Elderly Drivers: To Test or Not To Test?

Representative Bob Williams wants to discontinue road testing for Elderly Drivers. Is that a wise idea? House Bill 549 eliminates the requirement for a road test currently in place for Granite State drivers over age seventy five. Prime Sponsor of the bill is 84-year-old Representative Bob Williams, a Concord Democrat. Williams calls the present law, … Read more

I AGREE WITH RON PAUL!

H/T – The Corner: Courtesy of the Daily Caller, here he [Ron Paul] is on the topic of Charlie Sheen: “Why does anybody care? The guy’s goofy, just leave him alone.“ “It seems like we’re running out of things to deal with. We have wars going on. We’re flat out broke, and we’re worried about … Read more

FB Doodlings – Gay marriage

There is a bill in the NH Legislative schedule that would redefine marriage out of the legal realm of the state: HB 569.  Essentially, it would "demote" all marriages from the aspect of "the State"; the title or label of "marriage" would be the sole call of the private sector – in my reading of the bill, I could call my marriage a "marriage", but so could anyone else label their relationship such as well. 

Frankly, I think this is a "run-away" bill;  it removes politicians from the social battle of what constitutes a marriage and what doesn’t – and doesn’t solve the question.  And it does deserve to be answered and settled – thus far, almost all of the decisions to recognize homosexual marriage has come from the Court (the favorite hangout for Liberals trying to change the social fabric of the country, as pretty much with the exception of NH, the general public has always voted it down as a step too far). It is a "punt" – it removes traditional marriage from what should be a pedestal and brings in, a la our government schools, the concept of "the lowest common denominator" to still the waves of political opinion.

So anyways, from FB:

The obvious problem is that many disagree that gay marriage is marriage from the traditional standpoint (and history). I disagree with the notion that by getting the State "out of marriage", it is merely hiding from the issue – it doesn’t solve the problem. In fact, it can make it worse. The idea was that Govt only sanctions civil unions and not marriage still allows the problem to fester in the social arena – anyone can call anything that they want a marriage.

By slinking away, the State also punts on the next issue – why should civil unions only be between two people?

And this bill specifically enumerates only 2. Major logical flaw in the bill is that number, for if one is going to get the State out of marriage, what is that logic surrounding the number two?

The moral authority in this country has been its Judeo-Christian background and philosophy (like it or not). This has been…

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GrokTalk! Saturday March 5th, 2011

Kirk McNeil, the new director of “Common Sense for New Hampshire,” will be our guest to talk about HB 442, the Medical Marijuana Bill; and Jordan Ulery the prime sponsor of CACR 6 (2011) which would require that a 2/3 vote is required to pass legislation imposing new or increased taxes or license fees..

Reuters Headline: What The?

Reuters is referring to DOMA, the defense of marriage act, which is not an anti-gay marriage law. It does not prevent a state from passing a same sex marriage law. It is a federal law that allows states to define marriage for themselves and does not require them to recognize any form of marriage which the majority of that states residents may object to.

Did Kristin Ruggiero Unwittingly Establish A New, “Second Look” Doctrine?

Typical. A woman gets pissed at her boyfriend. In retribution, she runs down to the local police department and asserts she has been threatened and as proof, offers her cell phone containing a threatening text from the alleged, “scary boyfriend.” The boyfriend is subsequently arrested and jailed under domestic violence laws -End of story…or is it?

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In this case, Police obviously took a second look. Local Rochester woman Samantha Morrison, exacted an age-old retribution for her unspecified scorn when she filed a complaint with Rochester Police alleging that her boyfriend threatened her on February 17th. The boyfriend was subsequently arrested, jailed and served with a Domestic Violence protective order out of Dover District Court on February 18th.

But, something sparked a follow-up investigation. After taking a closer second look, Police charged Ms. “Shrew” Morrison with false report to police and falsifying physical evidence. Determined subsequently that Ms. “Shrew-Morrison” used a spoofing software program installed on her cell phone to fabricate a fake threatening text message, resulting in her boyfriend’s arrest, the faux charges have been dropped.

This case comes in the wake of Kristin Ruggiero’s most recent indictments on Witness Tampering, Falsifying Physical Evidence, Solicitation of Perjury, Perjury, and Unsworn Falsification, after being imprisoned for attempting to have her ex-husband falsely locked up.

