Category Archive: From CCF

  1. PETA Rains on Pokémon Go Parade

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    Assuming you enjoy fun, there are three types of joy-spoilers you should never invite to a party: conspiracy theorists, nihilists, and people from PETA.

    Case in point: Pokémon Go was released last week, and (literally) the entire world went wild. In just seven days, The Guardian reported, the game had surpassed Twitter in daily US users. But then PETA appeared, uninvited, with an unsolicited announcement: Stop having fun.

    Trying to piggyback Pokémon Go’s social media momentum, PETA plugged for its less-popular and more disturbing Pokémon game, tweeting, “Playing the new #PokemonGo app? Play PETA’s #Pokemon game too! #GottaFreeThemAll.”

    We wouldn’t recommend it. Here’s the logo:

    Poke_logo

    Enticed yet? Here’s a sneak peek in-game:

    Poke_battle

    PETA’s version isn’t for fun—it’s a platform for preaching their radical ideology. For instance, the PETA Pikachu has four attacks: the violent Quick Attack and ThunderShock, paired with the cute Group Hug, and Protest. But players, especially kids, will learn quickly that violence gets you what you want faster (i.e. “Pokémon Liberation!” as the game’s home screen says).

    Sadly, we can’t be surprised that PETA isn’t acting like a role model for kids. Creating propaganda for kids is nothing new for PETA flacks, and they say absurd things all the time. For example in the past few weeks, President of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk has:

    Compared women to chickens, and refused to take it back:

    Women_cxn

    Attacked Disney for putting down alligators while searching for the body of a toddler who had been killed by one.

    And let’s not forget PETA’s worst from over the years—like comparing farms to concentration camps, or kidnapping and killing somebody’s Chihuahua.

    Whether it’s then or today, the lesson is one and the same, which one twitter user nailed:

    No fun

    And that’s why you never invite PETA people to your party.

  2. Flashback Friday: PETA Didn’t Meet its Own Animal Shelter Guidelines

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    There’s no shortage of outrageous news PETA will shamelessly generate for itself. Between protesting in the nude and staging a parody Holocaust memorial, PETA’s desperate stunts for attention all fulfill its self-stated mission of being “complete press sluts.”

    But PETA doesn’t love all of the attention it gets, especially when it comes to its own “shelter.” Remember: PETA kills thousands of adoptable cats and dogs at its Virginia headquarters every year. Over the past 10 years, PETA has an unforgivable 91 percent kill-rate and abysmal 1 percent adoption rate.

    Hypocritically, PETA repeatedly violated its own published guidelines for animal shelters. While they pulled the guidelines off their website after we originally pointed this out, it’s worth highlighting on this “Flashback Friday.”

    Fortunately, the internet never forgets and neither should we. You can see PETA’s shelter guidelines here.

    And perhaps you’ll notice this hidden gem of PETA’s hypocrisy:

    “The public is made to feel welcome, and there is a quiet room where people can be alone with the animal they are considering adopting.”

    Ask yourself: would you feel “welcome” if you visited PETA’s shelter and asked to see all the (dead) cats and dogs? We find that hard to believe.

  3. PETA Steps on Itself with Latest Anti-Chicken Attack

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    People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is notorious for its use of sexually explicit themes to promote its vegan agenda. The self-described “press sluts” have conducted so many demonstrations in skimpy clothing over the past decades that such actions are hardly notable anymore. So, with the “lettuce ladies” losing their shock value (and the supply of billboards willing to show degrading images of women dwindling), where does the world’s most notorious animal rights group turn?

    The answer, Vice reports, is vulgar language and nonsensical assertions about the effects of eating chicken. PETA thinks that the below screenshot is a compelling argument to go vegan:

    PETA babt

    The “science” behind the assertion is as juvenile as the language. Mic.com looked at the study PETA cited to back up the claim: It doesn’t even mention chicken or poultry. In promoting the claim, PETA is recycling old animal-liberation tripe: Michael Greger, chief schlock-doc at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), peddled the same claim in a 2011 “Latest in Clinical Nutrition” veganism-promotion DVD. (HSUS, like PETA, is an animal liberation group; it is not affiliated with local pet shelters.)

