Court lets Bush block mad cow tests

There's no end to the right-wing judicial activism and harmful policies that prevail under this stinky administration.

The right-wing U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has just ruled that the Bush regime can block farmers and meatpackers from testing cattle for mad cow disease.

Seriously. Bush has a regulation to make food less safe, and the court has upheld it. Evidently, the only regulations on businesses that Bush supports are those that actually harm people.

The Agriculture Department tests only 1% of cows. A small Kansas meatpacker wanted to test all its cows. But large corporate meatpackers opposed allowing this testing. They say that if the small packers start advertising that their cows have been tested, they'll have to test their cows too.

Well, boo hoo fucking hoo. There's no reason in hell why they shouldn't test them.

This fear of competition from smaller packers is what led the Bush regime to issue its diktat barring expanded mad cow tests.

The court's ruling is out of whole cloth. They pulled it out of their ass.

The Bush regime says the fact that only 1% of cows are tested shows how rare mad cow disease is. In other words, they think the disease is rare because they don't look for it. They apparently believe that the lack of testing has eliminated the disease. This is exactly like how that McCain adviser says that barring the Census Bureau from asking if folks have no health insurance will solve the insurance crisis.

A federal district court had earlier ruled that the small meatpackers have a right to conduct the tests. The Agriculture Department can regulate treatment - but it can't prohibit tests that may save lives. The Bush brain trust (as it were) argued that tests are the same as treatment, although they are not. But the right-wing circuit court has now overturned the district court's sensible ruling.

How are the Republicans going to put a happy face on this? They can't. Their policies help only large corporations and harm the American public.

It really is difficult to imagine a clearer instance of the government deliberately working against the people.

(Source: http://www.startribune.com/nation/27659099.html)