From Charles Smith of the Of Two Minds blog, comes this brief article on why the gap between urban and rural politics.

Many pundits have commented on the remarkable asymmetry of counties won by the Democratic Party (blue counties) and in 2016 and those won by Republican Party (red counties): the Democrats won big in heavily urban counties and the Republicans won most rural counties.

This visible division prompted numerous article such as this: Cities vs. Trump: Red state, blue state? The urban-rural divide is more significant. “Like most red-state cities, Idaho’s capital is remarkably short on conservatives. Last November, while Hillary Clinton mustered only 27.5 percent of the statewide vote, she hit north of 75 percent in some of Boise’s urban precincts. Politically, the city might as well be on a different planet from towns that lie a couple of exits away.”

The article follows a simple and superficially appealing narrative: the reason for the divide is cultural: cities are liberal, the countryside is conservative.

But there must be more to the divide than values and political culture; difficult social issues like addiction that once were defined as urban problems are now rural problems: American Epidemic: The Nation’s Struggle With Opioid Addiction (34:26 min)

To continue reading, click here.

Reporting from Agriculture.com suggests severe damage to the wheat crop of western Kansas, a state that produced 25% of the country’s wheat last year.

Blizzard conditions and heavy snow swept western Kansas, including 14 to 20 inches in Colby in the northwestern quadrant of the No. 1 winter wheat state in the nation, said the Weather Channel. “We lost the western Kansas wheat crop this weekend. Just terrible,” tweeted Justin Gilpin, chief executive of the grower-funded Kansas Wheat Commission.

The snow and freezing weather struck a winter wheat crop that was developing faster than usual, thanks to a mild winter. As a result, the crop was more vulnerable to spring snowfalls and frost.

Read more here.

From LibertyNation columnist Kit Perez:

The first Bundy trial has ended in a mistrial after finding a federal informant guilty of eight charges and one of the defendants guilty of two lesser charges. The jury was hopelessly deadlocked on sixty more charges, even after federal judge Gloria Navarro sent the jury back to deliberate further.

The case has been hotly contested by their supporters, who say that the men were defending themselves against government agents who assaulted, tazed, and threatened them.

Todd Engel was found guilty on two charges; obstruction of justice, and interstate travel to aid extortion. Greg Burleson, a fellow defendant also revealed to have been working for the federal government as an informant throughout the events at Bundy Ranch, was found guilty on eight charges. According to Maxine Bernstein of OregonLive.com and Jenny Wilson of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the jury was “hopelessly deadlocked” on all other charges — including the charge of conspiracy against the United States government. Federal judge Gloria Navarro has reportedly sent the jury back on an Allen charge to deliberate further on the other counts, but to no avail.

To continue reading the article, click here.

Benton County Sheriff Steve Keane is retiring on April 1, 2017 after 25 years with the sheriff’s department. The Republican Party is accepting applications to choose a temporary sheriff. The party provides a list of top candidates to the Benton County commissioners.

Click to read the article in the Tri-City Herald.

GOAL Post2017-6

Legislative Update from Olympia  10 February 2017

NEW BILL(S) FILED

DROPPING HB 1784/SB 52 56 FROM TRACKING

POSITION CHANGE ON SB 5441

NEED HELP ON HB 1933/SB 5506

PUBLIC HEARINGS HELD

PUBLIC HEARINGS SCHEDULED

POLICY COMMITTEE CUT-OFF DATE NEXT FRIDAY,17 FEB

ACTION ON BILLS

SB 5795, by Senator Chase (D-32), would mandate firearm owners have
personal liability insurance to purchase or possess any firearm.No
minimum coverage amount is specified, but you must show your policy to
the FFL to purchase a firearm.

After a deeper evaluation of HB 1384/SB 5256, I am dropping them from
the gun bill tracking list.As clarified, a “sexual assault protection
order” is separate and distinct from a domestic violence protection
order and is NOT to be used in lieu of a DV protection order.It does NOT
automatically prohibit firearm possession.

After consulting with law enforcement professionals, I am changing the
GOAL position on SB 5441 (involuntary freeze on firearm possession) from
“OPPOSE” to “NEUTRAL.”The “consultees” are both rock solid pro-gun
individuals with more than 60 years combined law enforcement experience,
most of it on the street.

