Gov. Hassan and the Democrats Are Trying to Save Face.

Just one month ago, the New Hampshire Democratic Party called the Senate version of the state budget “reckless” because it was based on a “Tea Party ideology;” namely, that state spending should not exceed conservative revenue estimates and that taxes and fees should not be increased at a time when the economy is just starting to show signs of life.

Two weeks later when the barely altered budget agreement won the approval of both bodies of the Legislature, Gov. Maggie Hassan, the Democrats’ top elected state official, called the result a “fiscally responsible balanced budget” that “will encourage innovation and help create jobs.” Now that the budget has passed, we can assure you that she’s right on these points. Yet, we can also affirm that Gov. Hassan and her Democratic colleagues had very little to do with this budget.

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This is For Wendy Davis and Those Who Stand With Her

Wendy Davis stood for a good long spell to filibuster a bill that would only prohibit abortions after 20 weeks.  But what was she really standing for? Despite the fact that contraception is widely available and in many places forcibly free. Despite taxpayer-funded family planning that in some places starts in grade school. Despite taxpayer … Read more

Bette Midler California Bag Ban – No, It’s Not About Plastic Surgery

If ever you needed proof that some celebrities are dopes then the recent effort by a cast of millionaire limousine liberals to help pass a state wide bag ban in California should serve.  No, it’s not a bill to require plastic surgery, it would make the misnamed single use plastic grocery bag extinct across the left-coast utopia.   But despite Hollywood has-been Bette Midler leading the charge the bill fell three-votes short in the state legislature.

Midler, who prefers the state force consumers to use the bacteria collecting, non-recyclable, foreign made “reusable” bags, was less than pleased by the result.

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The Real Agents of Change

Democrats like to promote themselves as change agents.  Agents of change.  And this makes them hip.  Modern.  Progressive.  But nothing could be further from the truth.

Democrats promote the politicization of everything and by extension the bureaucratization of everything.  To them government is the best arbiter of progress.  But the process of making government the dispatcher of innovation has exactly the opposite effect.  It creates barriers to entry, reduces choices, dries up resources or locks them away, and leaves a few cumbersome behemoths who plod along beside big government, benefiting from their shared monopoly on “progress.”

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Missouri Nullification Bill Set to Become Law

Missouri.svgMissouri House Bill 436, the Second Amendment Preservation Act, has arrived at the desk of governor Jay Nixon, who by all accounts,intends to let it become law without any action on his part.

When asked about Governor Nixon’s intention, a source inside his office told The New American that in an effort to avoid multiplying the several scandals already plaguing his administration, Nixon would likely let the bill sit on his desk without signing or vetoing it, thus allowing the measure to become law without his participation.

The bill would prohibit the Federal government from regulating arms or ammunition manufactured in Missouri that was only distributed or sold in Missouri.

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Data Point – Support for President Obama is falling

It has been a while since I put up the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Poll – time to restart: Since his Second Inauguration, his job approval level has been dropping – and fast. Yes, his personal approval levels remain positive (something that I have never figured out).  It seems that the scandals that are now engrossing … Read more

FEAR

From the X-Files Season 2 Episode 3 – Blood Scully: “Why Mulder?  Why would they intentionally create a population that destroys itelf.“ Mulder: “Fear.  It’s the oldest tool of power.  If you distract, by fear of those around you, it keeps you from seeing the actions of those above.” Scully is asking why the government … Read more

Where Does Jeb Bradley Stand on The Minimum Wage?

minimum wage cartoon payne

The New Hampshire Democrat Party is wondering where Republican State Senator (and likely candidate for higher office) Jeb Bradley stands on the minimum wage?  I confess, so do I.

Does State Senator Bradley embrace the left’s obsessive desire to depress employment among teens and minorities by using legislative force to define the value of labor or is he more inclined to let the person whose labor it is come to an agreement with an employer over the real value of their time and skill-set with regard to the position in which they are to be retained?

The New Hampshire Democrat position is that modern day Granite State employees and employers are simply too stupid or corrupt to be permitted to define these terms without government interference.  Is that Senator Bradley’s position as well?

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Kathy Sullivan Channels Adam Smith?

Kathy Sullivan channels Adam Smith (?) in John DiStaso’s Granite Status…(In regard to the Casino Bill Vote)

“But what amazed me is the lack of willingness (by opponents of both parties) to recognize the amount of gambling we already have in New Hampshire, with all of the under-regulated charitable gaming, and it continues to grow and grow,” Sullivan said.

