Some folks out in Real America who probably have no problem with President Obama’s unchecked expansion of the drone war to kill children in 500 countries or its use of drones to survey the Mexican border or its use of domestic drones everywhere else because this is something we’ve allowed to happen have finally come up with a tangentially related complaint line that fits their fancy: Obama’s liberal EPA is using drones to spy on hard-workin’ ranchers, in Nebraska. “A Nebraska cattlemen’s group is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to stop pollution-control flights over ranches, claiming it amounts to spying on citizens,” MSNBC reports. “EPA, meanwhile, says the flights are an effective way to quickly spot — and stop — pollution from manure lagoons and other waste at large livestock operations.” Wow, it almost seems like this Nebraska cattlemen’s group is cynically using contentious “privacy” grounds to stop the EPA from monitoring all of their violations of the Clean Water Act, doesn’t it? But let’s just say that liberals hate the Heartland instead.
Nebraskan lawmakers are determined not to let the liberal environmentalists in the government spy on ranchers while they’re in the dump closet:
EPA has been operating these flights across the country for nearly 10 years.
“These operations are in many cases near homes, and landowners deserve legitimate justification given the sensitivity of the information gathered by the flyovers,” Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., said in a statement. “Nebraskans are rightfully skeptical of an agency which continues to unilaterally insert itself into the affairs of Rural America.”
The issue was brought to the lawmakers’ attention by Nebraska Cattlemen, which represents the state’s beef producers.
Ooh here’s a solution: eliminate the EPA? See, we can work for the Nebraska cow people.
[MSNBC]
{ 95 comments }
Is this the recon for Oklahoma's impending attack on Texas?
I'm pretty sure they'd be spying from schooners not drones.
That would be "prairie schooners." There is not enough water in Oklahoma for a real schooner
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh, don't tell them that! This is fun to watch!
Lake Hefner and all of eastern OK libel!
Drones? Duh. This is flyover country. What the hell do they expect?
DAMMMMNNNNN YOU edgy!!!!!!
It is a slippery slope from here to getting arrested for taking the dog to poop in the asshole neighbor's yard.
Maybe the drones should drop manure on the ranchers. Nebraska is just a pile of shit anyway
Matthew Sweet Libel!
"FLY OVER COUNTRY" Ass hats.
Can Sarah Palin see the manure lagoons from her house?
Yes, and she's jealous because she thinks the ranchers' swimming pools are bigger than hers.
Yeah, it's her hot tub.
Every time she looks in the mirror…
See, this is why we shouldn't monitor these things: lagoons always deliver some ghastly proto-human creature that then eats up all the good God-fearin' people living near the lagoon
One can only imagine the kind of monster a manure lagoon would spontaneously create.
Dick Cheney terrorized the townsfolk for 8 years.
A GOP vice presidential candidate?
Hm. Hadn't considered that.
o/~ A bomb bomb bomb, bomb Omaha….
Although technically I think Wasilla is considered a cesspool, not a lagoon.
Like the Shit Demon in Dogma?
Obviously, Nebraska Cow People.
Leave Bristol Alone !!!!
The issue was brought to the lawmakers' attention by Nebraska Cattlemen, which represents the state's beef producers.
"The same ends could be accomplished by picking up a phone, sending an email, talking to a producer in person," Kristen Hassebrook, the group's environmental affairs director, told msnbc.com. "There is no need to spy on citizens."
Hey there, are you guys polluting? No? OK, I trust you…
"Another frustration," she added, is that "EPA does not alert livestock producers that the flight will occur or has occurred."
Hey, no fair! You're supposed to warn the criminals first!
It's really that those heaps of cow shite are potential weapons of mass destruction, or could be put in bags and set on the steps of key gubmint officials and set on fire etc…. it's a slippery slope, and it gets even slippery-er coated with steer turds.
There is no bag of shit big enough for the Capitol Building's steps.
Maybe Nebraskans just don't wanna be caught having sexy time with their cattle. Just sayin'…
better than seeing them doing the nasty with their wives – them ConserviTard ladies is homely!
I heard about this on Off-the-Mark Levin's radio show. He said the drones were watching cattle poop. Where does the EPA get off trying to enforce the law?
Or he just wants to keep "drones" as the name for his followers.
wow, i'm paid to write about this shit and I can't even handle a minute of mark levin's show
I listen to conservative talk shows whenever I'm driving and Mark Levin is the one that's always playing when I leave work and it it by far one of the most annoying things to exist ever. I seriously think he has some severe form of aspergers or something – and i mean no disrespect to people with aspergers – but he just gets in these tantrums where he's just yelling threats to nobody for 20 minutes. "LET ME TELLYA MISTUR PRODURCER!!!" It brings back flashbacks of "chris-chan" from encyclopedia dramatica fame.
