are you buying?

Ice cream pints being filled at Blue Bell's Oklahoma plant before it
shut down this spring. Steve Campbell/Fort Worth Star Telegram

Blue Bell Creameries announced this week that it will start a limited rollout of its ice cream on Aug. 31. Its Alabama plant reopened a few weeks ago; its Texas and Oklahoma plants are still closed.

First, unless that original Brenham plant opens quickly, you've got the goofiness of Blue Bell ice cream being IMPORTED to Texas, since it will be included on the Aug. 31 rollout.

Second, are you buying?

I'm not.

First of all, I've never really bought into the Blue Bell mystique. The "little creamery" is great PR marketing, but pretty much BS otherwise, as far as reality. I don't think it's anything special as far as an ice cream; in fact, since living in H-E-B supermarket territory, I've thought H-E-B's premium house brand is ... wait for it ... better. Otherwise, Breyer's makes a pretty decent, not too pricey, gelato.

Second, unless Sid Bass' investment money has the end result of booting current CEO Paul Kruse, a third-generation family CEO at the privately held company, out the door, don't expect me to rush to start buying. I think Blue Bell needs new blood at the top. I think Kruse and an inner circle expanded Blue Bell too quickly without quality control, failed to take seriously a six-year history of listeria concerns, and thought they could spin, spin, spin with that "little creamery" type PR.

And, probably didn't share the job pain when Blue Bell imploded.

So, I don't know what the ice cream equivalent of "shitburger sandwich" is, but it's probably being manufactured in Brenham, Texas.

This ain't your daddy's #BlueBell any longer

Ice cream pints being filled at Blue Bell's Oklahoma plant before it
shut down this spring. Steve Campbell/Fort Worth Star Telegram

Oil and water may not mix, but apparently oil and dairy cream will.

Blue Bell CEO Paul Kruse and his PR minions can spin this any way they want to (and they've done enough spinning since the listeria shit started hitting the fan), but Sid Bass's $125 million bailout — that's what it is — of the ice cream giant WILL change how things operate at the Little Creamery in Brenham, Texas.

Kruse himself couldn't spin the story enough to hide that he had no other choice rather than to agree to a deal that could, in just three years, give Bass one-third ownership. The idea that is, as a private company, "cannot discuss financial matters" is of course horse hockey.

And, if Bass thinks Blue Bell needs a new CEO at that point, he'll get one. And, presumably, one outside the Kruse family, which has run the company for most of its existence. Now, it may stay privately held, rather than publicly traded, but changing family control would be big enough.

But, going public could be the next step, according to this news analysis. And, it's understandable. The company's going to need money for its plant improvements, which are underway. It's going to need more money to settle lawsuits. And, it's going to need more money yet to make sure Sid Bass is getting enough return on his dinero to remain a content investor.

In that piece, Sam Hamadah, to pick up on both it and my second link, says Blue Bell's books must be pretty bad for it to accept such a deal. He says they probably contacted various bankers, who offered interest rates of 9 percent or more. Instead, they get Bass' line of cash, but in exchange for his presumed takeover.

And, despite the spin, going public.

So, while this ain't your daddy's Blue Bell in general, for any children of Kevin Kruse, before long, it certainly won't be your daddy's.

And, overall, that will probably be for the best for the company, and for ice cream lovers in general, given that Kruse and his PR minions sat on listeria news for five years, even while pretending that it was still just "The Little Creamery" rather than a giant ice cream behemoth, through various peddlings of myth.

FDA, CDC say #BlueBell, other ice cream is safe — is it?

UPDATE, June 5: Listeria's now been traced back to Blue Bell's Alabama plant. That means that all three of its ice-cream making plants — the original in Brenham, Texas, its next in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and now this one in Sylacauga, Alabama, it's newest plant have had proven listeria problems. (The Alabama plant is less than 20 years old.)

The FDA now says that the Alabama plant, like the others, was not built in a way to prevent condensate from dripping in such a way as to contaminate food-contact surfaces.

