I’m not a Republican in a strict sense of the word, nor am I a Tea Party member, and I’m most certainly not a Democrat. What I am is a proud Independent voter with moderate/conservative leanings, which means that I generally (but not always) vote Republican. I also tend to smile benignly upon Independent candidates for office. In my self appointed role as a political commentator, I try to keep abreast of what the politicians are up to as best I can, which probably makes me only slightly better informed than most folks.
In case you’ve been totally isolated for the last few months, we have a “mid-term” election coming up November 2ed, and it’s been described as one of the most crucial mid-terms in our nations’ history. At stake is nothing less that control of Congress, with all 435 House seats and 33 Senatorial seats up for grabs, along with a number of state governorships and innumerable local positions. Mr. Obama’s plans for change are up for grabs as well, and a whole lot of political careers are on the line. Vying for these elected positions is an entire herd of people representing just about every political philosophy ever devised by the human race. Of these political parties, the Democrats are presently ahead, having control of the White House and Congress, the later by 57 House and 18 Senate seats. With that control, the Democrats are happily forcing a virtual tsunami of far left social programs on the American people, and merrily spending what’s left of our national wealth. Meanwhile, the Republicans are busy weeping and wailing over Democratic policies, fuming at the current majority leadership, and of course plotting revenge. Caught in the middle is the “electorate”, the great unwashed mob of American citizens who are expected follow along blindly, and pay the bills without complaint. Filling the role of “advisors” to the electorate is the mainstream media… a mess of political pundits… and a midsized flock of Hollywierd “celebrities” who can’t keep their own lives straightened out, but claim to be eminently qualified to tell the rest of us how to live. This political Three Ring Circus is known to Americans as “Democracy”. To me it’s the biggest mess I’ve seen in the proverbial ‘coons age. The Democrats are for the moment trying their best to survive the upcoming election despite the imminent demise being predicted for them by the Republicans, while the Republicans are riding high on a wave of public distrust of the current regime.
According to most reports, the American people are quite upset with the massive spending programs espoused by the Democrats, and Republican hopefuls are doing their best to denounce it, while distancing themselves from the congressional shenanigans of the last few years. Conveniently they forget to mention that for years before the Democrats seized power, the Republicans themselves were spending our money as fast as the IRS could steal it from us. That in turn spawned the TEA Party movement, which has both mainstream parties upset, and most of the media totally hysterical. The TEA party is not a political party as such, but is a rather loose knit bunch of conservatives from most lines of political thinking, that are quite upset with our continually expanding government, our steady loss of freedom, and the monstrous national debt. For the most part they want government downsized, political power returned to the states, and an end to our huge “entitlement” spending programs. All of this is in direct opposition to Mr. Obama’s program for “changing” us, which, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, the mainstream Republicans have been happily agreeing with for years! In their day, that would have had Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan manning the barricades!
It seems that nearly all the incumbent Republican’s and Blue Dog Democrats are telling us that they’re solidly against one government program or another, when in fact they’ve happily compromised on almost everything! They get an earmark or two and a few pork barrel projects, while Mr. Obama spends another few hundred billion dollars on assorted entitlements and social engineering theories. Tomorrow they go out and do it all over again! Now we have the TEA Party supported candidates entering the arena. For the most part these guys are hard core conservatives in outlook, which means they are (or at least were) Republicans or Moderates at one time or another. However, they oppose the Republican establishment’s “sellout” of our rights, our freedoms, our economy, and our distinctly American culture. In the recent primary elections they have done surprisingly well, which should tell the Republican leadership that something’s wrong, or at least that the rank and file membership strongly objects to the sellout! Get this quote from Ed Rogers, former aide to George H.W. Bush: “Experience has taught me that, in the end, politicians tend to make the best politicians.” In translation, that means the job can only be handled by the professional politicos who have done so well for us over the last 20 years… The establishment should be thankful that the Tea Party people have been as civil as they are… if they were liberals they’d already be rioting in the streets! When patient, law-abiding citizens who have never been involved in politics decide they have had enough of the status quo, when they watch their money and liberty disappear, they will not go quietly into the night!