Washington gun owners need a push on HB 1933 and SB 5506.These bills
would allow transfer of a firearm without I-594 background check at
non-profit events such as Ducks Unlimited or Friends of NRA dinners.HB
1933 has not been scheduled for a hearing in House Judiciary.SB 5506 was
considered in a public hearing but no executive session (committee vote)
has been scheduled.If no action is taken on these bills by next Friday
(17 Feb), they are dead for the session.Please call or e-mail your
Representatives and ask them to push HB 1933 in House Judiciary and your
Senator to push SB 5506 in Senate Law & Justice.

Public hearings were conducted last week on HB 1100, HB 1501 and HB
1731.No executive action (committee vote on HB 1100 yet.Executive
session (committee vote) on HBs 1501 and 1731 are scheduledfor 16 Feb,
along with HBs 1122, 1387, 1529 and SB s 5506 and 5552.the last day to
get bills out of committee.

(After the hearings, and outside (state agency, other public agency,
private citizen) input is heard, the committee staff prepares a “bill
report” that describes the effect of the bill as submitted, a summary of
public testimony, and includes any amendments to the bill offered by
legislators.The bill next has to be scheduled for a vote (passage) in
executive session, by the committee chair.Once a vote is taken – IF a
vote is taken (not all bills heard get an up or down vote) — the bill
dies in committee or moves on, either to the Rules committee awaiting a
floor vote, or to a fiscal committee for their review.)

A public hearing is scheduled for SB 5441 in Senate Law & Justice on
Thursday, 15 Feb at 1:30 p.m.

Next Friday is the original chamber policy committee cut-off day,
meaning all House Bills that have not passed out of their original
policy committee are (nominally) dead for the session, with the
exception of bills with a fiscal impact – they have an extra seven days
to pass out of one of the fioscal committees (Appropriations or Ways &
Means).I threw the word “nominally” in there because a bill CAN be
resurrected after missing a cut-off, but it’s extremely rare.

(Just for information, almost 2,200 bills have been filed so far in this
session.As stated before, many are filed, few receive action.)

BILL STATUS/GOAL POSITION:

HB 1000 Use of deadly force Doglio (D-22)H. PubSaf. OPPOSE

HB 1004 Possession of firearms/state of emergency Shea (R-4)H. Jud. SUPPORT

HB 1015 Limiting restrictions on concealed carry Shea (R-4)H. Jud. SUPPORT

HB 1100 CPL renewal notice Blake (D-19)H. Aprop SUPPORT

HB 1122 Safe storage of firearms Kagi (D-32)H. Jud. OPPOSE

HB 1134 Assault weapon ban Peterson H. Jud. OPPOSE

HB 1181 Prohibiting handgun sales registry Blake (D-19)H. Jud. SUPPORT

HB 1190 Prohibiting handgun sales registry Taylor (R-15)H. Jud. SUPPORT

HB 1380 Repeals I-594 Shea (R-4)H. Jud. SUPPORT

HB 1381 Universal recognition of all state CPLs Blake (D-19)H. Jud. SUPPORT

HB 1387 Assault weapons background check Jinkins (D-27)H. Jud. OPPOSE

HB 1388 Bans firearm possession in cannabis shops Cody (D-34)H.HC NEUTRAL

HB 1483 Allows destruction of forfeited firearms Lovick (D-44)H. Rules OPPOSE

HB 1501 Illegal purchase of firearms Hansen (D-23)H. Jud. SUPPORT

HB 1529 Use of force Ryu (D-32)H. PubSaf OPPOSE

HB 1592 Delivery of firearms to LEOs Klippert (R-H. Jud. SUPPORT

HB 1725 I-594 check exemption for CPL holders Koster (R-44)H. Jud. SUPPORT

HB 1731 Certain exemptions to I-594 Jinkins (D27)H. Jud. SUPPORT

HB 1900 Hunter ed funding/NRA license plates Griffey (R-35)H. Trans. NEUTRAL

HB 1933 Transfer of firearms at non-profit events Walsh (R-19)H. Jud. SUPPORT

SB 5000 Use of deadly force McCoy (D-38)S. L&J OPPOSE

SB 5050 Assault weapon ban Frockt (D-3)S. L&J OPPOSE

SB 5073 Use of forceMcCoy (D-38)S. L&J OPPOSE

SB 5216 Firearm safety education in schools O’Ban (R-28)S. K-12 SUPPORT

SB 5259 Bans firearm possession in cannabis shops Rivers (R-18)S. HC NEUTRAL

SB 5268 CPL renewal notice Takko (D-19)S. Rules SUPPORT

SB 5441 Involuntary freeze on firearm possession Kuderer (D-)S. L&J NEUTRAL

SB 5444 Background check for “assault weapons” Frockt (D-46)S. L&J OPPOSE

SB 5463 Mandatory safe storage of firearms Palumbo (D-S. L&J OPPOSE

SB 5506 Transfer of firearms at non-profit events Zeiger (R-25)S. L&J SUPPORT

SB 5552 Certain exemptions to I-594 Pedersen (D-43)S. Rules SUPPORT

SB 5553 Suicidal, waiver of rights Pedersen (D-43)S. L&J NEUTRAL

SB 5795 Mandatory firearm liability insurance Chase (D-32)S. L&J OPPOSE

S. L&J = Senate Law & Justice, H. Jud = House Judiciary, H. PubSaf =
House Public Safety, S. HC = Senate Health Care, H. K-12 = House Early
education, H. HC = House Health Care, Aprop = Appropriations

PUBLIC HEARING SCHEDULED:

15 Feb Senate Human Services Senate Hearing Room “2”John A. Cherberg Bldg

1:30 p.m.SB 5441

LEGISLATIVE HOT LINE:You may reach your Representatives and Senator by
calling the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-562-6000.Toll free!!!The
hearing impaired may obtain TDD access at 1-800-635-9993.Also toll free!!!

1-800-562-6000TDD 1-800-635-9993

OTHER DATA:Copies of pending legislation (bills), legislative schedules
and other information are available on the legislature’s web site at
“www.leg.wa.gov“.Bills are available in Acrobat (.pdf) format.You may
download a free version of Adobe Acrobat Reader from Adobe’s web site
(http://www.adobe.com).You may also obtain hard copy bills, initiatives,
etc, in the mail from the Legislative Bill Room FREE OF CHARGE by
calling 1-360-786-7573.Copies of bills may also be ordered toll free by
calling the Legislative Hotline at (800) 562-6000.You may also hear
floor and committee hearing action live at http://www.tvw.org/ (you need
“RealAudio” to do this, available free at the TVW web site).

By reading the House and Senate “bill reports” (hbr, sbr) for each bill,
you can see how individual committee members voted.By reading the “roll
call” for each bill, you can see how the entire House or Senate voted on
any bill.The beauty of the web site is that ALL this information is
available, on line, to any citizen.

GET THE WORD OUT:If you want to subscribe to the GOAL Post by e-mail,
send a message to “jwaldron@halcyon.com“.Please pass GOAL Post on to
anyone you believe may have an interest in protecting our rights.Better
yet, make a couple of copies of this message, post it on your gun club’s
bulletin board, and leave copies with your local gun shop(s).PERMISSION
IS HEREBY GRANTED TO DUPLICATE OR REDISTRIBUTE GOAL POST PROVIDED IT IS
REPRODUCED IN ITS ENTIRETY WITHOUT TEXTUAL MODIFICATION AND CREDIT IS
GIVEN TO GOAL. I can be reached at “jwaldron@halcyon.com“. Unfortunately, I am unable to mail hard copy GOAL Post to individuals. Limited numbers of hard copies MAY be available
at the Second Amendment Foundation book table at WAC gun shows.

Upcoming WAC gun show(s):

Monroe18-19 February

Puyallup25-26 March

“The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself,
or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall
be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize,
maintain or employ an armed body of men.”

Article 1, Section 24

Constitution of the State of Washington

Copyright 2017 Gun Owners Action League of WA

UPDATE: 2/17/2017  HB 1387 died in committee yesterday.  The Senate counterpart, SB 5444,
never got a hearing.  Both are technically dead for the session.

Recognize that under “extraordinary circumstances” a bill that failed to
make a cut-off date MAY be revived.  This is very rare. But let an
incident occur such as what happened in Orlando last year occur, all
bets are off.

From Jordan Greenhall of Deep Code on medium.com, comes this interesting assessment of the insurgent nature of the Trump administration and what it means.

While many things have changed in the world in the past two years, 2016 saw what looks like a phase transition in the political domain. While the overall phenomenon is global in scale and includes Brexit and other movements throughout Europe, I want to focus specifically on the victory of the “Trump Insurgency” and drill down into detail on how this state change will play out.

I use John Robb’s term “Trump Insurgency” here to highlight the fact that the election of 2016 was not an example of “ordinary politics”. Anyone who fails to understand this is going to be making significant errors. For example, the 2016 election is not comparable to the 2000 election (e.g., merely a “close” election) nor to the 1980 election (e.g., an “ideological transition” election). While it is tempting to compare it to 1860, I’m not sure that is a good match either.