In other words, if the FDA and its state inspection agent lackeys actually do their jobs now, Blue Bell shouldn't be allowed to reopen until it does extensive overhauls at its plants.

I think that, having laid off so many other people, the company needs to fire its CEO, Paul W. Kruse. It seems that Blue Bell, family-operated by the Kruses for generations, expanded too quickly and/or carelessly and coasted on family and reputational laurels. Send the company a Tweet at @ILoveBlueBell.

UPDATE, May 21: The implosion should continue to worsen. We now know that Blue Bell's listeria problems date back further, to 2009, and the problem, and its causes, weren't just at its other plants but at the Brenham home place.

About one drop of condensate per minute was observed falling into three-gallon ice cream buckets on a production line in 2009. An inspector also saw water dripping onto ice cream sandwiches. The release of the inspection documents, in response to a Houston Chronicle request under the Freedom of Information Act, follows findings by the FDA that Blue Bell knew about listeria on floors and pallets in its Oklahoma plant as early as 2013, but did not follow up with tests of food contact surfaces.

Blue Bell, meanwhile, apparently hasn’t furloughed its PR spinmeisters:

"Blue Bell has a long history of working cooperatively with regulatory agencies; we take inspections seriously and make corrections to improve our operations based on findings in those inspections," spokesman Joe Robertson said in an email Thursday. "Blue Bell is currently in the midst of a comprehensive review of all our operations, policies, employee training and cleaning procedures to help give regulatory agencies and the public confidence that when our products return to market, they will be safe."

Hey, Joe, why didn’t your “comprehensive review” happen six years ago?

==

The Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control, say that food shoppers shouldn't worry about listeria in ice cream despite Blue Bell's total recall of all product, followed this week by discovery of listeria in a sample of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, in Ohio.

Bad timing, feds.

Update, May 7: Real bad timing. Blue Bell knew about listeria at the Oklahoma plant that's the root of the current problems back in 2013. That's in addition to the already-reported news that the CDC knew about other Blue Bell listeria problems back in 2010.

Per the 2013 issues, Blue Bell also didn't do enough to fix the problems that it knew about. That's why, per the link about its 2010 knowledge, Blue Bell's claim that "they're determined to find the source of the deadly strain of listeria" sounds pretty laughable. (Listeria is not a coliform bacterium, but if you weren't trying to clean that up, why should we believe you're worried about listeria?)

Per this story, it appears the listeria was pretty widespread: Freezer floor, catwalk, filling devices for half-gallon tubs, a drain, a water hose and more.

Meanwhile, per the header of this post and the 2013 link, it seems the FDA didn't do enough follow-up work. These updates are an indictment of its lax inspection process, too. 

Jamba, the juice and smoothie king, is recalling store-sold bags of "make-at-home" smoothies. For listeria contamination.

First, we need more testing:

Sandra Eskin, director of food safety for the Pew Charitable Trusts, says she believes the U.S. ice cream supply is safe but says the outbreak linked to Blue Bell shows the need for more testing for foodborne bacteria in manufacturing facilities.President Barack Obama signed a sweeping new food safety law in 2011 that would boost some of that testing, but the FDA hasn't yet put all of the rules in place.

And, the wingnuts in Congress, surprisingly, haven’t further gutted federal regulations for stuff like this yet.

Because, if we had more testing, we wouldn’t have statements like this:

"Based upon what we know now, there is no connection between these two ice cream companies nor any reason to suspect that ice cream as a whole poses any special foodborne disease risk," said CDC's Dr. Robert Tauxe. 

Still, Tauxe said the discovery of listeria is a "wake-up call" for the industry, since the bacteria isn't very common in ice cream. While the hardy bacteria thrive in cooler environments, they can't grow at freezing temperatures.

“Wake-up call” puts it mildly. I don’t know much about Jeni’s, but I’m pretty sure Blue Bell tried to expand too quickly; that's probably part of what was behind it having listeria problems back in 2010. Given that Jamba is making these at-home products for grocery store sale, I suspect similar is true there.

