Posts Tagged → Pennsylvania
We interrupt our regular political bickering to bring you Deer Season
People who don’t hunt may think they have some serious political differences. Well, they have not yet gotten involved in the Pennsylvania deer hunting wars, where fifteen years ago PA Game Commission board members and senior staff believed they had to wear bullet proof vests to public policy gatherings, such was the intensity of hate and vitriol…over deer.
With deer archery season ending Sunday night (our first Sunday hunt of the year) and deer rifle season just two weeks away, what better time to interrupt all the political acrimony from Tuesday’s mid-term election and introduce people to some real genuine debate. Yep. About deer.
Last week PA Governor Tom Wolf signed into law a change to the annual antlerless deer (doe) tag purchase system that only took twenty five years of bipartisan effort to achieve. All too well are Pennsylvania hunters familiar with the gigantic pink envelopes that screamed out to anti hunting Postal Service employees “Throw me away, throw me away!”
The gigantic pink envelope doe tag application system had been in place since the 1970s, and the system that was implemented in the 1970s was only a slight modification of the doe tag allocation process from the 1940s. That is how freaking backwards one major aspect of PA’s deer management program has been…hunters living in 2022, but operating in 1945.
And yeah, aspects of 1945 were great improvements over the sinking cultural ship nonsense we have going on today, but the gigantic pink envelope doe tag application lottery was not one of them. In the era of the Internet and email and texting, the now discarded doe tag system relied upon an unreliable Postal Service, two licked stamps, a check, multiple folds in the gigantic pink envelope, exactly the correctly checked boxes, and hoping your application made it in on time, or No Doe Tag For You!
And for most deer hunters, having a doe tag is a really big deal, because the harvest rate on does is about forty or fifty percent, while the success rates on wily bucks is about fifteen percent. Having a doe tag meant a much higher likelihood of getting fresh and healthy venison for your family and personal enjoyment. And not having the doe tag, because of some ridiculous minor bureaucratic rule or unchecked box in the application, was a big deflation for many a hunter.
Now we are going to have an online doe tag lottery and application process. No more photos of gigantic pink envelopes stacked up in Postal Service back rooms, waiting to be sent in weeks after their best-by date.
What is the doe hunt all about? It is about managing Pennsylvania’s over-abundant deer herd so that the non-hunting public doesn’t start to think that we hunters can’t get the job done right. It is a big and important job. In Europe, if wild game populations get too big and begin causing agricultural damage and car crashes, the local hunters actually get fined for it. Here in PA we have an enormous impact from too many deer, and a gigantic whiny peanut gallery that wants even more deer. Much more than the landscape can feed or than the public can afford to pay for.
Deer population management is done by the PA Game Commission. PGC uses hunting harvest numbers, statistical models, and input from individual hunters, hunting groups, landowners, farmers, “birds ‘n bunnies” environmental groups, and timber companies. One of the loudest voices is from hunters who want to see more deer, but who don’t care about the cost that those deer impose on other people. It is a tough job, requiring PGC to balance a lot of competing interests.
I am always surprised to hear hunters complain about PGC’s deer management, because invariably these critics really don’t know the actual mechanics of how it is done. Nor do they bother to take the time to learn the mechanics. Nor do they take the time to go on a local State Game Lands tour, to understand about deer impacts on the landscape. Instead, these hunters behave like communists and demand that everyone else provide year-’round room and board to the overabundant deer that they want to experience for just a few days a year. As much as I love our hunters, I am getting more and more cranky with them in my old age. Guys, please get educated about this subject, or just leave the adults alone.
This summer my wife and I drove out to Colorado and back. We passed endless deer roadkills on I-76 on the way out, but from the Ohio border westward, we saw just two dead deer on the side of the road. One in Iowa and one in Nebraska. On our way back to Pennsylvania, we saw no roadkills anywhere until we crossed into PA on I-80. Literally within the first mile of entering PA we began counting the freshly dead deer, and we continued that counting all the way home to central PA.
This Fall I hunted elk in northern Centre County and western Clinton County, and we saw TONS of deer every single day. This northcentral PA area is supposed to have no deer since 2001, if the official lazy stumpsitter hunter assessment is to be believed. The fact is, both PGC and DCNR have done fabulous jobs of clearcutting large blocks of forest, which has resulted in perfect habitat for deer and a bunch of other important animals. A hunter simply must get up off his butt and go do the Elmer Fudd hunting thing, nose into the wind. If this is too difficult for you, then deer hunting is not your thing.
