MISSOULA, Mont.–”RMEF Team Elk,” the first television program fully owned and produced by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, is being honored as the Fan Favorite
Best New Series on Outdoor Channel.

The show premiered in 2011 and new episodes for season-two will begin in July.

“RMEF Team Elk” co-hosts Brandon Bates and Cameron Hanes accepted the honors from Outdoor Channel during the 12th Annual Golden Moose Awards ceremony held as part of the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, Jan. 19, 2012, in Las Vegas. More than 2,000 hunting industry leaders, TV personalities and media personnel attended, with a worldwide audience watching the event live online.

“No show affiliated with RMEF has ever been nominated before, but this year we collected four nominations and received an important win as a fan favorite, so this is very special,” said Steve Decker, vice president of marketing for RMEF.

He added, “‘RMEF Team Elk’ is more than just a TV show. It’s part of a conservation movement that’s making a difference for the future of elk and elk hunters. Since every RMEF member is a part of Team Elk, this is important recognition for all of us and the work that we’re doing together across elk country.”

Decker thanked elk hunters everywhere for watching the show and casting their votes.

Presented by MidwayUSA, “RMEF Team Elk” is sponsored by Weaver, Browning, Brunton, Danner, Hunter’s Specialties, Buck Knives, Eberlestock, Cooper Tires, Sitka, Nosler, Montana Decoy, Budweiser, Under Armour, Archer Xtreme and Buckstop Truckware.

Even though all the scheduled meetings of the Task Force mandated by the Maine Legislature to determine why hunting and fishing license sales have declined over the past few years, only two of those meeting’s minutes have been posted and available to the public. For those interested in reading those minutes, follow this link, and to date the two meeting minutes were October 2, 2011 and October 23, 2011. Click on the link for the date of each of the meeting minutes and you can read them as a word document.

After reading over the minutes from the October 2, 2011 meeting, I put together a report of what my take was on the meeting from those minutes. You can find that article by clicking this link.

In that article I said that it appeared to me that the Task Force has made a determination that the major reasons for the decline were a bad economy and a poor perception by nonresidents that Maine has an unproductive deer management strategy.

In blaming the economy for this downtrend, there are at least two issues that need to be addressed. The first one is to take a look at when the trending down of license sales began. According to the information provided at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) website, the statistics compiled from “MOSES”, how licenses are sold in Maine, between 1995 and 2010, it appears that nonresident license sales for big game hunting peaked in 2002 at 30,676. Since that time sales have dropped off to a low in 2010 of 17,513 – an over 40% drop-off.

If the number of people unemployed is any indication of the health of an economy, or in this case as to whether people can or will spend money to hunt in Maine, we find that in 2002 when it appears nonresident hunting license sales peaked, unemployment was running at 5.5%. In July of 2005 that rate had continued to dip to 5%. While unemployment in 2005 was dropping to its lowest levels since prior to that attacks on the World Trade Center, Maine nonresident big game hunting license sales had dropped to 27,189.

We can continue to follow this trend. In October of 2006, unemployment stood at 4.4% and hunting license sales continued to drop to 26,067; October 2007 – unemployment = 4.7% and sales = 24,103; October 2008 – unemployment = 6.6% and sales = 20,878; October 2009 – unemployment = 10.1% and sales = 18,471; and finally in October 2010 – unemployment = 9.7% and sales = 17,513.

In this comparison, I fail to see any real direct correlation between unemployment and the reduction of nonresident hunting license sales. Long before the economy was souring, the sale of nonresident hunting licenses in Maine was dwindling.

This is not to say that a bad economy isn’t contributing to the reduction in license sales. Bear in mind, and I’ve pointed this out previously, that in one of the pieces of resource data that the Task Force opted to use, a study done by Responsive Management, their study indicated the opposite affect may result from a bad economy versus a robust economy. Their data indicated that in a booming economy, where much of the hunting participants work in construction, too much work prohibits them from taking the time or having the time to hunt. The study suggested that in times of a poor economy, perhaps more people would hunt due to more time available for them to hunt.

The second issue to discuss I find quite puzzling. While the Task Force focuses its blame for poor license sales on the economy, an article that appeared in the Kennebec Journal November 20, 2011, provided information that seems to blow the theory of a bad economy out of the water.

According to data from the Maine Office of Tourism, the number of overall out-of-state visitors to Maine is on the rise. In 2009, Maine saw a net visitation of 34.5 million. In 2010, that number grew to 37.5 million.

Even more puzzling is that Carolann Ouellette, director of the Maine Office of Tourism, sits on the Task Force board. All I have to go on is the information available on the MDIFW website, which included only minutes from 2 meetings. Nowhere in those minutes is there any mention of this statistic that overall tourism is up in Maine. Perhaps this was discussed and did not make the minutes. I just don’t know.

In the Kennebec Journal article, Ouellette says that her agency doesn’t keep specific statistic on hunters coming to the state and as such, “it’s difficult to say why that group isn’t returning in the same numbers.”

While it may be difficult for some to say why the nonresident hunters aren’t coming to Maine, I don’t think it’s all that difficult to conclude that the economy is not a major reason that deters them. To resolve to this conclusion appears to be inaccurate and paves the way for errant suggestions on how to correct a problem. In other words, the Task Force may be barking up the wrong tree.

