In a rare sign of unity, hunting organizations and animal-rights advocates are calling on states to ban the use of drones in big game hunting, which manufacturers see as a new market for the pilotless aircracft.
National conservation groups that promote hunting like the Izaak Walton League of America, the Pope & Young Club and the Boone and Crockett Club and anti-hunting organizations like PETA and the Humane Society of the United States want to discourage the use of drones to help hunters spot game such as elk and deer.
“To be an ethical hunter, you need to maintain a sense of fair chase,” Izaak Walton Outdoor Ethics Committee Chairman Lee Hays told Secrets. He said using drones to track game is no different than using small aircraft, also considered unethical.
“Using them to spot game — or one day to spot and shoot animals — is beyond the pale. Responsible hunters and the HSUS agree that there’s no place for this remote-controlled killing,” said Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle.
The Interior Department doesn’t have a position on using drones because it is a state regulatory issue. But Democratic sources said that there are efforts being made to include a ban in a “sportsmans package” of pro-hunting legislation on Capitol Hill.
Several states have already acted, including Colorado, Alaska and Montana.
$40 MILLION TAB FOR OBAMA-BIDEN GETAWAYS
The travel costs for vacations taken by the first family and the Bidens have exceeded $40 million with the Air Force’s revelation that two golf outings by President Obama this year cost $2.9 million, according to the taxpayer watchdog group Judicial Watch.
Air Force documents provided to the conservative group put the price of the first family’s trip to Key Largo, Fla., in March at $885,683 just for flying Air Force One. The travel costs for the president to golf in Palm Springs, Calif., in February, where he also met with King Abdullah II of Jordan, were $2,066,594.
Judicial Watch’s tally of vacation travel costs goes back to Obama’s first “date night” to New York in 2009.
HARVARD POLL SEES GOP SENATE TAKEOVER
Disillusioned with President Obama and distrustful of Washington, the youngest of voters are leaving Democrats and turning to Republicans, another danger sign that the Senate is ripe for the GOP’s taking, according to a comprehensive new Harvard University poll.
The poll from the university’s Institute of Politics also found that young Democrats are far less enthusiastic about voting in the midterm elections than Republicans and that only one in four younger voters even plan to vote in the fall.
“This is a good sign for the Republican chances to pick up the Senate,” Harvard Institute of Politics Director Trey Grayson told Secrets.
The 25th “Survey of Young Americans’ Attitudes Toward Politics and Public Service” contacted 3,058 18- to 29-year-olds. It revealed a swing away from Democrats since President Obama’s reelection and the midterm election in 2010.
It found that youngest sector of the group, those ages 18 to 24, are becoming less Democratic and more Republican. In 2010, 38 percent called themselves Democrats. That has dropped to 35 percent. And those identifying as Republicans has edged up from 23 percent to 25 percent.
SANTORUM SAYS SOME IN GOP DON’T CARE
Former 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, who took his sweater-vest Image and Blue Collar message to victory 11 times, is joining a growing chorus of Republicans who claim the party has forgotten about the poor and lower middle class with its push to help businesses and cut taxes.
“Do Republicans really care less about the person at the bottom of the ladder than Democrats do? To be painfully honest, I would have to say in some ways yes,” Santorum wrote in his new book, Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting to an America That Works.
“There are some in my party who have taken the ideal of individualism to such an extreme that they have forgotten the obligation to look out for our fellow man. The rhetoric is often harsh and gives the all-too-willing media an opportunity to tar all Republicans with the same brush,” he warned.
Santorum wants the party to reach out to middle-income voters who shop at Sam’s Club and drink brand name beer, not “elites” who favor Whole Foods and microbrews.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
