A very important story from CBS21 in the state of Pennsylvania regarding the TRUE costs of the dog bite epidemic in America. You must watch this.
Then compare that to LEDY VANKAVAGE'S fictional crunched numbers for the state of Pennsylvania.
You can read the entire clarion call to the gullible and the spineless at Best Friends.
The state of Pennsylvania declined CBS21's request for an interview but released a statement. I took the liberty of translating the Brazilspeak for my 3 readers.
*I attempted to find the release date for BEST FRIENDS latest greatest propaganda tool, the BSL fiscal impact calculator and it appears to have been released in the spring of 2009, along with the attack on the Pennsylvania lawmakers.
Thank you Animal Uncontrol for bringing this important news story to our attention.
Watch on youtube. Show your support.
CBS21
CBS21
*I have been forced to take copious screenshots and save pdfs whenever I blog about BFAS. The links that I post to BEST FRIENDS have a tendency to disappear. I am flattered really.
40 comments:
This is a very fine post.
Thank you scurrilous amateur blogger!
thank you fellow blogger who also leaves a trail of dead BFAS links :-)
you know you are on to something when they delete the evidence. nothing sparks fear in the blackened hearts of thugs like facts.
Excellent post! This BSL calculator is totally BS! I also have a problem with dead BFAS links.
The argument "it costs too much" is a variation of "we don't have the money/time/manpower/infrastructure/etc... for that" excuse. Its just another excuse for doing nothing. What they MEAN when they say that is "we don't want this problem solved, we like the status quo just the way it is."
In any case, the question is NOT how much will it cost, but will the concept pass a cost/benefit analysis. In other words, is it worth the cost?
Moreover, there are ways to raise money for this - increase enforcement and fines for barking, off leash, etc... violations and raise the dog licensing compliance rate above its usually abysmal rate and there should be MORE than enough money. You could come up with all kinds of funding scenarios that do not involve going after general taxpayers.
Or, you could just tax the hell out of pit bulls. That might work.
Best Friends pays triple figure salaries to the marketers and advertising people who have managed to cook up enough lies to convince the really stupid that Best Friends is No Kill (it isn't, they don't even help animals in their own town), that they should donate to provide for dogs that Best Friends killed a long time ago, that they didn't get rid of hundreds of dogs they promised to care for for their lives at their fake sanctuary (they dumped them and no one seems to know where), that they don't support hoarder killers (Best Friends has a long history of doing that,) that they aren't a profit center for a group of people who get triple figure salaries for their inept family members to do nothing but sit on staff (nepotism rages there,), that sales of their merchandise go to animals (they don't, the profits go into a for-profit company that the founders profit from personally) or that Best Friends is a humane organization (they aren't. They are a dog breeding organization now, working for the interests of pit bull breeders and with them too, and they have dog breeders on staff helping to lobby for them)
Since every day in every way, Best Friends lies, it's not a long stretch for them to cook up fake numbers and statistics to help their friends the pit bull breeders out, while the numbers of pit bulls getting abandoned and euthanized goes through the roof.
Donors should be initiating a class action lawsuit against this corrupt business and everyone affiliated with it, including people like that Mountain guy who still gets money from this organization (I think from the merchandise sales) while he drifted off to help run the stubby dog pit bull breeder propaganda business.
Everything about Best Friends Animal Society is a big money marketer lie, except the things that are bad or unethical which always seem to surface eventually.
"Moreover, there are ways to raise money for this - increase enforcement and fines for barking, off leash, etc... violations and raise the dog licensing compliance rate above its usually abysmal rate and there should be MORE than enough money."
Let's not forget the millions and millions of dollars, an ocean of money, that tax cheat dog breeders are not paying to local, city, and state.
from the backyard breeders on up to the multi million dollar plus a year income commercial dog breeder puppy mills.
Thanks to groups like Best Friends and their breeder affiliates, opposing regulation and enforcement, the dog breeding industry is one of the biggest when it come to tax loss and tax fraud, and Best Friends wants to help their breeder friends keep up that status quo.
