Don’t worry – the Hate America Firsters are already calling this jingoistic

New Hampshire with American FlagAnd one would think that in the political center of American politics (no, not the State capitals as it once was supposed to be), Washington, D.C., with all of the patriotic statues and words by politicians (of both sides), this would be a no-brainer, something that happens all the time.  Sadly, just the fact that some intern had to write this and bring up this subject say much about the real climate in DC and the utter divide that that lays between not just the Left and Right, but from the Smart People in government who used to serve those of us “in the hinterlands”.  A perfect example, and result of, the difference between the Coasts and fly-over country in how each views this country and what each holds dear about this place we call home.  Pride of Country used to be taken for granted – now, because of Political Correctness, you could be an outcast at a party for saying just that.  Yet, this has gone viral:

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Starting to be that if you’re “just a Citizen”, just don’t bother – only “Professionals can / should to do that”

From The Corner:

“Only lawyers now can argue before Supreme Court.” That was the headline over this article. I’m sure that the new rule makes sense: that you have to be a lawyer, to argue before the Supreme Court. The last time a non-lawyer argued, it was 1978.

Still, doesn’t the professionalization of everything make you slightly uneasy?

Indeed!  Before Government (at any level) starts to touch a new area of Civil Society (before it totally absorbs it a la The Borg), it is Citizens living and interacting in voluntary fashions to, well, live their lives.  Have an interest, an activity you do with others, or something that you feel “hey, this is the US – I should be able to do anything!”, right?  Instead, the Bigger that Government gets, the more it costs – no, not in that it just keeps adding people to it and the cost of the payroll for those people skyrockets.  Rather, it requires, as the above suggests, that everyone that deals with Government has to become more expensive as well.

Two more examples are personal:

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GrokTALK! July 13th 2013 – the video

Grokster Steve has been doing yeoman’s work on doing all things GrokTALK! since we restarted a bit ago.  The decision was made was to start small and not go for broke like we’ve done in the past doing all kinds of things.  So, we started with just the audio podcast.  Then Steve hooked it up … Read more

What exactly is that?

The Live Feed:

MSNBC has hired Abby Huntsman, a host/producer on HuffPost Live and daughter of former GOP candidate Jon Huntsman, as a co-host of the political panel talk show, The Cycle.

“I am excited to bring a dose of moderate, rational conservatism to The Cycle,” Huntsman said on HuffPost Live on Wednesday. “I think that’s needed today in the political discourse.”

That would be Jon Huntsman, former GOP PRESIDENTIAL candidate (yes, it does make a difference).  Who governed, when a Governor, in a fairly conservative manner but then decided that the differential for him was to run (and certainly talk) as a moderate Republican.  Which, in the end, turned out badly as far as the primary results were concerned at the end of the trail (his stop in Laconia when he first started running was a disaster – I was there; a complete nothing burger compared to “the game” that the others brought.  Didn’t help his “first impression” that his aide-de-camps couldn’t spell his name right on the literature).

Now, I know Establishment Republican.  I know grassroots Republican.  I know political operative Republican. 

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The New Face of Racism

“Racism does not have a good track record. It’s been tried out for a long time and you’d think by now we’d want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management.”   —Dr. Thomas Sowell  The New Black Panther Party publicly offers up a bounty on George Zimmerman, despite a jury … Read more

Hey Harrell, Where does the New Hampshire Democrat Party Stand on Lynch Mobs?

Burning CrossIf you have not watched it yet, scroll down to Rick’s post and check out the Militant Black Panthers in their paramilitary garb, complete with rank insignia, announcing that they expect to have a million dollars in support from the entertainment industry (Rich liberals) and are paying a $10,000.00 reward for the capture of a Hispanic man?

The (New!) Black Panthers have engaged in actual voter intimidation and been encouraged by Obama and the Democrats when they refused to prosecute them; acts over which the New Hampshire Democrat Party Leadership, always sensitive to the most subtle forms of vote suppression, were not outraged.

Does Harrell have any juice in him to speak out against Obama-supporting Democrat lynch mobs paying a bounty to anyone willing to hunt down and capture a free citizen, tried and found innocent by a jury of their peers?  Does he have the juice to condemn the administration for failing or refusing to denounce it as well?

