Politics – Page 420 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Can You Feel the Love John?

NRA News is calling out Mayor Street over this interesting assertion:

Why so much violence?Â According to Mayor Street, it’s Iraq’s fault.Â Street told the Philadelphia Daily News, “I believe the fact that we are a country at war has something to do with the attitude of people in the streets.”Â He went on to explain that the Iraq war is a “contributing factor” in the increase in gun violence and homicides.

The original article can be found here. Â Now this is just getting ridiculous.Â How far is John Street willing to go to deflect blame from his poor management of the city to other people?Â It’s bad enough when he blames lawful gun owners for the violence in Philadelphia, but blaming the war in Iraq is a new, laughable low.

Get real John.Â Thank God for term limits.Â That’s all I have to say.

A Rousing Endorsement

My friend Jym, who is married to a stripper known on here as Christina, and who has been the subject of previous random conversations, has this to say about Mitt Romney’s candiciacy for President:

(10:28:29 PM) Sebastian: Should I vote for Ted Nugent for the NRA board?
(10:34:35 PM) Jym: definitely, he’s awesome
(10:34:56 PM) Jym: Btw, is mitt romney actually gaining support in the conservative blogosphere?
(10:35:35 PM) Sebastian: I doubt it. The blogophere I think is pretty down on him
(10:35:40 PM) Jym: ah good
(10:35:43 PM) Jym: he’s a douchebucket
(10:37:10 PM) Jym: as a former Massachusetts person, i have to say i think he’s totally douchetastic

There you have it folks. “Mitt Romney: Totally Douchtastic”. Someone quick suggest that slogan to his campaign manager.

The Slow Implosion Stops for Now

I will very seldom post about business stuff on here, but it’s interesting to see my former employer actually turning a profit.Â What really gets me interested enough to post is that it seems they want to cash in on the troubelsome practice of civil asset forfeiture:

Separately, Unisys said Wednesday it received a blanket purchase agreement that could allow it to sell $112 million in services to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Asset Forfeiture Management Staff over eight years. The services are to support the staff’s consolidated asset tracking system. The government has already ordered $8 million in services under the agreement.

Boy I’m glad I don’t work for them anymore. Unisys executives have never known a customer so sleazy they wouldn’t deal with them.Â I’m glad my labor isn’t going to help the government steal private property more efficiently.

It’s crap like asset forfeiture that makes me laugh at the left when they try to get me to care about the fact that Bush is stomping all over our civil liberties.Â Maybe I’ll be able to get worked up about it when the left starts worrying about the civil liberties I’ve already lost because of the War on Drugs.Â Sorry, but at the end of the day, I’m a lot more concerned about the government stealing my property without proper due process, than I am about the NSA possibly listening in on phone calls when I call the middle east (which I do oh so regularly, you know).

Internet Purification

From Insty, we hear that the Chinese government wants to “purify” the Internet.

But he made it clear that the Communist Party was looking to ensure it keeps control of China’s Internet users, often more interested in salacious pictures, bloodthirsty games and political scandal than Marxist lessons.The party had to “strengthen administration and development of our country’s Internet culture”, Hu told the meeting on Tuesday, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

“Maintain the initiative in opinion on the Internet and raise the level of guidance online,” he said. “We must promote civilized running and use of the Internet and purify the Internet environment.”

Hey, Hu Jintao, you can purify thisyou commie rat. No word yet on whether they’ll get any help in this department from Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco, or Google.

The FDA is Getting too Cautious

I should say a little disclaimer here: I work in the pharmaceutical industry, but I was a libertarian type long before I did, so a lot of my opinions pre-date my involvement in the industry.Â I will also say that not all the FDA regs are stupid and overly burdensome.Â I think the government does have some roll to play in preventing drug companies from defrauding consumers.

Here’s one case I think they shouldn’t butt their noses into though:

The Food and Drug Administration will ask a panel of experts Tuesday and Wednesday whether it should require new contraceptive drugs to meet a standard of effectiveness before they are approved for the market.

