Truth Farmer

It seems like the Feds are simply bent on destroying the ability of Americans to feed themselves. Now they want farmers to get a CDL and follow all regs for over the road truck driving in order to be able to deliver their products (like grain, cattle, produce, etc) to “collection centers”……The sad thing is that there is SCOTUS precedent for such ridiculous regs under Wickard vs. Filbern.

I am posting the following article for your information. I am disinclined to further encourage anyone to bang their head into a brick wall by trying to convince the Federal Agencies that they need to re-think anything. If you want to write, go ahead. If not, I won’t hold it against you!

JAMES WOODCOCK/Gazette Staff

Robert Ott, from Reed Point, leads a horse to sale from his 18-foot-long trailer at Billings Livestock Commission on Friday afternoon. Proposed regulations could require farmers and ranchers to get commercial driver’s licenses.

Mail or fax your comments

FMCSA

Docket Management Facility;

U.S. Department of Transportation,

Room W12–140,

1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE , Washington , DC 20590–0001 .

Fax: 1–202–493–2251

Related Links

• More information about the new requirements for farmers
• regulations.gov comment section
• Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration proposal

Tractors lumbering down country roads are as common as deer in rural Montana , but the federal government wants to place new driving regulations on farmers and ranchers.

“It’s a huge deal for us,” said John Youngberg of the Montana Farm Bureau. After years of allowing state governments to waive commercial driver’s license requirements for farmers hauling crops or driving farm equipment on public roads, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is poised to do away with the exceptions.

Regulators are suggesting that all wheat shipments be considered interstate, even when farmers making short hauls to local grain elevators aren’t crossing state lines. The change would make commercial driver’s licenses — and all the log books and medical requirements that go with them — a necessity for farmers. Some might not qualify.

The licenses would also be required of farmers driving farm equipment down public roads. Farmers hauling grain for a neighbor or landlord would be considered commercial drivers hauling for someone else.

Ranchers hauling livestock in trailers as small as 16 feet would also be subject to the new rules.

But before finalizing the proposed changes, FMCSA is accepting public comment. It originally allowed 30 days for public input last May. Then 18 U.S. senators prodded by farm groups asked that the public be given more time. Comments are now being taken until Aug. 1.

In a cautionary letter, Rep. Dennny Rehberg, R-Mont., told FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro to drop the regulations.

“Under your proposal, tractors, combines and pickup trucks hauling trailers would be regulated as commercial vehicles,” Rehberg wrote. “Producers who operate these vehicles would be required to obtain commercial driver’s licenses, medical cards and log their hours as if they were long-haul truck drivers.”

Traditionally, farmers driving farm machinery have been exempt from commercial driver’s licenses, as have farmers hauling wheat, provided they didn’t cross state lines and traveled no farther than 150 air miles to the elevator.

“When you haul a commodity 150 miles, it just doesn’t make sense to have a commercial driver’s license,” Youngberg said.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says it wants to make sure federal safety regulations are being carried out uniformly across the nation. According to FMCSA, some states have been asking the administration to clarify rules on grain trucking, farm equipment and trucking for someone else. The reasons behind those questions are numerous.

Dana Peterson, National Association of Wheat Growers executive officer, said farm equipment on public roads has become an issue in urban areas, while the other two trucking issues have been sticking points with FMCSA.

“That’s been the interpretation of the agency for several years now,” Peterson said of the interstate rule for grain. “But it hasn’t been interpreted that way in all the states.”

FMCSA argues that because grain will ultimately be shipped out of state, it should be regulated as an interstate product at every transportation step. Treated as a product destined to cross state lines, grain becomes federally regulated under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

If a farmer’s trip to the local elevator is viewed as an intrastate transaction, then public safety becomes the main issue and the state has final say. Officials with the Montana Department of Transportation and Montana Department of Agriculture confirmed last week that they have not responded to federal requests for public comment about the proposed changes.

The argument that grain ultimately leaves the state seems to have Montana in mind. Roughly 80 percent of Montana wheat is shipped to other countries, said Lola Raska, of the Montana Grain Growers Association. However, once farmers unload their trucks at the local elevator and collect payment, their end of the business transaction is over.

In Montana , the conflicts between federal and state handling of farm freight have been minimal. That hasn’t been the case in states where commodities cross state lines more often.

In Oregon , farmers along the Columbia River often raise crops on the Washington side of the river as well. Farmers there have similar business arrangements in Idaho , said Shawn Cleave, government affairs specialist with the Oregon Farm Bureau. Crossing the state line has required farmers there to get commercial licenses, or at least that’s what the Oregon Farm Bureau has encouraged them to do.

The bigger issue in the federal proposal is whether commercial driver’s licenses are required for farmers in crop-sharing agreements involving leased farmland where everyone has a stake in the crop’s sale.

Oregon ‘s farmers are getting older. Their average age is 60, just slightly older than Montana ‘s average farmer. As those farmers get older, it becomes more likely that they’ll partner with younger farmers to get crops on their land. Commercial driver’s licenses are likely to be a must for the younger farmers in the partnership, Cleave said.

