HSUS claims the online retailer is in violation of federal animal cruelty laws by selling the publications The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock. Verna Dowd, the owner and editor of The Feathered Warrior told the Associated Press: "The Humane Society are crazy people â?¦ They want total control, evidently, over everything people do or think or says, or anything. I don't know what's wrong with them."
A third magazine aimed at cockfighters, Grit and Steel, was not named in the lawsuit, nor were other materials about cockfighting sold on Amazon. John Goodwin, an HSUS spokesman, says in recent years Grit and Steel has altered its content and no longer promotes illegal cockpits, making it difficult to argue that it promotes cockfighting in states where it's illegal. However, Goodwin says, The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock do just that.
"We're not trying to get them to stop things that we simply disagree with," Goodwin told The Independent Weekly. "What we're trying to do is to get them to stop selling things that help facilitate the breaking of the law. When they're running advertisements for people that are selling illegal cockfighting pits in states where it's banned, when they're selling birds for the expressed purpose of fighting ' where it states their fighting ability in the advertisement and it says, 'We ship worldwide' when in fact transporting an animal over state lines or for foreign export for an animal fighting venture is illegal ' then they're going beyond any sort of conduct that would be First Amendment-protected and getting into the realm of helping people break the law. That's the issue. This is not about what's controversial. This is about what's legal and what is illegal."
Amazon has stated it will continue selling the magazines.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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