"Tea partiers" aren't the only ones who've been fixed with the gimlet stare of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Social-action groups such as Greenpeace, the NAACP, and PETA have also been targeted by the agency, and PETA is calling on the U.S. Department of the Treasury to expand the recently announced criminal probe into the IRS' activity to include several audits that targeted PETA's tax-exempt status.

PETA has been subjected to three lengthy, expensive, and disruptive IRS audits, including a 20-month one during the George W. Bush administration, which IRS agents conducting the audit admitted was the result of the agency's bowing to pressure from members of Congress with ties to the meat, the experimentation, and other industries being targeted by PETA campaigns and/or seeing their workers forced to answer to cruelty-to-animals charges as a result of PETA investigations. 

PETA came through each IRS audit with a clean bill of health, but it doesn't say a lot for our democratic process when Congress, at the behest of powerful industries, uses tactics worthy of the East German Stasi to harass and intimidate social-change advocates. For years, PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk could not re-enter the U.S. without being escorted into a back room, having her bags rummaged through, and being detained—sometimes for hours—resulting in missed flight connections.

It doesn't stop there—ever more repressive state laws are being proposed, the latest of which are arguably unconstitutional "ag-gag" bills designed to prevent undercover investigations on factory farms and in slaughterhouses as well as bills to prevent "interference" with or new regulations regarding hunting and fishing. 

What You Can Do

Please visit our action alerts page for opportunities to combat cruelty on factory farms, in laboratories, and wherever else animals are being abused.

Will farmed animals forced into a life they didn't choose lose their protections in the Volunteer State? Not if PETA and music legend Emmylou Harris have anything to say about it!

weeklydig | cc by 2.0

Do Not Resuscitate

With your help, PETA has been able to kill off six state "ag-gag" bills, designed to prevent undercover investigations on factory farms and in slaughterhouses, this year alone. In fact, one such proposal (which had already been gutted and declared unconstitutional) just died in Indiana—despite attempts to revive it in the final hours of the session—after Mary Matalin, Bob Barker, Tony Kanal, and many more concerned folks pressed legislators to oppose the bill.

But an "ag-gag" bill in Tennessee has passed both houses and now sits on the governor's desk, so we asked PETA pal Emmylou Harris to raise her (unforgettable) voice in behalf of farmed animals. In response, Emmylou sent the governor an urgent letter calling on him to veto the measure, Senate Bill 1248, explaining:

How You Can Help

Although this is a state bill, meat from slaughtered animals crosses state lines, so it becomes a national issue. Even if you don't live in Tennessee, you can help stop this bill. The governor needs to hear that concerned people everywhere are watching. Please join Emmylou Harris, Miley Cyrus, Carrie Underwood, Wynonna Judd, Tish Cyrus, and many others by speaking up against Tennessee's "ag-gag" bill today. 

Republican Jim Patterson introduced "ag-gag" Assembly Bill 343 to the California Assembly—if passed, the bill would have likely shut down undercover investigations on factory farms. As it turned out, the bill was what got shut down. There was so much opposition to Assembly Bill 343 that Patterson yanked it out of consideration himself after admitting to the Los Angeles Times that he does care about animal treatment. He is now free to consider measures that protect animals from abuse rather than hide it.

Not surprisingly, the bill was sponsored by the California Cattlemen's Association. But the public outcry against the bill was deafening. Legislators were flooded with e-mails from advocates for animals and free speech, and Republican legislators also got hit with a personal appeal that GOP strategist Mary Matalin filmed for PETA and sent to each legislator herself:

Animal advocates are also making great strides in Indiana, where a proposed "ag-gag" bill has had most of the wind sucked out of its sails. After legislators there also heard from Mary Matalin and throngs of disapproving voters, House Speaker Brian Bosma deemed the bill unconstitutional and legislators promptly gutted it, removing penalties for filming or taking photos on farms. Now we need your help to bring about a similar victory in Tennessee, where legislators passed a proposed "ag-gag" bill, which is now heading to Gov. Bill Haslam's desk for his signature. Tennessee Senate Republican Leader Mark Norris and singer Carrie Underwood have both harshly criticized the unconstitutional measure, and they need everyone's help to stop this bill before it becomes law and makes taking pictures or filming on factory farms illegal. No matter what state you live in, please e-mail Haslam and urge him not to sign Senate Bill 1248. You can also send polite tweets to @BillHaslam. 

