Free Republic

A new report summarizes research showing the financial and health repercussions of keeping schools, colleges, and child-care facilities closed far outweigh any risk. The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity report also offers recommendations on how to reopen for the safest and fairest results. Report coauthor Avik Roy said in a tweet the report aims for policymakers to learn of and “heed the educational, social, and public health impact of prolonged school closures” for the nearly 80 million U.S. students who have already been out of school for months in 2020. The article described the nation’s current educational plans as...

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the soi-disant Cordoba Initiative, has gotten all the attention he deserves for his astonishingly insensitive attempt to build a 13-story mosque and community center at the site of Ground Zero. Rauf has largely escaped attention for his efforts to build a sawed-off version of the same on the grounds of the venerable and historically Christian Chautauqua Institution in western New York State. Although the resistance to Rauf at Chautauqua has not made the news, it is deeply felt, and it is coming from both Christians and Jews. As shall be seen, the forced feeding...

If you don’t subscribe to the dead-tree edition of The New York Times, you may have missed our full-page ad today asking readers, “Shouldn’t the ‘Humane Society’ do better?” Considering that less than half of one-percent of money spent by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in 2008 went to hands-on pet shelters, lots of people think there’s room for improvement. If you didn’t get the ad, here’s a copy to view, (pdf):It appears we’ve hit close to home at HSUS headquarters. CEO Wayne Pacelle has dialed up his usual issue-dodging response and attacked us for supposedly...

Multi-Million Dollar Animal Rights Group Accused Of Corruption; Lawsuit Available At HumaneWatch Washington - In a landmark RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) lawsuit certain to have far-reaching implications for the animal rights movement, Feld Entertainment and the Ringling Brothers circus sued the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), its lawyers, and several other animal rights groups last week. The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) unearthed the lawsuit in federal court records today. CCF is making the lawsuit available online at its newest website, www.HumaneWatch.org "America's farmers, ranchers, hunters, fishermen, research scientists, fashion designers, and restaurateurs have...

When it rains, it pours for overzealous New York City food nannies. The city announced today that it has a new front in its war on food: salt. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is asking food manufacturers and restaurants to voluntarily reduce the sodium content of foods, with the goal of slashing salt intake by 25 percent over 5 years. (If the city’s past regulatory heavy-handedness is any indication, though, it means “voluntary” in the Tony Soprano sense of the word.) As we’re telling the media today, people should take NYC’s salt proposition with a grain of...

There are only two things certain in life, as the saying goes, and a byproduct of one of them requires nonprofit organizations to file paperwork with the IRS. So now that the deceptively named “Humane Society” of the United States (HSUS) has submitted its "Form 990" for 2008, we thought it was time to take a close look. The tax filing itself is a bit more detailed than ones in the past, thanks to some new IRS rules. And more detail equals a clearer picture of exactly what HSUS is doing -- and what it's not doing -- with...

The so-called “Humane Society” of the United States (HSUS) has once again proven why its name – which conjures up images of saving helpless pets – isn’t deserved. A new Baltimore Sun investigation reveals that the 19 horses HSUS and Baltimore city officials confiscated last month from "A-rabbers" (street peddlers who sell produce in urban neighborhoods) have been penned up in unsanitary conditions and mostly forgotten about. Can someone tell us what's so “humane” about that?On November 10, Baltimore Health Department officials – with HSUS spurring them on – seized 19 healthy horses owned by these streetcart operators from their...

Think activists are taking a holiday break? While a reprieve from culinary scaremongering and guilt-trips might make a nice present for all of us, trial lawyers and self-anointed obesity warriors are always looking for ways to make our Christmas holiday season not so jolly. Consider the ridiculous past antics of anti-fat fanatic MeMe Roth, who has attacked St. Nick’s rotund form (along with ice cream toppings and Girl Scout cookies). Then there are the Grinch-like trial lawyers like John "Sue the Bastards" Banzhaf who are eager to file lawsuits against restaurants, school boards, and even parents because they hope big...

Lactose-intolerant Policy Is Sour On Milk, Cheese, Yogurt Washington, D.C.— The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) expressed puzzlement and disbelief today after learning that the popular website Facebook has banned the promotion of dairy products. Facebook’s guidelines state that no promotions are permitted if the “objective is to promote any of the following product categories: gambling, tobacco, dairy, firearms, prescription drugs, or gasoline.” An additional policy also prohibits awarding promotional prizes that include dairy products. “It’s dumbfounding, and just plain dumb,” said CCF Research Director David Martosko. “Why would anyone lump milk with cigarettes and prescription painkillers? Does Facebook believe...

Christian Children's Fund is changing its name to ChildFund International. The board of directors of the worldwide relief organization voted this week on the change as part of a new strategy. The new name aims to reflect the charity's worldwide reach and its affiliation with the ChildFund Alliance, a coalition that includes 11 other international organizations that help children living in poverty. Chief executive Anne Lyman Goddard said Friday that the name change, which takes effect July 1, will standardize the ChildFund name globally among groups that work to connect donors to programs that help children. "Now working under different...

