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“the utterance of a theocratic dictator, than of a duly elected civil servant.”

Philippians 4:13.  A very simple verse but one that has very deep meaning for Christians.  It is an acknowledgement that there is Someone bigger than self, a higher power.  It is a telling about that we are not as strong as we might believe but that Faith can transcend even the worst of conditions.  It is also an acknowledgement that of a position of servanthood.  It speaks, not to a given religion or sect, but to a relationship.

http://twitter.com/#!/GovWalker/status/445244966495727616

A profession of faith; used to be common, very common. Not a big deal at all.  No longer.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has multiple bees in their bonnets – they seem to hate anyone who has a religious expression in their body or outlook.  They strut around in a bubble that must not be pierced by any hint of a religious expression; they believe they can demand that everyone else accede to THEIR pseudo-made up right “not to be offended by religious displays in the public square”.  Any and all mentions of God must not only be removed from their sight but be prevented from ever being seen or heard.

They are turning the First Amendment on its head and have no problem in being the Bullies that have no compunction in using the threat of a law suit (e.g., Lawfare) to silence those that hold opposite positions.  Angry people, they are.  Self-important, too.  And now for a simple exercise of his religious faith, they are targeting him.

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First we get the news that Harrell Kirstein, NHDP Ray Buckles chief mouthflack, has moved over from being obnoxious from the NH Democrat Party to being a pin-cushion  for the re-election crew for US Senator Jeanne Shaheen (Progressive – NH) (emphasis mine, reformatted):

Now that New Hampshire appears to have an exciting race for U.S. Senate, the lead spokesperson for the New Hampshire Democratic Party will move to the re-election campaign of U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.   Harrell Kirstein began as Shaheen’s campaign communications director on Tuesday. He is being replaced at the state party by Julie McClain, who was working as a press secretary for a U.S. senator from Hawaii.  Kirstein has worked in New Hampshire since 2010 in positions at the state Democratic Party and with President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.

“While it has been fantastic working with everyone at the New Hampshire Democratic Party, I am looking forward to an exciting new experience and making sure Senator Shaheen is re-elected to continue her work for the people of New Hampshire,” Kirstein said.

And I couldn’t think of a better soul to be flapping flacking his gums, especially where THE issue of the campaign will be how Shaheen is connected at the ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, and head with President Obama.  After all, when you vote 99% of the time with him, you just might as well BE him, right?  Harrell, even as Obamacare is bringing misery & despair to most of us (except those who are on the good end of Obama’s redistribution efforts), we’gonna have fun with you.  Remember, back in 2009, she made a couple of promises.  Harrell, do you see what that sign says behind her?  Clear as a bell, her promises she made:

She promised us that we could keep our insurance, Harrell (I lost mine).  She promised us increased choice – well, she screwed that up

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Jimmy Carter no longer has to worry about being called the Worst US President EVAH anymore.  His term was marked by incompetence of the overly micro-management and a naïvety concerning the relationships between the US and our enemies (the Soviet Union, Iranian Mullahs).  Obama?  I’ve waffled back and forth between that and what I’ve called Determined Weakness.  I finally made a decision:

• Dissing our history
• Dissing our military
• Gutting our military
• Throwing the healthcare industry into chaos
• Financially ruining the country for years to come be putting our national debt on steroids
• Our enemies mock us and no longer fear us

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The Sierra Club and the U. S. Forest Service were presenting an alternative to the Wyoming ranchers for controlling the coyote population. It seems that after years of the ranchers using the tried and true method of shooting or trapping the predators, the Sierra Club had a “more humane” solution to this issue.

What they were proposing was for the animals to be captured alive. The males would then be castrated and let loose again. This was ACTUALLY proposed by the Sierra Club and by the U. S. Forest Service.

All of the ranchers thought about this amazing idea for a couple of minutes. Finally an old fellow wearing a big cowboy hat in the back of the conference room stood up, tipped his hat back and said ….

“Son, I don’t think you understand our problem here.

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Bill HB 1670

The House members got a 5 page amendment to this bill yesterday – and the House rules are being broken by the House Majority – call it Tyranny of the Majority.  A Mobocracy by Democrats (shades of Obama current activities, and the mobocracy that gave us Obamacare).

The rules state that any bill that has a taxing component must have a hearing in a tax related Committee.  It hasn’t. The rules state that there must be a public hearing where members of the general public (that would be you and I) could testify for and against.  There hasn’t been.  It is a Democrat tax feeding frenzy – and they are ignoring the rules to make it happen.  Not only are they suspending or ignoring the House Rules but also Part 2 Article 24 of the NH Constitution (by Speaker Terrie Norelli).

