Category → Government Of the People…
BLM giving open land a black eye
The Bureau of Land Management was established as a temporary holding entity, dealing more with water management than common natural resources and the plants and animals living on the land under its care.
Now, BLM has become the poster child of Big Government Gone Wild, using armed force and the threat of lethal force, let alone more prosaic forms of terrifying government coercion, to achieve dubious policy goals. Many of these policy goals grate on the public, who perceive them as being at best ancillary to BLM’s mission, if not at odds with the multiple-use land management models the agency is supposed to implement.
Citizens, who own their American government, chafe at official signs that say “No Trespassing – BLM Property,” as though the very taxpayers underwriting BLM are alien invaders upon that government-managed ground.
Job #1 would be to actually communicate with the citizenry about the agency’s policy goals, the underpinnings and purpose of its policies, the reasons for protecting some landscapes from vehicles. Certainly, BLM can achieve better ways to manage environmentally sensitive land, and perhaps asking the citizenry for ideas would take the agency into new, good places. Many users of federally-managed lands are actually savvy about Leave No Trace, and most others at least care, even if they do not yet know how to minimally impact an area.
BLM’s heavy hand in the supposed name of environmental quality is giving all open land a black eye. As a result of BLM’s foolish behavior, all kinds of questions are being asked about public land, not just about how it is managed, but why it even exists. Perhaps it is a good discussion to have, and I certainly stand on the side of having those public spaces, but so far the BLM is just pouring gasoline on the fire, which threatens to overtake all public lands.
Part of any discussion should include What Next about BLM. The agency has clearly outlived its established purpose. My instinctive thinking is to divide up its lands among the agencies best suited to manage each piece – National Park Service for this heavily used area, National Forest for this timbered area, and so on. And no, conveying some of these lands to states is not a bad thing, so long as the deeds carry perpetual stipulations that the lands cannot be sold to private owners or converted to some other use. Mining, timbering, preservation of historic artifacts, water management, passive and active recreation, scenic beauty, ecological purposes…states can do many of these as well as a federal agency, and all without having snipers in fatigues pointing guns at citizens.
If nothing else, getting rid of BLM to get rid of its ridiculous snipers and armed thug culture is a worthy step. Not only is that insane behavior unworthy of a representative government, it is unrelated to the purpose of protecting open land in the first place.
Tom Wolf, you confuse me
Tom Wolf is a candidate for Pennsylvania governor.
He appears to be the front-runner in his party’s primary race. For a number of reasons, he has the greatest amount of voter name recognition and support.
Why candidate Katie McGinty is not taking off, I don’t know. Katie is charismatic, maintains a million-dollar smile, and knows how to effectively communicate with people. She is both infuriatingly liberal and also, in my direct experience, surprisingly capable of being pragmatic and non-ideological. McGinty’s A-rating from the anti-freedom group CeaseFirePA hurts her; Wolf got a C from them, which helps in freedom-friendly Pennsylvania. Why he didn’t get a D, and then really strut his individual liberty credentials, is confusing.
Wolf lacks charisma, but seems to make up for it with his honest-to-goodness aw-shucks folksy way.
Here’s what really confuses me about Wolf: He is a business man who advocates for policies that are bad for business, like an additional tax on over-taxed natural gas.
Tom Wolf, you will probably challenge Tom Corbett for governor. I am a small business owner and I want to see more from you that is business friendly. Otherwise, I remain confused by you.
Accepting the obvious, medical cannabis
Marijuana has a stigma earned many times over. Counter- culture anarchists tuned out with it, and lovers of American culture took note.
But here’s the obvious elephant standing in the room: Marijuana has medicinal virtues separate from its use as a recreational drug. If America routinely uses dangerous and addicting opiates for pain relief, why on earth would we not embrace using something equally as effective, maybe more so, and yet so much safer?
Medical cannabis, or medical marijuana as it is being called, can be tailor-made to treat pain, but not stoner needs. That’s neat. And it is time to embrace this technical advance, or traditional step back, as it were. Thank you, Governor Corbett, for recognizing this need. Many medical patients await effective pain mitigation, and this is it, apparently.
Side note: Like all public policy subjects, this one is also filled with ancillary issues. For example, medical-only hemp (sorry, no buzz for the tokers, no matter how much you huff n’ puff) can be easily grown nearly anywhere in America, thereby displacing medical/ drug poppy cultivation in lovely places like, say, Afghanistan. Displacing poppy growth is a good thing. Not supporting Afghanistan is a good thing. Supporting American agriculture is a good thing.
