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State House Dome:

“Right-to-work, or forbidding unions from charging non-members agency fees for negotiating and administering collective bargaining agreements, will also be back next session.  During the 2011-2012 term, lawmakers battled over the issue – which was promoted by House Speaker Bill O’Brien – more than two times before the Senate called a halt to the maneuvering by simply refusing to take it up any more.”

Frankly, if we ARE the Land of the Free and we do cherish the Constitution (First Amendment, Right to Free Association), I have no problem with people voluntarily banding together for whatever reason.  What I do protest is the FORCING of association simply because one wishes to make a living and provide for their families.  It should not be that to sit in a particular chair or at a designated bench or doing some set of tasks that your future is determined by union bosses that, often, are more interested in just power and changing everyone else’s lives (e.g., look at the list of political issues that the NEA or AFT involved themselves in that have NOTHING to do with teaching).

If I was the next Republican Speaker of the NH House dealing with this issue, I would simply emulate 

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Twinkies disappeared for a while as the bakery (et al) unions overplayed their hands in a power struggle as in who gets to effectively run a company – the company’s owners / managers or the unions (note I didn’t say workers).  The unions wanted control and they wanted more money.  However, in the public marketplace, the consumer makes the final rule and when the profits could not sustain the greedy unions, the company went under (and afterwards, a box of twinkies went for big bucks on eBay).  And now, are we seeing the same thing by the Post Office unions?

The U.S. Postal Service must hire 9,000 employees over the next three months to staff regional part-time post offices as part of a settlement it negotiated with the American Postal Workers Union. The new postal employees will be working at offices that are open for four to six hours a day.

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All of the Federal candidates were running against Obamacare, and then the Rogue Republicans in the NH State Senate decided to sponsor, legislate, and vote for implementing Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion.  Hard to run against something when people in your own Party stab your campaign in the back (re: passed legislation) – and I bet that Frank Guinta, Dan Innis, Marilinda Garcia, Gary Lambert, Bob Smith, Jim Rubens, and Scott Brown were assuming that those chuckleheads would, you know, honor the NH GOP Platform during campaign season, right?

Yeah, how’d that work out for’em?  Well, once again, the actions of NH State Senator Jeb Bradley, NH State Senator Bob Odell, and NH State Senator Nancy Stiles proved them wrong, didn’t they?  Oh yeah, I forget the chief amongst them – NH State Senator Chuck Morse!  Who made things tough for both of the NH GOP Governor candidates (at the time) Andrew Hemingway and Walt Havenstein.  How’s that playing out for Havenstein? Dan Tuohy at the UL proves my point (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Republican challenger Walt Havenstein has redoubled his criticism of the budget, and state spending. And he was joined by Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem, who accused Hassan of taking credit for the budget. He made his remarks this week as Havenstein signed a new “Pledge 2.0” to oppose an income tax and sales tax and “unfunded obligations.”

“The reality is in the New Hampshire Senate we are the firewall in the state of New Hampshire,” Morse said. “We didn’t raise any taxes and we didn’t put any new fees in the budget, and when this governor in New Hampshire says that she built the budget — good luck, folks — it was built by Republicans in the state of New Hampshire.”

Firewall? 

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“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.”

– President Barack Obama, Inauguration, 1/20/09

I rather doubt that the Notable Quote shows that “Government is working”:

Between 1967 and 2003, the poverty rate among single mother households fell dramatically, from 51% to 37%. But, on net, for every single mother household that rose out of poverty, 6 new single mother households were formed, of which, 2 now are in poverty.Every day in this country, some version of this conversation happens countless times:

“Hey Sam. I’ve got some extra work down at the shop, if you want to come earn some spending money.”

“Sorry, I can’t. I might lose my disability support.”

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GrokTALK! is trying to have a WTF segment every week.  In honor of Grokster Rick being with this (as he speaks of all things firearms), I put this forward as one of the WTF nominees for tomorrow.  This is just SO bad I’d be here all nite tearing it apart but I’ll just bold what I thought was just wrong, stupid, or just the hystericalness of someone that believes the Universe revolves around them (reformatted, emphasis mine):

No one is coming for your guns … yet

Yeah, and that’s the problem and the goal

I’m sure I lost a lot of readers right off the bat with my headline, but for those of you who are willing to hear me out (and if you are still reading I am going to assume that you are), let me explain my position to you. Gun control is an absolute joke in this country. Background checks are all well and good, but if you can turn around and sell the gun to your neighbor without one, they’re utterly pointless.