I have hit several deer on the road in the past two years, each one doing expensive damage to my vehicles. My friend Mark just totaled his expensive sports car on the PA Turnpike 110 miles west of Harrisburg, because a deer walked out in front of his 70 MPH missile. He texted that the tow truck driver said that his was the sixth deer collision the tow truck operator had to address in 30 hours. That is just one tow truck in one small area, and so we know (and see with our eyes) that the deer collision problem is enormous, and expensive, and unnecessary,
Hopefully with the elimination of the gigantic pink envelope the PGC will also change the way it issues doe tags and the number it issues. I hunt all over PA and my opinion is, you can’t really issue too many doe tags. Especially in the southeast part of the state. WMUs 5B, 5C, and 5D should have unlimited doe tags. Apply for one and get one up until the end of the season.
There are so many deer everywhere, and all of them are causing enormous damage and highway carnage. This is presently a hunting problem to be solved by hunters, and unless PA hunters want to go the way of Washington State, where hunting as a wildlife management tool is being taken off the table, they had better step up and do the job and fix the problem.
Sayonara, Gigantic Pink Envelope! We won’t miss ya! And now that that problem is fixed, let the deer wars bickering begin about doe tags all over again. One camp living in 1945, the rest living in 2025. Can’t wait…..
Mastriano is the normal guy, Shapiro not
Doug Mastriano is the most normal person you can possibly meet. In 2021 I met and briefly spoke with him, and he was direct, cheerful, serious, confident. He is a former 30-year military career guy, and most men like him are like him in mannerisms and personality. He has been tested in battle, and in the world’s largest bureaucracy (the American military). He has taken dangerous risks, made dangerous sacrifices, for the public. He is a refreshing political outsider, and his political views are normal for his demographic. While I do not agree with Mastriano on everything, I also do not need to agree with him or any other candidate on everything in order to support him.
Yes, there is a TON of negative advertising about Mastriano, and some of it is accurate, and most of it is completely false. The thing I care about is that Mastriano is normal and he stands openly on what he believes. He stands by his views because he has views, and because he is a guy with integrity, he says his views in public and is therefore open to criticism about them. Whatever his views are, Mastriano’s political policies and views are almost unimportant if he wins. I have seen it over and over again: A governor gets elected and within weeks discovers that no one on Capitol Hill in Harrisburg gives two figs about his views. He will have to work within the system in which the governor is just one cog out of three, or four cogs. Maybe it’s five cogs, if we count the state bureaucracy…
Now, let’s consider Josh Shapiro, the candidate running for governor against Mastriano. Shapiro is the definitive political hack, a person with very few real honest to goodness views of his own and very little integrity. Very little real life experience. Certainly no risks or sacrifices for the betterment of society. He has been hiding inside air conditioned offices his entire career. Shapiro is hoping to get elected to the governorship by virtue of committing little to public knowledge, and also criticizing his opponent intensely.
(Incidentally, the phrase political hack comes from the hack horses used in mining and public transportation from about 1750 to 1920. A hack horse is trained to mindlessly follow the familiar horse in front of it, carrying or towing its burden without independent thought or motivation. The same is said of political hacks, who are led by the nose by political bosses and big political donors, and whose sole motivation is self-enrichment)
I have never met Josh Shapiro, but he did something corrupt that affected people near me, including a murder victim I knew personally, and he caused a lot of pain. Here is what I have seen of Shapiro: In 2011, Ellen Greenberg was brutally murdered in her Philadelphia apartment. From the moment after she was murdered, a lot of big political strings were pulled in plain public view to blatantly protect the one person who appears to have probably done the deed, her former fiance.
All kinds of personal favors were done for her fiance’s family, including letting his family members enter her crime scene apartment and removing and tampering with evidence. The Philly Police Department may never have been a bastion of integrity, but its senior personnel managed to hit a real low spot with the sloppy coverups of their officers’ mishandling of the bloody crime scene.
Then there was the coroner who called Ellen’s death like everyone saw it, a murder, and who was then summarily fired. Subsequent scientific and forensic analysis supporting the belief that Ellen was murdered was provided to the Philly Police Department, only to have them sit on it, hide it, ignore it.
It seemed that every official person involved in investigating Ellen Greenberg’s bloody murder was doing everything possible to protect the murderer and to shut up everyone who tried to get answers or obtain justice for this beautiful, sweet young woman.
Literally everyone involved in the obvious coverup is a member of one political party.
All of this came to a head last year and again this year when powerful new evidence about the murder was handed to AG Josh Shapiro. What did Shapiro do with the new evidence? He refused to act on it, sat on it, and then he handed it off to the very same political people who had already engaged in a years-long coverup of the murder of a beautiful, innocent Ellen. Shapiro enabled the coverup to continue, thereby protecting his political buddies and obstructing justice from being done.
