I Could Hardly Be Happier…

There were only two outcomes from the Supreme Court that would be useful on the Patiend Affordable Care Act.  Complete repeal, or sustaining ObamaCare essentially unchanged.  The Supreme Court chose the latter, more or less.  And this is fine by me. America hates this bill.  A majority of states hate it.  Independents hate it.  But … Read more

Quick Thought on the Supreme Decision on Obamacare

Updated Thought:  Roberts is getting a lot of grief for siding with the Liberal Supremes and finding that Obamacare was Constitutional under the taxing ability of Congress.  Putting aside the argument that the tax language originated in the Senate (instead of the House where Constitutionally it must originate), I’m mulling over the idea, given other commentary I’ve seen, has Roberts actually laid in a hidden ambush (albeit, long term) by creating a virtual dead-end canyon into which Lib Big Govt-ers are going to get led into?  I’m no lawyer, but are we seeing a “boxing in” strategy starting to appear – like a good military planner, willing to accept the short term (and perhaps, massive) losses in order to set the stage for an eventual judicial Originalist victory (with a wee bit of help from a helpful Congress)?  I can see the two sides but not the end of canyon – at least, not just yet.

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In addition to the philosophy that I am paid to work and not to blog, work is REAL busy today – and my boss keeps calling with new fires to put out.  But it is lunch time, and a couple of quick thoughts:

  • I am generally an optimist, but to be sure, at the first blush of the news, my heart sank as the immediate reaction is: Freedom is hanging by a thread – or less.  If NOTHING is done going forward, it will break.  The question still remains – how far can Government go in telling us how to live our lives legislatively?  Are we at that tipping point where we can be told to buy broccoli or be taxed if we don’t?  What is the definition of “limited Government” now?

But there ARE some good things here:

  • HUGE – Supremes finally put a stop to encroachment of Govt via the Commerce Clause. It sets the stage for a disavowal of Wickerd (that ’42 decision that denied a farmer the ability to grow his own wheat).   It also can be used to set the stage for killing off the mantra that the “General Welfare” phrase means “we can do anything we want to”.
  • The Medicaid clause has permanently killed part of the club that Congress has used for years to force States to do something against their own interest (leaving the discussion on 17th Amendment aside).  The ruling said that the Feds CANNOT cut off funds meant for the States for vastly expanding Medicaid (and then stop the funding later on but leaving the States on the hook)  if some of those States that refuse to participate in the expansion.  The Feds will have to fully fund those parts that the States now engage in – the club was to be that all the funding would be pulled.  This will have ramifications in years going forward

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Here’s the “Obamacare – I won’t raise your taxes” Tax over which Mr. Obama will send Mr. IRS to chat with you

“Under my plan, no one who makes less than $200,000, you will not see an increase in your taxes”

– President Obama

Here’s the financial penalty TAX box future that Mr. IRS will be showing you if you decide that buy healthcare insurance is not in your future.  You may try the latter but you certainly will be paying the former:

Obama Penalty Taxes

(H/T:  Patheos)

I will have to say that for a Party that is ALL about the Progressive Income Tax, this chart, created by them, shows how regressive and repressivethe Obamacare TAX is.   Those earning over $100,000 can afford the lawyer / account to help defend them if need be.  You think that the $30K wage earner can do the same? The penalty is $173.75 per month – for a lot of lower income folks, that’s a car payment.  No doubt about it – this tax will result in lower overall economic activity. And if that lower income bracket dude’s company decides it is cheaper for them to drop insurance altogether, the premium will be even more.

Let’s see – do I buy that new Obama Prius that’s been vetted by the EPA and the Fed D.O.T.?  Or do I make Mr. IRS go away by paying this new TAX?  What’s the economic good to me to have to just throw my money away in the latter case?

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Ingrates in America

At a bar last night my friend Bill and I overheard a secret conversation. A man at the next table told his friend that the “Under God” enforcement arm, sort of a SWAT team unit, of the “Pledge of Allegiance” police have become aware of Professor Sandy’s position on the Pledge of Allegiance.  They are seriously considering whether to entrap him into failing to recite the pledge fully or if he will violate the strict pledge laws on his own.

