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Callicrate says HSUS key in filing lawsuit

The new president of the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) says he could not have filed his lawsuit against the Beef Checkoff without the help of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

Mike Callicrate, the sole plaintiff in the lawsuit filed in Kansas, that accuses the Beef Checkoff of misappropriating funds, says the HSUS did the groundwork but is NOT a party to the suit.

“I tell you what,” says Callicrate, “OCM vetted the HSUS pretty well. I’m on their Colorado ag council. We are NOT in bed together. We are NOT joining organizations.”

Callicrate tells Brownfield that the HSUS donated labor when the OCM requested and received a truckload of documents from the USDA in a Freedom of Information request about the agency’s dealings with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Cattlemen’s Beef Board and the Beef Operating Board.

“HSUS and their legal staff,” Callicrate tells Brownfield Ag News, “They hired people to go through these documents and carefully analyze the information that was in them. This is what gave us the basis for this lawsuit, to be able to file it.”

Callicrate says he and his organization have one thing in common with the HSUS.  “We believe that family farm and ranch agriculture is the way to feed America – and, it’s also the way that the world can feed itself – Not the Cargill, ADM, Tyson model of extraction and exploitation,” he says.

Callicrate is seeking a permanent injunction against the NCBA receiving any more Beef Checkoff dollars in the future, saying the group uses the funds to influence policies that benefit the NCBA and do not represent the cattle producers who pay into the Checkoff.

The NCBA denies the charges and accuses the OCM of wanting to destroy the Beef Checkoff and working with an anti-animal ag group (HSUS) that wants to destroy animal agriculture.

The law firm of record in the case is Polsinelli Shugart of Kansas City.

AUDIO: Mike Callicrate (16:00 mp3)

 

  • How can Callicrate be so naive, stupid, ****, whatever??? The H$U$ is *using* the OCM to attack an animal organization. Does Callicrate really think that the H$U$ is interested in what he is interested in? NOT HARDLY! The H$U$ is using its legal staff (paid for by donors who think they’re helping animals) to stick another thorn in the side of the beef industry, while making themselves “credible” to consumer groups. A payback for the beef industry opposing the H$U$/UEP egg deal? Showing the beef industry that the H$U$ (i.e., arrogant sociopath Pacelle) is powerful enough to find a way to take another bite out of the “beef hide”? Disgusting…

  • Anyone who works with HSUS gets burned sooner or later. Witness the recent attacks on the AKC who worked with HSUS until they started attacking show/hobby breeders trying to pass laws to stop all breeding. This man is very stupid or doesn’t care about the meat industry at all. This is how HSUS and all animal rights groups work they split people off from their core group and foster division. HSUS has mastered all of Hitler’s methods in getting one group to hate another so he could gain power. HSUS is the same and does not care about animals as the spend less than 1 % of all the money they take in on those homeless animal commercials on the direct care of animals. Its time this group should be investigated.
    12 Things You Didn’t Know About The HSUS

    1. The Humane Society of the United States scams Americans out of millions of dollars through manipulative and deceptive advertising. An analysis of HSUS’s TV fundraising appeals that ran between January 2009 and September 2011 determined that more than 85 percent of the animals shown were cats and dogs. However, HSUS doesn’t run a single pet shelter and only gives 1 percent of the money it raises to pet shelters, and it has spent millions on anti-farming and anti-hunting political campaigns.

    2. HSUS receives poor charity-evaluation marks. CharityWatch (formerly the American Institute of Philanthropy) reissued HSUS’s “D” rating in December 2011, finding that HSUS spends as little as 49 percent of its budget on its programs. Additionally, the 2011 Animal People News Watchdog Report discovered that HSUS spends about 43 percent of its budget on overhead costs.

    3. Six Members of Congress have called for a federal investigation of HSUS. In April 2011, six Congressmen wrote the IRS Inspector General showing concerns over HSUS’s attempts to influence public policy, which they believe has “brought into question [HSUS’s] tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status.”  [Ed: Link to Legislators that Get It: http://www.keepouranimals.com/legislators-that-get-it.html

    4. HSUS regularly contributes more to its own pension plan than it does to pet shelters. An analysis of HSUS’s tax returns determined that HSUS funneled $16.3 million to its executive pension plan between 1998 and 2009—over $1 million more than HSUS gave to pet shelters during that period.