Right to / of Private Property? 

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Well, I think we are going to see a lot more of this in the next few weeks in the NH US Senate race as Democrats have far outraised Republicans in the aggregate (inside and outside groups) and it is clear that some of the verbiage in the Democrat campaign ads are derived from the focus efforts of Catalist.   Brown got a slight bump after winning the primary (wherein 50% of Republicans rejected him as seen by the overall votes tallies) but since has only led in the race twice and is losing across all polls done in the aggregate.  Right now, for all of his vaunted promises that he was the ONLY candidate that was the true anti-Shaheen and the only candidate who could beat Jeanne Shaheen, this trend ain’t looking good for Scott Brown:

Don’t know what Catalist is?  Don’t worry – many of the Republicans at the NH GOP annual meeting last Saturday didn’t know what it is either (much to my dismay and a disappointing reminder that campaigning is shifting under their feet and they don’t even realize it).  And even when briefly explained what it was, not all of them “got it” as to what a game changer it is.  It also shows the tremendous divergent thought lines of who is the important audience(s) are for the final result (hint: the Republicans are actively alienating theirs).

So what is NH GOP Chair Jennifer Horn’s answer to this?  Remember, one of her three campaign promises for her run

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This relates back to this story (first here,  commentary from a prior Marine here, deflection here, more commentary from prior Army here, his views on the 9/12 Project and TEA Party here, the “no apology” here, more commentary here, and back to me here).  It brings up a question, a serious question:

If it was so important to NOT apologize during the primary for his teabagger comment, why is it so IMPORTANT that Havenstein is reaching out and apologize to the TEA Party type folks NOW?

During Saturday’s NHY GOP Annual meeting, right after the “Point of Order” fiasco at the beginning of the meeting, I came to the conclusion that the fix was in.  So I gathered up my stuff and proceeded to walk out (yes, in front of the podium) so as to not waste any more precious time (actually stopped at Shooters Outpost and scored some .22 rounds – impossible to find up my way!).  As I was almost out the door, I was stopped by what was immediately recognizable as a young campaign intern – they all wear the “formal Republican campaign uniform” of blue blazer, button down shirt, tie…you know what I mean.  He politely asked if he could speak to me for a moment (hey, if he wants to call me Mr. Murphy, I’ll stop) and introduced himself as part of Havenstein’s campaign staff.  A couple of He then said it was really important that I knew that Walt wished to apologize to me and that Walt was very sorry for his poor remark.  Head cocked at this nattily dressed young man in the usual Republican Campaign uniform, knowing he was only the short strawer drawer, I merely asked him “Then why are you here if he is apologizing? Why isn’t he doing this in person if you tell me that this is so important?”

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Rights, Privileges, Entitlements.  Negative Rights, Positive Rights, Social Justice, Redistributive Justice (and the newest one, Climate / Environmental Justice).

I bookmarked this last week when it appeared on Constitution Day but didn’t get a round tuit at that time.  When I saw this, it was “replace gasket” time.  For our President to make such a blatant redefinition of what the US Constitution stand for, all I could do was sigh and go ‘@($&%&#*’, just another example of ‘Freedom to Worship” instead of the true words and meaning of the First Amendment”:

“Our Constitution reflects the values we cherish as a people and the ideals we strive for as a society.  It secures the privileges we enjoy as citizens, but also demands participation, responsibility, and service to our country and to one another.”

Such GOBBLEDEGOOK!  It really says nothing of the sort.  Obama has complained in the past that  Constitution (and the Supreme Court in its decisions) has not gone far enough in promulgating “redistributive rights” – the ersatz “right” that government, in an effort to be fair (e.g., IMHO, put everyone at the lowest common denominator so no one is any better than anyone else), has the not just the right but the obligation to take from many and give their property to others (and yes, money is property).

These are no slip of the tongue, no flowery words for an occasion.

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