I listen to these dudes all day and even though levin is tantrummy i can handle him but for the record I cannot listen to hannity at all. AT. ALL.
I heard a local ad on Yankton, SD's WNAX (Your Big Friend) today for an outfit that will get your cattle facility up to EPA code. They did a nice job of balancing a description of their excellent services in solving these problems and blaming the damn EPA for spying on the hard working rancher. The ad ran during a show where a guy was explaining how worldwide economic collapse is going to go down, I think his name was Glen-something.
Wow..that's either masochism, bravery or both (it's both). I once tried to listen to Michael Savage but the hateful idiocy was too strong….this was 2005. Then I tried watching "Hannity and Colmes" for a while but I couldn't keep suppressing the urge to punchisize Hannitys smug melon so I quit that in 2006. I also was sort of forced by riding in a truck with Limbaugh on it and that was 2002 (and in Utah, big shock right?). That pretty well amounts to all of my conservatard media exposure with the exception of the gag book "Arguing with Idiots" by Beckastan-stan that a relative gave me for my birthday which was really humorous, uintentionally so at that. In other words I don't know how you do it…must drink copious amounts of alcohol while listening, amiright?
We sure don't want any drones flying over the Rio Grande. Nebraska ranchers need inexpensive Mexican labor.
EPA plans to respond to lawmakers' questions by June 10. Spokesman Ben Washburn emphasized that the flights help "minimize costs and reduce the number of on-site inspections across the country."
So, will the Nebraska cattlemen support increased funding for the EPA, in order to enable them to do their job without engaging in these objectionable flights?
(Ah, I needed that good LMFAO…)
These farmers would shit themselves if they knew about Google Earth.
Bombing Nebraska….Now that's somthing I can get behind.
Wasn't it already?
In our new austerity government everybody's expected to do more with less. Except anybody who enforces regulations, who are supposed to do less with less. And the military, who's expected to do less with more.
First they came for the shit-spewing farmers…
Not only that, but the drones are making it harder for the black U.N. helicopters to do whatever it is they supposedly do.
I know, right? They are totally clogging their airspace and such as.
Turf War, y'all!
It's Ok to have a drone-based rocket blow up a citizen who happens to be outside the US, but not OK for a drone to watch a Nebraska rancher getting close with one of his sheep?
Would it be alright if he was an illegal immigrant rancher?
Can't the EPA just use Google Earth to spot the pools of poo? Waste of gubmint resources when the private sector can do it cheaper and sneakier. No need for pesky drones when you've got satellites in space that can read the license plate on your car.
I usually try to keep up with the news, but I somehow missed hearing about our invasion of Nebraskastan.
If we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them here.
Take off and nuke the whole thing from orbit – it's the only way to be sure.
While they're at it could the airspace over my laptop be declared a 'no-fly-zone'.
I'm sick of drones enforcing their stupid No-Fap laws!
What? Rural America™ isn't under the jurisdiction of the United States?
He says "unilaterally insert itself into the affairs of Rural America.” like it is a bad thing.
Get big government out of cow farts now!!!
I want to formally apologize to the EPA and all those cattle ranchers.
I had a burrito that day.
If the drones blow up any ranchers it'll be OK – the ranchers are presumed to be cattle, absent conclusive post-mortem proof to the contrary.
Get out of our cow pastures and back into the ladies' va-jay-jays where you belong.
Drone-Bot: Currently circling MASSIVE manure lagoon. Request permission to destroy.
Ground Control: That's Omaha you dumb machine.
Drone-Bot: And your point is …?
Very nicely played, sir!
*polite golf clap*
Martini?
Why thank you, all this manure lagoon talk sure makes a man thirsty.
Great, now I'm imagining the "water" hazards on Nebraska golf courses.
Shit happens.
Danngit, damn Nobama keep yer filthy communist hands off my social security and my manure lagoon!!!!!!!!!!
Drone-overs… Problem here is that these drones aren't stupid. They see the bullshit and report it.
If only we could say as much for our media.
Oh, wait. They see the bullshit and report it too. They just don't report it as bullshit.
True dat …
Where is Prince Brietbart to the rescue? I would think sky demi-gods could swat drones as they flew by in their flying chariots.
Is this why there's a drone circling over the House of Representatives today?
