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The Conventional Wisdom is that the Left loves to think with their hearts while Conservatives’ hearts are with their thinking.  Emotion vs reasoning.  As I said here, however, it seems that while the Democrats may have a show of caring and start lots of Government or Government reliant programs, they don’t want those self-same programs ever to be evaluated.  Those programs MUST work because, well, we just LOVE them!  We KNOW that they work because we feel good about ourselves from having created them.  Therefore, ANYone that criticized our intent must be a hater of whatever we tried to fix.

Facts, being stubborn things, seem not to matter.  And in this case, Mary Katherine Ham (of Hot Air via Betsy’s Page) takes the Obama Administration and its enablers to task for explicitly deciding not to collect the actual data that would tell folks “is this doing what it was originally meant to do” – get the uninsured covered (emphasis mine):

There is no clearer dereliction of duty for this law. They created an irresponsible reform behemoth, they failed to implement it responsibly, they spent irresponsible amounts of money building a bunch of exchanges that don’t work, and now they’re not even responsible enough to bother checking how much help or damage they’ve done with the most straightforward metric available.

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As I pointed out here, the Chair of the NH College Republicans, Jake Wagner, has been asked to resign for one simple reason:

He’s not in college.

He hasn’t been in college for quite some time but refuses to relinquish that which he should not have.  I guess this self-proclaimed “Radical RINO” (who doesn’t seem to support much of the Platform much)  has fallen for the last half of that old phrase ” go to get something done or be someone” (the latter meaning that they are more enamored with the title and being known by it.  Sad, really, to have only a title solely define one’s self-esteem or self-worth. That’s why I try to steer away from those folks; I’d rather be involved with folks that are trying to get something accomplished.

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It is well known that the economy in Texas is going gang-busters compared to most of the country fueled (sorry, couldn’t resist) by new fossil fuel production.  I just had to laugh when TX Gov Perry made it known he had no problem in busting on New York and especially California: “low taxes and low regulations – we LIKE business”.  I have watched as blue state after blue state just makes it harder and harder to do what biz is supposed to do: “We have a right to your profits”.  So the Energy Companies are leaving (emphasis mine):

The recent decision by Occidental Petroleum to move its headquarters to Houston from Los Angeles, where it was founded over a half-century ago, confirms the futility and delusion embodied in California’s ultragreen energy policies. By embracing solar and wind as preferred sources of generating power, the state promotes an ever-widening gap between its declining middle- and working-class populations and a smaller, self-satisfied group of environmental campaigners and their corporate backers.

Talk to people who work in the fossil-fuel industry, and they tell you they feel ostracized and even hated; to be an oil firm in California is like being a pork producer in an ultra-Orthodox section of Jerusalem.

One top industry executive told me that many of his colleagues in California cringe at the prospect of being attacked by politicians and activists as something akin to war criminals. “I wouldn’t subject my kids to that environment,” the Gulf Coast-based oilman suggested.

That last remark: “I wouldn’t subject my kids to that environment”

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House Republican Leader Comments on Senate Passage of SB413

I forgot to put this up in the aftermath of the Rogue Republicans ™ in the NH State Senate of implementing Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion; from the House Republicans (who must feel that they got their knees cut out from underneath them just like we did, emphasis mine):

CONCORD – House Republican Leader Gene Chandler (R-Bartlett) offered the following statement in reaction to the State Senate vote on SB413, relative to access to health insurance coverage. The bill passed the Senate by a 18-5 vote The bill will likely be heard in the House Finance Committee on Monday.

House Republican Leader Gene Chandler (R-Bartlett)

“House Republicans aren’t convinced this bill is the right solution for New Hampshire. There are a number of Republican members who won’t vote for any program tied to the failed Obamacare law. There are concerns about how the state will be able to pay for this type of entitlement expansion in perpetuity and if that could lead to significant budget problems down the road. This type and scale of program represents the largest increase in spending New Hampshire has seen for some time, and it is dependent on funding from the federal government who can’t seem to keep many promises.”

“If New Hampshire does go down this road,

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FIRST!  We applaud those that stood tall and voted against the Morse / Bradley Medicaid  Expansion bill: NH State Senator Andy Sanborn, NH State Senator John Reagan, NH State Senator Sam Cataldo, NH State Senator Sharon Carson, and NH State Senator Russell Prescott.