Playing to the dissent within Republican ranks, the DNC leadership is now using the old “we know we're bad, but we are the lesser of two evils" argument... with the theme being “You may hate us, but GOP is worse”. (You just know your country is going down the tubes when politicians start admitting how pathetic they are, and then say "at least we aren't THAT bad".) Democratic strategist David DiMartino claims that "In every state and every district, it has to be a choice between them and us. Our policies are more popular than theirs." Humm… Dunno where he got that idea from! Strangely enough, any time the GOP has control of the house, we seem to have more jobs, but when the Democrats have control of the house, they cut jobs and increase social services. And look at the fiasco with heath care and financial reform. Who are the Congressmen that favor vastly expanded social benefits? Who is it that wants to emasculate our armed forces? Who favors illegal immigration… who favors instant abortion? We know what the Democrats plan, and by press time we’ll have the mainstream Republican “New Contract with America” announcement. What I’d hope to see next is a conservative plan of what they hope to accomplish once they’re in office. Then, we’d all be much better informed, and able to make an intelligent selection when we vote.
My fear is that the far left Democrats will score a big time win in the upcoming election, as the mainstream republicans are so busy fighting their conservative base that they’re driving people away, directly into the welcoming arms of really radical splinter groups. Essentially they’re splitting the vote as we’ve seen happen several times in recent years. If that happens, and the Democrats retain control of the US Congress for yet another two years, I shudder to think what will happen to this once proud and prosperous nation.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Wolf Wars
Idaho’s “Wolf War” continues, as does the Idaho County investigation into a Wolf Management Plan. At the August 31st meeting of the county commissioners, Dustin Miller and Tom Perry of the State Office of Species Conservation addressed the commissioners, explaining just what the state hopes to accomplish at present. In a nutshell, what they told us is that nothing solid has been done yet, as the various political sub-divisions are weighing their options, with the idea being to get the wolves under control without running afoul of assorted endangered species laws. That’s understandable I guess, as nobody really wants to get stuck with some horrendous fines, or go to jail, over a bunch of murderous canine predators!
In the course of researching our wolf problems, I’ve read quite a few articles written by environmentalists and pro-wolf activists. For the most part I’m amazed by the fallacies, half-truths, and in some cases outright lies promoted by these people. Despite reams of evidence to the contrary, they continue to claim that wolves never attack humans, never kill domestic animals, kill wildlife only to survive, and in general are big loving puppies that make wonderful pets. One pundit went so far as to claim that a massacred flock of sheep had all died overnight from some sort of respiratory disease! I get the impression that these folks have never seen a wolf in the wild, and have never seen the aftermath of a wolf attack. I also suspect that these same people have never seen a wolf outside a zoo, and they’ve probably never left their comfortable city environs either...
Yielding to considerable political pressure, as of August 30th Governor Otter sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, requesting the Interior Dept. cooperate with the State of Idaho in providing an immediate solution to our wolf problem. By press time we should have some word if this is happening, but given the track record of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and that of the federal courts, I really don’t have a lot of hope for anything constructive… but Butch does have to jump through all the legal hoops anyway.
Quoting from the August 16, 2010 Resolution of the Idaho Fish and Game Commission regarding wolf management, Paragraph 1 states that “It is the law and policy of the State of Idaho that all wildlife, including all wild animals, wild birds, and fish, within the State of Idaho, is hereby declared to be the property of the State of Idaho. It shall be preserved, protected, perpetuated, and managed.” Considering that this policy was quite acceptable to the feds for nearly a hundred years, I see no reason that we couldn’t enforce it today. After all, Idaho does have a quite respectable track record when it comes to wildlife management! The stumbling block is the federal courts, and their openly siding with the wolf huggers.
