Free Republic

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's bill to ban horse-drawn carriages reached the City Council on Monday, in a move to phase out the carriages that often give tours around Central Park. The legislation says that as of June 1, 2016, "it shall be unlawful to operate a horse-drawn vehicle in the city of New York or offer rides to the public on a vehicle drawn or pulled by a carriage horse." ... It also boosts the penalty for breaking horse-carriage rules to a maximum of $25,000 instead of the current $500. The proposed ban was introduced one day after...

ALBANY, N.Y. -- A New York appeals court says a chimpanzee isn't entitled to the rights of a human and doesn't have to be freed by its owner. The three-judge Appellate Division panel was unanimous Thursday in denying "legal personhood" to Tommy, who lives alone in a cage in upstate Fulton County. A trial level court had previously denied the Nonhuman Rights Project's effort to have Tommy released. The group's lawyer, Steven Wise, told the appeals court in October that the chimp's living conditions are akin to a person in unlawful solitary confinement.

A ‘gay’ bull has been saved from slaughter by the only person who could have truly understood the ridiculousness of the situation – the co-creator of the Simpsons. Benjy the bull was being prepared for the chop after vets said his sexual orientation was the reason he wouldn’t breed. That’s when Sam Simon, who helped start cult cartoon comedy, stepped in. ‘All animals have a dire destiny in the meat trade, but to kill this bull because he’s gay would’ve been a double tragedy,’ said the 59-year-old producer who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. After being told he was...

PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has created a headquarters, gardens, and abandoned circuses and slaughterhouses. And this isn't in real life; they've done this in the massively popular Minecraft. And just as you might expect from PETA, people are not allowed to harm digital chickens or pigs on their game server. How could pretend animals being hurt possibly matter? PETA's director of marketing innovation, Joel Bartlett, explained, "Priority number one is that no animals can be harmed in PETA's Minecraft." PETA said that they decided to create a PETA server and headquarters in Minecraft because many...

Animal rights group PETA has slammed the Discovery Channel's 'Eaten Alive' show, which claims it will show a man being eaten alive by an anaconda, as a publicity stunt that will torment the snake. Trailers of the show, which will be aired on Dec. 7 on the cable network, show naturalist and wildlife filmmaker and author Paul Rosolie donning a custom-built snake-proof outfit. "I am about to be the first person that is going to be eaten alive by an anaconda," Rosalie says in the trailer as his team is shown catching a snake. "I don't expect anyone to believe...

The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is taking aim at the Eastern States Exposition, asking that the fair to drop a Connecticut outfit that offers elephant rides and a children’s petting zoo. ... Cassidy said he would not allow PETA to bully the Big E. “As long as Gene Cassidy is president of the Big E, young people – and old people – will have the opportunity to see these animals,” he said. Since just before Labor Day, the Big E’s offices in West Springfield have been flooded with thousands of e-mails from animal-rights supporters,...

PETA wants accused cannibal killer fed vegan diet JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. – It has the stuff of a comedic one-liner, but PETA says it is dead serious in urging the local sheriff to feed an accused cannibal killer a vegan diet in order to “swear off flesh” while he’s imprisoned. Kenneth Montville, a national spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said the proposal is aimed at making the group’s point that meatless food can help reduce violent behavior and also save money for jails. “We really want to take a situation that’s a tragedy and make it into...

Rod Coronado, a convicted eco-terrorist, is the leader of the controversial “Yellowstone Wolf Patrol,” a new environmental group that plans to shadow legal Montana wolf hunters during the state’s fall and winter wolf season and document the hunts with a video camera. Coronado, a resident of Michigan, is a radical environmentalist who “sank whaling ships nearly 30 years ago in Iceland and later went to prison after torching a Michigan State University lab in 1992 for conducting research for the fur industry” according to The Buffalo News of Buffalo, NY. He also serves as a spokesman for the radical, militant...

South San Francisco Unified joined the Meatless Monday movement this year, joining Oakland, West Contra Costa and several other districts that have adopted the campaign within the last few years. There are billions of animals slaughtered for food production each year, said Kristie Middleton, food policy manager for the Humane Society of the United States. "By going meat free just one day a week we can prevent some of this animal suffering," she said. "And we tell them a little about the Humane Society and animals," she said. "I like how they talk about compassionate eating. I think the kids...

