Free Republic

Glenn Beck reports that an animal-rights fanatic is on track to become President Obama’s regulatory czar. That individual is the radical legal theorist Cass Sunstein who has argued that: your money doesn’t really belong to you because the government laid the foundations for your success; Internet censorship is a good idea; animals should be allowed to sue people; (Snip) and Americans’ support for property rights and freedom of contract is an “incoherent” form “of so-called individualism.”

A consumer-freedom group says President Obama's nominee for "regulatory czar" is an "animal-rights zealot" who may make life difficult for hunters and meat-eaters. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) has placed a hold on the nomination of legal scholar Cass Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Budget and Management. Cornyn is worried that the Harvard professor may push an aggressive animal-rights agenda in the White House. Sunstein has argued in favor of outlawing sport hunting and meat-eating, and written that animals should be allowed to file lawsuits "with human beings as their representatives." David...

NICHOLASVILLE — A newborn baby that had just come home suffered cuts and puncture wounds Monday after a family dog snatched it from a crib and apparently took it into the woods, police said. Officials did not release the name of the infant or his parents, but they said the 3-day-old boy was in intensive care at University of Kentucky Hospital. The infant was snatched about 1 p.m. Monday on Beaumont Road north of Nicholasville, said Jessamine County Deputy Sheriff Anthony Purcell. The infant, who was taken home Sunday, was in a crib when a Native American Indian dog took...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's nominee for "regulatory czar" has hit a new snag in his Senate confirmation process -- a "hold" by Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who's says he's not convinced that Harvard professor Cass Sunstein won't push a radical animal rights agenda, including new restrictions on agriculture and even hunting. Senators are permitted "holds" to prevent a vote on a nominee from coming to the floor. They are often secretive and for very specific reasons. "Sen. Cornyn finds numerous aspects of Mr. Sunstein's record troubling, specifically the fact that he wants to establish legal 'rights' for livestock, wildlife and...

PETA sent a letter to California State Parks Director Ruth Coleman on Wednesday offering to pay to keep Pescadero State Beach open, but only if it is renamed Sea Kitten State Beach. Pescadero State Beach is among the 219 state parks slated for closure under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to close a $26.3 billion deficit. Pescadero means 'the place to fish,'

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I don't need a calendar to know it's summer. I know it's summer time when newspapers and blogs worldwide start discussing, analyzing and criticizing Korea's history and ongoing medicinal consumption of boshintang (dog meat soup). A blogger for the LA Times newspaper posted a blog about the ongoing debate in South Korea over the consumption of dog meat. Members of a South Korean animal rights group called Coexistence for Animal Rights on Earth along with an American animal rights group called In Defense of Animals (IDA), sponsored a protest asking the South Korean government to make the killing of dogs...

Three cougars that appeared to be stalking people were shot in Princeton, B.C., during the last two weeks, and a veteran conservation officer says he's never seen anything like it. The first cougar was spotted lurking near a campground in the southern Interior town on July 3... B.C. conservation officer Al Lay shot the big cat out of concern it may have been stalking people. "It was close to residences and campsites on the other side, and it was just one of those situations where it is better safe then sorry.… We just can't take the chance of someone being...

So Three Cows Walk into Court : Animal-rights extremism in the Obama entourage is no joke. by Wesley J. Smith 07/20/2009, Volume 014, Issue 41 Imagine you are a cattle rancher looking for liability insurance. You meet with your broker, who, as expected, asks a series of questions to gauge your suitability for coverage: Have you ever been sued by your cattle? If the answer is yes, what was the outcome of that suit? Have you received any correspondence or other communication from your herd's legal representatives threatening suit or seeking to redress any legal grievance? If you think that's...

For the fifth time in six years, the gray wolf last week was returned to the federal endangered species list after being removed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The move was prompted by a lawsuit filed by a number of groups, including The Humane Society of the United States and The Center for Biological Diversity. The organizations successfully argued that the USFWS must provide more opportunity for public comment before it can delist wolves in the Upper Midwest. The groups also contend the government needs to better document the potential effects a possible hunting season might have on...

Farmers, activists at odds over animal treatment By DAVID EGGERT | Associated Press Writer 11:20 AM CDT, July 11, 2009 LANSING, Mich. - Michigan farmers and animal rights advocates are fighting over the treatment of farm animals, a conflict that ultimately may be taken to voters. The farm lobby is backing bipartisan legislation that would put into law the agriculture industry's guidelines for farm animals' health and welfare, and require audits of livestock farms. A 10-member council would review and possibly update animal care standards at least every five years and local governments would be pre-empted from setting their own...

