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Post by FWS on Apr 28, 2014 20:15:22 GMT -6
I'm not seeing the Feds swooping in, slapping on the black hood, and tossing him in the back of a black van for transport to Gitmo............ What we are seeing is the free market response by private entities, just as we saw with Paula Deen. Yeah, I was looking at that one too.
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Post by FWS on Apr 28, 2014 15:31:12 GMT -6
Donald Sterling's mistress is taking him for a very expensive rideV. Stiviano shows that NBA owners aren't immune to gold diggers By David Whitley Orlando Sentinel April 28, 2014 Donald Sterling has a lot of reasons to be embarrassed. This one isn’t on the top of the impressive list, but it must really be galling the Clippers owner. V. Stiviano. What was Sterling thinking? He’s 80, she’s 31. He’s a billionaire, she’s a “model.” Even Sterling couldn’t be dumb enough to think she liked him for his winning personality. Then again, we are talking Donald Sterling here. Technically, he’s still married to his wife of 56 years. Mrs. Sterling still sits courtside at Clippers games, though not necessarily next to The Donald. Not since he took up with Stiviano. Most men try to hide these kind of affairs. Sterling all but put it on the Staples Center Jumbotron as his young companion became a gaudy front-row fixture. Sure, a prune-faced old man with sunglasses on his forehead looked pretty silly snuggling up to one of the finest items the L.A. plastic surgery industry has recently produced. But really, it was no sillier than Anna Nicole Smith marrying William Tecumseh Sherman, or whoever that billionaire was. Why do shrewd business tycoons so often turn into frat boys chasing bikinis on Spring Break? Maybe Sterling was drawn by Stiviano’s Instagram bio – “Artist, Lover, Writer, Chef, Poet, Stylist, Philanthropist.” Or perhaps it was the name. “V. Stiviano” sounds like the kind of woman who would play baccarat against James Bond. Course, before she was V. Stiviano, she went by Vanessa Maria Perez, Monica Gallegos, Maria Monica Perez Gallegos and Maria Valdez. A good rule of thumb is to never have a mistress with more than three aliases. As for her philanthropic endeavors, most of them seem to be devoted to spending Sterling’s money on herself. Stiviano has acquired a Ferrari, two Bentleys, a Range Rover, a $1.4 million apartment and $240,000 in living expenses. That according to a lawsuit filed Sterling’s wife, who wants the bounty returned to the Sterling family bank account. Stiviano’s lawyer basically says she will give up her Bentley when they pry her cold, dead, manicured fingers off the genuine wood steering wheel. It’s unclear whether the recordings she made of Sterling are part of her strategy. Tapes of a NBA owner doing a Bull Connor impression can make for pretty good leverage. The really scary part for Sterling is that Stiviano supposedly has 100 more hours of tape. How long until we hear his ode to John Wilkes Booth? Being a good mistress, Stiviano denies she gave the tapes to TMZ. Whoever leaked them did the world a favor. It not only exposed Sterling as a racist, we can now safely affix another label to the old coot. Sucker!
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Post by FWS on Apr 28, 2014 13:54:20 GMT -6
Actually you said that the lawsuit in MN was only the start and that other states would follow unless they changed their laws regarding nonresidents. Are you denying that ? Looking for wiggle room to claim it wasn't you 'personally' ?
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Post by FWS on Apr 27, 2014 19:48:35 GMT -6
Because the positives greatly outweigh the negatives............................. And some people just like to complain, if they moved somewhere where they couldn't complain about the things they traditionally complained about they'd most assuredly find new and different things to complain about.
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Post by FWS on Apr 27, 2014 19:31:14 GMT -6
Sure you did. It's on record. Why deny that now ?
Examine the threads where it was announced and in the subsequent fundraising threads and ask that again.
And explain to me why my concerns about the unintended consequences of the basis for your legal claim were not valid. Particularly when we've seen the antis using that as a legal means to attack other consumptive users since then.
