This story is part of a series supported by Animal Charity Evaluators, which received a grant from EarthShare. Deep-blue, regulation-happy California is not usually imagined as factory farm country. But the state leads the US in agricultural output, and it is, by a wide margin, America’s top producer of dairy, one of the most brutal sectors in our food system. And it turns out that one of the most foundational, most disturbing practices found in modern dairy farming may already be illegal under a California animal cruelty law — but state officials have shown little inclination to loo...