Call your legislators and House/Senate Leadership Now Insist they pass HJR 2 or SJR 6 before adjourning for summer recess URGENT Action Request -Livestock Care Board Legislation in Jeopardy of Dying in General Assembly Action Requested: The Governor and legislative leaders have struck a deal regarding the state budget that DOES NOT include a deal for final passage of the either HJR2 or SJR6, the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board Proposed Constitutional Amendment. The General Assembly will likely complete work on the state budget this coming Monday, July 13, and will then likely recess, which will eliminate any opportunity for...

Listing of individual acts of arson, vandalism, sabatoge, liberation, threats, etc. at an animal rights site.

Animal welfare activists threaten nation’s agriculture Producers need to tell their story By Elizabeth Barrett July 10, 2009 Clouds loom over agriculture today. According to Roger Berry, the average American is three generations removed from the farm while animal rights groups don’t understand the importance of animal agricultural. “We’re in danger of losing animal agriculture,” said Berry, the field director for the Alliance for the Future of Agriculture. Berry spoke to Gothenburg Rotarians at their noon meeting Monday at the Parlor Restaurant. A-FAN is a non-political organization formed to help Nebraska farmers and ranchers protect and preserve the quality of...

BOSTON, Mass, July 1, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - General Electric has announced that it will use embryonic stem cells provided by Geron Corporation for the purpose of testing toxic effects of drug treatments.GE issued a statement, attempting to preempt criticism over the decision, saying, "We acknowledge the considerable debate and take very seriously the ethical and societal issues associated with research using stem cells derived from embryonic or fetal tissue.""We conduct our research in an ethically and scientifically responsible manner," the statement said.However, embryonic stem cells have been the center of heated controversy since harvesting the cells requires the destruction...

New Mexico officials captured and released a bear after it was spotted with a sheep it had just killed in the yard of a Dona Ana County farming community. Lita Tafoya found the 160-pound bear in her back yard after it had made the kill Thursday evening. State Department of Game and Fish officials tracked the bear near an elementary school ...

Federal wildlife managers have decided to allow an endangered Mexican gray wolf that has been linked to four livestock killings to remain in the wild in southwestern New Mexico. Despite a policy that allows the agency to remove a wolf from the wild after three livestock kills in one year, Tuggle said in a memo to the coordinator of the Mexican gray wolf recovery program ... Tuggle requested in his memo that the recovery program's interagency field team continue to monitor the San Mateo pack and try to prevent any further livestock kills by the pack.

LONDON (AFP) — Beatles legend and famous vegetarian Paul McCartney was joined by John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono Monday to launch an appeal for "meat-free Mondays." McCartney said going vegetarian, even for just one day a week, was good for the environment because of research suggesting it cuts greenhouse gas emissions from the world's livestock population. "I thought this was a great idea. To just reduce your meat intake maybe by one day a week and this would seriously benefit the planet," he told reporters, alongside Ono and a bevy of other stars including Kelly Osbourne and Moby. Lennon's widow...

A young mountain lion was trapped and relocated by the Colorado Division of Wildlife after eating a house cat Monday ... north Boulder. “He was just too close,” Churchill said. “We wanted to give him a spanking and move him out of town.” Wildlife officials previously tagged the same cougar in February when the kitten was stuck in a tree, Churchill said. He is part of the five-year Front Range Mountain Lion Study, which aims to track mountain lions between Lyons and Evergreen to better understand cougar movement trends and develop a way to mitigate aggressive behavior near human establishments,...

With black bear populations rising, run-ins have become almost commonplace... Canadian bear researcher Hank Hristienko, who conducted the survey in January, found that 18 Eastern states were seeing more encounters with bears. In a 2006 attack, a 210-pound male bear killed a 6-year-old girl and mauled her 2-year-old brother as well as her mother who tried to fend off the animal. The attack occurred during a family outing in Tennessee's Cherokee National Forest. near Prestonsburg, Ky., last year, a bear held tourists at bay inside a cabin until rangers arrived to chase it away. The U.S. bear population more than...