The original goal of the wolf reintroduction plan was to have a population of ten breeding pairs and one hundred wolves for three consecutive years. Part of Northwest Montana, central Idaho, and Yellowstone National Park were designated “nonessential experimental wolf population areas” for the gray wolf, and 66 wolves were released in the Central Idaho and Yellowstone areas during 1995 and 1996. By 2000 the population had increased to more than 30 breeding pairs and 300 wolves, and by 2005 we had more than 500 wolves, five times the “sustainable” target level. Now it appears that the “experiment” has gone somewhat awry, with the Northern Rockies wolf population presently estimated by wildlife experts at somewhere between 2,500 and 3,500 animals on the loose. Understand that the population numbers are argued by environmentalists, as they only count the very few animals that have been trapped and tagged with radio collars. Utilizing the irrefutable logic of environmentalism, any untagged wolves “don’t exist” apparently. Once nearly exterminated, wolves have made quite a comeback, and as they continue to multiply the destruction of deer, elk, and moose (and with their taste for livestock), their return is bringing about a severe backlash.
In years past, the ideals of conservation was supported and understood by most people. We understood that man had the power and even the right to improve, change, and utilize the environment for his own betterment, which improved things for most wildlife as well. As we
progressed, we learned new ways to conserve and use nature. Land in many eastern states was often left in a useless state after coal mining, but learning from those mistakes, we now can, and generally do, reclaim the land to as good or better condition than it was in its natural state. Logging was found to be the best thing for nature's forests, where instead of dying from disease, insect infestation, fire and such, timber could be harvested and utilized, thus making forests healthier. Eradication of wolves and controlled hunting improved the situation for wildlife as well, by maintaining the population at sustainable levels over a long period of time.
One federal judge stated (in a different case), "In this court's view a stay would flout the will of Congress as this Court understands what Congress has enacted...Congress remains perfectly free to amend or revise the statute. This Court is not free to do so.” Such a wide range of “understanding” the intent of Congress leaves federal judges a lot of leeway! In an example of that view, in August of 2010, US District Judge Donald Molloy ordered the relisting of wolves in Idaho and Montana, based purely upon a legal technicality handily pointed out to him by lawyers for the environuts. Today, local government agencies are seeking authority to control gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes, despite the court action restoring the animal's endangered status across most of the country, and leaving in federal hands the fate of our ranchers, outfitters, sportsmen and others who suffer harm by severe wolf predation.
Perhaps if we put a bit of political pressure on our congressmen they’ll quit kowtowing to the environmentalist special interests for a change, and correct this intolerable legal situation? Or are we supposed to merely continue feeding our domestic livestock to thousands of ravenous wolves?
In the course of researching our wolf problems, I’ve read quite a few articles written by environmentalists and pro-wolf activists. For the most part I’m amazed by the fallacies, half-truths, and in some cases outright lies promoted by these people. Despite reams of evidence to the contrary, they continue to claim that wolves never attack humans, never kill domestic animals, kill wildlife only to survive, and in general are big loving puppies that make wonderful pets. One pundit went so far as to claim that a massacred flock of sheep had all died overnight from some sort of respiratory disease! I get the impression that these folks have never seen a wolf in the wild, and have never seen the aftermath of a wolf attack. I also suspect that these same people have never seen a wolf outside a zoo, and they’ve probably never left their comfortable city environs either...
Yielding to considerable political pressure, as of August 30th Governor Otter sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, requesting the Interior Dept. cooperate with the State of Idaho in providing an immediate solution to our wolf problem. By press time we should have some word if this is happening, but given the track record of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and that of the federal courts, I really don’t have a lot of hope for anything constructive… but Butch does have to jump through all the legal hoops anyway.
Quoting from the August 16, 2010 Resolution of the Idaho Fish and Game Commission regarding wolf management, Paragraph 1 states that “It is the law and policy of the State of Idaho that all wildlife, including all wild animals, wild birds, and fish, within the State of Idaho, is hereby declared to be the property of the State of Idaho. It shall be preserved, protected, perpetuated, and managed.” Considering that this policy was quite acceptable to the feds for nearly a hundred years, I see no reason that we couldn’t enforce it today. After all, Idaho does have a quite respectable track record when it comes to wildlife management! The stumbling block is the federal courts, and their openly siding with the wolf huggers.