Contact Tom Lutey at

tlutey@billingsgazette.com or 657-1288

Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_b4d19624-a1f2-57b8-9194-35fe00e17403.html#ixzz1T9oQB39j

©Doreen Hannes

On May 2^nd the Army Corps of Engineers blew a two-mile long hole on the north end of Bird’s Point Levee in southeastern Missouri. The levee was holding and doing its job, and the reason given for blowing this levee was to save the already evacuated town of Cairo, Illinois. Then early morning of May 3^rd, they blew a “drain hole” in the southern section of the levee. Throughout this article, I ask that the reader keep the dimensions of this levee and the two mile wide hole in the levee in mind. The levee is 64 feet tall, about 200 feet across at the base, and the hole that was blown is now approximately 12 feet below the surrounding ground level. While much has been written about this levee’s destruction, not much has been written of the “on the ground” effects of the ACE action.

This is a field…How can you farm this?

The lines in this soil are from a ripper which goes beneath topsoil and provides   drainage to the crops. There is no topsoil here any longer.

When ACE blew the one quarter mile long drain hole, it was only 12 hours after they blew the 2 mile wide hole on the north side of the levee. The water on the south side was still very, very high and instead of letting water out of the flooded area, it let more water in and created a tornado type vortex where the rushing waters met in the midst of the flood way. The influx of water across the two-mile wide blow-hole was estimated to be up to 4.1 million gallons per second. Official records indicate that the blowing of the levee dropped the river levels at Cairo, Illinois less than 1 foot in 24 hours.

The town of Cairo (pronounced Kay-Ro in the local vernacular) is home to approximately 2,800 people. The town is largely boarded up, and much is in poor repair, but still home to more people than the ones whose property was destroyed by the Bird’s Point levee detonation. However, productivity and national security should also factor into intentionally sacrificing one area for another area.  When one looks at the aerial view in this video, you get a sense of the size variance between Cairo and the area flooded by the levee detonation. The land mass inundated by water from the blowing of Bird’s Point is approximately 200 square miles. The total landmass of Cairo is 9.1 square miles. There were roughly 100 homes and farms destroyed by the detonation of the levee.

With a myriad of reports from the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) and even the USDA predicting food price increases and shortages this fall, the destruction of 200 square miles of some of the most fertile farmland in the world should do more than raise an eyebrow. As this story will demonstrate, the actual destruction of this farmland is much more than the loss of one growing season. If several professors get their way, this land may never again be productive farmland.  They think it should be left to become wetlands. Considering the state of the national economy, they just may get their way.

Rebuilding the levee would be a monumental expense.  While there is a 25 million dollar class action suit in progress against the Army Corps of Engineers by those whose properties and livelihoods were destroyed by the levee being blown, compensation for those filing suit is far from guaranteed.

We Can’t Stay Focused

Since we have been well conditioned to remain interested in topics for only a short amount of time, it isn’t surprising that only one story in mainstream media covered some of the actual destruction that occurred in the Bird’s Point Levee blow up. The levee is, of course, still home to a two mile wide hole; and as anyone familiar with geography knows, the Missouri River flows right into the Mississippi above the Bird’s Point levee breach. This will invariably flood the 200 square miles of land again, and what little has been planted, is very likely to be flooded out again.

In mid June, Bob Parker, a farmer, rancher and realtor (who was also a 2010 contender for the Republican seat in Missouri’s 8^th district) took a full day tour of the area affected by the levee’s intentional breach. “People think of this as a ‘flood’,” says Parker, “but this was nothing like the common perception of a flood where the water just rises steadily. This was more like a giant flush, complete with the vortex. The truth about what has happened here must get out to the American people.”

There is a picture of Bob Parker and Al Marshall, a resident and farmer in the area, in front of one of the several mini Grand Canyons created by the massive influx of water.  Parker said, “These canyons runs for miles and are at times close to half a mile wide and 15 or 20 feet deep across these fields. How is anyone supposed to farm that?”

Wheat Crop Destroyed and Land Unusable

While interviewing Bob about his tour of the Bird’s Point levee, he shared nearly 100 photos he had taken of the area.  In one picture, a man is bent down over flattened wheat. “About 10 percent of this land was in wheat that was ready for harvest when they blew the levee,” says Bob. “The problem is that this wheat was laid down and cannot be tilled under because the equipment just gets tangled and it’s impossible to get underneath the wheat to till the soil.”

                                         Wheat that was ready to harvest

Since there is no way to put livestock on this land because there is no fencing in the area, and it would likely kill the stock if they were put on it because of molding under the wheat, there is nothing to do but wait for the wheat to decompose. Some have tried to burn it off, but with the Missouri River flooding into the Mississippi and no levee in place to protect these fields, it would be a lesson in futility to try to reclaim the land under the wheat.

The early wheat crop in the country was devastated all along the Ohio River Valley. Extreme drought in west Kansas has reportedly claimed more wheat, along with the massive flooding along the Missouri River and the destruction of those farms and their crops. All of this adds up to a shortage of a major staple crop in a nation that has severely reduced stockpiling as a hedge against just such disasters.

