Activist Journalist Promotes Terrorism of Family Farm

It’s always interesting to me to see the fall out of today’s massive media consolidations.   More and more people are getting their news from fewer and fewer sources.   That gives a small circle large power to affect our society by making their views seem more widespread than they are.   When newspapers and magazines are taken over there is always a scramble by the staff to try and save their jobs, a natural reaction.   Sometimes ethics goes by the wayside in this fight to stay employed in the continuing down economy.   In Minnesota, earlier this year a small urban newspaper named City Pages, focusing on their audience of over-privileged extreme left wing members of the millennial generation, was taken over by the competition. As you can expect some lost their jobs. Still others seem willing to publish just about anything to generate outrage and readership to prop up their careers and avoid a layoff. One such person is reporter Cory Zurowski, known locally as being “edgy” at the paper known to have an “attitude” as if that’s something to brag about when reporting the news.   Walter Cronkite is probably spinning in his grave at what passes for reporting these days. But is it “edgy” to defame a farmer and destroy a family?   Is it “edgy” to write a story filled with unsupported, fraudulent details passed off as facts, calling a business you know nothing about a “puppy mill” and then standing aside to let the outraged readers of your propaganda take over and destroy a rural family just to sell papers and make a career?

Zurowski has done just that, recently running a series of articles defaming the rural Haag family farm.   The Haag’s run the Amaze’n Farmyard, a small educational petting zoo for families and school children. What is more Midwestern and wholesome than a family farm and its animals? But to Zurowski, he speculates that this beautiful family farm is hiding some deadly secret just because the Haag family won’t allow him to visit their property. Why should they after he has written such slander about them?   To rile up urbanites who know nothing about farming, Zurowski speculates that as many as 900 dogs may live at this farm at the adjoining dog kennel. Since he has never been there, he wouldn’t know how many dogs are there.   Joining him in defaming a Minnesota family is urban privileged stay-at-home mom Lindsay M. Holiday from Blaine, Minnesota.   Blaine, a suburb of the Twin Cities, is full of million dollar homes and other high-end housing. Holiday took it upon herself to conduct some sort of undercover private vigilante investigation when she, herself, is not law enforcement. Holiday bases her investigation on fraudulent reports slandering the Haag’s from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the largest animal rights group in America run by a vegan CEO who has famously stated he doesn’t want to see another cat or dog born ever again. You know, because Holiday had nothing better to do with her time than stalk a rural farmer.   Zurowski brags that Holiday is a brand new first time mother as if that has anything to do with her credentials as a fake law enforcement agent or doggie detective as he calls her.

Just like Joshua Rockwood, a small time farmer in New York, the Haag family and all of their kennel employees are seeing a concerted attack to destroy their way of life by people who know nothing of farming or dog breeding.  Urbanities think nothing of embarrassing this family in front of their neighbors.   They think nothing of harassing them and humiliating them on the Internet with false allegations about their farm. They think nothing of causing all of the kennel workers to lose their jobs in an economy where they won’t find another one soon and will end up on unemployment until it runs out. Ignorant do-gooders like Holiday make ludicrous charges and then just melt away to leave the damage in the pages of newspapers and on social media. Enflamed by the City Pages coverage of her illegal actions, Holliday plans a August 15th protest against the Haag farm during one of their busiest days to cause them a business loss claiming she’s against “inhumane capitalism.” The Haag farm is defended by The Cavalry Group, a member-based company working to legally protect the constitutional and private property rights of animal owners and animal related businesses across America.

“This is another example of bully tactics from animal rights groups,” Patterson says. “These people are doing nothing wrong. They are operating a commercial breeding kennel that regularly undergoes inspections from both federal and state regulators.”

It remains to be seen how Zurowski will cover the protest. Will he invoke his inner Cronkite and simply report the honest and unbiased facts, or will he run another terrorist apologizing rant to continue to destroy a rural Minnesota family and their employees?

