Conservation movement suffers hits left and right

[get-n-birdy]

Conservation vs politics, money wins, no surprises there. Good luck DA!

[h2ofwlr]

So instead of having a "I can do nothing" cynical attitude in these and other posts, you could have contacted your Sen and Rep and the Gov expressing your desire to keep the protections in place.

Now imagine if 10,000 outdoors people did that, as we'd have a different outcome.

For those that think that they can not make a difference or determine an outcome, please think again. Read about Sir Nicholas Winton. Yes indeed 1 person can make a profound difference.

[get-n-birdy]

After the duck rally, I have no faith in anything politically based. Not that I had much before.

It's all glad handing and ass grabbing.

Big ag will never yield or bend to conservation.

There's already laws on the books that get gleefully and willingly ignored. More laws will do what exactly?

Habitat has lost, there's no turning back the hands on an old rusty clock. Conservation is best done by willing, informed land owners. Food plots and habitat work, is taking hold on small tract's of land all over the country.

I use to think we could force feed big ag, our vision of habitat and the benefits of conservation. There's time well spent, then there's the complete waste of time trying to tell people the world's not flat. Proof is in the work on the ground. Farmers and the big ag machine don't give a phuck what Aldo Leopold thought's were on conservation or being good stewards of the land. They care about dead presidents, period. Trying to force them into something they deem as useless, is, well useless.

Best thing is a guy who buys a quarter section and starts putting elbow grease into habitat work. Then have the farmer or his kid, who enjoy deer hunting, bitch about the guy putting his boots on the ground and creating habitat, and posting the piss out of it. I love listening to farmers, who love to deer hunt, bitch about the cutting of trees on wpa's or wma's.

That's the only way to influence a farmer into doing any habitat work. Let him see his own stupidity. Or if crop prices crash, causing crp to actually retain any real world value. And that's only happening with an act of nature.

I've seen more good come out of an informed land owner, with a fuel and fire for habitat work, than any legalizing of conservation morality.

Bill Marchel has my vote to kick DA's ass to the curb. He actually gets dirt under his finger nails and is managing his little corner of dirt he owns.

He doesn't chastise every sportsman for how terrible they are for not calling their dam already bought and paid for douche bag representative.

Sorry Fowler, but politicians can kiss my ass. After the DF, they ain't getting more support for bull chit projects. I'll do what I can with what I've got and preach small tract management, over federal or state guberment policies, that won't get enforced anyways.

[gimpfinger]

Because of df I have close to twenty new places to hunt within 45 min and know of four mudholes that are no longer 6 foot deep walleye lakes.

Team Power Dump

[h2ofwlr]

Well, well, well.... So I see Dayton has actually got a pair.


Dayton vetoes two more bills, adds to special session agenda
May 23, 2015 By Melanie Sommer, BMTN
Links: http://bringmethenews.com/2015/05/23/da ... on-agenda/

Gov. Mark Dayton has vetoed two more budget bills that were passed in the final hours of the legislative session on Monday night. That means lawmakers will have more items on their agenda when they meet in a special session, likely to occur in June.

Dayton, a DFLer, had already vetoed the education budget bill because he said lawmakers didn’t provide enough funding for his proposal to offer pre-kindergarten classes statewide.

Dayton announced Saturday afternoon he also vetoed the agriculture and environment bill and the jobs and energy budget bill.

Agriculture and environment bill

This bill appropriates money to state agencies involved with managing the state’s agriculture, environment and natural resources activities.

The agriculture and environment bill included one of Dayton’s top priorities for the session: A requirement that farmers plant buffer strips along drainage ditches, streams and other waterways. The bill also included money to help deal with the avian flu outbreak which has hit Minnesota’s poultry farmers especially hard.

But Dayton had several complaints about the final measure, including the fact that it eliminated the citizens board that has overseen the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for nearly 40 years. Dayton’s veto letter includes several other elements of the bill, which he said “undermines decades of environmental protections” in the state.

Environmental advocates had actually encouraged the governor to reject the measure, according to MPR News.

Jobs and energy bill

This bill appropriates money to state agencies involved with economic and workforce development, labor and industry, housing, commerce, and energy.