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Jeanne Shaheen Helps ‘Put the Fun’ Back in Fundraiser

Alternate Title–and a great name for a children’s book. “Anyone Seen Jeanne?”

pot-of-MoneyFilibusters are like ‘equality’ on the Democrat plantation. It’s only good when your kind of people are concerned.  Republican’s filibuster and it’s all about division, partisanship, stopping progress, obstruction of the will of the people.  Democrats do it and they are Jesus healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and protecting the future for our children–even when the filibuster is to ensure that babies never grow up to be children.

They’re Democrats, what else can I say?

Another thing that is like the filibusters is Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s office which, after a fashion,  filibustered on the whereabouts of New Hampshire’s senior Senator on the evening of a joint caucus session of the US Senate on the nuclear option–on the filibuster in the US Senate.  It was pretty important but Senator Shaheen was conspicuously absent.

So where was New Hampshire’s Senior Senator?

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The Evolution of Progressive Rule

bankruptcyCNN via Doubleyouemyouare

Detroit filed for bankruptcy Thursday afternoon, becoming the nation’s largest public sector bankruptcy. The move could slash pension benefits to city workers and retirees, and leave investors holding the city’s debt with only pennies on the dollar.

In the end, all that support public union support for unsustainable government is for naught.  It’s a Ponzi scheme.  It’s the airplane game.  The goal is to load up your “plane,” get your payoff, and get out before it all collapses.   Is it the natural evolution of the progressive process, by which a multigenerational “family” of transient Democrat ideologues, creates a one-party fiefdom and exchanges favors to unions for winning elections, while making promises with other people’s money out to two or three generations of taxpayers not yet born.

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So, did Michelle O’s version of Big Government all over our kids food work out?

school lunch- that no one is eating?Conservatives believe that the best government is a limited one and the closer to to the Citizens it is supposed to serve, the better.  That way, it is much easier for Citizens to correct the actions and decisions made by their public servants. After all, local is where life is lived and when things go wrong, best to fix it when problems are small.

Progressives, however, believe in the exact opposite – move the locus of power as close to a national level as possible; after all, our Public Masters don’t need to hear from the peons (so as to better formulate how they will tell us how the public will live their lives) – after all, THEY are the experts!  Really!:

First lady Michelle Obama’s signature healthy eating initiative – the plan that’s been pushed onto school lunch menus around the nation — is causing too many problems and demands speedy overhaul, a government watchdog agency found.

One of the biggest recommendations: Give local schools more control over their lunch menus.

THAT must be a hard pill to swallow (or would that be arugula?).  She started this process absolutely convinced that she and her cadre of Smart People had THE answers to all of our school lunch problems that were helping to further the obesity problem caused by junk food lunch times.  Yeah, that single admission should be all that is needed and totally refutes, for this example, that:

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The Zimmerman Trial Was Always About Stand Your Ground

I started writing this as a comment to Skip’s post (here) but then realized it was too long.

Stand Your Ground was never brought up at the Zimmerman trial but I think that was intentional.   It was never about Zimmerman.  It was always about Stand Your Ground and the left’s anti-gun agenda.  He’s just a vehicle for the narrative.   They just had to get someone to put him on trial.  Win or lose the narrative has got legs.

If they lose the case this leads to low info-voter-racially motivated public protest, which equals the appearance of public support for the real agenda.  If the Win–if Zimmerman was found guilty–then they use that as a catalyst to move against stand your ground and castle doctrine, and self-defense in general.

The Obama admin’s mission from day one was to find someone to charge him and try him.  The outcome was irrelevant to the real goal.  And so they applied pressure where needed to make a trial happen.

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The President Who Shrank Government

I’m reading this biography.  So when Mike told me he saw the video on Calvin Coolidge at the end of the last one I just posted (I missed it), well – we had to post that as well. Acclaimed historian Amity Shlaes explains how Coolidge did more by doing less and why his governing style … Read more

Are these two things alike: Jay Carney & Obamacare, and the Iraq War and “Baghdad Bob”

Baghdad BobIt’s been a while since folks have mentioned Baghdad Bob – the Iraqi Information Minister who seemingly, during the 2003 Iraq War, wanted to be an actor (and used Kevin Bacon’s character from Animal House as a model “ALL IS WELL!”) official spokesperson in the green uniform that defended Saddam Hussein.  The funniest time was when speaking to the Western press in Baghdad, telling them that the US led allies were on the run – and a US Abrams A1 tank roared by a few streets in the background.

