Another Important Message From John Holland - President of the Equine Welfare Alliance - on Attacks in Social Media

This was first published on the EWA Newsletter which can be seen online here.

This post will be my only comment on the unfortunate situation that only serves to demonstrate how quickly some can forget that their stated goal was to help horses - something this ugly infighting does not accomplish. To say I'm shocked and disappointed would be quite the understatement. 

For the past week, various Facebook pages have been full of wild claims and speculation regarding the resignation of an EWA board member. We have not commented on this resignation because it is our policy, like every reputable organization, to keep board matters confidential.

We have worked very hard to become a respected organization that provides accurate information in an unemotional context. This is the reason that we can now be accepted as a source at legal proceedings, in legislative hearings and by the press.

We have therefore stated only that it is against our policy to become involved in any way with public attacks on other animal welfare organizations or in supporting them against such attacks. It is our position that these attacks, justified or not, serve only to undermine the credibility of our entire movement.

We have repeatedly been asked whether the requested resignation was the result of our supporting AC4H. No, it was not, nor did it involve a single incident.

Now that I have been personally attacked for over a week, I have many wonderful examples of why this sort of Facebook vigilantism is so destructive to the image of our movement and to its cohesiveness. People have speculated wildly and recklessly about a situation of which they know absolutely nothing. They have been willing to believe that I would suddenly, and with no justification, ask for the resignation of a board member and then offered completely irrelevant material as proof.

For example, a photo of me standing with Christy Sheidy was offered as proof that I support her. A few posts later someone recognized that the picture was from a 2008 anti-slaughter conference in Washington, and was one of dozens of pictures of me and other participants standing together. So the image proved only that Christy Sheidy and I had both taken the time and effort to attend an anti-slaughter conference.

Furthermore, publicly calling people names like Crusty Sheidy or Christy Shady is so adolescent as to make me cringe. We do not need this kind of discourse at any level, against anyone, and to imagine that it somehow helps the horses is delusional.

The posting of a public notice of a tax lien was given as the reason for dismissal.  Posting public documents is acceptable and commonplace. However, I might mention that it was posted with a comment stating that it proved AC4H had not declared income from its broker program - a comment intended to invite controversy. That comment turned out not to be true and is typical of the kind of thing that makes people question the accuracy of other information being provided.  Still, it was far from the reason for this entire debacle.

Let me put it bluntly. This kind of war is moronic and of utterly no help to the horses at all. While a river of horses go over the borders, countless hours are being wasted on a McCarthyesque witch hunt to see if this person or that supports an operation that is already under investigation by authorities and all but totally defunct. People I have known and worked with for years have somehow lost all reason and joined in this blood sport without asking "What is to be gained and what could be lost?"

I do see where some people have injected interesting facts such as the point that I was one of the first people to question whether it wouldn't be better to buy horses by bidding against kill buyers rather than buying them from kill buyers and thus putting money in their pockets.

But let me suggest we think deeper. We all regard the kill buyers with disdain, but even if we bought every horse out from under them at auction we would still be stuck with the problem because it would merely enrich those doing the over-breeding and dumping the horses! We can't rescue our way out of slaughter folks.

Finally, I must point out that this former board member has decided to divulge and embellish confidential board discussions in hopes that it would embarrass EWA and add to her support. That is both unethical and illegal, and speaks to the individual's understanding of the duties of a board of directors.

Now having read this, each of you are free to go back to banging out useless flaming posts in hopes of collecting "likes" (whatever they are worth) or working with us to end the slaughter and abuse of American horses. Which will it be?

John Holland

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A Message From Equine Welfare Alliance President John Holland

 Hi Folks,

This is part three concerning the omnibus bill. Part one, as many of you have discerned, was our optimistic New Year's message hinting at good things ahead, and part two was the announcement of the defunding language in the omnibus budget and how it got there.

These developments have led to the question of how long this will stop slaughter houses from returning to the US. I will attempt to explain the answer to that question. Like most things in Washington, the answer is a bit convoluted. However, I think it is safe to say it will stop their return for at least two years and here is why.