The Republican minority protested this move by the majority.  Norelli knows that she only needs a majority + 1 and then maintains she can do what she wants.  Several Republicans, per the rules, rushed up with written protests – and that’s when the Mob Rule started.  The motion to protest was

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Catching up on some reading and came across this in Imprimus (Jan 2014).  While the article has to do with the idea that the TEA Party needs to go to the next level of political theory and practice to truly accomplish their goals (limited government, fiscal frugality, and Constitutional bounds), it gives an idea of why Democrats / Progressives / Socialists hate the idea of a revolution (emphasis mine):

In a way, you can see how dangerous Obamacare is by noticing how it has brought out the worst in liberals—which is evident in how they have responded to the Tea Party. Liberal impatience with partisanship—that is, with people who oppose their plans—arises from the fact that in contemporary liberalism, there is no publicly acknowledged right of revolution. That may seem like a strange thing to say, but if one looks at some of the political theorists who were most important to modern or statist liberalism—Kant and Hegel in Germany, say, or Woodrow Wilson here in the United States—they are usually quite explicit in rejecting a right of revolution. In their view, a people always has in the long run the government it deserves. So there’s no right of the people to “abolish,” as the Declaration of Independence proclaims, the prevailing form of government and substitute a better one. In particular, there is no conceivable right to overturn contemporary liberalism itself; as liberals today are so fond of saying, there is no turning back the clock. To liberals the Tea Party appears, well, bonkers, precisely because it recalls the American Revolution, and in doing so implies that it might not be such a bad thing to have another revolution—or at least a second installment of the original—in order to roll back the bad government that is damaging both the safety and happiness of the American people.

Which is why every time, it seems, that we on the Right here in NH talk about the NH Constitution’s Article 10…

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NH State Senator Kathy Sgambati (D-Tilton): “Everybody in the chamber respects personal freedoms and individual rights…[BUT] We’re also trying to ensure that all citizens in the state have the protection they need. It’s unclear to me how you can possibly have all the benefits of coverage without everyone being under the tent.

You will participate in all you do, according the Sgambati.  Progressives are constitutionally unable to leave others alone – they have to “save” everyone.  Thus, this was the headline that caught my eye over at RedState:

The Obama administration wishes to wreck your quiet enjoyment of March Madness.

…but it might surprise you that neither is this really about Obamacare, either. After all, the deadline’s in two weeks; there is really no way that the Obama administration can boost the final sign-up numbers for Obamacare to something approximating the original target goals. So why are they trying? Well, they are trying because this administration has never wanted any of us to have private spaces in our lives, anywhere. Everything must be political; nothing may be free of subtext. If it’s not political, it’s superfluous to their needs. So anywhere that the administration can intrude, they will intrude.

The political is personal, the personal IS political – the Progressive Mantra.  As Cicero said “You may not be interested in politics but be sure, politics IS interested in you.  Progressives take that to the next level; they are the Peeping Toms of politics. 

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Generally during discussions of whether the TEA Party SHOULD become a real political party and Republicans scoffing at the idea:  We may not win [as a third party] but you will certainly lose.  Well, I guess I am not the only one any longer – Rush Limbaugh today.  There’s a bunch of topics in this abstract, so go read the whole thing (emphasis mine, reformatted) but here are the parts that speak to the enmity between the Establishment and the TEA Party:

What do you think is the only thing that can stop the Republican wave, folks? This appears to be conventional wisdom now.  I, your host, on February 13th predict a wave. Later that same day, my prediction is pooh-poohed and disqualified because I don’t know politics. It happened on Fox. They said that. Then a month later, we had this sound bite montage of all kinds of Republicans and Democrats forecasting a wave election. One month after I predicted it. One month after saying I was crazy, didn’t know what I was talking about.

So, given that, what is the one thing that could stop this wave election? What is the one thing? What is, in fact, the only thing? Yes, let’s really drill down here and get right to it. What is the only thing that can stop the Republican Party in 2014 and in 2016? What would you say off the top of your head would be the only thing that could stop the Republicans from this big win? I’m talking about the GOP.

What is the one thing that could prevent this big anti-Obama vote?

