A historic ban on factory farms is on the ballot in the heart of Big Ag this November – and early polling suggests it has a chance at victory. I speak to Curtis Vollmar, the President of Compassionate Bay, who breaks down the wild developments in Sonoma County. - Follow Curtis Vollmar: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/curtis_v0llmar/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/F1v3K XTwitter: https://x.com/Curtis_V0llmar TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@curtis_v0llmar LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.co...
Aug 02, 2024•1 hr 50 min
Imagine being shy and putting yourself in positions where people will scream at you, attack you, and literally bring out a whip to lash you and your friends. That’s Jack Higgs. Jack is an influencer, animal rights activist, and long-time companion to Tash Peterson. And he’s got fascinating lessons in courage, disruption, and how to create change. - Follow Jack Higgs: IG: https://www.instagram.com/jackhiggs269/ YouTube: www.youtube.com/@jackhiggs269 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jackhiggs269...
Jul 30, 2024•1 hr 41 min
Episode 22: Reason is the source of moral truth. There are few people on this planet who have done more to defend that proposition than Peter Singer. And I was honored to sit down with Peter, nearly 50 years after the publication of Animal Liberation, to see what he’s learned about the journey to a reason-based system of ethics. Substack: https://boldreasoningwithpetersinger.substack.com/ Website: https://www.petersinger.info/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peter__singer/ Facebook: https:/...
Jul 26, 2024•1 hr 25 min
Episode 21: Can violence ever be justified? In the wake of the Trump assassination attempt, I had an intense discussion with Richard Burgess, aka Vegan Gains. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vegangains.real/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VeganGains Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VeganGainsOfficialAllan Lichtman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keys_to_the_White_House - The Simple Heart on Substack - Subscribe to Wayne Hsiung's newsletter to learn more about the #RightToRescue at h...
Jul 23, 2024•1 hr 47 min
Episode 20: The meat industry isn’t just lying. It’s engaged in a crime spree of epic proportions. - Animal Rising's RSPCA Investigation video: https://youtu.be/OfM5VRMl7wk YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Animal.Rising IG: https://www.instagram.com/animal.rising/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/AnimalRising XTwitter: https://twitter.com/AnimalRising Website: https://www.animalrising.org/ - The Simple Heart on Substack - Subscribe to Wayne Hsiung's newsletter to learn more about the #RightToRescue...
Jul 19, 2024•47 min
Everyone is wrong about why Thomas Crooks tried to kill Donald Trump. People on the right blame overheated rhetoric on the left. People on the left condemn the right’s historical support for political violence. But this all misses the point. There are three long-term trends in human society that made sometime like Thomas Crooks’ actions virtually inevitable – the rise of loneliness, the normalization of political aggression, and the decline in social trust – and animal rights presents compelling...
Jul 16, 2024•40 min
Episode 18: One of the most reputable animal welfare organizations in the world, the RSPCA, spent millions of dollars certifying the meat that consumers buy in the United Kingdom. They put their stamp of approval on the products – initially, “Freedom Food” then “RSPCA Assured” – and even big companies like McDonald’s joined the program. Then Rose Patterson and her team at Animal Rising looked into the farms. And what they found, to most consumers, was shocking: thousands of animals crammed into ...
Jul 12, 2024•1 hr 59 min
For decades, the vivisection industry and government covered up the torture of puppies like Julie, a blind beagle at Ridglan Farms. For one year, she lived alone in a 2’ x 4’ metal cage, where the wire flooring dug into her paws. Then, on April 17, 2017, she was saved. I tell the story of Julie’s rescue with Jeremy this week. And in the next few weeks, we go to court in an effort to save them all. - The Simple Heart on Substack - Subscribe to Wayne Hsiung's newsletter to learn more about the #Ri...
Jul 09, 2024•2 hr 11 min
For decades, the government has been covering up the torture of tens of thousands of dogs – and even trying to imprison those who blow the whistle on the abuse. On July 10, we will be in court to turn the tables on the industry and present evidence to support our petition to appoint a “special prosecutor” against Ridglan Farms. This is one of the wildest stories I’ve ever told. And if it ends the way I hope it will, it will mean freedom for 60,000 dogs. - The Simple Heart on Substack - Subscribe...
Jul 05, 2024•59 min
Most of us avoid being controversial. Tash Peterson does the opposite - and she’s become one of the most influential animal advocates in the world as a result. From walking into a Louis Vuitton with her own menstrual blood smeared over her naked body to breaking into factory farms, Tash does everything she can to invite, not avoid, controversy. And she’s made front page news (and earned 100,000+ followers on YouTube) as a result.What can all of us learn from her experience? I invited Tash onto t...
