News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
Seven Days Vermont is reporting on increase in traffic at the University of Vermont Library. Special Collections has a wealth of material on Bernie Sanders and “people” have been expressing an interest in seeing it.
Two individuals in particular spent some time prowling through the material. One of them, according to the article, was wearing a T-shirt that read “New Hampshire for Jeanne Shaheen.”
By now many of you have heard of the outrageous union battle in Derry in which the Town Council wanted to cut taxes at the request of their constituents. The Derry Unions came out in full-force thuggery to spew their propaganda and lies about safety if one of four fire stations was closed.
From Erick Erickson at Redstate – he points out what a lot of us are thinking, that the fundamental transformation has taken root and a big part of it is the turning upside down and inside out of both our public policy (which WILL be enforced as YOUR new private morals (and what you have now be damned) as well as our public officials no longer just giving lip service to the Constitution (re: their oaths) but racing past ignoring it to now trying to get rid of it. His thoughts, in part (reformatted, emphasis mine):
For those of us of faith, it appears society has collectively lost its mind. Madness has set in. Yes, in fact, we see what Paul warns of in Romans 1. The people have been handed over to themselves and we are caught in the middle. It is a wildfire of the mind and society. A lot of you want to check out of it. You want to take refuge, hide, and protect your families. You want to go for the Benedictine Model that Rod Dreher hints at — take shelter in the monastery and wait for the fire to burn itself out.
Next, remember that life is not easy for any of us. It will probably not be fair, and it certainly is not all about you. The gray hair and wrinkles you see on older people have been earned the hard way, by living and dealing with the challenges of life. When I was a young adult and labored under the delusion of my own omniscience, I thought I knew more than I actually did. That is a function of youth.
With the wisdom that only comes with the passage of years, the older folks warned me presciently and ominously, “Son, you just live long enough and you’ll see.” They were right; oh, so right. Life is humbling and can be hard, very hard. It is a series of decisions, some harder than others, some good and, unfortunately, too many of them bad. It will be up to each of you to make as many good decisions as possible and to limit the bad ones, then to learn from all of them. But I will urge you to resist when those around you insist on making the bad decisions. Being accepted or popular with those doing wrong is an awful Faustian bargain and, as with all Faustian bargains, not worth it. It is never wrong to do the right thing. It may be hard, but never wrong. . . .
(H/T: Liberal Logic 101)
Governors are looking for ways to push back against the Supreme Court ruling mandating Gay Marriage. The Hill has an article and it includes this gem.
Gay rights activists warn that any acts of perceived defiance would threaten to undermine the legal system.
“It’s a dangerous message for southern governors to disobey an order from the Supreme Court,” said Marc Solomon, national campaign director at Freedom to Marry.
“Is America really that great? Or is the United States just like any other nation? Outsiders tend to be the best judge of character, and Nick Adams, a best-selling Australian author and political commentator, gives an outsider’s view of the USA.”
From Steve’s post pushed out to Facebook on the new (and totally unneeded) law on driving while cell phoning comes this picture… Take from it what you would. Hey, I used to be talking on the cell talking to my IT vendors, answering my pager, looking up IT stuff on my laptop while talking with … Read more
Well, after I wrote this, I saw this excerpt from Senator Ted Cruz’s new book giving us an inside look at DC Republicans. It isn’t a pretty picture and seeing that they believe us to be Big Time Chumps for believing them, I can see why some of them have steam coming out of their ears for having the Big Flashlight shined upon them – for it shows their true nature. And basically validates what my post (and all of the previous ones like it) said – they lie to us and want us to believe it’s rain:
“During my time in the Senate, I’ve been amazed how many senators pose one way in public—as fiscal conservatives or staunch Tea Party supporters, for example—and then in private do little or nothing to advance those principles.
“Indeed, if transcripts of our Senate lunches were released to the public, I think many voters would be astonished.”
Why wouldn’t we believe it?? Their own actions have shown us even as they have said otherwise. RESULTS are what we ALL should be looking at as well as the FIGHT IN THE DOG. Have they been willing to use every tool at their disposal, made EVERY EFFORT? A political Party is supposed to be in opposition in a two party set up – and this shows us not that there’s no fight in the R dog, they’re happy for any scraps they get from the other Party’s table.
Following, advocating, fighting for Principles – on our side? No, not even close.
Jim Kofalt explains what the 603 Alliance is, what it has set out to do, and how it plans to do it. Do what? Unify Libertarians, Conservatives, Independents, and independent minded Republicans to avoid the quadrennial anointing of another progressive Republican presidential nominee. Listen to the entire program here Follow us on YouTube,USTREAM, Facebook, and … Read more
From Twitchy – Remember when David Axelrod said he knew nothing about Hillary’s private server..?
“…Tuesday night’s massive dump of State Department emails shows that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was exchanging emails with another man also named David Axelrod. It must be a different guy, because the one warning about the “email trap” didn’t know anything about Clinton’s private email server and personal email address.”
The New Hampshire University system announced an in-state tuition rate increase of 2.75% but that wasn’t supposed to happen.
