HSUS Toadies Feelin' the Pain in Louisville Attorney Jon Fleischaker: this is about civil rights, not dogs You tell 'em, Lawyer Fleischaker! As one of the attorneys representing the Louisville Kennel Club, the League of Kentucky Sportsmen, Kentucky Houndsmen's Association, the Greater Louisville Training Club and eight other clubs, businesses and individuals in their struggle to rid Louisville of the worst, most anti-pet, anti-pet owner animal control ordinance in the country, Fleischaker commented: It's not a dog case, it is about people and individual rights and individual freedoms. . .The ordinance authorizes unconstitutional search and seizures, unconstitutional searches of people's homes. Louisville Animal Control director Gilles Meloche: clueless, tyrannical and caught in the headlights One of the prime defects of the Louisville anti-pet ordinance is the totalitarian power it places in the hands of a single, highly questionable, individual: Metro Animal Services Director Gilles Meloche. As the Motion for Summary Judgement recently filed by the Louisville Kennel Club et al. points out, due to the vague and even irrational language and provisions of the Louisville codes, Meloche personally has sole discretion over which dogs are declared "dangerous" in Louisville. . .regardless of their behavior or their history. The 4th Amendment? Not for Louisville dog owners. Meloche insists he can search private homes without a warrant Under the current Louisville codes, the Director of Animal Services, Gilles Meloche, is supposed to personally inspect the enclosures of every unaltered dog in Louisville. In other words: Louisville residents are second class citizens. Their homes are laid open to searches to be conducted without a warrant just because they own an unaltered dog. How did Meloche get his gig? With a little help from his friends Meloche's friends and fellow humaniacs at Kentucky Humane Society and the Shamrock Society supported his candidacy for the job in Louisville, even though Meloche's work history included some pretty large warts. Such as: --a guilty plea in his native Canada for unacceptable record keeping on anabolic steroid distribution [a controlled substance] --termination for cause [insubordination] after 10 months on the job at a shelter in Durham, NC --drama in a Tallahassee shelter that centered around his monomaniacal approach to shelter management Meloche's very Best Friend: the Humane Society of the United States Its nice to have a $125 MM private corporation in your back pocket. Pam Rogers, a Humane Society of the United States regional director--and the hypocrite that wrote to the Louisville City Council on behalf of HSUS urging a breed specific ordinance--doesn't have a problem with Meloche. When interviewed, Pam Rogers' opinion of Meloche was clear: "I like him. I find him easy to work with. . ." How sweet. That must have made the long hours Rogers and Meloche put in together concocting the Louisville ordinance so much more fun. Prejudice against low income dog owners: perfect in an animal rights advocate, fatal in a public servant Making it harder (and ever harder) for dog owners to continue to own their dogs is standard practice for HSUS and their proxies. HSUS targets the lowest hanging fruit. When the usual first choice -- pit bull owners -- didn't work out in Louisville, HSUS and its cronies simply switched to Plan B: take pets away from the poor. After all, the poor are practically defenseless, too. The Motion for Summary Judgement, which includes part of Meloche's deposition, shines a light on a public servant -- on the public's payroll -- with an unforgivable attitude towards "poor people." Negatively stereotyping and discriminating against Louisville's poor On "poor people" and dog license compliance, Meloche stated under oath: They just don't license, period. On "poor people" and access to veterinary care: First, we know one thing, they barely go to veterinary clinics. On "poor people" and cruelty to animals: Most of the cruelty that I've seen --that we see are from, of course, poor neighborhood, and it's dynamic. Cat got your tongue, Dr. Meloche? The deposition excerpt ends with this exchange: Q. Okay. Do you think it's prejudicial to impose financial requirements on people? ... A. I will not answer. Q. You're not going to answer that? A. No. Backdoor attack on civil rights and liberties Its too late for Gilles Meloche to shut up. He already said plenty.

The agenda is all too clear. The Louisville animal control ordinance is NOT about improving public safety, and its NOT about saving the lives of homeless animals.

The Louisville ordinance is about stripping away the civil rights and liberties of law-abiding Louisville residents, just because they own animals.

Let's hope the courts send the ordinance, and Gilles Meloche, back to where ever it was they came from.