Well, is another press flacker, Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney, in a slow motion version of a Baghdad Bob moment?  CNSNews reports that he denies that the impending implementation of Obamacare is having any negative effect on the economy – like that it is skewing the jobs picture in that many more part-time jobs are being created at the expense of full-time jobs:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that the suggestion that Obamacare is reducing full-time employment is “belied by the facts.”

After reports that businesses are shifting to employ more part-time workers in light of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Carney was asked if the White House is considering making changes to the requirement that employers with more than 50 employees must provide full-time workers with health insurance. A full-time worker is defined as a person working at least 30 hours per week.

“Well, I would say broadly that if you look at the economic data, the suggestion that the ACA is reducing full-time employment is belied by the facts,” Carney said…”what I can say is the data reflects that there is not, there is not support for the proposition that businesses are not hiring full-time employees because of the Affordable Care Act,” he said.

“ALL IS WELL!”  Well, sure it is, pardner!  Oh, that “tank”?  From the same post:

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Would a less cynical person think this?

OK, the Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder just spoke to the NAACP convention.  Just before this, we saw:

  • The Sanford, FL police Chief decides not to charge George Zimmerman for lack of evidence
  • His Department of Justice sent down folks to “persuade” the the City Fathers to oust the Chief
  • With further “prodding”, Zimmerman is arrested (much to the satisfaction of the DoJ)
  • The DoJ sent down members of its Community Relations Division to “counsel” community activists
  • The DoJ seemingly applied pressure to the Republicans Governor (Rick Scott) and Attorney General Bondi (whom we have interviewed) to appoint a special prosecutor Angela Corey (who had also ‘been in communications” with the DoJ).
  • Corey then overcharges Zimmerman, and is now coming out, withheld evidence from the Defense team (illegally, I might add)
  • Put a bad strategy in place (what can you do with a paucity of evidence to support the overcharges)
  • Loses the verdict, and then blithely stokes the racial fires by ignoring the jury verdict and calling Zimmerman a murderer.
  • DoJ is on site, again.

So, when all is said and done, the verdict in, what does Holder say?  Which, in context with the above, could be construed as opening up a Fast and Furious V2.0?  Manufacturing another “man-made disaster”?

Race was not an issue in the courtroom when it came to the actual legal issues – the Law strictly defines murder, manslaughter, and hate crimes levels and both sides and the Judge agreed on the jury instructions as they they pertained to the legal points.  Certainly race has been an issue in the court of public opinion as well as the discussion of self-defense on both sides.  However, the argument of “Stand Your Ground”, valid in FL and here in NH, was NOT used during any arguments.  Nada, no way, nein – it was not brought into the courtroom as part of the defense strategy.  Yet, what does Holder say?

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Why Harrell and the NHDP Went Crazy Over Andy Sanborn’s Offhand Remark.

tantrum
When Democrats Want to get their way…

What Andy Sanborn actually said was next to nothing in the grand scheme of crap issued from the mouths of Democrats and summarily ignored or dismissed.  But NHDP Spokes-Kid, Harrell ‘Jersey Shore’ Kirstein snapped like a dried twig stepped on by a troll looking for a bridge to terrorize.   Total over-reaction.  In fact,  the Democrat party response was so dramatic and so over the top it deserves a nomination for left wing for tantrum of the year.

So why the nomination in the “even more over-dramatic than usual fear-mongering from the Democrat State party over a person, issue, or statement” category?

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Hey, Eric Holder? Now here is a REAL discrimination suit your DOJ should file!

Saudi Arabian ArlinesWith the verdict of the George Zimmerman / Trayvon Martin trial igniting a sense of rage (fanned by the usual race-baiting suspects who scream “RAACISTS!” even at a simple cross eyed face), Eric Holder (the most politicized US Attorney General EVAH!) has waded in and announced “Thank you, State of Florida – we’ll take it from here”.  I’m no lawyer but after reading and watching legal folks from both sides of the aisle, it would seem to be a Mt. Everest type legal climb to file, persecute prosecute, and win a conviction of civil rights violation (and climbing two Mt. Everest to gain a criminal civil rights conviction).

However – here’s a gimme!  An outright example of religious AND racial discrimination!  Not only that – they’ve got HUGE pockets full of dollars!  Petro-dollars, that is:

Saudi Arabian Airlines reportedly is discriminating against Israeli citizens by refusing to let them fly from U.S. airports.

The New York Post reported that for customers booking on online, the airline’s website has no drop-down menu options for anyone holding an Israeli passport, even though, as the Post pointed out, there is a drop-down menu option for Antarctica citizens. The airline appears to prevent passengers simply looking to transfer in Saudi Arabia to another country, as well.