Katharine Dokken is a Public Affairs Specialist at The Cavalry Group and the author of a new book, The Art of Terror: Inside the Animal Rights Movement, available on Amazon.

Follow Katharine on Twitter: @KatharineDokken 

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Private Property: The Real Endangered Species?

In 1973, Congress passed and President Nixon signed into law the Endangered Species Act (ESA) with the intent of protecting threatened species such as the bald eagle. Since then, close to 2,000 species and subspecies (1,400 of which are in the United States), have been added to the listing under the Endangered Species Act.

While the original Act was well intended, the Endangered Species Act has become the Trojan horse that sneaks in property-thieving regulations and a “sue and settle” lawsuit scheme while pretending to be beneficial to conservation. This threat to animal owners, animal based businesses, and private property has expanded significantly in recent years with animal rights groups hijacking the conservation aspect of the ESA to advance their radical agenda.

These groups make up a $400 Billion global coalition of organizations that raise money under the guise of promoting the welfare of animals, while using that money to buy lawyers and lobbyists to fund misleading, emotionally driven campaigns to pit the public against animal owners and breeders.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) is one such radical animal rights group based in San Francisco that files lawsuits against privately owned animal businesses with no intent of winning in court. Rather, the lawsuits are used to propagate a false narrative against their targets (typically animal based small business owners) in order to force them out of business. Instead of doing the work of raising, breeding, and caring for animals, the victims of these lawsuits must spend scarce resources on lawyers and public relations experts to clear their good name, and defend their livelihoods and their animals. Many cannot afford this burden and simply close up shop.

Recent reports from the House Committee on Natural Resources have uncovered that an entire cottage industry exists around filing lawsuits based on the ESA. As a result, funds that were once intended to be used to protect species in danger of extinction are now being diverted to fund frivolous lawsuits against animal owners who are the targets of extremist animal rights groups.

In addition, government bureaucrats often act unlawfully through a tactic called “sue and settle.” They settle litigation with their allies in environmental and animal rights groups behind closed doors in a way that advances the activist’s radical agenda, and in the process block out citizens, states, and local governments affected by their decisions and their subsequent rules and regulations.

This “sue and settle” tactic funnels millions of settlement dollars from the Federal Government to the animal rights and environmental activists to fund their continuing efforts to game the system and wrongfully attack animal enterprise ultimately.   The result is the destruction private property, businesses and lives.

One such victim of these attacks is Pam and Tom Sellner, owners of Cricket Hollow Zoo in Iowa, are one of many faces of victims of these attacks. Pam and Tom have been bringing joy to families for years with their privately owned collection of tigers, lions, pumas, and other exotic animals. Their zoo provides learning opportunities for students in rural Iowa who may otherwise not have access or contact with these animals. However, that will never satisfy the animal rights extremists who believe that these animals don’t belong in captivity.

Tom and Pam are now faced with mounting legal fees to fight this frivolous lawsuit from an animal rights activists group (ALDF) radically out of step with American values, but funded and well staffed with attorneys to do the dirty work. The Sellers are just one of the many faces of the victims of ESA-based lawsuits that have sprung up across the country.

While well intentioned when written over forty years go, the ESA has become a weapon for lawyers to beat small animal businesses over the head, all at the taxpayer expense.

Ultimately, the abuse of power under the ESA puts at risk the very animals it was intended to protect, as private property rights are trampled under the hooves of this Trojan Horse, and the system attacks the animals it was intended to protect.

Animal rights groups are using the ESA and our court system as a weapon to destroy those who aren’t in line with their ideology.  If this works on animal enterprise, what is next?

Mindy Patterson is the President of The Cavalry Group, a member based company protecting and defending the Constitutional and private property rights of law abiding animal owners, animal-related business, hunters, and agriculture concerns legally and legislatively nationwide.

Follow on Twitter: @TheCavalryGroup  @cowgirlathart

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