On January 30th, when Andrew Hemingway announced his run for governor, I wrote this…

I do have to ask the obvious question before I close. Now that we have a Republican candidate the establishment might not be in love with, running against a very weak Democrat opponent, will there be a dash to file a moderate and then some faux-conservative to make sure the moderate wins a primary and loses the general, or will the NH-GOP count themselves lucky and come together behind one candidate from now until November?

Well, it looks like the moderate insiders have a potential primary candidate to run against Hemingway.  He is having ‘informal’ discussions with a small group of ‘Republicans’ about the ‘possibility’ of running for governor.

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Dear NH State Senators:

As a conservative Republican, the current debate underway regarding Medicaid Expansion in the NH is most disconcerting. The Republican Party platform supports small, accountable government. I cannot comprehend why any Republican would look to expand Medicaid in the Granite State.  Certainly, the allure of federal dollars doesn’t trump our Republican Platform, or does it?  Under the Health portion of the NH Republican Platform it clearly states, “Oppose the implementation of Obamacare in New Hampshire”.  I truly fear this expansion plan will be the final stake through the heart of the NH Republican Party.

As a strong believer in taking the high (and often more difficult) road, we simply should not allow fear of being the “party of no”, to lead us down the wrong road.  Instead, we should take up the banner of truth and EXPLAIN why NH does not want to follow this federal usurpation of our states’ rights. Certainly, there is a way to insure those who are in true need of healthcare here in NH. The Republican majority in the NH Senate needs to LEAD. Polls support the decline of “Obamacare” in NH and indeed throughout the nation. The easy road is to “go along to get along”.  The more difficult road is to try to actually solve the problem at hand in way which doesn’t lose NH sovereignty or the destruction of our political party.

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“It is because the base no longer Trusts what happens after “winning” that this is an issue.”

On This Week with “Mr.  wContraceptive in Presidential Debates” (that would be George Stephanopolous, Clinton’s Vonderkind, turned Democrat “journalist”) was this clip from NJ Gov. Chris Christie:

Our party’s priority should be on winning. Not winning the argument.  Winning the election.

The problem is, the base disagrees.  Yes, winning is important but that seems to be the only point to Republican Republicans, the Establishment Republicans.  Then there seems to be some kind of black hole stretching into the future as to what what happens next.  Tell us, what is the important that that comes after that – for that IS the argument that is roiling the GOP Civil War.  The base, the newly awakened to politics folks that rushed to the polls to stop the Progressive onrush, wants to know – how are you, the Establishment Republican “leaders” going to stop the Leftward March of the country and the State of NH.  It seems like the Establishment wing of the Party doesn’t want to be either questioned about that, or answerable to that main question.

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I’m comforted and encouraged to know that Mark Levin also shares my outrage and concern about the Orange One’s lack of spine, brain and principled compass. He’s calling it just as I have. I love that guy, can’t listen to him as much as I’d like, but he did appear on Cavuto’s show yesterday.  Below is the article from The Daily Caller (emphasis mine), with my comments interspersed.  To read an unadulterated version and watch the video click here.

He’s right on.

Conservative radio host Mark Levin attacked Republican leadership after Congress passed the farm bill and raised the debt ceiling, exclaiming, “We need a new Republican party.”

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Here’s a lesson for doctors and hospitals, patients and practitioners, and everyone else except Republican’s in the New Hampshire Senate, and New Hampshire Democrats–neither of whom care about anything but taking the money.

Powerline

Linking to this New York Times story, James Taranto wrote here earlier this week about the tangled fate of Obamacare in Arkansas. Coincidentally, Dr. Samuel Vallery wrote us from Hot Springs, Arkansas with a personal take:

I am a long time reader of Power Line. I am a 51 year old, solo ENT specialist, practicing in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I have been in practice here for 19 years. I have watched with horror, as the Obama administration and Democrat congressional colleagues have steamrolled this nation with Obamacare.

When the state of Arkansas decided to take money from the federal government to dramatically expand Medicaid enrollment and to also create the “private option,” I decided that I was going to swim upstream, and refuse to see any of those patients. In my area, Blue Cross/Blue Shield has contracted with the Feds. What they have done is roll Obamacare (the “private option”) and Medicaid into the Blue Cross “TrueBlue” PPO. A large number of private, otherwise insured patients are also in this PPO.

The plan is to force Arkansas physicians to take Medicaid/Obamacare patients at ridiculously reduced reimbursement rates.

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I’m not the mainstream right wing media, but I can answer the question…

Jonathan Cohn asked an interesting question at The New Republic this week. Where is the mainstream, right-wing reaction to NFL prospect and SEC defensive player of the year Michael Sam’s announcement that he is gay?

