'Fire them all,' Says R-CALF Chief

Max Thornsberry, the veterinarian who is president of the Billings, MT-based Rancher-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF, USA) Tuesday called upon BEEF magazine, Drovers, and Beef Today to fire editors and a writer for being "disparaging and immensely disrespectful" to those who want "marketplace enforcement by USDA." The three editors coming in for Thornsberry's wrath are BEEF magazine's Joe Roybal, Beef Today's Steve Cornett, and Drovers' Greg Henderson. Cornett and Henderson should be fired for what they wrote, the R-CALF chief opined. Roybal should be fired for publishing what Troy Marshall wrote. None of them is going to be fired or fall on their swords anytime soon. Roybal told Food Safety News "Troy Marshall's thoughts and those of the BEEF editorial staff are in harmony with what the vast majority of BEEF readership thinks." An online poll at www.beefmagazine.com shows 80 percent of 750 respondents thus far believe the proposed USDA Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) rule is negative for the U.S. beef industry. Roybal said Marshall has provided BEEF readers with "great insight" in reporting on GIPSA Administrator J. Dudley Butler's prediction that the new rules will "open the floodgates" to litigation in the U.S. beef industry, and on R-CALF founder Pat Goggins' opinion that the rules would be "a devastating blow" to the freedom of U.S. cattlemen...more