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GrokTALK! – Podcast page for 03/05/11

Podcast – week of 02/26/11 GrokTALK! Streaming Live! from GraniteGrok To play (or "stream") a clip now, just click on it.  To download it to your PC, right click on it and tell the process where to save the file for you. (Click here for the promo page) Hour 1      Hour 2 Kirk … Read more

Newt Gingrich – Car Bomber

Chris Matthews being himself–and sorry in advance.  No one should really have to have breakfast and then see Chris Matthews demonstrate civility, but this is just too funny.

At about 50 seconds Matthews, who can’t help himself, announces that Newt ‘looks like a car bomber.’

Some clarification ensues but why bother.  That’s probably the media sound bite of the day.  Unless you want to listen to Michael Moore explain why Rich people’s money belongs to eveyone. (That’s on the jump.)

 

 

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#3 Semi-Occasional Quote: Why public employee unions need to be outlawed

From RedState.com, saying the unsayable: Why public employee unions should  be outlawed: When unions have the ability to pour hundreds of millions into working to put into office politicians who expand the role and size of government—at the expense of taxpayers—they have gamed the system…..It is an "insidious relationship," as Senator Jim Demint noted Tuesday: "It’s a … Read more

Wisconsin Protesters

To the Editor:  

Many of the people protesting on Saturday don’t even understand what they are doing.  They talk about “Worker’s Rights” (which I support).  But they have been duped into protesting for public sector  “Union rights”, the right of unions to conspire with politicians against the interests of the American people.     

President Franklin Roosevelt said it was wrong to unionize government  workers because they are supposed to serve the public.  He was right.  The public sector was unionized about 50 years ago.  Unionization has led to union leaders and politicians creating an increasing number of safe, easy and often low value, well paid unionized employees whose union dues are funneled back to the politicians.  It is a vicious cycle.  Politicians are supposed to represent the people, but they ignore the good of the people to reward their union supporters.  This is corruption pure and simple.  

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Data Point – Selling those electric cars

As I pointed out here, President Obama has decided that: With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. That’s 4 years for now.  Thinking that’s about a quarter million cars / year, that … Read more

Moultonborough, NH edition: Scary leanings of Teachers

As I pointed out here, there seems to be a side of teachers to believe that they are of more importance to a child’s well being and success than their parents.  Yes, I know about how some parents are doing the best they could (according to teachers) to help their kids through school and the like; I get that.  Having run a daycare center, I saw it first hand and gently shook my head at some parents.  But that was a minority, a real small minority of parents.

Sidenote: Sometimes, parents give up trying to help.  I’ll admit – I’m not a math major as I only got through multi-variate calculus and I do computers instead of my major, biology (where I concentrated on energy transfers within sub-cellular mechanisms).  I figured that SURE, I can help my kids with their math and science homework.  But I’ll tell you, all I ever got was “THAT’s not how my teacher teaches me!”.  And when I finally figured out the cockamamie way it was being done, I finally learned why Johnnie and Janie can’t read and make change in the 7-11; I admit, I stopped trying to “help” my kids – it caused more problems than it solved.  It brought back memories of trying to teach a Education student what Y=MX+b was.

But I would never, not even in my wildest dreams of megalomania or delusions of being “Emperor for the World for a Week”, would presuppose to believe that I was better for their kids than they were – my staff were paid to watch over and teach age appropriate lessons.  Never did I think that we were that important to believe that we should or could supplant parents.

Unfortunately, like the teachers in that post, there are others that need to relearn that lesson – like these words uttered by teachers in Moultonborough, NH back in October, whose words were similar to that of the WI teachers:

…students are WAY ahead of the times, way ahead of parents on multiple issues especially when it comes to openness and sexuality…I disagree with having parent being allowed in.  I think that students are willing to talk about this because they have different views than their parents…a huge disservice to the community and the school.

And I wonder why they have different views…as another teacher admitted (also speaking against letting parents into that workshop:

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FRANKLY SPEAKING By Congressman Frank Guinta: Taking stock of my first two months in Washington

Taking stock of my first two months in Washington

Sometimes, when you’re moving fast, it’s a good idea to take a moment and look back at all the ground you’ve covered.  March 5th marks two months since the new Congress convened.  I want to tell you about the many things I’ve been doing these past eight weeks.

I’m proud to follow-through on my pledge to be a Congressman who is actively in touch with folks here in New Hampshire.  My guiding rule is simple: I will be in Washington whenever there is a debate or vote on the House floor, and for committee hearings and meetings.  Otherwise, I will be here in the district so I can stay in touch with people.  This is the best way I can effectively represent you on Capitol Hill.