“It’s as if they don’t see it, but it’s there.”

The key phrases here are “under-regulated” and “continues to grow and grow.”

If Sullivan’s intellectual agility were not chained to the statist dogma of the Democrat party she might have been able to reach the obvious conclusion that if you under regulate “it,” “it” is almost guaranteed to grow and grow, and that includes employment, wages, wealth creation, opportunity, self-reliance,  charity, and even tax revenue; while costs and prices are not-so-mysteriously driven inexorably down by growing choice and competition.

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How Much Mileage Can We Get Out Of This? (Updated & Bumped)

Update! – The Democrats claim they needed the Monday Caucus so that both sides could give their views on the Casino Bill, and that this was a legitimate purpose for which they could exact a mileage reimbursement on a Monday, but Wednesday morning of the same week, before the session and vote on the Casino Bill,  the Democrats held a caucus at which they discussed…. the Casino bill.  Democrat Governor Maggie Hassan even came to that Caucus to make her final pitch for the legislation.

Original post Follows…

From the Concord Fish Wrapper…

“Please remember that mileage reimbursement will only be paid for travel on Mondays and Fridays for statutory committees which meet on those days,” Norelli wrote in the April 26 edition of the House Calendar.

But this Monday, House Democrats held a closed-door caucus that didn’t appear in last week’s calendar. Norelli’s spokesman, Mario Piscatella, said the caucus was held to discuss the casino bill, with members on both sides of the issue presenting their views followed by a discussion.

That doesn’t sound like a statutory committee.  And yet 78 Democrats–the attendees of the “Caw!-cus” –all requested mileage reimbursement.

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If A Picture is Worth 1000 Words…

If a picture is worth 1000 words how many words can we expect from the screeching left-wing enviro-harpies who are already climbing on the graves of dead children  in Oklahoma to make a case for Tornadoes, Temperature, and Global Warming.

Preface: Once again the “weather” is our fault.  And while the average amount of Tornado activity has been  lower in recent years, if at best average in the age of Inconvenient Gorey-truths, that has not stopped the “if we grow government we can change the weather crowd” from blaming this latest event (or any act of weather) on Global Warming Deniers and their failure to “let them fix it” with legislation.

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Just a Quick Note To The Democrat Enablers…

There are more than a few people making excuses for the recent scandals involving the Benghazi cover up, the AP phone scandal and the IRS.  Without laboring the point these are just the latest of those we know about.   The point I want to make is this:  Are the people excusing or dismissing this behavior because … Read more

Boo Hoo Hamster Can Finally Write Something about the DOJ – AP Story

Last night Skip observed that the progressive mouthpiece for the Democrat blogosphere in New Hampshire (Bleu Hampshire) had been awfully quiet given all the newsy tid-bits peppering the interwebs.  Nothing to report on Benghazi, The IRS, HHS, DOJ seizing AP phone records, dead Americans, failed Middle East policy…nothing.

But there is good news. Blue Hamster has leave to react to at least one of the recent scandals…

The Soros funded, highly political (non-profit) Media Matters, has release instructions on how the Democrats should respond with regard to the Obama-DOJ seizing two months worth of phone records from the AP.  (I have included them on the jump so that you wont have to be bothered with visiting their site to find out what they have been told to think.)

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A New Hampshire Democrat Accounting Trick – Explained

In years past the New Hampshire Democrats have taken to all kinds of foolish ideas to hide the truth about their blinkered incompetence when it comes to managing other peoples money.  Here is but one example to give you some perspective. Let’s say my wife and I ran our budget like New Hampshire Democrats and … Read more

Whatever Happened to HB 330?

A reader wrote me and said 1) the only info he could find on HB 330 was my post from February and 2) whatever happened with the bill?

HB 330 was (at that time) the latest effort from New Hampshire Democrats at a backdoor broad-based income tax.  Democrat Reps Burridge and Robertson, of Cheshire County, proposed HB 330 to allow each county delegation to vote for its own optional 1% income tax (to add further funding for public education, of all things).  Each county could decide separately so it would not technically be a broad based income tax, except that implementing it in even one county would require the same expanded bureaucracy to implement it in two, five, or all ten, paid for by the entire state….cramming costs down on every town and county to pump more money into public unions, basically.

So what happened to HB330?

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