Politics – Page 396 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Colt 45: “It Works Every Time” …

… to piss off politicians and community leaders who need to learn to mind their own god damned business.

Given all the problems the city has with, you know, murders happening at least once a day, most of the times more, you’d imagine city council didn’t have time to worry about this:

The ads for Colt 45 malt liquor are wrapped over two SEPTA buses, top to bottom. The buses are being deployed each day on different routes so they get to all parts of the city and suburbs.

Fine with me. I don’t drink the swill, but if it helps offset my tax dollars going to fund SEPTA, I’m all for it.

â€œPeople have been fighting these take-out beer delis for years now. And now, to reinforce it on a SEPTA route that this is an acceptable product and behavior, I donâ€™t think is appropriate for a government agency to be doing.â€

As someone who frequents take out beer delis, Councilman Kenney, you can go to hell. It’s already hard enough to get decent beer in this state. Plus, let me ask the Councilman this: if it was white people who liked to drink Colt 45, would you care? No? I wouldn’t want to accuse you of engaging in masked racism or anything.

Jim Kenney is another boneheaded politician who needs to stop pretending his constituents are children and unable to make their own decisions in life. I think Billy Dee Williams needs to come to Philly and personally kick his ass.

UPDATE: Councilman Kenney~~, or someone claiming to be him, at least,~~ responds Philly style in the comments: “F*** you.”

UPDATE: It’s him.Â The referrer comes from the Vitetta group, who Kenney is associated with, according to this post.Â While I’m honored to have The Councilman come visit my blog, you’d think they’d be more concerned about the fact that their city is currently circling the bowl, than with whatever I’m saying :)

On Doing Nothing

Philadelphia politicians are good at at least one thing: pretending to do something while in reality doing nothing. Philadelphia’s media culture, generally content to play along with these games, may be starting to get real:

Of course, no civic effort can work if law enforcement doesn’t do a better job of protecting witnesses who do try to help.

Political leaders have not been passive. City Hall points out that Mayor Street has hired 200 more police officers, opened five curfew centers, and organized mayors in cities throughout Pennsylvania to campaign for more gun controls.

At first. it seems they will fall back to the idea of blaming the cops for not doing their job, while the politicians fiddle, but then they surprise me:

All of that is good and necessary, but Street has failed to effectively use his office as a bully pulpit to rally residents around a public-safety crusade. He and Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson have not been the public leaders this city so badly needs.

Most of the killings fit patterns among victims and perpetrators that show where much more aggressive action can be taken.

Thirty percent of last year’s gun-homicide victims were in the middle of criminal proceedings when they were fatally shot. Many of the victims also have records. They are in identifiable groups of people known to authorities.

More parole and probation officers may be of greater service than more police for monitoring the felons who end up shooting someone or being shot. They can cut parolees’ access to guns.

They are completely correct to question Street and Johnson’s leadership. I’m glad to see them doing this! Where I disagree is that the city needs more probation and parole officers, rather than police officers. No! The city needs more criminals behind bars where they belong. If the justice system does not stop becoming a revolving door, that keeps putting dangerous individuals back on the street, this isn’t going to get better. Police are important, but police can’t do their job in the face of a criminal justice system that treats criminals as victims, to be coddled, rather than as miscreants, to be removed from society.

Tar, Feathers, and Filtering

You know things in our political climate are getting unhinged when a reasonable person like Glenn Reynolds makes an allusion to tar and feathers.Â It seems the Senate says we all need to be babysat:

â€œWhile filtering and monitoring technologies help parents to screen out offensive content and to monitor their childâ€™s online activities, the use of these technologies is far from universal and may not be fool-proof in keeping kids away from adult material,” Sen. Inouye said. â€œIn that context, we must evaluate our current efforts to combat child pornography and consider what further measures may be needed to stop the spread of such illegal material over high-speed broadband connections.”

Ted Stevens is trying to build the filter to nowhere, along with his buddy Inouye. Â Can the citizens of Hawaii and Alaska please do us all a favor and get rid of these clowns?Â I don’t even think there’s a base they are appealing to here, this is just an example of being completely out of touch with reality, and out of touch with constituents.

