Pigeon-shooters, dog-eaters, James Inhofe & the NRA

“I am being attacked by the SHARK animal rights extremist group”

HARRISBURG, OKLAHOMA CITY––Did senior Oklahoma U.S. Senator James Inhofe know about the $1,000 checks being passed out in the Pennsylvania state legislature when he appealed for funds from pigeon shooters?

Whined Inhofe at his fundraising web site jiminhofe.com, appealing urgently for campaign contributions, “I am being attacked by the SHARK animal rights extremist group on what the National Rifle Association calls a long standing shooting sports tradition. This attack is coming from the same people that have protested rodeos and hunting.”

Showing Animals Respect & Kindness, SHARK for short, on September 22, 2014 posted to web sites undercover video of Inhofe hosting ninth annual “pigeon hunt” to benefit “Friends of Jim Inhofe and the Fund For A Conservative Future,” at the Quartz Mountain Lodge in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma. Inhofe was himself videotaped in the act of shooting at pigeons. Other participants were shown throwing banded captive-raised pigeons into the air to be shot, kicking wounded birds, and throwing them up to be shot again.

What $20,000 buys in Pennsylvania

Meanwhile in Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania state capitol, the Pennsylvania Flyers Victory Fund passed out $20,000 to 17 members of the state House Rules Committee, three days before the full House was due to vote on a bill that would have banned pigeon shooting.

Endorsed by Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett, a Republican, the bill would also have prohibited slaughtering dogs and cats for human consumption. It cleared the Senate on October 15, 2014 by a margin of 36-12.

“The bill was initially introduced by Representative John Maher (R-Allegheny), to close a loophole in food safety laws that allowed the slaughter of dogs and cats for human consumption in butcher shops,” recounted Jan Murphy of the Harrisburg Patriot-News. “The Senate added a provision to ban the use of animals or fowl as targets for such events as pigeon shoots. Because that provision was added, the Senate changes went back to the House for consideration.”

High flyers

Picked up Angela Couloumbis and Amy Worden in the October 29, 2014 edition of Commonwealth Confidential, an online service of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “The Pennsylvania Flyers Victory Fund typically doles out donations in the hundreds of dollars to key committee chairmen like Representative Ron Marsico (R-Dauphin), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who has kept the bill holed up in committee for years. This time, on October 20, animal welfare advocates awaited what they said was a vote promised by House majority leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny).
Instead, Turzai––under heavy pressure from the National Rifle Association––did not bring up the bill for a vote and it died on the last day of the legislative session.”

Continued Couloumbis and Worden,  “Campaign finance records show that 17 members of the powerful Rules Commitee were given $1,000 checks from the Flyers Fund on October 17.  The recipients included Representatives Bill Adolph and Tom Killion of Delaware County, Representative Bob Godshall of Montgomery County, and Representative Kathy Watson of Bucks County.”

Commented Inae Ohl of www.motherjones.com, under the headline “NRA Victory Means It’s Still Perfectly Legal to Cook Dogs and Cats in Pennsylvania”:

“While we can’t say for sure whether the NRA has any penchant for eating dogs, the bill was ultimately blocked because of the pigeon shooting provision. Over the past few weeks specifically, NRA officials have been sounding the alarm over the bill, deeming the ‘radical’ proposal as a “slippery slope” to increased regulation. Unsurprisingly, Pennsylvania lawmakers caved.”

Commented SHARK founder Steve Hindi, “SHARK has for years exposed the corruption of politicians and law enforcement in the Keystone State.”

As to Inhofe, Hindi asked rhetorically, “Can you believe this guy?”

Inhofe is probably best known for obstructing legislation meant to slow climate change, arguing that global warming is a hoax, pushing for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and to expand offshore oil and gas drilling. Inhofe has also backed numerous Republican attempts to weaken the federal Endangered Species Act.

(See also SHARK catches U.S. Senator James ‘Global warming is a hoax’ Inhofe on video hosting a pigeon-blasting fundraiser.)

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