We’ve been writing for a while that we absolutely believe that if the NH State Senate Republicans were to pass Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion, the Live Free or Die state will be no more.  No, we aren’t going to be physically absorbed by Massachusetts but our Live Free or Die philosophy will continue to die – that Individual  mattered most, that people were responsible for themselves and not on Government. That will now change due to the fecklessnes of the Rogue Republicans ™ that have abandoned pretty much every Plank in the Republican Platform.  Not limited but MORE government, not less but MORE taxes, not being able to be left alone but MORE intrusiveness, not less but MORE debt for our kids to pay off, and not more but LESS choice.  And we can thank NH State Senator Jeb Bradley, NH State Senator Nancy Stiles, NH State Senator Chuck Morse, and NH State Senator Bob Odell.  And their cohorts NH State Senator Jeannie Forrester, NH State Senator David Boutin, and NH State Senator Jim Rausch for it.  They believe this will enhance Republican chances in November.  Ha!  They were warned.  And now the backlash from the Grassroots has started.  From Jerry Delemus of the Rochester 9/12 who is longer willing to “settle” (emphasis mine):

This is what we get when we vote for the lesser of 2 evils. Evil! It was obvious what the traitors to Republican values were going to do and they did, vote with the Democrats just like the 28 in the House did [in DC  -Skip] on extending the debt ceiling.  Message from Establishment to everyone else and especially to conservatives, “we don’t like you and we don’t care one bit about the Republican party platform.”

So here’s a message to you Establishment, “we will not aide the Republican Establishment and we will leave blank any voting boxes for candidates we do not fully trust, no more lesser of 2 evils“.

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This will be the gift that will keep on giving – the Kiss of Death, that is.  To the Republicans, that is.  They just didn’t realize it, all those Smart People in the NH State Senate with Rs after their names that voted to implement Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion (even though they tried to call it other names and used other terms to “market it).  They tried SO hard not to let it be called Medicaid Expansion.

The NH Grassroots are not amused.  Even the Washington Post saw right through this lamo attempt:

In some good news out of New Hampshire, the GOP-controlled state senate has just passed the state’s version of the Medicaid expansion,

Yup.  Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion – breaking the “resist Obamacare at all costs” from the NH GOP Platform.  Yeah, that helps to convince the Grassroots to support you.  But wait!  You ALSO threw all of your supporters under the bus (just like Obama): 

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UNH College Republicans call on self-proclaimed “Radical RINO” NH College Republican Federation Chairman Jake Wagner to resign for violating Federation Constitution regarding college enrollment.

Caveat – I’ve met Jake Wagner (there on the left with Obama’s David Axelrod on right).  Now, he didn’t come up to me and proclaim himself to be a “Radical RINO” (but it is in his Twitter feed) but he certainly came across as one of those “I’m a Republican Republican because I’m a Republican” the couple of times I’ve tried to “debate” issues important to the Republican base.  He certainly doesn’t like Conservatives that quote both the Platform and the NH Constitution (or the US one either) as a basis of what can be done or what should be done politically.  His face would screw up like a prune, his arms flap like one of those “air guys” you’d see flapping in front of a car dealer, and he just couldn’t seem to stop “SIGHing” as I was speaking – but  couldn’t seem to refute what I or others would pose to him.  Just pieces of paper “for show” is the what I got from him.

Figures.  Looks like he’s decided to disobey the rules under which he was elected – his previous actions seem to give this that came over the transom a bit more ring of truth – looks like I’ll be following up on this myself.

Note: if it is wrong, Jake is certainly able to put up a guest post here or even come on GrokTALK! to discuss – he has been invited!

In fact, he has not responded to the email listed on the NH GOP E-Board page.  So, let’s look at this a bit, shall we? 

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Over at the Republican Liberty Caucus of NH was this request for info:

Windham GOP is considering their Medicaid resolution on the night Chuck Morse is their guest speaker

Senator Chuck Morse, prime sponsor of the medicaid expansion bill, will be at a special Windham Republican Committee meeting this Tuesday, March 4th at 6pm. We’re supposed to debate the merits of medicaid expansion. Any hard-hitting talking points you can recommend?

So I offered a few questions that could be asked:

WHY are you doing this? Is it really to merely take it off the table politically to smooth the way for re-election (like Boenher & boys did in DC with the debt ceiling)?

Is getting re-elected worth advancing the Democrat agenda by getting Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion implemented in NH? Isn’t that rather selfish: career before Party?

WHY is the Federal money going to go “off-budget”? Does that mean that the STate of NH will have no oversight?

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I had posted a snippet from DiStaso a few days ago (“You’re Dreaming“, reformatted here):

“State GOP chair Jennifer Horn told us today, “There is a healthy debate about the Senate’s health care compromise taking place among Republicans. This sort of debate and discussion within a political party is natural and nothing new.As we’ve always done, I am confident that come November, Republicans will unite behind our candidates and rally around our fiscally responsible solutions to address the difficult issues facing our state and our nation,” she said.

What I didn’t do was to take note of at the time was this (emphasis mine, reformatted):

In Concord, the state Republican Party executive committee discussed the local resolutions at a recent meeting, but no motion or resolution was brought up for a vote, according to Manchester GOP chair Simmons who is a member of the state party executive committee.  Simmons said the consensus was “that the best way to get our message out to the senators would be that it come from the individual committees.“

And there’s a problem with that.

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