Month: November 2013

Three-fourths of all Pennsylvanians want to see an end to live pigeon shoots.

A statewide survey by the Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Company reveals not only do 75 percent of Pennsylvanians want to see legislation to ban live pigeon shoots but only 16 percent of Pennsylvanians oppose such a ban.

Here’s another figure from that independent survey. Eighty-three percent–that’s more than four of every five Pennsylvanians–say live pigeon shoots are an unnecessary form of animal cruelty.

Here’s why.

Organizers of this blood sport place the birds into cages, and place people with shotguns only about 20 yards away. The spring-loaded cages open, and the pretend hunters open fire. The pigeons, many of them stunned, often having been nearly starved, are then blown apart.

But first they suffer. More than 70 percent of all birds are wounded, according to data compiled by the Humane Society of the United States. If they fall onto the shooting range, teenagers take the birds, wring their necks or use scissors to cut their heads off, and stuff them into barrels. Even if the birds survive strangulation, they will die from their wounds and from suffocation. If the wounded birds manage to fly outside the shooting range, most will die a lingering and painful death. The juveniles-disguised-as-adults consider the birds litter, and don’t pick them up if they fall outside the shooting range.

Most hunters agree live pigeon shoots is cruelty. Most hunters rightfully say this is not fair
chase hunting. Most hunters want to see this practice come to an end. And they have every right to want this to happen–pigeon shoots make a mockery of everything legitimate hunting stands for, and gives anti-hunting activists a huge target.

None of the birds can be used for food. Nor is there any way to make fur coats from their feathers.

Pennsylvania’s trap and skeet shoots attract many of the best shooters from around the country, and are a justifiably family-friendly sport. In contrast, pigeon shoots attract an assortment of barely-mediocre shooters, most of whom mix shooting and drinking, and openly violate the state’s gambling laws. Ted Nugent, who justifiably lives up to his “Motor City Madman” label, actively promotes pigeon shoots.

More than a century ago, the International Olympic Committee banned pigeon shooting as cruel, and declared it wasn’t a sport. Almost no country allows pigeon shoots. Pennsylvania is the only state that officially condones this practice.

So, if three-fourths of all Pennsylvanians want to see a ban on pigeon shoots, who doesn’t?
The Pennsylvania legislature doesn’t. In almost three decades, the leaders have blocked almost every attempt to put legislation up for a vote. The last time there was a free-standing bill was in 1989.

And why has Pennsylvania’s often-dysfunctional legislature not followed the will of the people and banned this cruelty?

It’s an easy answer. Politicians are ruled not by the people who elect them but by who spreads money and fear onto their souls. In this case, the NRA executives–not the membership, almost all of whom believe in fair chase hunting, but the executives–don’t want to see the end of pigeon shooting. They stupidly and wrongly claim that banning pigeon shooting violates the Second Amendment. They stupidly and wrongly claim that banning pigeon slaughter is a slippery slope to the overthrow of gun rights.

Pennsylvania’s part-time legislators who receive full-time pay buy into this because they have been bought by the NRA–and they are afraid if they get even a grade of “B” from the NRA it might affect their chances of re-election.

This legislative session, Sen. Pat Browne (R-Allentown), the Senate’s majority whip, sponsored a bill (SB 510) to ban pigeon shoots. He has 22 co-sponsors; among them are Sen. Dominic Pileggi (R-Glen Mills, Pa.), the majority leader; Sen. Jay Costa (D-Pittsburgh), the minority floor leader; and Anthony Williams (D-Philadelphia), the minority caucus chair. Browne also has the support of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association, the ASPCA, and the Pennsylvania Federation of Humane Societies.

Even if the Senate passes the bill, the vote in the House will be contentious–its leaders have been the primary blocks to keep the bill from a vote.

If our Jello-spined legislators will look at the will of the people, they will stand up to the NRA executives, vote for Sen. Browne’s bill to ban pigeon shoots, and bring Pennsylvania into line with all other states that can make a distinction between Second Amendment rights and animal cruelty.

[Walter Brasch, an award-winning journalist, for more than two decades has been covering the controversy surrounding pigeon shoots. Dr. Brasch is also the author of 18 books; his latest is Fracking Pennsylvania, which explores the financial and political connections between state politicians and the gas and oil industry.]