The original goal of the wolf reintroduction plan was to have a population of ten breeding pairs and one hundred wolves for three consecutive years. Part of Northwest Montana, central Idaho, and Yellowstone National Park were designated “nonessential experimental wolf population areas” for the gray wolf, and 66 wolves were released in the Central Idaho and Yellowstone areas during 1995 and 1996. By 2000 the population had increased to more than 30 breeding pairs and 300 wolves, and by 2005 we had more than 500 wolves, five times the “sustainable” target level. Now it appears that the “experiment” has gone somewhat awry, with the Northern Rockies wolf population presently estimated by wildlife experts at somewhere between 2,500 and 3,500 animals on the loose. Understand that the population numbers are argued by environmentalists, as they only count the very few animals that have been trapped and tagged with radio collars. Utilizing the irrefutable logic of environmentalism, any untagged wolves “don’t exist” apparently. Once nearly exterminated, wolves have made quite a comeback, and as they continue to multiply the destruction of deer, elk, and moose (and with their taste for livestock), their return is bringing about a severe backlash.
In years past, the ideals of conservation was supported and understood by most people. We understood that man had the power and even the right to improve, change, and utilize the environment for his own betterment, which improved things for most wildlife as well. As we
progressed, we learned new ways to conserve and use nature. Land in many eastern states was often left in a useless state after coal mining, but learning from those mistakes, we now can, and generally do, reclaim the land to as good or better condition than it was in its natural state. Logging was found to be the best thing for nature's forests, where instead of dying from disease, insect infestation, fire and such, timber could be harvested and utilized, thus making forests healthier. Eradication of wolves and controlled hunting improved the situation for wildlife as well, by maintaining the population at sustainable levels over a long period of time.
One federal judge stated (in a different case), "In this court's view a stay would flout the will of Congress as this Court understands what Congress has enacted...Congress remains perfectly free to amend or revise the statute. This Court is not free to do so.” Such a wide range of “understanding” the intent of Congress leaves federal judges a lot of leeway! In an example of that view, in August of 2010, US District Judge Donald Molloy ordered the relisting of wolves in Idaho and Montana, based purely upon a legal technicality handily pointed out to him by lawyers for the environuts. Today, local government agencies are seeking authority to control gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes, despite the court action restoring the animal's endangered status across most of the country, and leaving in federal hands the fate of our ranchers, outfitters, sportsmen and others who suffer harm by severe wolf predation.
Perhaps if we put a bit of political pressure on our congressmen they’ll quit kowtowing to the environmentalist special interests for a change, and correct this intolerable legal situation? Or are we supposed to merely continue feeding our domestic livestock to thousands of ravenous wolves?
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Ground Zero Mosque?
The question of a mosque being built within the shadow of New York’s “Ground Zero” seems to have stirred up a real hornets nest around the country, and I ‘spect I might as well weigh-in on the subject as well. First off, our war on terrorism is not a war against Islam, or at least it’s not supposed to be. If we tried to make it so, all we would accomplish would be to make just about every Muslim in the world a potential terrorist, quickly presenting us with a couple of billion vengeful enemies! Besides, the “War on Islam” has been going on for the last fifteen hundred years, with Islam pitting itself against just about everybody else in the world. Still, New York’s Muslims, as do all Americans, enjoy freedom of religion in this country, and have the right to build a mosque just about anyplace they desire. That is a right guaranteed to us all by our Constitution, and is not something we can make conditional. Having said that, I also think the folks wishing to put another mosque in lower Manhattan, along with the authorities trying to allow it, are out of their ever lovin’ minds! Plain and simple, this new Mosque does not belong anywhere near Ground Zero. We can’t deny American Muslims their right to build a house of worship, but we do have the right to ask that it be moved to another area.
For decades the term “Ground Zero” has been used to conjure up images of the atomic bomb devastation in Japan following WW II. After Sept. 11 it became synonymous with the World Trade Center site left by the attacks, with body parts and airplane debris scattered on area rooftops, or the office papers that flew to Brooklyn and New Jersey. You don't have to be prejudiced against Islam to believe, as do many Americans, that the area around Ground Zero is a sacred place, or, as the Mother of a firefighter killed in the collapse called it, “a cemetery”. The 16-acre site is part of a neighborhood filled with restaurants, hotels, and apartment buildings. The World Financial Center, a Burger King, discount clothing outlet, a firehouse, two Mosques, and a Catholic church are all located in the immediate area. It once housed the two towers hit by hijacked jetliners, as well as four other buildings in the complex, including a Marriott hotel. 7 World Trade Center, a part of the complex that collapsed on Sept. 11, was rebuilt four years ago. It’s across the street from the building where the Islamic community center is planned. The Mosque itself is two blocks north of the fence. Today, construction cranes rise over the entire site, along with an office tower over 30 stories high, a Sept. 11 memorial, and a NY transit hub currently under construction. And yet nobody seems to have noticed that there are already two mosques in the neighborhood… one is only four blocks away.
