Animal rights

Sunday

Ben Sixsmith

The conservative case for opposing ‘ag-gag’ laws

Activists from the animal welfare group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) last week released photographs taken on an Iowa pig farm. They claimed they had walked through an open door, photographed pigs suffering from hideous rectal prolapses and open sores, as well as what appears to be overcrowding. The photographs were taken last April, and the activists have claimed that they withheld the pictures to avoid the accusation that they had contaminated the living conditions and endangered the pigs. Ironically, they have received criticism both for endangering the pigs and for withholding evidence.The owner of the farm is Republican State Sen. Ken Rozenboom.

ag-gag

Sunday

Benjamin Riley

For duck’s sake: New York’s foie gras ban is classic political posturing

This article is in The Spectator’s December 2019 US edition. Subscribe here. Drown the Yquem and bury the Burgundy! Cover up the caviar! Abscond with the escargot, and for good measure lock away the langoustines! The class war is coming to New York City. On October 30, the city council, taking a break from doing nothing about the homeless and the garbage, passed a law prohibiting the sale of foie gras — fattened duck or goose liver — beginning in 2022. Of the 51 members, 42 voted in favor and 30 signed on as co-sponsors.

duck foie gras

Saturday

Louise Linton

Louise Linton: why I don’t like being ‘the wife of…’

This article is in The Spectator’s inaugural US edition. Subscribe here to get yours. It’s a muggy afternoon in Los Angeles as I sit down to write this — in my bathroom; the AC’s broken everywhere else. My vanity is dusty, cluttered with books, storyboards, shot lists and Post-It notes scrawled in ALL CAPS with a frenzied thick black Sharpie: ‘LOCK PICTURE!!’ ‘BEAR!’, ‘BORN FREE!’, ‘DOG’, ‘STATE DINNER’, ‘DOCUMENTARY!’, ‘GRATITUDE’. It’s a bizarre medley, as is my life in general. I’m married to a Republican politician but I’m extremely liberal. I cannot say that I’m a Democrat either. These terms are binary and weaponized.

louise linton

Wednesday

Julie Bindel

It’s high time to butcher PETA

Animal liberation charity PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has gone and done it again. Notorious for using cheap shock tactics to make a noise and pull in more donations, the organization sent a press release and posted a tweet within an hour of the announcement that fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld (for whom I personally felt no love) had died: ‘Karl Lagerfeld has gone, and his passing marks the end of an era when fur and exotic skins were seen as covetable. PETA sends condolences to our old nemesis’s loved ones.’ Last year, Lagerfeld, who had long defended his use of fur, conceded to demands that that he stop using fur and crocodile, lizard, snake and stingray skins in his designs.

peta