Rick Olson

Rick Olson is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, and a graduate of Southern New Hampshire University with a BA in Social Science. Rick subsequently attended Massachusetts School of Law in Andover MA. Rick takes up second amendment issues on Granite Grok, as well as issues surrounding hunting, fishing, trapping and wildlife issues. Rick Olson is a former Police Officer and Deputy Sheriff. He is Past President of the New Hampshire Wildlife Federation, President of the Londonderry Fish & Game Club  Rick is a nationally certified firearms instructor and a Hunter Education Instructor. He can frequently be found teaching Urban Rifle and Defensive Pistol classes as an Instructor with Defensive Strategies in Goffstown, NH.  Rick resides in Manchester with his wife Lisa. He has four children and ten Grandchildren.

The Shrill Kathy Spins the Polls

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“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, (1804-1881)

 In yet another boring and putrid diatribe about the “out of touch” Republicans, Kathy Sullivan is predicting a widespread  ousting of Republicans in Concord in 2012.  In the Union Leader’s Another View Opposite Editorial, the Shrill Kathy declares, “Granite Staters already regret voting Republican last November”.  Relying on a  May 3 UNH Survey Center Poll, the Shrill Kathy asserts, “The results show New Hampshire residents, or at least those providing this snapshot, rejecting the hard-right turn taken by Republicans since the 2010 election…” Wow! that’s pretty grim. Or is it really?

 But unlike the Shrill Kathy, I provided a link above that enables the reader to actually look at the actual data. And what Andrew Smith of the UNH Survey Center says about the data is, “Lynch remains popular in the state, growing concern about the direction of the state.”  That is significantly different from what the Shill Kathy’s interpretation tells us. Factually, the narrative states that 54% of New Hampshire adults feel the state is heading in the right direction, 39% think the state is seriously off on the wrong track, and 7% don’t know.  This Legislature and Senate is four and a half months into the term. Granite-Staters, nearly always express concern about legislative initiatives, but they are also fair-minded people and a lot less partisan that the Shrill Kathy would have us believe.

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Angry Shrew? Or Unjustly Treated Mother?

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“Ah, yes, divorce … From the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.” -Robin Williams

 An acrimonious divorce where children are involved nearly always devolves into a test of wills between the litigants, who were once husband and wife. Statistically, the woman in such cases prevail a majority of time.  And of those times where the court battle is disposed of in family court, the acrimony has often risen to a level where it simply isn’t sufficient for one party to prevail over the other. There must be some form of scorched earth brought to bear.

 In many cases, a prevailing parent, will seek child support orders and awards that financially disadvantage the losing spouse. Allegations will often follow questioning the suitability or fitness of a parent. Invariably, it isn’t enough to simply prevail on the point of law. One must simply crush the other, financially and emotionally, alienating the children by building a wall between the non-custodial parent and the minor children. An extreme environment of discomfort and stress is built around visitation exercises, many simply give up, emotionally exhausted over their children’s animosity toward them. The custodial spouse later charges inattentiveness for lack of consistency in the visitation schedule. This is probably one of the most ugliest facets of life anybody could be forced to endure. The family courts, charged with mediating these issues, often makes them far worse.

 Today, the Union Leader‘s Nancy West treats us to the sordid tale of Cheryl Ann Maher, a mother seeking to regain custody of her minor children. The father, Dr. Eric Lee Knight presently has physical custody. Following a visit with the minor children, Ms. Maher was to return the children no later than 5:00 PM on March 13, in keeping with the parenting plan. She did not. She spirited them off, instead to a hotel in Salem, telling the UL her, “Ex-husband withheld medicine from one of the twin daughters for cold-like symptoms and fails to provide adequate services for the twins’ autism.”

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THE LIBERAL CHARITABLE TEMPLATE

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“If I ever get real rich, I hope I’m not real mean to poor people, like I am now”– Deep Thoughts with Jack Handey

In the context of budget debates, we can always count on liberals to wage class warfare. When austerity draws its uncomfortable bead on health and human services line items, school budgets, public sector unions, and the arts, liberals form up the fight line to speak of epic meanness. They caterwaul and accuse Republicans of starving the children, or killing the old people or taking away food stamps from the poor.