Budgets are, as we all know, a one-year affair that begins October 1st. The process is supposed to start with the President's budget, which is broken into 12 separate budgets (such as the Agriculture Budget), which in turn go to the various appropriations committees to be amended.

These budgets are then supposed to go to the floor of their respective houses for a vote. Following their passage in the Senate and House, the resulting budgets are supposed to go to a conference committee to hammer out differences, and then back to the House and Senate for a final vote.

But if there is one consistent theme in Congress, it is that they almost never do things the way they are supposed to. According to the Congressional Research Service, Congress has passed a full budget only three times in the past 26 years! Most years they pass a CR for all or most individual budgets.

Last year, the agriculture budgets got through the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, but neither reached their respective floors for a vote. Both budgets had defunding language, as did the President's budget. The budget for other departments didn't even get that far.

A CR, or Continuing Resolution, is merely a way of keeping spending at the same level (or at some multiple of the current level) for an additional period. The duration can be from a day to as much as the remainder of the current budget year.

An omnibus budget is yet another way for Congress to shortcut its budgeting process. This fiscal year, we got a series of short CRs, followed by an omnibus budget.

Since the omnibus was based on the bipartisan budget "framework" agreement reached a month earlier, and since that agreement was for two years, we can be sure that the 2015 budget will be a one-year CR.

Now it gets kind of ironic. The late Sue Wallis, Dave Duquette and even Charlie Stenholm had speculated publicly, and no doubt prayed, that there would be a CR for 2014. That would have continued the funding for inspections from the previous 2012 and 2013 budgets.

However there is something call an "anomaly" that can be added to a CR to place a restriction on certain funds. Since nobody was sure the omnibus would pass, a CR was indeed prepared and tucked away to keep the government funded the rest of the year if the omnibus blew up.

That CR contained an anomaly that prohibited any funds from being used for horse slaughter inspections. So had they been forced to use the CR, it would have had the same outcome (defunding). We knew this well before the budget deal was struck, and actually expected that is the way things would go.

And why is this important going forward? It is important because it was none other than Secretary Vilsack who signed off on the anomaly. That explains why Victoria wanted to thank him. It also means that it will be virtually impossible for the pro-slaughter camp to accomplish a removal of the defunding language for the 2015 budget CR.

So the plants are locked out for two years and probably more. And that is the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would have said.

BREAKING! EWA & ALC Issue Press Release With Proof That GAO Report On Horse Welfare After Closing of Domestic Slaughter Plants FRAUDULENT BREAKING1

2013.07.30 Press Release: Evidence to Prove GAO report FRAUDULENT

    July 31, 2013    

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    

    Contacts:    

    John Holland, President, Equine Welfare Alliance

    540.268.5693

    john@equinewelfarealliance.org    

    Laura Allen, Executive Director, Animal Law Coalition

    425.419.7301

    lauraallen@animallawcoalition.com  
    
    EWA and ALC produce evidence showing GAO Horse Welfare report was fraudulent    

    EWA (Chicago) - The Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA) and the Animal Law Coalition (ALC) announced today that they have irrefutable evidence showing that the Government Accountability Office fraudulently misrepresented horse abuse and neglect data in their report GAO 11-228.    

    The GAO report blamed falling horse prices and increased abuse and neglect on the closing of the domestic slaughter plants in 2007. Shortly after GAO issued the report, a conference committee reinstated funding for horse slaughter inspections, opening the way for slaughter to return to the US. Widely quoted in the media, the report is also provided as evidence in the lawsuit filed by Valley Meats against the USDA.    

    The EWA and ALC have provided both a video and a white paper showing how the fraud was committed. The ten minute video, How the GAO deceived Congress about horse slaughter was released on YouTube, and shows step by step how the GAO hid information in its possession showing abuse and neglect was in decline and misrepresented the data as showing it was increasing.    

    The fraud was discovered by the EWA while collecting data for equine abuse and neglect rates across the country. "We were looking for the correlation between various factors such as unemployment, slaughter and hay prices on a state by state basis," explained EWA's John Holland, "and when we looked at the Colorado data, we were reminded of its mention in the GAO report."    