In defense of the Task Force, the minutes to the second meeting of October 23, 2011, showed more specific suggestions of ways to improve hunting and better ways of promoting and marketing the resource and industry. Some of these ideas are good but will not happen without some money. Where that will come from is anyone’s guess.

It is my opinion that with this Task Force focusing the blame on the economy and that nonresident hunters are being told or are hearing bad things about a depleted deer herd, they are avoiding the real reasons why hunters aren’t coming to Maine.

It may be disconcerting to hear from the press and others, like myself, that Maine’s deer herd is in trouble but to stop talking about the truth will do nothing to correct the problem. The Task Force suggests that more positive talk should be made about all the good things Maine and MDIFW are doing for the deer. I and a few tens of thousands of other hunters would like nothing better. Right now, hearing a lot of talk, with the only actions being formulation of just another task force, isn’t going to alter the negative press. Results will do that. Sportsmen want results!

Tom Remington

I gave Roxanne Quimby the benefit of the doubt in an earlier article I wrote in which I pointed out that Quimby had failed in her bedside manner since becoming a wealthy land baron and now that she needs the support of the Maine people to build her a national park, she is struggling to get it. The benefit I gave her was as it relates to how she treated Maine residents concerning access to her land. We are now finding out, Quimby has serious ill perceptions of Maine people and the lifestyle’s they choose to live.

Quimby, a self-made multimillionaire and co-founder of Burt’s Bees, used the success of her entrepreneurial skills to amass wealth. With that wealth, she invested in real estate, some of which involved several tens of thousands of timberland in Maine. As are the rights of any landowner, she limited access to that land and evicted camp owners who had maintained leases with the previous landowners. In short, she angered a lot of people.

Quimby has a dream of giving away 70,000 acres of her land for a national park. Some see this as a good thing and some see it as bad, and not in the best interest of the Maine people. In order for Ms. Quimby to get her park she has to convince the Maine legislature that it’s a good idea and consequently she has to entice the Maine residents themselves.

Having already angered a healthy population of the state, Quimby is reported to have had several unbecoming things to say about Maine and the people in an interview she did with Forbes. The Bangor Daily News covers the story.

Her list of grievances with Maine include: calling Maine a welfare state, the people obese, and too old. She describes the lumbering industry as: “a very tight-knit group of industry people who own, manage and call the shots over ten million acres of land”. In addition she says that the wood products industry as a whole as a failure and poorly run, and “they’re in complete denial”. She described a certain percentage of the population as “oxycontin abusers”, as well as, “tone deaf” to the environment. She even went so far as to attempt to evaluate Maine’s schools, in particular the town of Millinocket near where much of her land exists, saying the town has “trouble keeping schools open”, and that Millinocket schools are “a total economic disaster”.

It certainly puzzles me why anyone who feels this way about Maine would spend their money investing in it. She probably had similar feelings about Maine when she moved her Burt’s Bees business out of Maine to North Carolina.

The Bangor Daily News article projects Quimby as having nothing good to say about the state of Maine at all. I couldn’t care less actually. Quimby owns land and she can do what she wishes with it within the laws the rest of us must abide by. She can give it away, sell it, develop it or anything else she chooses. She can prohibit people from accessing her land or share it only with those she hand selects. That’s her business. She can dump on the Maine people and call them anything she wants. She can offer bribes to win support for her park, again that’s her business.

But you cannot act this way and expect that when you need Maine people’s support you’ll have it.

For those who might not know, Roxanne Quimby was hand picked by President Barack Obama to sit on the Board of Directors for the National Park Service. Perhaps Obama sought out someone who thinks like he does. If you will recall that during the presidential campaign of 2008, Barack Obama, in a speech he made before what he must have thought was private, called the people of Pennsylvania bitter people stating: “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

To me, Roxanne Quimby’s statements about Maine people are very similar to those made by Barack Obama. Coincidentally, Obama lost Pennsylvania in the primaries that year because of his nasty, elitist and snide comments about the people there.

For a woman scrambling around looking for support for her national park, she has once again reinforced her isolation and driven a deeper divide between her and the Maine people.

Tom Remington

*Editor’s Note* Most outdoor sportsmen are familiar with the antics of the Natural Resources Defense Council. They are not our friends and do little in the way of conservation and everything they can to destroy our heritage, our freedoms and the decades of real conservation hunters and all outdoor sportsmen have invested in.

In the press release below, we see that Major League Baseball has teamed up with the Natural Resources Defense Council in order to better promote their radical and un-American agendas. I guess they pulled the wool of Baseball’s eyes…..or did they? If you think Major League Baseball has chosen a wrong partner to promote their radical agendas during baseball playoffs, contact Major League Baseball and let them know you didn’t know their organization was a political action group.

From the National Center for Public Policy Research:

Washington, D.C. – Major League Baseball’s relationship with a group of environmental extremists is drawing criticism from experts at the National Center for Public Policy Research, who believe that taking good care of the environment, like baseball, should be a uniting factor, instead of a divisive one.

“MLB’s partnership with the radical Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) undermines what should be a goal of bringing Americans together for a clean environment,” according to Jeff Stier, director of the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Risk Analysis Division.

“Conservation is as American as baseball, but MLB has gone into foul territory by partnering with the group that started one of the most memorable unfounded junk-science campaigns in a generation, the alar scare, which in 1989 caused Americans to think apple pie could cause cancer. To this day, the NRDC promotes unscientific scares that hurt job-creating industries and consumers alike,” says Stier.