Those evil, heartless rich Republicans! they just keep getting richer and the poor just keep getting poorer! Republicans Are People Too — Mean, Selfish, Greedy People! How many times have we grown tired of hearing that? The sad fact is that all too many people buy into these sham assertions.

“Republicans.”  They are the straw man in public debate that liberals love to point their prune-picking, pablum-puking, American-hating, boney little fingers at, as the source of all thing miserable.

Class warfare Liberals gloss over the fact that uber-wealthy liberals vastly outnumber wealthy conservatives. Andrew Gelman, Professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University asserts that, “The average income of the 100 million or so Republicans is LOWER than that of the 150 million or so Democrats,” in Rich state, poor state, red state, blue state. American Conservative households statistically earn 6% less than Liberal American households.

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Dick Dale is 74 this week!

Dick Dale turned 74 on Wednesday! Widely known as, The King of the Surf Guitar, Dick Dale made popular, the use of reverb and custom-made Fender amplifiers and was the first to use the 100-watt guitar amplifier. I had the unique opportunity to meet Dick in Thousand Oaks California when I was just eleven years … Read more

A Glass of Kool-Aid With Jackie Cilley

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“In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. –George Orwell“

Former State Senator Jackie Cilley waxed in awe(Union Leader – “Another View”) when President Obama addressed the nation late Sunday Night to tell us Bin Laden was dead. Cilley writes, “This is the essence of leadership and courage, lest we forget what it looks like. It also sharply contrasts this man and the current crop of contenders for his job.” Little more than a disquisition of gushery, Cilley suggests Obama is the essence of leadership and the Republican candidates are a bunch of pedestrian neddle-nosed light-weights.

And while Jackie made quick work of diving into the all-too-typical topically boring, class-warfare laden template of caricaturing GOP hopefuls as money-grubbing wind bags, she rounds out her observations with a slaps at all things antithetical to rank liberalism. Rounding out her diatribe with some “Blame Bush” doctrinal morsels, as a true partisan will do, Jackie seems to be suggesting that Democrat campaign money comes from hard working folks and not the like of Move-on,  George Soros or any of the other Kool-Aid drinking commie-libs. Oh No, that never happens, Does it, Jackie?

Yet, while taking some partisan shots at, “The Donald,” RINO Mitt Romney, Michelle Bachman and Tim Pawlenty, Jackie suffers from selective and acute amnesia failing to remember her own darling community organizer’s light-weight bumblings.  Remember when Obama told voters in Beaverton Oregon about his visits to “57 States.” And, while addressing voters in Pennsylvania, he quipped, “It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations…”

 My all time favorite is the National Prayer Breakfast bumble February of last year, where he repeatedly mispronounced, Navy Corpsman (Cor-man) not just once, but four times saying, “Corpse-man”.

Finally, this knee-slapper: “My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.”

So when Jackie finally finishes throwing mud at the Tea Party, the Birthers, Republicans and Bush, she extols the virtues of Obama with, “Every element of the mission that brought down bin Laden speaks to the character of the man who bore the ultimate responsibility for its failure if not its success…” Now that, is just plain-old Sheep manure. 

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BIN LADEN’S DEMISE IN FOCUS

The news of Bin Laden’s demise was barely minutes old before the politicizing began in earnest. In the hours that followed, Barbara Walters on the view retorts, “I would hate now to be a Republican candidate thinking of running,” Like this somehow cancels out the high gas prices, the economy being in the toilet and … Read more

Concord Monitor’s Editorial Shell Games

“For a moment, at least, a nation united” the headline informs in the Concord Monitor. The monitor editorial continues on reflecting on the losses born out of 9/11, on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq and how our lives have changed since, all of which is very stoic and reflective.  But leave it to those … Read more

LIBERALS AND FISCAL DENIABILITY

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Since the beginning of the year, countless editorials and opposite editorial pages across the Granite State have been one large veritable whine-fest…A seemingly never-ending weeping and gnashing of teeth over cuts in various line items of the state budget. Hand-in-hand with all the pissing and moaning, is the rank demagoguing of New Hampshire House Republicans for the choices they are making. If Liberals are good at nothing else, they are certainly adept at blaming everything bad on Republicans, even after it was they who made the mess.

