After a notably weak opening-day prosecution of Minnesota farmer Alvin Schlangen, his defense attorney will today file a motion to dismiss the criminal misdemeanor case.
Defense lawyer Nathan Hansen will argue that Schlangen has the right to sell food to about 200 members of a private food club, without regulation, under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees of a right of association and free speech, and the Minnesota Constitution’s religious exemption. Hansen will maintain that because the state constitution allows religious groups exemption from regulation, a non-religious food group should be similarly exempt.
The motion has little chance of succeeding, but it underscores the weakness of the prosecution’s first day Tuesday, when a jury of six people was seated, and the first prosecution witnesses testified. The first witness, a veterinarian with the Minnesota Department of Health, was questioned, as expected, about an illness from campylobacter that supposedly first got the state interested in Schlangen. She was quick to admit that the department hadn’t linked the illness to Schlangen, or any other particular food source; the sickened individual had admitted to ingesting fast food from a number of sources.
The state’s second witness, inspector John Mitterholzer, was even less persuasive, by all accounts. He hedged most of his answers, and stumbled badly when he produced a spread sheet from Schlangen that he couldn’t explain how he obtained.
Thanks to Kathryn Niflis Johnson, a member of Schlangen’s food club, for providing information on the trial’s first day. In addition, food rights lawyer Amy Salberg provides an excellent account of the trial’s first day, at her blog, Real Food Law.
If we allow Government to legislate what we eat and drink, it sets a dangerous precedent that we, as citizens, are incapable of knowing what is good for us and what is not good for us and therefore need the Government to tell us how to live our lives. Are Constitutional Rights being violated in Minnesota? The MDA is most assuredly violating the Constitutional Rights of Alvin and Mike.
My apologies in advance for inapropos comments, I don’t have time to read TCP these days.
I came across a Dairy Council of California pamphlet (8pp 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″, full color, very nicely done) at a grocery store. It is from 2012, rev. 2013. I think the material is also presented (in a different layout) at HealthyEating.org.
I would LOVE to see a thoughtful (and accurate!) response from the pro-raw milk world, from the pro-small producer world, from the nutrient dense food world. BECAUSE I believe this pamphlet to be deceitful on many, many, levels. It is a pamphlet designed to perpetuate the multifaceted prison of foods that do not feed in deference to a ????
Anyway I will try to say a little more later. In the Myth Busters section of the website version is this:
Milk Myth #10: Raw Milk is More Nutritious Than Pasteurized Milk
Myth Buster: Raw milk is not more nutritious and can pose serious health risks.
All the best to all the readers and commenters of the TCP,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
We must teach x3. It is hard to deny hard evidence and large raw milk markets on fire.
Here are the pamphlets headings. [ ] are my comments.
The Cover: [photo of the top 4 of a 1 qt. glass bottle with a white liquid, no cap.]
milk!;
Secrets, Stories & Facts of Americas Favorite Natural Beverage
The inside:
LOOKING BACK;
The Legacy of Milk [a simplistic time-line];
Favorite Foods MILK-MADE [picture of milk being poured on to a wedge of swiss cheese];
Dispelling Myths HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW MILK? [3 fictions/facts];
Decoding the Dairy Aisle [5 differently colored milk cartons with explanation];
A DAIRYMANS STORY (Meet Kimberly Clauss of Hilmar, California.) [in Merced Co., less than 5 mi. from Delhi] [about 200 words on how she and her sister run herd on over 4,000 cows in a dairy their grandparents started. She has a Bachelors degree in Ag Business from Cal Poly SLO.];
Just Add Milk! [a picture and three suggestions for each of 1.Breakfast, 2.Lunch & Dinner, 3.Snacks, 4.Drinks on the go];
[a full page photo captioned: YUM! Creamy milk is the base for a chai latte]
The back cover:
Milk by the Numbers
It Makes Good Cents!;
One-cup of milk [ provides ];
[if the above is fat-free or 1%, it is just about:]100 calories!;
3 CUPS [what the Dietary Guidelines for Americans commands to be consumed daily from the age of 9 to death of Milk and Milk Products];
What would you have to eat one 8-ounce glass of milk?…
//////////////////////////////////////////////
All I have time to say is:
Ive had it with organized, systematized, deceit.
We have tools: education, communication, transportation, refrigeration.
Do we have: freedom, liberty?
Do we have the right of association?
Do we have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. (the 4th amendment in the Bill of Rights)
What is this overweening womb of law and regulation that continues to be weaved about our every movement, every thought, every enterprise, our lives?
Reading Marks comment puts in mind that a component of the organized, systematized deceit that I railingly referenced above is our personal acedia. (not addressed to you combatants)
As always, all the best,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Bottom line….I always see progress when we engage with: respect, interest, intellect, performance, hard data, track records ( RAWMI LISTING facts ). We must all be reminded, regardless of the legal abuse and antics of the regulatory legal teams, pasteurized milk is dying a sad and mostly silent death. A death suffered by the consumer disconnected, lonely, misled, bankrupt, overworked, endentured slave, conventional dairymen of this great nation.
We fight for freedom, nutritional rights, raw milk producers, consumers access…..against a weakening foe. The foe is actually capitulating as I write. They want to meet…they want to talk….they want to know what we are doing!!! We must teach as we build and dollar vote back to health.In CA we have already won. This is educational clean up time. The battle rages in other less educated areas of our nation. We stand together. The openness of the Internet will bring choice and viril information to all as the farm to consumer legal defense teams force the matter into the open.
Teach x 3. The walls are coming down as bridges are being built up!! The truth always comes out….after all it is the truth.
In the meantime biased, overzealous government bureaucrats and their regulations are systematically eliminating the small family farm to the point where, in my area the number of small family operated dairy farms has gone from over thirty to a mere three farms in a little less then twenty years.
http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/without_saying_a_word_this_6_minute_short_film_will_make_you_speechless/
(buy degree)
(http://www.usauniversitiesonline.com/buy-college-degree/)