All gray squirrels killed at Prince Charles's estate die humanely, a spokesman for the heir to the British throne said Friday. The prince angered animal rights activists this week when he said gray squirrels, an import from North America, should be regularly culled in Britain to protect forest areas and the native red squirrel. The news that he practices what he preaches at Highgrove in Gloucestershire, his country home and organic farm, added gasoline to the flames, the UK Express reported. Charles' office refused to release details on how the squirrels meet their fate. "We don't poison them or anything...

The Wyoming Attorney General said Friday will file a lawsuit next Tuesday to challenge the recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's ruling that rejected the state's wolf management plan. "The Endangered Species Act requires listing and delisting decisions to be based on science," Bruce Salzburg told the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation at a symposium about the law in Casper. But the Fish and Wildlife Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Interior, decided in early March to leave the gray wolf in Wyoming on the endangered species list for political and public relations reasons... The Fish and Wildlife Service,...

Ranchers in the Lemhi Valley of Idaho have suffered increased losses from wolf depredation, as wolf numbers expand. Allen Bodenhamer, who raises cattle near Baker, ID lost three calves this past spring. At first he thought the kills were made by coyotes, then realized he was dealing with wolves. “When coyotes kill a calf they get hold of the back of the neck and basically strangle it. They usually don’t start eating on it while it is still alive. A wolf grabs it by the top of the back or just in front of the hips and is eating on...

Last week WSB-TV in Atlanta uncovered what Rush has somehow been unable to see: that HSUS (Humane Society of the United States) is “an organization actively misleading donors to get money.” If you enjoy a good steak, if you hunt or fish, if you wear leather shoes, if you take your kids to the circus, if you (or a family member) owe your life to medical research that involved lab animals—the Humane Society of the United States doesn’t share your values. The group has the same agenda as PETA and the rest of the animal rights industry. And it is...

If you look in the dictionary under thin ice, you’ll see a picture of the Colorado Wildlife Commission. That is what you’d see, anyway, if the accompanying listing was “Citizen Petitions to Ban Hunting.” The Wildlife Commission listened Thursday to two such petitions from Front Range groups. Aside from some not-so-veiled threats of future lawsuits from a fancy-pants, big-city lawyer... Both petitions came from homeowners groups, one on Sugar Loaf Mountain west of Boulder and the other from Castle Pines Village south of Denver. Representatives from both groups expressed similar distress: Hunting activity is threatening their safety. Both wanted similar...

Exclusive: PETA’s Pet Killing Program Set a New Record in 2008Public Records: PETA Found Adoptive Homes for Less than 1 out of 300 Animals Animal lovers worldwide now have access to more than a decade’s worth of proof that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) kills thousands of defenseless pets at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. Since 1998, PETA has opted to “put down� 21,339 adoptable dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens instead of finding homes for them. PETA’s “Animal Record� report for 2008, filed with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, shows that the animal rights group...

Rush Limbaugh's new pet project -- fighting animal cruelty for the Humane Society of the United States -- is riling sportsmen from coast to coast, prompting fears that the talkster typically supportive of gun rights is aiding a group they say has a secret agenda to end all hunting in America.

RALEIGH North Carolina's meat industries are battling a bill the Humane Society of the United States and its vegan president say is meant to protect puppies, warning instead that it is the first step toward ending meat eating as we know it. The Humane Society has made North Carolina a top priority in the fight for tougher animal welfare laws, for the first time deploying a lobbyist to work a full session of the state legislature. Agribusiness groups predict a repeat of the tighter farm animal laws that California approved last year in a Humane Society-backed voter referendum. That measure...

A cougar lounging in the courtyard of a rural Santa Fe-area home ... Game warden Desi Ortiz says the animal showed no fear... He hit the 100-pound female mountain lion in the hind leg with a tranquilizer, and she jumped over the courtyard wall and disappeared. He got a call a short time later about a cougar staggering into the courtyard of another nearby home.

Animal Rights Act Violations Overwhelming Courts The court system has been overwhelmed with cases of animal-on-animal violence since passage of the Animal Rights Act. (Washington, D.C.) Since passage of the Animals Rights Act, thousands of court cases involving animal-on-animal violence have been piling up, clogging the legal system and confounding legal experts. Washington D.C. attorney Blair Witchell told ecoEnquirer, "I don't think anyone anticipated the level of violence in the animal kingdom that we have seen since passage of the ARA. Some of these cases involve, quite frankly, inhuman acts...sometimes even cannibalism within the same species." Many of the animicide...

