Animal Rights Hall of Shame: Leland Yee

Criminals, Sex Predators and Drug Addicts. Welcome to the World of Animal Rights.

Meet ex-California state Senator Leland Yee. 

Leland Lee (D-San Francisco/Sam Mateo) is a long-time political operative and animal rights activist in California. He’s also a convicted felon. 

Lee spent a large part of his political career in the pocket of vegan animal rights lawyers like the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) pushing their anti-animal legislation on gullible California residents. When he wasn’t a guest speaker at animal rights activism seminars held by HSUS California State Director Jennifer Fearing, he was advocating for gun control and even more hysterically, “campaign finance” reform.

I do not think those words mean what you and I think they mean. For more discerning locals, they didn’t mean what Yee wanted them to mean either.

Rose Pak, a “Chinatown powerbroker,” told the Guardian that Yee had “no moral character.” She rattled off a list of her (unconfirmed) suspicions — “How did the guy manage to buy a million-dollar house on a $30,000 City Hall salary?” — but the gist was clear: Pak didn’t trust him.

That great campaign finance ‘reform’ that Yee was always advocating for meant that his office was for sale to the highest bidder. He regularly exchanged votes and agendas for cash as your typical play to play politician. From his first seat on a local school board, to a position on the city’s Board of Supervisors to state Senator, Yee was a master at talking out of both sides of his mouth. If you didn’t pay, he didn’t vote for your pet legislation.

"It also demonstrates the sense of entitlement that many of our elected officials feel they have to hold power," he said. Yee "wanted at all costs to hold onto power, and I think voters are tired of it."

When he wasn’t being paid for votes, he was shilling for the ‘cute puppy’ vote by promoting an animal rights animal-less vegan world while being a member of the California legislature’s Animal Protection Caucus. As part of his animal rights advocacy , in 2008, Yee sponsored a HSUS bill called S.B. 685. This legislation protects the rights of the wealthy elite to leave vast sums of money in ‘trust’ for their pets when they die. In reality, the money just goes into the pockets of the people in charge of the trust who use the trust to avoid paying taxes.

Leland Yee co-authored S.B. 1221 along with several other legislators to try and outlaw hunting Bobcats and bears with dogs. Joining him in sponsoring this legislation was now ex-State Senator Ronald Calderon (D-Montebello). In 2012, the California Senate voted to pass the legislation which now goes to the legislature to be considered and bobcat attacks on humans is now rising. 

In 2013, Yee was promoted on the Humane Society Legislative Fund (HSLF)’s Humane Scorecard for being a co-sponsor of one of HSUS’s typical anti-animal bills, the anti-hunting bill A.B. 789 and a supporter of the rest of their legislation that year. Over 150 hunters showed up to testify in opposition to 789 but in urban liberal California it passed anyway.

While Yee maintained a clean-cut image on the surface, those who followed his career closely — and opposed him politically — have viewed him as a contradictory figure from the start.

He was never someone who could be trusted, they say. The signs of corruption have been there all along, and whispers about his beguiling character were part of why he came fifth in the 2011 mayoral election.

Yee’s long reign of corruption was finally stopped in 2014. Not because his fake concern for animals was uncovered. No, Yee was exposed when it was revealed that this dirty politician had been taking bribes for years and had a side business in illegally trafficking in guns.

Yee ended up sitting across from an undercover federal agent in a coffee shop in early March, brokering what he was told was a $2 million arms deal that would include the purchase of shoulder-fired missiles from Islamic rebels in the Philippines.

"Do I think we can make some money? I think we can make some money," Yee told the agent in a conversation recounted in a 137-page arrest affidavit. "Do I think we can get the goods? I think we can get the goods."

Yee was ultimately sentenced to five years in prison on racketeering charges for accepting bribes and offering to smuggle weapons from the Philippines for a New Jersey mob.

Busted the same year as Yee for similar bribery charges was another long time HSUS politician former California state Senator Ronald Calderon.

Animal Rights Hall of Shame: Ronald Calderon

Criminals, Sex Predators and Drug Addicts. Welcome to the World of Animal Rights.

Meet ex-Senator Ronald Calderon.  

Ronald Calderon (D-Montebello) is a long-time political operative and animal rights activist in California. He’s also a convicted felon.

Ronald Calderon was also a long-time water carrier for the vegan lawyers of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). When he wasn’t being paid for votes, he was shilling for the ‘cute puppy’ vote by promoting an animal rights animal-less vegan world as a member of the California legislature’s Animal Protection Caucus.