So the pit bull breeders get ya coming and they get ya leaving.
That's one of their lobbying jobs, and one of the reasons that Best Friends gets involved in opposing regulating.
It's also time to hold the breeders, shelters ,and rescues and dealers who are dealing violent dogs responsible for paying the costs. These dogs that attack should all be getting tracked back to source.
Make them pay for cleaning up the mess they made
The Department of Agriculture isn't afraid of the pit bull breeder lobby.
They work with them and for them, and the rest of the the lobby too
Thanks to the post WWII puppy mill agriculture department scheme, dog breeders lobby with the corporate farm and agriculture industry for the benefit of dog breeders and private business.
Everyone else loses.
The Departments of Agriculture in any state or federally never work for the interests of citizens. They work for agribusiness and its offshoot lobbying groups, and for helping increase the profits and oppose regulation to protect the financial interests of the farm industry.
People like Samantha Krepps aren't just careless bureaucratic idiots using doublespeak and helping to get people killed, she's a liar working for private industry and is the spokesperson for them and their lobbyists.
Pennsylvania is especially bad because of the vast number of farmers feeding off the system and hiring expensive lobbyists, and the Amish puppy mill industry which works closely with the other breeder lobbies in the state. Some of them get tax subsidies and grants too.
That's one reason why some dog fighters in other states had their breeding operations in PA. (does anyone remember the Texas dog fighter who was murdered in his home state? His breeding operations were in PA. Many others do that too)
(Breeders and farmers also get on the boards of the local humane societies in PA and get what they want.)
Samantha's picture should be posted next to every attack victim in the state.
My son's flight for life was $37,000 alone. $80,000+ total AND HE DIED! Can you imagine the bill the survivors are stuck with?
And what gives with the AFF/BFAS not giving MY blog dead links?....oh, wait... I know.... I linked to the AFF's FAQs page and their 990s on Guidestar. :-)
Seeing as Samantha Krepps come from the puppy mill and breeder lobbyist heartland of PA, Lancaster County, one of the dirtiest politically in the state, she knows exactly what she is doing with her doublespeak and her false words
Love to know how many kreppses are getting the old tax payer subsidies and for what
The families of the farm industry there get their family members appointed and hired by many of the towns, counties, and the state to watch out for them on these state boards
The objective statement of the PA Department of Agriculture really says it all
"Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
www.agriculture.state.pa.us/
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
Mission Statement: To encourage, protect and promote agriculture and related industries throughout the Commonwealth."
Promoting, marketing, protecting, selling, facilitating, aiding, lobbying for
They work for the producers, in this case the dog breeders, which is one of the related industries: not for the citizens of the state or the consumers.
That's true in every industry they touch, those "related industries" like dog breeding, but they put on a show using Spokespeople like Krepps and pretend to represent the interests of citizens because they are stealing huge amounts of taxpayer money for the private industries they represent while they eff them over, and that's something they'd rather not be known by the majority of the public
Sounds like Best Friends doesn't it, promoting and marketing, selling!, pit bulls
This is why AFF people and breeders like Marder wanted to get control of dangerous dog regulation and animal control in the hands of their business partners, the Departments of Agriculture in the state, and out of the control of public health and safety departments.
That was another evil little trick Marder and her breeder friends were up to with the Massachusetts legislature in the middle of the night anti-BSL and the rest animal control bill.
These people are like snakes, and they take advantage of the fact that most people don't know how this dirty government machine works.
BF and the rest are right in there in the dirty Department of Agriculture working their game
PROTECT
"Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
Mission Statement: To encourage, protect and promote agriculture and related industries throughout the Commonwealth.""