There are some idiosyncrasies in the Virginia gubernatorial race that will complicate analysts’ ability to draw conclusions from the results and the exit polling. For starters, only 5% of Virginia Democrats think that Terry McAuliffe is too liberal, but fully 20% of Virginia Republicans think that Ken Cuccinelli is too conservative. Those are important numbers that do more than anything else to explain the likely result of the election. But, what would the numbers be in a race between Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie? I think they would be a lot different. You can throw any combination of prospective candidates into the mix (Biden vs. Jeb Bush, O’Malley vs. Rand Paul, Cuomo vs. Ted Cruz) and you’ll get different perceptions about how respectively liberal or conservative the candidate are. Candidates, and more importantly, perceptions of candidates, matter a lot. Chris Christie is a very socially conservative politician, but he isn’t trying to ban blow jobs in New Jersey. Many Republican consultants and strategists think that Christie is the perfect mix of social conservative and perceptual moderate. I agree that he’s pulled off that trick in New Jersey for now, but I think people need to take into account that New Jerseyans are not like other people.

In New Jersey, it’s a plus if you are confrontational and get up in people’s faces. It’s a plus if you won’t suffer idiots. And don’t discount that some of Christie’s most well-known tantrums have been thrown at Washington Republicans. Democrats in New Jersey give credit to Christie for throwing his arms around the president after SuperStorm Sandy, but they give him more credit for blasting John Boehner for delaying federal aid. Democrats might cringe a little when Christie berates a school teacher in public, but when he basically calls Rand Paul an idiot, he gets a lot of credit.

A lot of progressive analysts who aren’t from New Jersey think that Christie is popular with conservatives because he’s always on the attack. But that doesn’t explain why he’s popular with so many Jersey Democrats. Jersey Democrats are a lot like conservatives nationally, who like a combative style of politics.

Now, if you want to talk about how well Christie will sell in some place like Iowa, that’s an interesting question. Rudy Giuliani didn’t sell well in Iowa, and I don’t know if it was his chaotic personal life, his socially-moderate positions on the issues, his foreign New York affectation, or his combative style that presented the biggest problem for him. In general, Iowans are a polite and pacifistic people, but they also keep sending Rep. Steve King to Congress, and Sen. Chuck Grassley seems to grow more ornery with each passing year. So, there is certainly an appetite for combativeness in at least a wing of the Republican Party in Iowa. On the other hand, the Iowa GOP has been taken over by devotees of Ron and Rand Paul.

What I do know, because I’m from New Jersey and have lived in the Midwest and on the West Coast, is that the typical Jersey personality-type, which Chris Christie represents quite well, comes off as arrogant and impolite in other parts of the country. It would be a very tough sell in the Midwest in a general election, although it might not hurt him too badly in closed Republican primaries and caucuses.

If the polls are correct, tomorrow people will start trying to coronate Chris Christie as the 2016 GOP nominee for president. That will be premature. They’ll also contrast his victory with Cuccinelli’s defeat and argue that the Tea Party lost out to the Establishment. That will be closer to the truth, but it will be misleading. It will be misleading because Chris Christie is a very socially conservative guy.

The narrative will also create some problems for Christie, because the more the Establishment wraps its arms around him, the more suspect Christie will become with the conservative base. And we know how respectful and tactful Christie is to his critics…

As to Virginia, what we want to look at is how the different regions of the state vote, and then we can try to extrapolate from that how the results would translate in a full-turnout presidential election. That’s the important information because, as I’ve said, for Republicans, if you lose Virginia, you lose the presidency.

I mistakenly hit the wrong button while editing this morning and lost this whole article. I don’t have time right now to completely reformat it, so I am putting it up in rather bad shape. Sorry. I think it is important that we try to understand what is really going on here. Later in the day I will reformat it. The quotes are real, I just don’t have the time to do links.-AG

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Wake the fuck up.

Fools.

Fuck with the moral bull, you get the moral horns.

Once a week if not more often.

These people will continue to come out of the woodwork until the United States ceases its ongoing criminal enterprise(s). The contradictions between what we say and what we do have grown too deep for some people to be able to handle without cracking. Cultural dissonace? Political dissonace.

I got yer “chickens coming home to roost,” right here!!!

Deadly LAX shooting: Why did he do it?

It’s not clear why a 23-year-old man, identified by the FBI as Paul Anthony Ciancia, stormed one of America’s busiest airports, but it is clear he was dangerous.

And investigators were digging into his background to find out clues about his motives.

He had enough ammunition to “have literally killed everyone in that terminal,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said.

—snip—

…the gunman asked people, “Hey, are you TSA?” — the acronym for the Transportation Security Administration. If they said “no,” he would move on.

