Smoke, the fact is, if Hillary had won, Podesta would in fact be calling the shots on behalf of Hillary. It was a close call not just for gun rights, which you need to hunt, but for major economic sectors in the West. You may be okay with an economy that is seasonal and fickle, but I'm not.
Given that all you can do is accuse me of red herrings.....
Dave, I'll start at the bottom and work my way up.
It's hard to do more than accuse you of red herrings because red herrings are your stock in trade and all you're giving me to work with. But I'm not only accusing you of red herrings, I've been shooting them down like the wounded ducks they are. It's not my fault that the shooting is so good.
And I think I've done a little more than just shoot them down. I've managed to work some actual facts into the discussion on BHA--an accurate portrayal of its core constituents, the reason it was created, and its mission, which is not as you continually imply to absorb dark money and finance political campaigns.
And let's talk about an economy that's seasonal and fickle. I'm not "OK with it" as you say (that sounds like a personal attack Dave), just stating the cold hard reality and providing factual information. I didn't shape the economy here, it is what it is. And the only reason I brought it up in the first place was in response to your observation that public land policy should be driven by what's best for the local economy. I just felt it necessary to explain our local economic drivers to you because you'd obviously overlooked them.
And I can tell you from personal experience that there's nothing more fickle and cyclical than the extraction industries operating on our public lands. I came out of school in 1982 with a degree predicated on plentiful jobs in oil & gas, with hard-rock mining as my Plan B. Oil & gas exploration companies were hiring our entire graduating class when I was in my second year. The only problem was, two years later both oil & gas and hard rock mining were in the toilet and the number of unemployed people on the street looking for jobs with my same education and 5-10 more years experience was staggering. I caught a break and landed in a different field but a lot of people weren't so lucky.
Fast forward to today in the Bakken. In places where you couldn't find a hotel room two years ago there are now only remnants of that high water mark. Abandoned man camps and abandoned campers with out-of-state plates. And the timber market is the same, cyclical and driven by the housing industry and prices of Canadian products.
And before you go painting me as a greenie preservationist who doesn't understand where the gasoline in my car comes from (oops, you already did that, was that one of those personal attacks you mentioned?), I'm all for multiple use on our public lands, including extractive industries. I'm just fortunate that I don't have to make my living in that sector.
As far as the election being a close call, yes it was. If Hillary had been elected, gun rights would've surely taken a hit. If the DNC had played fair, Bernie Sanders could be our president right now and he would've been worse yet. And if Jill Stein had won the election, it could have meant real trouble for extractive industries.
And if the moon was made of cream cheese and frogs had wings, maybe we could come up with a way to send 'em up there to bring some of that back. Which is another way of saying, so what Dave, what's your point, besides weaving in another reference to Podesta and Hillary?
Lastly Dave, Land Tawney can do whatever he wants in his free time, that's really none of my business. And I don't care what the league of conservation voters does or doesn't do, I'm not part of that organization. They are free to collect money and spend it as they see fit, as long as they do it within the law. Just like every other PAC.
If shutting down PACs is your thing, why don't you start a new thread on that? It's surely not the topic of discussion here. Just another red herring.