Beyond that, Dr. Tauxe, can you assure us that giving dairy cows, like beef cows, antibiotics, hasn't made listeria, a bacterium, more disease-resistant?

No, you can't.

Taking this to an even more serious level, why should I trust the FDA and CDC if we've just recently heard about Blue Bell's 2010 listeria problems? And, as an FDA whistleblower like Ken Kendrick knows, we're thin on inspectors and the FDA, like USDA, outsources a lot of its inspections. So, not only do I not trust the FDA a lot, but, given Kendrick's experience with salmonella and peanuts, I don't even know what the hell the FDA actually knows. (Given that one FDA inspector reportedly asked Kendrick "What is salmonella?" whether that was a contracted or an in-house inspector, it really doesn't make one feel confident, does it?

Given that Blue Bell is America's second most popular ice cream, after store brands, it's got a long "chain of custody" to check on both milk and eggs. This could take a while. Blue Bell is to be commended for doing a total recall; they're to be dinged for them, as well as the gummint, not doing more back in 2010.

Fortunately, nobody has outsourced stuff like at-home smoothie kits to be made out of powders in China.

Yet.

That Trans-Pacific Partnership will surely bless us with that, if passed. And, the FDA or USDA has already outsourced just about all of its inspection of imported food products.

Wunderbar.

A nuttier than normal week in #txlege and #txpolitics

First, my state rep (and state senator, even though this wasn't a bill on the senate side of the aisle yet!) officially declared themselves supporters of pre-emptive unconstitutionality. State Rep. Kyle Kacal, along with State Sen. Brian Birdwell, favored Rep. Cecil Bell's HB 4105, which would pre-emptively bar Texas governmental officials like county judges, justices of the peace, etc., from performing gay weddings, or county clerks, etc., from issuing gay couples marriage licenses, if the Supreme Court rules later this summer, as expected, to legitimize gay marriage across the nation.

Click that link. Besides my own hot take, it's got a link, and the nut grafs of, the Waco Tribune's professional house editorial take on their surly intransigence.

In my mind, this is nothing more than an updated version of George Wallace standing on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol and chanting his famous, or infamous "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" statement as part of his 1963 gubernatorial inaugural address.

Beyond that, it’s guaranteed to cost the state of Texas far more in legal fees — both bills and money lost in settlements — than Greg Abbott as attorney general incurred in his generally losing record suing the Obama Administration.

I don’t like every Supreme Court decision myself; “Citizens United” comes immediately to mind, as does a 35-year string of rulings before that which all equate “money” to “speech.” But, I’m not handed a constitutional menu card and told I can pick any two side items I want and discard the rest.

Disgustingly, Bell hasn't accepted this or anything else; even though his bill got chubbed by House Dems, he's still dreaming of attaching it as a rider to something else.

Next, second-term state Sen. Charles Perry got a restraining order from a stripper. While I first noted that the jokes right themselves, further research showed that Cyndi Ortiz has a full decade as a fairly serious campaign donor, and five years as a teaparty activist, leading me to wonder exactly what sort of fire is behind the smoke.

Speaking of jokes writing themselves, Charles' non-relative, former gov. Rick Perry, announced on May 15 that he would announce on June 4 his plans to run for seventh place in the GOP presidential contest. Wife Anita wondered how the whole family could "play a role." I suggested she double, or even quadruple, his back pain meds, then offer the same to other GOP candidates.

Speaking of governors, I suggested Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez as a candidate in 2018. I noted that, at a minimum, she couldn't be worse than the Dems' sacrificial offering in the last five races, and that the might actually have more appeal to groups like Valley Hispanics that don't vote than did any of those folks.

Meanwhile, quality control cheapness, or other issues, have come home to roost in Brenham. Blue Bell is canning nearly 40 percent of workers, and furloughing about the same percentage. I call out the company for letting this happen, and for why it happens. Given that Texas congresscritters are among the leaders in fighting the federal regulatory system, this definitely connects to Texas politics, too.