Protect from regulation, because that might just interfere with some of the financial profits pouring into the hands of their industries, like the breeder industry
So the fake statistics and fake numbers get cooked up by fake experts and sold like contaminated produce by the lobbying groups in the background like BF
Everyone else gets effed over while the department sends people like Samantha the sock puppet out to officially cover (translation:LIE) for them and hide what really is going on behind closed doors and what the interests really are
Way more about the origins and the inner workings of Best Friends and its earlier incarnations than you'll ever want to know.
http://visupview.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-process-strange-and-terrible_15.html
The article goes into great length about mind control and cult mentality.
It also seems the founder, Mary Ann de Grimston, may have been killed by their own rescue dogs. Quoting from an early member:
"Mary Ann was taking an evening stroll, so the story goes, walking slowly around the far side of the lake that the tomblike house overlooks, when a pack of wild dogs set on her, tearing her throat out and ripping her body apart.
"If that wasn't irony enough for a woman who called herself Hecate, the wild dogs were believed to be escapees from the animal sanctuary, the very place that appears to be the final iteration of her brainchildren: Compulsion Analysis, The Process Church of the Final Judgment and The Foundation Faith of the Millennium."
The purpose of agriculture is to produce food for humans and other animals.
Moreover, based on the comment thread above, the gist/drift appears to be that pit bull breeding is a State protected agricultural activity.
Therefore, I reason that....
... the government says that pit bulls are food.
I can live with that.
Pit bulls... not just for breakfast anymore.
Pit bull... the new white meat?
Pit bull.... its whats for dinner!
Her Facebook name is Samantha Arone-Elliott Krepps
She posts on their office of administration FB page for pa
Victims and victims to be need to let her know she is on accountability radar
I'd love to know how she got the name and her associations
She was a news anchor for some of those PA media establishments that call pit bulls boxer mixes and claim they are nanny dogs and persecuted, and ignore the victims, and provide free advertising for the pit bull breeders and groups
Then a public strategist for corporate (schemer and marketer and propagandist) MARKETING AND ADVERTISING companies, selling the potentially unpalatable to the public http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/09/harrisburgs_pavone_agency_attr.html
then did that for the realtor industry
Now she is a marketer and propagandist for the PA Department of Agriculture? Why would a government department need a marketing schemer and propagandist to front for them, especially on a public safety issue which should be getting addressed by experts in public health and safety?
Why do they need someone to hide things for them and gloss over the truth and sell lies?
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/samantha-elliott-krepps/6/547/811
This is the problem that victims and victim advocates face, and public in general. Even the government agencies that are supposed to represent and protect them and PUBLIC INTEREST are in cahoots with business industries and lying for them and marketing and strategizing for them
Victims, personal injury attorneys, and public safety representatives in that state need to be all over this agriculture department and its shills, and they need to be held directly accountable for the attacks.
This woman does not represent public safety in any way, and the interests of the corporate groups that use her as a mouthpiece through this department are in direct opposition to public safety
PA needs to have health and public safety people addressing this issue and speaking on it as well as formulating policy, not corporate agriculture shills
Look on the right side of her linked in page, and the profiles of the people there
Do you see the morass of all the people who do marketing, communications, and public relations for the PA Department of agriculture?
What are they? A) a government regulatory department representing the citizens of PA or B) a corporate front
If you chose B, you win.
This is NOT the department that should have anything to do with public safety issues, animal control or dangerous dog laws, legislation, or enforcement.
Best Friends' "BSL fiscal impact calculator" was created by Dunham and Associates, a for-profit marketing firm specially set up to aid lobbyists. Dunham has strong ties to GOP and other big business interests: http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Economist-for-McMahon-has-strong-lobbying-ties-3707559.php
Needless to say, paying a for-profit "guerrilla economist" to cook numbers is not sound science. Even though economics grad students could produce a genuine and virtually unassailable fiscal impact calculator for pennies on the dollar, Best Friends chose Dunham. That really says it all. Best Friends also hires Luntz Global, climate change deniers par excellence, to come up with their pibble marketing strategies. That would be Luntz Global, "winners" of a Politifact.com "Lie of the Year."
Is the Best Friends Bullshit-O-Meter even remotely accurate for ANY city with BSL? The actual budget impacts associated with BSL are a matter of public record. Doesn't this "impact calculator" routinely produce estimates that exceed a city's entire animal control budget?