The NRDC’s initiatives tend to be divisive, even partisan, campaigns. In a September 28 online issue briefing it urges the defeat of Congressional proposals intended to reduce regulatory barriers to job creation, claiming, “the House Republican Leadership has declared war on public health and the environment.”

“You don’t have to be a Tea Party member,” says Jeff Stier, “to be offended by the NRDC’s bogus allegation that ‘the Tea Party agenda is hazardous to your health.’”

Major League Baseball, which partnered with the NRDC to show a public service announcement narrated by Robert Redford during the playoffs, leaves the public with the dubious impression that the NRDC is a group that baseball fans should support.

“If Major League Baseball wants to tout responsible environmental practices, it could have done so with an inclusive organization, or on its own,” says Stier, who is a veteran monitor of false, misleading and/or harmful health claims by radical activist groups. “The PSA, of course, excludes the strident language and rancid politics otherwise employed by NRDC. But the ad,” says Stier, “amounts to a free fundraising campaign for a group that a large percentage of baseball fans, regardless of their political affiliation, would abhor if they understood the group’s true radical agenda.”

Stier, a long-time New York Yankees season ticket holder, is particularly disappointed that “an extremist organization is given the opportunity to bask in the goodwill of what should be America’s non-partisan pastime.”

“The National Center for Public Policy Research today calls on Major League Baseball to immediately cease running the NRDC PSA. If privately-owned major league baseball clubs want to install solar panels in stadiums they own, commit to recycling, or encourage their fans to do so, good for them,” said National Center President Amy Ridenour, a Pirates fan. “But partnering with an organization that routinely slanders tens of millions of Americans is an insult to those Americans and to all fans who don’t share the NRDC’s extreme agenda. Unless Major League Baseball plans to recast itself as a political party, and a left-wing one at that, it should withdraw from this partnership.”

(Columbus, Ohio) If you feel you are being squeezed as a hunter or angler, you are not alone. More and more hunters, anglers, recreational shooters, and trappers are facing more restrictive laws, less access, reduced opportunities, and fewer options.

The restrictions and attacks have occurred at the local, state and the national levels. Much of this has been caused by subversive laws passed in part because of back-door politics and deep funding by the animal rights lobby. Among these groups that are working against YOU are the Humane Society of the United States, PETA, ASPCA, Center for Biological Diversity and many others.

But help is on the way!

Thanks to the newly formed Sportsmen’s Issue Defense Fund (SIDF), developed by the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance (USSA), the future of hunting and angling looks much brighter. The SIDF was launched during a recent USSA board meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

This fund will provide the “on-the-ground” dollars necessary to initiate efforts to protect the rights of sportsmen and sportswomen from attacks. The SIDF will support direct lobbying, grassroots coalition building, ballot issue campaigning, and legislative and government relations. In short, it’s a working fund, or war chest, designed to insure the future of hunting, angling, trapping, and recreational shooting across America.

“Every year I have been involved with the USSA, the animal rights lobby has attacked our hunting heritage,” said Mason Lampton, vice-chairman of the USSA’s board of directors. “This year is no different as we’ve seen no signs that they are letting up. As history is my judge, we will not let up either.”

This fund will work in many ways and at many levels. It will defend against local dog laws affecting sporting dog owners and breeders, against trapping restrictions, against efforts to reduce hunting seasons, against unnecessary lead sinker and traditional ammunition restrictions, fishing-focused issues, plus other issues as they arise. As the anti-hunting forces are planning their next move and securing the funds to push their agendas, the SIDF is a chance to build a wall of protection against these attacks.

It’s important to note that all sportsmen and women will benefit from this unified fund that will pool financial resources for the defense of our outdoor heritage. The SIDF will draw resources from the entire sportsmen community and provide the strongest –and most immediate—defense for each facet of our hunting heritage.

“The SIDF will provide immediate seed money whenever and wherever the animal rights lobby attacks our great hunting heritage,” continued Lampton. “Whether in the states, in Washington D.C., or at the ballot.”

The SIDF fund is open for support by all sportsmen and women.

Fighting for our heritage is not cheap. State and national campaigns are expensive to launch and carry out. The SIDF goal is to secure $1 million to ensure funding is available at a moment’s notice to defend all hunting, fishing, recreational shooting and trapping activities. This is an on-going fund that sportsmen and women across America are urged to donate generously in their defense.

This SIDF fund needs your input immediately. The time is now as a hunting community to circle the wagons to defend the smallest segments of hunters, trappers, shooters, and anglers. If smaller segments of hunters and anglers are forced out, you could be the next group in the sights of the anti-hunting and animal rights lobby. The anti- forces are already whittling away your rights, access, opportunities and options. A fully funded SIDF’s mission is to turn back these attacks. Donate now!

“We must ban together, pool all our resources, and stand up for our sport, our heritage, our fight!” concluded Lampton.

Sportsmen and women can donate directly to this effort at: www.ussportsmen.org/donate.

*Scroll for Updates*

To some, Roxanne Quimby is the quintessential success story. A kind of rags to riches story of a woman creating a product popular with consumers and growing from a kitchen business to a multimillion dollar enterprise. She sells her business and begins making other investments. Is this not capitalism at its finest? But is success all about how much money you can earn?