I’m having the same reaction to that as I would to this. “Where is the mainstream, right-wing reaction to NFL prospect and SEC defensive player of the year Michael Sam’s eating a cheeseburger with fries and a soda?”

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The Hill

Asked if the IRS should play a more active role policing political advocacy by groups that claim to be focused on social welfare, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) responded, “Absolutely.”

“Both on the left and the right,” she said. “As taxpayers, we should not be providing a write-off to groups to do political activity, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

She called the glut of political spending by self-described social welfare groups that qualify under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code “outrageous.”

Shaheen is in a good position now but could find herself embroiled in a tight campaign if former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) challenges her.

Both on the left and the right?  Really?

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“Cossetted, craven, wussies or just contemptible charlatans?” That’s how I initially started this post. But things changed as I was writing it.

I’ve been mostly absent from my perch here at the Grok due to other pressing responsibilities, but this past week, against the backdrop of the previous week, just made me wretch and I need to sound off. And so I shall.

It’s becoming more and more difficult to find an elegant way to say some things, so I’ll drop the multi-syllabics and drop into more modest vernacular.

John Boehner sucks. Eric Cantor sucks. Jeb Bradley sucks. Chuck Morse sucks. The GOP “leadership” blows, within New Hampshire and without. That’s right sucking and blowing. That’s their skill. The adroit practice of inhaling and exhaling vacuous rhetoric. And the steamy motes flitting in and out in their putrescent tainted breath is simply anything that will further their political ambitions. They’re a self-serving bunch with principles and values that go no higher nor further than the next election or next contribution.

They’re swine. No, sheep.

Anyone remember this sheep in the wolf’s clothing remark last December?

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Heh! (emphasis mine):

S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley said Tuesday that she backs a proposal that would make it legal for most South Carolinians to carry guns – concealed or in the open – without a permit or the training that the state currently requires.

Haley made her comments after she signed into law a bill that allows gun owners with licenses to carry concealed weapons into businesses that serve alcohol – restaurants and bars – as long as they do not drink alcohol and the businesses did not bar guns.

After signing the restaurant and bar bill, Haley said she backs a pending state Senate bill, called the “Constitutional Carry Act,” that would eliminate the state’s current permitting and training requirements for citizens who wish to carry firearms.

Gunlaws.com puts the idea like this: “No tests. No taxes. No paperwork. No fingerprints in the criminal database. No photographs. No expiration dates. No plastic-coated permission slip. Just rights. For all law-abiding adults.”

I am quite sure that people like Zandra Rice-Hawkins (of that out of state funded Progressive organization, Granite State Progress) and hoary blogger Susan the Bruce

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The process of ending HB 1589 began with the vote to amend the bill and turn it into a committee to…  study the correlation between current New Hampshire law and the low violent crime rate in this state.

Democrats cry, and whine, and demand, and spout their talking points about guns and background checks, misrepresenting facts at every turn, but the biggest barrier is their inability or unwillingness to explain why states with the strictest gun laws have more crime while states like New Hampshire and Vermont (with very loose or open gun laws) consistently have the lowest violent crime rates in the nation.

Turns out, most NH Democrats still don’t want to look at that.  They were happy to kill it altogether rather than subject themselves to the reality.  New Hampshire’s low crime rate has a lot to do with its strong defense of second amendment rights.

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What are we doing? Why are the leaders of our party—the party that is supposed to stand for balanced budgets and fiscal sanity—giving up on the fight? Why did our party’s leadership essentially caucus with the Democrats in order to work against us?

2010 was the year that the TEA Party fed furor over the socializing and increasing size & reach of Govt had common everyday people get involved to say “Enough – no more”.  It gave the Republicans in the House, where they hold the power of the purse, a majority. We heard lots of promises during the campaign and a lot of words during the start of that session, among them “limited govt”, debt ceiling”, “spending” and “taxes”.  Fiscal frugality, here we come!

Yeah.  Sure. Charlie Brown in the grassroots and today, the DC Republicans in the House AND the Senate assumed their normal role of Lucy and the football.  Over and over again, we heard from these “brave” solons that we were not to worry – THEY would take charge and implement fiscal sanity.  And today, against all Republican Principle, the Platform, and the promises made during their campaigns and rhetoric spewed the last couple of years, they handed their Constitutional power of the purse over to Obama.  They voted, with no shame it seems, to suspend the debt ceiling (enacted in 1905) until March of 2015.  NO limit, no covenants, no promises from the most UNlimited spending President we’ve ever had.  One that has already spent $7.7 Trillion in 6 years.  And now has his hands completely unbound.  Yeah, this is gonna work out well.

As the Youngest said: I call you cowards.

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