If you are writing a story for a film or a television show or a cartoon there are a few rules about how to quickly establish “good guys” and “bad guys.” One of the more famous rules of thumb is if you introduce a character who is nice to a puppy the audience will instantly know that that character is good. One of the other rules is never have your protagonist do something so heinous that the audience will never trust them again—for example, hurting an animal. A little over a week ago, the Republican Party and the Trump administration tested this tried and true theory.
A leading U.S. animal advocacy group on Monday threatened to sue the federal government after the Agriculture Department suddenly pulled "invaluable" information from its website regarding animal welfare at thousands of facilities across the country.
The Humane Society of the United States sent a letter to the Justice Department, saying the group would pursue legal action if the Agriculture Department did not reverse its recent decision to discontinue a search tool that made inspection records and violations at animal facilities publicly accessible.
After the Humane Society and others began to make a stink and stories about citizens banding together to repost that important information elsewhere, the government today put this up.
Today, APHIS is posting the first batch of annual reports of research institutions and inspection reports for certain Federal research facilities that the Agency regulates under the Animal Welfare Act. The reports posted are part of a comprehensive review of the documents the Agency removed from its website in early February and are in the same redacted form as before.
To conduct the review, the entire agency search tool database was taken off line. As announced on Feb. 7, 2017, the agency will continue to review records and determine which information is appropriate for reposting.
APHIS is committed to ensuring the welfare of animals and continues to carry out the critical day-to-day work of ensuring the humane treatment of vulnerable animals through unannounced inspections, pre-compliance visits, horse protection inspections, and other activities.
The reposted information can be found on our website, here. In addition, some enforcement records (such as initial decision and orders, default decisions, and consent decisions) will continue to be available on the USDA’s Office of Administrative Law Judge’s website.
When the right or the middle pundits in our country complain about how the left or progressive movement is too disparate with its social identity issues and its economic concerns, they’re just trying to simplify the fact that we are legion and so we have people watching every little move Republicans make to steal away the good things this world has to offer.