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Post by FWS on Apr 27, 2014 18:32:34 GMT -6
Too late, you already injected CA politics into this with your previous threats to file lawsuits here unless we changed it legislatively per your preference. Add in the tactics you and your group tried to use in supporting your lawsuit and quelling any reasoned questioning of it and you complain about get smacked ? In addition to the above suggestions I made would be the need to grow much thicker skin.
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Post by FWS on Apr 27, 2014 17:26:05 GMT -6
MN State legislature................... Congress is the Federal legislative branch.
Sure, if you're committed to doing it, hire professional help in your state capitol, and put serious time and effort into building the support from other groups, in addition to finding the funds to cover that.
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Post by FWS on Apr 25, 2014 10:43:57 GMT -6
In Cliven Bundy beef about 'the Negro,' shades of white privilegeA confrontational Cliven Bundy doubles down on his point that blacks are hurt by government subsidies. He justifies, too, why he hasn't paid federal grazing fees for 20 years, even if that makes him a 'welfare queen.' How a story about a rogue rancher became an exploration of racial privilege. By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer Christian Science Monitor April 25, 2014 Rancher Cliven Bundy speaks at a news conference near Bunkerville, Nev., Thursday, April 24, 2014. After being condemned for his off-the-cuff observations about poor blacks he has seen “doing nothing” in North Las Vegas, Nev., Mr. Bundy, who became a political star on the right after standing on 10th Amendment grounds against the US Bureau of Land Management over federal grazing fees, insisted that, “I’m right.” His “Negro” comments became, some political analysts say, a prism reflecting the views of a certain subset of very conservative Americans, primarily older and white, who have struggled to come to terms with the expansion of federal largess under America’s first black president. To be sure, even Bundy’s hardiest supporters called the comments “blatantly racist,” in that he seemed to suggest that America should again enslave black people. In explaining his point in subsequent interviews, Bundy insisted he had the best interest of black people at heart – that the current system enslaves blacks in a different way. “I am not a racist,” he insisted. But his views also point to another basic tension in the fight over who should control the massive tracts of high desert and grazing grounds on the Western plateaus: the specter of white privilege in politics. After all, if Bundy believes blacks are worse off with government subsidies, that leaves his own situation up for scrutiny: He owes $1 million in grazing fees to American taxpayers for using federal land, but is using a states’ rights argument to get out from under the overdue bill. “He has been quoted as saying, ‘I don’t recognize the United States government as even existing,’ ” writes Olivia Nuzzi, on the Daily Beast website. “Remarks such as that, unsurprisingly, endeared him to the far-right.” (When the BLM seized some of his cattle earlier this month, a posse of armed Bundy supporters challenged the action and forced the BLM to relent, release the cattle, and go home.) That “welfare for me but not for thee” paradox is what troubles many critics of tea party-tinged groups and personalities. Even as some tea partyers bemoan benefits to minority groups, they take full advantage of subsidies afforded to them, whether in the form of corporate tax breaks or Medicare. In an interview with CNN on Thursday night, Bundy, not one to mince words, acknowledged that paradox. When asked whether he was a welfare queen for squatting his herd on federal land, Bundy replied, “I might be a welfare queen,” but “at least I put red meat on the table.” Researchers who study the beliefs of conservative Americans said Bundy’s phrasing isn’t that unusual. “It’s coming out of religious white supremacy, which is that slavery wasn’t so bad, because slaves were well treated, and the Civil War was unfortunate because the federal government acted lawlessly and overwhelmed the states,” says Garrett Epps, a University of Baltimore law professor and author of “Wrong and Dangerous: Ten Right-Wing Myths About Our Constitution.” “A guy like Bundy, he’s discussing having driven through a neighborhood that has African-Americans in it – that’s the extent of his contact [with black people] in Nevada,” adds Mr. Epps. But at Community Digital News, Jennifer Oliver O’Connell, who is black, suggests that the Bundy soundbites as circulated by the media don’t accurately reflect Bundy’s logic. “What Bundy is trying, and sadly failing, to do is make the connection between government control and the fomenting of grievance and unrest among minorities,” she writes. The question is whether “dependency on government handouts – whether in subsidized housing, food, or land – [is] a new form of slavery that kills purpose, motivation and independence?” Then she laments: “While despising the messenger and the way the message is being delivered, we fixate on all the wrong things.”