Roxanne Quimby has been a bundle of controversy and hypocrisy at least since becoming wealthy. While taking full advantage of our American capitalist society to make her fortune, Quimby has gone about her business seemingly to deny others of the same thing she took advantage of. At least to some degree.

Her investments included a systematic approach toward purchasing large tracts of land, mostly in the Baxter State Park area of Maine. This action in and of itself exemplifies life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; perhaps the ultimate in the expression of individual rights and the freedom to pursue those rights while seeking the independence most needed to actualize true freedom. For this, nobody can fault Roxanne Quimby. She is a self-made person. How American is that?

What was not perceived as American were her actions after purchasing her large tracts of land. Maine is a unique place. Much of the northern two-thirds of the state is mostly owned by large timber companies and/or private investors in large tracts of land. This was accomplished years ago in an effort to preserve those lands for timber harvest. For many, many years the tradition has been for these large landowners to permit access to their land for recreation and in some cases, leases were sold in order that Maine citizens could construct camps in some locations on timber company lands. All of this attributed to a lifestyle that few others in this country could relate to.

One could easily conclude that the timber companies understood the value of maintaining a friendship with the Maine people.

Quimby started her business in Maine and as it grew, she left the state with her business and moved it to North Carolina. This move upset some people and was the beginning of a rocky relationship between Ms. Quimby and the state of Maine.

When Roxanne Quimby began buying up land, she also began a systematic shutting down of access to it. She gated and barricaded roads frequently used by hunters, fishermen, trappers, hikers, snowmobilers, ATV rider, etc. She even evicted any camp owners who held leases on the land where their camps sat. There have been, in some cases, reports that some of these cabins where burned to the ground.

While well within her rights to do so, Quimby instantly was disliked for her actions. After all, this isn’t the ideal way to win friends and influence people. In a short period of time she destroyed part of what Maine people had perceived as part of their heritage. One cannot expect to have many friends when they choose to act in this manner.

In an interview with Downeast Magazine a few years ago, oddly, Quimby stated that nobody should be able to own land. She considers land to be something that should be “owned” by everyone; a pseudo “Animal Farm” approach. How bizarre in actuality. A person takes advantage of a free enterprise system, exploits our capitalistic approaches to wealth and uses it to buy up land in order to prohibit people from enjoying that land. If someone was a true believer in common law land ownership, she certainly has an odd way of expressing it.

The saga continues. Having angered large masses of Maine people, for whatever her motives Quimby appeared to be reaching out to mend some fences and create opportunities for limited access to some of her land. Several individuals and groups fell for her deceptions. They began speaking of Roxanne Quimby in terms of how she has been misunderstood and that she doesn’t really want to alienate herself from the rest of Maine, etc. How wrong!

Not knowing all the back door deals with President Barack Obama, he nominated Roxanne Quimby to sit on the board of directors of the National Park Service. Most Mainers are aware of the efforts of groups seeking to turn much of northern Maine into a wilderness park and most have made the assumption Quimby would be a part of that. That effort also sees little support in Maine……so far.

It was shortly after Quimby won her appointment to the National Park Service, that she announced she would like to donate 70,000 acres of her land in remote northern Maine for a National Park. To accomplish that, Quimby needs the support of the Maine people. She’s not getting it and why would anybody be surprised that she isn’t?

I don’t think Maine people are much different than people in general. Good, honest people want to work with other good, honest people. As I stated before, Quimby bought her land fair and square. It became hers to do with as she saw fit within the laws of the land. She made her decisions, some of which was to embitter the Maine people by shutting off their access and burning down their camps. And now she needs their help? Perhaps, Ms. Quimby should have thought of that before she became an island unto herself.

When Quimby appeared to be mending some fences, she and members of several snowmobile clubs reached a limited agreement on access over her land for snowmobile trails. These are trails that are part of the ITS that existed before Quimby bought the land.

Now realizing that she sees little support for her national park, she’s scrambling to find help. She has continued to woo over a handful of idealistic hopefuls who are convinced all of Quimby’s actions are honorable but her latest actions have pushed many back to the reality of who Roxanne Quimby really is.

In an attempt to garner support anyway she can, she has resorted to bullying and a divide and conquer approach. She has notified the snowmobile clubs that if they will support her efforts for a national park, in exchange, she will give them a 5-year agreement to use her land for snowmobile trail access.

If Roxanne Quimby had any understanding of why she can’t get support for her national park, the last thing she would be doing is attempting to bully Maine people. And why a measly five year deal?

Quimby needs friends and has few. Confucius said, “have no friends not equal to yourself”. Perhaps Barack Obama is her friend as they may be equals but Ms. Quimby has isolated herself in Maine and now that she needs their help, she has to resort to undesirable tactics to get her way. How unfortunate.

As with Aesop’s “Why the Bat has no Friends”, Ms. Quimby has wings but no beak. Without a beak, she doesn’t look like a bird and with wings, doesn’t look like a mammal.

An island.

*Update* September 29, 2011, 10:40 a.m.

According to the Bangor Daily News, Roxanne Quimby has purchased another 11,000+ acre parcel of land near Baxter and land where she proposes her national park. In the article it says Quimby: “will allow hunting, snowmobiling and other traditional uses on the land for one year.” This offer on this new parcel comes after attempted bribery of a five year deal for snowmobilers on the land she wants the park to be on.

More information on this can be found at this link.