Jul 02, 2024•1 hr 41 min
On June 3, 2024, one of the largest dog research and breeding facilities, Envigo, was fined a record $22 million for violating federal animal welfare laws. As a result of the same proceeding, 4000 dogs were saved from life in a cage – or, worse, death at the hands of a vivisector in a lab. It’s been one of the biggest victories in animal rights history. But how did it happen? Dr. Alka Chandna, a Vice President of Lab Investigations at PETA, was crucial to the fight against Envigo, and she breaks...
Jun 28, 2024•2 hr 1 min
Most people believe our legal system protects animals from cruelty. And most people, in holding this belief, are wrong. I speak to the renowned animal law scholar and attorney Mariann Sullivan on how the law has been used to cover up cruelty through a series of exemptions to animal cruelty law for “customary practices” in the industry. Essentially, if a factory farm commits an act of animal torture enough times – e.g., forcibly impregnating thousands of dairy cows, rather than just one – it can ...
Jun 25, 2024•1 hr 54 min
Animal rights content has taken a big hit on social media. Could the food industry influence be to blame? Check out my conversation with activist, cruelty investigator, and YouTube influencer Vegan Gaze! Follow Elle on social media: YouTube (main channel): https://www.youtube.com/@vegangaze Patreon: patreon.com/theflemface Links: https://direct.me/vegangaze - The Simple Heart on Substack - Subscribe to Wayne Hsiung's newsletter to learn more about the #RightToRescue at https://simpleheart.org! -...
Jun 21, 2024•1 hr 23 min
Walking into a factory farm is like going through a dimensional portal into hell. But this conversation will show you something surprising about going to hell: it’s well worth the trip. David Ramms is one of the funniest, most intelligent activists out there. But he’s also one of the bravest. He has been inside factory farms across Europe, and what he’s learned is that there’s immense power in seeing firsthand what’s happening in the dark. We talk in this conversation about how we can get more p...
Jun 18, 2024•1 hr 55 min
Jeremy Beckham is the reason Julie the beagle is alive. Back in 2015, Jeremy told me about a secretive facility called Ridglan Farms that was producing thousands of beagles for experiments every year. Documents uncovered by Jeremy and other activists showed evidence of piles of burning animals, hundreds of dogs being subjected to painful procedures (including, we later learned, injections of rabies), and thousands confined in industrial warehouses at Ridglan. But despite complaints of dangerous ...
Jun 14, 2024•1 hr 46 min
In January 2014, James Aspey took a year-long vow of silence. For 365 days, James did not use his voice, in an effort to raise awareness to the suffering of animals. And when he finally spoke, his words had great power. He reached millions of people in his first interview for Australian television, then gave hundreds of talks across the globe (virtually all free of charge) to encourage people to take action to help animals. But James, in many vegan circles, is now a villain. The reasons for this...
Jun 11, 2024•2 hr 11 min
Vegan Gains thinks I’m a scumbag. And I’m grateful. Richard Burgess, or Vegan Gains, is among the most important vegan influencers in history. His brand of fierce advocacy has generated a big following, with over 300k subscribers on YouTube. But while there is much to appreciate about Richard – he is wicked smart and has provocative, evidence-based views on everything from organic food (he’s against it) to carnivores in the wild (he thinks they should be exterminated) – the thing I love most abo...
Jun 07, 2024•1 hr 55 min
We live in an era of social movements. From #BlackLivesMatter to #FreePalestine, massive mobilizations of ordinary people have seized the national agenda – and reshaped policy of nations across the globe. How does it all happen? And can we do the same for animal rights? Dan Kidby is the co-founder of the UK-based Animal Rising, formerly Animal Rebellion, one of the most successful grassroots efforts in animal rights history. He and his fellow organizers have occupied massive meat markets, shut d...
Jun 04, 2024•2 hr 20 min
What does it take to save a pig from a factory farm? There are few people who understand this question better than Jenny McQueen, a Canadian activist who has been arrested, charged, and convicted for her nonviolent actions to help pigs in factory farms. But her story is not a sad one. To the contrary, Jenny has repeatedly and proudly risked her freedom, and garnered positive media attention in the process. What are the keys to her success? And what we can all the rest of us learn from her story?...
May 31, 2024•1 hr 46 min
Among the most important philosophers of our era – Peter Singer and Martha Nussbaum and Yuval Noah Hariri – animal agriculture is a historic atrocity. In both the scale and severity of suffering, there has never been an episode in history where so much evil has been inflicted, and so many. And yet even animal rights advocates rarely speak of what happens to animals in such terms. Why? I speak to Jeremy Loeb, formerly a journalist and radio host with NPR affiliates in North Carolina and Alabama, ...
