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Huge Rally to Save Our Klamath County Water Klamath Falls, OR. More than 100 cattle trucks and related haulers will drive the streets of Klamath Falls on Monday July 1st at 10:00 AM at the Klamath County Court House. We will be meeting at the fairgrounds at 9am. This rally is in support of the ranchers and farmers in the Upper Klamath Basin who have been deprived of their adjudicated water rights. Ranchers and farmers in the Upper Klamath Basin have been notified to cease all diversions for irrigating their pastures and crops, leaving cattle without feed for late summer...

Privacy: As long as we're talking about leaks that should be prosecuted, let's consider the leaking by the Environmental Protection Agency of the personal data about farmers to their environmentalist opponents. We saw such leaking of data compiled on one group to its political opponents in the IRS scandal. In that case, the IRS leaked the 2008 confidential financial documents of the National Organization for Marriage to the rival Human Rights Campaign. At that time, Joe Solmonese, a left-wing activist and Huffington Post contributor, was the president of the HRC. Solmonese also was a 2012 Obama campaign co-chairman. Now a...

80,000 US Farmers Are Latest Victims Of Out Of Control Agencies- Personal Info Leak to Left wing Environmental Groups Wake Up America!!! Another Scandal? - New EPA Leak Farmers' Info Given To Environmental Groups - Michelle Malkin Megyn Kelly

"As shareholders in those associations[banks and co-ops that make up the Farm Credit System], farmers and ranchers would be guaranteed a “say-on-pay” vote if compensation for the top corporate officers jumped by 15 percent or more in a single year."

The New York Times reported Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has likely enabled massive fraud in the Pigford series of legal settlements, in which black, Hispanic, female and Native American farmers have claimed to be victims of past discrimination. The cost of the settlements, which could exceed $4.4 billion, is the result of a process that "became a runaway train, driven by racial politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees," the Times notes. Among those influential members of Congress was then-Senator Barack Obama, who...

In the winter of 2010, after a decade of defending the government against bias claims by Hispanic and female farmers, Justice Department lawyers seemed to have victory within their grasp. Ever since the Clinton administration agreed in 1999 to make $50,000 payments to thousands of black farmers, the Hispanics and women had been clamoring in courtrooms and in Congress for the same deal. They argued, as the African-Americans had, that biased federal loan officers had systematically thwarted their attempts to borrow money to farm. But a succession of courts — and finally the Supreme Court — had rebuffed their pleas....

In the winter of 2010, after a decade of defending the government against bias claims by Hispanic and female farmers, Justice Department lawyers seemed to have victory within their grasp. Ever since the Clinton administration agreed in 1999 to make $50,000 payments to thousands of black farmers, the Hispanics and women had been clamoring in courtrooms and in Congress for the same deal. They argued, as the African-Americans had, that biased federal loan officers had systematically thwarted their attempts to borrow money to farm. But a succession of courts — and finally the Supreme Court — had rebuffed their pleas....

Under criticism for handing over personal data on farmers and ranchers to environmental groups, the Environmental Protection Agency defended its actions as “cost-effective under current budget constraints.” “Normally, we’d harry these despoilers of the environment ourselves,” said Bob Perciasepe, Acting EPA Administrator. “But with the budget being hemmed in by the sequester we have to seek other ways of achieving our objectives. We saw arming these environmental groups with potentially useful information as a way of multiplying or leveraging our forces. We thought we’d get more bang for the buck, so to speak.” if you missed any of this week's...

THE Supreme Court has frequently handed down judgments that have shaken America to its core. Now, it has turned its attention to the raisin. A group of farmers has brought a complaint about the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, under which the government confiscates part of the annual national raisin crop. The Court is considering whether the arrangement is constitutional. But why is a country that generally celebrates red-blooded capitalism regulating the raisin trade in the first place?Since the 1940s a government agency called the Raisin Administrative Committee has confiscated a portion of the annual raisin crop: 47% in 2003 and...

Dozens of resorts with permits to operate on national forests have bought or acquired rights to use nearby bodies of water for snowmaking. The Forest Service had adopted a clause that said those resorts had to transfer their water rights to the federal government ... After the National Ski Areas Association sued, a judge ruled last year that the agency violated procedure in not seeking public comment before adopting the clause. The agency now plans open houses April 16 in Lakewood, Colo., on April 17 in Salt Lake City, and April 18 in Lake Tahoe, Calif., to get input.