Word has come down that the group of “mostly rich white men who rule this country,” are considering the appropriate punishment for Professor Sandy or others who neglect to utter the full official text of the Pledge of Allegiance. This crack police unit, made up of former UFC Champions, has apparently inflicted cruel punishments on the many thousands that it has picked up for violating this nation’s strict pledge laws.

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Politician’s Intentions

The letter below by Tony Boutin makes some excellent points about government actions and education in particular.  It appeared in the June 22, 2012, Laconia Daily Sun, http://issuu.com/dailysun/docs/lds6-22-12

While I agree with the author that politicians claim good intentions for all government actions driven by their policies, some politicians never seem to learn that the consequences of their policies rarely achieve their promised intentions and often provide bad results.  Thus, one has to wonder whether the claimed good intentions actually are the reasons for those policies.  Or, is the purpose of those policies something else such as political power driven by the growth of government and government union political  contributions (mostly to democrats), or the ease of getting votes by promising free stuff or benevolent sounding programs to voters who are ignorant of past failures?       Don

To the editor,

Education letters to The Daily Sun
have become popular since Kent Warner’s
offer of $50 for a catchy slogan.
I want to thank Kent for turning the
spotlight to it. Obama will surely be
trying to BUY professors, students and
their parents by promising increased
helicopter-style spending despite the
fact we are 17-trillion dollars in debt
and we recently got slapped in the
head with a credit downgrade.

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Veto Override of HB 1679 – Partial Birth Abortion

The NH Legislature has overridden the Governor’s veto of HB 1679 banning partial birth abortion in New Hampshire.  I will visit this at greater length when time permits, but for now here is a statement from Ellen Kolb at Cornerstone Policy Research following the veto override.   CONTACT: Ellen Kolb, Cornerstone VP of Government Affairs, … Read more

Veto Override Day Continued…

The Veto of SB 372, to allow tax credits for scholarships to students seeking options other than public school has been overridden  by the NH Legislature. A Voter ID compromise is now law in the Granite State.  The lynch veto on SB 289 has been overridden.  Starting next year ( I believe). The Veto on … Read more

GrokTV Event: Brookfield Planning Board – presentation on “Sustainable Communities Initiative” – Part 1

Monday night, the Brookfield, NH Planning Board heard a presentation by Ken Eyring and Eileen Mishimo on their research concerning the Federal Government pushing their Sustainable Communities Initiative (called Granite State Future Plan here in NH, a “massive entitlement / welfare program”).  Those that are pushing this agenda are doing so by making it seem innocuous in the beginning but based on the hundreds of hours of research that Ken and Eileen have done on primary documents, it results in a virtual takeover of local communities by land use and zoning changes and collected demographic studies that are then used in lawsuits when Federal “standards” are broached by local communities (i.e., how local towns give up their sovereignty via “Federal money with invisible strings attached” and “strumg up” by their own efforts to comply with ensnaring federal regulations and mandates).

Ken Eyring from the Southern NH 9.12 Project presented first in his slow, quiet, methodical manner (hey, he’s a software engineer – what else would you expect!).  Here are the first two segments:

Part 1:

Part 2 after the jump:

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Red Box Review – The Darkest Hour

Steve Casting with a Twist.  The culture is always fodder and all politics all the time makes Johnny chop a hole in the bathroom door with an axe.   So here’s a different flavor of Audio Pod-casting juice for your thirsty ears.  A Red Box movie review: The Darkest Hour.

Notes:
Thanks for your continued patience as I try to fine tune the end product.   FireFox 13.0.1 users may not be able to see this audio player–just follow this link instead.  If you’d rather read the transcript you may do so on the jump.

[jwplayer mediaid=”26396″]

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Liberty & Freedom Folks – Take the AFT Survey!

If you missed this post, read it first–Major Teachers Union Political survey includes no questions about the children or their education, just about things that matter to securing union power and their ability to charge dues. So one of our Grok Friends suggested we encourage our readers to take the survey themselves and send it … Read more

Nothing Like A “Veto Day” To Bring Out Liberal Concern For Overtaxation

“The same undisciplined government spending and social engineering that has undermined our economy over the past 30 years has also been tearing at the social fabric of this land.”   —Stockwell Day

The New Hampshire House and Senate will vote today  to override Governor John Lynch’s veto of two bills that sought to  allow Granite State businesses to receive tax credits for donations to scholarship funds to help low and middle income students attend private and religious schools.

