Can one report sponsors of political advertisements to the FCC if they blatantly lie? Probably not, due to 1st Amendment issues, but I certainly have candidate if one could.
The American Federation of Teachers-Massachusetts has endorsed Deval "free-em-all" Patrick the Democratic candidate for governor, in part because he advocates capping the number of charter schools. Their radio ad supporting Free-em-all blames the current Republican governor, Mitt Romney, and his lt. Governor, Kerry Healey, who is running against Deval, for massively underfunding public education and advocates for change.
The factual problem with this claim is that it is the Democratically-controlled Legislature that passes the budget not the governor. They have effectively reduced funding for public schools in favor of their own pet socialist programs like universal health care. The Democrats have had a veto-proof majority for years now so any attempted changes in public school funding by the governor that the Legislature disagrees with get overridden.
On a side note, according to the Boston Globe, Deval himself was the beneficiary of a scholarship to a prestigious private school when he was a child, yet he wants to limit access to educational alternatives to the kind of poor public schools that he himself escaped.
So what we have here is a hypocritical candidate supported by a lying union.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Sunday, October 29, 2006
What's Wrong with Kerry Healey on Gun Control
Kerry Healey is the Republican candidate for governor in Massachusetts. She gets high (95%) marks from various 2nd Amendment watchdog groups like GOAL and NRA. One must consider those marks relative though. Most anywhere else someone with that high a rank would be abolishing gun licensing or at least making it "must issue" and supporting principles like the "Castle Doctrine" and "no confiscation".
In contrast consider her latest proposal to centralize firearm licensing decisions to the state level. It is drawing fire from both the moonbats and the local police chief associations. In MA the local police chief has total decision authority on granting licenses. The theory is that the local police know who the "bad actors" are and can deny them access to firearms. In practice this allows gun-banning police chiefs in some towns to restrict, or even deny, virtually all license applications as a matter of policy. There is an appeal process, but it is slow and onerous. Obviously the police chiefs don't want this power taken out of their hands, so they are endorsing Deval Patrick.
The problem with Mrs. Healey's proposal is that centralizing this decision authority at the state level eliminates all possibility of appeal and even worse will make it trivial for some future governor or the legislature to totally restrict gun ownership. If Kerry Healey were a true 2nd amendment supporter she would advocate the elimination of firearms licensing, not its centralization. At a minimum she should be proposing that police chiefs not be allowed to make blanket policies restricting firearms licenses; they should be required to make such decisions on a case-by-case basis, and the appeals process needs to be streamlined.
By way of further comparison, consider the other choices:
Her Democratic opponent, Deval "free-em-all" Patrick, is a left wing liberal who wants to illegally limit firearms purchases to one-a-month and make private sales subject to the same background checks as retail sales effectively eliminating private and gun show sales. The Green/Rainbow candidate, Grace Ross, is even worse. She wants to "Make guns harder to get and easier to turn in. Track the bullets and the guns, and begin to hold manufacturers responsible for so many tragedies in our communities." Compared to these 2 almost anyone scores high.
The independent candidate, Christy Mihos, is a bit better. He received basically the same ratings as Kerry Healey. He claims to be "a firm believer in Second Amendment rights" and to support "Castle Doctrine". Sounds good except his definition of the Castle Doctrine appears to apply only to one's home, which wouldn't be much of a practical change from current MA law. He also favors "clarifying the state's existing gun control laws", whatever "clarifying" means. I suspect it does not mean abolishing. He has not been very forthcoming on clarifying his position. He might, or might not, be better than Kerry Healey in this regard, but at the rate the election is going the only thing he is going to do is steal enough votes to make Deval Patrick our next governor.
The bottom line is that Kerry Healey is no real 2nd Amendment rights supporter, she just looks like one in comparison to everyone else.
In contrast consider her latest proposal to centralize firearm licensing decisions to the state level. It is drawing fire from both the moonbats and the local police chief associations. In MA the local police chief has total decision authority on granting licenses. The theory is that the local police know who the "bad actors" are and can deny them access to firearms. In practice this allows gun-banning police chiefs in some towns to restrict, or even deny, virtually all license applications as a matter of policy. There is an appeal process, but it is slow and onerous. Obviously the police chiefs don't want this power taken out of their hands, so they are endorsing Deval Patrick.