Calderon is also well-known in Sacramento for accepting gifts, tickets to sporting events, and exotic trips from lobbyists, including first class accommodations in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and the AT&T Pro Am in Pebble Beach. Some estimates of the gifts from special interests are between $45,000 and $60,000, since 2000, significantly more than any other legislator.

In 2013, Calderon was promoted on the Humane Society Legislative Fund (HSLF)’s Humane Scorecard for being a co-sponsor of one of HSUS’s typical anti-animal bills,the anti-hunting bill A.B. 789 and a supporter of the rest of their legislation that year. He signed a letter asking California Congressional leaders to stop the King Amendment to the Farm Bill which would have nullified the attempts of California vegans to control the nations egg supply and deprive the rest of America from enjoying a healthy egg omelet breakfast.

“We can’t let every state decide what’s going on in all the other states or refuse to accept their products,” King said. “We have inspectors from California that are now traveling around Iowa with their tape measures, measuring the cage sizes of our laying hens in Iowa.”

For American’s in fly-over country, they’d rather tell urban liberal Californians to go pound sand than listen to their arty-farty clueless ideas on how to raise chickens. Or as Congressman King, member of the House Agriculture Committee stated, Iowa should not be “held hostage to the demands of California’s vegan lobby and California’s regulatory agencies.” States do not have the Constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce. Of course, state Senator “my vote is for sale” Calderon disagrees.

The indictment describes a scheme in which Ron Calderon allegedly solicited and accepted approximately $100,000 in cash bribes – as well as plane trips, gourmet dinners and trips to golf resorts – in exchange for official acts, such as supporting legislation that would be favorable to those who paid the bribes and opposing legislation that would be harmful to them. The indictment further alleges that Ron Calderon attempted to convince other public officials to support and oppose legislation.

Busted in 2014, the same year as his pal Leland Yee, Calderon was caught accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribe money. He sold his office to the highest bidder and solicited jobs for his son and daughter from constituents. His son in particular was paid $30,000 for just 15 days of work over the summer.

“Mr. Calderon betrayed the public trust,” said U.S. Atty. Eileen Decker. “A basic premise of our society is that elected officials will not exchange their votes for monetary gain and that’s what Mr. Calderon did.”

“Here, defendant’s trafficking in his legislative votes (for, by contrast, over $150,000 in benefits) caused a reverberation of negative effects throughout California and put a stain not just on his career, but on the reputation of the state legislature,” Jenkins wrote.

“Here, defendant sold his vote not just to help pay for the expenses of living beyond his means, but for the more banal and predictable aims of corruption — fancy luxuries, fancy parties and fancy people,” Jenkins wrote, attaching to the file a photo Calderon took with rappers Nelly and T.I. at a Las Vegas event.

Calderon was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison after pleading guilty in federal court in 2016. He admitted to accepting bribes. Huge bribes. Up to the end he kept whining about how he was innocent and this guilty plea would ruin his ‘legacy’ as a politician. Cry me a river.

“I did not really hear Sen. Calderon accept responsibility or apologize,” she said. “It was really about himself.”

While the judge was being forced to listen to Calderon whine about his life, his brother was starting his own prison sentence. Former state Assemblyman Tom Calderon was sentenced to a year in prison for laundering his brother’s bribe money.

California Poised to Outlaw Healthy American Pets

In California, the state legislature is poised to pass AB-485 the so-called “Pet Rescue Adoption Act” to outlaw the sales of healthy pets statewide. The bill is scheduled to be voted on by the California Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee on Monday, June 26th, 2017.  This bill mandates that California pet stores deliberately sell sick and diseased animals with no known background or history from unregulated sources instead of traceable licensed, inspected and healthy American bred pets.

To read more, please see my article posted on Joe for America.

No Surprise, Alleged Arsonist was Animal Rights Extremist

A neighborhood was terrorized recently by a string of eight arson fires that destroyed a seven block radius of Alameda, California. The fires torched houses, two apartments, five businesses, four delivery trucks, two cars, and various trash bins. The main target heavily hit was Angela’s, a Mediterranean restaurant, that was uninsured and under renovation at the time. Also destroyed were a dry cleaners, a single family home and other buildings.

