The strange tale of Biden’s bid to ban horse meat

In 2013, an oil heiress hired a Florida state senator to lobby the federal government on behalf of a pet cause: banning the slaughter of horses for meat. The lawmaker, Joe Abruzzo, was a close associate of Frank Biden, the younger brother of then-Vice President Joe Biden. At the time, the younger Biden was looking for state funding for his charter-school business, and Abruzzo sat on a key appropriations subcommittee in the Florida legislature. The two men met frequently. So it was only natural that, when the horse-slaughter measure stalled in Congress, Abruzzo sought Frank Biden’s help. As those involved recounted months later in video-taped remarks for an equine welfare conference, the vice president quickly went to bat. "My brother's long-term relationships in the Senate proved to be the final nail in the coffin to be able to pull this thing forward,” Frank Biden said on the video, recounting the group’s successful efforts to change the law. Those involved now deny Abruzzo requested Frank Biden’s help enlisting his older brother’s support or that Frank Biden ever sought charter school funding from Abruzzo, though the two men scheduled a meeting to discuss “charter school funding” a month before Abruzzo began lobbying on the slaughter measure, according to emails obtained by POLITICO through Florida’s public records laws. They say any action they did take was all for a good cause. But it was also part of a decades-long pattern in which the private business dealings of Joe Biden’s relatives have overlapped with Biden’s public duties. The Democratic front-runner has categorically denied taking official actions to benefit his relatives, telling POLITICO in August that he maintained an “ absolute wall” between their business dealings and his role as Barack Obama’s vice president...MORE

So there you have it sports fans: A rich woman, who inherited oil money, spends $900,000 for a lobbyist, who contacts Biden's brother, and bwallah, an entire private industry is banned and thousands of abandoned horses are subjected to a slow, painful death. 

First, this should suggest to you how far beyond the original intent of our Founding Fathers the feds have trampled.

This also demonstrates how vulnerable ag producers are as a result of  becoming so intertwined with federal programs, in this case meat inspection. Think of the possibilities. Livestock production contributes to climate change...just stop funding meat inspection for certain types of livestock. Apply that approach across the broad spectrum of federal ag programs and you will see how scary it can be. What is produced and how it is produced, all controlled by the federal political process.