 Video update 12/20/15 |
Here is a letter from a supporter of Mark Baker about yesterday’s raid on Bakers Green Acres and other actions the state of Michigan has taken against Mark.
The Michigan Department of Agriculture obtained a warrant to search Mark Baker’s farm that appears to be based on false, trumped up allegations of selling either uninspected or mislabeled pork products to a restaurant. Don’t let the state get away with this harassment of the Baker family!
Dear Bakers Green Acres Supporters,
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; I’ll simply sign this,
Tammy
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