—snip—

The materials found on the suspect included a rant that appeared to reference the New World Order as well as anti-TSA and anti-government claims, a federal law enforcement official said Saturday.

Why did he do it? Because he was driven batshit nuts by the American culture of lies, contradiction and violence, probably with a good dose of Big Pharma/Big Med/Big Psychiatry as he started to come apart. That’s “why he did it.” Bet on it. Why the TSA? Hell, why not the TSA? It’s as crooked as the rest of Big Gov and it’s right in people’s faces with the whole “guilty until proven innocent” thing that has grown to dominate Surveillance State U.S.A. Maybe some minimum wage TSA stooge snarled at him once too often and that was the straw that broke his mind’s back. One humiliation too many for an unbalanced man, and “SNAP!!!”…there he goes.

WTFU.

Please!!!

This is just going to get worse until we clean the federal government/Augean stables of its accumulated horseshit.

Wake the fuck up.

AG

P.S. Much more from me on this below in a comment.

Sigh…

P.P.S More:

`Armed man’ seen at school was student `in costume’

A camouflaged man who appeared to be armed triggered a campus lockdown at Central Connecticut State University on Monday — but his pals told The Post he was just a student in a Halloween costume.

“[His] BB gun was very real-looking. But it was just an unloaded BB gun. I was playing around with it on Halloween,” said friend Alex Valinho, 19, who lives in same dorm as 21-year-old suspect David Kyem.

SWAT teams swarmed the campus and students barricaded themselves in their class and dorm rooms after Kyem — dressed in a black ski mask, body-armor vest, sword and the BB gun — was spotted heading into James Hall around noon.

The young man, whose dad is an adjunct geography professor at the school, lives in the dorm, pals said.

“All on CCSU campus must seek shelter and stay indoors,” CCSU warned on Twitter at one point. “This is not a drill. Campus emergency.”

Another university tweet said, “Seek shelter. Lock doors, close windows. We will communicate when we have more info.”

Kyem was so confused that he even barricaded himself in his room along with everyone else, unaware that the cops were after him, friends said. He hid under his bed, they said.

He was finally apprehended in his room around 2:30 p.m.

Friends said Kyem had just returned by bus after a weekend of partying at the University of Connecticut.

“It’s his same costume he wore on Halloween. The sword was 3 feet long and pretty dull,” Valinho said.

—snip—

Another friend, Salam Measho, 20, a junior originally from The Bronx, called the suspect “a great guy.

“And he wouldn’t hurt anybody. It’s about the atmosphere in the media and in the public. People see a man in fatigues, and they panic.”

—snip–

Two other people also were taken into custody. Kyem’s friends said they were his roommates.

Cowed America.

Just what they fucking want.

P.P.P.S. And even more!!!

Police respond to reports of shots fired at New Jersey mall

Authorities were looking for a gunman inside a New Jersey shopping mall Monday evening after reports of shots fired, law enforcement sources told NBC New York.

Gunfire erupted just before the Westfield Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus closed at 9:30 p.m., according to the station.

In a tweet, Ocean County Police, Fire and EMS said multiple agencies were “operating” at the mall, “with an active shooter reported and shots fired.” Witnesses told the station that an unidentified suspect dressed in black — and wearing a black helmet — was carrying a rifle and started firing shots inside the large shopping complex.

It was not immediately clear if anyone was struck.

Paramus is a borough in Bergen County, the most populous county in New Jersey.

“Once a week?”

I was way behind the curve!!!

Wake the fuck up.

YOU’RE NEXT!!!

This is not “news,” folks.

Not by a long shot.

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.”-John Donne, 1572-1631)

For Whom the Bell Tolls

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manner of thine own

Or of thine friend’s were.

Each man’s death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

or:

“By what measure of kindness are your killed considered innocents while ours are considered worthless? By what school [of thought] is your blood considered blood while our blood is water?

“Therefore, it is [only] just to respond in kind, and the one who started it is more to blame…” Osama bin Laden, 2004

Wake the fuck up.

P.P.P.P.S. Massive panic in a NJ mall. A full-on military response. Shooter “kills self in back room.” Many shots heard, one bullet found. Hmmmm. Another “nutcase suicide?” Dead men tell no tales, they say. Another tightening of the fear/control matrix. Who profits from this? Ask yourselves…who profits? And then…wake the fuck up.

PARAMUS, N.J. (AP) — A 20-year-old man suspected of firing multiple shots and causing a lockdown at New Jersey’s largest shopping mall has been found dead of a self-inflicted wound, authorities said Tuesday.

Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said the body of Richard Shoop, 20, of Teaneck was found in a back area of the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus. He said Shoop killed himself with the same weapon he used at the mall and that a note was found.

There were no other injuries.

Paramus Police Kenneth Ehrenberg said Shoop’s body was discovered around 3:20 a.m. Tuesday deep within a lower level of the mall that is not a public area. Shoop did not work at the mall, he said, and police are still seeking a motive for the shooting.

Chaos erupted shortly before the mall’s 9:30 p.m. closing time on Monday when authorities said a man dressed in black and wearing what is believed to be a motorcycle helmet fired shots. There were no injuries.

Witnesses said the sound of gunfire sent customers and employees rushing hysterically for the exits and hiding places at the mall, which will be closed on Tuesday.

—snip—

Bergen County spokeswoman Jeanne Baratta told the AP that SWAT teams concentrated their search in the northeast corner of the 2.2 million-square-foot mall, near a Nordstrom store, believing the suspect might still be in the mall.

She said authorities found one bullet casing.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers converged on the mall, which was put on lockdown. New Jersey State Police landed a helicopter in the parking lot and SWAT teams with K-9 units went through the mall and evacuated anyone who was still there.

Nick Woods was working in the Lego store when a woman ran by shouting that there was a shooting.

Woods said his supervisor locked them in a back room, along with a man and a child who ran into the store. When they finally peeked out two hours later, he said they saw police officers standing outside and Woods called 911 to ask that the officers be told they were coming out.

He said the emergency operator told him she couldn’t contact individual police officers and that he should walk out with his hands in the air.

“I had to go out of the store shouting at the officers with my hands up, and they turned and pointed their guns at me,” Woods said. “It was one of the scariest experiences of my life.”

Joel Castaneda, 18, of Englewood, who was working at the Ann Taylor Loft store, also spent time locked in a back room. He said he heard several loud bangs and thought they were from construction at the mall, but then saw people running.

He said people rushed into his store and they locked themselves in a back room — employees and customers alike — where they pulled out cellphones to try to get news or reach loved ones.

Carlos Sinde, 36, of Queens, N.Y., was alerted by fire alarms going off while he was watching previews for the 9:20 p.m. showing of the movie “Gravity” at the mall.

He said he walked into the mall where someone was saying “I think there was a shooting,” but he didn’t take it seriously. Then, security guards ran up, urging customers to leave. He said one security guard was crying.

“Once the security guards started telling us what was going on, that’s when there was hysteria,” he said.

—snip—

The fear matrix. Coming to your local mall, school, airport or anywhere else many people gather. Soon. Watch. Only one person killed…the so-called “shooter”… but millions feel the terror. How efficient is that!!! Lemme ask you…are you walking into a mall during this coming holiday season full of Christmas/Holiday spirit? Or are you walking in feeling like a turkey the week before Thanksgiving? Check it out. The control noose tightens. Watch.

I got yer “holiday spirit, too” Right here!!!

Jersey Mall gunman Richard Shoop was found with a
self-inflicted gunshot wound in an area behind the
Westfield Garden State Mall in Paramus New Jersey.

Nice.

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

I dare ya.

Late this afternoon, the Senate had a cloture vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013 . Cloture was actually successfully invoked. But nine cowards didn’t even vote. Here are their names: Roy Blunt (R-MO) Richard Burr (R-NC), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Tom Coburn (R-OK), John McCain (R-AZ), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), David Vitter (R-LA).

Congratulations, tools. You are now the subjects for a new book called Profiles In No Courage.

I am basically taking a mental health day after a full weekend of blogging and with elections coming up tomorrow. But I wanted you to see Ramesh:

If the polls hold up, Cuccinelli’s defeat may demoralize social conservatives — especially if the news media spin the defeat as a sign that their concerns are a millstone around the neck of Republican politicians. Christie’s likely re-election shows that such an interpretation is wrong. Being a social conservative is not by itself a political death sentence even in deep-blue territory.

He’s right. Chris Christie is a social conservative. He’s winning in New Jersey because Jersey folks like his attitude. Now that I live across in the river in Pennsylvania, I’ve discovered that people over here, who are almost identical in every other way, actually think Christie is a rude, overbearing jerk.

Like it’s a bad thing.

It’s actually the only reason he’s popular. The New Jersey economy is in the crapper and compares unfavorably with every state in the region. Christie has been a terrible governor. But he’s got Jersey attitude down to a science. They’re sticking with him.