Shocking no one who follows animal rights terrorism, one of the two arson suspects arrested was a vegan animal rights extremist. Many news articles quote his friends and family who referred to him a pacifist who could never have done this. The very last thing that an animal rights extremist is, is pacifist. Dead last.  If he was a pacifist, why is he a member of the Vegan Anarchist/Total Liberation Network on Facebook?  That doesn't sound very pacifist to me.  Here's his views on eating meat.  

In this massive arson attack businesses have been destroyed, homes were destroyed, personal possessions destroyed, and lives were put at risk, all so two boys can play with matches.  After being caught at the scene of one of the arson fires, Stephen Michael Petersen is currently in jail on a $750,000 bond (now reduced to $375,000).  Here's another one of his lovely Facebook postings.  Wonder if he's being served "vegan" food in jail?  

Then there is this gem he posted on Facebook, showing him protesting against legitimate and necessary medical research with fake propaganda from an animal rights group.  I guess his college studies in "English Literature" and his work as a "folk singer" really prepared him well to talk with coherence and experience about medical research, right?  

At the same time as this left wing over-educated carrot was allegedly playing with matches, the FBI announced that they are going to be tracking crimes of "Animal Cruelty" in their databases.  Fun times!   Why?  Because the FBI is going to be tracking farmers, dog breeders, zoo owners, and other animal owners, and NOT dippy carrot-heads like Stephen Michael Petersen.  The animal rights front has been responsible for the passage of laws in many areas that make every day animal owners guilty of "animal cruelty."  Examples include: in California, if you sell an animal in a public place, that is "animal cruelty."  In Virginia, if the animal is living and has a pulse, you can be convicted of "animal cruelty" under the gaping holes in their laws that have already convicted or charged people for the crimes of fleas, failure to brush a dog's teeth, and the horrific offense of feeding stray cats.  In New Jersey, the SPCA threatened to charge people with animal cruelty if they failed to put a seat-belt on their dog.  To the FBI, these are the criminals they'll be tracking, not Junior Firestarter here.  

Once again, animal rights terrorists prove that they are the real criminals, not animal owners.  

Combating Evil in Riverside, California

What if your world consisted of breeding and showing top quality dogs in the show ring? What if you became world famous for your dogs? What if you won top awards for your years of effort?  What if, you became known worldwide as a wonderful person with beautiful dogs?  Wouldn't that be something to be proud of?  What if this was your life’s work?  What if, at the end of this long wonderful career in which you have been known for your experience and your knowledge of what makes a good dog; what if someone took that all away from you? What would you call someone like that?

Anti-human hatred shown by animal rights terrorists has taken another victim, this time in Riverside, California. This shouldn't come as any surprise as Riverside is a hot bed of terrorism.  In my recent book, I covered an attack on a pheasant farm by members of the Animal Liberation Front.  An attack in which these activists caused animals to die.  

In July of 2014, a 92 year old woman and her two housemates lost their home to a fire. It burned down. They are now homeless. Luckily they were not harmed in the fire. But who else is homeless? Their 61 both retired and currently showing champion Shetland Sheepdogs. Under duress and with nowhere else to turn, Riverside Animal Control bullied this elderly lady into surrendering her dogs.  All of them.  Instead of helping this woman after a lifetime of achievement in dogs, all Riverside Animal Control could think of was how much money they could exploit from this situation and take advantage of this lady.  Isn't this elder abuse?

In the beginning, Riverside screwed up. They admitted to the media that the dogs were in excellent condition, with wonderful temperaments, and would be available for sale within three days. They admitted that they had hundreds of people lined up to buy these dogs at top dollar.  The pictures released by the media showed immaculately clean dogs.  Dogs that were of multiple colors but most importantly the white parts of the dogs were shining WHITE.  Then the blow-back started. 

People came forward with legally binding contracts claiming ownership over a number of those dogs. As is typical in the show world, many champion dogs have several co-owners, and many breeders have contracts that forbid an animal shelter from taking custody of their dogs. If the primary owner can no longer care for the dog, by contract, it goes back to the original breeder, not to an animal shelter. This is standard practice among responsible dog breeders and shelters know this.  Riverside suddenly faced losing some of the massive profit they envisioned they’d rake in from this tragedy.  Now, in a two – faced turn around, they have suddenly decided to charge the 92 year old woman with animal cruelty and claim that she is an animal abuser in order to retain custody of property they obtained by coercion and under duress. Their claim for charges of animal cruelty was that some of the dogs needed "brushing" after the fire. Well excuse me! How many people reading this article wouldn't need their hair brushed after being rescued from a burning home? Since when is that animal abuse?

