Good news. Now it has to pass the Senate, even though the Senate already passed a version of this. Hopefully Perry and Alloway can cooperate on credit. Both deserve it. I don’t want to see this being delayed any more.
Category: Politics
WaPo Hating on My Home State
The Washington Post has apparently decided that they’ve hade enough of people who don’t like Obama, so they are setting their sights on the only state in the union that overwhelmingly rejected Obama & his policies back in 2008. Oklahoma was the only state in the union where not a single county voted for Obama. (The closest any county came was still a 12 point gap for McCain.) So the WaPo says Oklahomans are hypocrites for taking federal money.
Their reasons are ludicrous. They cite the existence of federal highways as an example of huge federal spending in the state. There are three.
- The one we call I-35 is somewhat parallel to an old trading route that most people learned about in 5th grade called the Chisholm Trail. It wasn’t about Oklahoma porking the hell out of the federal government, but about getting cattle from Texas to the stockyards and rail lines in Kansas to feed the people in the East.
- The one we call I-40 parallels much of that little road some might have heard of – Rt. 66, a road meant to facilitate travel and trade between Chicago and Los Angeles. It’s also a major east-west route from North Carolina to Southern California that just happens to be a tad easier to cross in the western portions than other areas in the Northern Rockies.
- The one we call I-44 is also connected to following the old Rt. 66 path in the northeast part of the state. However, it was a series of toll roads that were built before it was designated a federal interstate.
Most of the spending the WaPo cites as evidence that Oklahoma benefits from too much federal government is related to military spending. Their first target: Tinker Air Force Base. There aren’t too many places in this country where there’s enough space to be near a reasonably major city and still secure 9 square miles of space. While it’s an Air Force base, it also serves the other branches. So we’ve got multiple military branches making use of one facility in a state where employees and land are cheaper than many other states. It’s previously been home to key military weather services. Another place that takes up space? Fort Sill. Especially for the fun stuff they do with artillery. We heard that stuff from 70 miles away. I’m not naive about military pork and political favors, but as it goes, I’m all for consolidating what we can in areas where the labor and property are cheap. That’s called getting the most for your money.
I think the bias in this hit piece is best illustrated by the fact that they spend two paragraphs with the mayor of Oklahoma City citing the benefits to having federal jobs in the area. But only one sentence sums up the key issue if the GOP has the nerve to cut a number of those jobs: “Given what he called the area’s entrepreneurial bent, the mayor said, his city would probably withstand large cutbacks in federal largess ‘better than most places.'” That’s certainly not a spirit that Obama’s adoring fans the WaPo wants to promote.
Castle Doctrine Possibly Delayed
Since it’s passage is largely inevitable, we’re probably going to be delayed a bit why everyone tries to get their due credit for getting the legislation passed. I’m generally fine with this, as long as it gets done. Some of our friends in the legislature who have gone out on a limb for this bill shouldn’t feel shut out of the final passage.
Falling Down on the Job of Gun Rights
While working on a Pennsylvania-version of news from NRA-ILA about the national reciprocity bill, imagine my surprise when I found some key names left off of the sponsors list. These are the members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation who support the bill:
- Rep. Jason Altmire (D)
- Rep. Mark Critz (D)
- Rep. Charlie Dent (R)
- Rep. Tim Holden (D)
- Rep. Mike Kelly (R)
- Rep. Tim Murphy (R)
- Rep. Todd Platts (R)
- Rep. Bill Shuster (R)
- Rep. Glenn Thompson (R)
These are the members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation who sought & received NRA’s endorsement in 2010 against anti-gun opponents who are not on that list:
- Rep. Jim Gerlach (R)
- Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R)
- Rep. Pat Meehan (R)
- Rep. Joe Pitts (R)
These are the members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation who sought NRA’s endorsement in 2010 and received high grades while running against a friendly incumbent, but who have not stepped up to support gun owners on this issue:
- Rep. Lou Barletta (R)
- Rep. Tom Marino (R)
Notice a trend with the party affiliation of those who wanted our support for the election, but who aren’t even sponsoring a bill for us? Every single one of the pro-gun Democrats who survived the 2010 elections has come through. Only half of the Republicans with previous endorsements and high grades have been willing to lend their names to the cause.
Tax Cutting I Heartily Approve Of
Congressman Jim Gerlach (R-PA-06) has proposed cutting the federal beer tax. His district has a number of microbreweries. If you haven’t tried any of the breweries mentioned in the article, I would recommend it. Victory and Sly Fox are particularly stellar breweries.
Campus Carry in PA
This employee over at Point Park University seems to think it would be just awful if we were to pass campus carry in Pennsylvania, as other states are currently debating. Hate to tell you prof, but there’s no such crime as carrying a firearm on a university campus in Pennsylvania, provided you have an LTC. The worst that can happen is the school can ask you to leave (permanently, if you’re a student). This issue has not been pressing in this Commonwealth, because unlike the other states where this is being debated, carry on college campuses isn’t criminalized. If we were to have such a bill here, it would only be a matter of disallowing state funded universities from having such a policy prohibiting guns on campus.
Weaknesses in FOIA
It’s pretty easy to see, based on the heavily redacted documents that were produced in response to David Codrea’s FOIA request on the gunwalker scandal that there is something wrong with how we’re implementing the idea that the records the government produces belong to the people. Part of that has to do with how the act is structured.
