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Yesterday we did live blog / live stream / tweet out the First Annual Strong New Hampshire Conference and Steve is starting to put up the “second in a row” remote GrokTALK! audio (last week being at the NH Federated Republican Women’s annual meeting).

Just after we had finished setting up, NH State Senator Sam Cataldo sat down with us and chatted for a while:

Immediately after (and just before the event actually started), we were lucky to yak with Andrew Hemingway, Chair of the NH Republican Leadership Institute:

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Or is this the REAL projection?  We’ve heard for weeks (Er, months?  Years?) that Republicans, Conservatives, TEA Partiers, Constitutionalists, or Libertarians are the extremists, the terrorists, the people with suicide vests strapped to their chests (while clinging to their religion and guns?)….you know the litany.  In all cases, just trying to subtract even one single dollar from any Government budget brings out this talk that we are anti-Government, we’re Anarchists…and with any diminution of Government, the litany of hating the poor, hating kids, hating illegal aliens, hating education, hating the hungry, hating….need I really say more?

That’s what we were told during this shutdown, that the wrong decisions by Republicans were being be felt by the most vulnerable as Government had to shutdown.  Shutdown?  We really ended up with a SlimDown as only 17% of the Feds actually did stop.  And we got MORE expenses as the stuff that got shutdown was aimed at hurting the public in hopes of turning the public against those evil Republicans who took the “nice” things away.  Instead we saw the UGLY face of a Government grown too large to the point of having little remorse over targeting those they serve.  This just over the Slimdown.  And now with the specter of the Debt Ceiling floating onto the stage, what is it that the Administration is willing to go after first?  Yeah – guess who gets the haircut first? (emphasis mine, reformatted):

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Just like Grokster Steve’s post on the Nashua Elementary School’s continuing the sissification of American (“ooh, someone might get hurt!!!”), we see someone else saying “TOO MUCH RISK – you can’t do that!”.

Tell me, which sport or activity do you think (there are three) are those that the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, & Nutrition are SO dangerous for kids that they demanded that the US Postal Service scrap the entire stamp run?   Seriously?

Now remember, this is not a school setting – there are no playgrounds involved.  No real people, either.  Cartoon figures, really (and they even hide the ‘toons innocense  by blanking out their faces even).  I looked at all of those activities and remembered back many years (and pounds) ago and went “I did them all”!  OK, not so much the skateboard as the poly wheels hadn’t yet been invented and those boards road rough – but I did a lot of roller skating instead.

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Consistency yields Trust yields Votes.  Simple, eh?  While I’ve been saying this for a while as to the disaffection of voters for the Republican Party, it doesn’t seem to be getting traction.  That is, at least in Republican circles.  Rarely do I even hear this idea mentioned – only that “We have to win (even if we just suck less than Dems)” seems to be the mantra.  Lots of extraneous stuff, lots of “strategic” reasoning, lots on tactics, but not much on re-establishing Trust. Sad, that.  All it takes is “walk the talk”; tell us what you really believe, tell us what you will actually do.  Then the hard part – just do it.  Don’t give us the “shuffle” and “it’s complicated”.  We expected you to play this all out in your head and in your heart BEFORE you got elected.  What are the values that you said you had – just do it.

Why is this so hard?  No, I wasn’t in DC and no, I wasn’t in Concord (NH, the state capital) – just in my little hamlet.  I was accused, all the time, of having an agenda – and that pleased me.  Why?  I had three principles while on my hamlet’s Budget Committee:

• It ain’t my money but spend it like it was mine
• Government growth should NEVER outstrip that of the Civil Society that pays for it
• It ain’t my money

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From BLACKFIVE (emphasis mine):

First, it was the order to close/block memorials – expending mucho dinero to protect memorials and monuments that – generally – are never protected. This is particularly disgusting when it comes to blocking the WWII memorial where flights of WWII vets are making a first and (most likely) last pilgrimage to their place

Then, there was the order to deny death benefits to the families of the Fallen…

Turns out, the orders to close off the memorials and to deny death benefits to the families of the Fallen came directly from…the budget office of the White House.