No FEMA, No Officials, Yet Two Days Later They are Rebuilding the Levee?

Mr. Parker toured the devastated farmland on June 13^th. On June 16^th there were reports that the Army Corps of Engineers was beginning to rebuild the levee to a height of 51 feet. Articles from June 16^th and 17^th proudly proclaim the levee is being rebuilt right now, but when you read the articles, it is clear that they are really just in the preparatory stages of thinking about rebuilding the levee. Yet when Bob was there, they only saw one official all day. This singular official was a Missouri Conservation agent.

Residents say that a fifty-one foot levee is of little help because the river reaches that height every year. They do concede that while it is insufficient, it is much better than nothing; they just wonder when it will be done. Currently, there are no cost estimates available regarding the construction of this fifty-one foot replacement levee, and all articles discussing the rebuilding solidly indicate that the project is subject to funding approval.

Parker and the gentlemen giving him the tour went to both the north blow out point and the south “drain hole”, and saw no one from the Army Corps of Engineers at either place. I have asked for photographs of the six man crew that is reportedly working on smoothing the breach in preparation for reconstruction and, as yet, have not received any shots of the crew at Bird’s Point levee. They may very well be there and doing what is reported, but in this day and age, pictures are almost always readily available.

 What about Crop Insurance? Or just plain Insurance?

                                               The satellite dish stayed on the roof, but the house came out from under it.

USDA Secretary Vilsack says that the farmers who have lost the chance to grow crops this year will be allowed to receive payments under the crop insurance plan. However, those payments will not meet the total amount already spent by farmers prior to the levee being blown.

The reported estimated costs for early season planting are about 57 million dollars. The Crop Insurance payout is estimated by the University of Missouri to leave a loss of roughly 42.5 million dollars. The estimated crop income loss for this single season (with a low-ball figure attached to corn) is 85 million dollars. None of this covers the homes, outbuildings, irrigation systems, equipment, chemicals, pesticides, or infrastructure destroyed by the blowing of Bird’s Point. There are no available estimates of the actual cost of all the damage

Also, believe it or not, not every single homeowner in the entire 200 square mile area was a farmer with crop insurance through the USDA. Some of these people were just run of the mill homeowners. Because of the way the Federal government maneuvered to take the land via condemnation in the 1930’s, there is a very serious doubt that any of the homes destroyed will be covered by any type of insurance whatsoever.

According to Parker, the people who were not actually farmers and lost everything in this blow-out, have received only promises. Parker says, “When I was visiting there, two men were cleaning out a house and had hooked up a truck to a flooded vehicle. I stopped and spoke with them, and they were taking their sister’s car in for salvage for $500 so she could feed her children. The house had been their sister’s home and they were taking out anything that still useable. It was totaled. Every house I stopped in smelled like a swamp, and this was no exception.”

Parker said the story was the same with everyone he encountered. They have been told to go to meetings where they are to learn more about what they can expect to receive for their loss of property and at those meetings, they are told to put their names on a list and someone will contact them. Parker continues, “That’s as far as it goes. Put your name on a list and wait. Meanwhile, you still need to eat, pay bills and clothe yourself.” The black community of Pinhook was annihilated by the Bird’s Point levee blowup. The community was formed through a land improvement program offered by the federal government in the 1930’s. If they drained the swamp and made the land farmable, they could each get 40 acres. Now that community is destroyed.

“Evidently the one constant that residents hear” says Parker, “is that the USDA is going to offer low interest loans for rebuilding. No one knows when this might happen, but that is what they hear.”  Parker, who has been in real estate for years continues, “With the levee not having been rebuilt, and the Missouri River still rising and flooding, banks are not going to lend money for construction in an open floodway.”

 History is Not Repeating in Mississippi County

Brother Bennett, who was born in the area, and has lived there for nearly all of his 88 years, related his firsthand accounts of previous floods in the New Madrid floodway. This gentleman is a retired US Marine and pastor, and he is not the kind of guy who runs from much of anything. Bennett ran a store on the ground floor of his home and still lives on the second story, which he shared with his wife until she passed away. Bob says, “He was just a wonderful man to visit with; a real inspiration to those of us who love freedom and independence. He ran a small store in the area for years, and about 10 years ago, someone came to rob him and he pulled a .357 on the guy and the would be robber ran away.”

You can see the water level by the siding that is off on the bottom of the second floor of Brother Bennett’s home.

Mr. Bennett explained that he had been there for all these floods, and showed Parker marks he’d made on a post in his store indicating the level the water reached in the 1972 flood, which was about 20 inches from the floor, and again in 1975, which was roughly 23 inches from the first floor height. So when officials came to make sure Bennett had evacuated, he told them he’d made it through all the other floods, and wasn’t going to leave his home for this one. They forcibly evacuated him.

The reports were that the water to be released by blowing the levee might reach heights of four to five feet. However, this time, the water went 20 inches above his second story floor level. So the water level was eight or nine feet higher than the previous all time high and almost twice the projected level.