Just remember, Jersey doesn’t travel well. I know. I’ve lived in a lot of different places.

Maybe the president is a lousy blogger but I don’t think writing good-quality polemics is really in his job description. In any case, I try to remember the converse. I might be a good blogger, but I don’t think I’d be able to do much with Congress, either. I’d probably stop trying to negotiate and just start comparing them all to a case of the clap.

So, you know, maybe someone a little more level-headed than most bloggers should be in charge.

Yes, it may be possible to get a zero-premium bronze plan on the exchanges, but I can’t imagine a case where it wouldn’t be a better idea to pay a little and get a silver plan. If you have any medical costs at all, the silver plan will almost immediately be cheaper for you than the bronze. If you want to gamble, you might get away with it. But you should never gamble with your health, and, if you’re going to gamble with your finances, you should only do it in the hope for profit.

Rep. Mike Michaud (D-ME) is an interesting figure. He represents Maine’s 2nd District, which is primarily rural. It is actually the largest, by geographical size, district east of the Mississippi River. While it includes cities like Bangor, Lewiston, and Augusta, it’s a very sparsely-populated district filled with outdoorsmen. Rep. Michaud never went to college, and he spent 29 years working for the Great Northern Paper Company as a member of the United Steelworkers union. He is a Blue Dog, and he is the only member of that caucus serving in New England. His position on abortion has evolved somewhat, but he entered Congress in 2003 as a pro-lifer. During his decade in Congress, he has done most of his lasting work on veteran’s issues.

It’s a conservative profile befitting a representative from, perhaps, New England’s most conservative district. But now Rep. Mike Michaud is seeking the Democratic Party nomination to be their candidate for governor. Suddenly, he has decided to come out as gay.

I love the opinion piece he wrote announcing his sexual orientation. He hits all the right notes. He’s right; it shouldn’t matter. But it does. Coming out as gay now helps him win support in the Democratic primary from the vibrant Portland gay community, which would otherwise consider him the most conservative Democratic in the race. Portland lies in Maine’s other congressional district, the first, and is represented by Rep. Chellie Pingree.

In other words, even if it is true that Rep. Michaud, as he says, made the decision to come out because he became aware of “whisper campaigns, insinuations and push-polls some of the people opposed to [his] candidacy have been using to raise questions about [his] personal life,” the timing here is very convenient for him.

It’s also interesting. He no longer has to care how being gay might play with the mill workers and outdoorsmen in his own district since he isn’t running for reelection there. At least in the primary, those folks will probably still prefer him to some downstate liberal. And Michaud obviously thinks being gay won’t doom him in a general election, which is probably true, although with a strong third-party candidate in the race, it’s hard to say for sure.

This is a rare instance where coming out of the closet actually makes political sense. I wish he had done it when it wouldn’t be seen as a political ploy.

Nonetheless, it really is a great column. The thing is, I agree with what he wrote so completely that I am no more willing to support his Blue Doggy candidacy today than I was yesterday. I think Maine deserves a liberal governor.

I had fun writing for the Washington Monthly this weekend. It’s cool to have a new and different audience. My next weekend gig there is scheduled for November 23rd and 24th.

One of our two cars was pronounced dead last week, so this morning I am basically a chauffeur. So far, I’ve delivered CabinGirl to work and CabinBoytheYoungest to pre-school. Now, I have to get CabinBoytheEldest to work. Then I’ll have to begin reversing the process.

In between, I’ll try to find some time to shop for a new car and get a few fresh threads up.

What are you looking forward to this week?

Here we go:

Texas tea party activists eager to send another firebrand in the mold of Ted Cruz to the Senate have launched a movement to draft evangelical historian David Barton to run against Sen. John Cornyn.

Barton, who hosts a daily radio broadcast, has wide name recognition and respect on the religious right as a Constitutional scholar dedicated to restoring the America the Founding Fathers envisioned, though his scholarship on that point has been widely discredited in the world of academia.

I kind of doubt that David Barton’s scholarship takes into account the fact that the author of the Declaration of Independence rewrote the New Testament and removed all the miracles, or that Andrew Jackson was the first president who believed in the Trinity (and he only converted after he left office). Of course David Barton’s scholarship is widely ridiculed in academic circles.

Barton has deep political roots, having spent nearly a decade as vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party. He is a skilled orator. And he’s got the stagecraft down pat: He travels the country to deliver rousing tributes to patriotism, often in red, white and blue Western shirts.

He sounds perfect. He’s exactly what the country needs.