The Place Where Ludington Talks
Like Pigs to the Slaughter: Green Acres is Cancelled
According to the State Integrity Investigation, a data-driven assessment by the Center for Public Integrity and Global Integrity, the State of Michigan ranks last among the 50 states in several key categories, among them, legislative accountability, executive accountability, judicial accountability, and even state pension fund management. With their abysmal standings in the other categories they earned the worst overall ranking of any state government.
There is perhaps few better illustrative examples of this state government unaccountability, avarice, and excess than what has happened to Wexford County pig farmer Mark Baker over the last few years. The Ludington Torch has followed this dystopian odyssey since almost the very beginning, primarily in the articles and in the comments section of :
“The DNR’s approach to its task rests on rational grounds,” the appeals judges Kirsten Frank Kelly, Elizabeth Gleicher, and Deborah Servitto stated, finding the DNR’s ban constitutional, according to the Detroit Free Press. “The evidence presented by the DNR substantiates that the pigs identified in the (order) threaten the environment even though many of them are currently caged. Plaintiffs’ insistence that their Russian boars are not ‘wild,’ and therefore incapable of ravaging the environment, does not alter our analysis,” Judge Gleicher said.
Please follow this timeline of events and then take action!
Many of you have followed the saga of Baker’s Green Acres for several years now. Many of you have become customers, buying meat and poultry raised in the sun and fresh air, free from diseases and antibiotics. Some of you have contributed sums of money to the farm, a few of you LARGE sums. Most on this list have held the Baker family up in prayer, asking for God’s divine providence to prevail, those involved in trying to destroy a wonderful family brought low, and peace to return to this veteran and his family.
What if I told you that a week before Christmas, Mark and Jill had several state police show up along with the Dept. of Ag. inspectors who issued a search warrant for Mark’s property? If you’re scratching your head saying, “Wait a minute? Straight tails, curly tails, erect ears, floppy ears…all of that was decided in court in March of 2014!” Yes, we all heard it. Baker’s pigs are legal! And why not? “Feral” isn’t a characteristic for crying out loud. It is a behavior!
The state veterinarian put enough pressure on just about every butcher within a hundred-mile radius of Mark and Jill’s and no one would process these pigs. “Ok. We’re legal, but no one will take them.” The Dept. of Ag./USDA put enough pressure on all of the restaurants that bought from Bakers that none of them would continue to buy their meat. (Note: Would this be in direct violation of your constitutional right to be involved in commerce?)
Except one. Mark has had a customer in Traverse City for a decade. A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of the day, the Dept. of Ag. showed up and confiscated all of the Baker pork citing that it wasn’t properly labeled. (The owner had removed the pork from it’s original bag and thrown it away, leaving the extra in a container with no label on it. For this, all of the meat was taken!)
The next day, Mark was delivering a few of his pigs to a local processor who had recently agreed to butcher Mark’s pigs. This was a really nice arrangement and Mark and Jill were very pleased with his services. Well…the state veterinarian sent this butcher a text just as Mark was walking through the door. It said, “Do you process Baker hogs?” The butcher asked Mark, “Do I process Baker hogs?” Mark said, “Yes, you do.” Now, if the state vet gets to decide ultimately whether you keep your license or not, would you continue to take questionable animals? Do you see how this is beginning to work? Nothing concrete, just subtle hints dropped to get the desired results. Boy, it must be great to be king.
The final straw: A delivery was made to Baker’s Green Acres during this same week. The farmer making the delivery asked Mark if the whole dilemma he was involved in with the State, the pigs, etc. had been resolved. Mark just chuckled and said, “Yeah, I guess so.” The farmer said he was relieved and that he had something he had been wanting to tell Mark for months. Seems that on one of those really frigid days this past winter, February time frame, this farmer came to make a delivery when no one was home. However, there were two snowmobiles parked out by the barns, driven up from the back of the property, belonging to two Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officers armed to the teeth LOOKING THROUGH MARK’S BARNS and headed to the house when this farmer pulled in with his truck! They intimidated this poor farmer so badly that he kept his mouth shut for months until he thought the situation had been resolved. Imagine discovering that the government rifled through your things when you weren’t even home. Life, Liberty, Property…those things are guaranteed to us, but obviously no longer in the state of Michigan.