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples is raising objections to a school district pilot program that encourages kids to eat meatless lunches once a week. The pilot program at the Drippings Springs School District offers meat-free lunch options every Monday to students in its three elementary schools. Students can still eat meaty meals on Mondays, but must bring their lunches from home. Among the food items offered to students this Monday were a black-bean burrito, vegetarian chili with cornbread, baby carrots and sliced peaches. On past Mondays, students could choose cheese sandwiches, cheese ravioli, spinach salad and vegetarian soups. John Crowley,...

Mondays have become meat free in hundreds of school cafeterias across the Bay Area, a move praised by animal rights activists and environmentalists and condemned by the livestock industry for pushing politics into the lunch line. South San Francisco Unified joined the Meatless Monday movement this year, joining Oakland, West Contra Costa and several other districts that have adopted the campaign within the last few years. District officials say it's all about improving student nutrition and drawing attention to alternative sources of protein.

The support and criticism of a Texas university cheerleader who features her big game hunting adventures on Facebook has grown within the week. She recently has been responding to haters with information about how she says killing some of these creatures actually helps their species, local villages and the economy as a whole.

From the Cleburne Times-Review to the New York Daily News to Gawker — it’s been a heck of a week for 19-year-old Kendall Jones, the Cleburne native and Texas Tech University sophomore now known as “The Texas Cheerleader Famous for Killing Animals in Africa.”

The anti-hunting dolts have gone into full doofus mode attacking James Hetfield of Metallica for hunting and narrating a bear hunting doc for The History Channel. I believe ClashDaily.com started the party by being happy that Hetfield does both and posting about it on our site. Check it out here, as the post went viral. Today, I’d like to point out that the Bible actually backs up Hetfield’s hunting. Yes, God actually ordains hunting and eating meat and there’s not one verse in the scriptures that condemns such activities as I write in my brand spanking new book, Rise, Kill...

Some people are saying that this time, PETA’s lost all credibility. They’ve crossed the line. I’d ask when PETA ever had any credibility? It is not possible to take them seriously. They have to pretend that they’re outraged by animal abuse so that they can raise lots of money from rich and flaky Hollywood liberals. Their latest attack is on the White House for using real eggs in their Easter egg hunt:

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has asked Iowa transportation officials for permission to build a temporary memorial tombstone that they say will honor hundreds of turkeys killed in a recent truck crash. Ankeny resident and PETA member Alex Moore says in a letter dated Tuesday that he wants to erect the 10-foot structure in remembrance of more than 500 turkeys killed in a crash April 12 in Sioux City. The truck transporting the animals overturned.

Bundy ranch family members and friends spent much of their weekend moving cattle shot or run to death during the BLM standoff earlier this month. The graphic images have gone viral online, shocking both rancher and animal advocates alike.

A new report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finds that solar facilities in California are acting like “mega traps” that kill and injure birds. As a result, “entire food chains” are being disrupted. USFWS’s National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory studied three solar farms in Southern California: Desert Sunlight, Genesis Solar and Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS). Two-hundred and thirty-three different birds from 71 species were found over the course of a two-year study. The three main causes of death were: 1. Solar flux: Exposure to temperatures over 800 degrees F. 2. Impact (or blunt force) trauma:...

An animal rights group is taking a stab at buying the childhood home of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in an effort to transform the Ohio house into a vegan eatery. In a letter last week, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk asked a real estate agent about the Bath Township home and proposed making it a restaurant “to respond to the past with something positive,” the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Newkirk compared the way animals were slaughtered to the way Dahmer treated the 17 victims he was convicted of killing. […] Richard Lubinski of Stouffer Realty, who is handling the sale of...

PETA wants to turn Jeffrey Dahmer’s childhood home into a vegan restaurant People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) does not shy away from attention grabbing news stories when it comes to furthering their cause of animal rights. As reported by the Akron Beacon Journal, the organization’s president, Ingrid E. Newkirk, recently wrote a letter to the real estate agent who listed infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s childhood home for sale. In the correspondence to agent Richard Lubinski, Newkirk said that PETA would like to turn the Ohio house into a vegan restaurant and “respond to the past with...