    The argument is as feeble now as it was then. When PETA surfaced the chicken-causes-deficiency claim a couple of years ago, Dr. Joe Schwarcz of McGill University’s Office of Science and Society characterized the notion as “simply junk science” (since no research had actually, you know, researched any effect of maternal chicken consumption and male size). PETA doesn’t care about being correct: It cares about being crass.

  4. PETA: Respect Slugs, Kill Cats and Dogs

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    PKA syringe picOne of the nice things about being based in Washington, D.C. is the surplus of museums to visit frequently, especially the Smithsonian Institution. And now the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has a new exhibit: “Life in One Cubic Foot,” which will promote research conducted in one-cubic-foot slices of the ocean, soil, air, and so forth. This has People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the infamous self-described animal liberation “press sluts,” outraged—because it might cause kids to trap insects.

    The Smithsonian isn’t even featuring real bugs in it’s display, but PETA fears it will encourage kids to mess with bugs and creepy crawly things in their own backyards. Let Ingrid Newkirk try to make a coherent statement:

    Children should be taught to respect even the tiniest beetles and slugs, as they have feelings and a right to live free from needless interference and suffering […] PETA is calling on the Smithsonian to advise visitors of all ages to learn by observation and video and to live and let live.

    “Live and let live” is an interesting ethos for PETA to promote: When it comes to homeless pets, PETA wants to kill and let die. Since 1998 PETA has reported killing nearly 35,000 dogs and cats, a staggering 86.48% of the pets it has taken in. In addition, PETA is a strong advocate for killing more pets in shelters—they even ran an “undercover video” campaign against a shelter in upstate New York to encourage more shelters to kill pets.

    When PETA won’t spare the time and money to protect and care for homeless pets but does take the time to complain about everything, one must wonder what their real agenda is. “Total animal liberation” isn’t just convincing hippies and celebrities to “go vegan” or strip for advertisements. PETA wants a fundamental, radical restructuring of society from the anthill up.

  5. Making PETA Mad

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    Do you want to make People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) mad? There are many good reasons to make PETA mad: The group wants to ban all human use of animals, from food production to pet ownership. The best reason is that the group hypocritically kills pets at its Virginia headquarters “animal shelter” by the hundreds, totaling nearly 35,000 since records began in 1998.

    Pointing out the fact that PETA kills a large proportion of the pets in its care — just under 74% in 2015, with a lifetime kill rate exceeding 86% — is also an effective way to get under the skin of the controversial animal liberation group.

    With that in mind, we’ve used the annual release of PETA’s state filings to highlight PETA’s gruesome practices with a mobile billboard outside PETA’s office in Washington, D.C. Apparently, the truth about what their Norfolk, Virginia colleagues are doing was bothersome enough to the PETA staff in Washington that they appeared to shut their blinds as our billboard parked in front of their headquarters.

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    They weren’t the only PETA staff miffed by us drawing attention to PETA’s pet killing. When a reporter from the Daily Caller called PETA for an explanation of why PETA kills puppies, PETA responded, “These questions are like, ‘How often do you beat your wife?’ Whatever your source, it is wrong. Thus, this is the only response you will receive from us.”

    The problem is that PETA reports every year to the state of Virginia how many pets it kills. According to the most recent report, PETA killed 447 dogs—more than one every single day. So comparing questions about what dogs PETA kills (especially when PETA employees have snatched and killed at least one family’s pet) to a purely loaded question strikes us as protesting too much.

    PETA’s typical dubious defense of its pet-killing operation is that it puts pets on death’s door out of their misery. The problem is that the evidence suggests that many of the animals that PETA kills aren’t lost causes. The recent dognapping case is only the most notable: In 2007, PETA employees were tried for offenses related to their killing and dumping dogs their notes described as “adorable” and “perfect.”