No, this is not how to handle the problem.Â The FDA should ensure that the drug companies claims for efficacy are true, and that the information is provided to consumers.Â I think women are quite capable of weighing for themselves the efficacy vs. safety issue when deciding whether or not to take a particular contraceptive product.Â We don’t need government experts doing that for them!

I’ve long believed the FDA should be about making sure consumers know how safe an effective a certain drug is, rather than making choices for people.Â I’m totally OK with the FDA calling for more efficacy information being gathered on birth control, but don’t keep products off the market because a panel of government experts don’t think it’s efficacious enough.Â Let consumers decide that.

The Continuing Saga of the Philadelphia Mayoral Race

Still a lot of crap, but perhaps some softening rhetoric coming from some of the mayoral candidates.Â From Dwight Evans:

Evans, who has focused on crime for much of his 25 years in Harrisburg, began his campaign with a vow to woo former Police Commissioner John F. Timoney back from Miami to run the department again, if he was elected mayor.

I think Timoney was an effective police chief, and I think voters in the city think so as well.Â I’m less confident that Evans can really woo him back.

Fattah softening the rhetoric a bit maybe?

“It is not illegal guns, it is the absence of opportunity which is at the heart of” Philadelphia’s crime problems, Fattah said when presenting his crime package this month. Nonetheless, Fattah’s plan, too, calls for more police to target guns, and includes the suggestion that high-tech cameras be used to scrutinize just who might be carrying a weapon in public.

Emphasis mine.Â I agree with Fattah on what he said, but I still am not down with the cameras looking for “illegal guns”.Â If he had ever carried a gun in pubic, he’d know how stupid this idea is.Â There’s a reason they call it a “concealed” weapon.Â The lack of opportunity is a direct result of a high wage tax which is killing the city.Â The wage tax keeps businesses and people out of the city.

Businessman Tom Knox and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, who has yet to declare his candidacy, have not yet unveiled large-scale crime plans. But they have grappled with the issue: Brady convened a high-profile summit on crime this summer, while Knox spent money on a petition drive urging new state gun laws.

When those candidates roll out policy platforms, strategists say, it is likely that they will have to strike the same balance between soft and tough approaches while striving for a unique way to discuss the issue.

Hey, I have a unique way to discuss the issue.Â How about we talk about locking up criminals and getting them off the streets?

Hey Ed, What’s This Going to Cost Me?

This Philadelphia Inquirer article is practically slobbering all over Rendell’s new “plan” and is short on details. Like, how much is this going to cost me? Pennsylvania is already a horrid state to do business in, and this looks like something that’s just going to make it worse.

Pennsylvania has a real problem keeping educated young people in the state. The common story is to go to college, get educated, and get the hell out. I’m one of the rare types that actually stayed, rather than going to greener pastures in the South and West. Rendell would be wise to realize why Phoenix, AZ is currently paced to strip Philadelphia of its title of 5th largest city, and stuff like this has a lot to do with it. Big government is not conducive to economic growth.

But I will say this, I do believe this stuff ought to be done at the state level if it’s going to be done. I would just prefer Pennsylvania wait and see what the results of Massachusetts and California’s efforts are, before we try to one up them. Let’s also not forget the mess that is TennCare.

I agree with critics that our health care system is in need of some reform, but so far no one is coming up with a solution that looks good.

UPDATE: Commenter and occasional blogger Brad points to this good Pat Toomey editorial in the Inquirer.

Castor vs. Hoeffel?

According to this Inquirer article, we could end up seeing a race between Bruce Castor and Joe Hoeffel for Montgomery County Commissioner. I don’t live in Montgomery County, but I do work in it, so I’m familiar with both Hoeffel and Castor, and even at this early juncture, I’ll throw my hat in the ring with Castor, if it comes down to those two. For the gun folks reading, Hoeffel was best known, as Congressman, for trying to make all federal gun laws apply to antique firearms, so you would have had to fill out form 4473 if you wanted to buy a black powder, muzzle loading 1863 Springfield. I’m sure you’re all aware of the epidemic of gun crime we’ve experienced with antique black powder firearms. No? Apparently that didn’t matter to Hoeffel.

