Written by Jeff Mackey
Check this out: U.S. Representative Robert E. Andrews of New Jersey has introduced a bill in Congress (H.R. 220) that would designate the first Saturday in October as “National Animal Rescue Day” to encourage adoption, spaying and neutering, and creating a “humane environment” for companion animals.
This is such a wonderful idea and how appropriate that a member of Congress from the Garden State would be instrumental in trying to get us a bit closer to a Garden of Eden for animals in need!
Please do your part to make National Animal Rescue Day a reality—encourage your federal representative to support H.R. 220 today, and urge your friends and family to push their members of Congress to do the same!
Written by PETA
Victory: As a result of PETA's campaign, the Army announced that it is ending its cruel use of monkeys in chemical attack training exercises and will instead use advanced human simulators!
On Monday, dozens of PETA members greeted the 32,000 attendees—who included Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno—of the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) in Washington, D.C. The protesters were there to urge the Army to stop poisoning primates in a cruel training exercise at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Many veterans and former military medical professionals have already joined PETA's campaign, and the protesters received more encouragement from men and women in uniform attending the meeting.
The Army's exercises involve injecting vervet monkeys with a drug overdose in a crude attempt to recreate the effects of a nerve-agent attack. The monkeys suffer from uncontrollable twitching and seizures, and some even stop breathing. One monkey suffered gaping lacerations, a torn lip, and bitten- or torn-off fingers in fights with other monkeys caused by the stress of the constant physical abuse and confinement.
Other military courses already use human simulators, which can mimic the effects of nerve-agent exposure. Tell Congress to take action now to save monkeys and troops by replacing animals with advanced non-animal training methods.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
Once upon a time, Congress came up with the good idea (strange, but true) to create an interagency committee to encourage and validate modern, animal-friendly testing methods for use by governmental agencies. Unfortunately, the committee, known by its acronym ICCVAM, or the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods, has been doing just the opposite—blocking scientifically sound and humane non-animal testing methods. For example, ICCVAM has done the following:
The ickiest thing about ICCVAM is its leader, Dr. William Stokes, who has pushed all of this unscientific and animal-unfriendly tomfoolery under his watch.
PETA is calling on Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the agency that oversees ICCVAM, to fire Dr. Stokes and replace him with someone who will actually VAM (validate alternative methods). You can help by e-mailing Dr. Birnbaum and seconding our concern.
Written by Philip Douglas
Taxes on your mind with Tax Day approaching? Well, soon you may get a break if you help give a break to the millions of homeless dogs and cats who suffer as a result of the animal overpopulation crisis. We're asking Rep. Sandy Levin, D-Mich., Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, to introduce a bill that would give a tax credit to citizens who spay or neuter their animal companions.
A recent survey reveals that one of the main obstacles to spaying and neutering is the cost. Providing a tax credit to reimburse Americans who fight the taxing reality of animal homelessness would take away that excuse, while stimulating the economy and helping cut cities' and counties' animal control expenses. Will Spay Day soon become Pay Day? We hope so. In the meantime, don't wait another minute to spay or neuter your animal companions if you haven't already—and urge everyone you know to do the same.
Written by Logan Scherer
"I have been in many lunchrooms during lunch period and can attest to the food that is frequently lacking from a nutritional perspective and very high in saturated fats. … What our bill will do is provide some lower-fat and lower-cholesterol ways for kids to get the nutrition that they need to be healthy." —U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) on the Healthy School Meals Act, which would start a $4 million pilot program to incorporate vegetarian food and drinks into school districts' lunch programs over a two-year period.
We'll cheer for that! Considering that vegetarian diets have been proven to curb childhood obesity, which remains a crisis in the U.S., Polis's proposed legislation would save kids and animals.
Many schools across the nation have already successfully adopted humane menus. Encourage your local schools to do the same.
… in the kitchen. Freshman U.S. Representative Jared Polis, the first openly gay person to be elected to Congress as a non-incumbent, may not be a vegan (yet), but he lives like one, thanks to his partner, animal rights activist and writer Marlon Reis.
In an article about the Colorado Democrat, Roll Call reports,
[Polis'] partner is a vegan, and although [Polis] eats meat, the couple keeps a vegan household. … [Polis'] shoes and belt are "cruelty free"—meaning no animals were involved, he says. The shoes—he pops one off casually to check the brand when asked—are a brand called "Bourgeois Bohème."
Reis is the first same-sex partner of a member of Congress to be recognized as "spouse" on his congressional ID card. His days are spent working on his vegan culinary skills and his new novel, which he hopes "will give readers the reason they've been missing to give animals the fair consideration they deserve …."
Now, PETA isn't suggesting that you should run out and start a tawdry affair, but make no mistake: We believe that slipping some Cheatin "chorizo" into the chili is always a good thing.
Written by Karin Bennett
In a move that is waaaay long past overdue, a military panel has recommended adding cruelty to animals to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is the foundation of US military law. Hard to believe it wasn't already in there, but we're just glad it's in the works now.
Last year, PETA called for such a provision after a video of a Marine apparently throwing a live puppy off a cliff circulated on the Internet. If this new regulation is added, service personnel who commit such atrocities could be prosecuted specifically for cruelty to animals, as opposed to military authorities having to scramble to find some vaguely-worded offense, such as "unbecoming conduct," to file such crimes under.
The law is intended to address crimes like killing or abandoning companion animals, but maybe it will also add fuel to our case that lethal military trauma training exercises on animals violate military code too.
Before it can be added to the UCMJ, the new provision has to be approved by Congress. Congress, you know what you have to do.
Written by Alisa Mullins
Seriously, our letter pretty much wrote itself after that.
If you’ve been following the Clemens hearings, you may have caught a surreal moment yesterday when a Congressman asked Roger whether he was vegan or not. Honestly, I’d be happy if this were a mandatory question at all congressional hearings, but I have to admit that it was a little odd in context. Nonetheless, Roger’s response (essentially “Dude, WTF is a vegan?”) more or less mandated another letter from our corner, and this time we’re sending him a gift basket full of steroid-free vegan goodies to sweeten the deal. It’s an established fact that a letter from PETA goes down a lot easier with a couple of vegan cookies and some faux-beef jerky. Check it out.
P.S. Thanks to PETA Files reader Tamara for sending in a transcript of this exchange!
And remember: Pels Ud, Kaerlighed Ind!
Some more pics and video at these sites, which are presumably more informative if you speak German Danish.
http://politiken.tv/nyheder/indland/article470983.ecehttp://galleri.tv2.dk/index.php/category-Nyhederne/id-10407233/page-1.html
Lantos has said that his traumatizing experience in the Holocaust, during which his family was killed and he spent time in a forced labor camp, gave him and his wife Annette an understanding of what it means to be victimized for no other reason than being different from others, and inspired them both to devote their lives to working on behalf of the oppressed and the downtrodden. At PETA, we are profoundly indebted to Tom Lantos for his insistence that oppression should be fought wherever it exists, not just where it’s convenient, and we will always remember the important work that he did to help animals with gratitude and admiration.
Tom Lantos will be deeply missed here at PETA, both by those of us who knew him personally, and by those of us, like me, who have been inspired by his example. Even as we mourn his loss, we celebrate his amazing work for all beings.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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