Tom Remington

What began as a troubling and disgusting story of Lynn C. Taylor, 64 of Portage Lake, Maine stealing, “misappropriating” for those wishing to be politically correct, money that belonged to the State of Maine, now has a bizarre and disturbing twist, leaving many Maine residents wondering what is going on.

On September 12, 2001, on the Maine.gov website, a news item was published about Taylor’s theft of hunting and fishing license fees.

Lynn C. Taylor, 64, of Portage Lake, pleaded guilty to theft on September 9, 2011 in Kennebec County Superior Court. Under a plea agreement, she will be required to repay over $16,000 in fees within six months of her plea. If she fails to make the restitution, she faces a sentence of up to five years in prison.

Somehow, the state discovered that between December 1, 2007 and April 5, 2008, Taylor, “failed to turn over $16,752 in fees”. The first question should become, why did it take the state 3 years to discover this? Or, why did it take the state so long to prosecute?

Taylor is the owner of Coffin’s General Store in Portage Lake. In 2006 she signed an agreement with the state of Maine to be a license sales agent for the state.

So, where did the money go? We may never know but it may hold the key to what is to follow.

I sent an email to the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife a few days ago and asked how the error was discovered and why it took so long to either find the theft and/or prosecute for it. I have not received an answer to my inquiry. I have however heard some rumors about email sabotage, Fairpoint and disgruntled laid-off government employees. I have no information on this.

Maine sportsmen essentially fund the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) through license fees and excise taxes collected from the sale of certain sporting goods. Complaints have always been bounced around how the MDIFW is underfunded and as a result are unable to carry out management programs in the manner they would like. So, sportsmen should be rightfully upset, to discover that a licensing agent failed to turn in $16,000 of our money to the state. Asking questions about why it took so long and how this error was discovered are reasonable questions to ask and deserve accurate and prompt answers.

But evidently this story doesn’t stop here. What are sportsmen and Maine taxpayers in general supposed to think when they discover that a quasi government agency is going to loan Lynn Taylor the $16,000 to pay the state back for money she stole?

I was sent a photo copy of a newspaper clipping this morning that came from the Kennebec Journal. I tried unsuccessfully to find the same short clip in the online version of the Kennebec Journal. In that article it read:

Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin said she and Taylor’s attorney, Luke Rossignol, worked out a plea agreement as the case was about to go to jury selection.

Robbin said it appears that Northern Maine Development Commission will lend Taylor the restitution money and she will repay that group. (emphasis added)

The Northern Maine Development Commission (NMDC) is the quasi governmental agency I referred to. According to the Commission’s website the group’s mission is to:

Mission
To serve the northern Maine region with effective regional community planning and economic development.
Vision
To be the driving force of economic and community development for northern Maine, motivated by the commitment, teamwork and integrity of the people at NMDC.

Integrity? Ooooh!

That’s all well and good and I’m sure the NMDC does some great things to assist the people of Northern Maine with keeping their economies going and assisting in planning and development. I can think of a few. One of the functions of the NMDC is to facilitate loans to needy businesses.

The obvious question now becomes is the NMDC in the business of loan sharking? Do they float loans to criminals in order to pay restitution for their crimes? I suppose that would be their business but I think there’s at least one small problem with this.

According to the NMDC’s annual report for 2010 – 2011, of the $4,574,004 dollars that comprise that year’s “Total Revenues, Gains, and Other Support, $3,073,889 came from “Federal & State Grants”. That money doesn’t grow on trees. Federal and State grants come from taxpayers’ dollars. In addition, at least two of the agencies that NMDC works with to procure loans for their clients are the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Finance Authority of Maine.

I think there needs to be some serious explaining done to the sportsmen of Maine and taxpayers of Maine and the United States in General. I’m not sure I can come up with the right conditions in which it would justify loaning tax dollars to someone to pay restitution for tax dollars they stole.

This reeks badly.

Tom Remington

MISSOULA, Mont.–Outdoor television producer and host Randy Newberg has accepted a volunteer position on the conservation issues/government relations committee of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

Newberg is well known for his all self-guided, all public-land hunting program “On Your Own Adventures,” which airs on Sportsman Channel.

The Bozeman, Mont., hunter also is a stanch follower of conservation issues, politics and policies nationwide.

The nine-member committee identifies issues affecting the RMEF mission and provides input to the staff and board of directors regarding organizational positions and directions. Members are annually appointed by the chairman of the board in consultation with the president.

“We’re excited about Randy working with RMEF on this committee. He brings a wealth of knowledge and great perspective on relevant issues facing conservation and hunting. He’s a great asset for our organization,” said David Allen, RMEF president and CEO.

Newberg said, “I’ve been an RMEF member and supporter for a long time. There have been times when I disagreed with organizational positions and I always made sure to let them know my opinion. Now, by serving on this committee, I’ll continue to advocate for conserving wild places and the abundant hunting opportunities they provide.”

Condemns Coercive Tactics by Quimby Operatives

AUGUSTA – The directors of the Maine Snowmobile Association (MSA) voted unanimously at their August meeting to reaffirm their opposition to the creation of a national park in Maine’s north woods.

The directors cited the loss of local and state control to the federal government, the loss of traditional recreational activities and the intrusions on abutting private landowners within the confines of a national park. The MSA directors passed a similar resolution in 2001 and chose to renew their opposition in the face of recent proposals by Roxanne Quimby to create a federal park on land she owns between the East Branch of the Penobscot River and Baxter State Park.