The problem with Mrs. Healey's proposal is that centralizing this decision authority at the state level eliminates all possibility of appeal and even worse will make it trivial for some future governor or the legislature to totally restrict gun ownership. If Kerry Healey were a true 2nd amendment supporter she would advocate the elimination of firearms licensing, not its centralization. At a minimum she should be proposing that police chiefs not be allowed to make blanket policies restricting firearms licenses; they should be required to make such decisions on a case-by-case basis, and the appeals process needs to be streamlined.
By way of further comparison, consider the other choices:
Her Democratic opponent, Deval "free-em-all" Patrick, is a left wing liberal who wants to illegally limit firearms purchases to one-a-month and make private sales subject to the same background checks as retail sales effectively eliminating private and gun show sales. The Green/Rainbow candidate, Grace Ross, is even worse. She wants to "Make guns harder to get and easier to turn in. Track the bullets and the guns, and begin to hold manufacturers responsible for so many tragedies in our communities." Compared to these 2 almost anyone scores high.
The independent candidate, Christy Mihos, is a bit better. He received basically the same ratings as Kerry Healey. He claims to be "a firm believer in Second Amendment rights" and to support "Castle Doctrine". Sounds good except his definition of the Castle Doctrine appears to apply only to one's home, which wouldn't be much of a practical change from current MA law. He also favors "clarifying the state's existing gun control laws", whatever "clarifying" means. I suspect it does not mean abolishing. He has not been very forthcoming on clarifying his position. He might, or might not, be better than Kerry Healey in this regard, but at the rate the election is going the only thing he is going to do is steal enough votes to make Deval Patrick our next governor.
The bottom line is that Kerry Healey is no real 2nd Amendment rights supporter, she just looks like one in comparison to everyone else.
Friday, October 06, 2006
I feel like writing something...
...but I don't know what to write about, so here are some short blog-bites:
Violence against children absolutely sickens me, actual physical stomach-turning sickness. People who kill children ought to be subject to the harshest penalties society can devise. Doesn't matter if they are other children, adults, or worst of all, parents, slow, painful torture followed by a lingering death is too kind for such filth.
Frankly I find Foley-gate to be utter confusion, so far. Was it serious, or was it a prank/set-up by the pages? How long was it going on? Who knew and when? What was or was not done and when? That something happened is clear, otherwise he would not have resigned, but there also seems to be alot of election season hay-making both in the media and political arena with the attendant potential for, shall we say, hyperbole and dissimulation. Maybe the Congressional inquiry will straighten it out, but not likely.
More locally, "Free 'em all" Deval scares me: Just the thought that this man so devoid of truth and substance could be governor of MA, together with our left-of-left socialist legislature is nightmare material. Chirsty ought to get over his little rich boy victim pout with the Republican leadership and drop out.
That's enough for tonight.
Vote Ken Chase for U.S. Senate and Billy Szych for Congress
Violence against children absolutely sickens me, actual physical stomach-turning sickness. People who kill children ought to be subject to the harshest penalties society can devise. Doesn't matter if they are other children, adults, or worst of all, parents, slow, painful torture followed by a lingering death is too kind for such filth.
Frankly I find Foley-gate to be utter confusion, so far. Was it serious, or was it a prank/set-up by the pages? How long was it going on? Who knew and when? What was or was not done and when? That something happened is clear, otherwise he would not have resigned, but there also seems to be alot of election season hay-making both in the media and political arena with the attendant potential for, shall we say, hyperbole and dissimulation. Maybe the Congressional inquiry will straighten it out, but not likely.
More locally, "Free 'em all" Deval scares me: Just the thought that this man so devoid of truth and substance could be governor of MA, together with our left-of-left socialist legislature is nightmare material. Chirsty ought to get over his little rich boy victim pout with the Republican leadership and drop out.
That's enough for tonight.
Vote Ken Chase for U.S. Senate and Billy Szych for Congress
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
