So, how come this doesn’t work with Education?

“We should be working to make sure that high quality health care is provided to the uninsured to make sure the full range of health care services, including family planning services that are available to people with money are available to the poor and uninsured as well,” Nadler said. That would be Congressman Jerry Nadler … Read more

Internet Doodlings – Transport NH doesn’t like me much

I wonder if they know TreeHugger??

TransportNH seems to be yet another one of the “Sustainable Community Initiative” type websites  as in “let’s complain how rural New Hampshire is so unlike urban dominated Big States”.  For YEARS, I have been commenting about the local version of “Public Transportation” here locally in Central New Hampshire – two Winnipesaukee Transit System buses whose only purpose, it seems, is to keep a couple of bus drivers employed.  In fact, when I raised the issue a few years ago on how empty they were every time I passed one of them (1, maybe 2 people), they went and tinted the windows.  Given the fixed costs and the ridership (I got their budget, too), they might as well give a $20 voucher to the private cab services in town and end up spending taxpayer money more efficiently.

Stupid buses are still traveling the road – still mostly empty.  But I digress; back to a post I left a comment on – back on April 24:

What if you couldn’t drive?

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Rebecca Harris

Concerns about Public Transportation in New Hampshire:Transit:

  •  19% of New Hampshire residents are concerned about losing their ability to drive in the next few years.
  • 53% of New Hampshire adults would find getting things in the community difficult if they needed to use crutches or a wheelchair for at least 4 weeks.
  • No public transportation system exists for more than 80% of New Hampshire’s communities.

Data Source: Feb. 2006 Granite State Poll

From the Institute on Disability at UNH

So, I decided to try and start a conversation:

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In the looking glass…

Obama has met the enemy and this time, it may be the Internet?

The Icing on The Accountability Cake

c/o Ed Morrissey… In my column today forthe Fiscal Times, I argue that this epidemic of sudden incompetence and ignorance completely undermines the argument for large, activist government.  That’s true whether one believes that these executives are either telling the truth or lying about their knowledge and involvement: So what are we to think about … Read more

Coming Up On The Next Edition of GrokTALK!

This week when we assemble in Concord, New Hampshire to record the next edition of GrokTALK! out guests will be… Kate Baker, the Executive Director at The Network for Educational Opportunity; Laura Condon, New Hampshire State Director of Advocacy for the National Vaccine Information Center; Karen Testerman, Former Candidate for Governor of New Hampshire and … Read more

O on Terrorism, Striking Foreign and Domestic Intersections

Yesterday, the pusillanimous powder puff currently lounging in the Oval Office gave a speech on the “war on terror”. Below are some of the lines that struck me as interesting given the current maelstrom of power abuse scandals spinning around the great eared one.

Oblow-hardia:

“We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society. What we can do – what we must do – is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend.”

Naturally, the “networks that pose a direct danger” is in the eye of the beHolder. Given the recent lens that many more now peer through to clearly make out this administration’s penchant for abusing power and disrupting networks of American citizens it’s hard not to know what else he’s referring to. 

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New Hampshire State Senate Nixes Medicaid Expansion in Budget

By a vote of 4 – 2 Senate budget writes have ‘Just said No’ to the proposed Medicaid expansion option tied to the “Eliminate Any Hope Of Affordable Care Act,” frequently misrepresented as the ‘Affordable Care Act,’ or ObamaCare.  Speaking for the majority, State Senate Majority Leader Peter Bragdon, who happens to be State Senator, said something incredibly intelligent.

“I’m not a big fan of spending a whole lot of money on something that seems to me to have some doubts as to whether or not it is effective.”

To which I would add, “Oh, Yeah- so why do we still have RGGI?”

Cheap shot.  Sorry.

Well he happens to be right in this case.  And don’t be fooled by the fools like Senator D’Allesanrdo who say things like this…

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CALL TO ACTION: SB48 passed the House Ed Committee.

From Ann Marie Banfield c/o Facebook
CALL TO ACTION:

SB48 passed the House Ed Committee. 

The good news is that both the Democrats and Republicans had ISSUES with ASSESSING “Dispositions”. That word was removed with an amendment.

Unfortunately schools will be labeled “Priority” and “Focus” schools based upon the standardized assessment results.

This means that if your students do not perform well on the standardized assessment that is ALIGNED TO COMMON CORE, your school could end up identified as a “Priority or Focus” school.

