Readers' Comments

As Karen points out (see above) the HSUS do tremendous work shutting down puppy mills. They also work to crack down on dog fighting - rescuing thousands of dogs from both of these types of operations and pushing for stricter laws to bring an end to these forms of abuse.

They provide spay-neuter clinics, which is perhaps one of the most puppy-friendly things to do, all the while leading dedicated campaigns for adoption through public service announcements and awareness campaigns that your small local shelter would never be able to afford.

Their website and magazines are always providing information for dog owners on how to care for their pets and solve "problem behaviors" - one of the biggest reasons why pets get abandoned. This helps to stem the tide of dogs that end up in shelters, and create sociable and well-trained animals that can be more easily adopted should anything happen to their owners.

Their Disaster Response teams provide assistance and medical care in times of emergency, and thanks to donors they have the necessary equipment to carry out their missions. Their trained rescuers have helped save thousands of pets in need.

Finally, their Street Dog Welfare program works to help alleviate the suffering encountered by dogs in developing countries, where overpopulation is a problem.

They seem like a pretty dog-gone dog friendly bunch to me! Just because the HSUS does not run any dog shelters per se does not mean that they don't help a LOT of dogs on a daily basis!

When it comes to farm animals (the last on their list, actually) their main concern is bringing an end to factory farming - one cruel practice at a time. In fact, they encourage better husbandry practices (like cage-free farming) and bring much needed public support to farmers who are invested in the welfare of their animals.

Finally, a lot of people working for HSUS do indeed seem to love animals enough to have personally sworn off from eating them, and are not ashamed to let their choices be known.

At the same time, their website and most of their articles concerning diet ask people to simply *reduce* their meat and dairy consumption. I would hardly call promoting Meatless Mondays and a "flexitarian" approach to be a "PETA type agenda".

Amazingly poignant

First of all, ITVS is NOT an arm of PBS; while it contributes films to PBS, it is completely independent of the network. Second, the dispute about Park Avenue, which was part of the PBS national schedule, was between the New York affiliate WNET and ITVS...it had nothing to do with PBS the network which fed the damn film! This difference of opinion about Citizen Koch is between ITVS, an aggregator of independent films and a producer; guess what, this happens all the time...let me repeat, all the time...in the TV business. I find it fascinating that ITVS, which has been a champion of independent filmmakers for years, has been completely ignored and disrespected by a handful of "news" outlets that can't get the simplest facts straight; and if you're going to trash PBS, shouldn't there at least be a quote from someone at PBS? Every one of these articles just parrot the same BS...I guess conspiracy theories aren't just the purview of the far right.

I agree that every CITIZEN should be encouraged to vote. What I will NOT tolerate is dead people voting, people voting multiple times , convictedf felons voting OR NON CITIZENS given the privileges of citizenship by giving them the right to vote. If this amendment is ever written it must include provisions on how we identify who is and who is NOT a citizen ans staes must be allowed to clean out their voting roles and remove the dead voters. Let's improve the system so that people cannot vote twice or more. Your arguement of "college stipudents"--they can vote absentee at their home address, rather than voting twice once at their college polling place and again as an absentee. Seniors can easily get an ID. All of the seniors that the Dems carried to the polls-- how about carrying them to get an ID or help them vote absentee. There are very few voters who cannot find a way to vote,but mynfearnis those who vote multiple times.

The statute demands 501 C4 activities be EXCLUSIVELY devoted to the public welfare.
Why is it the media and all complaintants can even question the issue?
Why is that fact not quoted every time the discussion is approached??
Why isn't our brave Congressional Committee facing that fact and ending the controversy?

Calling PBS all the names you used shows you don't know what you're talking about. PBS has very good shows...Nature, NOVA, Masterpiece... just to name a few...and has educated many on many subjects way before History Channel, Discovery, NatGeo, "Arts & Entertainment," Science Channel. Give credit where credit is due. I'll assume you're too young to remember pre-1990 TV.

The New Yorker is hardly journalism at work???? Obviously you do not read it, nor have you read the work of Jane Meyer. Nor have you read the article in the New Yorker, as the issue is less what Koch is up to and more the sucking up to him that WNET management did.

Seeing the "stop-specific-voters" attempts on the part of Republican majority states during the past election and still now trying to sneak the legislation into being - I am convinced that the current 1% and their cronies in power are determined to restore the country back to pre-1920-thereabouts voting and make sure that those they consider 'ignorant' (some of them are!) do not have any right to vote for anyone that is not in support of their agenda. We all know what happens when any group are the 'chosen ones' - they automatically begin to think of themselves as special, with God-given rights to the level they are at, and look down on anyone not in their group as not-deserving of the same consideration.
We probably would all be doing exactly the same thing ourselves, BUT that does not make it ok ! We need to make sure those who are foolish enough to think they are part of the chosen ones also (because they vote for them?) get an education asap in what the chosen ones are REALLY up to - you low-level Repubs will suddenly find yourselves with no rights
and it will all be entirely YOUR fault !!!!
I guess that is when the country types get their guns out and start fighting, and they will need to fight their own party, not the Dems !!
They are so dumb, they don't even realise who their enemies really are !!

I know you must need a boogeyman and all, but you have to realize that not all of those things are the same. The Cato Institute has long had a poor relationship with the Ayn Rand Institute, because they don't believe the same things. The people promoting Ayn Rand are the Wall Street and Silicon Valley types and wannabes with delusions of grandeur, who believe they are heroes holding up the world, and haven't yet figured out that Michael Douglas's character in a certain '80s movie directed by Oliver Stone was supposed to be the bad guy.

I'm opposed to some basic tenets of libertarian philosophy, but as a whole, most libertarians are not that bad, compared to the people who still dominate the Republican Party. I'd prefer it to getting fundamentalist morality forced on me, a police state, or perpetual war to Americanize the world, to say the least.

Seriously, you're taking this rich guy and his brother, and making them the supreme evil responsible for all of the ills the U.S. faces, when I'm sure they probably have more than a few views that a lot of you agree with. The collective decisions of the very wealthy as a class, perhaps, but one or two dudes are not the problem you're looking for.

when david koch or sheldon adelson appear on this list alongside bill gates and warren buffett, i'll consider them philanthropists.

http://givingpledge.org/

that's like calling the koch brothers ENVIRONMENTALISTS. they can say they are philanthropists or environmentalists, but their actions belie those claims.

I get every program I need off youtube. I would gladly donate $5 to the film if they through it up on youtube.