    The GAO claimed in the report to have contacted state veterinarians across the country and to have been told that abuse and neglect was increasing everywhere in the wake of the closing of the US plants in 2007. These were the same officials EWA contacted looking for states that kept records.    

    The EWA found data from six states; Oregon, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Georgia and Colorado. The records showed that abuse and neglect had been in decline between 2008 and 2010 (the last year of the GAO study), and that the GAO had used the wrong dates on the Colorado data to make it appear abuse had increased 60%.    

    "We had accepted that abuse was probably increasing as the result of the bad economy," says Holland, "so imagine our surprise when we found it had been decreasing." The EWA study finally showed the reason: drought. Drought and the subsequent increases in hay prices correlated tightly with the abuse and neglect numbers, and outweighed the influence of the recession and other factors.    

    "Not only did the GAO misrepresent the data, they completely missed the importance of hay prices and availability." said Holland. The EWA filed a FOIA request for the data used by the GAO and the request was denied. The EWA also filed an IG complaint, and finally had a conference call with the GAO to request the report be withdrawn. The GAO refused any response except to say that their reports were flawlessly cross checked.    

    Victoria McCullough, owner of Chesapeake Petroleum and internationally known equestrian, said "Acceptance of lower standards results in failed policies and most significantly failures of public interest. Special Interest encroachment within Washington must not be allowed to erode public trust."    

    - # -

White Paper: http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/How_the_GAO_Deceived_Congress-final.pdf

Related articles

• Fraudulently misrepresented horse abuse and neglect data by US Gov
• EWA and ALC Produce Evidence Showing GAO Horse Welfare Report Was Fraudulent
• EWA and ALC Produce Evidence Showing GAO Horse Welfare Report Was Fraudulent
• Study of Equine Abuse and Neglect Patterns Produces Surprising Findings

The Art of Deception

EDITORIAL | The Art of Deception

by Vicki Tobin 2012.06.10

Sue Wallis [or whoever pens her ramblings] has mastered the art of writing fictitious statements and making them sound feasible.

In a cover letter to the release of her latest piece of fiction, she states her paper is a representation of the horse industry. Where is the data to back that statement? She is well known for making baseless statements and then when challenged, she cuts and runs.

She wants to kill horses. Period. How is that going to help the beleaguered horse industry that makes its billions from live horses? The answer is obvious. It won't.

Wallis speaks for a foreign meat industry. When did the horse industry ever produce meat? They produce athletes and performance horses, not horse meat.

The first section is nothing more than an attempt to build a market that doesn't exist and never will exist in America. If Americans ate horses and there was a buck to be made, horse meat would be in our grocery stores. There was nothing stopping the selling of horse meat in the U.S. during all the years slaughtered existed on our soil and never a mention of wanting to sell horse meat.

She babbles on and on about the foreign countries consuming meat. Really, now. Who cares? Every country has its own culture and is free to eat and do what they please. In our country, in our culture, we do not eat our horses. She claims she'll feed the hungry. Do we really want the U.S. to be known for wiping out world hunger by feeding the hungry toxic meat?

We agree with her comment that journalists don't always fact check but this is a positive for

Wallis, not a negative. If journalists did check facts, none of her nonsense would be published.

She claims horse slaughter is humane but hasn't provided any evidence. There are mounds of evidence to the contrary. Continually citing Humane Methods of Slaughter, she fails to state that having regulations and enforcing them are not the same. There aren't enough inspectors and yet, she wants to expand their workload to horse slaughter plants that will further compromise our food supply. Government authenticated undercover footage has proved over and over again just how inhumane horse slaughter really is. Not being able to explain away the cruelty, she simply states they are all fabricated. If she pulled FOIAs from the former U.S. plants, she would realize just how baseless her statements really are.

All we hear is humane and regulated horse slaughter plants. This is coming from someone who thought it was good clean fun to crawl around in the bloodied carcass of a horse. Someone that defends a livestock plant owner wanting to open a horse slaughter plant that was shut down by the USDA for inhumane treatment of slaughter animals and someone that defends a feedlot owner that has been cited over and over again for violations. Listen to her carefully. She defends the cruelty and attacks the individuals that expose it.

