The Courier Times is doing a story about Patrick Murphy’s campaign allegedly engaging in voter fraud. Will 8th District voters be able to overcome the margin of fraud? This kind of election year accusation is common, but I would point out that the Courier Times is hardly a friend of the GOP or the right.
Month: October 2010
Poll Standers
Looks like everyone needs poll standers this year. What is a pole stander? Basically, someone who hands out literature to folks coming into the polls. Yes, there are people who are walking into the voting booth, that aren’t firm on who they are going to vote for, or who can’t quite remember the name of that person, running for some office, who they are planning to vote for.
The purpose of the poll stander is to get those few extra votes as folks head into the polls to make their small contribution to the future of our Republic. The unfortunate thing is campaigns always need them, and the even more unfortunate thing is I can never find people willing to do it when I ping my volunteer list. I can understand why no one wants to phone bank, because a lot of people hate getting phone calls, and don’t want to do it to other people, or just plain hate talking to people on the phone. Poll standing generally just requires handing out campaign materials people can peruse while waiting in line to vote. It may involve talking to people some if they have questions, but that’s not the majority of the job.
I think I’d have better luck recruiting poll dancers some days. Maybe I could do that for heavily Democratic areas, and then hopefully a lot of the men at least would never make it in to vote.
Anschutz Responds
A few months ago The Firearms blog reported that Anschutz was working with people out to destroy our rights. I mentioned I’d not buy their products, despite the fact I compete in an area I could use one. The Firearms Blog publishes today, a response from Anschutz that convinces me my decision to never purchase one of their products is absolutely the correct one. I will not do business with a company like this.
You guys were planning to sell us out. You even pretty much admit it. Don’t get pissy with us because we caught you. He closes with:
At the same time, we can assure that the market and the demand determine the products of a company. And ANSCHUTZ has an inquiry from the Biathlon federation to have a look in that topic. In Germany and Europe we have complete different gun laws than in the US. Please keep that in mind.
Yes, you do, so why cooperate to destroy yourselves even further? You don’t notice the noose tightening every time there’s a mass shooting in Europe? You think if you give just a little more they are going to be happy and stop trying to destroy these sports? You’re fools if you believe that.
You want to be a European gun company and only sell neutered guns to Europeans, that’s your prerogative. American shooters take a very different view of companies who sell them out. Smith and Wesson’s near destruction should have taught you that.
Raking Leaves Sucks
The deciduous trees, which are now in full fall color, are beginning to shed their leaves. When I was growing up in Delaware County, the annual ritual involved blowing the leaves onto a large tarp and hauling them out to the curb, where the Borough would come along and suck them up with a giant vacuum truck. The job could be done in an hour or two. That was also practice when I lived in Chester County, judging from the piles of leaves I’d see in fall. When I got to Bucks County, it was tough to believe we were back in the dark ages where leaf collection involved having to bag them and put them out at the curb.
Bucks Right is mocking Southampton Township managers for making lame excuses as to why the Township won’t switch to leaf vacuuming, which is a far more efficient way to do leaf collection. They do cite cost, which I think is a legitimate issue. I wonder why we have to make this a debate about taxing and spending. I’d gladly pay the Township a Jackson or two to bring a giant suck-o-matic over to my house so I don’t have to bag. Why not do it as a fee for service rather than funding it with tax dollars?
Lancaster Online Coverage of “Run and Gun”
It’s really the new trend in shooting, and this coverage is positive. Unfortunately, my club will never run matches like this because it involves drawing from holsters and running with guns, two things which traditional shooters believe is unsafe. Yet clubs and ranges all over the country are running these matches safely.
I’ve done only a few of these matches myself, and while they were a lot of fun, the main thing that keeps me from returning is the amount of time spent sitting around watching other people shoot, which to me is like watching grass grow. Not many clubs in the area are running these, and they are crowded matches. I suspect if our club ever took up some of these newer sports, I’d be more of a Steel Challenge guy than an IPSC/IDPA guy, but I’d like to be able to shoot a match every once in a while without having to go to Central Jersey, which are the closest sanctioned matches.