 Noticeably absent from all of this cacophony, noise, caterwauling and fit-pitching is any reasonable alternative or meaningful way to fund all these sacred cash cows that each their loyal patrons willingly advocate for keeping and maintaining. It is as if there is no budget shortfall or structural deficits realized. Call it fiscal deniability.

 “Those evil Republicans! They are cutting (“insert esteemed cash cow here”).

And, in predictable fashion, the noisy screeching of the liberal magpies checker the ambience with demagoguery and finger-wagging, replete with the requisite vitriol of class warfare.  Like sculptured nails on a chalk board, the tax-and spend liberals still offer no reasonable suggestions even when they run out of steam.  We would be remiss to overlook the much-heard faux straw man charges like, “Republicans hate children,” or, “Republicans are stealing from the working class.”

 A week ago Friday the esteemed fishwrapper, The Concord Monitor weighed in with an editorial admonishing its’ readers that, Killing ‘car tax’ will make things worse. When House Republicans sought to repeal the motor vehicle registration surcharge, The editorial

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Uncle Peter Says I Am ‘Backing the Wrong Horse!’

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The one constant about commentary, especially where the topic bears the highest degree of controversy, said topics will most certainly invite a wide array of opinions…differing or assenting. Comments are rarely ever substantive enough to inspire or fuel a whole other body of work. But, given the nature of Kristin Ruggiero’s case, the depth and breadth of the lies told, manipulations undertaken, and confabulations engaged, This is one such instance.

On Tuesday, I editorialized and commented on Kristin Ruggiero’s recent pilgramage down to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to answer charges currently docketed there. The sources of information used to write the blog were from specific news media reports that were, in fact, linked to at various places in the article. Included with the accounts were my own personal flavor and coloring. 

Today, as I come to NHInsider, I am greeted by the comment, “backing the wrong horse…” submitted by one who identifies ones’ self as, “peter ross-uncle”. Now, it is not at all unusual for friends, supporters or even loved-ones to defend the target of an article. It is almost expected. But given the very nature of Kristin’s criminal convictions and the theatrics she undertook to get her where she is today, is it not unreasonable to seriously question the source of such a comment? Who is Peter Ross? Is (he) really an uncle? does he even exist? or perhaps is it one of Kristin’s shrew friends posing as a luddite-esque family member who perhaps doesn’t even own a computer? 

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A Road Trip for Kristin Ruggiero

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Convicted Shrew Kristin Ruggiero received a change of scenery recently. She went on a road trip, but hardly an, “excellent adventure.” She is currently on holiday from New Hampshire Graybar U as a guest at MCI Framingham, noshing on bag lunches and partaking the requisite exercise program called, “cellblock shakedown.”  She is down yonder in the commonwealth to answer charges of a similar nature filed by the Barre Police.

Nobody sets the bar higher than Kristin. Not when it comes to false allegations, lying and conniving. Kristin is like the Energizer Bunny: She keeps going and going and Going.

Every individual life she has touched has been negatively affected. Shrew Kristin has duped New England Cable News with her faux victim story; she has convinced family members to lie and fabricate evidence for her. He own Mother, Elizabeth “Kim” McDonald is now facing felony charges of her own. Her boyfriend and former Barre Massachusetts Police Officer Brendan Bisbee now faces charges relating to his part in her case. Finally, her ex-bother-in-law Daniel Ruggiero has been indicted as well.