Next, we move on to food safety. She makes the statement that horse meat is safe. Horse meat from horses in other countries may be safe but it certainly isn't from horses raised in America. U.S. horses are not raised or regulated as food animals. We race horses; we raise horses to perform, to work, for law enforcement, as therapy animals, for sport, for pleasure and as companions. The foreign countries that consume horse meat raise horses as food animals. They do not raise their horses for other purposes and then send them to the butcher. They have passport systems requiring a veterinarian record every medication given to the horse from birth. They do not allow a horse to obtain a passport over 6 months of age. The passport systems are national systems to ensure food safety, not a home grown system devised by those who will profit from horse slaughter.

Once again, she reaches out to equine scientists and veterinarians to give her ammo to get around food safety regulations. Medical doctors determine the levels of medications that are safe for human consumption and what medications are banned in food animals. Food safety is to protect humans, not animals. Equine scientists and veterinarians are not medical doctors.

Stating that horse meat is nutritious and including pictures of plates of horse meat does not portray meat from American horses. Add a little Phenylbutazone (Bute) to the meat and the nutrition is outweighed by the risk of developing cancer. Included in her paper is a letter from [again] non medial doctors that unsuccessfully attempted to refute a paper published on Bute in the Food and Chemical Toxicology Journal. In typical Wallis fashion, she failed to print the response to the letter that was published in the same journal that validated the original study.¹ A comprehensive study was also published by a group of veterinarians in Ireland on the effects of Bute in humans and the consequences for violating the passport system.²

One constant with Wallis is that you can always count on her rabidly trying to find a way around food safety laws-in particular, with Bute. The reason she is so irrational on food safety is that if food safety regulations were enforced with U.S. horses, there would be no horses to slaughter. So she does what she does best; explains it away with irrelevant documents and statements from individuals [or herself] that have no training or qualifications to speak to food safety.

One of her favorite tricks is to include a link to prove something, counting on the reader never actually reading the document. As one example, she cites a 2008 European Union (E.U.) report as proof that drug residues have never been found in U.S. horses. The report she cites has nothing to do with results - it was about establishing protocols concerning drug residues.

In December of 2010, the E.U. released a report on how well the slaughter plants were implementing the recommendations of the 2008 audit and this one did include drug residues in U.S. horses. Not only did they find several banned substances but also discovered that the accompanying paperwork was falsified.³ Of course, she ignores the report because it blows her argument out of the water.

She disregards the documents that disprove her statements and when challenged, there is never a response other than to start name calling. How dare those tree hugging, vegan, radical animal activists provide facts.

In another example, Wallis talks about the rate at which Phenylbutazone disappears from the blood stream, implying that it simply goes away in a few days. In fact, the drug does two things Wallis doesn't mention. First, it metabolizes into Oxyphenylbutazone, a compound with a much longer rate of decay and the same toxic properties. Secondly, it takes up in injured tissue. This accounts for its extreme effectiveness, but it also makes it reappear in the blood later. The bottom line is that Bute is banned in all meat animals for very good scientific reasons.

¹ http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/Henneke_and_Marini.pdf

² http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/Ireland_-_bute.pdf

³ http://www.animalsangels.org/images/stories/pdf/fvo%20inspection%20at%20mexic... mber%202010.pdf

Bute is known as the aspirin of horse world. It is as common as the bottle of aspirin in your medicine cabinet. Walk into any barn in the U.S. and you will find a form of Bute or Bute compounds. Bute is banned in all food producing animals and is banned by the FDA and the E.U. that consumes the meat from U.S. horses.

The GAO report that Wallis frequently quotes is primarily anecdotal comments and she validates this with the comments in her paper. Comments and interviews are not data.4 As one example, veterinarians from the meat industry were interviewed regarding abandoned horses instead of the state agencies that receive and record the reports. When EWA requested the underlying data that formulated the assumptions, our request was denied; a further indication that data did not exist. Wallis completely ignores the GAO recommendation that horse slaughter be banned permanently.

