Amid the recent uproar over white cops escaping criminal charges for killing black men on the job, you may have missed two of the stranger political stories in the United States: about pigs and Nazis.
New Jersey governor Chris Christie has angered animal rights activists by vetoing for a second time a Bill that would have outlawed pig gestation crates in the Garden State. The crates are small, metal cages that house pregnant sows. They are so small that it is impossible for the hogs to turn around.
The crates are already banned in nine states, including California and Colorado, and are being phased out in Australia and New Zealand.
A majority of New Jersey people support the ban and Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly supported the Bill blocking their use, but not Christie, a Republican in his second term. He's in the minority on this issue in New Jersey. The move is all the more bizarre when you consider that the state is not really a pig producer: New Jersey has about 300 pig farmers and fewer than 10,000 hogs. In fact, the state's only notable porcine connection may be the fictional Satriale's pork store from the HBO mafia drama The Sopranos.
Christie labelled the ban a “solution in search of a problem” and a “political movement masquerading as substantive policy”.
Three facts might better explain the ambitious New Jersey governor's position on the crates: Iowa is the country's largest pork producer with 6,300 pig farmers and 20.5 million hogs; Iowa is the first state in the country to pick nominees in presidential elections; and Christie is mulling a run for the White House in 2016.
On the pig’s back
From a political perspective, Iowa is important for the New Jersey governor. The state’s hog industry is worth $6.5 billion (€5.2 billion), so it is politically expedient for him to keep Iowans happy. Christie has visited Iowa four times in the past year, a sign of his future intentions.
Terry Brandstad, the governor of Iowa, admitted on Monday that he had lobbied Christie to veto the crate-ban Bill again. He heaped praise on Christie for his veto so the New Jersey governor has won over at least one key political ally in an electorally influential state by continuing to make life difficult for pregnant New Jersey pigs.
The move has of course irked many, notably Hollywood singer-actor Cher, who said that it would damage Christie's presidential hopes. "Iowa pig farmers, why must you torture preg pigs?" she wrote on Twitter. "U put them in crates & lock em down so they can't move. C. Christie, UR despicable bully 4get POTUS."
Asked about Cher's condemnation, Brandstad told the local Iowa newspaper, the Des Moines Register: "Yeah, I saw that. They know a lot about pig production in Hollywood."
Meanwhile, in Washington on Thursday, the Senate passed the curiously named Bill No Social Security for Nazis Act, HR 5739 by unanimous consent. The Bill passed the House of Representatives in a 420 to 0 vote the previous day.
This Congress, split by the Democrat-led Senate and Republican-led House, is on track to set a new record – at least in modern times – for the fewest number of Bills ever passed, so when Capitol Hill politicians can agree on something, it is a moment worth noting and indeed cherishing. (Not that any politician would jeopardise their careers by coming out in support of social welfare for retired Nazis.)
"Thank you, Nazis," said political satirist Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report in a note of gratitude to the fascist movement for being able to bring together Democrats and Republicans for a brief moment.
The Bill arose following an Associated Press investigation last month which said that dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals forced to leave the US were collecting millions of dollars in social welfare payments from the American government due to a loophole in the law.
AP reported that at least four former German soldiers still living were in receipt of US social security cheques. They include Martin Hartmann, a former SS guard at the Sachsenhausen death camp in Germany, and Jakob Denzinger, who patrolled the grounds at Auschwitz in Poland. Hartmann moved from Arizona to Berlin in 2007 before being stripped of his US citizenship. Denzinger left Ohio for Germany in 1989 and now lives in Croatia.
"While the number of Nazis receiving social security is few, allowing payments to continue is an insult to those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis," said Congressman Sam Johnson, a Republican from Texas and a US Air Force veteran who sponsored the legislation that now awaits Barack Obama's signature.
So, a good week for Congress and a bad week for Nazis and New Jersey pigs.