New Jersey Governor Christie said that while he understood the pain and sorrow of family members who lost loved ones on 9/11, “we cannot paint all of Islam with that brush.” Then he charged Mr. Obama with trying to turn the issue into a political football. But it was already a political football when Mr. Obama made his speech, and Mr. Obama did was fumbled it with his flip-flopping when the following day he retracted parts of his statement? One leftist commentator claims that “we should not miss this golden opportunity to reach the hearts and minds of the Islamic world by wholeheartedly endorsing the mosque. This is no time for equivocation. We need to show our moral strength as a nation and not be deterred by opinion polls and hypocritical Christians". He then goes on with “Jesus would surely have endorsed the building of this house of worship meant to honor the God of the Book common to Christian, Jew, and Muslim.” Somehow I just can’t see our “moral strength as a nation” being endangered by Christians any more that I can see Jesus endorsing a Mosque. Our national moral strength came from our Christian forefathers after all, and as for Jesus’ part in this play on words, he was Jewish, and because of that little fact had the Moslems been around two thousand years ago they’d have happily killed him (and everybody else in town) when he was an infant!
Now we get into the “fishy part” of the whole proposal. Sharif El-Gamal, 37, the owner of the building at the center of the storm, recently told one interviewer about “all the money” he expected to make out of the deal, which totaled nearly twenty million dollars. It’s also come to light that El-Gamal has a long history of legal and tax problems in both New York and Florida. The controversial imam at the center of the debate, Fiesal Abdul Rauf, has his own problems, one of which was getting caught trying to circumvent New York’s tax laws. The Imam is currently on a taxpayer-funded State Department trip to the Mideast, serving as a representative of the United States government! Adding to the brouhaha, Greek Orthodox leaders trying to rebuild the only church destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks were recently shocked to learn that government officials had killed a deal to relocate and rebuild St. Nicholas Church, which was destroyed by one of the falling WTC towers. Nobody from the church was hurt, but for the past eight years the congregation has been trying to rebuild its house of worship at a location about 100 yards from the original site. Now, amid debate over whether a proposed Islamic community center should go forward near Ground Zero, government officials threw cold water on the prospect of rebuilding. “The question was whether public money would be spent to build a much larger church at a separate location on the site and ensuring that construction wouldn't delay the World Trade Center further," spokesman Stephen Sigmund said. Yet those same officials are offering the Mosque developers $70 million in tax free city development bonds!
This is not simply a black and white issue. Certainly Muslims have the right to practice their religion. The issue is where they're doing it. I for one think it's insensitive to put the mosque so close to Ground Zero, being somewhat akin to putting a Nazi memorial next to Auschwitz! They’re within their legal rights to do so, but it’s still pretty insensitive. The stated purpose of the mosque was to help heal the wounds of 9/11. Obviously it’s not having that effect. Along with most Americans, a large majority of New Yorkers oppose it, and that is the community it is meant to serve. The developers should recognize that they are causing considerable pain to the people they insist they're trying to help - and reconsider the location of their mosque.
Whatever the outcome, New York’s Muslims might consider dedicating their new Mosque, wherever it’s built, to the memory of the 9 health care workers in Afghanistan, murdered by Taliban Muslims.