Wallis blames the closure of the U.S. horse slaughter plants for the decrease in horse values and all the woes of the horse industry. Not only did horse slaughter not end but it increased. Nothing changed other than where they were being butchered. Anyone possessing even a rudimentary knowledge of cause and effect would understand what a ridiculous conclusion that is. One year after the plants closed, our country experienced an economic crisis that has been compared to the Great Depression. Every industry in this country experienced declines. Does she honestly expect anyone to believe that if the plants had remained opened, that only the value of horses wouldn't have declined?

A recent poll by the prestigious pollsters, Lake Associates, revealed that 80% of Americans are against horse slaughter. Wallis can continue starting new organizations, changing the names and aligning with foreign meat businesses. She can continue making unsubstantiated statements and claims of support but in the end, she will be run out of town as she has been every time she tried to shove a slaughter plant down the throats of communities in America.

And that, my friends, speaks volumes of the opposition to horse slaughter in our country.

4 http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/GAO_Response-final.pdf

The Equine Welfare Alliance is a dues-free 501c4, umbrella organization with over 245 member organizations and hundreds of individual members worldwide in 18 countries. The organization focuses its efforts on the welfare of all equines and the preservation of wild equids. www.equinewelfarealliance.org

 

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• "USA: Urge U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to Deny Horse Slaughter Plant Applications"

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• WSJ Serves Up Tainted Journalism On Horse Slaughter Plate

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Experts Calling for Slaughter Ban In Wake of United Horsemen Summit Cancellation

Experts Calling for Slaughter Ban In Wake of United Horsemen Summit Cancellation | Horse Back Magazine

March 27, 2012

CHATHAM, N.Y., (Equine Advocates) — Horse experts from across the country will converge on Equine Advocates Rescue & Sanctuary http://www.equineadvocates.org/ in Chatham, NY for the 2012 American Equine Summit on Saturday, March 31st and Sunday, April 1st with one objective — to reverse the damage done by Congress in Nov. 2011 by mobilizing an effective grassroots movement to end the slaughter of America’s horses in the US and abroad. The attendees will be comprised of press, lawmakers and those involved with equine welfare and the horse industry. Interested parties are encouraged to “like” Equine Advocates on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @EquineAdvocates, and for live updates during the Summit, use the following hash tag: #AES2012.

“It’s just plain wrong when lobbies for the Agriculture and Quarter Horse industries can influence members of Congress to supersede the will of the more than 80% of Americans who want a federal ban on horse slaughter,” said Susan Wagner, President of Equine Advocates. “The ‘eighty percenters’ deserve to be heard. Instead, lawmakers controlled by special interests prevailed and gave horse slaughter proponents exactly what they wanted. It’s not only egregious, it’s downright un-American.”

The Summit will be opened by legendary concert promoter and horse lover, Ron Delsener. Two new speakers have been added – Dr. Caroline Betts, who will discuss the discrepancies in the 2011 GAO report on the closings of horse slaughterhouses in the US, and former US Congressman John Sweeney (R-NY), who was the primary sponsor for the successful passage of H.R. 503, the House version of the 2006 American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act.

Other speakers include Cathleen Doyle, former head of the California Equine Council and Save the Horses, John Holland, President Equine Welfare Alliance, Dr. Kraig J. Kulikowski, D.V.M., Katia Louise, director of the film, “Saving America’s Horses,” Victoria McCullough who helped pass Florida’s “Equine Protection Act of 2010,” Jo Anne Normile of Saving Baby Equine Charity and founder of CANTER and Paula Bacon, former Mayor of Kaufman, Texas who led the fight to close Dallas Crown, a horse slaughterhouse operating in Kaufman.

Said Bacon, “I believe a horse slaughter plant is among the very least desirable things a community would want.  It ranks with a lead smelter plant and strip clubs, the dead opposite of economic development. A horse slaughter plant creates big, expensive environmental problems for taxpayers and stigmatizes the community as ‘that place where they slaughter horses’ — and good development goes elsewhere.”

States currently trying to revive and reopen horse slaughter plants include Oregon, Missouri and Tennessee.