#BlueBell implodes

UPDATE, June 5: Listeria's now been traced back to Blue Bell's Alabama plant. That means that all three of its ice-cream making plants — the original in Brenham, Texas, its next in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and now this one in Sylacauga, Alabama, it's newest plant have had proven listeria problems. (The Alabama plant is less than 20 years old.)

UPDATE, May 21: The implosion should continue to worsen. We now know that Blue Bell's listeria problems date back further, to 2009, and the problem, and its causes, weren't just at its other plants but at the Brenham home place.

About one drop of condensate per minute was observed falling into three-gallon ice cream buckets on a production line in 2009. An inspector also saw water dripping onto ice cream sandwiches. The release of the inspection documents, in response to a Houston Chronicle request under the Freedom of Information Act, follows findings by the FDA that Blue Bell knew about listeria on floors and pallets in its Oklahoma plant as early as 2013, but did not follow up with tests of food contact surfaces.

Blue Bell, meanwhile, apparently hasn’t furloughed its PR spinmeisters:

"Blue Bell has a long history of working cooperatively with regulatory agencies; we take inspections seriously and make corrections to improve our operations based on findings in those inspections," spokesman Joe Robertson said in an email Thursday. "Blue Bell is currently in the midst of a comprehensive review of all our operations, policies, employee training and cleaning procedures to help give regulatory agencies and the public confidence that when our products return to market, they will be safe."

Hey, Joe, why didn’t your “comprehensive review” happen six years ago?

==

What can you say about its decision to can nearly 40 percent of its workers, even as it admits it doesn't know when it will reopen?

First, Blue Bell is, by sales, the largest ice cream company in the nation, after private/store brands, tho Wiki says it's only No. 3, but that's still big enough. This image of "the little old company in Brenham" is bullshit and has been for years.

That's why social media palaver, like a #BlueBellStrong hashtag, is also bullshit. So are "prayer vigils." Pray for more and better federal regulations, instead, please — enough for the FDA to actually have a clue, rather than the pseudo-clue it claims to have, whether Blue Bell is safe or not. And, Blue Bell is finally agreeing to a voluntary consent to tell Texas and Oklahoma state officials when it spots listeria in the future. Yes, you read that right.

Second, CEO Paul Kruse (it's been family-run by Kruses at the top since 1919) didn't mention anything about taking a pay cut himself. And, the company is eating its own words from less than 3 weeks ago about layoffs.

Hope those words are listeria-free.

Otherwise, Blue Bell claims it didn't expand itself overly rapidly. Maybe that is itself the problem, in that it didn't match its sales territory growth with ice cream plant growth. Dreyers, for example, has six plants compared to Blue Bell's three.

Maybe Blue Bell's delivery trucks aren't as well insulated or something, too, so that any production plant problems have more chances to be magnified on the road.

Per my main previous blog post on this, since previous cases of listeria were found in Blue Bell product in 2010, this reminds me of the old Fram commercial: You can pay a little now, or a whole lot later. Blue Bell chose not to pay up front, and now a lot of employees are sadly paying the price. Maybe, as part of this, the company needs a non-Kruse outsider to run the company.

And, yes, right now, "implodes" is the right word. A massive gutting of its work force. Continued uncertainty as to when they can even reopen their plants. And, of course, no knowledge of how this will affect both the financial and reputational bottom line.

What word besides "implode" would you use?

How to mess with the minds of #antivaxxers AND #homeopathy touters

Once again, those natural supplements aren't so pure and pristine, per a complaint by the New York AG's office:

The authorities said they had run tests on popular store brands of herbal supplements at the retailers — Walmart, Walgreens, Target and GNC — which showed that roughly four out of five of the products contained none of the herbs listed on their labels. In many cases, the authorities said, the supplements contained little more than cheap fillers like rice and house plants, or substances that could be hazardous to people with food allergies.

This news, of course, started my mind to racing away. 

You know what would make a helluva "Merry Pranksters" gig? Either hack the NY AG's office to say that thimerosal was among the contaminants, or sneak into a "nutritionals" lab in Utah and actually sprinkle products with thimerosal.