WASHINGTON, DC - President Barack Obama signed a spending bill, HR 933, into law, the "Monsanto Protection Act," that strips federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns. "The provision would strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of an illegal, potentially hazardous GE crop while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assesses those potential hazards," explains a letter to the House that has been signed by dozens of food businesses and retailers, as well as interest groups and...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Federal investigators have unraveled a massive scheme among dozens of insurance agents, claims adjusters, brokers and farmers in eastern North Carolina to steal at least $100 million from the government-backed program that insures crops. Forty-one defendants have either pleaded guilty or reached plea agreements after profiting from false insurance claims for losses of tobacco, soybeans, wheat and corn. Often, the crops weren't damaged at all, with farmers using aliases to sell their written-off harvests for cash. Prosecutors compared the case to busting a drug cartel, where federal investigators used a confidential informant to ensnare a key...

God Made a Farmer Ram Trucks Super Bowl Commercial with Paul HarveyChrysler’s Super Bowl Ram Truck commercial praising the American farmer was an unexpected big hit and is still being replayed around the country on talk radio. Rich Lowry and Peggy Noonan both contrasted the authenticity of that commercial fantasy with the falsity of the real event. And why not? Even if the clip was a bit corny and overdone, the late Paul Harvey was a masterful throaty narrator in the romantic age before the onset of America’s now ubiquitous metrosexual nasal intonation. Harvey just didn’t sound different from the...

An iconic radio voice took the cake, as Dodge Ram’s “So God Made a Farmer” spot with Paul Harvey as the voice over was the highest-rated commercial during Super Bowl XLVII according to ADBOWL, the original advertising ranking website for consumers developed in 2002 by McKee Wallwork & Company. It wasn’t flashy or filled with special effects, but Dodge Ram’s Super Bowl spot featuring the late radio broadcaster Paul Harvey’s tribute to U.S. farmers won the hearts and minds of viewers Sunday night. The two-minute spot featured a series of stark photos of farmers at work. Along with a montage...

47 percent of their crop, to be precise. It’s J.J. Abrams’ world. We’re all just living in it.Luckily, the Supreme Court decided to take the case of the Horne family, so they may end up retaining the right to freely sell the raisin crop they’ve duly produced, but how is it that they must appeal to the highest court in the land for that right? Well, it all started in 1937, as so many good things do, when the federal government began requiring raising farmers to lay aside a tribute portion of their crops in order to control supply and...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The classical definition of a hero is a person who puts himself at risk for the benefit of others. That certainly describes Adolfo Calero, who died June 2 at the age of 80. The obituaries of this remarkable man hardly do justice to his courage, perseverance, faithfulness and humility. Here is the Adolfo Calero I knew, admired and called a friend for nearly three decades: A graduate of Holy Cross High School in New Orleans and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., he was a devout Roman Catholic and educated to be a...

The New Year could push milk prices to $7 a gallon. With Congress spending all its time trying to avert the fiscal cliff, a slew of other legislative matters are going unattended. One of them is the agriculture bill which, if not addressed, could lead to a doubling of the price of milk early next year. ... Sky-high milk prices wouldn't necessarily be good for dairy farmers either, according to Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation, which represents over 30,000 dairy farmers. While it might provide a short term boost to profits, there's a fear that...

New legislation that jumps the death tax to 55 percent of estates exceeding $1 million threatens 526,421 family farms, of about 25 percent of all farms in America. ... Farm values are largely tied up in non-liquid assets like land, buildings, and livestock. Many farm and ranch families would be forced to sell their assets to satisfy Washington Democrats' insatiable appetite for tax money. Up to 24 percent of America's farm and ranch families could be forced to hand over a large chunk of their heritage to the Internal Revenue Service when a family member dies. This would economically devastate...

They Are Going To Make It Nearly Impossible To Pass On A Farm Or A Business To Your Children By Michael Snyder on November 20th, 2012 If you have a farm or a small business, would you like to pass it on to your children when you die? Well, unless Congress does something, it is going to become much, much harder to do that starting next year. Right now, there is a 5 million dollar estate tax exemption and anything above that is taxed at 35 percent. But on January 1st, the exemption will go down to 1 million dollars...

the estate tax -- also known as the "death tax."... set to soar at the beginning of 2013 ... The estate tax dates back to 1916 when then-President Woodrow Wilson imposed the tax of 1 to 10 percent on the wealthy because World War I reduced federal government revenues. Under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the tax rose to 77 percent, as Congress tried to prevent wealth from becoming concentrated among a few powerful and super-rich families. Ironically, many nations historically more concerned with class and wealth -- namely Russia and China -- have since abandoned their estate taxes.