News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
One of the hot button issues this past legislative session (the last two years here in NH) was to get rid of RGGI – Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Simply put, it is an aggregation of States here in the Northeast that decided to put a broad based carbon tax on anyone using electricity in those … Read more
I HAD to ask this question, based on his Presser showing the cute little scooters that he is using in meeting the folks (“residents tell me that I am the first politician to ever stand at their door step and introduce myself,”) in Bedford that is the new NH Senate District 9. Why would he … Read more
The ‘Grok was welcomed to The Draft (Concord, NH) when we interviewed NH State Senator Andy Sanborn (owner) as to why he was running for “virtual” re-election in a newly constructed district (“virtual”, as his original district was drawn out of existence). We had all kinds of questions but did not get the chance to … Read more
Man, am I stacked up on video – apologies for not getting this up earlier from the CNHT Annual Picnic. While Grokster Steve manned our setup and watched over the live stream and the recording cameras, I snuck out a few times to get a few “micro-interviews”. So, here they are: Kevin Smith (Candidate, … Read more
Well, you DIDN’T think that we’d leave the NH Senate out, didja? And yes, there were a number of candidates and incumbents running for the NH Senate. Once again, in order of the speaking order at the CNHT Annual
Dave Boutin Ken Hawkins
Cindy Howard District 5
Previous Posts:
Next to last question! The last question asked (“what Committees do you want to serve on?“) to Josh Youssef as he has started to his run for the NH State Senate. Well, his answer was such that I JUST had to ask, given our Right To Know requests against the NH Dept. of Information Technology … Read more
From Pindell on his weekly Ups and Downs Political Standing column: Dan Dwyer: The Merrimack Selectman wants to primary Senate President Peter Bragdon, but Bragdon will file showing $63,000 cash on hand already in his campaign account. Can Dwyer compete with that? As a Conservative activist, I have been sorely disappointed in the NH Senate … Read more
Happy news that Amanda Merrill is not running again for the New Hampshire Senate. In her stead, former Merrill clone–or perhaps I have that reversed–Martha Fuller “brush” Clark, will run to fill the seat. Merrill and Clarke are both EMILY’s list support alums. They are hewed from the same bit of socialist flotsam, with Clark … Read more
And the last question in our series of spotlighting John Hikel – If current NH State Senator Lou D’Allesandro is your opponent in the General election, how would you contrast yourself with him? Previous Questions: Question 1– Has it been everything you thought in the House? glad you put the time in? Best part of … Read more
OK, Part 1 is here – which simply pulled out a couple of nuggets from the proposed HB 1704 as found at NH.GOV. While there was enough uproar to have the NH Senate table it last week, it is supposedly coming back from the dead. I have already made the pitch that the bill needs to be amended so that donors / contributors / supporters no longer be listed. The reason for that as the Progressives have pushed politics into ever more parts of Society at large (instead of keeping it simply in the Governmental / Political sphere), they are coming up against The Law of Diminishing Returns which states that the next incremental “gain” for them (which I consider a loss when compared to traditional Western Liberalism / Constitutionalism) costs more and requires more. Thus, the new tactic now in wide deploy of finding and deliberately creating damage to their political opposition; no, not just in the political realm but in and to their personal lives and families. Their scorched earth mentality is to so punish ordinary citizens (often, whose only “political crime” is to defend traditional American values) that these folks will either remain silent or destitute on the street (after all, they are just following Obama’s lead in intending to bankrupt the coal industry and from EPA Regional Administrator whose “leadership style concerning energy companies was to “crucify the first five to pacify the rest” and by that, silence dissent.
I have to admit, the person that titled this amendment to HB 1704 is out to:
I hate to have to keep repeating it, but when our Political Class is either seemingly incapable of remembering this or willfully wish to disregard it, I feel like I have to be an elementary school teacher and repeat, repeat, and repeat some more:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So, here be the beginning of the fisking of the “Protect the Politicans’ Ass Amendment” (full text later in this post).
Next to last question in this series with John Hikel who has decided to forgo a relatively safe seat in the NH House to “move up” to the NH Senate. As with most politicians, he is facing an election and in his case, two. Here, he talks about the probably Primary he will have to … Read more
One of the very puzzling (and often, very frustating) things that has happened this session between the NH House and the NH Senate is the amount of bills passed by overwhelmingly by the supermajority of Republican in the House getting tabled or voted down by the supermajority of Republicans in the NH Senate. GraniteGrok asked … Read more
Certainly two of the most talked about political movements of the last three years are Occupy Wall Street and TEA Party. Pretty much the only thing that they agree upon is that the conflation of Big Government and Big Business has resulted is Crony Capitalism / State Corporatism – and vehemently disagree with the remedy. … Read more
Updated and bumped – We have added a link to HB1677 hearing Audio. (..at 1:37:35, Holden is introduced; from 1:39:36-40:16, he makes the offer……….) From The NH Senate Right to Work Hearing Transcript. “Let me just be frank. The big, the elephant in the room here and I know it’s been said is the politics of … Read more
I suppose you’ll want some context for that headline. Back in December (12/9/2011) I explained why New Hampshire should continue lowering tobacco taxes. I suggested we adopt some kind of schedule by which we would sunset tobacco taxes over the next decade based of the long term decline in sales. Why, after all, would you risk the states ability to invest in anything, including the left’s rhetorical “neediest residents in their most desperate hours (or something),” using an unreliable source of revenue in decline?
OK, what I actually said was
“Only a progressive zipper-head would rely on more revenue from something they want to get rid of. Increasing the tax on a declining market will only accelerate the unreliability of the revenue stream. That creates the opportunity for bigger budget holes that must then be filled on the fly.”
As if by magic, Sylvia Larsen, Democrat super-minoirty leader of the New Hampshire State Senate, in the face of declining unit sales, as fewer people smoke, after a decades long trend indicating that tobacco purchases will likely continue to decrease in the future, thinks we should increase our reliance on cigarette taxes in New Hampshire.
Zipper head. (doofus, goofball, goober, dunderhead, maroon, doh!) see note#2 below
Yesterday, I had to go the State House on a personal matter. Seeing that I had to wait to complete that errand, why not spend the time wisely? With the coverage that the Grok has spent on the Voter ID / fraud issue here in NH since the James O’Keefe / Project Veritas video that … Read more
The New Hampshire Senate will be voting on HB 146 this week, a bill that would give the jury in any trial the power of nullification.
Democrats hate this bill as well. It allows small business owners and individuals to seek arrangements and coverage to meet their specific needs.