An American vegan who has made it his life’s mission to shut down a British animal-testing company has become the first domestic terrorist to be listed on the FBI’s most-wanted list of terror suspects. The name of Daniel Andreas San Diego, who is accused of carrying out the 2003 bombings of two US companies affiliated with Huntingdon Life Sciences, of Cambridgeshire, is listed alongside the likes of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Adam Yahiye Gadahn. San Diego, who is shown on the FBI’s most-wanted poster with short brown hair and glasses, is said to have several unusual tattoos that...

The FBI on Tuesday will for the first time add the name of a domestic-terrorism suspect to its list of Most Wanted Terrorists, a post-Sept. 11 creation that until now has included only suspected Islamist terrorists, a law enforcement official told The Washington Times. Daniel Andreas San Diego, a 31-year-old animal rights activist, is wanted in connection with the 2003 bombings of two companies in the San Francisco Bay Area linked to an animal-testing laboratory. San Diego will take his place on a list that has included notorious international terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahri and Adam Gadahn,...

Residents Warned To Watch Their Pets Coyotes have been spotted in and around the Fallsgrove community in Rockville, Md... Adcock said despite its docile appearance, it's part of a pack made up of some of the largest and most aggressive such animals he's every dealt with. "The pack is too big," Adcock said. "I mean any place else in Maryland you get two or three animals from a job and its pretty much over with." So far he's trapped 12 animals and his job is not yet finished. The trapper told News4 he took a picture of a large male...

<p>So the Parks and Recreation department is going to use a special machine to detonate some of the 100 to 150 rodents that are tearing up the grounds.</p> <p>The machine is called the Rodenator Pro. It pumps propane and oxygen into the tunnels of squirrels, then sends an electric spark that causes an explosion. The shock waves kill the squirrels and collapse their tunnels.</p>

As soon as he heard his car alarm blare and saw the orange glow through his bedroom window, UCLA neuroscientist J. David Jentsch knew that his fears had come true. . . . But Jentsch has decided to push back. Jentsch, an associate professor of psychology and psychiatry, has founded an organization at UCLA to voice support for research that uses animals in what he calls a humane, carefully regulated way. He is organizing a pro-research campus rally April 22, a date chosen because animal rights activists, who contend that his research involves the torture and needless killing of primates,...

A mountain lion was tranquilized and relocated by the state Division of Wildlife after killing a small dog in Boulder's Highland Park ... The lion killed a "white, fluffy dog" ... Division of Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said the lion, a 10-month-old male, was moved to a remote location. She said the lion had previously been tagged ... On Sunday, part of a Chautauqua Park trail was closed after hikers spotted a mountain lion in the trees...

You’re sitting at home with the family watching a Walt Disney movie and on the screen appears a commercial featuring the image of a beaten dog, or maybe a poor kitten that someone has set on fire. It’s brought to you of course by the folks at PETA. The pitch ends with the all compassionate animal loving left-wing extremist whackos at PETA asking you for a handout. Now comes this: PETA Killed 95 Percent of Adoptable Pets in its Care During 2008 Hypocritical Animal Rights Group’s 2008 Disclosures Bring Pet Death Toll To 21,339 WASHINGTON DC – Today the nonprofit...

A Tucson group says the U.S. government must develop recovery programs for jaguars living in southern Arizona and New Mexico. An attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity told a federal judge Monday that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has ignored the need to designate critical habitat for jaguars, causing them to become nearly extinct in the U.S. An Assistant U.S. Attorney argued the jaguars main population is in Mexico and South America and the U.S. is not critical to its survival.

BRUSSELS, March 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A proposed new directive from the European Commission (EC) will drastically restrict the use of animals in laboratory testing, and certain toxicology tests on animals will be permitted only after alternative methods, including research on tissue taken from human embryos, has proved fruitless, reports the Catholic Herald. In its coverage of the issue, the Herald quotes a report accompanying the EC directive that says, "The establishment of human embryonic stem cells in 1998 raised hopes in many research areas, including the development of alternatives to animal experiments." The report says that human embryonic research is a...

Ian Wallace is a graduate student in anthropology in New York who has studied fossils in Kenya, combed excavations in Syria and France and written about his research in scholarly journals. But next week, he will be sentenced to federal prison for trying to blow up two buildings at a Michigan university in 2001 when he was a radical eco-saboteur. It is another case of federal agents catching up to people who formerly were passionate members of the Earth Liberation Front, known as ELF. "Ian Wallace's past has come back to harm him," The FBI contacted him in January 2007...