  6. PETA’s Pet Killing Claimed 1,456 Victims in 2015

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    PKA syringe picPeople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the organization that sends scantily-clad women around to demand people stop eating meat, dairy, and eggs (among other things), has a longstanding practice of killing thousands of pets every year at its headquarters “animal shelter.” PETA’s annual report on its shelter killing for 2015—released by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS)—shows that despite the efforts of the Virginia legislature, the killing of homeless dogs and cats continues at PETA headquarters.

    In all, PETA killed 1,456 cats and dogs in 2015, bringing the total PETA has reported killing to 34,970 since records began in the second half of 1998. Those unfortunate victims amounted to 73.76% of the total dogs and cats that entered PETA’s shelter. It’s a very high kill rate by normal measures, but given PETA has killed upwards of 97% of its charges in some years, the toll is low for the animal liberation group.

    The lower kill rate probably has something to do with the substantial public scrutiny and legislative condemnation that PETA’s “animal shelter” operations faced in late 2014 through 2015. In November 2014, PETA employees dognapped a perfectly healthy and happy Chihuahua (named Maya) from a family on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, and promptly killed it. They left a vegan food basket as an apology.

    That drew the attention of Virginia’s state government, which passed a bill in March that placed PETA’s ability to run an “animal shelter” in jeopardy. The new law defined a “private animal shelter” as a facility existing “for the purpose of finding permanent adoptive homes for animals.”

    PETA’s “shelter” doesn’t, by any reasonable interpretation of the phrase. Even in the less-kill-y year of 2015, only 3% of the dogs and cats PETA took in were adopted out by PETA. And that has PETA back at the Virginia General Assembly, looking for help keeping its charnel house open. The state legislature punted the matter to the administration (the bill that ultimately passed gave full discretion to VDACS to determine the rules for compliance with the “purpose of finding permanent adoptive homes for animals” law).

    PETA has been unrepentant about its pet killing, choosing instead to keep the deaths coming with a mixture of spin, lobbying, and poison. If you want to take action and help put PETA down, head over to our PETAKillsAnimals site, sign the petition to get the IRS to take PETA’s nonprofit status away, and follow PETA Kills Animals on social media.

  7. PETA Pushes Virginia to Protect Its Charnel House

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    PETA_33KLast year, the Commonwealth of Virginia took a small step towards restricting the killing of homeless pets by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), passing a bill that defined an animal shelter as “a facility operated for the purpose of finding permanent adoptive homes for animals.” Many believe that PETA’s Norfolk facility, which has killed over 90 percent of the pets that it has received in multiple years, would have difficulty meeting that standard.

    So, the new law fixed everything and all is well and good for Virginia’s homeless pets? Alas, no. PETA vowed last year to continue operating its “shelter,” unpersuasively arguing it complied with the new Virginia law. We’ll learn before the end of the month how many pets PETA killed in the past year—we doubt it will be zero.

    And now, PETA has gone to the state capital in Richmond looking for further assistance. A bill called HB 340 would give PETA a blank check to continue killing as many pets as it pleases. The proposed law reads:

    Regulations to be adopted by the Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services shall ensure that no private animal shelter shall be prohibited from operating as a private animal shelter solely on the basis of disposition outcomes in §3.2-6548 of the Code of Virginia.

    The plain English translation: No matter how many pets PETA (or any other Virginia animal shelter) kills, the state can’t take away its license to operate as an animal shelter. This provision guts the intention of the law from last year, which passed amid public outrage over PETA killing a family’s pet Chihuahua it had taken off a family’s front porch.

    Now that the outrage has subsided, PETA and its lobbyist are hoping that Virginia will reverse its decision to take on the house of horrors that PETA runs. Currently, the HB 340 is up for consideration by the full Virginia House of Delegates. We’ll be watching the outcome of this bill closely.