Kristin is all locked up. In Jail…facing another trial because of lies and fabrications she committed in the first trial. It does not end there. Kristin is on a road trip. She is currently a guest of the State of Massachusetts where she is being held to answer charges Barre police filed in 2009 accusing her of intimidation of a witness and criminal harassment. Housed at MCI Framingham, she will stand trial at Western Worcester District Court in Brookfield MA.

In February and March 2008, while working in Barre Massachusetts, Kristin filed a report with Barre Police alleging to have witnessed crimes. In the course of the reporting, officers ran routine checks of Kristin’s driver’s license for background information. Officers were not able to ascertain whether Kristin has a valid operator’s license, having driven

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Clarity and Collective Bargaining?

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Mr. Sapienza asks in the Union Leader, “Do legislators even know what state workers do?”
Perhaps some don’t. I know for a fact that some do…many have been state workers themselves. With so many flawed or misquided assumptions, the demagoguery lives on. 

Edward Sapienza of Manchester, through the Union Leader opposite editorial pages seeks to “offer some clarity and ask our state representatives and state senators, specifically what conservative values do [sic] you bring to the table?” Mr. Sapienza asserts this legislature is taking from the rank and file working class. “Getting state and county spending under control is, “taking from the working class?” pointing to the measure to remove collective bargaining.

Mr. Sapienza is a correctional officer at the Hillsborough County Jail.  As a Hillsborough County taxpayer, I am grateful and thankful for his service because being a correctional officer is a tough job. The care, custody, and control of our societal miscreants is a significant task, requiring patience, an even temperament and intelligence. Correctional Officers must follow a clearly defined set of rules, procedures and standards in dealing with our county prisoners and detainees, who, on the other hand, adhere to no such rules or standards, other than those imposed by the facility that keeps them. Few truly know what a day in the life of a correctional officer is truly like and often times, the only public mention of the men and women who do this job is when we see acts of wrong-doing by them in newspapers. It’s unfair.

Moreover, very few understand that in Mr. Sapienza’s workplace; even the most seemingly innocuous question or request by an inmate or detainee can tax a Correctional Officer. A Correctional Officer must be able to think quickly, evaluate, and understand that his response may have an unintended consequence. The CO must ask, “Did the inmate or detainee already ask another staff member? Did that staff member say, ‘no'”? If I say, ‘yes’, am I causing an inconsistency with my other staff members, enabling an inmate manipulation?” Being a correctional officer is a challenging career and is not a job for stupid people.

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Parental Notification: It’s Not Really About ‘Choice,’ Is it?

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House Bill 329. A law that will require the notification of parents for unemancipated minors prior to the performance of an abortion procedure, will get it’s public hearing tomorrow before the Senate Judiciary committee. Most certainly, that public hearing will segue the militant hit-parade decrying this often-called, “anti-choice” legislation.

Planned Parenthood, making quick use of our tax dollars to lobby against this piece of legislation, gives us indicia that should the bill pass the Judiciary and Senate, Planned Parenthood might sue to block its implementation as they did in Alaska. In fact, Planned Parenthood has made concerted efforts all over the Country to block such legislation with various court challenges. Planned Parenthood shows their resolve and that they will not be deterred. In 2005, for example, A Minnesota court ruled that St. Paul Planned Parenthood violated a parental notification law when an abortion was performed on a 17-year-old girl without prior notice to her parents. History instructs us that Planned Parenthood not only actively opposes these laws, but that they are willing to simply disregard them.

In today’s Union Leader story, Gary Rayno reports that opponents of the bill say, “(This bill) will needlessly put the lives and health of young women at risk…” Seriously? opponents all say this, but they never tell you exactly how. Or if opponents tell how, they give anecdotal examples of extreme abuse, rape or incest.  If one accepts that logic, one also has to first admit that all of the other systems and precious safety nets they so ardently champion and advocate for have failed. In cases of abuse, where was DCYF? and why did they not intervene?

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The Shrill Kathy and the Business Finance Authority

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The “Shrill Kathy” Sullivan has a bee in her bonnet over Executive Councilor’s St. Hillaire, Sununu and Wheeler’s “vote to table” the April 13 agenda items two, three and four regarding the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority request for a public guarantee for small business loans.