In fact, as I go back and try to do pattern matching, the only real pattern I can find is the 1776 “election” (AKA the American Revolution). In other words, while 2016 still formally looked like politics, what is really going on here is a revolutionary war. For now this is war using memes rather than bullets, but war is much more than a metaphor.

This war is about much more than ideology, money or power. Even the participants likely do not fully understand the stakes. At a deep level, we are right in the middle of an existential conflict between two entirely different and incompatible ways of forming “collective intelligence”. This is a deep point and will likely be confusing. So I’m going to take it slow and below will walk through a series of “fronts” of the war that I see playing out over the next several years. This is a pretty tactical assessment and should make sense and be useful to anyone. I’ll get to the deep point last — and will be going way out there in an effort to grasp “what is really going on”. I’ll definitely miss wildly, but with any luck, the total journey will be worth the time.

Click here to continue reading this article on medium.com.

From Selco at SHTFschool.com

And then one day, finally, real democracy came!

We were feeling that after long time of the same old politicians who cared only for themselves or their own circles and families, suddenly there is a man (or people) who will bring something new for us, pride, strength, wealth or whatever.

Media was full of high hopes and praising, in order to bring new world for us, jobs, security and what not.

New factories are  promised, new liberties, patriotism and love for the country exploded.

Something beautiful was expected. We felt like it is dawn of new era…..

What a bunch of xxxxx idiots we were.

Then the polarization started. At the beginning it was something like “there are people FOR and there are folks AGAINST it” whatever that “IT” was.

Pretty soon we were “thrown” into situation where you have two families, they are neighbors, friends for years, decades even, but over the political reasons they started to see each other with kinda ‘bad blood’.

And then one morning, SHTF and I found myself standing in my backyard like an idiot, still trying to find out what happened with great words of new era and better life…?

Some bad language. Click through to read more.

From NRA-ILA

Inspired, perhaps, by Oscar Wilde (“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess”), Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson has announced two new sweeping gun control bills, with Sen. David Frockt (D-Seattle) and Rep. Strom Peterson (D-Edmonds) as the bill’s prime sponsors.

Despite being described as “assault weapon reform,” the proposed legislation is nothing short of a ban of many common, legal firearms and “large-capacity magazines” currently possessed by millions of law-abiding Americans for self-defense, hunting, and recreational shooting. 

Both bills use the same extensive definitions of “assault weapon” and “large-capacity magazine” (LCM). “Assault weapon” would include:

• a semiautomatic rifle using a detachable magazine and with one or more of the listed six features (e.g., folding or telescoping stock, thumbhole stock),
• a semiautomatic handgun or a semiautomatic, centerfire, or rimfire rifle with a fixed magazine that can hold more than ten rounds,
• a semiautomatic, centerfire, or rimfire rifle with overall length of less than 30 inches,
• a semiautomatic handgun using a detachable magazine and with one of the listed four features, and
• a shotgun with a revolving cylinder or certain semiautomatic shotguns.

The bills exclude “any firearm that is manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action,” “antique” firearms, and any gun that has been made permanently inoperable. 

An LCM is defined as “any ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than ten rounds,” or “any conversion kit, part, or combination of parts, from which such a device can be assembled” if the parts are in the possession or control of the same person, but excludes a tubular magazine contained in a lever-action firearm and a .22 caliber tube ammunition feeding device.

The first bill prohibits all possession, purchase, sale or transfer of an “assault weapon” or LCM, except as permitted. (“Transfer” already has a special definition in Washington law, and means any “intended delivery of a firearm to another person without consideration of payment or promise of payment including, but not limited to, gifts and loans.”) The exceptions for other than law enforcement personnel or licensed dealers include persons who legally possess such items when the law takeseffect, and persons who become owners through inheritance or other operation of law, provided these owners can “establish such provenance.” Once grandfathered, owners are themselves prohibited from selling or transferring the item, other than to a licensed dealer or by way of permanent relinquishment to law enforcement. Guns and magazines relinquished to law enforcement “must be destroyed.”  

The second bill proposes a marginally less extreme alternative. First, it would impose a registration-licensing system for “assault weapons” and LCMs. Every person who possesses, transports, manufactures, purchases or sells an “assault weapon” or LCM must have an annual state-issued license, with an updated license required every time there is a change in possession of the gun or LCM. The licensing requirement has a delay period (until 2020) before it applies to persons who currently possess such items, but these persons would be prohibited from selling or transferring the gun or LCM to anyone other than a licensed dealer, a gunsmith, or to law enforcement for permanent relinquishment. Like the first bill, this bill mandates that relinquished guns and LCMs “must be destroyed.”

Click here to read more