Watch the antivaxxers and naturopaths etc., freak out after that.

Part 2 is to tell them that the thimerosal was XXXX diluted to increase its homeopathic power.

On the more serious side, more details of the investigation are here. Per the story, maybe Orrin Hatch needs some thimerosal as a belated Christmas present. Or more seriously, the NY AG needs to loop Hatch into its case.

At your grocer: Killer pot pies

No, really. Your pot pie, TV dinner or frozen pizza may be LOADED with E coli, coliform or other nasties. And, guess what? Big Ag, in conjunction with major grocers, wants you to take care of your own food safety if you eat this stuff.

Seriously. Banquet wants you to use an oven thermometer on its pot pies rather than it have to do the work of figuring out which of 25 or so ingredients (including spices that can carry salmonella) is the culprit if you get sick.

And, yes, I said “spices that can carry salmonella.” Nearly 10 percent of them. Read the full story.

Salmonella spreads to Texas peanut plant

A second Peanut Corporation of America plant, in Plainview, Texas, has been shut down at the request of the Texas Department of State Health Services. Samples taken on Feb. 4 of roasted peanuts, peanut meal and granulated peanuts.

Note that first item especially. The apparently contaminated items includes whole peanuts. PCA’s Georgia plant reportedly “just” had problems with peanut products. No information if the Plainview plant sold whole peanuts or not.

And, showing just how clueless the Food and Drug Administration is, the Houston Chronicle reports the FDA didn’t even know PCA had the plant in Plainview until after it began investigating the company’s Georgia plant. Reportedly it had never been registered with the state, either, and so, never inspected until now.

Next question – will somebody in the Obama Administration take time away from financial bailout issues to talk about food safety and supply? (After all, didn’t Obama chide John McCain about being able to do multiple things at one time as president?)

Given that Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack is in the tank for various Big Ag issues, from CAFOs to ADM, don’t hold your breath.

Congress has subpoenaed Parnell family owners of PCA and others, but it will likely be the usual dog-and-pony show that Congressional hearings are in the age of presidentialism.

Monsanto’s latest slice of alleged brilliance

Genetic engineering drought-resistant corn surely isn’t as simple as Monsanto would have us believe.. Much simpler genetic engineering has often had unanticipated, sometimes unwanted, side effects.

To believe you could re-engineer the New World’s signature grain, which has been grown in dry conditions by Ancestral Puebloans for what, around 3,000 years, and do so with bumper yields, is just ridiculous.

And, it’s the technology-driven part of American exceptionalism. Rather than focus on better water use by farmers right now, the attitude is, let’s just “tech our way out of this”!

Know where your salmonella came from

The new federal food source regulations do nothing to actually improve food safety, as they don’t mandate cleaner slaughterhouses, vegetable warehouses, or anything else. Still, being able to read the area of origin of most your unprocessed food may help something.

That said, per my first sentence, I’m worried too many Americans will assume their food now is magically safe.

Food can pass on supermicrobes

Score another one for mass agriculture. Food can pass on (and yes, you can take that as some sort of pun) antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The main foods carrying antimicrobial resistant bacteria were poultry meat, eggs, pork or beef as well as fresh salads, which can be contaminated during preparation, handling and processing, it said.

The panel found bacteria could be passed directly to people from contaminated food of animal origin carrying resistant bacteria which could colonize or infect people after ingestion.

Bacteria could also be passed to humans by the consumption of fresh produce from land irrigated with water contaminated by slurry or sewage. Food of animal and non-animal origin could also be contaminated during handling and preparation.

What this means is that bacteria are going to increase their resistance even more. Picture drug-resistant strains of E. coli or other bacteria coming to the U.S. from Argentinean beef or Chilean grapes and swapping genes with U.S. based strains of E. coli. Now do you see the problem?

Even worse than contaminated heparin

A rat’s head was found in snack food in South Korea — snack food made in China. The Korean snack is cracker dough mixed with shrimp, neither of which is rat-like.