This brings me to the “Mayday”, yesterday at approximately 9:30 a.m., state police showed up at Mark’s along with inspectors from the Dept. of Ag. with a search warrant. This visit was supposedly connected to the illegal prosciutto seized at the local restaurant. Mark said that he didn’t want the search to begin until some of his friends arrived and it didn’t take long until the Gestapo left. But they’ll be back…
YOUR PART: Of course if anyone has a camper and can make it to Baker’s, that is the best thing you can do. Camp out for a day or two (it’s a three-day warrant) and be there to witness any of this over-the-top treatment being waged against our friend by a state government that needs to be fired—EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!
Secondly, Senator Darwin Booher and Attorney General Bill Schuette need to have their phones ringing off of the wall and we need to DEMAND AN INVESTIGATION into both the DNR and the Dept. of Ag. actions against the Baker’s. Do not stop calling. Call in the morning, call in the afternoon and continue to call until an announcement is made that an investigation will commence into this unlawful, threatening treatment by agencies acting outside of their intended authority.
Senator Darwin Booher: 517.373.1725
Attorney General Bill Schuette: 517.373.1110
We’ve been scratching our heads wondering why in the world precious tax dollars would be used to send two conservation officers out on snowmobiles to raid someone’s private property—when they’re not home—and we keep coming back to the question: Were they there to plant something? The Bakers are currently looking through the butcher shop, barn, etc. for some sort of contraband that could have been left behind by these overzealous state thugs. (I’m sorry, but running around scaring people makes you a thug). And wouldn’t that be oh-so-convenient if now the Dept. of Ag. could find something illegal in one of Mark’s outbuildings? Or house? This is how the group of men that rushed to the farm, after being alerted about the raid, to make sure nothing bad happened to the family feel like spending their day. This is how the Baker children, whisked away as Mark fears for their safety, need to spend their day. Jill probably has a lot of work she needs to do, especially with Christmas next week, but she, too, is gone as Mark fears for her safety. And Mark…I wonder if when he was living in the hot arid desert during his deployment to the Middle East ever dreamed that all of the money he was saving in order to buy a farm someday would ever turn into this?
Remember: It’s your tax dollars being used to fund this foolishness!
If you are content to let your employees tell you what to do, when to do it, how to do it, etc., do nothing. The water will come and cover you soon. You will drown in a sea of regulations, sickening healthcare and even worse food! If you want to decide what to do with your own property, eat what you desire to eat, come and go without fear of a government thug looking through your things when you’re not home—DO SOMETHING!
Send this email to everyone on your distribution list. Get on the phone. Do not stop calling, complaining, demanding, insisting that an investigation take place immediately. Do this until you get another email telling you that there will be an investigation into these unlawful actions by your state public servants and that Mark, Jill, and family are safe.
It is a sad day to be a Michigander… “In Liberty” doesn’t fit today.
Shortly after this Mark Baker made one of his trademark farmside chats with his fellow Americans just two days prior to Christmas, giving updates and corroborating the information in Tammy's letter.
And just a couple of days after Christmas, Mark Baker greeted us once again, presumably in his final address to the people as a pig farmer in Michigan:
Thank you, Mark Baker for your service to this country, during war and peace, and may you find a way to better continue our fight against the oppressors masquerading as public officers working for the 'betterment' of our corrupt and unaccountable State of Michigan who would ignobly threaten your livelihood, your property, your liberties, and even your family.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by AQUAMAN on
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I only just found out about Mark Baker's situation about a month ago. I feel very badly for this pig farmer. He and his family endured what I would imagine could only happen in a communist country, not America. He and his family fought legally and proudly with integrity and patience for the last few years. It got so bad of recent, that he finally quit and now has the farm up for sale. A farm that he truly worked hard, and loved. Not many in this type of hard work that will follow in his footsteps. Our State of Mich. has brought large SHAME on itself for this tragedy. May Mark and his family find peace and goodwill in their future work. Michigan authorities really SUCK on this matter, no doubt about it!!! He deserved better than this.
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Permalink Reply by Willy on
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It's to bad that Mr. Baker and his family were run off their farm by out of control bureaucrats. One thing that is very confusing to me is how did the DNR know that nobody was home on the day the DNR officers snuck into the farm on snowmobiles? The DNR or some other agency must have been spying on them either by sitting back in the woods or tapping into their land line or cell phones. This entire situation is completely outrageous.
If they can do this to Mark and his buyers then what would they do to anyone who calls in and complains? His neighbors were so intimidated that they withheld information regarding the illegal search they had witnessed. This is how dictatorships are run.
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