The story is sad, true, and repeated millions of times: a pet-lover sees a video of neglected puppies or lost kittens, feels the tug on the heart strings, and calls an 800-number or logs onto a website and makes a donation. That donation, chances are, is going to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). The donor assumes her money is going to help those poor defenseless dogs and kitties, and will be funneled from the “national organization” down to the thousands of local animal shelters and pet rescues across the country.

Nothing, however, could be farther from the truth.

HSUS is perhaps the most sophisticated and successful political activist organization in the world. Backed by a $200 million dollar warchest and over $120 million in annual contributions, the organization is well-funded, and run by one of the most politically savvy operatives in activism today.

Driven by a radical vegan agenda to end the consumption of meat and animal products in this country, along with fostering prohibitions on animal entertainment venues like the circus and rodeo, the organization rarely discusses their actual agenda “on the air.” Instead, their advertisements and fundraising literature focus where focus groups tell them they’ll have the most impact on potential donors: with cute critters that nearly everyone has in their own home.

WSB-TV in Atlanta pulled back the curtain of HSUS’ multi-million dollar political organization to ask the question most donors never do: where does the money go?

<object data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/ta8GdABQPHA” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode=”transparent” width=”425″ height=”350″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/ta8GdABQPHA” /><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent” /></object>

WSB has since pulled the video from its own website under alleged threat of legal pressure from HSUS, who employ a staff of over 1,000 activists, lawyers, and political operatives, including key lobbyists in nearly every state of the union.