Trying to Count the Costs

It is seemingly impossible to count the real cost of restoring this 200 square mile area to pre-blow out status. Nearly every single story home in the floodway was covered above ceiling level. When water goes into the attic, it is virtually impossible to save that home unless you rip out all the drywall immediately and get it drying out. The “grand canyons” cannot be readily filled in, and the sand that is covering the southern end isn’t something that can just be swept up.

         This house was swept of its foundation and is now surrounded by sand.

Considering many of the 678 contracts the government signed with landowners (number cited in article linked above) in the 1930’s vary substantially, and that there is no available estimate on the cost of re-building the levee, that one single year of crop loss is about 85 million dollars, that this land will largely be unworkable for several years if ever, and that insurance pay outs are highly questionable because of the contracts mentioned above. It is all just one giant financial question mark.

What we can know is that the loss of this highly productive farmland will soon be felt by consumers. The loss of livelihood, farms, homes, hopes and dreams are being felt right now, quite heavily in Bird’s Point. No matter what basis you use to assign value to land, homes, and the lives dependent upon them, one thing is certain. The people who live in cities must eat, and cities cannot grow food in sufficient quantities to feed their residents. Literally destroying fertile land to save structures that cannot feed people is a cost that we will all pay in time.

++++end++++    (If you are on Facebook, you can check out Bob Parker’s page and look at the nearly 100 photos he took of his tour across the area. I am only putting in a few photos in this article and this destruction is massive. Please read this excellent article on the flooding of the Missouri River which will further factor into the destruction at Bird’s Point levee.)

Hello everyone,

I am working on a very in depth and long article on some of the flooding issues in the mid-west. In the interim, we have no real knowledge about what is actually happening at the Ft. Calhoun and Cooper nuclear power plants along the Missouri river flood zones. There are a lot of statements out there by people who are very concerned about the Peck and Gavin dams failing up the river from these nuclear plants, but no confirmation is available. While I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true, I think there is so much that is documentable that we have more than enough to work on. If anyone knows someone in the area of these two dams, I would certainly be interested in finding out first hand accounts with photographic evidence of failure.
I received this article awhile ago, and just want to share it with everyone. It is an excellent and highly documented piece, and worthy of your attention. My respect to the author!

Please go read this at the American Thinker site, “The Purposeful Flooding of America’s Heartland”

I’d like a double dose of Independence, please.

Hey all,

This morning I will be guest hosting on The Unsolicited Opinion for Maggie. You can check the website for the show and see that it is all about exposing Agenda 21 Sustainable Development.

In the first hour, at 10am Central time, on KHNC 1360am, I will be interviewing Henry Lamb. He has been fighting to expose Agenda 21 Sustainable Development for years and years. You can check out his website at Freedom 21. A plethora of information is there!

The second hour on Republic Broadcasting Network, I will (almost certainly) be interviewing Denise Dixon of Morningland Dairy. Judge David Dunlap, just yesterday,  handed down his decision on the Contempt charges the State of Missouri brought against Morningland. We will talk about that.

You can read about Morningland on The Uncheese Party site, or this blog. It is a textbook “kill the little guy” case that does much to expose the way the Food Destruction Agency (FDA) is working to through their state level agents to destroy your right to food of your choice.

Hey everyone,

I realize that many will not be able to make it, but Morningland is going to be in court tomorrow morning at 10am for charges of contempt of court. The way I see it the AG’s office is attempting to cloud jurisdiction between the private association that was founded as Morningland Dairy and Morningland of the Ozarks LLC, the licensed and inspected entity that is the subject of the AG’s suit.

If there is any way that you can, please be at the Howell County Court in West Plains, Missouri for this hearing. The eyes of the public are the only thing that holds the agencies accountable in any way. The Court House is on the Square in West Plains.

You take Bus 63 to Broadway, then take Broadway East to Washington, and take Washington south to the Square. This link to google maps may or may not work, but I am trying in the hope that it does:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

You can read more about this at my blog…Truth Farmer (which is where you are!) -or for a complete overview of the Morningland ordeal, go to the UnCheese Party.

Thank you! and please, forward this to as many as you can!

Doreen

Check out http://www.newswithviews.com and http://www.libertynewsradio.com for my articles and many other excellent researchers on topics affecting your freedom…also my blog, http://www.truthfarmer.wordpress.com

Every 2nd Monday, I am on http://www.thepowerhour.com radio show with Joyce Riley, and every first Tuesday of the month, on Liberty Round Table with Sam Bushman of http://www.libertynewsradio.com.

“It’s dangerous to be right when your government is wrong” -Voltaire- (Maybe not the best guy, but still an excellent quote!)

©Doreen Hannes

 On June 13^th, Morningland Dairy will be in court again despite the fact that the final disposition of their $250,000 cheese inventory is, as yet, undecided.

Earlier this spring, Howell County Circuit Court Judge David Dunlap found for the State in the first trial and Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund is appealing his decision to a higher court.