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Post by FWS on Apr 25, 2014 10:35:10 GMT -6
Look, it's only a fact if Fox News and the conservative talk radio hosts tell you it is.
Looking for any information outside that just makes you a communist troublemaker.
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Post by FWS on Apr 25, 2014 10:24:58 GMT -6
I wonder what time of year this poll was done ? Because Texans would respond differently if they were asked in the 5th week of one of their 105°+ heat waves.......................... Louisiana and Mississippi residents ranking their state low doesn't surprise me at all.
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Post by FWS on Apr 25, 2014 10:17:49 GMT -6
Then ol' Fred shouldn't hunt on Sundays, and he has a right to not allow others to hunt on HIS land on Sundays.
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Post by FWS on Apr 25, 2014 8:13:10 GMT -6
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Post by FWS on Apr 25, 2014 8:07:35 GMT -6
Missouri ranks as one of the most miserable statesKMBZ.com 25 April 2014 KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Show-Me State doesn't have much to show in the form of love, at least by the people who live in Missouri. According to a poll by Gallup, only 29% of Missourians love living here, but it apparently is even worse in Illinois, where only 19% of people enjoy it. While no specific reason was given for why people hate Missouri, in Illinois, residents there say they don't trust their government and hate paying all the state taxes. We were not able to find any results concerning Kansas. Only Rhode Island at 18% was worse.
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Post by FWS on Apr 25, 2014 8:03:09 GMT -6
Which U.S. states have the most pride?Jolie Lee USA TODAY Aril 25, 2014 People who live in Montana and Alaska have the most state pride, according to a poll by Gallup. In these two states, 77% of residents said their state was the best or one of the best possible states to live in. Among the worst places to live in are Illinois, Rhode Island and Mississippi according to residents. Residents who have a lot of state pride also "generally boast a greater standard of living, higher trust in state government, and less resentment toward the amount they pay in state taxes," according to Gallup. The poll shows a correlation between positive attitudes and the state's location in a mountainous region with cold weather. The bottom 10 states show a correlation between negative attitudes and state's location east of the Mississippi River or bordering it. Most survey respondents did not say their state was the single best place to live, preferring instead to say it was "one of the best." Texans were most likely to say their state was the very best place to live. Gallup conducted the poll from June to December 2013 and interviewed at least 600 residents in each state. Top 10 places to live: 1. Montana 2. Alaska 3. Utah 4. Wyoming 5. Texas 6. Hawaii 7. New Hampshire 8. North Dakota 9. Colorado 10: Vermont Worst 10 places to live: 1. Rhode Island 2. Illinois 3. Mississippi 4. Louisiana 5. Michigan 6. New Mexico 7. New Jersey 8. Maryland 9. Missouri 10. Connecticut
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Post by FWS on Apr 24, 2014 20:11:54 GMT -6
Hero Rancher’s Family Has Been On Nevada Land Since Forever Or At Least 1948by Doktor Zoom Wonkette.com April 22, 2014 Maybe we're too subtle about what we think of these guys...So you remember how Cow Freedom Hero Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy’s family has been on the land that they stole fair and square from the Indians since the 1870s and therefore all of his rights to graze his cattle predate any dumb “Bureau of Land Management” or “grazing fees” or “federal interference in Our Freedom”? Some bright smartasses at Las Vegas Teevee Station KLAS decided, very unfairly we should add, to go and look in the Clark County records, just to be communist troublemakers, and they discovered that in reality, Clark County property records show Cliven Bundy’s parents moved from Bundyville, Arizona and bought the 160 acre ranch in 1948 from Raoul and Ruth Leavitt. Water rights were transferred too, but only to the ranch, not the federally managed land surrounding it. Court records show Bundy family cattle didn’t start grazing on that land until 1954. There is almost certainly a very good logical explanation for those records that doesn’t involve Cliven Bundy being a goddamned liar, and we can hardly wait for Fox News and Sean Hannity to find it. Mr. Bundy just happens to know a hell of a lot more about his family’s history than some dumb piece of paper in a file in the Clark County Assessor’s Office, tell you what: “I’ve lived my lifetime