AG Josh Shapiro is loyal to his political donors, I will say that much. He is also loyal to his political party, which as he is a political hack is understandable. But Josh Shapiro is not loyal to the rule of law, or to the Pennsylvania citizenry, or to solving crimes when they involve high profile members of his political party. And that makes Josh Shapiro a corrupt person, and really a lawless person. Not a normal person.
Who the hell works hard to cover up a murder and to protect “important people” in a political party who were involved in the murder? A dirtball is who does this stuff, and Shapiro is at the very least a dirtball. Shapiro’s entire career has been spent in politics, and politics is all he knows. He is a political animal, for whom there are no absolute truths or morals, just opportunities to move ahead and get more power, at any cost. Including protecting a politically connected murderer.
Yuck. Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck.
I know Doug Mastriano has been portrayed as some sort of “right wing” loon, and of course that is BS. The same crap was done to Judge Roy Moore several years ago in an Alabama senate race, and now that Moore is stacking up court wins the truth is finally coming out about him. Roy Moore is innocent of the ridiculous accusations the media and its one political party ally made against him, and Doug Mastriano is likewise innocent of the ridiculous accusations being made against him. Yes, he believes that life begins in the mother’s womb, and so he believes the body of the living child deserves protection. Reasonable people can argue and disagree about this and other issues, but there is no argument about this:
Doug Mastriano has integrity and honesty, and Josh Shapiro has none, zero, nada.
Doug Mastriano deserves our votes for the simple reason that he is a good guy fighting the good fight against a corrupt bipartisan political system that benefits when bad people like Josh Shapiro are in power.
Vote for normal guy, political outsider Doug Mastriano, you will not regret it. If you vote for Josh Shapiro, we will all regret it.
Doug Mastriano praying at the Western Wall. Doug is more pro-Israel, pro-Jewish, pro-Judaism than Josh Shapiro could ever be.
Voting for Fetterman is voting for child molesters & violent criminals
While it is a cold, sad, but irrefutable fact that voting for senate candidate John Fetterman here in Pennsylvania is a vote for child molesters and violent criminals, and failed schools, it is also a sad fact that voting for just about any if not every Democrat Party candidate these days means the same thing.
So extreme has the Democrat Party become that I cannot think of one single Democrat Party candidate running for office anywhere who has disavowed or will disavow the teachers’ unions violent blitzkrieg attack against American children, against kids’ innocence, against American families, against American parents and their parental rights, and for child molesters and pedophiles.
When we consider that the Democrat Party has universally across America produced candidates like John Fetterman who are also totally pro-violent criminals (Fetterman says that violent criminals are actually victims) and anti-police (instead of recognizing there are a lot of great police who keep us safe and only a handful of bad cops), you have to wonder why the hell would any normal American vote for a single Democrat anywhere?
I ask this question as a former Democrat Party member who was active in many Pennsylvania Democrat Party campaigns to the point of serving as the 1988 Al Gore for President campaign’s central Pennsylvania director. But recall that in 1988 Al Gore was endorsed by the National Rifle Association and various pro-life groups. It is not that I left the Democrat Party but that Al Gore and the Democrat Party left me with their extreme positions. They are now so extreme and destructive that only the incurious and the happily unthinking vote for them.
Do not vote for John Fetterman. If you vote for him, you are also voting for child molesters and violent criminals, both of whom Fetterman believes should be roaming your neighborhood at will, without repercussion. Normal people do not believe these things or vote for these things.
Election Day referendum on Joe Biden disaster
It is last minute now, November 8th Election Day approaches. This election is a referendum on the failed policies of radical extremist Joe Biden (unnecessarily high gas prices, so-called “transgender” children raping little children in school bathrooms without any repercussions, school teachers and administrators at war with school children and their parents, a DOJ and FBI spying on and violently arresting and illegally jailing Joe Biden’s political opponents, record high inflation etc the list of deliberate malfeasance and corrupt abuse of government resources to benefit one political party is a long one).
Sadly, voting for every single Democrat Party candidate is also voting for Joe Biden’s catastrophic policies.
Either the American People save America from the purposeful destruction of America by the corrupt Biden Admin, or whatever shreds of freedom and liberty remaining to us each will be ripped from our hands by government force. So it is worth donating ten bucks to each of your favorite candidates.
