Skip

Higher RANK number is safer:

Sen. Jim Rausch, R-Derry, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, which voted 5-0 to approve the bill, said the bill would give law enforcement the tools they need to make the roads safer.  “This is not an infringement on the rights of citizens,” Rausch said, “but a reasonable limit on the use of the technology we have today to keep us safer.”

Right. Actually, wrong.  True, there is not a “Right” to use a cell phone or to drive but if the goal is to make us safer, then pick circumstances in which that can actually be attained.  Once again, however, we see Government deciding to remove freedom of choice from its Citizens.  Remember what Ben Franklin say about safety:

They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Given NH’s standing, there is little Safety to be gained in this and the problem is that the Republicans in the Senate are falling (or is that embracing, given the BradleyCare / Obamacare Medicaid Expansion they also passed?) the Progressive philosophy that ALL risk can be removed from reality in their march to march the rest of us to their Utopia.  It simply turns out to be, however, an ideology casting desperately to declare a solution that advances, not a solution, but that ideology. And in doing so, it must be definition reduce overall Liberty. NH State Senator Lou D’Allesandro lied when he said: “The data is quite clear,” he said. “This is worth doing because it saves lives”.  The actual data (see full chart below) does not support this at all – New Hampshire is the third safest state for driving and fifth best for “careless driving” in the nation as determined by

Read more

That’s right.  On April 15th, I messed up big time.  Actually, I figured it out on Monday, the 14th, as I did my taxes on a vacation day.  How badly had I booted it the previous year? Yeah, I’m getting a refund.  Which means that I failed – I just gave Obama an interest free loan for the year for the US Government, after taking my money from me legally by the 16th Amendment (which was originally sold as “just target the few highly rich people”).

Sidenote: “After all, the first tax ranged from merely 1% on the first $20,000 of taxable income and was only 7% on incomes above $500,000….(Ed. note: Expressed in 1994 dollars this sentence would read, “the first tax ranged from merely 1% on the first $298,000 of taxable income and was only 7% on incomes above $7,460,000.”)…The collection process was greatly facilitated in 1943 by a device created by FDR to pay the costs of WWII. It was called “withholding from wages and salaries”. In other words, the tax was collected at the payroll window before it was even due to be paid by the taxpayer. Economists point out that this device, more than any other single factor, shifted the tax from its original design as a tax on the wealthy to a tax on the masses–mostly the middle class.”

So, I’m mad at myself for not doing the right calculations and mad that, once again, we see the Left’s persistence on incrementalism – create a man-made need based on ideology (as opposed to solving a real life problem), 

Read more

The Democrats are now not just “the bad guys” but “the petty guys”.Court Order – Gulick vs Cormier

That is from the judgment of Judge James D. O’Neill, III in Belknap Superior Court in the case of NH State Rep Ruth Gulick et al vs NH State Rep Jane Cormer, Clerk, et al. where the former sued the latter in what I considered to be a frivolous, political theatrical stunt with all the intentions of a SLAPP suit using the pretext of a RSA 91-A:2 violation that I knew to be absolutely false.  It was simply one way for the out-gunned Democrats of the Belknap County Delegation (aided and abetted most of the time by one Republican, NH State Rep Dennis Fields – but that is fodder for a future post) getting back at the Republicans, especially the Conservatives that made up the majority of the Republican members.  I did not attend all of the Belknap County budget meetings but it was clear that the Democrats were stymied at that lack of ability to block the Conservatives in protecting the taxpayers’ wallets.  They were not allowed to grow Government.

So, they lashed out in the only way they could (and the refuge of the scoundrels that having fairly failed to win Legislatively, turn to the Judiciary to subvert the democrat process) – they sued for a remedy that they could not get using a twisting of the statute that would not hold up. 

Read more

When we see the armed might of the US Government arrayed against a single American rancher and not against illegal alien “invaders, why is it that those in Government wonder why “the consent of the governed” is being withdrawn from them?

We see multiple episodes of those wishing to cede from their own States to form new one because they are ignored and denigrated – the Rights of the suburban or rural “minority” populations trampled by the larger urban liberal ones.  We see Progressive legislators not trusting their constituents and take decisions away from them – and not seeing the anger building from being treated like children at best and cretins at worst.  We see “solutions” to the littlest problems put in place while avoiding the big ones we actually want them to fix (and those generally result from previous government tries to fix something that should have just been left alone).

Which IS the higher priority –

Read more

Jerry Delemus called from NV yesterday (hmm, never got the return call…) and Sue sent this update in a bit ago (a few edits by me):

I finally got to talk to my wonderful husband around lunch time today. It’s hard to say what is best to do at this point. He doesn’t want to worry the movement. Others who are still there are asking for help from those closer to NV. The protesters have dispersed but the militias are still sticking around. The number of people there is staying pretty static. Some are coming to replace those leaving. There are a few Patriot camps that exist.  Each camp is autonomous and they are cooperating between themselves well, with security as a high priority. For example, while I was on the phone with him, a large furniture truck turned up the road he was on and headed toward the Bundy’s house. I can’t imagine that the Bundys have gone furniture shopping recently so everyone went into high alert and checked the truck for hidden personnel. As far as I know the truck moved on without incident. The Patriots there are staying vigilant and wary of everything. Helicopters and drones continue to be seen. Chuck Baldwin , Stewart Rhodes the founder of Oath Keepers and Sheriff Richard Mack arrived yesterday and are there right now standing with the Patriots who are still holding the line.

I asked Jerry what is needed there. He said

Read more

Imagine my surprise when I went to put Mieka outside this morning:

Yeah, snow.  Middle of April.  Temperature was 17 degrees when I got up and when I went to pick up the Youngest after work, the temp by the car’s thermometer was 30. Normal temps this time of year are supposed to be in the upper 50s. 