It's calibrating its "Steaming Pile of Bullshit" detection software
So, a big huge pool of shit is a privacy issue, but women's medical choices are not.
Good to know. Thanks GOP.
Only 'cos they haven't figured out how to get a Predator drone up there – just a matter of time before the EPA (Embryo Protection Agency) is on the case.
I always knew that Mother Nature would kill us all, but I didn't expect her to go through legal channels to do it.
From Last Months Security Briefing to Obama:
Nebraska Determined to Shit In U.S.
Hmmm, E Coli and cow shit in the drinking water or privacy for cattle barons.
We laugh about manure lagoons, but….
You know who I feel sorry for? The guy whose job it is to fly a drone around Nebraska looking for manure ponds. Do they have monthly quotas? What if they fall asleep and crash a drone into a cow? How do you spin that job on your resume at careerbuilder.com?
Remote Cameraman — Good with close ups.
Air Cav. they traded in their horses for quadrocopters and went tear-assing around
'Nam'Ska looking for the shit.It's true. These drone flyovers can cost farmers millions, threatening their freedom
Hey Cornholer Huskertards; even Arizona has environmental laws. I feel better 'bout my fucked up fascistic nightmare of a state already.
"EPA has been operating these flights across the country for nearly 10 years."
Hard to believe Obama's been president for 10 years.
Try to understand how the locals might see this government intrusion:
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120604/NEWS01/7060…
Warning: put on your wading boots!
The producers also worry that a greater EPA presence in the state will lead to more costly manure-control modifications on their farms, dairies and feedlots, said Chuck Folken, owner of a 7,500-head cattle feed yard near Leigh and former president of the Nebraska Cattlemen.
He's just straight up saying that they're all in violation of environmental regulations and the clean water act.
Why should I care what they do in Nebraski-baski-baski-stan-stan?
So is the EPA zipping off a couple of Hellfire missiles at the farmhouses near the shit lagoons or what? Sounds like rancher Bubba has his tighty whities in a knot since he can't dump half a lagoon worth every time it rains instead of properly dealing with the poop his "little family farm with 50,000 head of beef cattle on concrete"
The drone programming is quite simple:
If it's yellow, fly real mellow.
If it's brown, shoot it down.
If it's black, rocket attack!
stop eating beef…problem solved
Yes, god help us all if the illegal drone spying gets used on something productive like watching beef farms illegally create overfilled shit lagoons which literally explode once they reach critical mass (this is actually fairly common with pig factory farms,google it…literal shit geysers over 100 feet high) as a way to maybe I dunno…make sure our basic needs like water are a bit less putrid. The usual conservatardish logic rules the day: it's okay to spy on peace groups covertly because as everyone knows peaceniks are all violent extremists but the government better never, ever, ever do anything to prevent corporations from slowly poisoning us all in their never ending quest to make as much money as possible while paying as little as possible to do it. No sir, not ever…unAmerican…now lets go spy on the REAL danger: an old ladies bridge club, I hear theys don't like the big banks…
So Corporate "ranchers" want to literally shit all over God's country???
So Drone the "sheep" and the "cattle" and let the wolves and coyotes clean up the mess.
That's not me talking, it's somebody else.
To advocate violence would be wrong.
They can thank all the conservatives who, in the "war on drugs" pushed for ever laxer views of privacy.
Drones are fixed wing aircraft (check) flying in regular airspace (check) over areas they have a legitimate reason to monitor (check) and any coverage of homes is incidental to law enforcement purposes (check) – constitution satisfied. Got a problem with it – go bitch about it with the pot farmers and outdoor nudity enthusiasts of generations past who lost their cases.
I personally LOVE to drink water contaminated with cow shit and associated ammonia and pathogens, so I'm not sure why EPA thinks this kind of monitoring is necessary.
You know, there is a saying about not shitting where you sleep. It should go double where you drink ground water.
Relax, Jethro; nobody gives a fuck what goes on in Nebraska.
You protest, we arm the drones with missiles and shoot your fuckin' cows. Howzat?
Yes, no concerns when the military CIA, NSA, FBI, police, or private companies use drones to gather info about private citizens without their consent. It's when it's the EPA that you really need to freak the fuck out.
But, these folks are totally against the Keystone XL pipeline being driven through the Ogallala Aquifer 'cause…pollution, right? Okay; got it.
The Oracle of Omaha is growing too big for his britches, eh? And, that place called Oz up in the Northwest is plotting something, I'm sure of it. They know and own too much…
I read every single comment, and NO ONE answered the most important question, which is whether the Nebraska Cow People are at war with the Minnesota Lizard People.
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