Often, cities consider or defend BSL because responding to, seizing, housing, and disposing of all these problem pit bulls is eating too much money.
I am so tired of excuses. BSL is not difficult, and could easily be paid for with sane fees on dog owners, existing pit owners, and fines for nuisance and law breaking dog owners.
It is BOTH simple and easy.
I want to ask these public servants how many pit bulls are worth the life of one child? How many dollars is it OK to spend to keep people and animals from daily attacks, and stop pits from terrorizing neighborhoods? Even IF 20 million was a real number, it would be well worth it, and is likely to save even more money in the long run.
Oh the stupidity.
I forgot to add that many cities are ALREADY asking for even more than that amount in funds for new, enormous, shelters, that will be used to house mostly PIT BULLS.
They whine to the community about how "inhumane" their (safe, clean, but basic) kennel is, calling them "draconian", even "barbaric". And while I am sure some city shelters are like this, nowadays most of them are not. What they are is NOT built to house animals forever! This is because a city shelter is there to hold animals temporarily- take in strays for pick up by owners, hold dangerous dogs, and abused or abandoned pets. Keeping them endlessly was never a municipal goal, and shouldn't be. If they want to add a wing for longer term adoptees, that is great, but the idea that they ill keep all animals forever, is insane. (though they manage this by charging huge fees, refusing ferals, reducing intake to a drizzle…)
In my city, they are just getting started priming the public for the start of a campaign for a state of the art shelter. But I have been at the shelter, and its fine. The only problems are caused by- you guessed it- pits! The cages are big enough, clean enough, and there is enough room to exercise them. The problem is that the kennels face each other and the pits cannot handle this. But the other dogs manage just fine.
Is this ideal? Of course not. But we have a huge homeless problem here (our solution- a homeless "camp" with covered tents for 35 out of 4,000…), so putting millions into a new shelter for PITS, when we have KIDS on the street, is ABSURD. And offensive.
"so putting millions into a new shelter for PITS, when we have KIDS on the street, is ABSURD. And offensive."
I applaud you for saying that and pointing it out! Humans first, I always say.
BAM
Just slap fees and make people jump through hoops to get a pit. Make them get a license and complete a course to own one. Including proper containment, muzzles, and prong collars. That how our neighbors keep there dog aggressive mutant, and so.far no problems. I do not think sane people who pick normal.friendly breeds should have to suffer. And stop breeding the stupid things.
Pibble, thanks for that information
Dunham & Associates, which is in Brooklyn NY, also has ties to to many of the political and lobbying groups that Andrew Saul hass been involved with, and those of his associates
Saul is very active in New York and national GOP politics and candidate backing, and political activities and lobbying and donations, and personally started a campaign for senator in New York before it was ignominiously shut down after ethical problems with campaign donations surfaced and were exposed in the media.
But his Wikipedia page kept that out of there and it belongs there.
Here's what Wikipedia leaves out, in short "In a major blow to Republicans, Andrew Saul (R), the wealthy and highly touted challenger to freshman Rep. John Hall (D), abruptly announced last week that he was pulling out of the race “due to personal reasons.”
Saul gave no further explanation for his decision to drop out, though it came just three days after The New York Times reported that Saul, who is vice chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, had accepted campaign contributions from developers who were bidding to build on MTA property in Manhattan. Saul also had come under public criticism recently for coming out in favor of a proposed fare hike for public transit in New York."
His daughter Jennifer Saul Yaffa also was running a state GOP lobbying and candidacy group and dropped out suddenly when her father's ethical issues hit the fan.
Despite large, glaring ethical questions, and as a Bush pioneer, he still was allowed to run the Federal Thrift Retirement Investment Board. How does that work exactly, when a person has such campaign finance ethical questions they have to drop a political race they have raised the most money for in the state at the time?
