Today the House Oversight Committee released emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner exposing her efforts to hide the contents of conversations from the the eyes of Congress. In addition to warning staff to “be cautious” about what they said in email, she inquired as to whether chat conversations on the internal instant messaging service were being saved in a searchable format. When told the data would only be saved if someone copied and pasted them to a file or email, Lerner replied “perfect”.

Here is some email…

[gview file=”http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Lerner-email-use-2.pdf” save=”1″]

Video on the Jump…

Read more

NH CD-2 residents are being called by SSI Market Research and surveyed or polled with regard to the Republican primary race in New Hampshire’s second congressional district.

A female caller, so far all the recipients report the pollster as female (Caller ID Number is 603 968 5504), relates a list of accomplishments for candidate Gary Lambert.  Gary has some of those so that’s fair enough.  But the pollster refused to tell them who was running the survey until the end.  And before you get to the end, there were a series of points about his opponent, Marilinda Garcia, that appear to fit the definition of a push-poll.

Read more

The Club For Growth issued a followup to their endorsement of New Hampshire CD-2 Candidate for Congress, Marilinda Garcia.  In their missive they reiterate their support for Garcia, and make a clarion call for donations to support her.  But they also take a shot at her opponent Gary Lambert.  Given my recent posts on push polling attributed to the Lambert campaign, and the negative patina they have tried to paint on Ms. Garcia, I though I’d take a moment to share Club For Growth’s Opinion of her and of her opponent, State Senator Gary Lambert.

Read more

Lightbringer is having a rhetoric deficit on just about every front.  Obama has treated the US Economy like a rental car.  He has only taken a middling interest in international matters, and only when he thought it might burnish his street cred.  The problem there is that he never had any cred to burnish.  The international community was briefly enamoured with him but only because they saw how weak he was.  A weak American President leaves plenty of room for other players to “improve their market share.”

Most of the problems we now face are a result of other powers filling the vacuum Mr. Obama has created.

Regardless of that, Mr. Obama is about as respected a world leader as a blow up doll at a frat party.  He is welcomed around the globe as a novelty, and a way to improve the status of the locals who, by comparison, appear brilliant–because by comparison, they are.

Read more

Senator Stiles is Not What She Seems

After reading Rep. Fred Rice’s glowing support of Senator Nancy Stiles [here and after the jump  -Skip], I felt it important to put forth a challenge to his endorsement.  As a member of the 2013-2014 House of Representatives – Belknap District 8, I saw up close and personal, the disturbing voting record of REPUBLICAN Nancy Stiles.  Here are a few of her REPUBLICAN votes:

• Support of NH Gas Tax (23% increase)
• Support Medicaid Expansion (against the Republican Platform)
• Support the “Buffer Zone” law (which the Supreme Court recently voted as UNCONSTITUTIONAL)
• Supports Common Core in NH Schools
• Supports an anti-gun legislation

If you look at Senator Stiles voting record, you will find many of her votes grow government.  There are those who believe Nancy Stiles is really more of a Democrat than a Republican.  I tend to agree.  The Republican taxpayers in Senate District 24 should consider Senator Stile’s deviation from the largest planks of the Republican Platform.  If you want a Democrat, you can vote for a Democrat.  But, Republicans should expect their public servants to vote with AT LEAST with the larger planks in the platform.  Stiles does not.  Her primary opponent, Steve Kenda, is a true conservative Republican who espouses low taxation and smaller government.  You can check out Steve Kenda @ Kenda4senate.com.

Read more

From the latter part of his post:

…It’s ironic. In 2009, conservatives (myself included) pounced when Barack Obama seemed to dismiss American exceptionalism as an empty platitude. “I believe in American exceptionalism,” Obama explained, “just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Which is to say, there is no such thing as American Exceptionalism.  One of my favorite phrases comes from an animated film – The Incredibles – a nuclear family that has to hide its superpowers from those that are envious (and thus believe them to be “unfair”):  “If everyone is special, then no one is special”.  And that was the point that Obama was and continues to make (and make true) – that America isn’t and shouldn’t be anything special.

By this standard, American exceptionalism isn’t exceptional, it’s a vague and meaningless form of national self-esteem, rather than a complex concept describing the uniqueness of the American founding and American character.

And that is what most Liberals wish to forget and for the rest of us as well – 

Read more

So, what used to be 1% is now 2.5%.  Sure, it SOUNDS like just a bit more – but it has a large effect on all other new mortgage rates.  It also shows that the vaunted recovery touted by Obama is not as strong as years before (which was pretty much steady-state before the community activists starting knuckling banks via CRA).  But it gets worse:

Read more