HSUS Moles In Legislative Offices?

HSUS Moles In Legislative Offices?

It seems you can’t trust anyone anymore. Not even when you are exercising your right as an American citizen to contact your representative and express your thoughts about a bill.

On March 5 I posted the latest SAOVA newsletter to the Tennessee Pet-Law list with the following message:

A sampling of legislators has been selected for a special campaign to request they WITHDRAW their support from PUPS. Included are legislators previously endorsed by SAOVA who have strayed. Others profess to be conservatives yet added their names to this expensive, invasive animal rights bill. Some are Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus members. Visit the SAOVA campaign page, click and email these legislators and ask them to STOP supporting the PUPS bill. http://www.saova.org/PUPS.Campaign.html

On March 7 a Pet-Law member reported that he sent a friend to the SAOVA web site. She also clicked on a link to humanewatch.org. After contacting her congressman, Rep. Allen West, at 5:04 pm, to ask him to withdraw support for PUPS, she received a “Welcome” message from HSUS at 5:11 pm.

One such occurrence is interesting. More than one is suspicious.

On March 9 a long-time Tennessee Pet-Law member reported that he had been signed up as an HSUS member:

WTF?? I just received an email thanking me for signing up with HSUS? You have got to be kidding. I wonder what bozo thought I would be interested in that bunch???

When asked if he had contacted any legislators recently he replied:

As a matter of fact, I did respond to the recent request to email various legislators to withdraw support for the PUPS bill. Does someone think they can get us poor misguided souls to see the light if they sign us up for their propaganda? But in my view, NOBODY has the right to put my email on someone's list without my permission.

It’s starting to look like HSUS has moles placed in the offices of certain legislators. They may be diverting e-mails and stealing e-mail addresses. Who knows if the messages people are sending about PUPS are even reaching anyone impartial, or if they are being deleted as fast as people send them.

You can try to contact your legislator and voice your concerns but I don’t know if it will do any good. If an HSUS mole reads your e-mail or answers the phone, it won’t do much good.

If you have heard from HSUS after contacting a legislator, please let us know in the comments section. We’d like to know how widespread this problem is.

HumaneWatch Editorial in The Tennessean

Take a look at this page: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100514/OPINION03/5140330/Make-the-most-of-donation-by-giving-to-a-local-pet-shelter

Great comments about HSUS on The Tennessean site.

Make the most of donation by giving to a local pet shelter

BY DAVID MARTOSKO • MAY 14, 2010

Tennessee Voices

This week, Nashville is host to a large animal-care expo for shelter professionals. It seems like a noble cause. But who's behind it — and what their goals are — might surprise you.

You're probably familiar with the slick infomercials from the Humane Society of the United States. The TV ads are everywhere, asking for monthly pledges while taking you on a tour through tear-jerking pictures of homeless cats and dogs. Just give $19 a month, the ads suggest, and your money will be used to help these poor puppies and kittens.

But what if it's all smoke and mirrors? Most Americans — 71 percent, according to a recent Opinion Research Corp. poll — think the Humane Society of the United States is an umbrella group for pet shelters.

It isn't. It is not affiliated with any local humane societies.

That poll also shows that 59 percent believe the group gives "most of its money" to local pet shelters. That's false, too. In fact, hands-on dog and cat shelters at the local level received less than 1 percent of the $86 million HSUS raised in 2008.

So, if you pledge $19 a month to Humane Society of the United States, $228 a year, barely $1 will trickle down to pet shelters. What's going on? What else would an "animal welfare" group do with $86 million in donations and $150 million-plus in the bank?

The answer isn't very cuddly.

You can see the group's money — your money, really — at work in statehouses, courtrooms and ballot boxes. That's where the organization pushes for animal rights, not to be confused with animal welfare. HSUS is driven by the belief that animals deserve legal rights, including the right to not be eaten as food and the right to sue people in court.

So while HSUS does precious little for the dogs and cats in its TV ads, it does work overtime to drive a wedge between animals and people. The group works to reduce everyone's consumption of meat, eggs and dairy, for instance. It does this by filing lawsuits, lobbying for new laws and pushing for ever-tighter regulations — driving up the cost of being an egg producer or a cattle rancher.

If these farmers won't give cows, pigs, and chickens their "rights," the group will just drive them out of business.

The Humane Society of the United States plasters its ads with images of pets. The warm-and-fuzzy approach is clearly fundraising gold. But is the animal-rights industry's agenda really what well-meaning Americans want to support with their $19 monthly donations? I doubt it.

It's getting so that there's only one way animal lovers can be sure their donations actually go to help pet shelters and animal welfare programs: Give locally. Help the shelters in your community, not the big-bucks animal-rights lobby in Washington.

David Martosko is director of research at the Center for Consumer Freedom, a nonprofit watchdog group that deals with activities of tax-exempt activist groups.