Currently every agency is required to have a FOIA office that handles those kinds of requests and produces the documents. This is going to create bad incentives for that agency to release as little as they can get away with, and bend the requirements of the law to the greatest extent possible in order to achieve that goal.
There should be a separate government agency in charge of FOIA requests, who are authorized to go into every government office, look at and duplicate records, and make the determination about how to implement the law. With FOIA being a separate agency, it will put the natural power hungry and empire building nature of bureaucrats to work doing the people’s business. Agents may even revel in revealing embarrassing or damning information from other agencies.
There should also be a mechanism that if a FOIA agent feels a document is improperly classified, its status can be challenged before an administrative law judge, with all the proper security clearances and precautions for classified data in place. Currently if you feel an agency is inappropriately denying your FOIA request, the onus to file suit is on you.
I’d even be up for paying the agents on a per document basis, and giving them bonuses based on the number of documents they get declassified. You can think of incentives here that could work pretty well. A lot of politicians have never liked FOIA, but if the government wants me to be an open book to it, then my government damned well better be an open book to me.
The Republican Bench in Pennsylvania
SayUncle in Tennessee seems to share some of my anxiety about GOP prospects in 2012. He speaks of the national race, but any national race starts in the states, and Pennsylvania, as the nation’s 6th largest state, is a good example of that problem.
Bitter and I were speaking yesterday afternoon about the dire situation represented by the GOP bench headed into the 2012 elections. Ignoring the fact this article is mostly about how Tom Corbett is getting into trouble with our commonwealth’s schizophrenic voters (who want pet programs, a balanced budget and reasonable taxes), it shows something important about Bob Casey:
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Scranton, enters his campaign next year for a second term with what Lee called a limited base of support. Thirty-two percent of voters said he deserves re-election, compared with 43 percent who told pollsters it’s time for someone new.
Pennsylvania is generally accepted as a purple-hued blue state. After 2010, we have one conservative Republican Senator in the form of Pat Toomey, who I’d like to think is all of Rick Santorum’s fiscal conservatism, without the paranoia about what the queers are doing to the soil. Could we have two? Traditionally, there’s been Arlen Spector for those who wanted to vote GOP without really doing so. But we don’t have Arlen Specter to kick around anymore.
Who is the GOP going to put up against Bob Casey? Tom Ridge is about the only candidate who comes to mind. Only because he’s is well known and a well liked former governor. His name was floated his name in 2010 to run against Specter. Ridge carries the stench of having carried Bush’s homeland security agenda for longer than is healthy for average mortals. That’s not even mentioning Ridge isn’t really a conservative on important issues, much like his spendy former boss. Besides, rumor has it that Ridge is now a Marylander, and couldn’t run even if he was interested the Pennsylvania Senate race.
Who else? Curt Weldon was driven out of Congress on questionable accusations of corruption in 2006. Maybe he’d like to make a comeback. But let’s face it, we are sending him to Libya right now because every hostage taker worth his salt will only abduct someone that someone else wants back. That probably isn’t Curt. I think Weldon is well done at this point. He’s not coming back for a statewide race.
Jim Gerlach certainly wants a state-wide seat, but after dropping out of the primary for the 2010 Governor race, I think he needs to stay right where he is. Otherwise I’m not confident his 6th district seat will stay in GOP hands without some gerrymandering magic. Gerlach is a poster boy for the fact that there are few GOP Congressional seats safe enough in Pennsylvania that can surely be held in an open race.
Who else does the GOP have with solid statewide name recognition? I really can’t think of anyone. But then, why did Bob Casey Jr. win the 2006 election? Maybe because Santorum was getting gay sex acts named after him, and Bob Casey Jr. happened to be the son of this Bob Casey. This problem also cuts both ways. To make the point, do Democrats want to run Onorato, “Dan Onorato,” again for anything? That was your bench against Corbett.
Pennsylvania is legitimately up for grabs, for either party. But don’t anyone get too excited. Neither party is much in a position to exploit it. Perhaps that is good for our Commonwealth in the long run, because I’ve never been convinced of the benefits of single party rule, no matter what that party is.
State College Bucking Preemption
They want to ban guns in parks, or rather continue to ban guns in parks. They are weaseling around the preemption language by dishonestly arguing that application of such ban is not a law “inconsistent with the laws of this commonwealth,” quoting from our preemption statute, and is therefore not preempted.
It approved sending a resolution to the Central District meeting of the Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities later this month, requesting it support legislation prohibiting firearms in municipal parks and buildings, treating them like courtrooms and schools under state law.
Got that? Because the state bans guns in courthouses and schools, it’s consistent for towns to then ban guns in their own buildings. Additionally, because hunting regulations don’t allow discharge in certain zones in parks, banning all firearms period in any municipal park is consistent with state law.
This is delusional legal thinking. This issue needs to be pressed. Let them enforce it, and then sue them. This is well established in this Commonwealth that only the state legislature may regulate guns.
Anti-Obama Ad
I thought this GOP attack ad against Obama was merely good, until it got to the end. Watch it.
The GOP has Obama riding a rainbow farting unicorn across the sky? Seriously? This is not the GOP I knew. But that’s OK, because I did not like that GOP much. I might not like this one much either when all is said and done, but kudos for using that.
h/t Instapundit