Snowflakes in Hell

From Tony Phyrillas blog, we get a view of a memo that outline’s the Pennsylvania Democrat’s tactic to wear down the Republicans and force them to accept tax hikes to cover Rendell’s bloated 27.3 billion dollar spending plan.

Over at Classical Values, they are talking about rewriting Philadelphia history for the sake of political correctness.

I picked up my new LTC at the local county government service center yesterday, after getting a call the day before it was ready. Time from application to issue was less than a week. The new cards are much much nicer than the old pieces of paper, and definitely nicer than the laminated almost-but-not-quite credit card sized pieces of paper that Chester County issued to me five years ago.  The new card Bucks County is issuing even has security features and a magnetic strip on the back.

I’m good now until 6/06/2012.

Ahab is pissed that the Brady Campaign got so much airtime last night on CBS.  Their job is no doubt made much easier by a fawning media.  They will definitely play down the NRA’s involvement in the bill, because if they have to go back to their donors and say “We can only pass things that the NRA signs off on.” it’ll be a serious problem for them.

But it does make some sense for them to play the NRA angle in regards to future controls, because it damages the NRA with its membership to even be seen to be working with the Brady’s.   The prospect of the NRA “selling out” lives large among much of the NRA’s membership, and by the Brady’s offering up the possibility of more deals, it actually weakens the NRA.

The Brady organizations are many things, but they certainly aren’t stupid.

The President’s report on the Virginia Tech tragedy has largely omitted gun control.

Though the report said the government should do a better job ensuring data is entered into the federal database used to approve gun purchases, officials did not propose or study possible changes to gun control laws.

“That really wasn’t within the purview of what they decided that they’re going to look at,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

He said such questions are better left to state governments and noted that Virginia has its own inquiry into the shooting.

I’ve often been critical of the administration for not doing enough for us, particularly on getting control of federal agencies that deal with our issue.   But probably the best thing Bush has been willing to do for us is by what he hasn’t done, which is use the bully pulpit of The White House to make calls for stricter gun regulations.   We shouldn’t underestimate the benefit of that, and should underestimate how much it hurt the cause to have Clinton doing that after every tragedy.

Rendell is proposing another tax shift plan.  Truth be told, I like it better than the last one, but hey, how about we cut spending to fund property tax relief?   There’s plenty of states that get away with a far lower tax burden, that have just as many big cities as Pennsylvania does (think Texas).

Gov. Ed Rendell is advocating a 1 percentage point increase in the state sales tax to deliver more than $1 billion in property tax cuts, his office said Wednesday.Spokesman Chuck Ardo confirmed the governor’s position, which Rendell stated on KDKA Radio host Kevin Miller’s show earlier this week.

In his February budget address, Rendell proposed using about two-thirds of the revenue from a sales tax boost to balance his spending plan. The remainder would have been used to offset property tax cuts.

No, no, you don’t get to use 2/3rds of the increase to fund your pet spending projects.   That either all goes to other tax relief, or you can go to hell.  I am quite sick of having my taxes increased to cover spending increases.

More spin on local New York media from McCarthy’s office.

“Rep. McCarthy supports what Bloomberg is doing with gun issues. It’s true the NRA supported today’s legislation, but for different reasons than we did. They wanted quicker access to guns for their members.”

The reason you supported it is because it’s all you could get, and when given the choice between not eating and gruel, you chose gruel.  I suppose to someone who hasn’t seen a meal for quite some time, it’s easy to argue that gruel is pumpkin pie.

The Brady’s seem to be playing up the working together angle on HR2640.

The Virginia Tech shootings tragically demonstrated the unnecessary gaps in the system that allowed a dangerous person to be armed. By supporting this legislation, the National Rifle Association, which fought the Brady Bill for so many years, now joins the Brady Campaign and the vast majority of Americans in affirming that effective background checks can help save lives.

I think effective background checks make people feel better.  The truth is, they just created the straw purchasing problem that the Brady’s say they need more gun control legislation to stop.  If they get those laws, then criminals will resort to more theft and smuggling, which will, of course, be used as evidence for the need for further restrictions.

We hope that Congress and the gun lobby will continue to support meaningful reforms that extend Brady background checks to all gun sales, not just those by the licensed dealers who are covered by current law. That would be a significant additional step to prevent guns from getting into the hands of dangerous people.

We already did that here in Pennsylvania, and it didn’t work.  Now the various gun control organizations, including the Brady Campaign, are pushing for one-gun-per-month restrictions here in Pennsylvania to deal with the straw purchasing problem.   Where does it stop?

I am not opposing HR2640 because it doesn’t change much, and give us a few things that I think are beneficial.  I don’t believe the instant check system is serious infringement on the right-to-bear arms.  But do I think it works?  No, I don’t.  I think gun laws are about as effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals as our drug laws are at keeping marijuana out of the hands of potheads.

Looks like our buddy Gonzo got the correct marching orders now.  He still doesn’t think it’s a good deal, but the language has been toned down quite a bit, and he’s added a few extra talking points about how we keep insisting  that mere suspicion isn’t reasonable grounds for stripping someone of their constitutional rights.

Now that this fun is over, I will go back to ignoring him.