here. My forefathers have been up and down the Virgin Valley here ever since 1877. All these rights that I claim, have been created through pre-emptive rights and beneficial use of the forage and the water and the access and range improvements,” Bundy said … “My rights are before the BLM even existed, but my rights are created by beneficial use. Beneficial use means we created the forage and the water from the time the very first pioneers come here,” Bundy said. The snotty little government-teat-suckling liars at KLAS claim that Bundy has his chronology maybe a teensy bit off, seeing as how his family bought the land in 1948 and began grazing it in 1954, while “The Bureau of Land Management was created 1946, the same year Cliven was born.” Now who are you going to trust, an American Patriot who denies that the U.S. government has any legitimacy, or some lying land records in a government office that say something different? For any geneaology geeks out there, KLAS also has a second article detailing Bundy’s claims that his family had been ranching in the area since the 1870s — it looks like his maternal grandparents did have a farm in the area, but there’s no indication that they were cattle ranchers doing useful cattle ranching, and their farm was not on the land that Bundy now owns, nor was it adjacent to the federal land for which he refused to pay grazing fees. Oh, and the 1998 opinion from a U.S. District Court that determined that Bundy had failed to pay grazing fees, and therefore had no further rights to graze on federal land, also found that Bundy’s family had only been ranching in the area since 1954. Still, what’s a little embellishment about an extra 75 years of ranching that never happened? The main thing is that the Feds have just totally gotten out of control, right? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I-Team: Bundy's 'ancestral rights' come under scrutinyBy Nathan Baca, Investigative Reporter 9 News Now- Las Vegas Apr 23, 2014 LAS VEGAS -- Federal authorities remain silent about their next plans to confront Cliven Bundy at his Bunkerville ranch. Both sides are fighting over history, with federal courts denying Bundy's claims of "ancestral rights" on the Virgin River valley. The I-Team dug into century-old records to examine Bundy's claims. At the Bunkerville camp next to Cliven Bundy's ranch, there are constant reminders of history. Revolutionary War flags, ancient Greek mottos and native American symbols, all mixing together to create a growing identity and narrative for protestors. This land is unusually fertile and green for southern Nevada. Cliven Bundy grows melons there. They are said to be the best in the state. His cattle, until recently, roamed freely on land managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Before the roundup that sparked protests, confrontations and gunmen taking a bridge, Bundy explained his "ancestral rights" to the I-Team. "I've lived my lifetime here. My forefathers have been up and down the Virgin Valley here ever since 1877. All these rights that I claim, have been created through pre-emptive rights and beneficial use of the forage and the water and the access and range improvements," Bundy said. Clark County property records show Cliven Bundy's parents bought the 160 acre ranch in 1948 from Raoul and Ruth Leavitt. Water rights were transferred too, but only to the ranch, not the federally managed land surrounding it. Court records show Bundy family cattle didn't start grazing on that land until 1954. The Bureau of Land Management was created 1946, the same year Cliven was born. "My rights are before the BLM even existed, but my rights are created by beneficial use. Beneficial use means we created the forage and the water from the time the very first pioneers come here," Bundy said. Early census records show Cliven's maternal grandmother, Christena Jensen, was born in Nevada in 1901 (other records show she was born in 1891 as Abigail Christina Abbott). One word spreading through Bundy supporters and his armed guards is that what the federal government is doing to Bundy is exactly what they did to native Americans. "They are literally treating western United States citizens, ranchers, rural folks like this- are the modern day Indians. We're being driven off of our lands. We're being forced into reservations known as cities," Justin Giles, an Oathkeeper from Alaska, said. The local Paiute Indians were forced into reservations by federal troops in 1875. Two years prior, the tribe was promised the same land Cliven Bundy now grows his melons ,and until recently, grazed his cattle. The I-Team's research team has come up with an in-depth look at the genealogy and property records that form the basis of Cliven Bundy's claim of ancestral rights on the ranch land.
