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It seems that the narrative of how Common Core came to be is now going off the rails.  Instead of the story that had it that it was a push outside of formal government processes, we now see that billionaire and tech mogul Bill Gates decided that money well placed at the right legislative times and to those at the right levers of powers basically hoodwinked people into thinking that this was an organic process.  Just the fact that it effectively came about out of nowhere should have had BS antennas whipping back almost fast enough to have liftoff that local control of education was to be superseded by a national agenda.  Now the smoking gun:

The pair of education advocates had a big idea, a new approach to transform every public-school classroom in America. By early 2008, many of the nation’s top politicians and education leaders had lined up in support.But that wasn’t enough. The duo needed money — tens of millions of dollars, at least — and they needed a champion who could overcome the politics that had thwarted every previous attempt to institute national standards.

So they turned to the richest man in the world.

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Well, this ought to be interesting for the Democrat Party LGBTQ (and whatever letters are now Politically Correct) – I’ve given up on PC as I have MUCH better things to do, like washing my dogs a coupla days ago (yes, as the saying goes, I wanted friends), and buying some bologna yesterday…you know, having a life built on the important things instead of one built on grievances.  But it is clear – the first modifier should be MUCH more important than the second.

Yes, Stacie Laughton is trying to return to state level politics – in effort if not indeed.  Steve covered him/Barry /her/Stacie /the felon here, here, here, here, and here (emphasis mine, reformatted):

Stacie Laughton, the first openly transgender legislator elected in the U.S., said she’ll ask the state election tribunal to rule on whether she can run for a Ward 4 seat in the state House of Representatives.The saga over Laughton’s eligibility to serve in the Legislature after a 2008 felony conviction for credit card fraud and other charges continued Friday when Secretary of State Bill Gardner reiterated that Laughton can’t be a candidate.  Laughton, of Nashua, said she will write to the Ballot Law Commission to issue a final judgment in this case. Under state law, the commission is the final arbiter on all candidacies, as its decisions can’t be appealed to state courts.

Laughton was sentenced to 7 1/2 to 15 years for the credit card charge, but it was suspended pending 10 years of good behavior. She received a sentence of

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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

And that has been Obama’s and the Progressive mantra – size of Government doesn’t matter but if it “works”.  Progressives have placed all of their belief into the [misbegotten, from my standpoint] view that Government is full of non-partisan experts that can run our Society in an efficient manner.  Remember, Progressivism began in the Industrial Revolution, when machines were mechanical, big, and wondrous things.  They reasoned that Government should be so – and in charge of the even larger machine of Society.  Which, as I have said before, reduces the rest of us to mere cogs in that machine – and they are OK with that.  But is that machine working?  No, because after all, we ain’t cogs.

When I went over to Newsbusters (quoting a National Journal piece) and saw this, I nearly plotzed when I read this:

“Questioning why the Veterans Affairs Department hadn’t been overhauled months ago as promised by Obama (actually that was seven years ago, plus six other times, Ron — Ed.), a senior White House official conceded privately to me, ‘We don’t do the small stuff well. And the small stuff is the important stuff.'”

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When our “Meet the New Press” radio show was around, that was an oft said saying as a take off of what Massachusetts pol (and later US Speaker of the House) Tip O’Neil used to say “All politics is local”.  We extended it as it seemed that all of the political problems we talked about locally about our hamlet and surrounds, we also heard about in other areas.  Also, we have seen the Democrat model replicate itself: what happens in DC is tried locally in Concord (especially if the Progressive Dems can’t pass the desired legislation in DC).

Well, our original mantra still holds true as we see, once again, politicians unwilling to make the hard decisions that we send them to Concord and to DC to do.  Remember a few months ago when everyone in Concord was wailing that our Highway Trust Fund was running out of money and that we had to raise more money to fix our “failing bridges and roads”?  I do, and it was clear that Progressive politicians (both Democrat and Republican) were unwilling to make the hard decisions we expected and failed to seal up the leaks that stole money from that Fund. 

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Reason why?  Scott Brown brought has it upon himself (we merely talk about it):

• Scott Brown keeps emphasizing that he looks forward to working with Democrats again
• He voted for Romneycare (Obamacare before the steroids hit) as a “good thing”

Oh year, the news:

UnitedHealthcare to cut doctors for Mass. seniors.

“National insurance giant UnitedHealthcare plans to cut up to 700 Massachusetts doctors from its physician network for seniors enrolled in its private Medicare plan as a way to control costs, according to company officials.

For elderly patients enrolled in the plan, the cuts mean they will have to find a new doctor or eventually switch to a new health plan that covers their current doctor.”

And of COURSE, we hear the faux outrage from Democrats who can’t stand the idea that the private sector providers are merely following the Law

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Yes, this has stretched out a bit too long – I seem to get distracted but given this is vacation time, time to get caught up on some of the “lingering” stuff.  I’ve commented already on several of the speeches that were given at the NH GOP Annual meeting and this is the last one (simply because it was the last one given that day).  It is the Chair report.  I took the time to transcribe it all (after the jump with the video) and I have some serious concerns in what she had to say.

Sure, it was a time for “rah-rah” speeches and no doubt, her’s was one of those “call to arms” types.  The problem is, I’m not so sure that all the folks she aimed this to are all that willing to just drink from her cup.  Yes, the “Republican Republicans for the sake of the Party” (“RRFTSOTP”), those that believe solely that only important letter is “R” (and that makes all things just dandy) probably ate it up with thought of animus towards folks like us that actually look at the words and the thoughts driving them from behind.  They’ll accept whatever, gorging at the buffet while we’re looking at “er, did this spend too long a time not in the fridge”?

Remember, she made three specific promises during her campaign to be the Chair (mimicking her rival as she was a step behind in my mind) – she would:

1. Unite the Party
2. Fill the coffers
3. Redo the technology to better what the Dems had

With those PRIMARY items in mind, I went through her speech to see how close she came to reality or how close she was to merely “rah-rah”.

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