Nickel and Dimed

Delaware is looking for a novel legal theory to fleece beverage retailers of unclaimed 5 cent deposits for bottles.Â Â I guess this isn’t surprising from a state that keeps sending Joe Biden back to The Senate.

Property Taxes: Round 3

The Democrats are back on the issue, and they say they are serious this time.

“We are committed to making property tax reform the pre-eminent issue come this fall,” Mr. McCall said in an interview last week. “We want to show the Senate we are serious about this issue.”

Glad to see they are “serious” about the issue.Â But read on, and it seems they are serious about another tax shift scheme:

They said a wide range of possible property tax relief options will be considered. One is Mr. DeWeese’s idea for a 0.5 percent increase in the state sales tax. That would generate about $700 million, with all of it going to lower property taxes. Gov. Ed Rendell has talked about going Mr. DeWeese one better — raising the sales tax a full percentage point, with all $1.4 billion going to lower property taxes.

I have to admit, I like this better than the last scheme.Â But what happened to all that property tax relief I was supposed to get from the casinos? Â Either way, there is a better idea:

Then there is Rep. Samuel Rohrer’s idea. Mr. Rohrer, R-Berks, and some other conservative Republicans have pushed for four years to reduce the sales tax to 5 percent statewide but greatly broaden the base by taxing food and clothing, which are now exempt.

Now there’s an idea I can get behind.Â Tax restructuring rather than tax raising. Â Ed Rendell has never met a tax he wouldn’t like to raise.Â It’s good to see there are politicians out there trying to think outside the box.

Using State Workers As Pawns

The Pittsburgh Tribune has a good editorial on Rendell’s budget tactics:

Yes. I remember a news conference where he told us the work force wouldn’t really be disrupted until July 17. Later, he said that was a mistake and things would be affected sooner — by July 9 — if no budget were in place. Curiously, July 17 later became a very critical date.

A state Treasury Department official would later say that if no budget were in place by last Monday, July 16, about 40,000 workers would see their state paychecks delayed.

Treasury officials later backed off that and said they could no longer have confidence of meeting the July 20 payroll by noon, Monday, July 16. Later, they said they could meet the payroll if the budget was approved by the end of that day.

July 17 likely was the real drop-dead date.

So the real budget crisis wouldn’t have come until July 17th?Â But Rendell cut them loose early in order to use them as pawns in his political battle against Republicans over his new energy tax.Â Why did we re-elect him again?

Apparently, the state workers are going to be reimbursed for the day off.Â I actually have no problem with this.Â State workers shouldn’t have to pay because their boss is a bozo.Â All in all the reimbursement will cost taxpayers 3.5 million dollars. Â Thanks a lot Ed!

Brain Drain

This is a great article about young people leaving certain states. In short, big losers: Northeast, rural midwest. Big winners: The South and The West. They mention Pennsylvania specifically:

Pennsylvania attracts some of the highest numbers of out-of-state students to its colleges, but four years later, most of them take their degrees and run. Three years ago, the state set up Keystone Innovation Zones (KIZ) to give grants to partnerships between universities and their surrounding communities, including businesses and private foundations. The zones were designed to create new businesses and jobs. There are now 26 zones, with 647 Pennsylvania graduates and interns working at companies inside the zones.

This is a typical big government solution to a problem that’s a result of big government. Young people are leaving Pennsylvania for several reasons: high cost of living, high taxes, and lack of opportunity. Pennsylvania is one of the most unfriendly states in the country in which to start a business. We have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the nation. Ed Rendell was elected on a promise of trying to keep young people in the state after they graduated from our universities. Keystone Innovation Zones are a buearaucrat’s solution. Ed Rendell has been the governor for big government. Until our political leadership in Pennsylvania becomes truly committed to making Pennsylvania a business destination, we’ll continue to have a hard time retaining young talent. What Pennsylvania needs is less government. Get out of the way, and let the people perform their magic.