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Post by FWS on Apr 24, 2014 16:49:01 GMT -6
Some want to shoot down NC Sunday hunting banBy Arielle Clay WRAL.com April 23, 2014 Fuquay-Varina, N.C. — North Carolina is one of only 11 states that restricts hunting with a gun on Sunday, but some hunters want to remove the state from that list. Farmers are some of the biggest opponents to changing the Sunday hunting law. For many, it's about having peace and quiet one day of the week. "I'm a Christian. That was one of the things you didn't do on Sunday was hunt," said Fred Burt, who raises cattle on a 700-acre spread in near Fuquay-Varina. Burt is a hunter and sometimes lets other hunters onto his land. Justin Rogers, owner of NC Hunter Supply in Raleigh, said hunters have wanted to pull out their shotguns on Sundays ever since lawmakers legalized Sunday bow-hunting in 2010. A Senate bill introduced last year would allow Sunday gun-hunting on private property, but it stalled in a Senate committee shortly after it was introduced. "For everybody to be able to have that opportunity on Sunday, I think, is great," Rogers said. "There's nothing much better for a hunter than to be able to take your family out in the woods to hunt." Peter Daniel, assistant to the president of the North Carolina Farm Bureau, said that, even if farmers opposed to Sunday hunting don't allow it on their land, hunters could spill over from nearby property. "(They should be able to) find out what's going on on the back 40 or back 400 acres without concern of a stray bullet or gunshots," he said. Daniel said he would like to see both sides sit down with lawmakers to hammer out a compromise that both farmers and hunters can accept.
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Post by FWS on Apr 24, 2014 16:43:49 GMT -6
Cliven Bundy’s first and last rodeoAll of Bundy’s big-name backers are paying for their endorsements now. By DAVID NATHER Politico.com 4/24/14 It can happen to anyone, right? You rally behind a guy and his anti-government cause, and suddenly he’s spewing racist bile and boy, does it splash on your face. Well, actually, it can’t happen to just anyone. It didn’t even happen to most people. It happened, specifically, to a handful of politicians and media celebrities who didn’t check out Cliven Bundy a little more closely. Republicans like Rand Paul, Dean Heller, and Ted Cruz are sprinting away from the Nevada rancher after embracing his fight against the Bureau of Land Management. And media figures like Sean Hannity, who built Bundy into a star for his battle against yet another heavy-handed government agency. (Also on POLITICO: 10 things to know about Cliven Bundy) Much of the nation heard what Bundy thinks about race, thanks to an extended riff he gave during a weekend press conference that was reported by the New York Times. (It was captured on video, too, because of course it was.) All of Bundy’s big-name backers are paying for their endorsements now — grappling with the awkward situation of condemning a man’s words after supporting his crusade. “The lesson is that sound judgment trumps ideology, or should,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.“Voters evaluate a politician ultimately on the soundness of their judgment.” In case you missed it, Bundy’s rant starts with “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro” and goes downhill from there, somehow mentioning abortion, cotton, and slavery all in the same speech. (WATCH: Bundy: I know what 'slavery' means) Most Republicans and anti-government groups didn’t have any damage control to begin with — because they had never hugged Bundy in the first place. They knew better. Not because they knew anything about his racial views, but because they knew that there were better heroes for the fight against big government than a guy who wouldn’t pay his grazing fees for 20 years. But Paul, Cruz, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry all said Bundy’s fight highlighted important issues about the power of the federal government — and Heller called Bundy’s supporters “patriots” in a TV debate last week, according to Roll Call. It’s not that Bundy’s racial views were widely known within Nevada. They weren’t, according to a member of a Nevada conservative group, who asked not to be identified because the organization hasn’t taken a position on the issue. But the point is that the supporters who rallied to his cause, and the politicians and media figures who jumped on board, didn’t know anything else about him, either. “I think people were just looking for someone to attach themselves to because they liked the cause,” the activist said. “This is what you get for that. This is how it ends up.” On Thursday, Paul and Heller denounced Bundy’s comments quickly, with more condemnations rolling in as the day went on. Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said Bundy’s remarks were “completely unacceptable,” but insisted Cruz hadn’t taken sides — he just voiced “his concern about the vast amount of land controlled by the federal government.” And although Perry said in a television appearance Thursday morning that he hadn’t seen Bundy’s remarks, spokeswoman Lucy Nashed told POLITICO Thursday afternoon that “the governor has had a chance to read Bundy’s comments since this morning, and thinks they are offensive and reprehensible, and absolutely disagrees with them.” The problem for those Republicans, though, is that it’s probably not the last time they’ll be asked about Bundy, now that he’s toxic With Paul, it could be an especially big problem if other Republicans use the incident to raise broader questions about his judgment. In an interview with Fox News last week, Paul said declared that “this is a real … intellectual and constitutional and legal debate, but it shouldn’t be about violence of arms, and I hope that the government will not be there in full arms and provoke a showdown and something terrible will happen.” “This is another in a series of questionable judgment calls for the senator from Kentucky,” said Ayres, who noted that Paul also got into trouble as a Senate candidate in 2010, when he seemed to question the premise of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and had to reassure everyone that he really does support the law. Paul’s aides protested the linkage, noting that Paul condemned Bundy’s remarks as quickly as he could Thursday morning. “That is an ridiculous line of reasoning,” Doug Stafford, a senior adviser to Paul, said in a statement. “Senator Paul spoke out against federal overregulation and BLM handling of a situation. He has never spoken to or met Mr. Bundy and is not responsible for the vile comments that come out of his mouth. He has denounced them.” And Bundy appeared to have lost the media figures who had built him up, with Hannity calling Bundy’s remarks “beyond repugnant” and Glenn Beck declaring that Bundy was “unhinged from reality.” Democrats, naturally, jumped all over Bundy’s latest comments, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid condemning Bundy as a “hateful racist” and demanding that Republican leaders condemn him to show “show a united front against this kind of hateful, dangerous extremism.” Most aren’t about to give Reid the pleasure, unless they’re asked specifically about Bundy. But conservatives are very much aware that Bundy’s comments will make it that much harder to raise legitimate questions about whether the Bureau of Land Management overreacted by taking his cattle — the broader issue that goes beyond his personality. Some conservatives wanted to keep that issue alive, despite the damage from Bundy’s racial views. Ben Howe, a contributing editor at RedState, tweeted: “We’re running into classic conservative over-correction here. Bundy may be an idiot. This doesn’t make BLM actions correct. Come on ppl.” And even Hannity, on his radio show Thursday, still insisted that the BLM’s response to Bundy “was an overreach. Who needs 200 agents and snipers because they have a disagreement over the price of grass? … It could have ended in a disaster.” Still, other conservatives don’t have any hope that people will still listen to that concern now that Bundy has opened his mouth one too many times. “What you’ve done, if you’re a conservative, is you’ve just given the left a huge issue to use against you,” the Nevada activist said. The next time conservatives question the BLM’s tactics as an example of government overreach, the activist said, “the first question from now until eternity will be, ‘Oh, you’re a Bundy supporter.’”
