Monday, June 4, 2012

Deer oh Deer - an Update, and a Fact Check Correction

In the recent post "Oh, Deer Me" I passed on something that I should have fact checked more closely.
While it is true that Gov. Walker next door in Wisconsin has hired himself a controversial 'Deer Czar',  he hasn't in fact so far as we know officially made any recommendations to privatize deer hunting on state land instead of a deer hunting license.  His 'Deer Czar' seems a complete waste of taxpayer's money and there is not so far as I can find anything wrong with the way that the DNR next door manages their deer or their state lands for hunting.  Here's an old quote from the Deer Czar, courtesy of Politifact.com:
"Game management," says James Kroll, driving to his high-fenced, two-hundred-acre spread near Nacogdoches, "is the last bastion of communism.""People who call for more public lands are ‘cocktail conservationists,’" he says, who are really pining for socialism. He calls national parks "wildlife ghettos" and flatly accuses the government of "gross mismanagement."
We know the right throws around words like fascist, socialist, marxist and communist without apparently having the slightest clue to what they really mean.  Rarely if at all do you find them used accurately.  So this seems like more right wing crap and cronyism spending $125,000 on an unnecessary 'Deer Czar' where there are more urgent needs for that taxpayer money -- and by urgent, I don't mean giving it to more out of state corporations to create jobs.  Walker has one of the  WORST job creation records of any sitting governor, and has lost ground since the previous governor left office, AND has underperformed the national average.
But, from a politifact.com entry on the subject, the Deer Czar hasn't actually recommended privatization:
This was made clear in a May 26, 2012 piece by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel outdoor editor Paul Smith: "While he is a controversial figure among wildlife professionals for his extensive work in high fence deer management and captive deer breeding, at no point has Kroll advocated for privatizing deer hunting in Wisconsin."
According to politifact.com from the same article:

...the man at  the center of the issues is James Kroll, the Texas consultant hired for $125,000 by Walker to recommend improvements to the state’s deer management system. Kroll is known as "Dr. Deer" from his articles in hunting magazines and his appearances on hunting shows on TV.

His recommendations are expected in late June 2012.
I have a problem with that recommendations expected in late June part.  It is conveniently AFTER the election.  We have no way of knowing if it is true or false that the recommendations that Dr. Deer has in mind will add significantly to the cost in fees for deer hunting or not.  Based on past performance, there is no basis for trust, least of all for Walker, under criminal investigation, or a number of his cronies that he hired.
But, we post corrections and updates.  Barrett is disliked by the NRA because he objects to using assault or semi-assault type rifles equipped with grenade launchers to hunt deer.  As illustrated by the photos of silly curios of the kind found at gas stations selling cheese and stupid ceramic figurines to take tourist money - that's only fair hunting if you also arm the deer so they can effectively shoot back. Walker doesn't care what you use, or how dangerous you are to yourself, other hunters, or innocent residents of the state of Wisconsin, and he doesn't care about sportsmanship.

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