Shining the Light

Ever since I read David Brin’s book A Transparent Society, I’ve become a big advocate of more transparency in government, and a big advocate of proliferating the tools that allow it. I’m going to second David Codrea’s call for more of that, in regards to the activities of the BATFE. More light shining in the crevices of government is nearly always a good thing. We can’t remain a free society without an active citizenry scrutinizing government.

But that said, I think we need to be careful about how we go about it, and with that in mind, I do take exception with some of David’s rhetoric:

I repeat my call for a rapid response team of “minuteman” volunteers to make themselves available via a phone tree to go to gun stores being audited, and audit/document/photograph the auditors. Don’t let creatures of the shadows hide there–expose them to the light and make them live there–or cravenly slink back under the baseboards where they belong. You can also help by spreading the link to this post to fellow gun owners and letting them know what is going on. BATFU is relying on people remaining uninformed and apathetic.

I don’t disagree at all with the sentiment, but minuteman evokes images of people showing up with guns, ready to do battle. It’s important to note that the problem at the ATF is cultural, and it goes beyond those on the ground, or any one agent or auditor. The ATF, as an organization, is broken, needs to be abolished or reformed, and the agents who fail to respect the kind of power they wield, need to be moved to other lines of work. But we should treat individuals in the ATF as just that. They may be part of the cultural problems, or they may just be doing a job. I would not discourage anyone from shining the light on their activities; that’s important to maintaining a free society.

I’ve always liked this advice on how to deal with the ATF:

Under general principles of law a compliance inspection must be “reasonable” in terms of time, duration, scope, number of inspectors, lack of disruption to your business, etc. If the inspector is reasonable and professional, you should be too. The process does not have to be adversarial or antagonistic. If the inspector is not reasonable or professional, keep in mind that your license does not require you to talk to him, or to provide him access to your copy machine, rest room, etc.

If you decide to peek in on a compliance inspection, introduce yourself. Be civil. Explain yourself to them if they ask. Sure, they might be boneheads back to you, but let them, and then let everyone know about it. That’s the big reason I have Red’s on the blogroll. His story needs to be out there, and I think he’s doing us all a service by telling the world about his experience.

That many ATF auditors and agents are decent people doing a job shouldn’t excuse the vendetta against Red’s. That’s part of the cultural problem. But if we’re to achieve a political solution, we must be careful about how we proceed. We must seem reasonable, and interested in a political solution. I’d rather fight the ATF politically in Congress, and people on the ground will be invaluable in that struggle. But for the people who have to deal with the ATF on a regular basis, I’d worry that turning up the rhetoric too much would just make things worse, and make us look like a bunch of pissed off miscreants to Congress, not to be listened to, or considered.

Best Questions

I’m sorely disappointed that CNN didn’t pick a single one of Steven Green’s questions to the Democratic contenders. Go check them out.

UPDATE: Also check out his drunk blogging. My favorite bits:

5:52pm Weâ€™re in a dead spot, so Iâ€™m going to throw one more question out there that Iâ€™d like to ask. â€œItâ€™s 9/11/2001. Airplanes have just flown into buildings, killing thousands. What do you do? Do you take command? Or do you sing â€˜God Bless Americaâ€™ on the Capitol steps, then spend the next six years bitching about the guy whoâ€™s trying to do something about it?â€
…
6:06pm Earlier, a fistfight broke out between Kucinich and Ron Paul, over who got the bottle of medication. It now seems obvious that, whoever the winner was, Gravel stole the bottle from him.
…
6:50pm I donâ€™t want to be mean, or at least not unnecessarily mean. But if a guy shaped liked Richardson wants to bitch about diabetes, then I get to preach about the wonders of sobriety.

The Fawning Audience

To anyone who cheered Joe Biden’s verbally pooping all over gun owners, answer me this:

What is the difference between someone calling a really sweet classic car “his baby” and someone calling his rifle the same thing?Â Both are items that people in each respective hobby get a lot of enjoyment out of.Â Both items require a lot of investment in money, care, and time to maintain and keep in good working order.Â So what makes one person normal and the other mentally deranged?

I suppose it’s because you all fancy yourselves sophisticated, and above that kind of apish and uncivilized behavor, which is why you can all bite me.