Dayton said he vetoed this bill because it didn’t have enough funding for the Department of Commerce and other agencies, or for programs like a rural broadband expansion fund. He also criticized the measure for creating disincentives for the use of alternative energy like wind and solar power, the Associated Press reports.

“It seems the governor’s version of compromise is his way or the highway. Moving forward from this veto, which blindsided us, will be difficult,” said Rep. Denny McNamara, R-Hastings.

Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt of Crown said he was “very disappointed” with Dayton’s vetoes, according to MPR News.

Potential impacts

The current state budget expires on June 30, so new funding measures in the affected areas need to be approved by then to avoid a partial government shutdown.

Dayton said Saturday that layoff alert notices will be sent to about 10,000 state employees on June 1, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Without new agreements, on July 1 state employees who work in the areas of K-12 education, economic development, agriculture and environment would be out of work.

State parks would also be affected, Dayton said, since they get their funding through the environment budget. Without a budget deal, parks would have to stop taking reservations on June 15, the Pioneer Press notes.

Special session plans

No date or location for a special session has been announced. Lawmakers can’t meet at the State Capitol because it’s undergoing extensive renovations.

Gov. Dayton is the one with the authority to call the Legislature into special session, and he is unlikely to do so until there is agreement among all parties on the measures to be considered.

During his news conference Saturday, the governor offered another compromise to lawmakers to break the impasse over funding of E-12 education.

He asked for $650 million in new money for education, compared to the $400 million the Legislature passed. But he said he would then pair it with a temporary $250 million tax cut, according to the Star Tribune. He also dropped his demand that the prekindergarten program be universal and lowered the cost about 60 percent.

Dayton will meet with House Speaker Kurt Daudt on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
What he signed

The governor signed the last two bills still awaiting his action.

The budget measure to fund state government.
A measure governing how police use automated license-plate readers. Location data from motorists’ movements can be kept only 60 days unless the information is relevant to a criminal case.

[h2ofwlr]

His letter of why he vetoed the Environment bill: http://www.mn.gov/governor/images/2015_ ... ter_79.pdf

[get-n-birdy]

We need more funding from the government tit for education every hockey pucking year, yet kids test scores keep shipping their pants, why?

More and more government doesn't fix a d@m thing.

Listening about each individual politicians pet projects is mind numbing.

But I guess they really do care for me and my family, and feel my pain, while they are robbing my back pocket blind.

[Fish Felon]

I'll tip my cap to Dayton and give him some credit for having balls. The biggest problem with liberals is that they're such pussies they usually get their ass kicked when up against conservatives. They think a well thought out argument backed with logic and reason should be enough to win in the theatre of politics...and then are shocked when it doesn't.

Dayton is quickly becoming my favorite Governor ever.

Arne was so well liked and respected on both sides of the aisle he was boring.

Jesse was a giant douche bag who came from the media, ran as a PR stunt to promote himself, miraculously won despite that possible outcome never crossing his mind, and then spent his entire term waging a war against the media.

I liked TPaw for most of when he was in office but in hindsight he was an empty suit that stuck to his pledge of "no new taxes" by using shifty accounting tricks and cutting funding for things at the state level just so we could be taxed more at the local level than what we were paying at the state level. Plus calling a blatant tax increase a "health impact fee," I wonder why Dayton doesn't rebrand the gas tax increase as a "road impact fee?" All done solely for when Timmy ran for President he could yammer on about how he "balanced a budget without raising taxes" as he got clobbered in Iowa.

It took me a while but I've recently really come to appreciate Dayton. He's different. Even a month ago I didn't get him or care for him. I was mainly just indifferent. But something clicked and now I like him. I don't know if it was him bashing the Republicans saying they hate public education, or that when asked to apologize he retorted, "I'm not going to apologize...two republicans called me stupid last week," or what did it but this guy rocks.

When you watch an Obama, Romney, Clinton, Pawlenty, or almost any other politician, you get absolutely nothing of substance. Sure, they'll deliver their overly prepared and scripted message flawlessly and they might even answer some questions afterwards but they're so polished all you'll ever get is what they've calculated you to get so they can use you as a pawn to get what they actually want. It's all bullshyte. They know it and we know it (we being people with half a brain). Their smug arrogance, their smirks...they enjoy the game of spoon feeding us their garbage because they think they're smarter than all of us and know that even if we do figure them out it doesn't matter.