"Basically these dogs were fed, and nothing else was done for them."
 Chief Veterinarian Dr. Allan Drusys, Riverside Animal Control.

Really? A top show champion had "nothing else" done for them? And we are supposed to believe that? Dogs that have been shown in the show ring tend to have their own personal staff fussing over them 24/7.  Animal rights terrorists love to lie to the public because most members of the public have never been to a dog show and have no idea how the dogs are treated there.  I'll give you a hint, show dogs are treated like royalty.  Dr. Drusys, who apparently loves pitbulls dead, rather than alive, smeared on the slander by stating that the show dogs were tick infested and "living in filth."  Really?  Then why did the media photos of the dogs look so immaculate?  How is a tri-colored dog kept white if its living in filth?  Check out this dog being rescued from the fire.  It is perfectly brushed and clean.

To add to the dung heap, rescue zealots claimed the dogs had never been groomed in their entire lives, had never seen a veterinarian in their entire lives and had never had any dental care.  If that was true, how did they earn a championship in the show ring and beat other competitors?  How did a Judge put these dogs up for awards if they had never been groomed, or never seen a veterinarian?  Answer me that one.   One rescue zealot even expressed the opinion that because the fire victim was a dog breeder, she deserves to become homeless.  Still others spread about the story that a "puppy mill" was busted even though none of the dogs were bred and there were no puppies.  Still others screamed that "no one can care for 61 dogs" ignoring the fact that 3 people lived there full time caring for the dogs and an external support staff assisted.  Boarding kennels regularly house hundreds of animals without anyone screaming that "no one can care for so many" why are dog show people being so vilified?   Rescue drama queens love to pile on the pathos in every situation in which a dog breeder is involved because it feeds their egos. Average Americans have no idea they are being lied too.

"There were 50 people waiting to adopt 20 dogs, and we probably had 200 people come to the shelter interested today,"

said shelter employee Kim McWhorter.

As I said, hundreds lined up to buy these dogs as they were sold off making huge profit for these rescue zealots.   Interesting how all of these people wanted a purebred champion dog at a bargain basement price instead of buying the usual mixed breed mutt that is available in most shelters.  Its doubtful that any of these buyers have an understanding of what a Shetland Sheepdog is, let alone how to care for one.  

“I was second in line and I got mobbed and shoved,” said Renee Bengston 

of Riverside. She said some might be overcome by the prospect 

of getting one of the dogs without regard to the animals’ needs.

The story gets worse.  It turns out that evil Dr. Drusys who see's abuse everywhere he turns is infamous in California. He was also one of the forces behind AB 1634 (2007) and SB 250 (2009) that would have mandated spay and neuter for every single living cat and dog in California, making pet breeding illegal for the entire state.  No more puppies for you!  It's been said that by an amazing co-incidence, those who testified against Dr. Drusys's legislative efforts, then received 'welcome wagon visits' from local animal control nazi's having a little lookie-loo at their animals.  Can you say, retaliation? 

Now contrast this situation with another one happening at the same time but in New Jersey.  Here in Riverside, California, you have an Animal Control Agency that has successfully stole 61 champion dogs who were in excellent health and condition and worth a massive pile of money and they are talking about charging the owner with animal cruelty for the sin of being a dog breeder.  That is her crime.  She was a dog breeder and shower.   At the exact same time as this poor woman had her house burn down, in New Jersey, real actual animal cruelty was taking place.  

In New Jersey, an animal rescuer, was responsible for the deaths of over 300 animals and was caught with more than 60 live ones.  She deliberately killed 300 animals.  She brought them in, stacked them up in a basement and walked away and let them starve to death.  She had possession of upwards of 400 animals that she was storing on two different properties.  Her punishment?  Guilty of 1 count of animal cruelty and lots of calls for "compassion" for her, claims that she was "well intended," and asking for "leniency" in sentencing.  She got probation and a small fine.  She killed 300 animals!  What part of that isn't crystal clear? 

Why is the Sheltie breeder being vilified and treated much worse than an actual case of real live cruelty to animals? Where is the heart for the 92 year old woman and her two housemates who spent their lives treating their dogs like royalty? Where is the helping hand? Where is the love and compassion for these three people burned out of their house? When will America wake up and understand that Animal Rights is ultimately a guise for anti-human hatred and full scale theft of property?