I held my first town hall meeting in Laconia in early February. We had to delay it for 24 hours because of one of the many snowstorms that have pounded us all winter, but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the 100+ folks who showed up on a frigid Thursday night.  The crowd was so large, we had to move it to a bigger facility next door in order to seat everyone.  As this column was going to press, I was scheduled to hold my first tele-town hall on March 1st.  Look for more of both types of meetings in the near future.

My staff has held open office hours in Jackson and Conway, with more scheduled in different towns soon.

I’m also traveling across the district, talking about issues that matter to Granite Staters and listening to their concerns.  I’ve met with the Great Bay Water Community Coalition in Dover, toured the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, visited the GE Aviation Plant in Hooksett and talked with fishermen at the Yankee Fishermen’s Coop in Seabrook.  I’ve visited Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, Lake Regional General Hospital in Laconia and Exeter Hospital to discuss healthcare concerns, and Bakersville School in Manchester and Spaulding High School in Rochester to learn more about education needs.  

The pace has been just as fast in Congress.  In one of our first acts during the new session, I had the honor of reading the Second Amendment during the first time the U.S. Constitution was ever read aloud on the House floor.  One of our very first votes was to cut Congressional staff spending by 5%.  It is only right that the very first spending reduction came in our own budgets; the House must lead the way by example as we ask all Americans to get by with less federal funding.

Of course, the first major piece of legislation we passed was the long-sought repeal of last year’s healthcare reform law.  I was proud to vote with the majority in passing it.  The existing law fails to deliver the very thing Americans want: affordable, quality healthcare coverage.  It is so badly flawed, it would be better to scrap it and start over from scratch to give people the true reform they want.

I voted for…

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The Real Reason For Raising The Drop Out Age To 18?

I can tell you from long discussions about the various pathways to “graduation” that the goal is more geared toward getting kids through school on paper to make the numbers look good. Any reasonable path to that end is considered a win, but by any traditional standard it is anything but a public school success story.

Keeping Family Court Simple, Ain’t So Simple

A Union Leader editorial today, entitled, “Keep it simple: Family court rules work,” asserts that HB 259, “AN ACT requiring the supreme court to adopt rules of evidence for the judicial branch family division“, is a bad idea. The Editorial suggests that implementation of evidentiary rules would overburden a system where the majority of the litigants are not represented by attorneys, give an inequitable disadvantage to a party who is represented by counsel over one who is not, and would drum up business for lawyers, making the system unwieldy and inefficient. I couldn’t disagree more with my friends at the Union Leader.

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The editorial informs us that About 70 percent of people who use the family courts do so without lawyers, mostly because they can’t afford them. While we might agree that it is desirable to have a court system that is accessible to laymen, not being able to afford a lawyer should not absolve people from the responsibility to be reasonable in what they present to the family court in furtherance of their legal positions. The UL asserts, “Alleged facts can be rebutted by the other side,” and while that is fundamentally true, the UL overlooks the notion that unsubstantiated allegations from a bitter and angry spouse inevitably triggers costly ancillary resources and services.

The UL writes, “The loose rules allow people to, say, introduce a phone bill as evidence instead of have a phone company employee testify, or have a witness present to back up an allegation if it’s challenged instead of having to put all witnesses on the stand.” That notion exists already and is more commonly referred to as a “prima facie” offering; that is, the evidence is presumed true on its face unless otherwise rebutted.

The UL tells us, (the present system allows) cases to proceed swiftly, but most importantly it allows people to get divorced or settle custody disputes without hiring lawyers they otherwise cannot afford. Few would disagree hiring legal counsel to navigate through the twists and turns of a divorce case can be costly. There are a significant number of people who simply do not possess the financial means to retain legal services. But what the UL also fails to point out from a fiscal standpoint, is that in a significant number of cases where children are concerned, a guardian ad litem is frequently appointed and the court invariably generates an order requiring one or both parties to pay for the services of a court-appointed GAL…who is most often, A lawyer. And, whether or not they can afford it is inconsequential when they get that first bill from the office of cost containment.

Streamlined Judicial economy is hardly a credible reason for fast food-style divorces that forego evidentiary standards in favor of expediency. The New Hampshire Supreme Court is chucked full of slip opinions deciding, “what is evidence” and “what is not evidence,” all argued by lawyers, I might add, where the personal philosophies of judges and masters prevailed, triggering those appeals.

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