Black Eye for Canada’s Justice System?

In a recent post on his “The Complete Patient” blog, American raw milk journalist David Gumpert explains in some detail why the United States does not treat raw milk farmers as political prisoners, the way Michael Schmidt is now being treated in Canada.

“Why doesn’t America have a Michael Schmidt equal, a farmer who is a political prisoner? After all, raw milk availability has been just as contentious an issue in the U.S. as in Canada. There have been surprise raids, court suits, and trials. We have the same Big Dairy influences as Canada. And we have the farmer candidates—Alvin Schlangen, Vernon Hershberger, Amos Miller, Mark McAfee—who have been threatened with criminal charges

Yet they are all walking around free and continuing to make their raw dairy products available, while Michael Schmidt continues to be hounded and even thrown in jail.

“Durham Five” charged for actions at October 2 raid at Glencolton Farms

From Kirk Scott on Blackburn News:

Photo of Michael Schmidt, John Schurr and Robert Pinnell is from Blackburn News.

“Four people along with Michael Schmidt have been charged related to the raid on a Durham area raw milk operation last month.

Provincial officials along with police raided a raw milk operation near Durham on October 2nd.

A large crowd of Schmidt supporters showed up and the raid was called off.

Now four men along with Schmidt are charged by West Grey police with obstructing justice.

Schmidt and two of the four others showed up at West Grey Police headquarters this morning for fingerprinting and mug shots.

Schmidt says if police are trying to intimidate his supporters, it’s liable to backfire….”

Read more on Blackburn News.

Raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt on “saving the sheep from the wolves”

Sheep photo by Laura Berman, via Montana Jones’ “Save our Shrops” FB page.

The ongoing obsession of bureaucrats and helpless politicians to regulate every step we take and bite we eat has made us into graceful dancers between the dream of freedom and our so called civil duty to obey the law.

Yes indeed it is a dance around the search for humanity.

We are remembering those who resisted in the past. We admire Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mandela but tolerate and welcome the current enslavement which is taking place in our daily life through those who claim to know better than us.

Michael Schmidt and raw milk in court today, July 26, Osgoode Hall, Toronto

Today (Thursday July 26th) is the day when raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt returns to court at Osgoode Hall, Toronto to argue that an appeal of the judgements against him for raw milk offenses should be allowed by the court.

Osgoode Hall. Photo via the Law Society of Upper Canada. Click image to go to their website.

Michael Schmidt’s court appearance will take place at the Ontario Court of Appeal, Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West (at University), Toronto.  Court will start at 9:30 a.m.  Spectators are permitted.  People who wish to attend should be aware that they will have to go through security to enter the building. 

James Stewart, 65 yr old Rawsome manager, tortured like a political prisoner in Los Angeles jail

Health Ranger Mike Adams has the whole story at Natural News.com:

“(NaturalNews) NaturalNews exclusive report, please credit with link. NaturalNews can now report that 65-year-old senior citizen James Stewart, a raw milk farmer with no criminal history, was nearly tortured to death in the LA County jail this past week. He survived a “week of torturous Hell” at the hands of LA County jail keepers who subjected him to starvation, sleep deprivation, hypothermia, loss of blood circulation to extremities, verbal intimidation, involuntary medical testing and even subjected him to over 30 hours of raw biological sewage filth containing dangerous pathogens.

Rawsome accused tortured in custody

From David E. Gumpert, on the Complete Patient blog:

Rawsome Foods manager James Stewart. Complete Patient photo. Click image to go there.

“James Stewart was feeling “disoriented” when I caught him on his phone this morning in Los Angeles. He had just been released from a Ventura County jail last evening, finally, on $100,000 bail. “I feel like I just got off an amusement park ride,” he said.

Farmer Michael Schmidt on day 10 of his hunger strike for raw milk justice

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Dear friends

I have settled into the routine of abstaining from any food and just rely on water and lemon juice.

I stopped drinking my daily glass of milk.

So far I have lost 20 pounds since I started and I am still able to attend to my regular tasks at hand.

Things have changed now also in Canada since Tetley’s ruling  in regards to the states determination to eliminate our rights as it relates to food.

What had started in Wisconsin with Justice Fiedlers ruling, denying your right to even own a cow has found it’s own version in Ontario with the Tetley ruling that drinking milk and raw milk is no constitutional right.

Where do we go from here.

ONE: Michael Schmidt’s raw milk countdown to a postponed verdict

Today was to have been the day on which Judge Tetley would pronounce his decision on the Province’s appeal of Michael Schmidt’s January 2010 acquittal on 19 raw milk charges. Instead we have news of posponement of that decision, which was made public yesterday. Still, the countdown has its own momentum, and today we bring you what was to have been the last installment of Michael Schmidt’s meditation on the diminishing numbers:

Farmer Michael Schmidt, in his other role, as orchestral conductor at Symphony in the Barn

Let me use this last essay to honor ONE person in this amazing journey.

This person has done more for the entire raw milk movement, food freedom movement than anybody else.

“We can introduce new evidence and expand our constitutional argument…” — raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt

From Don Crosby, writing in the Owen Sound Sun Times:

“Michael Schmidt is claiming a partial victory in fighting an appeal by the provincial government to a court ruling that found the Durham raw milk crusader not guilty of violating the Healthy Protection and Promotion Act.

Schmidt is being allowed to introduce new evidence and the testimony of new witnesses during an upcoming appeal set for later this spring before a judge in the Ontario Court of Justice .

“We can introduce new evidence and expand our constitutional argument which is a major stepping stone for us,” he said during a recent interview while at farmer’s week in Elmwood.

Court orders destruction of GMO crop

From the Centre for Food Safety:

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“Today Federal District Judge Jeffrey S. White issued a preliminary injunction ordering the immediate destruction of hundreds of acres of genetically engineered (GE) sugar beet seedlings planted in September after finding the seedlings had been planted in violation of federal law.  The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by Earthjustice and Center for Food Safety on behalf of a coalition of farmers, consumers, and conservation groups.  The lawsuit was filed on September 9, shortly after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) revealed it had allowed the seedlings to be planted.