"Shortly after Saul assumed office, TSP Executive Director James Petrick resigned. It has been alleged by former FRTIB Chairman and Executive Director Roger Mehle that this occurred when Petrick wished to pursue a lawsuit against the contractor for the record keeping system which led to a conflict with the Justice Department over whether the board had standing to sue. Saul pursued a settlement and dropped the lawsuit. In 2007, Mehle launched his own lawsuit against Saul and the board which alleges that the board violated its fiduciary duty to TSP participants by forcing out Petrick in order to settle the lawsuit against the contractor."
Saul is still very active in GOP political lobbying and politics. He is among a group of people who decide who will get to run for office, and who gets the support and contributions.
Of all things, I think he now has a senior government job running transportation in New York, exactly the place where campaign contributions questions connected to him surfaced.
Who is Andrew Saul?
Board member and big donor to his sister's Animal Farm Foundation pit bull business. Jane Saul Berkey.
Animal Farm Foundation used the address for one of his foundations as their address for a while.
The public needs to know why government groups, politicians, and agencies sometimes seem to do strange things that don't seem to relate to their public service or are in conflict with it, and use statistics and "economic reports' that come from lobbying groups that lobby for businesses.
GOP candidate Linda Mcmahon in CT did the same thing that Best Friends is doing, with the same political business lobbyists that pose as experts and statistics gatherers and plan makers and put pressure on the government to bend to their whims and interests.
"McMahon said her jobs plan is the only one that has been vetted by an economist, although there has been some criticism that Dunham and Associates’ usual work is lobbying for businesses."
The GOP political machine is very tightly connected to the agribusiness lobby.
If you look state by state, you will see agribusiness and farm industry donations going mostly (but not always) to GOP candidates involved with these national and state lobbying groups and foundations that people like Saul are involved with
Since dog breeding interests are one of the lobbying interests under the umbrella of agribusiness and the farm lobby, that's a lot of big money pressure on political candidates, office holders, departments, and employees, and law makers.
Influence and power that the average citizen and the victims and consumers do not have.
If you think about the tax fraud that the dog breeding industry is involved with, and it is big, there is all kinds of money to pay for proper regulation and enforcement
They just are getting out of paying those taxes because of political influence on regulators that help them stay in the dark and keep evading
Sister of Animal Farm Foundations (and thus National Canine Research Council run by Karen Delise, Saul's employee) Jane Saul Berkey, and himself a board member and high donor----
"Andrew Saul was a Bush pioneer in 2000 and 2004, raising over $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney campaign, and has contributed to numerous Republican candidates and served on the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Along with Bill Kristol and Peggy Noonan, Saul is a trustee of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a prominent conservative think-tank which promotes limited government and free-market principles whose mission is to "develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility" and has hosted policy speeches by then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in 2002 and both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in 2006. His daughter, Jennifer Saul Yaffa, is the National Committeewoman of the Republican National Committee from the New York Republican State Committee. She is also head of the Manhattan GOP.
So when Best Friends (and their employee and pit bull marketer and lobbyist Ledy Vankavage, who is also Saul's employee at Animal Farm Foundation) hires these New York based GOP lobbying firms and marketing firms to write their propaganda, they may as well be honest about what their interests are
It isn't for the welfare of the pit bulls either, like the fools that get conned by them are led to believe
When i read this i through The Process Church of The Final Judgment(best friends) had been up to their old tricks, just after BF moved into their farm animals drained of blood started being found and it is happening again.
Series of decapitated animals found on streets of Sacramento as officials fear local cult may be responsible
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2979799/More-mutilated-animals-Californias-capital-city.html
A few of you people are idiots. The rest are ones who care about pit bulls. The idiots are the ones who think a press secretary makes policy. They don't. That woman had (past tense since she no longer works there) nothing to do with making policy yet many of the idiots are crucifying her. Complain to your legislators, whether you live in Pennsylvania or not, about laws you don't like. THEY are the ones making policy. (See if THAT gets you anywhere). Don't shoot the (former) messenger, do keep fighting for your rights.