The Korea Food and Drug Administration will send investigators to the factory in Qingdao in eastern China, which performs initial production steps for shrimp crackers sold by South Korea’s leading processed food company Nongshim, said Choi Jong-dong, a KFDA official.

Of course, this next part sounds like it could happen here in America, just like South Korea:

Nongshim also has been under fire following revelations it continued to sell the snack even after it received a customer's complaint on Feb. 18 about the animal part found in the snack.

Anyway, besides boycotting the Olympic opening ceremony, if I’m a foreign dignitary, I’m boycotting Chinese food while I’m there.

Downer cows make for killer burgers

Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. President Steve Mendell fessed up to using downer cows in his company’s Southern California slaughterhouse. Downer cattle are supposed to verboten due to fears of mad cow disease.

Of course, that was only after a Congressional committee confronted him with undercover video.

Mendell was under subpoena to appear before the House Energy and Commerce investigative subcommittee. Without a subpoena, he was a no-show last month, which carries an implication of guilt in my book right there.

And, what did he not want to talk about?

This imagery that should just want to make you rush out to buy fast food, or some hamburger at the grocery store NOT:

Mendell watched red-faced and grim, sometimes resting his head on his hand, as cows were dragged by chains, sprayed in the nostrils with water, shocked and harshly prodded with forklifts to get them into the box where they would be slaughtered.

Earlier, in written testimony, Mendell claimed no downers went through his slaughterhouse. He then admitted he was changing his testimony because he got caught red-handed. Meanwhile, his legal mouthpiece, a familiar old Republican flunky, tried to spin even that:

Asked about the discrepancy with his written testimony, Mendell said, “I had not seen what I saw here today.” He said that the Agriculture Department had not shared with him some of the undercover video shot by the Humane Society of the United States.

Stupak pointed out that the video has been available on the Humane Society website.

After Mendell’s testimony, his lawyer sought to clarify Mendell’s remarks. Asa Hutchinson, a former GOP congressman from Arkansas who once led the Drug Enforcement Administration, said Mendell would not dispute logical conclusions drawn by Stupak about downed cattle illegally entering the food supply.

“But it can’t be conclusive because he does not know all the facts of it, he hasn’t studied it and he only saw one brief shot at it during his testimony,” Hutchinson said.

So, Mendell is trying to blame the USDA, and Hutchison is trying to claim Mendell doesn’t know what goes on in his own company. Typical Republican, just like our glorious CEO president.

If Mendell didn’t know about shit like this, literally, shit, from the feces that cling to downers, it’s because he didn’t want to. The company had a quota of 500 slaughters a day. As for his claim that his plant had good training, well, that might be true in theory, but if you’re running that many cows through, it’s not that way in reality.

And, given the fact Mendell was a no-show at the previous committee meeting, as I noted above, Hutchison knows that anybody with half a brain sees through the spin.

As for the “killer burgers” part of the head, it’s a legitimate fear:

Richard Raymond, Agriculture Department undersecretary for food safety, acknowledged “there is that remote possibility” that cases of mad cow could emerge years from now as a result of the Westland/Hallmark practices.

And, there may be more in the system:

Raymond also said that the Agriculture Department had found evidence of more than the two non-ambulatory cattle shown in videos Wednesday improperly entering the food supply. Even though carcasses also undergo inspection and can be discarded after slaughter, “it’s a reasonable statement to assume it did enter commerce, some of it,” Raymond said.

As for Mendell, he’s now worried about his own future. He claims he’s received death threats and people have told him they’re “praying for us to suffer and die like the cows.”

Well, you know, if we went by the “eye for an eye” idea, something like that would make a fitting punishment for Mendell, should he be criminally convicted of everything.

One hamburger a day, every day for the rest of his life, made of the recalled beef from his slaughterhouse. Given that it was the subject of the largest recall in history, I’m sure it would be no problem cooking him up a daily quarter-pounder, or even double quarter-pounder. And, no, that’s not totally tongue in cheek.