Directors also expressed their outrage at recent efforts by Quimby land managers to coerce local snowmobile clubs to write letters of support for a park feasibility study with threats of a loss of access on Quimby lands. At meetings held in Brownville and Medway earlier in the month, Quimby land managers told local snowmobile clubs that in exchange for letters of support for a national park feasibility study, they would be allowed use of trails on her land for another year. This is in spite of written assurances of continued access to important north-south routes in the past.

“We’re disappointed that Ms. Quimby and her land managers feel the need to threaten the volunteers of these snowmobile clubs with a loss of access in order to advance their agenda,” said MSA Executive Director Bob Meyers. “Our members have the highest respect for the rights of private landowners, but to hold a gun to the heads of these volunteers is disgraceful. We believe it speaks volumes to the level of support that is really out there for Quimby’s park proposal.”

“It’s ironic”, said Meyers “that while Ms. Quimby speaks of her desire to spark economic activity in the region at public meetings; behind the scenes she and her representatives are threatening the livelihoods of dozens of small family-owned businesses in towns like Medway, Mount Chase, Patten and Brownville.”

The Maine Snowmobile Association represents 28,000 snowmobilers and 2,100 businesses in 287 snowmobile clubs statewide. These clubs, with the cooperation of thousands of private landowners, maintain 14,000 miles of snowmobile trails statewide. Recent estimates of the economic activity from snowmobiling in Maine exceed $300 million per year.

*Author’s Note:* As requested by many readers, below is a copy of my speech I delivered to the North American Elk Breeders Association Annual Convention in Waterloo, Iowa on August 6, 2011 at the Ramada Hotel and Convention Center.
Please note that when I give speeches I generally work from an outline and notes. I do not “read” my speeches. So the content of what is below is similar to the remarks delivered during the speech but is not an exact replication of what was said.
For readers of this blog, I also took the time to add hyperlinks to references whenever possible and also at the end included notes, comments and quotes that I may not have used during the speech due to time constraints.

Keynote Address to the North American Elk Breeders Association Annual Convention
Ramada Hotel and Convention Center, Waterloo, Iowa
August 6, 2011

I would like to take a moment to thank all the members of the North American Elk Breeders Association for providing me with the opportunity to come to Waterloo, Iowa, to the annual North American Elk Breeders Association Convention to speak to you today. In particular, I want to thank Brenda Hartkopf for working with me and figuring out all the logistics to get here and exactly what I was going to do when I did. Thank you!

I thought I would begin this evening with an old humor story that is quite fitting with the theme for which I am going to speak. It’s the story of my Uncle Virgil and Aunt Florena. They were country folks. As a matter of fact they lived very far out in the country and ran a small farm raising a few cattle, some pigs, chickens and the like. Where they lived wasn’t the end of the world but you certainly could see it from there.

One day, it was midday when most farmers were inside, out of the hot summer sun, a knock came on the front door, an indication it must not be someone of familiarity because nobody they knew used the front door. Florena answered the door. She opened the fairly large inside door and through the screen door observed a weasily-looking man with thick glasses and messy hair.

“I am from the Department of Agriculture. Here’s my card. I am inspector 356124987920475443. I am here to inspect your farm,” he said.

“We ain’t buying nothin you’re selling so git out!” exclaimed Florena and as she was shutting the door in his face he yelled, “My card says I can inspect your farm!”

Florena yelled to Virgil and told him he had a visitor. Virgil went to the front door and opened it and still standing there was the same man.

Before Virgil could speak, the man says, “I am from the Department of Agriculture. Here’s my card. I am inspector 356124987920475443 and I am here to inspect your farm!”

Virgil examined the card and then told the man to get off his property. The inspector, not taking no for an answer says, “You can see on my card that I have a right to come on your property anytime I want to perform random inspections.”

Virgil once again examined the card and said, “You go do what it is you have a right to do and then get the hell off my property!” and with that slammed the door ever so deliberately in his face.

Virgil returned to the living room where he was trying to watch a little television and catch an afternoon nap. After about an hour, Florena woke up Virgil asking him if he could hear something peculiar. Both heard noises coming from what appeared the side of the house. Virgil went to the back door, opened it and listened. He could hear hollering.

“Hello! You, up at the house! Come and get your bull!” cried the inspector.

Virgil assessed the situation to discover his prized bull had the inspector pinned up a tree with no intention of letting him down anytime soon.

The inspector yells again, “Come and get your bull!”

Virgil called back, “Why don’t you show him your card?”

I grew up in the country poor. Poor meaning I had little in the way of material things. We had electricity, no indoor plumbing and not until later as a kid growing up did we enjoy the convenience of running water in the house. But I had it all. I thank God everyday for parents who instilled in me the importance of being fiercely independent. One cannot fully enjoy the God-given, unalienable right to liberty unless they have been taught to live independently. As a boy I was taught that you work to solve your own problems and the last thing ever mentioned was a need to ask government for something.

From the moment we are born we are free. We are individuals gifted from God with rights, none of which are bestowed upon us by man. It is only man, since our birth that has striven to deny us of our rights. Why is that?

It’s all about control. For any individual or group of individuals to force their will upon the rest they must first gain control over the people they wish to control. This is being done in many ways. I will talk about a few of them tonight.

