It was more than ten years ago that we first reported here on the bizarre case of amateur magician Marty Hehne, who ran afoul of the federal bureaucracy over his pet rabbit.
I was pleased to see over the weekend the long interview that the “conservative” surrender monkey David French conducted with Justice Neil Gorsuch for the New York Times, wherein Justice Gorsuch retold and updated the Hahne story with several new details I didn’t know about:
French: Oh, I was going to ask you about the rabbit disaster plan. So please, Justice Gorsuch, tell us about the rabbit disaster plan.
Gorsuch: It illustrates some questions I have. I don’t have answers. I’m not with my libertarian friends and saying, “Everything has to go and anarchy should reign,” right? OK? But Marty Hahne, he does children’s shows, birthday shows. So he pulls the rabbit out of the hat one day, and somebody in the audience comes up to him, flashes a badge, says, “I’m from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Do you have a license for your rabbit?” Marty says, “No, do I need a license?” And they get into a conversation. He doesn’t need a license if it’s an iguana, but he does because it’s a rabbit, and you don’t need a license if you’re going to cook the rabbit for dinner. So I could make rabbit stew in front of you, and I’d be like, “Yeah, that’s fine,” but you need a license if you’re going to exhibit.
And he definitely exhibits the rabbit. So he gets a license. He wants to comply. He’s not trying to do anything wrong. He fills out the paperwork and he does it. And he gets a follow-up from the government, saying after Hurricane Katrina, they decide everybody who exhibits animals now has to have a disaster-preparedness plan. And you have to account for everything from hurricanes, obviously, after Hurricane Katrina to chemical spills. And Marty says, he says this to an agent, “Well, I live in Missouri, and I do worry about tornadoes, and my disaster-preparedness plan is to get the family in the basement, then the dog, then the cat. If there’s time, I’ll get the rabbit.” Well, that didn’t go over very well.
French: So the rabbit was behind the cat. Well, there’s your problem.
Gorsuch: That’s the problem. The government doesn’t care about the cat and the dog, cares only about the rabbit. So he hires a disaster management expert, and they come up with a disaster-preparedness plan that’s 28 pages long. The expert is a little worried because he’s not sure that’s long enough to satisfy the federal government.
Hahne also has to submit to home inspections. And during one of the home inspections, the agent notices the cage where the rabbit’s kept doesn’t have an arrow sticker pointing “This way up.” And he says, “Well, how do you know how to carry the rabbit?” And Marty says, “Well, there’s a handle on the top, and that’s how I carry the rabbit.” He said, “No, no, you’ve got to have a sticker.” He says, “Well, where do I get the stickers?” “So I’ll send you some.” Two weeks later, 200 stickers show up in the mail.
Your tax dollars at work. So why do I tell that story? Because actually, if you look at the law, the law says circuses and zoos have to have a license, a federal license, and you might understand that. And then it says “and other animal exhibitors.” Well, how far does that reach?
And the agency had extended it through regulation to reach just about everybody, including Marty, OK?
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