The White House.

Who’s in charge over there?

The President.

The Vets have had enough.

Indeed!  They have fought for our freedom before and they are about to fight for it again.  Truckers this weekend.  Bikers this weekend.  TEA Partiers are reving up.  Obama’s approval rating is approaching his sense and display of traditional American morality and outlook (which is to say, not much at all).I said at the beginning of the TEA Party movement that Obama and his political sycophants and fellow sojourners had so compressed the air in the cylinder of the political diesel engine that all it needed was a spark – and that was the rant by CNBC’s Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago (of all places) Board of Trade.  And now, Obama has done it again – not with threatening to pay irresponsible peoples’ mortgages with money from those that had always been responsible with their own, but by actively using WW II veterans and tourists as hostages.  He is using Government, and the Party that stands for and IS Government, to have his revenge. 

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Simple reason – Government has grown so large that it:

• we Citizens can no longer have enough proper oversight so that it does what WE want it to – versus what IT wants to do.
• has become its own special interest group all unto itself. And in lobbying their bosses (our elected officials), it drowns out Citizens’ voices (e.g., see California)
• can conspire with and within itself – for itself over the best interests of those they are supposed to serve – Citizens

Yes, I have been on a rant tonite – 4th post of the nite on the same theme. Certainly the progressive wings of BOTH the Democrats and the Republicans have encouraged and enabled this super-sizing; to them, the strength of America is in its Government’s might.  They believe that Americans need this guidance – and are hellbent to provide it in all ways possible.  More and more, the Bigger the Better.  We are to be mere cogs in their Machine.

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Heh!:  “Due to the absence of either an FY 2014 appropriation or Continuing Resolution for the Department of Health and Human Services, there is no one to process your action or respond to your message. If you require immediate attention, please contact 410-786-4160”

See below for the inside joke

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Quick note: It seems that the Obamacare Exchange being run by the State of Maryland has some really “cute” slugs on the “privacy” that Marylanders think they might have.  Now, if you KNEW this and had any doubts of your, er, past, do you think this might give you reason to pause?

“[W]e may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities.”

And if you are going “phew, only the cops?  Nobody else?” – Hah!

“your correspondence could be disclosed to other parties upon their request in accordance with Maryland’s Public Information Act.”

Cool!  Maryland’s law, that Public Info doo-hicky, will keep my info from the badness that is Big Biz, right?  To which my retort would be: when’s the last time you actually sat down and READ that PIC?

Better yet, before handing over your name, your address, your birthday, your social security number, number of people in your household, your income, your “household income” (from little Jimmy to Granny), all of the social security numbers of everyone living in your household, citizenship/immigration status; did you READ the Privacy on whatever Exchange you were using?

Like you have much choice, right?  With 16,000 new IRS agents,

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Government seems to have forgotten that they exist at the will of the people, not to rule over them, but to serve them in the needs of society, organization, stability, and public safety. Recently, due to the total failure of of our two party system to work cooperatively, to negotiate and compromise in the best interests of the people, we saw one proud group ignore their childish attempts to punish the people over their own partisan ego and divide, and refusal to compromise on either side of the aisle. I am referring to World War II Vets, often referred to a the Greatest Generation, who would not let childish self-indulging political power plays get in the way of them visiting monuments to honor them on public land that belongs to all of us. The Federal government may set aside parts of our country as protected lands, but they do not have the right to deny us access to is it because it does not belong to them, it belongs to us, the people. Like our founding fathers, these old Warrior Veterans revolted against the orders of government, and we should all be proud of their actions. In fact we should be so proud that we follow their lead – tear down the barricades and refuse to accept that government even has the right to close public facilities – after all this is our country, not a Communist state where Government owns and can dictate who gets to use what land for what purpose. I mean how can we be so adamantly opposed to Eminent Domain and yet accept that the government has the right to deny us access to land they took in our names, and supposedly for our benefit?

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