Keeping America safe from elephants

Asian elephants come in the night to devastate farms.

South Dakota's GOP Congress people are industriously insuring that the state's farmers are kept safe from an invasion of Asian elephants, which are as voracious and prolific as Asian carp, only they wreak their havoc on land.  In this case, the Asian elephants come under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency, which was created totally to oppress and destroy agriculture.  The elephants trample crops, rip up trees, and terrorize farm families in the dark of night, and generally impede the spirit of free enterprise in an industry that racks up about $35 billion a year in direct federal handouts.  

Of course, no Asian elephants have ever invaded America, and such an invasion is not even a remote possibility, but our ever-diligent GOP congress persons have dedicated their lives to insuring that such an invasion never takes place.  It is their first-priority political mission.   Sen. John Thune took the bold move in the Asian elephant fight in 2008, when he introduced his cow fart legislation. 

Thune sponsored a bill that would prevent the EPA from regulating livestock digestion emissions that contain methane, which makes holes in the ozone layer of the atmosphere.  The EPA repeatedly said it had no intention of attempting to regulate farts and burps of livestock, but the Farm Bureau insisted that such a threat was imminent.  Factcheck.org found that "the farm lobby warned that EPA "could" push for such a tax, but EPA never proposed any such thing and says it lacks authority to impose one anyway."  It added,"This one is a case study in how lobbyists sometimes justify their own salaries by loudly fighting against hypothetical but non-existent threats from Washington."   

John Thune never wavered in his stalwart crusade to protect farmers from dangers that don't exist, cow fart regulation and Asian elephants.

Now comes his understudy in the war against figments of imagination.   Kristi Noem has sponsored legislation that would prevent the EPA from regulating dust on farms.  However, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson "has said that claims that the EPA plans new regulations of farm dust are mischaracterizations." “We have no plans to do so,” Jackson said during testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture last month.

Noem and the farm lobby, however, are not to be dissuaded.  They insist that the EPA and the Asian elephants are on the prowl, just waiting for the chance to sneak in and wreak havoc on American agriculture.  That is the nature of the beast that keeps Noem, Thune, and the constituents they claim to represent cowering under their beds at nights.  

The big challenge facing agriculture today is the bogey creatures that Thune, Noem, and the fruit loop caucus conjure up as evidence that they are serving their constituents.