Two environmental extremists have been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $4.1 million in restitution for their role in a Michigan State University (MSU) arson that caused more than $1 million in damage. Marie Mason, of Cincinnati, and Frank Ambrose, of Detroit, were sentenced in February 2009 and October 2008, respectively, on charges relating to an explosion and fire at MSU's Agriculture Hall on New Year's Eve 1999. The arson was the most serious incident in a series of criminal acts the couple carried out on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), the most...

Alaska State Troopers say an Anchorage man was forced to climb a tree to dodge a black bear near Campbell Airstrip. Charles L. Lamb of Anchorage told officers he was forced up a tree by a large black bear at about 11:30 a.m. Lamb says the bear stalked them for a half mile as they walked out.

A vehicle was firebombed outside the home of a university researcher on Saturday, prompting Chancellor Gene Block to issue a statement condemning the attackers. There were no reports of injuries, said Phil Hampton, a university spokesman. Animal rights activists claimed responsibility for the firebomb in a statement released through the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, which speaks on the behalf of the activists. They threatened in the statement to continue to harass the targeted researcher – whose name was not released because of the ongoing investigation - until he stops his research. Block responded to the threats on Monday....

The National Park Service has set a goal of eliminating lead from fishing and hunting gear by 2010. Acting Park Service director Dan Wenk announced the goal Wednesday in Washington. Fragments of lead bullets are suspected to contaminate scavenger birds, like ravens and eagles, and lead used as fishing weights could poison waterfowl and other species. A firearms group was quick to condemn the action. “The National Park Service’s decision is arbitrary, over-reactive and not based on science,” Steve Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said in a statement. His group is a trade association for the firearms...

GRANTS PASS — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management plans to decommission up to 20 miles of roads and about the same amount of trails this year along the Hellgate recreation section of the Rogue River. The work would be done as part of the Rogue River Corridor Restoration Project that begins at White Horse Park where the Applegate River pours into the Rogue. The project reaches downstream some 20 river miles to the mouth of Grave Creek in the Rogue National Wild and Scenic River Corridor. "The main intent is decommissioning roads and trails within the river corridor, all...

A vehicle was firebombed outside the home of a university researcher on Saturday, prompting Chancellor Gene Block to issue a statement condemning the attackers. There were no reports of injuries, said Phil Hampton, a university spokesman. Animal rights activists claimed responsibility for the firebomb in a statement released through the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, which speaks on the behalf of the activists. They threatened in the statement to continue to harass the targeted researcher – whose name was not released because of the ongoing investigation - until he stops his research. Block responded to the threats on Monday....

A keen hunt supporter has been killed after being hit by a gyrocopter believed to have been monitoring hunts in the area. Trevor Morse, 48, died after the incident at Long Marston airfield, near Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, yesterday. Two men were arrested on suspicion of murder and were being questioned by officers in Leamington Spa last night. Between 80 and 100 huntsmen were out yesterday at the hunt in Moreton-in-Marsh on the last day of the Warwickshire hunt season. The hunt met at the village of Todenham at 11.45am and the light aircraft, first spotted at noon, followed it for about...

My bunny-hugging antagonist’s embarrassed silence on the BBC radio phone-in told me all I needed to know. Yes, it really is now a criminal offense in Britain to abuse an ant, a worm, a slug, cockroach, a scorpion, a stick insect or whatever creature you care to name. The moment you decide to keep it as a pet you are obliged by our Animal Welfare Act to take full account of its welfare needs -- or face a $30,000 fine or a twelve-month prison sentence. And if you think cockroach rights sound crazy, wait till you hear how the law...

We went into the store and bought our groceries. Here is a list of what we bought: $ 8.99 —- 2 lbs Raisins $ 3.10 —- 2 boxes of Jiffy Blue berry Muffin mix $ 6.99 —- 1 bag generic cheerios $10.25 —- 3lb Coffee creamer $ 4.72 —- 8 packages unsweetened Koolaid $17.34 —- 6 cans of fruit cocktail $10.76 —- 4 cans vegetables (2 peas 2 beans) $13.35 —- 1 large jar of Mayo $ 6.45 —- 1 one pound box spaghetti noodles $10.35 —- 5 lbs white rice $13.40 —- 4 boxes of rice-a-roni $ 4.49 —-...