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Post by FWS on Apr 24, 2014 16:37:50 GMT -6
Once king, squirrel hunting still big in East TexasBy Shannon Tompkins Houston Chronicle April 23, 2014 Gray squirrels - "cat" squirrels to East Texas hunters - are the most commonly taken squirrel during the May 1-31 spring hunting season, accounting for about 90 percent of the harvest in 51 East Texas counties. Three native East Texans of a certain age loitered in the back of a windowless room in the bunker-like Capitol Extension in Austin one early-May afternoon a few years ago, waiting for the much-delayed start of a legislative committee session set to consider a passel of bills involving outdoor recreation. Talk turned, as it will in such situations, to places we'd rather be on such a fine spring day. And as all three of us are hunters and anglers, the options invariably were focused on those shared passions. We hit the high spots: wade-fishing for speckled trout in deep-green water along the shoreline of a coastal bay; dunking minnows around brush piles along the bank of a lake and snatching out fat crappie; sitting tight to the base of a big mesquite in South Texas, heart pounding as a long-bearded gobbler rattled a response to every hen turkey yelp and cluck scratched out on a slate call. "I'd rather be slipping through a creek bottom in some big woods carrying my grandfather's .22 and watching for limbs shaking in an old pin oak. I dearly love squirrel hunting and could sure go for a meal of fried cat squirrel," one fellow said to our approving nods. "Squirrels? People in Texas hunt squirrels? You don't eat them, do you?" said a man who walked up during the conversation. It took a few seconds before we realized the guy wasn't joking. He truly was surprised that anyone in Texas hunted squirrels and actually treasured that opportunity, much less relished the fruits of the hunt. That the person expressing such condescending cluelessness was a high-ranking official with the state's wildlife and fisheries agency, a native Texan and a lifelong hunter was a bit disconcerting and certainly disappointing. But it wasn't all that surprising. He was a native of the western edge of the Hill County and had spent his life and career west of Interstate 35. To him, as with almost all Texans in the western 80 percent of the state, game was deer and quail and doves and maybe turkeys. Squirrels were those semi-domestic arboreal rodents that lived in the pecans on the Capitol grounds and ate potato chips doled out by state employees having lunch outside. 'The whole package' It was obvious he had never set foot in a cathedral-like hardwood bottom and spent a morning using every bit of woodsmanship, hunting skill, patience and all of his senses in a match against wild cat squirrels that possess a wariness and other behaviors crucial to their survival. And it was also obvious he'd never had a plate of fried squirrel with biscuits and gravy or a bowl of squirrel and dumplings. His loss. "Squirrel hunting is the whole package," Dave Morrison, small-game program director for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and a lifelong squirrel hunter, said earlier this week. "It teaches you everything - every skill you need to be a good hunter. It's the way most of us learned to hunt." It certainly has been for most of us blessed to have been born, raised or otherwise spent considerable time in the forest-dominated landscape of eastern Texas or the rest of the South. Because that's where the squirrels are. The ghost-like cat squirrels that live in hardwood bottoms and flow like wraiths along trunks and limbs and vines, disappearing, it seems, into the damp air. The bigger fox squirrels that haunt the more open mix of hardwood/pine forest on higher ground and use slyness instead of cat squirrels speed to evade potential predators. Squirrel hunting is a Southern rite, ritual and recreation - a traditional and almost universal piece of the social and cultural fabric of the region. At least it was. The world, it seems, has conspired against squirrels and squirrel hunting. Deer take over The explosion of East Texas' white-tailed deer populations in the 1960s and '70s resulted in deer supplanting squirrels as the most popular game animals in the region. And with that came changes in hunting practices. Deer hunters sit and wait. Squirrel hunters still-hunt, moving quietly through the woods, stopping and looking and listening and absorbing. The two hunting methods conflict when practiced on the same ground. During the autumn/winter hunting seasons, deer hunters don't want squirrel hunters wandering through the woods when they are in their stands. And since deer hunters soon outnumbered squirrel hunters, most huntable tracts, many of which had been "open" land with liberal access, were leased to deer hunters. Squirrel hunters found fewer places to hunt during the autumn season. Squirrels, too, found themselves squeezed