“You Have To Ask Me Nicely”

Ms. Pillsbury, Please advise where I may obtain electronic or hard copies of each of the “handouts” detailed in Attachment 1 of the 2010 Interim Report of the Commission to Study Water Infrastructure Sustainability Funding, created by SB 60, Chapter 245:1, Law of 2009, as well as all commission meeting minutes and notes. For ease … Read more

NH Senate Votes 19-5 to Table HB 135

The NH Senate has tabled HB 135, the Deputy Dawg Shurtleff House passed bill that would have repealed stand your ground in New Hampshire and replaced it with Run Away or else go to court and have them tell you a year later…yeah, you should have run away. Bad bill. Tabling is not death, however. … Read more

IRS As Political Hammer, Not the First Time, Nor the Last, Unless…

Sometimes blogging is about creative commentary and piquing the other side while, hopefully, providing a different perspective. Other times, it’s just about spreading information. This is one of those times. I initially dressed this up with all sorts of semi-wittiness (heavy on the “semi”) reminiscent of a tired comic strip, but the length of the blog was inordinately long, so I trimmed it down, but if it’s still too long, I urge you to at least read the brief IRS history of abuse further below.

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Casino Bill was Defeated by Large Margin, 199-164 [Updated and Bumped]

From Spec Bowers…

Casino bill was defeated by large margin, 199-164. I thought it would be close.

I thought it would be closer as well but gambling is one of those issues that has broad bi-partisan opposition.    There are factions on the left that are hard core progressive wellsprings that oppose gambling as if they actually had morals or something.  And I think Hassan over-reached when she presented a budget as if the gambling money was a given.

Bad idea.   I think that turned the Democrats who might have considered easing into it on the other side of a fence they were too pissed off to cross.

And let us face facts. Gambling is just not a good fit for the Granite state given the dynamics of the region, it has not delivered on its promises in the Northeast, and in the end it is a crutch for growing government on more false promises.

Update: According to Jim Rubens from the Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling, after the Casino vote there was a motion to reconsider.  That motion failed 212-155.

Jim’s email on the jump

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Robin Hoods vs. Parking Enforcement Officers!

EEEK!!! Free State Project Parking meter coins!
EEEK!!! FSP parking meter coins!!!

Robin Hoods win.

Heh: The Free State Project’s “Keeniacs” are at it again. It seems that a bunch of libertarians down in Keene have become modern-day Robin Hoods. They roam Keene searching for cars where parking meters are about to expire…and then pop in some more coins. Great fun! (And, not incidentally, less money for the state/county/town or whatever level of government sucks up the parking ticket dough…which is a good thing. They also…

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IRS Scandal: TEA Party, Constitutionalists, 9/12ers, Romney donors – but they added this group to the audit list?

Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen a litany of the groups that have been targeted by the IRS simply because they are opposed to:

  • Obama’s policies and Presidency
  • a large governmental bureaucracy that continues to insert itself into more and more simply by dint of regulation (in addition to “enabling” legislation)

The entrenched bureaucracy, with a heavy list to Left / Democrat ideology, has proven Conservatives right.  They have now admitted to it, kinda non-apologized apologized for it, and now realize, with the taking of the Fifth Amendment today, with criminal intent (possibly).  But at least there was a reason – these Government workers believed that they were defending the ramparts of their castle against the barbarians that just can’t get it through their Neaderthalic heads that we all NEED Government – the more the better for all.  And make no mistake, this is a on-going, almost hot, war going between we who believe that least government is best government so as to allow for the greatest amount of personal Liberty and those that believe Government knows best for us all in how to order Society efficiently for safety and security.

They decided to “harass” those that differed from them politically – to support Obama and to support themselves.  Their version of political war (with all due respect to von Clausewitz).  But to pick on those who merely wish to adopt little babies and children; these are considered to “political battlefield combatants by Progressives?

As we get word that the IRS has harassed a number of pro-life groups, including at least one alleged demand that a pro-life group not picket Planned Parenthood, check out this statistic: In 2012, the IRS requested additional information from 90 percent of returns claiming the adoption tax credit and went on to actually audit 69 percent. More details from the Taxpayer Advocate Service:

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The tolerance of cultural Marxism in the Academy? Does not go far, it seems

Institutions of higher learning, at least when I was there 30 40 years ago, they were hotbeds of discourse, ideas, and ideologies.  You had a stand – you took it, you said it, and you defended it.  Others did the same.  At the time, even if they didn’t listen, they at least gave you the time. Nowadays, Political Correctness (aka Cultural Marxism) has taken over the Academy.  How DARE you be a Conservative AND believe in God – you are a traitor to the Movement (and an evil person too!).  It is no longer enough to no longer give the opposite side time – in fact, press the pedal to the metal: there is a zero tolerance for The Other among those on campus. The Classic Western Liberalism that drove the Academy for centuries has turned into the same intolerable Illiberalism that Progressivism has brought to America (emphasis mine):

America’s great universities continue to be bastions of intolerance. They profess to prize “diversity,” which in practice means that everybody must believe the same things. The campusreform.org blog has the story of how the Northwestern University Student Senate refused to allow student Stephen Piotrkowski to become vice president of diversity and inclusion because he admits to being a white heterosexual male.

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