At the trial in Howell County in January, Morningland Dairy of the Ozarks LLC noticed the judge, the Missouri Milk Board and the Missouri Attorney General’s Office that they had closed the LLC and would no longer operate in the public venue. Instead Morningland Dairy would operate entirely in the private sector through a private association operating under the 1^st and 14^th Amendments to the US Constitution.

After the trial, Morningland began the process of buying cheese from similar licensed suppliers and repackaging and selling this cheese to their private association buyers.  They purchased a separate refrigeration cooler for the new cheese to  ensure segregation from the cheese held under embargo by the Missouri Milk Board since August 26^th, 2010.

The Inspectors Get to Inspect –Just not Everything

On April 13^th, Don Falls and Roger Neill of the Missouri Milk Board showed up at the Morningland Dairy plant intending to conduct an inspection of the facility.  The Plant Manager Jedadiah York, and the eldest Dixon son were there and called Joseph Dixon to inform him of the Milk Board’s presence. Joseph Dixon states that he spoke with Don Falls, and said  “You can inspect the cooler which still holds the Milk Board embargo tag and the cheese in that cooler, but you are not to inspect or go anywhere else in the plant as it is not under your jurisdiction.”

Joseph also says that he did give Don Falls a little piece of his mind, which, from a human standpoint, is completely understandable.  Joe says, “Don Falls stated in court that the amount of cheese in the embargo cooler was his count. He didn’t count the cheese. He just took the FDA count and said it was his. He also stated that the cheese samples sent to Microbe Inotech were his samples, but they were not. So I called him a liar and also told him he couldn’t count as the FDA count he claimed as his own is way off from our count.” Since Joseph has effectively lost his business, had to leave his family and go to work out of state, lost all of his savings, lost nearly a full year of production and a year and a half of sales, one can understand having some animosity to the regulator in charge of the action.

Charges Levied  

Three charges are being levied against Morningland on Monday June 13^th. They are Failure to Allow Inspection, Failure to Implement Required Practices and Unlawful Sale of Embargoed Cheese Product.  One dangerous thing about these charges is that this seems to draw the Dixon’s private association into the State suit against Morningland Dairy of the Ozarks LLC.  The only thing left of the thirty year old company Morningland Dairy of the Ozarks LLC is the cheese under embargo in the cooler.

Joseph says, “Apparently even though he was allowed to inspect the cooler with the embargoed cheese in it, and said that it looked like it was all there to our son and Plant Manager, Don Falls yet again changed his mind and his story after talking to his superiors. Or maybe he just got mad because I called him a liar.”

Styrofoam is Evidence of a Crime

At question in the allegations now being charged against Morningland is whether or not there are any clear jurisdictional boundaries that the State or Federal government cannot cross. If cutting and repackaging cheese is now manufacturing cheese then several families could not go together on a forty pound block of cheese and divide it up amongst themselves without being licensed and inspected.

The “evidence” that Morningland is selling the embargoed cheese is that a member of the private association who runs Clover’s in Columbia Missouri, sold cheese with a Morningland label to Don Falls and Roger Neill.  (Batman and Robin of the Missouri Milk Board?) Also cited in the court filing is that there were bits of styrofoam on the packing room floor which leads to the cooler that is under arrest by the Milk Board.

While the packages of cheese might seem damning, one must remember that Morningland LLC closed down and agreed to not sell any of the embargoed cheese until the legal proceedings were complete. As stated earlier, they also informed the Court, Milk Board and Attorney General’s Office that they had formed a private association.  Considering these things, do styrofoam pieces plus packages of cheese really add up to selling embargoed cheese?  What about the inventory? Is anyone going to check that?

The really funny thing about the inventory is that in the court records there are three different inventory counts offered. Don Falls says 29,000 pounds, Denise Dixon says closer to 39,000 pounds and the judge cites 20,000 pounds. Does anyone really know?  If all the cheese is destroyed, will it matter how much there really is? If it were your livelihood, I would think it would matter to you.

Life Goes On….Kind of

Denise Dixon is going to be the only principal in court on Monday the 13^th. She will be flying back from Ohio where she and her younger children are currently staying taking care of her elderly parents. Joseph is working in Alabama and cannot take time off work to be present at the proceeding.

If the State ultimately fails to destroy the cheese that represents the wealth of this family, they have succeeded in destroying the family’s forward progress and robbing them of their peace. All over cheese that in thirty years never had a complaint of illness or upset associated with it. ==end==

  ===You can read all about Morningland Dairy’s plight and download most of the legal documents at The UnCheese Party.  You can also donate to help the Dixon’s keep their farm and cheese plant so they can hopefully begin making cheese themselves once this court battle is complete.

This is from Sam Garner of We Are Change-Branson. From what I hear, the USDA is now planning on “compromising” with the Dollarhites on their ridiculous fine for selling rabbits, and daring to try to engage in enterprise without the permission of the USDA. I hope everyone who has a chance of attending will do so! I didn’t have enough money for gas to go to the protest last week outside of the USDA office in Ozark, but you can go to We are Change Branson watch videos of several speakers at the event.

We have agencies that are completely, and utterly out of control. The legislators are the only ones that can reign them in…..they just have to want to do it!