Here in Pennsylvania it is Doug Mastriano and Dr. Oz. In New York it is Lee Zeldin for governor and Lauren Boebert for congress. Elsewhere, elections matter, too: Arizona, where several important elections are under way (Kari Lake for governor is running against America-hating Katie Hobbs and the entire mainstream media complex), Georgia, where football great Herschel Walker is also facing not just his openly Marxist opponent Warlock, but also the entire mainstream Big Media and Big Tech.
The list of worthy candidates who need your help goes on, but surely, each of us can afford to donate just ten bucks to one of them. If you can afford a few such donations to different candidates, right now is the time to make them. Because money is needed for last minute advertising. Something has to offset the unfair and patently illegal off-the-books donations advantage the Democrat Big Media give to every Democrat Party candidate in America.
Recent gun “buy backs” hugest waste of money and time
Leave it to people who are so consumed with hate that they can’t think straight to make a solid public policy, and so they expend public time and funds on really stupid things.
We are talking here about the hate that so many elected officials (99.5% of whom are registered Democrat Party) have for firearms. Firearms that otherwise secure our police forces, secure our armed forces, secure food for the table, and secure our private homes and personal bodies from violence. Firearms by themselves never did anything to anybody, but if you are an ineffective elected fool, and you are looking to make some kind of statement about how effective you are to people who are easily impressed, you do a “gun buy back.”
Such foolishness recently happened here in Northampton County, Pennsylvania and in Utica, New York.
Never mind that there is no “back” in the gun buy-back, because the guns being purchased never belonged to the official buyer. But hey, fools are gonna fool, especially with foolish sounding policy names, and so we get these mis-named public gun purchases in mostly Democrat-run towns and counties. *I grew up in a rural area where the Democrat Party was heavily represented. Today, not one person out there is a registered Democrat, because this political party has gone off the rails.
Public funds are expended to buy guns, with great fanfare and yet very little or no gain in public safety. Usually the public message goes something like this: “If our purchase of guns here today stops just one mistaken shooting, just one crime, just one accident, why then this is all worth it.”
Which is of course more foolish nonsense. The same communities are often wracked with violence and epidemic official failure, causing hundreds of local citizens to die unnecessarily and prematurely every year. But the “just one life” thing always sounds so serious.
Never does anyone ask What if these guns were used instead to defend our borders by state militia in Arizona, or New Mexico, or California, or Texas? Think about how many lives THAT would save, given how many drug and drug violence deaths are being walked across America’s open southern border right now. These guns in the hands of private citizens defending the American border could probably save hundreds of thousands of lives!
Or, what if the local police put on a gun safety program and taught these same private gun owners with little firearms experience how to safely shoot and store their guns? They would probably make their homes so much more safe and crime-resistant!
When all of the potentially saved lives are compared to the one or two potentially, theoretically, possibly saved by the “gun buy-back,” then we see these gun buy-backs a) don’t save lives and b) are a waste of public money.
What really strikes the eye in these publicized public firearm purchases are the purchased firearms’ low quality, the large number of antique black powder guns that have not hurt anyone since the 1860s, the valuable historic and collectible guns that should be sold to raise money for public agencies, and the simple hunting-grade weapons that leftists tell us they never ever want to take away from us. And all of the hunting ammunition! Destroying this stuff is the crime!
Why don’t the police use the ammunition for police officer training? Why destroy something so valuable as ammunition?!
And since when does the government rip off private citizens, paying them literally pennies on the dollar for high value guns, and then instead of monetizing that public money investment, the government employees then destroy the high value property?
Why doesn’t the government have an appraiser on site who can advise private citizens about the actual high value of the old gun the local government is offering them $75.00 for? Why is ripping off local people a good policy?
In Utica, New York, roughly $30,000.00 of public money was spent on purchasing… “ghost guns,” which is a political term, a loaded term, and a fake term to describe guns that are manufactured off the grid. And you know what? Those “ghost guns” that sound so dangerous and scary to the New York Attorney General… they were printed on a 3-D printer! In other words, they probably cost a few bucks each to make, and then the public mis-paid the owners hundreds of dollars each.
How does any of this make sense?
And yet all of these guns and the ammo are destined to be destroyed. So say the unquestioning mainstream media fools, who stand up in front of the cameras and parrot the talking points they are handed. Hint to the paid media people: You got a degree in “journalism,” I think because you were supposed to be…journalists? What kind of a journalist doesn’t ask questions, especially of those in positions of political and official power? (Answer is: Mainstream media people are not journalists and they do not ask questions. Instead they parrot narratives given to them by leftist government employees).