    5. The pet sheltering community believes HSUS misleads Americans. According to a nationally representative poll of 400 animal shelters, rescues, and animal control agencies, 71 percent agree that “HSUS misleads people into thinking it is associated with local animal shelters.” Additionally, 79 percent agree that HSUS is “a good source of confusion for a lot of our donors.”

    6. While it raises money with pictures of cats and dogs, HSUS has an anti-meat vegan agenda. Speaking to an animal rights conference in 2006, HSUS’s then vice president for farm animal issues stated that HSUS’s goal is to “get rid of the entire [animal agriculture] industry” and that “we don’t want any of these animals to be raised and killed.”

    7. Given the massive size of its budget, HSUS does relatively little hands-on care for animals. While HSUS claims it provides direct care to more animals than any other animal protection group in the US [Ed, not in their own facilities – there are none), most of the “care” HSUS provides is in the form of spay-neuter assistance.  In fact, local groups that operate on considerably slimmer budgets, such as the Houston SPCA, provide direct care to just as many or more animals than HSUS does.

    8. HSUS’s CEO has said that convicted dogfighting kingpin Michael Vick “would do a good job as a pet owner.” Following Vick’s release from prison, HSUS has helped “rehabilitate” Michael Vick’s public image. Of course, a $50,000 “grant” from the Philadelphia Eagles didn’t hurt.

    9. HSUS’s senior management includes a former spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a criminal group designated as “terrorists” by the FBI. HSUS president Wayne Pacelle hired John “J.P.” Goodwin in 1997, the same year Goodwin described himself as “spokesperson for the ALF” while he fielded media calls in the wake of an ALF arson attack at a California meat processing plant. In 1997, when asked by reporters for a reaction to an ALF arson fire at a farmer’s feed co-op in Utah (which nearly killed a family sleeping on the premises), Goodwin replied, “We’re ecstatic.”

    10.  Americans are now requesting the FTC to investigate the misleading advertising of the HSUS.  Heart-wrenching and misleading ad campaigns imply to the public that this is a true “humane society” that houses strays and unwanted or abused pets, and needs “your” $19/mo to do so.  FACTS: Contrary to public, celebrity and legislator opinion, the HSUS is NOT a humane society.  They do not own or operate ONE pet shelter in the entire country; despite their misleading name, they are not a government arm that systematically trickles donations down to the local shelters that to all the actual work.  If they shelter NO PETS, how can they be considered the “experts” on pet care practices?  Their vegan agenda, now unspoken because it wasn’t bringing in donations, is for the eventual extinction of both domestic animals, and all animal use, via legislation.

    11.  At the request of over 6,000 grassroots voting letter-writers, representing all 50 States, the IRS is currently investigating the HSUS as to its under-reporting and over-lobbying activity as a 501©(3) organization.  Millions in back-taxes and penalties could be assessed if the IRS would conclude this 3-year old investigation.

    12. Congressmen are now urging the Justice Department to investigate HSUS non-compliance with the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, as anyone that attempts to influence legislation via continued contact with Congress and/or staffers is required to register as a lobbyist.  HSUS has never done this.

  • I notice that Mr Callicrates beef “bundle” is $150 plus shipping.. at is about 19.00 per POUND.. hmm I wonder how many families living below the poverty level can afford this “family farm’ meat.. maybe Mr Callicrate thinks “let them eat cake”.. ( HSUS version.. no eggs.. no dairy.. no butter.. pretty boring cake) Mr Callicrate is confusing the HSUS with some pie in the sky organization that wants to help people eat more beef as long as it comes from a “family farm” It just is not so. HSUS could care less about the “family farm” if that farm raises any animal product at all.
    Donors to the HSUS are having their monies used to hire people to file lawsuits. I wonder how many donors actually know that is how their money is being used.. very very few i would imagine
    “HSUS and their legal staff,” Callicrate tells Brownfield Ag News, “They hired people to go through these documents and carefully analyze the information that was in them. This is what gave us the basis for this lawsuit, to be able to file it.”
    Mr Callicrate.. did you ask them ( HSUS ) what money they used to hire this “legal staff”? or don’t you care that people are duped out of thier money to help you file a lawsuit.

    have another glass of HSUS KoolAide Mr Callicrate.. looks like the first one went down pretty easy

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