An in her normal, usual and customary fashion of pandering, demagoguery and straw politics, the Shrill Kathy pens her diatribe in the Union Leader Op-Ed section, grossly mischaracterizing the meeting vote as being anti-small business and anti-job creation.

The Shrill Kathy’s first shot is at District 5 Executive Councilor Dave Wheeler and she quips, “Wheeler’s votes often lack thoughtfulness…” Really? How thoughtless? Councilor Wheeler posited the following question, “What does the thirty-five million look like to the bonding companies regarding state debt? and Wheeler adds, “We increased state debt tremendously in the last four years…how does this fit into that picture?”  To which the response was given, “This is reflected as a ‘contingent liability.'”

In that context, we should define, “contingent liability“. A contingent liability is The possibility existent of an obligation to pay certain sums dependent on future events. Liability which is difficult to quantify, or which may or may not come to pass, such as an outstanding lawsuit or a guarantee such as this.

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The Myopic Lament Of Cut Budgets

?Contemporarily, governments all over America, be they national, state, local or municipal, have come to recognize that spending is outpacing revenue. The 2010 elections were a message that we as a nation need to become more fiscally responsible and stop spending ourselves into bankruptcy. Consequently, budgets are being slashed, expenses trimmed and austere measures are … Read more

Unions: “I Got Me and Mine…F*ck You and Yours!”

I fear that New Hampshire Senate Republicans lack the testicular fortitude that Wisconsin Republicans embraced in dealing with Union-related issues. In my 47 years on this planet, I never once begrudged a labor union its’ right to exist and advocate for workers. Today, that has all changed. I now think unions totally and unequivocally ‘suck’.

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Unions’ time has come and gone. The present-day union hackarama serves as little more than a loud, thuggish mouthpiece for a very small percentage of the labor force and merely exerts force on the greater masses into accepting higher taxes to pay for their often times lavish pay and benefits, not commonly available to comparable private sector workers. Only a Union collectively assembles people to act like disruptive bullies, and the rude jerks we witnessed yesterday at the Statehouse. Summarily, I think it behooves us to once again put the greater facts about Unions in perspective once again.

According to a 2010 report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 11.9% of the nation’s workforce are union members. Of that number, roughly 35% are public sector employees and 6.9% are private sector unions. Demographically, the highest rate of union membership is among those aged 55-64, closely followed by members aged 45-54.

Despite the representation of a small percentage of the American Labor Force, public employee unions have become the largest contributors to political campaigns. This self-serving, greedy and corrupt allegiance has now netted unsustainable and structural deficits in local governments and municipalities across the nation.

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Republicans Now Use ‘The Template’

Marty Harty of Barrington resigned his house seat after making remarks that were both insensitive and inappropriate. The resignation was appropriate because to be a lawmaker in Concord, one must represent ones’ constituency with fairness and judiciousness. Comments made by Representative Harty fell short of that.  But it’s not enough that Jim Splaine, writing on … Read more

The Lie That Persists: Guns and the State House in Concord

It’s unrelenting. Never ending. With the seating of the New Hampshire Legislature, house rules were returned to where guns were allowed in the state house. And oh how gunfighters.jpgthe liars and demagogues lined up to have their say.  The pablum-puking hoplophobic liberals don’t like it. We get that already. Repeating it, “ad nauseum,” ain’t going to change a thing, folks.

 This past Wednesday Concord Businessman Glen Currie opined in the Concord Monitor, “Unfortunately, the new folks in town seem to want us to become the place where Little House on the Prairie hosts the Gunfight at O.K. Corral,” conjuring television and movie images of Tom Mix or John Wayne facing off with some cowboy in a tumbleweed street. Mr. Currie, however,  is little more than full of crap…and himself, irrespective of whether he thinks the legislature is a bunch of “wing nuts“[sic].