The biggest threat against those who desire dictatorial powers over you, is an independent person. They hate us because they can’t control us. We must become independent in both our actions and our thoughts.

(*Demonstration* – At this juncture, I will do a demonstration using a rope and a jackknife. I present the rope. It’s about 6 feet long. I will ask the audience to picture this rope as big and as long as they wish and to imagine how many important and powerful uses such a rope could have.

I then will take the jackknife and cut the rope in half and then ask the audience if the rope still has the same powerful possibilities and uses.

I keep repeating the cutting of each piece of rope in half until I am left with a tiny piece. At some point I will ask the audience if there are any issues going on in our country today that are dividing us as citizens (the long piece of rope) that will eventually render us useless.)

I would like to read a quote to you tonight from Thomas Jefferson:

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add, ‘with the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

I was asked to come to Iowa tonight to speak to you about H.R. 2210, the “Sportsmanship in Hunting Act of 2011”. H.R. 2011 has had several identities over the years. Among them, H.R. 1688, H.R. 3829, H.R. 2308 and several Senate versions of a very despicable and useless piece of legislation geared at one more step toward the annihilation of our property rights.

Fortunately none of the versions of this bill have ever made it to the House floor but we cannot rest on any comforting feeling that this bill is dead. We know for a fact that Congress adds bills such as this to other pieces of legislation in order to get them passed. It isn’t until later that we discover what had happened. We must fight this legislation.

Jefferson understood that true liberty cannot be recognized and appreciated without the respect of others’ rights and he blamed the law or laws as often a projection of the will of tyrants. It is the tyrant that seeks to destroy you and me. They hate our independence.

The most pitiful and hypocritical part of H.R. 2210 is that it is worded in such a way as to promote good ethics and sportsmanship. Imagine if you will our Congress imposing on us its will of something moral or ethical. Talk about hypocrisy! Talk about tyrannical!

Our Congress is probably the most corrupt organization in this country. They consider themselves above the law. They talk down to “we the people”. They are out of touch. It seems everyday we hear of another scandal coming out of Congress, enough to make a grown man vomit. We hear of congressmen taking photos of their private parts and plastering them on the Internet and these idiots want to legislate to us something concerning ethics, fair chase and sportsmanship? They wouldn’t know decency if it bit them.

And for you holier-than-thou “hunters” who subscribe to such nonsense, get down off your high and unethical horses and let he that is without sin cast the first stone.

What is “fair chase”? Who decides? And why do you think it should be you? Can you realistically sit in your well-equipped tree stand, in which you have driven to in your lavishly expensive ATV, over land you paid thousands of dollars for a lease to hunt, park near to the food plot you planted in order to “bait” deer or other game to come to, so that you may take your pick of the litter and then call high-fence hunting unethical, lacking in fair chase?

Another important quote that I would like to share comes from Abraham Lincoln.

“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

And here we find ourselves in this convention better than 150 years later wondering why the people have been subdued. The people have been overthrown! And thus we are sitting here looking at legislation that is clearly an overthrowing of the U.S. Constitution if not our God-given rights to freedom, property and the use of it. We must overthrow the men who are perverting our laws.

I’ll remind you again, H.R. 2210 has nothing whatsoever to do with sportsmanship, ethical hunting, fair chase or any of the rhetorical garbage we are having forced into our brains. It’s about control – pure and simple.

Those wishing to control us have several agendas and many tools in which to accomplish their goals. We must learn them. It’s the only chance we have to fight back. H.R. 2210 is only a small tool. There are wolves, Canada lynx, tiny little fish, global warming, etc., the lists are endless. Learn what they are.

How many people sitting here tonight are aware of President Obama’s Executive Order #13575? If you are not, you MUST learn about it. I do not have time this evening to give you details. President Obama understands that the last stronghold or frontier in America that generates independent thinkers and those aimed at living independently (the biggest threat remember?) is rural America. EO#13575 aims to destroy rural America as we know it today.

Read about it. It’s vitally important that you know. I will however ask you this: If President Obama’s goal of EO # 13575 is to “help” rural America, then why did he appoint members from his cabinet, such as Defense Secretary, Homeland Security, Federal Communications Commission, etc., to his board of directors? Think about it.

It’s about control ladies and gentlemen!

Gary Allen, in a book he wrote called, “None Dare Call it Conspiracy”, wrote:

“Control necessitates a static society……So, legislation is promoted to restrict entrepreneurial effort”.

Everyone sitting in this audience tonight exemplifies “entrepreneurial effort”, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You are independent thinkers. You want to live independently. You want government to butt out of your life and your ranches. People cannot control you if you are not static. Attending this convention is one means of being in action, working to improve what you do. This is all contrary to what government wants in you. Therefore, the attempt once again at an H.R. 2210-type of legislation – promoted legislation to “restrict entrepreneurial effort”.

There have been many attempts over the years to ban high-fence hunting. The most recent resulted in a victory for the citizens when a citizen’s initiative was voted down that would have ended high-fence hunting in North Dakota. Idaho had a similar outcome and Montana did not. There are others. We must fight these together.

Efforts like this will never end. There are enough useful idiots in this country eager and willing to carry out the agendas of those entities wishing to subdue the independent and freedom loving people.