I think Bruce Castor has been a good District Attorney for the county, and having him make sure that Joe Hoeffel’s political career remains in the dungeon I think is a worthy effort. This is an important race, because the Republicans have traditionally ruled the roost in the Philadelphia suburbs. The Democrats have been desperate to change that, and getting control of one of the suburban counties is a big start.

The 2006 elections were a bloodbath for Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs, and the Democrats are smelling the blood in the water. Hoeffel is a big name, and Montgomery County elected him to Congress three times. I’m not sure I would agree with Davis’ (GOP County Chairman) assessment that his incumbents could defeat him. Most people don’t know the names of their county commissioners, but they will know Joe Hoeffel, and they know Bruce Castor. If the Democrats have a reasonable chance of gaining control of Montgomery County, Castor might be just what the GOP needs to block it.

Rendell Sworn-In for Another Four

Ed Rendell was sworn in today for four more years in the governor’s mansion.Â Rendell, as Mayor of Philadelphia, was one of the original group of mayors that came up with the novel idea of suing gun manufacturers under the theory that their product was a public nuisance.Â As governor, he’s given some lip service to the one-gun-per-month bills that the city politicians keep wanting to pass, but has largely kept quiet on his opinions on gun control.Â Aside from his position on that issue, he’s outlined some things I can get behind:

He broke new ground with his promise to overhaul the state’s open-records law, which many right-to-know advocates regard as archaic because it limits public access to specific categories of records rather than opening all records to public scrutiny except for specific exceptions.

I’m generally in favor of public records being as public as possible, with some notable exceptions.Â We will need to make sure that if this happens certain types of records (you know the ones) don’t get made public.Â I’m also enthusiastic about this:

His proposal to choose state appellate judges through a merit-selection process — a cause that critics of the current elective system have promoted for more than a decade — also came without warning.

I’ve never thought it a good idea to elect appelate judges.Â Judges should be separated from politics as much as possible.Â I’ll support this one.Â Even though I doubt this “merit-selection” process will be apolitical.Â There’s also a propsal in his inaugural address to put redistrcting to referendum.Â I have no idea how you’d make something like that work.Â I think there are better ways to deal with that issue, and don’t believe democracy is really going to work there.Â Hey Ed, some tax relief would be nice too!

Nutty Nutter Can Frisk This

We’re going to have fun with a name like Nutter. Especially when you start talking about crapping all over everyone’s civil liberties. For now on, Michael Nutter will be called one of the following “Nutty Nutter”, “Nutcase”, or in the case of referring to him as a possible winner “Mayor Nut”.
Of Arms and the Law links to a Philadelphia Inquirer article that previews some of Nutcase’s crime plans, which look suspiciously like every other mayoral candidates, except his would be done under the auspices of a “Crime Emergency”, which would give Mayor Nut extra special powers:

If such a declaration was made, the city would be empowered to limit or prohibit sidewalk or other outdoor gatherings; halt or limit cars and trucks within targeted neighborhoods; establish a curfew; and prohibit anyone from publicly selling, carrying or possessing any weapons.

To hell with the law if you want to be Philadelphia mayor! First time I get harassed by Mayor Nuts’ goons for lawfully posessing a firearm, I can promise them a giant lawsuit. If this gets beyond a lot of hot air, I think it’s time for us in Pennsylvania to make it a criminal offense for city and local government officials to interfere with the civil rights of Pennsylvanians. These clowns that want to be mayor might think twice if they were looking at fines and jail time for carrying stuff like this out.

I’m seirous about Dwight Evans looking like the best candidate so far, and that’s a sad statement on the state of the mayoral race in Philadelphia.