Update: Well, that was fast! Shortly after Mary Matalin sent a personal appeal on PETA's behalf urging lawmakers to shelve bills intended to prevent undercover investigations of factory farms, legislators in Arkansas have scrapped their proposed "ag-gag" measures.

Now, let's keep the momentum going—if you live in California, Indiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, or Vermont, please tell your state legislators to drop "ag-gag" bills and protect animals, consumers, and free speech.

The following was originally posted on March 28, 2013:

Republican strategist Mary Matalin and her husband, Democratic consultant James Carville, differ on most political issues—but when it comes to legislative attempts to block undercover investigators from PETA and other organizations from revealing how animals suffer on factory farms, the couple stands united in opposition to "ag-gag" bills.

To that end, Matalin filmed a PETA appeal and sent it to Republican legislators—the primary sponsors of these measures—in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Vermont, highlighting the importance of PETA's undercover work in prosecuting abusers and stopping institutionalized cruelty. After she introduces a video clip about a case that revealed routine beatings and even the sexual abuse of pigs on a Midwestern factory farm and which led to criminal convictions, Matalin states, "A meat-trade magazine called the case a 'wake-up call' for the industry. Unfortunately, factory farms keep hitting the snooze button, and instead of fixing the problems, they're trying to blame the messenger."

What You Can Do

Thanks to the support of concerned citizens, "ag-gag" bills have already been killed in several states, but we can't rest until all lawmakers stop trying to shield lawbreakers. Please join PETA, Mary Matalin, James Carville, Bob Barker, Cloris Leachman, Katherine Heigl, and many other figures from both sides of the aisle in urging legislators to protect consumers' right to know the truth about factory farms. If you live in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, or Vermont, please take action. 

Update: Another one bites the dust! Because of the public outcry following Bob Barker's letter to lawmakers on PETA's behalf (see below), Wyoming has become the latest state to shelve an "ag gag" bill designed to protect animal abusers on factory farms by preventing undercover investigations from being conducted. The irresponsible and dangerous legislation, House Bill 126, died in committee on February 12. Afterward, one of its cosponsors said that the negative attention surrounding the bill was a factor in setting it aside.

Our thanks go out to everyone who responded to PETA's action alert. Why not celebrate this victory by sending your not-yet-vegan friends a link to Meat.org, where they can view footage obtained—legally—from undercover investigations on factory farms?

Originally posted on February 8th, 2013:

PETA pal and TV legend Bob Barker has once again stepped up for animals—this time in Wyoming, where legislators are considering House Bill (H.B.) 126, a measure specifically designed to protect animal abusers within the intensive-agriculture industry, even from law enforcement.

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Bob, a lifelong Republican, has urged the Republican-majority Senate to reject the bill, which could prevent undercover investigators from collecting evidence of routine and systematic animal abuse on farms that is crucial in helping prosecute abusers. Undercover investigations by PETA have revealed the routine beatings, mutilations, sexual abuse, and other severe cruelty to animals prevalent within the meat, dairy, and egg industries and often lead to criminal charges and convictions, including in Iowa, North Carolina, Oklahoma and West Virginia. 

In his letter, Bob writes, "Americans today want better treatment of animals killed for food, not for their legislators to hide illegal cruelty on farms behind locked doors. Over the last few years, I've been joined by figures from all walks of life, from Republican strategist Mary Matalin to animal welfare expert Temple Grandin, in opposing bills similar to H.B. 126, and legislators have listened, as such bills have died or been tabled by sponsors in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, and Tennessee as well as Arkansas, the second-largest poultry-producing state in the nation."

What You Can Do

If you are a Wyoming resident or you know some, please urge (or get them to urge) your state senator to join you and Bob Barker in opposing H.B. 126 today!

Residents of Indiana, Nebraska, and New Hampshire can also contact their legislators to urge them to reject similar bills that have arisen in the agriculture industry's desperate attempt to thwart consumers from learning the truth about the gruesome life and miserable death of animals on factory farms. 

Thanks to our supporters, PETA just brought home the trophy for Favorite Nonprofit Animal Organization in the 2012 Veggie Awards! The annual awards, presented by VegNews Magazine, celebrate "the very best of all things vegan."