Yes, drugs are bad. Yes, recreational marijuana is a drug. No, promoting medical cannabis is not the same thing. It is a fact whose time has come. Let’s help people.
Rutgers University: Berlin, 1937
At one time, the Left was “open minded,” “tolerant,” accepting and so on. That sense of righteousness infused the Left’s various movements. There was a grain of truth. People respected the passion. Gave ground. Made room.
Into that room moved the camel’s nose, then the entire camel. No room was left for the normal people.
Now, fully living in the past and the misdeeds of long ago, the children of the Left are on a fascist rampage. Far too open-minded to tolerate differing perspectives, the angry mob attacks and attacks and attacks. Condoleeza Rice, chased from Rutgers University’s commencement, is but the latest twitching corpse left in the mob’s wake. The Brown Shirts are on the march.
Dr. Ben Carson, black like Condi, similarly chased from speaking at a university, is the nicest man on planet Earth. His hands are clean. No quarter given. The racists are on the march.
Folks, if there’s one reason grass roots activists are at war with the Republican Party establishment, it is because not only does the establishment not recognize that we are in a war for America’s soul, they do not recognize that we are in a war for western civilization. And when establishment members do understand it, they are quick to make deals, either for their pecuniary advantage or for delay of the inevitable. They do not stand and fight. Amnesty is a perfect example. Amnesty means the end of the two-party system, and the succession of the Brown Shirts.
It is Berlin 1937, and the question is: Will you stand and fight for liberty?
PA GOP squashes buzzing gnat candidate with atomic bomb
Governor Tom Corbett’s campaign had nothing to fear from primary opponent Bob Guzzardi, a political activist, commentator, business owner, gadfly, and apparently super annoying buzzing gnat, too.
Running on a minimalist platform of leaner and more transparent government, Guzzardi succinctly represents the “Tea Party” damn-the-torpedoes attitude in his $400.00 (yes, that was his campaign war chest) run up the middle against a hulking incumbent’s campaign. Guzzardi had racked up just one Big Media interview that I know of. He struggled for traction in political circles. The likelihood of Guzzardi actually denting Corbett’s armor, much less beating him, was as high as your likelihood of winning the big jackpot lottery – zip.
But that did not stop the incumbent governor’s campaign from doing all it could to get Guzzardi removed from the primary ballot, using PA’s awful election laws. The first attempt failed, as perhaps the only merciful judge on Commonwealth Court held weeks ago that Guzzardi’s purported bureaucratic red tape filing misdeed was de minimus, and that he would remain on the ballot.
Courts are statutorily directed to try to keep candidates on the ballot, because democracy is best served by voters having choices. Disqualifying candidates should be a significant hurdle. Well, as has been increasingly seen in Pennsylvania, knocking candidates from ballots is very easy, too easy.
Today the PA Supreme Court voted Guzzardi off the ballot in what sure looks like a politicized decision that relies on the de minimus crap the lower court did not take seriously. For those who think Pennsylvania has truly independent courts, stop deluding yourself.
Critics of Guzzardi’s nomination papers mishap need to acquaint themselves personally with this deliberately arcane and completely politicized PA process. PA’s election laws are a black hole spider web designed to keep people out of the political process. Look no further than Harrisburg mayoral candidate Nevin Mindlin last year, whose entire candidacy was tossed on the most ridiculous, manufactured, and picayune of excuses.
Mindlin was an independent -minded Republican who had the audacity to buck bi-partisan parasitic politics, and thus was ensnared in faux Red Tape, as anyone in his role was bound to be under the current election laws.
I don’t know Guzzardi. But I do think he’s entitled to run if he wants, and many other states make it much easier to run for elected office, which is good for democracy.
Pennsylvania’s bipartisan establishment deliberately makes independents/ outcasts/ gadflies/ charismatics getting on the ballot either legally impossible or impossibly expensive (the high cost of successfully defending an otherwise legally sound filing).
What Pennsylvanians have now seen is that no matter what a “threatening” candidate does when filing – following the written rules or following the directives of the local elections staff – he is bound to be challenged by his party, and he will probably be DQ’d. Worse, there’s no disincentive for this behavior (for example, challengers who lose, could be required to pay the candidate’s legal fees).
Ballot challenges delay fundraising, delay volunteers, delay interviews, and cast a shadow over a candidate, irrespective of how cheesy the challenge is. This is bad for the citizens, bad for democracy, and frankly, it is un-American. It is, however, good for insulated party establishments that have turned politics into a self-serving financial enterprise. This has to change.