When I watch Dayton I see a stammering bafoon. He has this nervous look to him with those beady eyes and how he speaks. He usually says more than he should and he's anything but polished. He's governor goofy. But you know what? I realized that I believe that he actually means what he says. There's no secret hidden agenda he's trying to advance. He's not doing this as a stepping stone for another office or to get a corporate golden parachute once he moves to the private sector after retiring from politics.

Nope, what you see is what you get...and what you get is very entertaining!

The new Dayton, Dayton-Unchained, is the rarest breed of politician there is, one that doesn't want anything. Money? He's rich. The type of rich that isn't obsessed with getting more rich. Reelection? Nope. Run at President? No way. Senator? Nope, already did that. This guy has truly committed himself to public service and doing what's best for Minnesotans...probably just wants to leave a lasting legacy for his name that he was a good guy. I can't say I've seen that before and I'm proud to say he's our Governor.

Do you have to agree with his politics to enjoy him? Hardly. How much of this shyte actually matters anyways?

For instance, why should we care about a citizens panel that's been around 40 years? So far the only thing anyone has said they've done is be a panel of citizens for the past 40 years. That's it. There isn't any listing of accomplishments for them. There's no "If it wasn't for the citizen's panel hormel would still be using lead dust as their secret ingredient in spam and General Mills would be selling cereal that is over 10% rat poison."

Does the EPA or MPCA need a citizen's panel? They are state agencies that enforce environmental laws. What does this citizen panel discuss? It's not like the citizens panel for dedicated funding. It makes sense for citizens to discuss the various projects and approve funding for the ones they greenlight. It's not perfect but it's a lot better than having politicians do it because they'll use it as a political bargaining chip and not act in the best interest of the public---they're politicians.

As far as I know this MPCA panel isn't rubber stamping what they do like, "Sorry guys, I know you really wanted to see how much pig shyte is in the drinking water in the Southwest but we're sending you to Crow Wing County to monitor phosphorus spikes in lakes from cabin owners dumping grass clippings off their docks."

Maybe the panel sucks and slows down the agency actually getting work done. Maybe it'd be more efficient for the professionals that our tax dollars employ to enforce the laws and regulations our legislators wrote without having to explain very scientific stuff in layman's terms to a bunch of not so bright do-gooders in order to get their OK so they can just go do their phucking job?

Maybe...just maybe....

Plus everything they do ends up in the paper and is public information so it's not like they're operating under some cloak of darkness.

With that being said I still love that Dayton vetoed it. He's a man on fire. It's more stuff we can hear him explain---score! Dude was ripping lips on Vermillion with these guys and now he's duking it out with them...not even hesitating to lay the smack down. And they shared a stogie man. Harsh.

In the end they'll figure it out in a special session and push through a bunch of legislation that changes nothing really.

[OTCKid]

I've spent more time at the legislature than I care to, although I wasn't down there a lot this session. Talking to some who were though, I had a couple tell me they'd been covering the legislature form the outdoors angle for 20 years, and this was as screwed up as they'd ever seen it.

Dayton did veto the Environment bill, even with the buffer strip provisions in it, and it was probably good that he did. It undercut a lot of very important environmental protections, mainly at the behest of the nursery and landscaping business. It'll get taken up in the special session and hopefully fixed, but it's typical of outdoors legislation at the capital these days...give with one hand, poke you in the eye with the other.

Hopefully the'll also pass the Legacy funding bill that died on the floor. On the one hand, it's not like the unspent funding disappears, but by leaving the fund unspent for a year until next session, a lot of ongoing projects from research to restoration to remediation will stop in their tracks. Criminally irresponsible to just abandon the Legacy expenditure responsibilities, but it's not the first time the legislature has played games with the Legacy funding, and it won't be the last.

When I first started getting involved with stuff down there, a friend and mentor who had been at it for years pulled me aside and said "the only piece of advice I can really give you is to remember that a lot of the people in elected office are there because they're too stupid, lazy, or arrogant to have real jobs." There are notable exceptions, but for the most part he's been right.

[Stute Slap]

100% of his motivations are for the Dem vs Rep scoreboard.

We the people fall into two categories.
1. too stupid to realize it
2. don't care as long as "our" side is winning

FF is def in the #2