What sets PETA supporters apart is that you are determined and committed in the quest for animal rights. When we let you know that someone is abusing animals, you e-mail the perps, demonstrate, and write and call the abuser demanding an end to the cruelty. You speak up, march with us, put on costumes, and even strip down—whatever it takes to make people pay attention to animal welfare issues. You proudly sport our shirts and bumper stickers, proclaiming to everyone that animals are not ours to use and abuse. You drive out in the middle of the night—or in the middle of a hurricane—to rescue animals in peril. And you donate your money to fund undercover investigations, literature, doghouses, spay-and-neuter surgeries, emergency animal rescues, and everything else that we do.

You are the reason that PETA can save as many animals as we do, so we thank VegNews and you. We are honored to share the award for Favorite Nonprofit Animal Organization with every one of you.

Ashley Bell earned a nomination for "Best Scared-as-S**t Performance" at the MTV Movie Awards for her portrayal of the possessed Nell Sweetzer in The Last Exorcism, produced by our buddy Eli Roth. Now, before The Last Exorcism 2 hits theaters, she's releasing an exclusive video for PETA that's scarier than anything even Eli could come up with.

A longtime animal rights activist and vegetarian, Ashley believes that everyone, even if they are scared, should see the videos of PETA's undercover investigations: "[W]hen you really see pictures and videos of what animals go through on a day-to-day basis, you can't get those images out of your head."  

Halloween may be over, but every day is a nightmare for animals on factory farms, in laboratories, and on fur farms. Share Ashley's new video and encourage others to exorcise cruelty.

Last year, PETA helped successfully defeat a series of "ag gag" bills, which would have made it a crime to film cruelty to animals on factory farms, in Florida, Minnesota, and New York. Now, another round of these unconstitutional bills has begun—in Missouri, New York, and Utah—and it's up to us to squelch these measures again.

Time and time again, PETA's undercover investigations of factory farms have produced video evidence of cruelty to animals that has helped authorities prosecute the offenders. Investigators have documented that workers slammed newborn piglets' heads into concrete floors and left them to die in agony, employees at a foie gras farm drowned female hatchlings, and workers at a turkey farm jumped on turkeys' stomachs to make them "pop."

Don't let factory farms hide animal abuse behind shady laws. Here are three ways that you can help animals on factory farms this week:

• No matter where you live, you can urge Utah Gov. Gary Herbert to veto his state's "ag gag" bill.
• For five days, PETA will send out one text message a day with important information about factory farms. Please subscribe to receive these text messages, and forward them to your contacts. In the U.S., text the word FARM to 73822. In Canada, text the word FARM to 99099.*
• Consider making a donation to PETA's campaign to help the billions of animals who are suffering on factory farms.

*Standard messaging and data rates apply. For full terms, please click here.

Most fashion trends don't last beyond a season, but here's one ancient trend that's still en vogue: shunning leather for Yom Kippur. Of course, on the Jewish Day of Atonement, it would be tough to expiate while wrapped in the skin of an animal who had his or her throat cut and was possibly skinned and dismembered while still conscious. But PETA's shocking undercover video shows why wearing leather is never kosher.

We can all be benevolent to bovines every day of the year with drop-dead-gorgeous faux-leather clothes and accessories that no one had to drop dead for.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

 
Just in time for World Week for Animals in Laboratories, PETA has unveiled a new nationwide ad campaign: "If you call it 'medical research,' you can get away with murder." What happens in laboratories—including burning, poisoning, crippling, and blinding animals—would be considered criminal cruelty if it occurred elsewhere. But no experiment—no matter how painful—is prohibited by law. Publicly funded universities work hard to keep their cruel animal experiments a secret: Experimenters know that if people found out that their money was being used to torment and kill animals in crude, painful, and deadly tests, they wouldn't stand for it.  
  

 
PETA's ads, which show graphic, heartbreaking photos from our undercover investigations inside university laboratories, are up on billboards, taxis, and bus shelters and in university newspapers in Boston and in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park. The ads will be appearing in other U.S. cities in the coming weeks.

While PETA is grabbing the public's attention, you can help grab the attention of your representatives in Congress by asking that they divert public money away from experiments on animals in favor of humane, relevant, and lifesaving non-animal research.