Same here.
Does anyone know if The Mountain Corporation is a Michael Mountain endeavor? It's an eco friendly T-shirt co. with an address here and in the UK, for profit, an mostly features pit bull art.
They're very expensive, and not all that interesting as t-shirts go.
I've read three versions of her death.
The one you cite here, which I believe Timothy Wyllie may have told an interviewer about many years ago.
There was a tale of her languishing in a coma for two years prior to her death.
In Timothy Wyllie's book, "Love Sex Fear Death," he says she was ill from lung related disease.
Maryann deGrimston died in 2005 with no obituary, no headstone, and her social security number was removed from the social security death index website.
There's no memorial on the BF website like there is for other BF founders.
Was it ever investigated as foul play? If MaryAnn were eaten by dogs, at BFAS would that not be huge news? I could not find any news accounts.
Wouldnt it have been investigated by authorities? This woman had enemies.
Consider the recent death of Bethany Lynn Stevens and the rampant speculation surrounding that, though Bethany was well loved.
MaryAnn MacLean, Moore, DeGrimston, DePeyer was not well loved at all.
She was the known head of the BF/Process/Foundation Faith, but isn't listed as a founder on the BF website, as other founders are.
Several accounts of child abuse and neglect have been recounted by former Process Church of the Final Judgement members.
It would be no stretch to imagine Maryanne, the tax evading former prostitute, just disappearing with her cut of the profits. Her death in November 2005 occurred short after BF ties to the Process Church were exposed.
Has the IRS ever investigated her? Or her estate? She died Maryann "Depeyer," remarried to one of the other founders.
Gabriel or Rapheal DePeyer. his son, Jonathon, wrote a book called "Coast to Coast" about his mother rescuing him from a cult when he was age six. It's categorized as "historical fiction."
On the Utah State website there's a dodgy business called "Hecate" which DBA's as at least ten other trade names, one being Polaris Jewelry.
I'm not saying it's a related business, but the IRS may connect it.
Polaris/Hecate's other address is in Tom's River, New Jersey, and appears to be nothing but a mail drop.
Maryann did call herself Hecate. She also claimed she was Adolph Hitlers minister of propaganda incarnate. It's nosurprise BF is so excellent at marketing.
Maybe it's normal to do business as fifteen or so strange, unrelated names.
The wire jewelry available by Polaris is mostly moons and triangles.
If anyone has checked out Process Church magazines, or Foundation Faith literature, you can note the obsession with triangular emblems.
Don't pet food companies make food out of roadkill? Why wouldn't they use dead pits from fight rings and shelters? What happens to all of those euthanized pit bulls?
What a racket that would be.
And pit bulls would not even be traumatized at eating their own.
When Best Friends used to be the Process Church and then after that the Foundation Faith of the Millennium, the woman in charge, Maryann De Grimston, was well known for disliking children. She made Timothy Wyllie, a former Process member, take one of the Process children for a couple of years as a "punishment." He didn't feel it was a punishment and became very fond of the child, but the fact that Maryann considered being saddled with children as punitive speaks volumes.
Maryann was a Hitler fan. Hitler used to watch Jews being marched into the oven to perk him up when he was in a bad mood.
Maryann may very well have enjoyed the tales of carnage the pit bull initiative instigated. Maybe the money was just the icing on the cake.
Timothy Wyllie was still in contact with her until her death in 2005, he said, and at that time Maryann was still very much a Processean.
To this day, founder Michael aka Hugh Mountain runs a misanthropic website called Earth in Transition which commenters constantly claim to despise people and say we deserve our early demise.
The Process Church said this about us, "Humanity is the Devil."
They're doing this across all of the USA and they've branched out to Canada and India as well.
Beat Friends and their cronies are a scourge.
They give pis to anyone with a pulse. Judging from what I see, even people with barely a pulse are getting them, and they get them free.
Google "anonymous donor pay adoption fees." For years, free pits have been set upon us.
So basically, organized crime?
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