WHAT CAN I SAY

I have been away from the blog for a while, although it has not been as long as I thought.  So, I return today to make a few short comments.  They are probably more of an update on old comments, rather than any thing really new. So here goes. We will see what comes out.
1.  At this point, Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee for the Republican party and Hillary Clinton is the presumptive nominee for the Democrat party and Gary Johnson is the nominee for the libertarians.   Now, I presumptive on the part of the first two parties, because Bernie has not totally given up and The Republicans are still not totally on board with Donald. My opinion on this is that no matter which one of them wins, we lose.  The next 4 years are going to be a lose for the American people.  

2. If Hillary wins, there will be a continuation of the eroding of the 2nd amendment and a continuation of land and water grabs from the people of the West.  If Donald wins, these two items may not be in danger, and I say may not, but he is going to raise a big controversy with other world leaders, as well as members of the senate and the house.  If Gary Johnson should happen to win, he would legalize marijuana, which would not be a good thing, but on the other had, based on his two terms as governor of New Mexico, he would have, or work very hard to have a balanced budget. 

3. Once again, the west is experiencing wild fires of large magnitude.  The talking heads on the TV blame it in the drought.  And they are mostly right.  However, there are a few things to consider here. The environmental movement has got the ranchers and the loggers moved off the forest. And you say, so what?  Well, I'll tell you what.  When the loggers were allowed to log the forests, under the direction of the Forest service, the timber was culled and thinned and this brought two benefits.  One was that there were lest dense forests to burn and the other was that there was less trees to fight for the water that was available.  This created a big benefit for the remaining trees.
The rancher situation is similar.  The animals not only fertilized the forest, but their cloven hoof acted as a cultivator as they walked about the land.  Also, since they were allowed to water on the streams and rivers, the cottonwood growth that has since been allowed to grow up would not be so bad and the trees would not be sucking up all the water from the rivers, allowing for a more free flowing river.  So, do I blame the Forest service.  No. I blame the environmental groups that lobbied congress to pass laws and the members of congress for listening and passing laws that had no benefit for the people and the land in the west.

OK,  I guess that's enough for today, so that's THE VIEW FROM THE DITCH BANK