Founded in 1996, Equine Advocates is a non-profit equine protection organization and Horse Sanctuary based in Chatham, NY.  Its mission is to rescue, protect and prevent the abuse of equines, especially through banning the slaughter of American horses, through education, investigation, rescue operations and public education. Email info@equineadvocates.org or call 518-245-1599 for more information.

Related articles

• Humane Groups Petition FDA to Block Companion, Working and Show Horses from Being Slaughtered for Human Consumption : The Humane Society of the United States
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• Poll Finds Big Ag Horse Slaughter Promotion Has Backfired
• Treachery of Congressional Horse Slaughter Cabal Exposed in Ad Campaign

Treachery of Congressional Horse Slaughter Cabal Exposed in Ad Campaign

January 1, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:

John Holland

540-268-5693

john@equinewelfarealliance.org

Vicki Tobin

630.961.9292

vicki@equinewelfarealliance.org

Treachery of Congressional Horse Slaughter Cabal Exposed in Ad Campaign

Chicago (EWA) – Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA) launched a major campaign on December 30 to expose the underhanded move by Rep. Jack Kingston (GA) and Sens. Kohl (WI) and Blunt (MO) that reinstated horse inspections and opened the way for horse slaughter to return to US soil.

On a must pass bill, the three legislators in a tiny committee, quietly removed the language that prohibited the use of taxpayer dollars to fund horse inspections. The action effectively legalized horse slaughter in the US without a debate in the full house and senate, where a straight vote would have failed.

The ad campaign was launched in major theaters running the War Horse film in the legislator’s districts and also reached out to Montana and Wyoming to cover Sen. Baucus and state Rep. Sue Wallis who has become the face of horse slaughter as well as Wallis’ Representative Cynthia Lummis of WY.

Featured in the ad is a remarkable Korean War hero; an equine named Reckless. The ad uses this one remarkable equine and her war time heroism to make the point that horses are our animal partners and not just “livestock”, explains EWA Vice President Vicki Tobin.

Sgt. Reckless hauled supplies to Marines, carried wounded off the battle field, was wounded twice, and performed many of her duties without a handler. Staff Sergeant Reckless was a beloved legend of the Marine Corps. She was promoted to sergeant in 1957 and then to staff sergeant in 1959 by the Commandant of the Marines. She was retired in 1960 to Camp Pendleton and when she died in 1968, she was buried at Camp Pendleton with full military honors.

Rep. Jack Kingston excused his action saying horses were “just like cows”.

If the funding move was designed to deal a death blow to the anti-slaughter movement it appears to have had the opposite effect. “We were able to raise the funding for the campaign and produce it in just two weeks”, explained Tobin.

If the funding move was designed to deal a death blow to the anti-slaughter movement it appears to have had the opposite effect. “We were able to raise the funding for the campaign and produce it in just two weeks”, explained Tobin.

The move has not been popular with Congress either. With an all time low approval rating, members did not need such a blatant example of pandering to special interests. Over 50 Congressmen and Senators signed on as cosponsors of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 2966 / S. 1176) after the language was removed.

John Holland, president of EWA stated “This is not the end. We want to send a message that if you betray our horses we will haunt you to the ends of the earth. We will continue to attack these individuals as long as we have resources and they are in office.” When asked why the EWA was attacking Senator Kohl, given that he has announced he will not run for reelection, Holland said “We want his successor to have an example.”

The funding action is seen by the EWA as just one more example of how special interests are running our country and through the ad campaign, the EWA is joining the growing chorus shouting“enough is enough”. Legislation should be enacted because of its merits, not the deep pockets of Big Agriculture or any other special interest group. Our horses belong in the horse industry, not a foreign meat business.

EWA and equine advocates across the country are calling on President Obama to stand up against special interests as he promised and issue an immediate executive order to ban the slaughter  to slaughter of America’s domestic and wild horses.

Link to the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlv7P6xWekE

Link to ad referral site: www.realwarhorse.com

Link to EWA site: http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/Real_War_Horse.html

The Equine Welfare Alliance is a dues-free 501c4, umbrella organization with over 210 member organizations and hundreds of individual members worldwide. The organization focuses its efforts on the welfare of all equines and the preservation of wild equids. www.equinewelfarealliance.org