May 28, 2024•1 hr 57 min
Most people who realize what's been happening to animals are shaken by the experience. But Jamie Logan, an influencer, activist, and podcast host ho has been arrested for her work for animals, always has a happyface, even when she's confronting some of the most disturbing atrocities in thehistory of the planet earth. How does she manage that, and why us her "happy" approach so crucial to making change? You'll heat the answers to these and other questions in this fascinating, fun conversation I h...
May 24, 2024•1 hr 29 min
To the world, it was a heavenly egg farm. But for Mei, it was hell. For the last decade, I and other activists have been rescuing animals from the most violent places on earth. And, in many cases, this cruelty is part of a corporate cover-up. Direct Action Everywhere co-founder Ronnie Rose, a team member on our first open rescue, talks about how we built a team to expose the fraud underlying the food system and rescue animals like Mei from the brink of death. We talk about why we launched our in...
May 21, 2024•1 hr 43 min
A recent study by scholars at UC Berkeley and Yale shows that changing a person’s media consumption from Fox News to CNN had statistically significant impacts on “factual beliefs, attitudes, perceptions of issues’ importance, and overall political views.” But the media rarely covers issues such as animal rights. How do we change that? And what can each of us learn from media experts about how to create change? This conversation with Jessica Scott-Reid, who has placed powerful animal rights stori...
May 17, 2024•1 hr 44 min
Two moments in my life changed everything, and taught me important lessons about changing the world. The first was when, as a child, I saw a dog being beaten to death for the first time. The second was when, as an adult, I walked into a slaughterhouse for the first time. and saw a little lamb -- then plunged into the abattoir and tried to save her. This episode of my new YouTube show will offer some lessons on what I learned from those two moments, not just about myself but about how to change t...
May 14, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Wayne delves into his emotional and profound journey, fresh from his release from jail following the Sonoma Trial. This episode provides a candid exploration of Wayne's time behind bars, offering a unique perspective on the parallels between jail life and factory farms. Listeners will gain insight into the sentencing and probation conditions imposed on Wayne, highlighting the restriction that prevents him from seeing 14 of his "co-conspirators," including Priya. This episode poignantly covers th...
Dec 27, 2023•1 hr 29 min
The heart-wrenching ordeal of Ruby the horse in Sonoma County unveiled a chilling viewpoint entrenched in our legal system: "Animals are property," as the County's Operations Manager for Animal Control voiced. But this is not where the conversation ends. Steven Wise, affiliated with the Nonhuman Rights Project, pushes back, advocating fervently for the recognition of animal personhood. He draws parallels to past societal injustices, where marginalized groups, such as women and people of color, w...
Sep 20, 2023•11 min
Wayne dives into the scorching reality of the summer of 2023, officially declared by the UN as the hottest on record . As the tendrils of climate change tighten their grip, our planet is subjected to catastrophic consequences. From the disturbing Maui fires to the harrowing tales of animals and humans alike struggling against nature's fury, the evidence is overwhelming. But is nature truly to blame? Our deep dive into the issue reveals a stark reality – humans' callous disregard for our natural ...
Sep 13, 2023•6 min
Animal activists Priya and Wayne discuss the essence of open rescue, emphasizing its symbolic role in the animal rights movement beyond just a tactic. Sharing their experiences of facing trials, challenges with the legal system, and personal confrontations with powerful entities, they reflect on their inspirations, particularly the animals they seek to save. The story underscores the sacrifices they’re willing to make and the importance of standing up for what is right, even against overwhelming...
Sep 03, 2023•34 min
Dive deep with Wayne into The Simple Heart’s eye-opening post, “ How Saving One Hen Can Save Billions. ” In 2017, Julianne Perry rescued a calf, leading many to question how we could save all 12,000 who were left behind. Perry set the stage for a debate that extended far beyond the confines of a single animal rescue. This episode explores the societal rules that bind us and the monumental impact of a story. Discover why institutions hold the key, how the Sonoma Rescue Trial symbolizes a turning ...
Aug 25, 2023•23 min
Curtis Vollmar was convicted in Utah for leafleting on a public sidewalk. Tracy Murphy was charged with grand larceny for aiding two stray cows who wandered onto her property. And, most recently, a member of Congress wrote a letter to the FBI asking for action to be taken against "vegan extremists." There is a moral panic over animal rights unfolding across the country – but if we play our hand correctly, we can harness it to make change for animals. I speak with Jeremy Beckham, executive direct...
May 18, 2023•1 hr 42 min