The latest thing I’m considering starting is Field Target, which is one new sport our club is doing, and looks interesting. Something I should try, I think.
At What Point Do You Just Walk Away?
I know I asked this just a couple of weeks ago, but why on earth is Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato even trying at this point? It really just makes him look a little more pathetic that he’s trying so hard and actually slipping in the polls. Two polls released late last night & today put him down 14 and 15 points, respectively. The money race hasn’t changed much, either. Corbett is outraising & outspending him, and still has more left in the bank.
If we didn’t have to worry about how tight the Senate race between Toomey & Sestak has been lately, then it would just be comedy gold. Unfortunately, we gun owners can’t take any votes for granted this year. And, as much as I’m gloating about Onorato’s failing campaign, there’s still nearly a week left, and voters are fickle and pissy this year. There are still too many races around Pennsylvania and the rest of the country that are too close to call.
Of course, I would argue that Corbett’s campaign could still use some help. There’s a good chance that these double digit leads won’t stay that large until Election Day. But, because Onorato has embraced a strategy of pushing gun control as a key component of his campaign, we need his campaign to fail miserably. We need him to lose and lose big. We need to remind Ed Rendell & his buddie in Philadelphia that we still outvote them, and gun control still pisses us off.
New Research into Gun Control
Dave Hardy shares some of his research findings on the history of gun control in the United States. It’s very interesting. We’re glad to hear he’s recovering from his snake bite, and sincerely hope all his future dealings with this phenomena involve liquor and tabasco.
UPDATE: More here.
Renaming Rhode Island
Apparently renaming a state is on the ballot this November. See, the official state name is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. They want to drop the Providence Plantations part, since plantations is a code word for slavery, or something, even though Rhode Island never really participated in that kind of slavery.
Hat Tip to Cam Edwards.
Political Violence
Much hay is being made of this incident at a Rand Paul rally:
It’s temping in political discourse to think your side is better than the other, but it’s self delusion. I don’t care if your issue is saving puppies, I’d estimate at least 5 to 15% of your fellow activists are complete assholes. So save me the lefty moral outrage. Personally, I don’t think either the stompers or stompee in this case can claim to be without wrong doing in this particular incident, though only one side bears any legal wrong.
So I do condemn the men who unlawfully restrained and stomped the MoveOn employee, but I also condemn the immature actions of the MoveOn employee that stoked this fire. The Other McCain in his analysis of what’s going on:
When I was covering the big rally in Searchlight, Nevada, I remember Sarah Palin being hustled through a phalanx of security without time to say “hello†or shake hands with her supporters. Even with a press pass dangling around my neck on a lanyard, I was careful not to make any move that Palin’s security might interpret as potentially threatening.
Now imagine if some crazy woman at Searchlight had come shoving through the crowd wearing a blonde wig and carrying a sign mocking Palin.
You see what I’m talking about? I’m not advocating, endorsing or defending the stomping of heads. I’m just saying that this mob scene in Lexington was exactly the sort of situation where these kinds of incidents happen. It’s unfortunate and wrong, but it is ridiculously misleading to politicize this incident as if it were somehow typical of those “crazy right-wingers,†which is what Boehlert, et al., are attempting to do.
That’s why I can’t totally forgive her actions even as I condemn what the two individuals did to her. There were police present in the video if you look closely. One of the stompers is chastising police for refusing to do anything about the woman, but what were they going to do? It’s not illegal to wear a wig in public with a sign. They couldn’t have done anything until she did something illegal, and that something has to be more than approaching the candidate through the crowd, which last I checked was legal. If she had a weapon in her hand, this would have been completely different, but she had a sign. She actually would have been completely justified in using force against the people attempting to unlawfully restrain her.
Bloomberg’s Proposed Rules
If he thinks this is going to avoid a lawsuit, he’s delirious. Under the proposed rules you can literally be denied a constitutional right for being a bad driver or getting fired from your job. These people have a very strange conception of fundamental constitutional rights.