Read more

Andrew Breitbart said that politics is downstream from culture – in other words, the culture changes the mores of the population which changes political leanings.  We on the Right oft bemoan the capture of the educational system, the Hollywood movie / TV industry, the music industry, and the media in general, by the Left.  One cannot help see the changes by people who are voting that seemingly vote contrary to our founding philosophies – and then find out that they have no idea of what those founding documents actually are.  And we sit and think “well, that 250 years down the drain” and that the country is in decline.

Well, buckos, sometimes we are just too pessimistic a bunch at times.  John Nolte at Big Government has 11 points for you to consider if you believe that “all is lost!” in this culture war (emphasis mine):

1. While judges are legalizing gay marriage, Christianity is making a major comeback in the free market of entertainment.

2. While pot is being legalized in a few states, the pro-abortion movement is on its heels in a majority of states and in opinion polls.

Read more

From a longer piece at The Federalist (go read the whole thing, emphasis here is mine):

…Americans, Madison argues, are natural republicans–republicans in their heads and in their hearts, determined to show the world that “self-government” is possible. The republican principle, as Madison defines it later in the essay, requires “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.” That is to say, republican government is responsible to the people, from whom it ultimately “derives all its power” and to whom it must directly or indirectly give an account of its stewardship of those powers.

On this point, at least, there is no daylight between the positions of the 1960s-style liberal Robert Kennedy and the 1780s-style liberal James Madison. In both accounts, the people are primary; the government is secondary–a necessary help supporting self-governing citizens, in both the political and moral senses of the term.

Today, the Progressives leap from responsible government to

Read more

John Hayward over at Hot Air has a piece that ties a bunch of things together – go read the entire thing (it’s not all that long).  Here’s a few bon mots (emphasis mine):

…The Left doesn’t just craft political strategies to attract single female voters. Liberal policies create them. One of the most significant effects of left-wing social policy has been the decline of marriage. It takes a lot of statistical yoga to argue that the War on Poverty has done anything to “fix” poverty, but viewed as a trillion-dollar effort to dissolve traditional family structure, it’s a roaring success. Virtually everything the Left has done for decades is part of the war on wives.

Want to transform Society?  Just have the Republican Party do what the Nevada Republicans have done – eliminate all references to “social issues“.  Hey buds!  This mean that you are going to cede the entirety of Society to the Dems?  Are you that freaking stupid?  Look back over the last 5 decades and keep in mind Andrew Breitbart’s fundamental understanding of Politics: “Politics is downstream of culture”.  That is to say, society of that culture.  Which the Dems have used their “social issues” policies to change the culture to change the politics.  And you Republican Smartest People in the Room keep saying to knock off the icky Right to Life, marriage, and the like?  Fundamental transformation right out from beneath your feet.  Wave that white flag.  Give up on the only path in which you can even hope to stay even?  We’re already seeing the fruits of that already.

Note to the clueless – no “social issues“?  Really?  Has the Establishment Republican Party done all that magnificently on the FISCAL ISSUES so as to be able to ditch half the battlefield?  If they had, would there have even been a need for the TEA Party uprising??? Sadly, no – why else do you think the phrases “Least Lackeys of the Welfare State” and “Jr. Partners of the Democrats” are floating around more and more?  So, yer just gonna abandon the “abject failure to succeed on” issues to concentrate on the “merely stinking bad performance” ones? 

Read more

To those who believe that courts are infallible, or that they are the final arbiter of laws, think again. Reference Plessy v. Ferguson, Dred Scott v. Sandford, and Roe v. Wade.  Courts make mistakes – huge mistakes – all of which serve to underscore the fact that we are a Constitutional Republic, not a judicial oligarchy or a democracy. Recognizing the distinctions between, and the powers of government (and those reserved to the people) under, each of these 3 types of government, is critical to preserving freedom for future generations.

The daughter of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy wrote a letter explaining her dad’s refusal to follow BLM direction or federal court orders.  After reading that letter, I trust her far beyond any government lawyer, agent, judge, bureaucrat or elected official – ANY.   The Government and its attorneys have cheated and stolen much from many during the course of our history.  

Read more

“Respecting the dignity of a human being is giving that person the freedom to choose”

If God loved us enough to give us free will, then why do Progressives

Read more

Putin has attacked Ukraine and making mad eyes at the Baltic (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia) in an attempt to reassemble the old Soviet Union.  China is making land demands on Japan and the Philippines.  Kim Jong Un is still playing with nuclear fire, and the Iranian Mullahs have thoughts of hegemony in the Middle East.  Iraq is in turmoil, Turkey is going Islamist, the European is both going broke (a bad thing) and starting to have its own TEA Party movement (ok, a GREAT thing – but not for Obama), Al Queada is uprising in the failed states of Somalia and Yemen, and the Taliban is just tapping its foot in Afghanistan in waiting out Obama’s “end of the good war” deadline even as they are tapping out the competition in Pakistan.  And let’s not forget the failing state to our south, Mexico, where no one seems to know who is in charge – the Federales, the drug lords, or the under siege citizens.

And with all of these major rolling catastrophes, the Obama Administration, in full Nanny mode, thinks this is worth of UN action?  

Read more

After all, taxes just shovels money from one set of folks to a different set of folks.  And Saul Alinsky was all about, in “hiding” Socialism, moving the stuff from the Haves to the Have Nots.  The purpose was always to obtain the power to make that happen.  Kinda looks, with the premier Alinskyite devotee in the highest place and a cadre of Socialists  (aka Progressives) running Congress, they hit the jackpot:

Read more

Two graphics that pretty much shows Obama’s view of religion: that is must be subservient to The State.  It certainly looks like this to me:

Why?  I think this is sufficient: 

Read more