UNH wanted $205 million from the next budget to (so they claim) avoid that increase and they had a list and names, and phones, and I imagine some pens as well but to no avail.
Governor Maggie Hassan asked the legislature for $181 Million dollars. The Legislature settled on $153 million Dollars, according to the Union Leader, but since the governor vetoed that budget, well, UNH is up the social justice creek without a bigger taxpayer funded bailout paddle.
If I ever get involved in one of those surveys, even as I have been the one to put up most of the Chris Christie YouTubes, that asks which Republican candidate you would never vote for, THAT’S when he would get my vote. Why? I detect Scott Brown with a wider waistband – from The Corner, a recounting (in part) of Christie’s sneers at the Second Amendment (emphasis mine):
The governor not only supported the 1994 federal “assault-weapons” ban, but he did so with an unlovely zeal. While running for the state assembly in 1995, candidate Christie described those who opposed Bill Cinton’s crime bill as “dangerous,” “crazy,” and “radical” peoplewho “must be stopped.” For good measure, he then willfully mischaracterized the soon-to-be-prohibited weapons as “automatic assault weapons,” which they were not. When the worthless federal ban expired in 2004, New Jersey retained its own version. Christie continues to support this, affirming in 2009 that he “supports all current gun laws” in New Jersey.
Take a read on Lisa Schiffren’s take on last week’s decisions and on the Culture War. I do agree on with her on this:
It’s been an unhappy week in conservative America. I won’t lie. Last week’s three big SCOTUS rulings on Obamacare, gay marriage and housing, and the race to destroy Confederate statuary—because bringing down the flag over the South Carolina statehouse isn’t enough—have been dispiriting. The dawning awareness that we no longer live in a Constitutional Republic, and that we cannot count on the rule of law or the plain meaning of words in legislation, is dive-under-the-covers depressing. If you believe, as I do, that liberalism unleashed has a lot in common with fascism, some dread accompanies evidence that constitutional restraints have been cut. The temptation to hide was strong.
And that’s just the set up.
“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over … Read more
The New Hampshire cell phone ban went in to force today. It is a complete ban on handheld electronic devices in the hands of drivers with very few exceptions. State and local police have voiced their plan for months. Aggressive enforcement. No tolerance.
What can we do when we depend on honesty in the beginning (like NH’s Kelly Ayotte campaigning that she was ABSOLUTELY against illegal alien amnesty) and once in their office, they do the opposite? A snippet of history on now Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has ruled on the issue of same sex marriage.
Then:
In response to a question from Sen. John Cornyn (at page 28 of her Senate Judiciary Questionnaire), Kagan stated flat out that there was no constitutional right for same sex couples to marry (emphasis mine):
1. As Solicitor General, you would be charged with defending the Defense of Marriage Act. That law, as you may know, was enacted by overwhelming majorities of both houses of Congress (85-14 in the Senate and 342-67 in the House) in 1996 and signed into law by President Clinton.
a. Given your rhetoric about the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy—you called it “a profound wrong—a moral injustice of the first order”—let me ask this basic question: Do you believe that there is a federal constitutional right to samesex marriage?
Answer: There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
Now:
“Choose his father well.”
As Grokster Susan (and my Youngest) say often: indeed. Forget about that pop culture is now telling us – raising a son, even a normal one (with both sons being ADHD, I’ll never know what the “easier side” of raising such was like) is not easy. Pop culture says to indulge YOURSELF – and let them do what they want. Nonsense! When you and your husband made to decision that could lead to having a baby boy, you owned that responsibility come hell or high water (or sometimes, both, and more). I came across this post a while ago on what I considered a good start of raising that son, and this lady said it well: best results start with choosing well with his father (emphasis mine):
Lately on Facebook, several versions of what it means to be a little boy’s mama have been circulating. They are touching, and bring a smile to your face, a touch of nostalgia, and perhaps even a tear to your eye. You are exhorted to have lots of energy, be ready to put up with bloody noses and reptiles in the house, see movies you don’t like, and various other true things.
We mamas of little boys have a tough job. We deserve a little smile as we ponder our muddy offspring. As I type this, my just recently de-mudded grandson is graciously allowing me a few minutes to recoup from a busy day of swimming, mud bogging, dump trucking, and hugging stinky dogs. His sister hung right in there with him. So, yes, we even need these moments that tell our hearts that our efforts are special moments that will unfold in a story book life for our beloved sons.
However, we also need some harder truths, and now is a good time to take a look at that. So, here’s my version, for what it’s worth.
(H/T: Liberal Logic 101)
The EPA’s power plant regulation overreach just got the thumbs down from the US Supreme Court. I’m formatting Justice Scalia’s decision for the majority (complete EPA decision on MICHIGAN ET AL. v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ET AL. here) to post for the wonky folks who like to get into the weeds, but for now I’ll leave you with this.
Turning to the mechanics of the hazardous-air-pollutants program, EPA argues that it need not consider cost when first deciding whether to regulate power plants because it can consider cost later when deciding how much to regulate them. The question before us, however, is the meaning of the “appropriate and necessary” standard that governs the initial decision to regulate.