US sends $1.3 billion to China and Russia (funding cat experiments) while their national debt relentlessly climbs. Michigan might ban declawing.

NEWS AND OPINION-AMERICA: For me, it looks very peculiar. Two recent news stories coming out of America just don’t square up. The US has just extended the national debt level upwards so that they can continue to pay the bills. The chart below tells you how the debt ceiling has constantly climbed and it seems that it will continue to do so. There must be an end to it.

Like the UK, it seems that America spends more than it earns and it also seems that it is impossible to rectify that imbalance in the national finances.

Perhaps one reason why debt continues to climb is because spending is out of control which brings me to the next item in the news today. We are told that the US government has sent $1.3 billion to China and to Russia for gender equality, cat experiments and for the Wuhan lab research. Does that look peculiar to you?

Why is America sending money to Russia to carry out experiments on domestic cats? To support animal cruelty? That seems inexplicable to me. Fortunately, I understand that that payment has or will be stopped thanks to the White Coat Waste Project. About them: “To STOP taxpayer-funded experiments on dogs, monkeys, cats and other animals, we must stop wasteful government spending. Our approach? Drain the swamp: cut federal spending that hurts animals and Americans.”

And it seems extraordinary to me that America is sending US$490 million in grants and contracts to Chinese entities when China is going to overtake America as the world’s leading economy in the not-too-distant future.

That amount includes $2 million in research funding for the Wuhan Institute of virology which you may remember is the lab that might be the originator of the Covid-19 pandemic as it has been suggested that the virus escaped into Wuhan which is the epicentre of the pandemic.

That is very peculiar as well. Clearly, there is a need to control government spending but the same can also be said about the UK.

Michigan declaw ban?

Now for something more optimistic. Good cat news. Michigan might be the third state which bans cat declawing (the other 2: Maryland (2022) and New York (2019)). This should put a smile on the faces of animal advocates generally and cat lovers specifically. Although, it should be said, that there are many so-called cat lovers who declaw their cats. Another inexplicable form of human behaviour.

The Michigan legislature is going to debate a bill that would ban cat declawing statewide. As usual, the opponents to this sort of statutory law argue that veterinarians in conjunction with the client should decide whether a cat should be declawed or not. This is pure baloney because veterinarians simply don’t decide to not declaw when in the habit of declawing for non-therapeutic reasons. Some even encourage it. And many do not educate their clients as to what declawing really is; a partial amputation of 10 toes. In fact, they actively mislead them by calling the operation ‘declawing’; a misnomer.

In short, nobody can trust American veterinarians to only declaw for therapeutic reasons. The vast majority (99%) of cat declawing operations are for non-therapeutic reasons i.e. to protect furniture. Unconscionable behaviour and you cannot trust veterinarians to change their behaviour on this.

The bill passing through the Michigan legislature is House Bill 4674. It is sponsored by Rep. Jimmie Wilson Jr., D-Ypsilanti, among others. It is supported by Michigan Humane.

There is so much to say about cat declawing. Almost all of it bad. There are many alternatives. Declawing is unnecessary. The complications of declawing are extensive. A high percentage of the operations are botched. Shards of bone are left in the toes to cause permanent pain. I could go on but it is clearly professionally highly unethical and in general terms immoral. Let’s hope that Michigan pass this law because it would be one more nail in the coffin of cat declawing in that great country.

USDA purchased toxoplasmosis infected dead cats from the Asian cat meat markets