HumaneWatch

Sacramento is (as one political writer recently quipped) "where good ideas go to die, and where bad ideas kill them slowly." It's also an iron-clad lobbying stronghold of the Humane Society of the United States.

On Saturday, the paper of record in California's capital published our op-ed about the politics of eggs in the Golden State. Here's a taste:

What's really at stake here is that word: "humane." HSUS seems to want a monopoly on it, even though other animal welfare-oriented groups – and plenty of scientists – disagree with its agenda. And that agenda is where the rubber meets the road: HSUS is run by vegans who don't believe anyone should eat eggs, regardless of how or where they were produced.

Most recently, HSUS has opposed attempts by California lawmakers to specifically define the standards mandated by Proposition 2. The very vague language that California voters approved in 2008 gives HSUS's enormous legal team enough wiggle room to hassle farmers who don't see things HSUS's way.

Of course, enriched chicken cages could be furnished with couches, Jacuzzis, treadmills and iPads, and activists who believe in "rights" for birds would still complain about them. HSUS is among them. And its vision of what's "humane" is outside the mainstream.

Click here to read the whole essay.

Disclaimer: No one at HumaneWatch is a constitutional lawyer. We don’t even play them on TV. So if any genuine legal eagles out there have a smarter or more cogent analysis of this, we’re all ears.

Maybe California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has forgotten about all those thermoses full of raw eggs he used to gulp down in his bodybuilding days. Or perhaps he’s still mad at the anonymous protester who hurled a raw egg at him during a 2003 campaign stop. (Schwarzenegger shook it off and said “this guy owes me bacon now.”)

But for whatever reason, the Governator signed a bill into law earlier this month (“AB 1437”) which could “Terminate” the concept of cheap, plentiful eggs in his state. The new law, heavily promoted and lobbied by the Humane Society of the United States, will extend the reach of Proposition 2—the 2008 ballot initiative requiring egg farmers to give their chickens far more precious real estate. AB 1437 requires eggs imported into California to follow the Proposition 2 standards imposed on in-state farmers.

Both Proposition 2 and this new companion law will take effect in January 2015. So we can expect four more years legal wrangling over just how much wing-flapping room the law requires for each bird.

Oh, goodie.

This morning the HumaneWatch blog received a comment from an unusual visitor: David Phillips, the Prosecuting Attorney for Union County, Ohio.

Union County, you’ll remember, was the site of a recent animal rights controversy that erupted after Billy Jo Gregg, a lone dairy farm employee, physically abused several animals while an undercover activist from Mercy For Animals (MFA) passively watched and videotaped. (The Humane Society of the United States claimed it didn't have a clue about this "investigation," but it quickly and cheerfully promoted the result.)

Gregg remains behind bars and faces several serious criminal charges (as he should). But Phillips has been left with the unenviable task of cleaning up the legal mess that Gregg left in his wake.

With “Governator” Schwarzenegger signing an HSUS-backed bill extending "Proposition 2" egg requirements to out-of-state farmers selling eggs in California, one thing seems clear: HSUS will continue proposing policies that drive up the cost of eggs, and then fight tooth and nail to get them implemented.

One California egg producer has already spent $3.2 million on changes to its facilities just to comply with Proposition 2’s future requirements. And HSUS is saying that it’s not enough.

Why? Because the company upgraded its cages to add more room. (The result is known as “enriched cages” or “furnished cages.”) HSUS wants all California egg farmers to go completely cage-free.

So is HSUS being a bunch of uncompromising ideologues, or is this one egg producer trying to skirt the rules?

Consider a few things: The American Humane Certified program, run by the American Humane Association, took the position last month that enriched cages for egg-laying are indeed "humane." Animal welfare specialist Temple Grandin—yes, the Temple Grandin, herself oft-quoted by HSUS leaders—thinks these new cages are a big improvement over the old ones. And enriched cages will be standard in most of Europe in 2012.

Somebody is left out on the fringes here, and its initials are H.S.U.S.

Here’s some interesting news: After hearing days and days' worth of evidence, an Ohio Grand Jury has refused to indict Gary Conklin for any criminal wrongdoing. Conklin owns Conklin Dairy Farm, the site of an undercover “sting” operation by the animal rights group Mercy for Animals (MFA) this spring.

The Humane Society of the United States promoted the resulting video footage, which was heavily edited and creatively spliced together. And HSUS was widely expected to make the video's image the centerpiece of its political campaign this fall. (Of course, that won't happen now...)

MFA's video included footage of Conklin kicking a cow along with images of farm employee Billy Joe Gregg (who still faces 12 criminal counts of animal abuse, remember).

But prosecutor David Phillips told the Associated Press that jurors “saw the unedited video of Mr. Conklin's actions, not the highly inflammatory version released on YouTube" (emphasis added). And four veterinarians with experience in farm animal care also reviewed that (raw) version with the Grand Jurors.

Remember Dr. Michael Greger? He’s the top M.D. at the Humane Society of the United States. (Why is it that HSUS's leadership includes a medical doctor, but no veterinarians? Just a random observation.)

When he's not busy trashing his debating opponents and prosyletizing alongside his favorite Taiwanese cult leader, Greger hits the lecture circuit. And he memorializes his lectures in a series of Humane Society of the United States-branded DVDs that HSUS markets (mostly) to like-minded vegans.

The latest offering in that series is called “Latest in Clinical Nutrition volume 4.” It’s a three-hour presentation that covers a hodgepodge of new health research from the past year. And boy, is it full of gems.

Did you ever want to know about zinc gel for colds? Greasy orange rectal leakage? Diet and marijuana receptors? Greger’s got the latest two-minute blurb.

Of course, some of these are strange topics for HSUS to slap its logo on—since when does an animal rights group care about vinegar?—until you realize that it’s basically a façade for Greger to slip meat-bashing and tofu-loving into a 2-DVD boxed set.

Everyone makes mistakes. My initial analysis of yesterday’s HSUS “Buckeye Compromise” was a hasty first impression, written immediately after the late-day press conference. (Who holds a press conference at 4:30pm anyway?) Since then I’ve heard from a number of people in a variety of walks of life, essentially all saying “yes, but…” on one point or other.

So now that more details of the deal have emerged, it seems like a good idea to revisit the issue with a bit of hindsight—or at least to analyze what happened a little more thoughtfully. In short, I think the self-congratulatory language (from everyone) in the press conference effectively camouflaged the substance of what we’re seeing today on paper. Sticking my customary skepticism in a drawer was my mistake, and mine alone.

Here’s what has emerged in the last 18 hours, and a bit of what the proverbial “devil in the details” could end up meaning: