The time for Obama to recess appoint Traver is at an end. This means he has to be confirmed, which I don’t give much of a chance of happening easily given Democratic losses in the Senate.
Category: Politics
Where Are They Now?
Looks like Specter is getting a teaching job at Penn, teaching about the relationship between Congress and the Supreme Court, which no doubt will include how Congress’ power is unlimited. Given Specter’s treatment of Court nominees who dared suggest that Congress’ power might be limited and enumerated, you know, like the constitution says, I can’t imagine he’ll teach otherwise.
In the same Capitol Ideas post, we also find Governor Ed is appearing on Colbert to explain why we’re all wusses. It’s pretty clear Ed Rendell is through with politics, since insulting voters usually doesn’t work out well in the end for most politicians. Ed will, no doubt, be riding off into the sunset.
My displaced Congress Critter, Patrick Murphy, has taken a job with an area law firm with ties to DC. Probably helps that the Murphy Campaign finance chairman is a partner at that firm. This hints to me that Murphy may be Fitzpatrick’s next challenger in 2012. Murphy might be hoping this Tea Party thing is ephemeral, and the Democrats will once again be able to claim this district, which is rightly theirs.
The Age of Charles Bronson has Ended
I know more than a few gun owners who loved the novelty of having a carry license from Florida with Charles Bronson‘s name on it. Alas, the era of Charles Bronson giving out gun permits is over. Now, you’ll have Adam Putnam’s name on it.
It may not have the novelty factor, but Florida is lucky to have a guy like Putnam in public service.
Bill Your Congressman!
More lightbulb blogging over at Uncle’s. I thought about what a movement might look like, to protest Congress’ policy. Why don’t we all send Congress a bill for having to replace our light bulbs with CFLs? There’s some fixtures I have that I’ll just have to replace, because they call for clear bulbs. Send them the bill. They mandated this crap, let them pay for it! Oh, and be sure to include an environmental clean up charge, for the mercury in the bulbs. I’ll leave it to readers to decide whether or not to turn your local congress critter over to a collection agency when they don’t pay up.
Animal Rights Whack Jobs on Parade
Protesters are getting more bold about protesting pigeon shoots at clubs that still do them, even in rural areas. While I have no interest personally in pigeon shooting, I am not at all sympathetic to the crackpots that are pushing for the ban. My main reason for opposing a ban is that it would also ban hunting dog training (which can involve releasing birds from cages, and shooting at them, as part of flushing and retriever training). Here’s what I’m talking about from the comments to this article:
Pigeons are gentle creatures who deserve far better than this. The real “pests” are the hunters; too bad they don’t shoot each other and wipe themselves from the face of the earth.
Pigeons are disease carrying vermin, and are pests in most places they infest. Let’s not get crazy here. Standard control practices in cities is to gather them all up and gas them. If you gave me the choice, I think I’d probably rather be shot at, where I at least had a chance to get away. Here’s another:
Hunting is a despicable “sport†but at least the animals in the wild have a chance of survival. The only chance a bird in a box has is if the “hunter†is a ridiculously poor shot! Animals that are not domesticated all face the possibility of starving, freezing, or to be eaten by a predator. However, a bird that is used as a live target for a thrill-seeking human does not die a humane death.
That pretty much shows where enabling these people with a political victory is going to lead, and also how little they understand about this. The pigeons have a pretty good chance of survival. Most people I’ve talked to who have done pigeon shooting say it’s much harder than hitting a clay bird, and you’re going to miss far more often.
The Canadian geese in NJ who poop on golf courses are gassed in 18 wheeler trucks paid for by the state, the deer of Valley Forge National Park that will be using sharp shooters to kill deer that come right up to you, and countless other wasteful kills, These are not solutions to control populations, sterilization or birth control for the deer is an easy solution. I love animals too much to see them starving in the wild, even though I am an animal rights advocate I will not let my beliefs or opinions be more important then animals suffering.
As someone else, with more common sense pointed out:
So building a trap (or more accurately many of them), setting bait, regularly checking them, transporting the animal to a clinic, sedating a wild animal, cutting the animal open, removing the necessary reproductive organs, sewing the animal back up, caging the animal so it can recover, providing after care to ensure the animal is healthy and then driving the animal back to where it was caught is an “easy solution.” Wow. I suppose if you want to financially pay for a such a stupid system as this, I am all for but please don’t force reasonable minded tax payers to fund something because you are opposed to nature because that is completely ridiculous.
It’ll probably be cheaper than that. They’ll do it in the field, inject the thing with antibiotics, and send it on its way and hope for the best. Sure, some percentage of them will die of a painful infection, but it’ll make these people feel better than no one is shooting them. And besides, it’s a well known fact that all the deer sterilized in Valley Forge National Park will respect the park’s boundaries, and not wander out into the surrounding countryside to get knocked up.
Pigeon shooting is going to be a very tricky issue for us in this state, because it’s going to be used to hold up other parts of our agenda. The votes, I’d say, are probably there to pass a ban if it ever came to the floor. Their hope of our opponents is going to be that we violate the “no one goes under the bus” rule and trade a pigeon shooting ban for something else we want. The temptation will be to do that. I’m not sure we’ll be able to avoid it. But if you give them the victory, you’ll be enabling the people appearing in the first comments, and giving up the ground to allow them to proceed to the next step.
Homicides Up 15% in New Jersey
Washington D.C.’s violent crime rate might be going down, but New Jersey’s is going up. That’s because they are busy spending resources prosecuting otherwise law abiding people for violating their ridiculous gun laws rather than locking up criminals. Of course, we all know it’s Pennsylvania’s lax gun laws that are causing this, because it’s always someone else’s fault. It’s never that the laws in question simply don’t work.
Interestingly, New York’s murder rate has also been up, and as we’ve noted before, New Jersey’s murder rate seems to closely track that of New York City.
Getting the GOP Back in Line
Many readers of this site are Republicans or generally right-of-center voters. Yet, when we look at the battles we’re facing with the Second Amendment, it’s not uncommon that Republicans are a source of more than a handful of our problems. In Pennsylvania, we finally managed to get Castle Doctrine out of the hands of an anti-gun Philly Democrat in the state House last year only to be stopped by Republican members of the Senate who wanted to load it down with anti-gun amendments. At the federal level, we saw a huge number of Democrats earning their pro-gun ratings by passing good legislation, putting up a fight for even more great legislation, and holding off opponents in the administration. In other words, for gun rights to move forward, the Republican leadership needs to get its act together and start seriously working with gun owners if they want to earn our votes and help in the next election.
Americans for Tax Reform and The Daily Caller are hosting another RNC Chair debate next week. They have a site set up to submit questions and vote on your favorites. Last year, I believe they did feature a question about guns, but it was only a question of how many guns the candidates owned. As both a gun owner and a volunteer, the question was absolutely meaningless. The RNC Chair isn’t setting official policy of the party, and even if they own one gun for every Republican in the country, it doesn’t tell me crap about the role they are supposed to fulfill.
I would think relevant questions to the party chair candidates would include topics about how they see gun owners as part of their voter outreach strategy, and what messages they have for candidates and incumbents at all levels to build up their grassroots teams to include gun owners. These are the kinds of relevant messages that need to come from the party/brand leaders. I could care less what the RNC Chair has done before on the issue, as long as they are willing to talk to Republican candidates for office about how vital gun owners are on Election Day.
During the last RNC Chair election process, I was open to the idea that Michael Steele could bring a bit of fresh thinking to the party. He knew what it was like to run in a tough state, and to say that the Democrats had played dirty to hurt his candidacy is an understatement. Unfortunately, he spent the RNC into the ground, and stupid mistakes have been the highlight of his term. In 2010, it turned out not to matter too much. People were just that angry with the Democrats. But in 2012, we’ll have the very top on the ticket to worry about, along with defending many more seats. Even though the Democrats still control the White House and Senate, Republicans will shoulder an unfair amount of blame for anything bad that happens, regardless of which party is responsible. Voters who aren’t paying close attention will simply remember that Republicans “won” in 2010, not the real balance of power. We can’t really afford to not have money going into that fight, nor can we afford stupid distractions from the RNC.
More Home Improvement Blues
The drain I put in is leak free, but the shower is leaky beyond hope. The door leaks, the edges leak. The whole thing is a mess and it’s destroyed part of the underlay and vinyl tile I put in a few years ago. So needless to say I’m very displeased. I’ve dismantled the whole stall  and determined no matter how well you caulk the thing, eventually it’s going to leak when the caulk deteriorates or gets its seal broken somewhere. It’s just a fundamentally bad design, no matter how you cut it.
We actually hate the shower anyway, and were contemplating replacing it outright, but I decided I’d rather have the shower back quick and dirty, so I set out just to replace the drain. Not going to cut it. The new shower bases have lips to prevent water that might get out of the door from leaking all over the floor, and their walls are more substantial than a piece of vinyl glued to the drywall. The existing shower is an outdated piece of camel dung, and there’s no getting around it. Sadly, this is also going to mean replacing the floor I put in a few years ago, since I don’t have enough tile left to replace what I need to take up, and they don’t sell that pattern anymore. It’s vinyl tile, so not particularly hard to bring up if you use a heat gun to soften the glue. I may have a tiler come in and tile the thing with ceramic tile so I never have to worry about it again.
I really hate having to fix things. I really really hate having to fix things I already thought I fixed once.
More Humor from Cracked
Nine major stories everyone got wrong this year. Christine O’Donnell and the Tea Parties:
By focusing in on the assclowns the media painted a picture that not only wasn’t accurate, but pretty much made constructive political discourse impossible. They didn’t just fail to do their job — they did the opposite of their job, and they’ve been doing it for years.
Sadly, that’s only funny because it’s true. RTWT.
Manchin Campaign Shot Among Top Ten
Joe Manchin shooting the cap and trade bill has been voted by Politico as one of the top ten moments of the 2010 election. Certainly worked out better for Manchin than Joe Sestak’s dog worked out for him. I think this means we can expect more of this from politicians, which is not going to please our opponents.