So we here are doing the job of the “journalists” who appeared in writing and on TV with the articles and reports about the gun purchases in Northampton County, PA, and Utica, NY. We are asking the simple questions, and making the simple points that these are not intelligent uses of official time or money. But then again, we do not begin at the assumption that destroying any and all firearms is the right and intelligent thing for government to do, because we are not filled up with mindless hate for inanimate objects.
[Question to the pro 2A activists in Northampton County: Why not sue this nincompoop of a DA, Terry Houck, and demand that he at least assess the market value of these guns before having them destroyed? In no other area of government do people get rewarded for destroying valuable public property]
Terry Houck is Northampton County’s idiot DA, who takes great pride in knowing zero about the collectible, valuable guns he is destroying
Flintlocks, black powder percussion guns, hunting shotguns, single shots, highly collectible and valuable Veteran bring-back guns from Europe, all said by DA Terry Houck to be dangerous. And yet…none of these are associated with crime. And therefore they are not dangerous.
These are not the kinds of guns used in crime. Simple single shot shotguns and one really valuable over-under hunting shotgun, all destined to be destroyed. For no public benefit at all. Just to make fools feel good about themselves
If you stand in front of a camera and talk like a parrot, are you a journalist? Priscilla Liguori asked no questions, committed no acts of journalism in the making of her report about Northampton County’s gun purchases. One more big mainstream media failure
The green-colored gun is a Remington 20-gauge pump shotgun used for hunting birds and rabbits. The rifle at the far right bottom with the rounded pistol grip is a high value Veteran bring-back gun from Europe that never hurt anyone. The gun at the very top of the heap is a single shot black powder FLINTLOCK muzzleloader used to hunt deer; with 1790s technology, it has zero potential use in crime. Only hatred-filled firearm prohibitionists cheer on the destruction of these useful and safe recreational and collectible guns.
Why I am no longer a Democrat reason # 1,329: John Fetterman’s mean bully tattoo
I mention that I am no longer a registered member of the Democrat Party so that readers understand that I am not a partisan person. To me most partisan people appear to reflexively and carelessly cheer on “their team,” regardless of how little that team may reflect their values or what the team once stood for. The same can be said for the Republican Party, which has way too many corrupt and MIA mild mannered elected officials to stand for much. Recall that the Republican Party was formed as the party of abolition of slavery, and that the Democrat Party was the party of “These are our damned African slaves, they are not yours to set free.”
The Democrat Party has not changed one bit since 1859, and the Republican Party is nowhere near what it stood for in 1859, either.
But right now, especially in a state like Pennsylvania where we have only closed primaries, voters are forced to make a choice. Often that choice is about the lesser lame of two lame-os. But like I say, right now, Americans who believe in a fair America that rewards hard work and risk taking, they have only one political party choice: The Republican Party.
Not that the GOP is my “team” or yours, but it for sure is NOT the team of child rapists, open border fentanyl and drug cartel smuggling, annually resulting in thousands of drug overdoses across America. This pathetic list of unbelievable failure belongs proudly to the Democrat Party. Their own candidates actually run on these issues! As if destroying America and Americans is the right and good thing to do. And one of those candidates is running here in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman.
I left this Democrat Party for the reasons listed above, and for many more. I have to make a stand somewhere on the political playing field, and one of my reasons for leaving that failed political party is well represented in a tattoo that US Senate candidate John Fetterman has on his forearm. His tattoo says “I WILL MAKE YOU HURT.”
Now, who the heck cares if this is a line from a song by Johnny Cash that is often replayed by Nine Inch Nails? That is irrelevant. It is meaningless. It would be a childish excuse. Fetterman could have just as easily chosen a Johnny Cash or Nine Inch Nails line about God, or love, or relationships, and he didn’t. Fetterman carefully chose this specific line for a prominent tattoo on his body for a specific reason.
The adult question is Why the heck would someone go through the trouble to have this mean bully statement permanently tattooed onto his forearm, where everyone can see it?
What angry message or direct personal threat against people around him and the public he encounters is John Fetterman trying to send with this tattoo? It is like someone having a Nazi Swastika tattooed on their body, but then later on trying to lamely explain it away as “something artistic I just happened to like at the time.” No way, John Fetterman. Oh no you don’t, you fake art appreciator.
Fetterman had this mean, nasty, aggressive, threatening tattoo permanently inked into his flesh because it represents his mindset, and he wants everyone to know he is a mean, threatening bully. He wants to intimidate people with it.
Fetterman’s approach to politics and individual people is, I will hurt you into submission to my ideas and my demands. Why does this guy call himself a “Democrat” when he so obviously despises the democratic process of open debate, clean and transparent elections, and checks and balances?
