Preserve the Public Lands!

My hat is off to Field & Stream web edition, and hopefully, the print edition as well for the excellent article on the latest movement to turn over America's public lands to the states and eventually private interests.

Ken Ivory and the Malheur occupiers get special mention as part of the problem, not the solutions. And there's this great quote from the late Western Historian (and Utahn), Bernard DeVoto, who also got it:

“the ultimate objective is to liquidate all public ownership of grazing and forest land in the United States…the plan is to get rid of public lands altogether, turning them over to the states, which can be coerced as the federal government cannot be, and eventually into private ownership.”

Meanwhile, Back at the Occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge . . . .

The Mythic American Cowboy

Without license as I stole another idea from Monty Python:

Overheard around the campfire at Malheur:

"What has the federal government ever done for us?"

"yeah!"

 "Nothin'!"

"Only cause problems!"

"Threatened to take our guns and our cattle away!"

Whoa! THREE of my Political Heroes all at Once!

And I'm sure the girls are great too! What a way to spend a day in DC!

Senator Henry Clay (on the wall), Senator Jeff Flake (R, AZ), and Matt Anselmo (World Famous Mo-Dem Blogger)
Photo credit: Kaija Flake Thompson

Senator Clay, the Great Compromiser and hero of Lincoln's, seems to be there by pure chance. And my Dem-Mormon-Blogger Friend, Matt Anselmo, seems to have some familial connections in DC. Matt is the one who invited me to write for MormonDems.com and I've been a little lax lately, politics taking a bit of a back seat to family history and Mo-Dems joining some kind of conglomerate I have yet to spend the time on to figure out.

Senator Flake is a hero because while definitely and solidly conservative, he is smart and wise enough not to join the gang of 47 in their attempts to undermine our President of the United States and provoke a war with the Ayatollahs of Iran.

Secretarial Invitation

Congratulations to the White Mountain Apache Tribe and the Arizona Parties on the Water Settlement!

Justice Scalia Frustrated and Annoyed

I met Justice Scalia once. It was at the dedication of the new federal court house in Albuquerque a few years ago. He was milling with the crowd as we had refreshments. Having never met a Supreme Court Justice, I went up and shook his hand. It was kinda creepy. I'll just leave it at that.

Scalia's impassioned dissent in the Arizona Immigration case indicates that the politically conservative jurist may be a little frustrated. Also, the separate dissents/partial concurrences of the other two conservative Justices, Thomas and Alito, indicate the conservative wing of the court is not well united. Having been quietly abandoned by their conservative Chief Justice Roberts joining the majority in this politically-charged issue, this all indicates to me that they may have lost to Obamacare. I still think it could be 6-3. I'll eat my words tomorrow as necessary.*

Hawaiian Bureaucrat Battles Birtherism

As a long-time federal employee, and I know that makes me spawn of satan for many of you out there, I can't help but appreciate a classic case of the bureaucratic stall imposed on someone who very much deserves it - the Secretary of State of the State of Arizona.

The hero of our story is Deputy Attorney General, Jill T. Nagamine, of the beautiful State of Hawaii, the Rainbow State. Here she is (on the right) litigating with Orly Taitz, Birther Extraordinaire. (Nagamine won.)

Odd Brushes with History at the OK Corral and a Tragic Day in Memphis

Two good reads came from History Book Club recently, Hellhound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assasin by Hampton Sides and The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral-And How it Changed the American West, by Jeff Guinn.

My dad took us to Tombstone when we were kids and it was a fascinating place to drink sarsaparilla and stand in the shadows of the Earps and Clantons at the OK Corral (even if it did really happen just down the street.) Even then, my dad, Western fan that he is, wisely cautioned that it isn't always easy to tell who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.