out. East Texas once held 16 million acres of hardwood bottomland - perfect squirrel habitat. Today, that's down to 6 million acres. Squirrel numbers have declined with the loss of habitat. "A squirrel can't live on a diet of nothing but pine cones and Bermuda grass, and it can't tread water forever," an old wildlife biologist told me back in the early 1980s, referring to millions of acres of East Texas' forest being converted into pine plantations and "improved" pasture and drowned under reservoirs. Unlike almost all other game animals - and squirrels are, under Texas law, one of a handful of animals officially designated by statute as game animals - the state doesn't manage habitat for squirrels. Still, as late as the early 1980s, squirrels remained, by far, the most popular game animal in East Texas, drawing almost a quarter-million hunters afield each year. By 2004, when TPWD stopped including squirrel hunters in its annual small game harvest survey, that number had dropped to 70,000. Although squirrel hunting is far from as popular in East Texas as it was just a couple of generations ago, it remains a strong draw for tens of thousands. "I'd guess there's 60,000 or so people who hunt squirrels in Texas, today," Morrison said. In most of Texas, there is no closed season on squirrels and no bag limit. East Texas is the only region where harvest is restricted, a nod to the value of that resource. 'Nothing better' The spring squirrel season, May 1-31 in 51 East Texas counties, is not as popular as the autumn season, which opens in October. But it is a welcomed opportunity for tens of thousands of hunters to head afield and enjoy what still is arguably the most complete, engaging hunting experience available to most hunters. "There's nothing better than slipping into the squirrel woods on a still spring morning," Morrison said. Yes, the thick coverage of leaves on trees makes it tougher to spot squirrels. But that makes a person hunt harder and learn more. "You may not see a squirrel, but if you're sitting still and listening and you hear dew dropping on the leaves, you know that comes from a squirrel moving in a tree," Morrison said. "Or you watch for leaves shaking when the wind's not blowing." It's those lessons and more - learning marksmanship by using a .22 to snipe squirrels all but hidden in the limbs and leaves; how to move quietly on leaf-littered ground; which trees and other vegetation squirrels prefer; how to navigate in a trackless forest; how to sit still and just listen and watch - that are the real rewards of squirrel hunting. "You don't have to get a limit (10 squirrels per day) for a squirrel hunt to be a success. If you come out of the woods with three or four squirrels, you've had a great day," Morrison said. "And I'll guarantee you'll have learned something." And if, during a wander through the spring squirrel woods, you find a huge patch of dewberries or maybe some late-ripening mayhaws, so much the better. A dewberry cobbler is the perfect dessert after a bowl of squirrel and dumplings, and nothing's better than mayhaw jelly on a biscuit beside a skillet-fried young cat squirrel. It's an East Texas thing.
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Post by FWS on Apr 24, 2014 16:19:49 GMT -6
Sure................ I'm thinking they oughta just lop off the male parts and toss 'her' in a Federal women's prison, most likely be worse punishment for Manning when he discovers how unpleasant it would be to be surrounded by all those felonious bitches on the rag.
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Post by FWS on Apr 24, 2014 10:11:14 GMT -6
Cliven Bundy wonders if black people were “better off as slaves”By Mark Berman New York Times April 24, 2014 MESQUITE, NV - APRIL 11: Rancher Cliven Bundy poses for a photo outside his ranch house on April 11, 2014 west of Mesquite, Nevada. Bureau of Land Management officials are rounding up Cliven Bundy's cattle, he has been locked in a dispute with the BLM for a couple of decades over grazing rights. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images Cliven Bundy outside his ranch house west of Mesquite, Nevada. (George Frey/Getty) Oh boy. Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who has drawn a lot of attention recently for his longtime refusal to pay grazing fees (and because his cause drew the support of an armed militia), was profiled in the New York Times on Thursday. That meant a New York Times reporter was there to hear Bundy say this: “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do. “And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.” As you might expect, at least one of the lawmakers who had supported Bundy quickly condemned his remarks. You can probably expect other lawmakers to follow suit. And now the prominent Republican leaders who have publicly supported Bundy are backing away from him. Jaime Fuller has more on Post Politics.
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