Oh, the irony that John Fetterman is actually a rich playboy whose parents 100% financially supported him up until he got his first real adult job as a mayor of a tiny destroyed town in western PA in his forties. Fetterman further destroyed that small town in just a few years, watching crime there skyrocket under his watch as mayor, who rarely showed up at city council meetings. His destructive personality is no surprise to anyone who follows Fetterman’s soft-on-criminals history on the Pennsylvania Parole Board, or his stated public policies on crime: Fetterman says he would quickly release up to 30% of hardened, violent criminals from jail, if he could.
Yes, John Fetterman is a poser, a fake blue collar wannabe, a liar, and he will make us all hurt if he holds another elected office. He will unleash tens of thousands of violent criminals into American communities, as part of the “defund the police” thing. Don’t ask me why John Fetterman is a violent, mean, bully anarchist at heart. It is probably a result of his having had his mommy and daddy financially support him and his wife until he was in his forties, and he grew up into an inexperienced man-child believing in violent fantasies about “remaking America” by “any means necessary.”
No one ever told John Fetterman “No” as a kid or as an adult, and as a result he is a huge threat to our families and our children. But you voters can tell him “No” on Election Day just a month away. I will tell him No, because I am not mindlessly attached to just one political party, regardless of how bad its candidates are.
Interesting how Google has suddenly blurred out the photo of Fetterman’s “I WILL MAKE YOU HURT” tattoo. Big Tech is no friend of the truth or accuracy
Turns out that the voting public neither understands nor likes Fetterman’s I WILL MAKE YOU HURT tattoo, so he recently had it covered up. But the mean spirited bully is still inside that mean bully face of his.
John Fetterman is one of these people, who believe in letting violent criminals run amok in your neighborhood, victimize you and your family members, no police. Fetterman the lazy mayor proudly led a disastrous spike in crime in his own western PA town. Are you really going to vote for someone like this, this bad?
Across America, Democrat candidates refuse to debate
Across America, Democrat Party candidates are refusing to debate their political opponents in the traditional way of testing the quality of one another’s ideas in public. Including here in Pennsylvania. They are literally just hiding in their basements and letting the mainstream media (MSNBC, NPR, CBS, ABC, etc.) promote them, without taking any risks that might expose them to the curious public.
This hiding is a goddamned shame is what it is. It is pathetic, and it demonstrates that across America the only thing standing between a political annihilation of the Democrat Party through the voting process and its basic nail-scraping-up-to-the-cliff-face survival is the Democrat Party’s ownership of the mainstream media. The Democrat media continues to act like it is a propaganda arm of one political party. And that is a disgusting shame, too. And I find it amazing that any American sits and absorbs the toxic bullshit that MSNBC and CNN (both of which I watched recently just to be reminded of how much these channels never say or try to figure out for their viewers) pour down the gullets of their lazy audience.
Here in Pennsylvania senate candidate John Fetterman, a rich playboy who pretends to be a blue collar working guy, who has never held a real job in his entire life, who has destroyed the small Pennsylvania town he served as mayor of in his first adult job, who says he wants to release 30% of the incarcerated violent felons back into our neighborhoods, refuses to debate Dr. Oz, his Republican opponent.
Fetterman is not just a liar and a poser and a faker, he is justifiably afraid of debating Oz. I am no huge fan of Dr. Oz. I was a Kathy Barnette supporter, and remain so. But at least stand up and show people what you are made of, you pussy, Fetterman. Fetterman knows his koo koo ideas cannot withstand the light of day in a public debate. And yes, it is true that Fetterman had a brain seizure and a stroke, rendering him a babbling incoherent mess in public and private. So to an extent we can understand his reluctance to appear publicly.
But if your health is that bad, Fetterman, then step the hell down and stop trying to be the candidate hiding in the basement! Being a US senator is a big deal and it requires the full abilities of the person serving in that capacity.
And what about the registered Democrat voters who are going to vote for basement dweller Fetterman, no matter what, no matter that he is a dysfunctional mess (forget that he is an admitted communist who says he wants to use his position to dismantle America as we have been for over two hundred years)? What the hell is that about? Are you voters really so tribal, so short sighted, so deep into your own partisan trench that you will vote for a candidate this bad?
Really?
In Washington State, Arizona, New York, in addition to Pennsylvania, Democrat candidates refuse to stand up and tell the voters what they believe in. They are relying on a spineless sold-out press to do that for them. And yet America actually still has a large number of voters devoted to this ridiculous political party, who will vote for any thing with a “D” after its name on the ballot.