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Obama’s Executive Order: er, you’re missing the most important element

Obamacare-ScrewedAs an engineer, I am trained not to treat a symptom of something that has gone wrong – the real job is to find and correct the root problem, that ‘disease’ that causes the symptom to show up in the first place.  Often, in what can be complicated systems, the symptoms show up in a place in which one goes “huh?” and only when debugging has led to the source of destruction (not an easy task, given the many layers of software from multiple vendors each ‘not quite lining up’ with agreed upon protocols and) can one go “THAT was interesting”.  That latter word, interesting, has an “engineer’s definition”: intellectually stimulating, but boy, this is going to hurt for a while.  Interesting problems are fun to work on (if you can stand the stress and heat of “why isn’t this fixed YET!”) because they are interesting.  But when you are told to eliminate a major area of investigation and you know that order is “other than for technical reasons”, it gets real hard to satisfy “why isn’t this fixed YET!”.

It is the same problem in Politics, when a real source must never be discussed because it is Politically Incorrect (emphasis mine, reformatted):

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After fresh criticism of his record on combating HIV/AIDS, President Barack Obama on Monday ordered a stepped up effort to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States.  An executive order from the White House, which follows renewed criticism of Obama’s AIDS strategy during his visit to Africa in late June and early July, called for better coordination of the national effort. Obama’s order said that recent studies had shown that aggressive testing and early treatment can have a significant impact in preventing transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS.

Well, they have two out of the three sources named.  But just like with the ill-named War on Terror (a war on a tactic?  No, but politically correct hacks can’t say Islamists) where the truth can’t be publicly stated, it can’t be done in this issue (for fear of hacking off other special interest groups):

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FacePalm moment: why didn’t *I* think of this!

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — (…) And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

-Barack Obama

Well, so far, the Feds are STILL not spending wisely nor being held to account

Sidenote: ($17 Trillion in the hole, thank you very much!  Oh, but did you see that the abysmal (according to Progressives) Sequestration helped to give the Fed a SURPLUS this month!  What was that NH saying…something like “low taxes is the result of”….ummm…help me out here….).

Anyways, I saw this $487K waste of our money, and the first thought was “I could have underbid this and save the Feds LOTS of money” and not only that, but doing my part in Saving The Planet! (emphasis mine, reformatted):

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Obama Care is Just Another Laser Pointer And You Are All Cats.

morpheusI recently reiterated my oft-said point on GrokTALK! this week that you can’t be a principled Republican and support unions; voting against Right to Work for example mandates employee funding of the Democrat machine and everything it tries to destroy.  And Obama Care was just the biggest, most recent example.  Unions were all in.  They spent millions on Democrats, ran a ground game, even counter-protested TEA Party opposition across the nation, including here in New Hampshire.

We tried to warn them.  But they didn’t listen.  They put ideology before principle, heck, before history, math, and even common sense.  They took the Blue pill–the blissful ignorance of illusion.  But the reality of what Obama Care will really do has finally come home to roost with the Union leadership boys and girls.  Nothing is free.  Someone or somehow “IT” has to paid for.   And the Union Leadership has discovered that Obama Care is NOT good for American Workers.

To quote Morpheus from the Matrix, “Welcome to the real world.”

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Why Didn’t New Hampshire Democrats Pop a Gasket Over Comparing ObamaCare to a Huge Train Wreck?

Heartless, Callous Train Wreck Picture
Heartless, Callous Train Wreck Picture

I’m curious.  When can we expect Harrell Kirstein and the New Hampshire Democrat party leadership to go off the rails over US Senator Max Baucus’ (Democrat) statement that compared Obama care to a huge Train wreck?

Train wrecks have been on the rise and are responsible for multiple deaths and hundreds of injuries.  Just this year alone there have been wrecks in Baltimore, DC, Paris, Argentina, and recently in Canada where at least 35 people have died.

And yet…no demands that the Democrat party to disavow or distance themselves from Senator Baucus?  No tantrums over his connections to boards or committees that make policy decisions about the misnamed Patient Affordable Care Act or Medicaid expansion?  No broad sweeping statements about Baucus being heartless or callous?  Shouldn’t you at least write something for fear of being branded yet again as an ideological, uber-partisan left-wing hypocrite?

Wait.  Let me help you out with that.

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