Researchers at MIT and Columbia University believe the answer to the so-called obesity “epidemic” lies in getting Americans to eat more regional food. So they’re outlining different “foodsheds” that we should all be relying on for our needs—especially if we live in a U.S. city. Will it work? Can we afford it? Let’s take a look.The PhysOrg news service spells out the proposal: Each metropolitan area, the researchers say, should obtain most of its nutrition from its own “foodshed,” a term akin to “watershed” meaning the area that naturally supplies its kitchens … [T]hese local efforts should form a...

An advocacy group that once lobbied for mandatory nutrition labels for groceries has set it sights on restaurant chains and is asking the federal government to require large chains to offer calorie, fat and sodium information on menus. The Center for Science in the Public Interest on Monday criticized several food chains for promoting what the group calls "x-treme eating" with dishes that include more calories and fat than most people should eat in one day. The government recommends that the average American consume around 2,000 calories per day, with less than 10 percent of the calories coming from saturated...

Making the rounds at yesterday's Ad Club meeting was Andrew J. McKeon, a former investment-banking consultant who is now a true believer in the inconvenient truth of global warming. In November, McKeon launched the nonprofit Climate Change Foundation--the name is supposed to be taken literally on two levels--and is looking for support from the ad community and marketers. The idea is to help make Americans aware of the seriousness of global warming and to raise money for the cause. "My goal is to approach companies like Starbucks and the Gap--companies that want to have a good position on this issue...

Schwarzenegger Squashes Religious Freedom Thomasson: “Arnold Schwarzenegger has two faces. He speaks at churches and says he believes in religious freedom and family values, yet he’s stabbing pro-family Californians in the back.” Sacramento, California – Campaign for Children and Families is shocked and dismayed that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed SB 1441 (Kuehl). Today’s disastrous action by Schwarzenegger means Christian and other faith-based colleges in California will be forced to promote transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality if they accept students with Cal Grants. “People of conscience are appalled that Arnold Schwarzenegger has trampled religious freedom to satisfy hyperactive sexual activists,”...

CNSNews.com) - Americans are accustomed to the tactics of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the group's in-your-face advocacy is increasingly calculated to offend, provoke and otherwise show contempt for America's religious faithful, according to a new report released by the Center for Consumer Freedom

Sometimes we get the feeling that there's a secret competition between food cops to one-up each other for the most absurd way to attack our food choices. We recently told you about an Illinois physician who argued in a Chicago Tribune op-ed that the government should "mandate that, effective immediately, all portions of food served in restaurants and fast-food places be cut by one-half to two-thirds." Now, to fight the flab, another academic has proposed a harebrained economic plan. Adding to the chorus of professors trying to argue away personal responsibility, the University of California Davis' J. Paul Leigh wrote...

The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) has announced the winners of its 4th annual Tarnished Halo Awards. CCF awards these prizes to America's most notorious animal-rights zealots, environmental scaremongers, celebrity busybodies, self-anointed public interest advocates, trial lawyers, and other food & beverage activists who claim to know what's best for you. The Reverend Rooster Category Awarded to Al Sharpton, the publicity-seeking preacher, for joining PETA to crow at KFC restaurants and attempting to instigate a boycott from the African American community. It's odd that Sharpton would stand side-by-side with PETA, which advocates a complete end to chicken consumption. When the...

An anti-discrimination proposal before the Alameda County (Calif.) Board of Supervisors would allow men to go into women's bathrooms, a conservative group is warning. The Campaign for Children and Families (CCF), a pro-family group, is urging concerned citizens to attend Tuesday morning's hearing, where the five supervisors are scheduled to vote on a resolution that says that transsexuals "shall have full and equal enjoyment of....dressing and bathroom facilities, consistent with the person's gender identity." CCF calls the resolution an invasion of privacy and an effort to "punish people who disagree with transsexuality, or sex change operations, or men wearing women's...

Consumer Group Protests Ingrid Newkirk's Washington Book-Signing, Blames PETA for Bankrolling "Unkind" Arsonists WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Dressed as eco-terrorists, carrying a comically large gasoline can and matches, and holding a banner depicting an arson fire under the words "PETA's Kind Choice," representatives from the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) will gather to protest the Washington book- signing appearance of Ingrid Newkirk. Newkirk, the president and co-founder of the radical group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is promoting a new animal-rights book misleadingly titled "Making Kind Choices." Date: Monday, January 24 Time: 6:00 pm Place: Borders Bookstore...

"This may be the most important letter I've ever written," declares People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) president Ingrid Newkirk in a September 27 fundraising letter. "I can honestly say that, in the almost 25 years that PETA has been in existence, I've never -- never, ever! - witnessed a more organized, well-funded, multi-industry attack on animal rights and PETA than the one we're under right now. It is getting stronger every day ? We are number one on their hit list, and they are out for PETA's blood." For once, we agree with Newkirk. And we're thrilled...