  8. PETA’s Flaccid Super Bowl Stunt Flops

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    Screen Shot 2015-03-17 at 11.47.29 AMA common tactic of provocateurs with an advertising budget and a message to push is to submit a well-produced, television quality commercial that is obviously R-rated to a publisher that isn’t and then reap publicity from the “banning” of the ad. It saves money, and usually at least a couple of news sources are duped.

    One notorious user of this tactic is the self-proclaimed “press sluts” of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), who recently put out a “banned” “Super Bowl ad” to promote veganism for reasons of bedroom performance. It may be crass, but given PETA’s history of insulting Holocaust victims and promoting cockamamie theories of how autism develops, some might call it an improvement.

    Laying aside the nonsense on stilts claims in the video (one of the top comments on the Youtube version of the video is from a self-proclaimed vegan who asks, “what does this have to do with veganism”), it seems like the press stunt isn’t going as far as PETA might have hoped. Last time PETA used sexual shock tactics to get its “Super Bowl ad” “banned,” a search of an archive of news media reports shows that it got almost six times more press coverage.

    And some of the current coverage is eye-rolling cynicism. Advertising blog Adland (NSFW) notes: “What [getting the ad “banned”] really means is PETA never had $4.5 million dollars to pay for the airtime with, and instead are going the cheap route with a press release, some sex scenes, and the hopes that you’ll share this with all your friends. Le yawn.”

  9. PETA Loses Another Ridiculous Lawsuit

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    PETA_33K    People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the self-proclaimed “press sluts” who will do anything to get a radical vegan agenda into the news cycle, has a record of losing court cases. The latest comes out of (naturally) San Francisco, where PETA backed a lawsuit to give a monkey the legal copyright to the “monkey selfie,” a picture the monkey took of itself using a wildlife photographer’s equipment.

    A federal district judge ruled in favor of common sense last week, holding that the monkey could not own the copyright. Judge William Orrick wrote in his ruling: “while Congress and the president can extend the protection of law to animals as well as humans, there is no indication that they did so in the Copyright Act.” Wisely so.

    Alas, PETA’s stunt wasn’t victimless: David Slater, the photographer, had to get an attorney to fight the suit. Slate writer Jordan Weissmann noted that PETA’s legal theory also put Slater at great financial risk, since Slater sells merchandise using the (public domain) image.

    The so-called “monkey selfie” case is about far more than copyright for PETA, though. Having largely failed to get the country to adopt its vegan agenda—a poll commissioned by a vegetarian advocacy group found that less than 0.5% of American adults eat vegan—PETA needs a back-door attack to ban meat, dairy, eggs, pet ownership, and zoos and aquariums. The “monkey selfie” copyright suit, like PETA’s failed effort to have whales declared to be “slaves,” is part of a wide-ranging legal effort for “animal personhood”—lawsuits to achieve the PETA agenda by judicial fiat.

    And while Judge Orrick may have seen through the cynical plot, other courts have entertained it. In Switzerland, some animals get attorneys. Connecticut even considered bringing the crazy idea over here. Fortunately, most people are smart enough to realize the drawbacks of a kangaroo court.

  10. This Thanksgiving, PETA was the Turkey

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    For normal people, Thanksgiving is a time of year for enjoying the company of family and stuffing ourselves to a day of football. But for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, it’s a time of year to chide everyone who enjoys a little white meat—whether through guilt trips or by comparing eating turkey to cannibalism.

    This year, however, there was something to be thankful about with PETA: The fact that the organization is now being sued for $9 million.

    Last Monday, a Virginia family filed suit against PETA in state court following an incident last year in which two PETA employees took the family’s Chihuahua off their front porch and killed it. The duo was caught on camera performing the apparent theft in broad daylight. The dog was killed the same day it was taken, in violation of Virginia law, which requires a 5-day holding period. The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services fined PETA, noting the “severity of this lapse in judgment.”

    Astoundingly, PETA allegedly took months to apologize for this atrocious act. Granted, killing pets is nothing new for the group: PETA kills close to 90% of the cats and dogs it takes in at the “animal shelter” it runs at its Virginia headquarters.

    This time next year, hopefully we’ll be thankful for justice.