 The unending plethora of references to the New Hampshire Statehouse becoming analogous to the Wild West, the O.K. Coral, Wyatt Earp, and Billy the Kid has now become an annoying cacophony to those of us who have spent considerable time, energy and academic capital studying American History. Despite the multi-disciplinary and long-existing peer-reviewed, scholarly works of contemporary academia, these references manage to hang on like herpes…or a bad penny.  

 The overlying thesis of Wild West narratives and presentations is that, without government, society becomes disordered and out of control. We need only look to early television shows like Wagon train, Have Gun will Travel, Cheyenne, Bonanza, and the Lone Ranger to see Hollywood’s consistency in their liberal advocacy of a government solution through the lens of television. [insert picture of Mr. Currie in a cowboy suit sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a 60’s vintage tube TV eating a Swanson Frozen Dinner watching, “The Big Valley.”]

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Northern Pass: Redux Of 1970’s Pope County Michigan

Northern Pass wants to build a build a 180-mile power line corridor through 44 Granite State Communities from as far North as Pittsburg down to Deerfield.

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House Bill 648, “An act relative to eminent domain petitions by public utilities” brought 250 supporters, roughly 170 of which are property owners located on the proposed or alternative route of the project. According to the Bill’s analysis section, the bill seeks to, “Prohibit public utilities from petitioning for permission to take private land or property rights for the construction or operation of a private large scale transmission line.” The bill drew overwhelming support by those who fear their land might be taken from them or rendered worthless.

Such fears are not without precedent. This fight is not a new fight. This very situation played out in Minnesota in the early 1970’s where farmers waged a fight against big power companies taking farmland by eminent domain. The farmers ultimately lost this fight. This account is detailed in the book Powerline: the first battle of America’s energy war, written by the late Senator Paul D. Wellstone and Barry M. Casper (Forward in 2003 by lefty Senator Tom Harkin). Aside from the book being written by a couple of liberal progressives, the book is otherwise instructive in the plight of these farmers against Big Power.

Arguments against the project range from blighting the landscape and disparately affecting the tourism industry to devaluation of land have been leveled. those are all reasonable. But there is one component given very little attention in the discussion here.

Big Power will nearly always make an attractive financial offer to you for a utility easement over your land. But what few really comprehend what happens after such an easement is given by a landowner. Read the account of a Fond-du-Lac Wisconsin Farmer that granted a power company a lease to install a wind turbine on his farm land.

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Dr. Brennan Picks His Poison

Mid February 12-year-old Morgan Graveline had the front teeth knocked out of her head during school hours in the school cafeteria. Morgan’s mother Danielle Gauthier told the Union Leader neither medical assistance or the police were called. Gauther went on to tell the UL that no report was ever taken despite numerous calls to Police Headquarters and only after the story received media coverage.

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The UL featured a follow-up story on Saturday, February 26 alleging that Morgan Graveline was the aggressor. Hassan Baruki, the father of 14-year-old, “tooth-knocker-outer, Abdi Karim Maalo, asserted his son to be a, “good boy” but added that his friend Ali is a “troublemaker.” Summarily, this becomes a, “She said-He said story. We need be less concerned about who said what to whom. A young girl received a concussion and the teeth knocked right out of her head. For all the preaching, policies and law changes, here is an example where nothing prevented this violence.

The UL’s Ted Seifer also included Danielle Gauthier’s brushes with the law and a bankruptcy filing in this story. What does that have to do with the price of eggs in China? Why? Does this inclusion effectively weight her “credibility?” Does Gauthier’s issues change any of the facts alleged here? In my view, the inclusion was a poor choice and reflected badly on Ted Seifer and the UL. But that is between Ted and his bosses at the UL. Enough said on that.

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Elderly Drivers: To Test or Not To Test?

Representative Bob Williams wants to discontinue road testing for Elderly Drivers. Is that a wise idea? House Bill 549 eliminates the requirement for a road test currently in place for Granite State drivers over age seventy five. Prime Sponsor of the bill is 84-year-old Representative Bob Williams, a Concord Democrat. Williams calls the present law, … Read more

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