For decades the term “Ground Zero” has been used to conjure up images of the atomic bomb devastation in Japan following WW II. After Sept. 11 it became synonymous with the World Trade Center site left by the attacks, with body parts and airplane debris scattered on area rooftops, or the office papers that flew to Brooklyn and New Jersey. You don't have to be prejudiced against Islam to believe, as do many Americans, that the area around Ground Zero is a sacred place, or, as the Mother of a firefighter killed in the collapse called it, “a cemetery”. The 16-acre site is part of a neighborhood filled with restaurants, hotels, and apartment buildings. The World Financial Center, a Burger King, discount clothing outlet, a firehouse, two Mosques, and a Catholic church are all located in the immediate area. It once housed the two towers hit by hijacked jetliners, as well as four other buildings in the complex, including a Marriott hotel. 7 World Trade Center, a part of the complex that collapsed on Sept. 11, was rebuilt four years ago. It’s across the street from the building where the Islamic community center is planned. The Mosque itself is two blocks north of the fence. Today, construction cranes rise over the entire site, along with an office tower over 30 stories high, a Sept. 11 memorial, and a NY transit hub currently under construction. And yet nobody seems to have noticed that there are already two mosques in the neighborhood… one is only four blocks away.
New Jersey Governor Christie said that while he understood the pain and sorrow of family members who lost loved ones on 9/11, “we cannot paint all of Islam with that brush.” Then he charged Mr. Obama with trying to turn the issue into a political football. But it was already a political football when Mr. Obama made his speech, and Mr. Obama did was fumbled it with his flip-flopping when the following day he retracted parts of his statement? One leftist commentator claims that “we should not miss this golden opportunity to reach the hearts and minds of the Islamic world by wholeheartedly endorsing the mosque. This is no time for equivocation. We need to show our moral strength as a nation and not be deterred by opinion polls and hypocritical Christians". He then goes on with “Jesus would surely have endorsed the building of this house of worship meant to honor the God of the Book common to Christian, Jew, and Muslim.” Somehow I just can’t see our “moral strength as a nation” being endangered by Christians any more that I can see Jesus endorsing a Mosque. Our national moral strength came from our Christian forefathers after all, and as for Jesus’ part in this play on words, he was Jewish, and because of that little fact had the Moslems been around two thousand years ago they’d have happily killed him (and everybody else in town) when he was an infant!
Now we get into the “fishy part” of the whole proposal. Sharif El-Gamal, 37, the owner of the building at the center of the storm, recently told one interviewer about “all the money” he expected to make out of the deal, which totaled nearly twenty million dollars. It’s also come to light that El-Gamal has a long history of legal and tax problems in both New York and Florida. The controversial imam at the center of the debate, Fiesal Abdul Rauf, has his own problems, one of which was getting caught trying to circumvent New York’s tax laws. The Imam is currently on a taxpayer-funded State Department trip to the Mideast, serving as a representative of the United States government! Adding to the brouhaha, Greek Orthodox leaders trying to rebuild the only church destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks were recently shocked to learn that government officials had killed a deal to relocate and rebuild St. Nicholas Church, which was destroyed by one of the falling WTC towers. Nobody from the church was hurt, but for the past eight years the congregation has been trying to rebuild its house of worship at a location about 100 yards from the original site. Now, amid debate over whether a proposed Islamic community center should go forward near Ground Zero, government officials threw cold water on the prospect of rebuilding. “The question was whether public money would be spent to build a much larger church at a separate location on the site and ensuring that construction wouldn't delay the World Trade Center further," spokesman Stephen Sigmund said. Yet those same officials are offering the Mosque developers $70 million in tax free city development bonds!
This is not simply a black and white issue. Certainly Muslims have the right to practice their religion. The issue is where they're doing it. I for one think it's insensitive to put the mosque so close to Ground Zero, being somewhat akin to putting a Nazi memorial next to Auschwitz! They’re within their legal rights to do so, but it’s still pretty insensitive. The stated purpose of the mosque was to help heal the wounds of 9/11. Obviously it’s not having that effect. Along with most Americans, a large majority of New Yorkers oppose it, and that is the community it is meant to serve. The developers should recognize that they are causing considerable pain to the people they insist they're trying to help - and reconsider the location of their mosque.
Whatever the outcome, New York’s Muslims might consider dedicating their new Mosque, wherever it’s built, to the memory of the 9 health care workers in Afghanistan, murdered by Taliban Muslims.
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