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Stories abound about how the college kids were turned out on election day for Obama – and the down ticket Democrats as well.  Send the vans!  Send the buses!  Getting the college kids on board (literally and figuratively) for voting for Obama was a big part of their game plan and they did NOT disappoint.  Overwhelmingly they did their duty for The Won.  And now we see how bright they were in being “useful idiots” that are now learning a very important life lesson (emphasis mine, reformatted):

A contingent of University of Kansas graduate students have launched a petition opposing a proposal by campus officials to slash the number of maximum weekly hours graduate student employees may work from 30 to 20 – a plan concocted by administrators to skirt Obamacare mandates.  “We do not wish to see graduate employees lose employment opportunities that are crucial for paying their bills, feeding themselves and their families, and generally establishing a decent standard of living,” the petition states, according to the campus Daily Kansan.

Welcome to the real world – the world outside of the Ivory Tower that leans further Left than the Tower of Pisa.  No, no one wants anyone to go hungry, pay the bills, or anything like  of the sort, but to some degree, there is that tinge of “I DESERVE that standard of living” as if UK is responsible for their well-being.  I worked 4 jobs to pay for my own schooling sophomore year onward so to be honest, I don’t have a lot of excess sympathy here.  I learned that if you have a goal that is THAT important to you, you WILL do what it takes to get there.  They will have to learn the same. 

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A new development in the Fast Food Strike movement (to have fast food workers get a $15/hour starting wage – wrote about it here and here) being pushed by the SEIU: “wage theft”.  Simply put, companies like McDonalds are ‘stealing workers wages’ by doing what ALL companies do and the Unions are now suing them for doing so.  To remind you:

Labor groups have been pushing McDonald’s to pay their workers $15 per hour and give them the right to unionize. There have also been lawsuits filed in three states where organizers claim McDonald’s has been stealing worker wages….The protests by labor groups started in 2012 and have captured a lot of media attention, where protestors formed picket lines outside of McDonald’s and even marched inside many of the restaurants to let the workers know that they are looking out for them.

One reason for the lawsuits? 

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“…and then you might have a chance to do something”.  That was the advice by an NH House Rep from my town (whose name now escapes me) I was given when I first became politically active with the upshot of that being that IF you sit and learn, and IF you sit and shut up back there in the back, you’ll get your turn in due course. But keep your mouth shut (and he was so quiet padding around, his name became inconsequential because he was a useful as old wallpaper).  It is clear that I never listen to it (much to the dismay of many) as it was dumb then and certainly dumb now; from Ramesh Ponnuru (emphasis mine, congruent to the above):

So a lot of the party’s leaders are turning passivity into a strategy. What they’re telling one another is: Don’t make yourself an issue. Don’t make serious legislative proposals, because they will only be targets for Democrats. If Republicans make sure not to nominate weak or extreme candidates, and simply rail against Obama’s health-care law, they will win.

This strategy has ease of execution going for it. Coming up with policy proposals that make sense and will fly politically, and then convincing colleagues to back them, is hard work a lot of Republicans would rather avoid.

Certainly when your political enemies are swirling around in the toilet, one should not pull out the plunger but keep hitting flusher.  Like the quiet one above, many politicians ARE lazy and upon being advised to do nothing will just toddle off to the corner, happy to comply.

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MEH

We consider DaTechGuy (Pete Ingemi, a nationally recognized blogger and radio host) as being one of our ‘Grok friends.  If we have set up at an event and he shows up, we ALWAYS make sure he has a seat at our table.  Smart, persistent, and a genuinely nice guy, I’m happy we’ve gotten to know him.  But he can also be brutally honest when it comes to reporting on politics even if it means he could take a hit – or hit his friends.  I saw his tweet:

@NLRC2014 The Elephant in the Room and the Grok outside of it: #tcot #p2 #nhpoli #nhsen #election2014 @granitegrok http://t.co/AM3RAgB5EV

— Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) March 16, 2014

and went to read the piece (emphasis mine).

That’s really the issue,  Browns decision to run appears to people in NH as something imposed from on high and that brings up another sore spot in the state that can best be illustrated by what or rather who I didn’t see at NLRC 2014.

Granite Grok.

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On today’s WMUR’s CloseUP, Josh McElveen interviewed both Scott Brown and his wife.  He posed a question to Scott (emphasis mine):

[Bob Smith said]: You’re so liberal that you should be in a primary with Jeanne Shaheen

And the way that Scott Brown answered the question, it seem like a challenge

Scott Brown “That’s Bob being Bob from what I understand.”

 Josh McElveen: “Your conservative credentials will be called into question.”

 Scott Brown: “I’ll put my credentials up against anyone. You know I’m a Republican and I have been since I was 18 years old and I think there is room for everybody. Certainly I welcome a primary and I appreciate everybody’s interest in getting involved in the process. So, no big deal.”

 And I think there will be those that will answer that challenge.  First off, I noticed that Brown

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