A shocking video from the Humane Society about how cows, whose meat is used in America’s school lunch program in 36 states, are allegedly being treated by a leading cattle slaughterhouse in California. In an effort to get sickly-looking cows to stand up for inspection by the FDA, the slaughterhouse allegedly shoots water up cows’ noses, uses a forklift to shove the animals, jabs them in the eyes, and then uses an electrical prod to shock the cows’ rectums. Beyond the inhumanity of it all, there’s a reason we don’t waterboard cows. Cows that are lying down and refuse to get up may, for example, have Mad Cow disease. That’s why we don’t want to “fake” inspections. Just another example of how disgusting our food supply has become since the anti-government anti-regulation Republicans took over our country.

From the Washington Post:

“These were not rogue employees secretly doing these things,” the investigator said in a telephone interview on the condition of anonymity because he hopes to infiltrate other slaughterhouses. “This is the pen manager and his assistant doing this right in the open.”….

In the 2004-05 school year, the Agriculture Department honored Westland with its Supplier of the Year award for the National School Lunch Program….

One reason that regulations call for keeping downers — cows that cannot stand up — out of the food supply is that they may harbor bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. It is caused by a virus-like infectious particle that can cause a fatal brain disease in people.

Another is because such animals have, in many cases, been wallowing in feces, posing added risks of E. coli and salmonella contamination….

In the video, handlers repeatedly apply powerful shocks to the heads, necks, spines and rectums of immobile cows.