On Thursday, June the 2nd, 2011:

We will assemble in front of Congressman Billy Long’s Springfield office at 4:30 P.M and stage a peacefull protest until 6 P.M that evening.

As the USDA has not dropped all fines and allegations against the Dollarhite family, this issue is not over, it has not been resolved. It has become clear that actions from our elected representatives will be necessary to push the USDA to drop all fines and allegations against the Dollarhite family. The USDA has no jurisdiction and thus no right to fine or terrorize citizens of our great state of Missouri for sales that are completed legal and within the laws of the state of Missouri. We will not allow the Dollarhite family to be targeted by Federal Invaders who violate our state rights, we will not tolerate clear violation of Missouri State Sovereignty to go unnoticed, we are proud citizens of the United States of America and the Sovereign State of Missouri, we are fierce in defense of our sovereignty, we will not be tread upon. The protest will include speakers from the Well Fed Neighbor Alliance & Feed Missouri First Coalition.

Let’s show our strength, resolve and our support of the Dollarhites. Any one of us could be next to be targeted.

We, the people, have the right to food sovereignty!

Event Location:
4:30 to 6:00 PM
3232 E. Ridgeview St.
Springfield, MO 65804
(p) 417.889.1800
(f) 417.889.4915

Uncle Sam Destroying Agriculture has been on a rampage in Missouri.  First they accosted a magician for failing to have proper license and registration of the rabbit he pulled out of his hat to entertain children. I wish this weren’t true, but you just can’t make this stuff up! He is supposed to have a license to “exhibit” his rabbit, and be inspected by APHIS to make sure that he is properly tending to the needs of his show bunny….And then, in their opus of insanity, they have assessed a $90,643 dollar fine for grossing about $200 in profits from rabbit sales. What’s more, if they fail to pay this insane fine, they will have their fine raised to $4,000,000! You can read a very detailed and excellent article about this here.

This is all under the AWA (Animal Welfare Act) and the regulations the USDA has written to empower themselves to justify their continued existence and capacity to squash people’s ability to make inroads in agriculture. It is nothing less than tyranny when an agent of the Federal government threatens to “make an example” out of a couple for selling a few bunny rabbits. No one was harmed by the rabbits, no diseases were spread, some of them may have ended up in the stew pot or food chain anyway because, like it or not, rabbits are made out of meat….and they breed like rabbits.

We Are Change (of Branson, Missouri) is putting on a protest outside the USDA offices in Ozark, Missouri on Wednesday, May 25^th from 3-5pm.

We have a war against farms in this country, and it is being waged with your money by agencies who supposedly have a mission to protect and promote agriculture and food. The heads of these agencies, the FDA and the USDA (whom I refer to as the Food Destruction Agency and Uncle Sam Destroying Agriculture) have taken oaths to uphold the Constitution…..HA! The FDA spent a year and half doing a sting on an Amish farmer for selling his milk to individuals wishing to buy it for their own use. NO ONE ever became ill, but that is irrelevant. They claim authority over private transactions and are willing to spend your money to show how strong they are. The sting on Dan Allgyer prompted a protest in DC complete with a cow. Over 400 people showed up there to support common sense over bureaucratic insanity.

Governor Nixon and Attorney General Koster have done nothing ovr the course of the past several years to protect Missourians against overreaching Federal agencies. Koster has sued Morningland Dairy on behalf of the FDA, and put them virtually out of business. He also has supported a suit against Armand Bechard for trying to make a profit from his labor by selling his highly desirable grass fed cow milk to private parties interested in purchasing it. Now, in two instances with bunny rabbits, involving NO interstate commerce of any sort, both Koster and Nixon have done nothing to constrain the USDA from persecuting Citizens of Missouri. Jurisdiction is important, and it seems like these two politicians don’t understand this thing about borders very well.

Please, if you possibly can, come to this protest in Ozark, Missouri. We should make an example out of the USDA and their Mafia style tactics with the citizens of this country. Go here for directions. I’m planning on being there….and I might just take a few rabbits just to raise the hares on the USDA’s collectivist neck. I’ve had all I can stand, and I can’t stand no more!

Why Buy the Cow when You Get the Milk For Free?

 Heritage Areas are National Parks without Disclosure

© Doreen Hannes

The National Park Service has figured out that there isn’t any need to actually acquire land through outright purchase any longer. All they have to do to bring us under Agenda 21 Sustainable Development which they are sworn to promote, is offer a bit more of your great grandchildren’s money to people who will line up at the government trough to “tell your stories”. Then the story tellers set you under an unelected, unaccountable “management entity” who will, through your local officials, let you know what you may and may not do with your property and how much it might cost you to figure out if you can get permission to do what you would like to do. There are a few tools they use to accomplish this, with the dominant one being the establishment of your area as a “National Heritage Area”, or a “Scenic By Way” or a “Preserve America” designation.

This article is going to focus on “Heritage Areas”. As near as I can tell, there are thirty-seven of them in progress across the country and most people are unaware of them and the dangers they pose to private property use and ownership. My hope is to show you how these things are established and also how to, hopefully, effectively fight them.

