Notice to park squirrels, birds, bears, dogs and tourists:

Take cover!

I, for one, will feel LESS not more safe in the Parks now.

Republicans are still running the country, and will continue to do so as long as the Democratic Party exists.

Coming up next: Boy Scout National Park Semi Automatic Shootout!

This is slightly off topic, but certainly apropos here.
The whole article is at http://www.populistamerica.com/no_pork_no_side_issues_and_no_riders

I have Jefferson's Parliamentary Manual before me. (I have an old set of Jefferson's complete works) In it, he carefully delineates both the rights and the obligations of Representatives and Senators. When you read this, you realize that they were supposed to work, not delegate everything to minions then sit in state and vote by rote.

DownsizeDC.org sent me a request to urge my alleged representatives to support the "Read the Bills Act." By the way, I've printed out and read the entire bill, and if passed, it would not only eliminate a lot of lousy legislation of the past, but would ensure that all bills be brief and to the point. There is another movement afoot to legislate that all bills be single purpose. That would effectively bar the current practice of adding billions of pork to "must pass" budget and social legislation.

The Read the Bills Act merely restores what the original duty of Congress was. Somewhere along the line, as I understand it, the House and Senate yawned and unanimously voted that they no longer had to read any of these boring, convoluted bills prepared by staff and lobbyists, but merely needed the title read and a vote taken. I presume this included periodically yawning and voting for another end of session tax supported pay increase for the August Body.

Two things are needed to reform the functions of Congress.

1. All bills and legislation is to be single purposed. A bill addresses an issue and only that issue. Any amendments have to be directly addressing that issue. No pork, no side issues, and especially, no riders. All bills must be published and the discussions open to scrutiny. All votes to be by roll call so the constituents will know who supported or opposed what.

2. The Read the Bills Act, which ensures that all legislators be present at the reading of bills and that all discussions be open, and that all legislators certify that they have read and understood the bill before them including any amendments. Before they can bring it to a vote.

Number one, above, will make bills more concise, and will eliminate the custom of putting expensive pork or special interest giveaways in so called "must pass" legislation.

Number two will ensure that there will be no more "Gone With the Wind" sized bills introduced and voted on, unread by anybody but staff and lobbyists.

If we keep working on this, perhaps we can clean up the cesspool known as Washington D.C.

We realize this is a revolutionary idea, that a legislator should read, discuss and understand the bills he or she is going to vote on, but it is a good idea.

How many in the Senate or House would have voted for the mis-named Patriot Act, had they actually read it? How many of them would have voted for it if they had actually read and understood the Constitution of the United States and its first ten amendments, commonly referred to as the Bill of Rights?

Remember the oath they take at the start of each session? To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic?

The three greatest threats to the Constitution of the United States today are the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial Branches of the United States Government.

All of the things that We the People have worked for, fought for, and died for, are being systematically destroyed because they neglect that oath of office and trample upon the Constitution every day! They do it in the name of expediency, in the name of pork, of illicit power, and to pay off political debts to their wealthy supporters.

It will be okay to carry AK's & 12 guages on "Ranger Led Nature Walks"

Camo attire mandatory.
Night Vision Goggles & Scopes Available.

I will tell anyone this-don't go to our "national parks" Yosemite, God's birthplace is a "training ground" for narcs & undercovers, Federal & State. A long time ago a couple of the heroes got my intoxicated girlfriend talking and hours later raided my campsight and made a heroic bust. A 1/4 oz of cocaine. For which I paid a $100.00 fine, a little blow was a misdemeanor for white boys on Federal Property when everyone was snow blind.

Guess now I'd get arrested by deputized cub-scouts and then rot for 10 years in Pelican Bay.

Smart hippies go to national forests where we have Our Effing Rights.

Rights? Sure, To Protect the Rich & Serve Arrest Warrants on the Poor. The hard part is not having these rights excersized for us.

This is why God Created "Signing Statements"

Unless BO wants Xi and the Munutemen shooting it out with Harper's Mounties...

meanwhile, in texas there is legislation being presented to allow concealed weapons on college campuses. senator wentworth's reasoning is to prevent another virginian tech, where, as he put it, students were "picked off like sitting ducks."

next up, grocery stores and movie theaters.

virginia. sorry.

Hmmm. Which parts of Washington DC are National Parks? The Mall is, i think. This could get interesting.

"Mr Coburn said the gun measure protected every American's Second Amendment right to bear arms and also protected the rights of states to pass laws that apply to their entire state, including public lands.

"Visitors to national parks should have the right to defend themselves in accordance with the laws of their states," Coburn said.

Doc Hastings, a Republican congressman, said: "The fact is American gun owners are simply citizens who want to exercise their Second Amendment rights without running into confusing red tape."

Mr Hastings and other Republicans said the bill merely aligned national parks and wildlife refuges with regulations governing the national forests and property controlled by the Bureau of Land Management."

--- I completely and 100% agree with this. Just because you can carry a weapon in the park, doesn't mean people out of the wood work are going to be popping out of bushes and waiving and shooting their guns in the air. Doesn't mean every family and their dog are going to start carrying guns. The only difference is now I have the legal right to carry a weapon (such as my handgun) in the park.

People who break the law do it regardless whether it is legal or not. There is no evidence showing that poaching will increase and that families will be jeopardized. Those are all words of the emotion.

These are public lands, and we live in a land with a second amendment that states that I have the right to carry arms.

and here in the State of Montana, we can carry guns in the grocery stores and movie theaters with a concealed weapons permit.

Pretty fucking scary huh?

What bothers me is that so many people think that the only way to carry or use a firearm responsibly is, one must either wear a uniform, carry a badge, or fulfil both the above criteria. Since when are military and law-enforcement personnel so much more responsible than private citizens in this regard? Does a uniform or a badge magically make someone more responsible vis-a-vis firearms? GIs and cops are human, too, and they often use uniforms and badges as licenses to behave any way they darn well please -- including shooting people.

I firmly believe that decent, law-abiding private citizens CAN possess firearms responsibly in national parks, and won't be going around taking pot-shots at animals or natural wonders or signs. Sure, there will be irresponsible people doing it, but I'm willing to take that risk, since I believe their numbers will be miniscule.

Anyway, it's a done deal; the president signed that credit-card bill with the guns-in-national-parks provision in it:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/22/news/economy/credit_cards/index.htm?postversion=2009052215

Y'know, back in the 80s, the Democrats slipped an anti-gun provision into a bill they knew Reagan wanted badly, and when he realized what he'd actually signed, he was mad as a wet hen -- but there was nothing he could do about it, as US presidents don't have the line-item veto power. I'd say the Repubs and the NRA remember that, and this may be the first of a number of pro-gun bills embedded into larger bills which the president must sign or veto in their entirety.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.