Humane Corruption

ASPCA Unleashes Forensic Rent-a-cops

NY City's Agent Orange goes for broke, announcing their very own, cutting edge, state of the art, mobile, pet forensics laboratory.

Drum roll, please!

ASPCA's Agent Orange goes Hollywood

New York City's paid private contractor for animal cruelty law enforcement, the ASPCA, announced its latest bid for the public's love, admiration, cash and donations: a state-of-art, mobile, forensic laboratory dedicated to crimes against animals.

ASPCA Prez Ed Sayres: So excited, just can't hide it

Unveiled on NBC's Today Show--what? Oprah didn't return calls in time?--Ed can hardly contain himself when it comes to the mobile forensics lab.

Ed Sayres' letter to ASPCA supporters reads. . .

As I hope many of you saw this morning on NBC’s “Today” show, the ASPCA today unveiled a “forensics first”—the nation’s first-ever “Mobile Animal Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) Unit. . . .The vehicle will help us to significantly advance the prosecution of animal cruelty in this country. . .

Ed Sayres isn't concerned about the false hopes and unreasonable expectations the "CSI effect" may cause. His excitement knows no bounds.

Teensy little problem, Ed: Jurisdiction.

The world is not the ASPCA's oyster. Not yet, at least.

The only place the ASPCA has law enforcement authority of any sort is the City of New York. New York City purchased the services of the ASPCA for animal cruelty law enforcement within its five boroughs.

And that's it.

The ASPCA and its privately employed personnel are responsible to a private corporation governed by its own privately-appointed board of directors. While the ASPCA goes to great lengths to mimic public servants answerable to tax-payers and voters, Agent Orange and its employees are private contractors responsible to a privately-controlled corporation which is effectively shielded from public scrutiny.

Fake public servants on private missions

Despite the deceptive uniforms and dramatic posturing, the ASPCA "humane law enforcement" squad is a bunch of rent-a-cops with no jurisdiction outside of the City of New York and no civilian oversight within it.

So. Did Ed Sayres get it wrong? Or is Agent Orange poised to go national?

By what right, using what mechanism, could a private New York contractor employed by a single city seek to interfere in criminal investigations across the country?

Nostradamus lives in bright blue New York

Maybe Ed Sayres is not a detail guy. Maybe he's an over-excited delusional, and all that talk about a NYC private contractor
changing the face of animal law across the nation is a pipe dream.

Or maybe Ed Sayres is a prophet.

"We, the People" ? Or "We, the ASPCA's Lackeys" ?

The New York State legislature went back into session in early January, dragging with it all kinds of unfinished business from the prior year--including Assembly bill 1741 and its identical companion, Senate bill S865. These bills
sponsored -- in a well-orchestrated tandem of upstate Republican and downstate Democrat -- by Catskills-area Republican NYS Senator John J. Bonacic. . . .

[Note that Senator Bonacic is a lawyer. He was an Assistant District Attorney in Orange County, New York.]

. . . and Long Island Democrat Assemblymember Steve Englebright.

[Assemblymember Englebright is a geologist by training -- not that ignorance is a reasonable defense in a state assemblymember.]

Public funding. Private masters. Institutionalized corruption.

If enacted, A1741/S865 would authorize district attorneys -- elected public servants employed by the citizens of New York to represent the interests of "we, the people" -- to act in court on behalf of private humane societies like the privately funded, privately controlled ASPCA.

The proposal requires elected public servants to engage in the private practice of law while on the public's payroll.

For obvious reasons, that's illegal in the state of New York.

Illegally greasing the wheels of "justice"

There are a number of other problems with A1741/S865, but here's Blue Dog's question--

The New York State Constitution includes a Bill of Rights to protect its residents from unreasonable governance:

The legislature shall not pass a private or local bill . . .granting to any private corporation, association or individual any exclusive privilege, immunity or franchise whatever. [Section 17]

Has the stink of "humane" corruption reached you yet?

Has the reek of exclusive privileges, immunities and franchises granted to private animal rights, animal welfare, animal protection corporations and associations -- both in New York and around the country -- reached your nostrils?

Because the wave of anti animal owner, anti civil rights legislation -- sponsored and expertly lobbied by the Humane Society of the United States, the ASPCA, and others -- will knock you right off your feet.