We’re All Special

I live in a blessed area of the country. The Missouri Ozarks. Not to denigrate other areas, but this area is special for many reasons. One of the reasons it is so special, is that many people before me did an awful lot of work to expose the globalist agenda, particularly regarding the usurpation of private property and the Master Plan of Agenda 21 Sustainable Development. We are so special here that there have actually been references made to us in congressional testimony as the “black helicopter folks in Missouri.” Usually our “black helicopters” are agency documents, but they do indeed still think we are “special”. The definition of a “Heritage Area” from their documents received by FOIA is, and I quote: “National Heritage Areas are places where natural, cultural, historic and scenic resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally important landscape arising from patterns of human activity shaped by geography.”  That is literally everywhere. They think YOU are special too, so look out.

The Missouri Ozarks—Where the NPS Would Like A Nat’l Heritage Area–But Where the Citizens Like Their Heritage of Freedom More.

What the proponents of Heritage Areas want to do is to “tell your stories” and “interpret” them for the “tourists” that they are sure will show up once you have the Act of Congress in place that recognizes that your area is “special”.  They spend a lot of time telling you what Heritage Areas are NOT, and fail to tell you what their own documents say Heritage Areas really are.  They tell you that Heritage Areas are not controlled by the National Park Service.  They won’t infringe in any way on property rights. They will not increase taxes, or use public funds, and that all participation is voluntary and you can “opt-out”. I’ll show these for the stories they really are throughout this article.

We, the Citizens of the Ozarks, told the proponents of the Ozark Highlands National Heritage Area, that we could tell our own story as a short story. A very short story:  “Back Off!”

How about a nice little grant to get you going?

To start with, the way the ne’er-do-well-do-gooders begin the process of establishing a Heritage Area is to form a “board” of specialists that are gifted in the areas of “facilitation”. They then apply for a government grant, from the National Park Service to cover their expenses, and pay their wages, in taking away your property rights.

The Ozark Highlands National Heritage Area group took $185,000 as part of an ARRA (American Recovery and Re-Investment Act) grant. Now, remember they said that this wouldn’t increase taxes. How does the Federal government giving out grant money and then funding up to 1 million dollars per year -as spelled out in every law establishing a Heritage Area-  not increase taxes, or use public funds? The Federal government doesn’t HAVE any money of its own. Every dollar they spend is taken from YOU.  Someone always has to pay for or produce the “free lunch”.

Yet the National Park Service, in a pretty fair stroke of genius, has figured out that they don’t really have to buy land to control it, they can simply pay a “management entity” to meet their criteria and gently, and obscurely, move the area to CEMAT European Rural Heritage standards without actually receiving the consent of the residents of the area. In their Second Century Commission report they have outlined that it isn’t necessary to call an area a national park, just let it be controlled as the NPS is committed to controlling it, and their mission is complete. (Section 7 is Heritage Areas)

The NPS has to approve the Feasibility Study, which it has contracted with the future “management entity” to complete.  There are ten criteria that must be met to do a valid Feasibility Study, most of them involve developing consensus through facilitated meetings that are not overtly about the Heritage Area. The people drawing salary for plotting to remove your property rights will go to local officials and tell them their story about how economically beneficial and lovely this will be and request a letter from the officials saying, “We like it!” based on incomplete information. The NPS, or the group that took the money to do the legwork on the Heritage Area, then asks any legislator to sponsor this special designation and it quickly becomes a literal federal law establishing an area as a “Heritage Area”. Sometimes, as with the Northern Plains Heritage Area, it even happens after the NPS has declined the Feasibility Study as being insufficient!

In our case, those pushing to establish the Ozark Highlands National Heritage Area said they were well aware that the National Park Service had a bad reputation in the region, and thought it best to obscure the NPS level of participation in the Heritage Area. They said that they met with the dominant property rights advocates of the area, and that they were keeping us well informed of their progress. *

Baloney.

The Real Story

Three years ago, a few folks from West Plains, the epicenter of the proposed Heritage Area, called up Russell Wood, President of the Ozarks Property Rights Congress to ask what he thought about at their idea of establishing a Heritage Area here. In short, he told them “It’s a bad idea”, and the meeting ended with promises of keeping him informed about whether or not they would proceed with the idea.

In November of 2010, they again called Mr. Wood and invited him to a meeting to discuss where they were in the process of establishing this Heritage Area.

Eight of us, the Property Rights advocates, and about 10 or 11 of them, the Heritage proponents, attended this meeting on November 22^nd, 2010. Ray Cunio, President of Citizens for Private Property gave them a primer in Agenda 21 Sustainable Development, and had all the books and resources to back it up.  When Bob Parker asked them for their documents, they proudly handed each of us four sheets of promo material explaining that they had taken your money to conduct a feasibility study to establish this Heritage Area, and that it was going to be great for everyone.