Believe me, I don’t get the partisan Republican thing either, but at least they are not trying to turn America into a mushroom cloud or a mass of dead middle Americans killed by released felons, like the defund-the-police and release-the- prisoners soft on crime Democrats are. At least the Republican candidates show up, get stabbed by crazed Democrat voters (or run over and killed) (or shot like Rep. Scalise), and keep explaining why they love a constitutional America, with freedom, liberty, safety, and opportunity for all.
Once again, it is shame, shame, shame on registered Democrat voters for being so lazy, uncurious, and careless with their sacred votes. Sorry, folks, gotta say it. And yes, you can change. You do not have to vote for bad people like Fetterman.
Joe Biden and his supporters are America’s biggest threat
There. I have crossed a barrier I never thought I would cross, which is criticizing registered Democrats who vote for bad people who destroy America, like Joe Biden.
Until today, with this blog post, I had never before laid blame on my fellow Americans for making their individual choices at the voting booth. Despite being the target myself of liberals, leftists, Democrats, all angered by my voting choices and political views, and always telling myself that they can change.
Traditionally, conservatives (what a laugh… conservatives… today’s conservative is 1980’s tolerant, open-minded, accepting liberal, while today’s liberals are a mob of bigoted Nazi Brown Shirts) see liberals as good people with bad ideas, while liberals see conservatives as just bad people, period. It is why conservatives agreeably hold onto their liberal Democrat friends even as those same people are reviling their conservative family and friends. These two groups see each other so differently. That is mostly due to the incessant drumbeat of dehumanization that liberals/ leftists have heaped on Republicans, conservatives, patriots, white people, etc. for five decades. Joe Biden did more of it today.
Well, after Joe Biden’s horrible public statements here in Pennsylvania, I don’t think it is possible for me to just let everyday Democrats off the hook any longer. They have empowered Biden’s cruelty and dangerousness, and they are accountable.
If you concur with Biden’s threat to law-abiding American gun owners that they will be bombed into submission by US government F-15 fighter jets, then you have divorced yourself from America as it was founded and run until 18 months ago, and you have separated yourself from the majority of people who live here. We conservatives and liberals really do inhabit two different worlds, and we really cannot live together. No wonder Biden’s supporters are gleeful about the open border and the millions of illegal migrants coming over it. Biden’s supporters have more in common with these illegals than they do with me, apparently.
Duly noted.
For the record, which political party is pushing civilian disarmament, the crushing and total censorship and elimination of opposing voices and arguments, an all-knowing, all-powerful, big and unaccountable government, $600 limits on cash expenditures from our personal accounts, the elimination of cash money and a transition to a Big Brother digital money, the blocking of transparent elections and the use of openly corrupted election machines, the centralizing of all decision making including all elections, the destruction of legal due process as the DOJ and FBI SWAT teams blow up and attack the homes of innocent Republicans simply because they are Republicans, the sexual grooming and political indoctrination of our children?
The Democrat Party.
This is all evil crap and it is all part and parcel of the new Democrat Party and its local adherents. Shame on every one of you. Shame, shame, shame.
I never thought I would write something like this, and I hope I am proven wrong by an old friend or some huge voter shift away from the rogue Democrat Party. But given how so many of my Democrat friends and even some family have simply walked away from me, it seems like a vain hope. I am purposefully late to the party of anger and division, but if that is what Joe Biden and his supporters are constantly serving, then I guess I will eventually take a swig from my own jug of it.
Dear Democrat voters, your double-standard lawlessness and your war against the Constitution and against law-abiding Americans is unsustainable. Your rotten un-American beliefs and your destructive actions are a direct threat to democracy in general and to America as a republic run by its citizens. Will America survive another Democrat Party insurrection? We barely survived the first one from 1861 to 1865. If America goes fifty-fifty, that is, even odds, then no, we won’t survive this latest Democrat assault on democracy.
And we know who to blame.
Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous 2022
Jack Keith brought me to my first Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous in 2000, back when it was held at Denton Hill State Park in Potter County, Pennsylvania. Jack was the new and the first president of the Pennsylvania Parks and Forest Foundation, fresh from the Army National Guard out at Fort Indiantown Gap. I helped Jack get the brand new PPFF office set up, and he treated me to a trip up north that changed my life.
At the 2000 ETAR, Jack introduced me to Mike Fedora, who was one of the individual forces behind resurrecting traditional archery in America. Many people will argue that traditional archery never went away, but after Mike Fedora started making modern stick bows in reflex-deflex (a high performance combination of long bow and recurve), a lot more bow makers joined in. Fedora made me a bow to my body’s specifications that fit me like a glove, and that I still use. It is a 52 Lb @ 28″ reflex-deflex that is an extension of my soul. Having hunted small game and deer as a kid with cheap fiberglass bows and also a basic Fred Bear bow, I was excited to get my very first custom bow.