What kind of people knowingly work to destroy their country or their constitutions? If I had the answer to that question, I wouldn’t be here tonight now would I? But let me try to explain using examples from people who have asked the same questions.

Most people are not even aware of the fact that during and shortly after the Revolution, the United States rounded up no fewer than three esteemed gentlemen and sent them to Europe for the purpose of making treaties and finding trade partners. The U.S., after all, had lost all of their business dealings and partners with England when it declared its independence.

The three me were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Quite the trio.

Thomas Jefferson visited many towns about Europe and he had a bit of a ritual he would undertake as a way to gain a sense of what kind of people he might be dealing with before actually sitting down to talk business.

His first action was to find the tallest building in the village – often this was a church steeple. He would climb it and gaze about the landscape hoping for a sense of the surroundings.

This was soon followed by walks about the village simply meeting people and talking to them. Yet, this was another attempt at gaining a better understanding of the people before expending time and energy hoping to find good character people he wished for his new country to do business with.

This action was described in a book titled, “The Young Jefferson” by Claude G. Bowers. Bowers wrote that in Jefferson’s travels, anytime he arrived at a village were he witnessed that people placed the importance of dogs or other animals above that of man, he packed up his belongings and left town immediately. Jefferson understood that people who think like this are untrustworthy and certainly someone he would not consider a viable trade partner. This is a difficult concept in America today. Just look around you.

Eric Hoffer, in his book, “The True Believer” spends a great deal of time giving us clues as to what makes people eager and willing to follow “mass movements” tick. Hoffer’s book, although written in the mid 1940s and dealt with a subject he called mass movements, really can apply to any large or small group. We today, tend to call them special interest groups.

It must be pointed out here that some of us don’t understand that there are a lot of people in this country today who want to live in a communist or socialistic country, where government decides everything for us. This begins very early on in the “education” process, so that today, regardless of the truth of historic outcomes of all attempts at socialism/communism, still we are able to lead people to believe this time will be different.

Hoffer says that those who are willing to work to destroy their own way of life, are obviously very unhappy with the life they have. For that I am saddened. I had nothing and yet I had everything, among the most important a strong foundation in God as my creator and a firm belief that I am, like the Bible says, created in God’s image. I do not see God as a weak person and someone who has to depend on government to survive or to even enjoy life. No, I am of His image, therefore, I am independent, free, respectful, caring of others and not wishing to impose my values on those of other people because I respect their rights as mine. If what I have to offer is good, people will be drawn to it.

I’ll remind you yet again, you become a threat to those wanting to control you when you are independent and seek to protect liberty, not just for yourself but for everyone.

Recall what Gary Allen said, “Control necessitates a static society…..So, legislation is promoted to restrict entrepreneurial effort.” H.R. 2210 is but another tool in which it’s design is to render you elk ranchers static and ineffective. They want you to go away. They know they can’t convince you to give it up all at once, but they sure know one small step at a time will surely get the job done.

Elk are your property. You have rights to your property, none of which came from man or our and any other government. Ending high-fence hunting is a destruction of your property and your property rights. You, the person sitting next to you, your neighbor or the U.S. Government does not have the right to take your property away simply because they don’t like what you do with it.

Ayn Rand, a Russian immigrant, who some believe possessed idealistic views on rights while other find her writings spot on, once wrote about property rights this way:

“The right to life is the source of all rights – and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a slave.” Ayn Rand from “The Virtue of Selfishness”.

Is it then for this reason that countries that are run by dictators ensure that the people never own property? What say you then of those in this country who openly admit that man should never own property, that all things are owned collectively for the good of all?

Once again, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“Property is the foundation of all civilized society.”

As people in this country work vehemently to give our country away, they want to give your property away as well. According to Jefferson, such a move would lead to an uncivilized society. Is that the goal here?

One step at a time, those wishing to control the masses will take what is yours if we do nothing about it.

A few months ago, I wrote a multi-part piece called, “The Crippling and Destructive Power of the Endangered Species Act”. I want to invite everyone here tonight to go to my blog and read it. It will begin to give you insight into how complex and deep reaching the efforts are to end your independence and entrepreneurial effort. It’s not a simple H.R. 2210 bill. It’s about control and the powers seeking that control are much bigger than you might imagine but that shouldn’t discourage us from fighting.

As I close tonight, I want to leave all of you with a challenge. I want you to leave here tonight not taking what I told you as necessarily the truth. I challenge you to go find out for yourself. This will further strengthen you as an independent thinker, someone who is not going to be controlled so easily.

Please take what I have shared tonight and consider if anything I have said makes sense. Hopefully, enough of what I said will at least get you thinking and finding hope that with a stronger you, we can become a stronger nation.

I’ll leave you tonight with a quote. This is actually something my brother sent me a short while ago. With his permission, I added a word or two for effect.

“The dog, the owl, the whale, the seal, the elk, the wolf, the smelt, are all tools, lies and deceit used against property rights, to include what is yours in your mind and to see who is still paying attention in America. Those paying attention threaten the tyrannical dictators of the planet.” – Al Remington

Thank you!

Included below are names with links that didn’t get mentioned due to time constraints. Please feel free to take the time to read these and go to the sites linked to and learn more about the powers seeking your destruction.

The United States Constitution reads in Article II, Section 2, Line 2; “2: He [president] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;

United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

World Heritage Convention

United Nations Agenda 21

Quotes:

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written. – Franklin Roosevelt