If I am elected to the state senate in two years, better election law will be a priority. There – that just earned me a 2016 ballot challenge! 
Bring it, boys! We will be ready and waiting for ya….
p.s. I do not know Bob Guzzardi, despite trying to meet him. I do know people who know him, or who have met him. Some say he is a valuable muckraker who elevates key issues into the public square. Others say he is a bored troublemaker who vents his personal dissatisfactions into the political arena. Either way, I say politics should be “Bring All Comers, and may the best candidate win.” Guzzardi should have stayed on the ballot; he was no threat to Gov. Tom Corbett.
Participated in 2nd Amendment Rally; where was NRA?
Just in from the field.
PA Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, Kim Stolfer of Firearm Owners Against Crime, and Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America organized and led a wonderful pro-freedom rally just now at the Pennsylvania Capitol steps in Harrisburg. Dozens of state and local elected officials, from both parties, Democrat and Republican, stood in the rain to show their appreciation and support. State Senator Tim Solobay (D), an ass-kicking big guy and the senate’s official “Walking Refrigerator,” proudly wore his Western PA gun rights hat. State Senator Scott Hutchinson (R), stood tall in the rain and cheered on the speakers.
Constitutional rights should not be a partisan issue. Sadly, too many Democrats make gun ownership an issue, when it has zero to do with crime control.
Missing from action was the NRA. No official presence, no speaking role, no unofficial presence. What is going on here with my favorite organization? Organizational snafu? Too much pride?
Citizen, activist, and elected official speakers alike championed America’s unique freedoms, quoting often from their own life experiences and from America’s founding fathers. Each speaker pointed out the hypocrisy of anti-freedom gun-grabbers, who are more comfortable in a feudal hierarchy than in the free Republic we have fought so hard to keep from tyranny.
Standing at the top of the steps, looking out over the sea of rain-soaked citizens, with their American flags, Don’t Tread on Me banners and similar hand-held signs, I was choked up with emotion. As every past year, I feel honored and fired up to have participated in this year’s annual PA Second Amendment Rally.
Un-Citizen Kane, going down in flames
PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane was voted in with a huge amount of Republican voter support. Her promise of cleaning up what appeared to be a political mess at Penn State and the AG’s office brought cheer to the sad hearts of PSU alumni and good government advocates alike.
Once in office, her mask was removed and the political animal now known as Un-Citizen Kane took control. Promise de damned. Promises be damned. Her growing war with Philly DA Seth Williams over her politically motivated ending of a AG investigation of corrupt politicians is getting worse. Kane challenged Williams to bring his own charges on the case, but when he asked Kane to provide the records, she says No. Un-Citizen Kane looks politically motivated in all the wrong ways for all the wrong reasons.
If anything, Kane is digging her own grave hole, and making Williams look like a worthy challenger to her AG role in a couple years.
April 29th 2nd Amendment rally at PA Capitol steps
April 29th Second Amendment rally at PA State capitol front steps, 10:00 AM, rain or shine. PA Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, Kim Stolfer of FOAC, Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America, and many other speakers will be there. PRIZE is a Smith & Wesson Shield in 9mm or .40 S&W, courtesy of S&W and Ace Sporting Goods. All participants will be given a free ticket to win. See you there! — Josh
Earth Day boomerang
It’s a topic I speak about frequently, and write about often. Environmental protection.
The gist of my message is that the problems facing America’s environment 50 years ago are totally different than the problems facing it today. Fifty years ago, huge problems: Rivers on fire, PCBs, raw sewage, industrial dumping. Etc. Bad stuff.
Today? Regulations on parts-per-trillion, beyond de minimus concern. Picayune issues exploding into billion-dollar costs.
We defeated the biggest problems. We solved them. And we are carefully watching many others. But that’s not enough for activists who need to make the Earth Day of 2014 as meaningful and as heavy as the first Earth Day in 1970. It’s silly on its face, but politics is full of silly behavior, of course.
Watching Al Gore, Barack Obama, and other advocates of environmental gloom and doom jet about on expensive corporate jets, emitting huge quantities of carbon, proclaiming Earth Day, is frustrating. Their hypocrisy is naked.
On this Earth Day, I’d like to know what study the Bureau of Land Management used to determine that desert tortoises were at risk from the Bundy cattle, but not from the wild bison that roamed the same land for twenty thousand years, without detriment.