When this bit of fluff ruffled Mr. Parker’s feathers and he expressed his indignation at their lack of documents for our review, they assured us that they would get us the pertinent documents ASAP. When we wrapped up the meeting, I told them they had gone as far as they could go without causing us to go to “war” with them, and that while we didn’t want to do that, we certainly were capable, and not afraid to bring this into the court of public opinion if they didn’t stop.

 And then we waited….

A few email exchanges and 5 weeks went by and then they ever so apologetically sent us the “documents”. Lo and behold, the “documents” were the same four pieces of paper they’d handed to us at the meeting in November. Mr. Wood then filed a Freedom of Information request and had to pay almost $120 to get what turned out to be most of the documents.

Those four pieces of paper that they tried to pass off as their “documents” became 816 pages, almost all double sided and containing not one, but two drafts for a feasibility study. Another 100 plus pages were obtained in a second FOIA request. And then they finished their “final draft” for the Feasibility Study, adding another 100 pages to the pile.

This is typical of the transparency and openness of these non-governmental organizations acting on behalf of the federal and state agencies to take away your rights. They like to work in the dark and control you by consensus of specially selected disinformation specialists.

What the Devil’s in the Details?

To get back to the four points bulleted at the beginning of this article, in a nutshell, every one of those points is a lie. If not outright, it is certainly intentionally misleading and without the slightest hat tip to integrity.

At the public meeting we ended up having, we got the facts about the Heritage Area and it’s dangers to the public at large, the proponents passed out yet another couple of sheets to the audience. They were a bit surprised that there were between three and four hundred people at the meeting, and they only had 150 flyers to tell their side of their story. Kind of appropriate, as they are used to telling half the story.

The fact is, that as substantiated by their own documents, the establishment and possibly even nomination of your area as a National Heritage Areas puts you in the position of being considered as a “World Heritage Site” by the UN.  Cheryl K. Chumley did an excellent and short article on this, and you can check that out for the pertinent information here.

There is also a transcript of  Congressional Testimony stating unequivocally that you can NOT opt out of a geographic area. You can’t opt out of the county in which you live. The Heritage Areas are almost all run along county lines.

In the Ozark Highlands National Heritage Area Feasibility Study they state on page 60:

Ozarks Highlands poses an ideal opportunity to apply NHA guidelines that respect the life and culture of an American region. European approaches, such as documented

in the CEMAT European Rural Heritage Observation Guide, can meet broad-based goals of partners throughout Ozarks Highlands region for preservation, conservation, education, economic development, financial sustainability, and interpretation.

When you read the Second Century Commission Report linked above, you find that they say on page 1 of the print out version that we have 59 states… Kinda scary, isn’t it?

Then on page 7, they say, “If the National Park Service conceives itself as serving all the peoples of the world, because that is what the word “American” is coming to mean, it can better fulfill its role in the United States and among nations.”

Page 10 and page 11 of this report deal specifically with NHA’s.  Destroying the idea that the NPS has nothing to do with Heritage Areas, they state the following:

• Incorporate into the draft approaches employed by European nations for preserving parks and other special places….

• Engage the National Park Service institutional culture in support of all such designated areas.

•Parts of the institutional culture that focus on large traditional parks may view National Heritage Areas and other special designations as departures from the norm. It is important to establish that they are not.

•Government action to purchase large tracts of land and even private philanthropic purchase, often meets powerful resistance from individual owners and property rights organizations.

The report goes on to say that they have usually failed in trying to preserve historic cultural locales because they are rather low priority for the resources of the agency. So they think it’s better to have a “management entity” do this work for them. In cases like this it says,”…new approaches such as Heritage Areas, use of preservation easements, or leasing of historic structures may offer better management opportunities than more traditional models.”

Conclusion….At last!

So if they can acquire the management control of the land without actually having to buy it, they think it’s a real good deal. And it is…for them. And another Raw Deal for you.

  Basically, if you want to live under European Spatial and Regional Planning, and be made merchandise of by people who take your money to sell your culture for their benefit while you seek to replace a shingle with a team of bureaucrats waiting in line for you to fill out more forms and receive more permission slips, then you should be for National Heritage Areas.

However, if you are like most of us here in the Ozarks, and aware that there are only two kinds of people….”Those who want to be left alone and those who won’t leave ‘em alone”, then you will be against this management from on high brought to you by people with titles such as “Landscape Historian”, “Folklorist”, and “Interpretive Specialist”.

If you are facing a Heritage Area designation in your area, drag the ones pushing for it kicking and screaming into the full view of the public. Make them talk about the money. They took YOUR money, so they are open to FOIA. Don’t expect them to be co-operative. They only cooperrate with others who think you are for sale. Let them know that you love your heritage, you will protect that heritage, and you don’t need them to tell stories for you in any way, shape, or form.  They say they have backed off here, and finally realized that because of our custom and culture that a “federal NPS designation” is not feasible here. But we will keep watching them. They are like all bureaucrats.

They want to “preserve” your heritage as something quaint and nostalgic. Tell them you want to preserve your freedom; that Freedom is your heritage, and you will NOT accept any substitute.

(Please read the Draft Feasibility Study here along with B. Parker’s article and many other documents related to our fight in this OHNHA battle.)