Of course, opponents of SB 372 and HB 1607 had lots to say about these bills, chief among them, Maggie, “The Red” Hassan. Hassan, as reported in the Union Leader said,

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Obama’s War on American Citizens

Monday the Obama administration continued its war against the American people and the rule of law.  In a petulant response to the Supreme Court’s audacity for not declaring a key portion of the Arizona (SB 1070) Immigration Law unconstitutional, the Obama administration ordered its immigration authorities not to accept inquiries about a person’s immigration status from Arizona unless the inquiry related to a felony.  In addition, attempting to intimidate Arizona law enforcement, the Obama administration set up a hotline for people to report alleged racial profiling by Arizona police asking about their immigration status.

If, unknown to Arizona police, the person legitimately stopped has murdered someone in another state, the Obama administration will not take the phone call and the person will most likely be released.  If unknown to the Arizona police, the person is a known terrorist on his way to California, Washington DC, New Hampshire, or someplace else, the Obama administration will not take the call and the terrorist may be set free to harm Americans.

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The Law Can Never Be Philanthropic

tipping the scalesThe law (justice) can never be philanthropic.  It cannot guarantee property of any kind to anyone because the law has no property to give.  The law does not create property.  The Law does not summon property out of thin air-where none previously existed.  The Law can only take from someone else what is theirs.

It therefore behooves those charged with writing and managing the law (and more importantly those who elect or appoint the stewards) to ensure that philanthropy is not the foundation of the States interest.   The only way to fulfill that interest is through the progressive accumulation of other people’s property under the cover of legalized plunder.  The only way for the law to be philanthropic is to legalize theft.

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really – “bipartisan financial support”?

There is a piece in the NY Times byCampell Brown calling out Planned Parenthood for being too ideologically pure when pummeling supporters that stray from “their line”. Gay rights supporters in New York offered an instructive lesson during last year’s battle for marriage equality. Gay marriage passed in New York because four Republican legislators crossed … Read more

Anonymous Durham NH Donor Pays When Obama Campaign Will Not

Saw this first at CBS/Boston.  A local Durham New Hampshire resident has offered to donate the up to $20,000.00 dollars necessary to cover the cost of Police, Fire, and EMT coverage for President Obama’s Campaign visit. Durham officials say they didn’t mean to raise a ruckus, but they didn’t have the money budgeted for police, … Read more

FauxBama FauxMemoir Real Trouble

From Mark Steyn (Fellow NH Resident no actually from here.) Courtesy of David Maraniss’ new book, we now know that yet another key prop of Barack Obama’s identity is false: His Kenyan grandfather was not brutally tortured or even non-brutally detained by his British colonial masters. The composite gram’pa joins an ever-swelling cast of characters … Read more

Okay everybody, let’s just “give peace a chance….”

“Those who cling to the untrue doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything’ would be advised to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. … Read more

1.8 Million in Democrat Gov Funding For NH …99.51% from Outside The State

DGA NH has 1.8 million for NH Gov Race--, 98% of it from outside New HampshireBragging about how the Democrat Governors Association New Hampshire PAC is sitting on 1.8 Million in June of 2012 does tell us something about our Governors Race.  It tells us that Democrats can’t say anything about out of state campaign money polluting local elections.

Of the 354 pages of donations that make up the $1.79 Million advertised on the June 2012 DGA NHPAC filing I could only find 198 line items listing donors living inside the state of New Hampshire.  That is 0.6% of all donors listed in this report.

Of the nearly $1,790,000.00 collected just under $9,000.00 came from those New Hampshire donors.  That’s 0.49% of all donations. (99.51% from outside donors.)

Can we say with certainty that whomever the Democrats pick for their candidate out of state influence is a given?

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“It took us 109 minutes to figure out how to defeat these murderous savages.”

Bill Whittle of PJ Media again. And spot-on as usual. The thing is, Whittle’s video is “overtly” about the Islamofascist terrorists of Al Qaida…and about how every strategic move made by the Bush Administration in answer to the 9/11 attacks worked brilliantly. So the video below made me think also about those who have had … Read more

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