Fast forward 22 years and ETAR is now held at Ski Sawmill on the Tioga County-Lycoming County line, on the beautiful Oregon Hill plateau near Pine Creek Valley.
Two years ago my son purchased his second custom bow at ETAR (his first was when he was eight years old). It is by David Darling at The Kalamazoo Bow Works, a 46# @ 25″ draw beautiful statement about how far bow making has come in the past twenty years. Better epoxies, better bow presses, better materials, and constant refinements of the reflex-deflex style now yield bows that are as light as a feather, but which pack enough punch to take any North American animal.
Last week I got to participate in one of traditional bow hunter Fred Asbell’s classes. Although Mister Asbell is 82 years old, he is still out shooting a traditional bow and helping people figure out everything from their grip to their release to how and when to draw on a deer that is just five yards away. While you can watch online videos of sheep hunters killing huge wilderness rams at 450 yards with ultra magnum rifles topped with the Hubble Space Scope all day long, what you won’t see much of are the rare Fred Asbells, taking huge trophy rams with a recurve at 40 yards after a day-long crawl. Fred Asbell is a legend for a reason, and we are so fortunate to have him helping us today.
The two things that Mister Asbell said to me that I took away were I must “allow” my brain to follow its natural inclination when shooting instinctively. This allowance is a natural flow that is easily interrupted by overthinking a shot, aiming a shot, etc. Second, he said that in order to ingrain that natural pattern of allowance so that it becomes truly instinctive, I must both “practice daily,” and make sure that I am “practicing smart.” Meaning, concentrate on each and every arrow being released. He said that as soon as I find myself mindlessly flinging arrows, it is time to stop, because it will simply reinforce bad habits, instead of honing good habits and improving skill.
Advice like this sounds basic, but that’s the genius of someone like Mister Asbell: He breaks down all the artificial complications into just a few words and physical activities that can be easily achieved, if the shooter but focuses each and every arrow released off the bow rest.
Lots of Amish are beginning to camp out at ETAR, and I am hearing more and more from hunting outfitters from Quebec and Newfoundland to Alaska how their Amish and Mennonite clients are showing up with traditional bows and muzzleloaders, and yet outshooting the other hunter clients who are each carrying the super ultra magnums topped with a Hubble Space Scope. Just sit on any of the many ETAR ranges’ firing lines and watch tiny little barefoot Amish kids step up and let fly, and you will understand how they do it, why they grow up to be such amazing archers. No training wheels, no special stabilizers or sights on their bows…
One of the things I always enjoy about ETAR is that I can strike up a conversation with literally anyone, and have a long conversation about American politics and culture, or a long joke-telling session, and always end with a friendly “Real nice to meet ya!”
My own desire is to see Clay Hayes and Ryan Gill set up separate and joint workshops on primitive archery (not just traditional, but a stick and a sinew string with flint-tipped arrows). Plenty of ETAR participants are bringing nice Osage orange split bow blanks, so there is a demand for this kind of truly rustic archery.
This year’s attendance was over 4,000 on Friday, so overall it was probably over 10,000, guessing, when it wrapped up lunch time on Sunday. Major brands like KUIU were represented. To my eye this year’s ETAR was a grand success. If you have a desire to get back to basic archery, so you can have more fun both shooting and hunting, then I recommend visiting ETAR next year. Bring a trailer or a tent, and be prepared to camp out among a lot of other really neat, positive, happy people. When we drove off site, we were watching people begin to potluck Friday dinner. People probably save up their best pronghorn, elk, bison, and venison cuts to cook and share at ETAR. Talk about good people and good times…
A dedicated young man practicing with his new bow at ETAR 2022. His shooting form was praised by an old timer as “a stone cold killer.”
Traditional archery legend Fred Asbell helps Dave improve his bow grip
The swap-meet is probably the most exciting opportunity to acquire raw materials, rare items, hand made archery stuff. When it first started the place was a zoo! Probably a thousand people excitedly milling about looking at all kinds of neat items laid out on blankets
This photo does no justice to the huge number of tents and campers we saw at ETAR 2022
The all-American man who got me back into traditional archery. Jack made me a set of cedar arrows twenty years ago that now sit as a remembrance to this amazing human being. Dear Jack, it is good you are not here to see what has happened to your beloved West Point, your beloved US Army, or your beloved America…but don’t worry, we will fix it