Roy Exum
A couple of weeks ago a letter bearing the signatures of 175 very furious members of Congress was delivered to our nation’s Office of Management and Budget. It asked that the OMB review a rule amending the federal Horse Protection Act so the Obama administration could kick the shiny stuffing out of the slime that plagues the Tennessee Walking Horse industry.
Right now there is a third try of the PAST Act (Prevent All Soring Tactics) craftily log-jammed in Congress (it has 255 sponsors) and the Senate (49 sponsors). Both bills are stalled because the slime (that would be the sickening morons who derive pleasure from sadistically torturing horses so they will dance “The Big Lick”) has used a big wad of PAC cash to influence every Republican senator and Congressmen from Tennessee and Kentucky to block it.
So here come 175 bipartisan members of Congress who are trying to circumvent people like Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander and Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell who blatantly put cash before integrity. Is this a great country or what? Who would have ever thought President Obama would need to ask the Department of Agriculture to eliminate the “Big Lick” from policing themselves and banning incentives, like stacks on front hooves, chains and the like, because our Senate and Congress can’t get it done?
The whole thing is so preposterous you want to gasp. Last August, at what is now called the World ‘Sore-abration’ in Shelbyville, a stunning 87.5 percent of randomly selected horses showed signs of having being sored. Louts who have been caught in previous years have testified in Chattanooga’s federal court that the sickening “big lick” dance can’t be achieved without brutalizing the animal. There is no way it is natural, but it is so very lusty to the perverts that one sored Walker’s front hoof actually flew off at a Florida show a few years back.
All the PAST Act wants to do is close in on the cheaters. The Horse Protection Act was written 46 years ago, yet – get this -- less than a year ago at the world grand national show there were 87.5 percent of horses that were picked that were hot? What I can’t get my arms around is the fact that in Tennessee animal abuse is a felony. Where was the Shelbyville sheriff when this was uncovered and, after it was proven, what did that Barney Fife pray about in church?
Think about this when you vote in a national or state election. The PAST Act had more than enough signatures to pass in the last session of Congress, but House Speaker John Boehner, such a bastion of democracy from Ohio, suddenly had such a mad rush of campaign contributions from known “Big Lick” disciples that the bill was never called to the floor. Imagine that.
Can you see why 175 members of Congress – in a way that flies in the very face of true democracy – has to request the Obama Administration to order the Office of Management and Budget to review a rule so the Department of Agriculture can make things right? Wow! Go out a vote for Do-Nothing Chuck.
I’m serious. This isn’t a far reach at all. Think about how Hitler was able to manipulate good and decent German people to do the most despicable things to other human beings because of how they prayed. Now think about the two Republican senators and the seven members of Congress from Tennessee.
I don’t think Bobby Corker has much room to allow for horse abuse, yet he hasn’t the hand to sign a bill 49 other senators have. Lamar Alexander has been our governor and the president of Tennessee, but I will never look at him without knowing he is well aware of an evil and, far worse, that he has actively helped perpetuate it. (Steven B. Smith, the head of the “Big Lick” is Lamar’s campaign treasurer in the state.)
The Republican members of Congress are not evil and wicked. But just as the Germans desecrated the Jews, the blood of thousands of Tennessee Walking Horses, most dying far earlier than they should, lies at the feet of David “Phil” Roe, John “Jimmy” Duncan Jr., Charles “Chuck” Fleischmann, Scott DesJarlais, Jim Cooper, Diane Black, and most especially Marsha Blackburn. Don’t you see? They know it! Yet not a one signed the letter that had 175 signatures from Congress two weeks ago. I’m mad enough to say I believe such shameless unity would have made the Fuhrer giggle.
You say, Roy, that is so low. You cannot dare compare gassing defenseless Jews with putting acid on a defenseless horse’s forelegs! That’s over the line. Oh? Study after study shows that torturing animals that you “dearly love” is just one of the last stops in a very sick chain. So when our elected politicians show up in Shelbyville for their envelopes, you might want to try to connect the dots once more.
Last week the “Dirty Lickers” got together in Lewisburg and the writing was on the wall. Registry revenue is down $45,000 and membership cash is down $17,000 from a year ago. All the good horse people are gone; today there are less than 5,000 members in the Breeder’s and Exhibitor’s Association and the public’s wrath for the putrid soring methods will never be restored.
Kentucky Congressman Hal Rogers, a “Dirty Lick“ favorite who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, is banging on the USDA pretty hard. Rogers ripped Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services Administrator Kevin Shea in such a flagrant way not long ago you wonder how anyone in the Bluegrass State would vote for such a person; the dolt spends more time supporting horse abuse than he does his own constituents. You can’t make this stuff up.
Mr. Obama, on behalf of the majestic Tennessee Walkers, please turn Tennessee’s Republican delegation in Washington into the jerks they most assuredly appear to be.
royexum@aol.com