Steve already had part of the Editorial up, speaking that Brown refuses to be on the hot seat – there’s always a scheduling conflict that is the ready answer.  This is the part that got my attention (emphasis mine):

Back in April, Scott Brown, the former U.S. senator from Massachusetts, announced his “Obamacare Isn’t Working Tour,” which followed closely on the heels of his “Main Streets and Living Rooms Tour.” That last one took him to all 10 New Hampshire counties as a run-up to his announcement that he would seek the New Hampshire seat in the U.S. Senate now held by Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

Brown this week announced his “Making Energy Affordable Tour.”

That’s all well and good, but it’s time Brown started his “The Public is Entitled to Some Answers Tour.”

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From the Union Leader (emphasis mine, reformatted):

One Medicaid managed-care company leaving the state

CONCORD — Meridian Health Plan, one of the three managed-care companies administering the state Medicaid program, will withdraw June 30.  Meridian, based in Detroit, Mich., said it wants to focus on its core businesses in the Midwest.  With the NH Health Protection Program beginning this year, Meridian and the Department of Health and Human Services agreed a summer withdrawal would minimize disruption to the program and newly eligible patients.  “We will work quickly with the company to develop a transition plan that protects Meridian members,” said Health and Human Services Commissioner Nicholas Toumpas. “Meridian’s members and providers can be assured that we will work very closely with Meridian on how best to transition their members to our other two MCOs.”

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“I’m at the breaking point,” said Gretchen Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8,500 this year.“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”

Buy that park.  Buy that library.  Buy more schools.  Buy light rail (think Boston’s Green line).  Buy EVERYTHING for that foundational Progressive saying “It’s about the quality of life!”.  Sure it is – for there is NO connection between having Government do more and more for your quality of life and the cost of the same.  Congratulations, Gretchen, you just “only a cuppa coffee a day” yourself out of the neighborhood for every spending project possible – how’s that “Java tank truck” of your’s getting for mileage now?  You wanted it, you voted for it – and now you are complaining that you’ve priced yourself out of your own home?   While on my Budget Committee in my hamlet, I fought against new or expanded projects because I KNOW the people that can’t keep up with rising property taxes.  But this one, that did it to herself?  Hoisted on her own petard, logically speaking – no sympathy for this one.

We think of Texas as being this really Conservative state – but just like Portsmouth or the college towns here in NH, Austin is a dot of Liberal Progressive blue in a sea of red.  Liberal?  Check.  High taxes?  Check.  Looking for a scapegoat instead of looking at yourself and said “maybe we shouldn’ta bought all that stuff“?  Check (emphasis mine, reformatted):

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 Jeanne Shaheen Is Thankful for Bowe Bergdahl’s ‘Courage’

June 2, 2014

U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) released the following statement after it was announced that Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was being released after five years in captivity in Afghanistan:

“I was so grateful to hear of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl’s release after five years in captivity. His release is an incredible testament to our military and our country’s commitment to leaving no one behind on the battlefield. I am looking forward to him being reunited with his family soon and am thankful for his service, his sacrifice, and his courage.”

Bowe Bergdahl appears to have been a deserter and terrorist sympathizer who aided and abetted the enemy. It also seems clear that he was portrayed as a prisoner of war so he could be exchanged for as many high ranking Taliban leaders as could be managed.

Obama and his administration fell for it, probably clawing for some semblance of foreign policy win. Jeanne Shaheen did what she always does–went along with Obama for the ride. But Bowe is looking a lot like a suicide bomber without the bomb–potentially trading his life for five leading Taliban terrorists.

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President Peace Prize, NH’s Jeanne Shaheen, even Congresspersons Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes (Paul Who?), claimed that Afghanistan was the war we should be fighting.

Well, after six years under Obama (with Shaheen on the hook for six years as well), guess what?  It’s Their War.  This is Obama’s War.  It is Jeanne Shaheen’s War.

Why is Afghanistan, as Bob Woodward correctly termed it, Obama’s war? Del Castillo’s sharp pencil work shows that during the period 2002-2013, $650 billion have been appropriated for the Afghan war effort, and a whopping $487.5 billion of that (or 75%) took place after President Obama took office (see accompanying chart).

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