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[Updated] Why You Should Contact Senator Mitch McConnell

Mitch McConnell[ UPDATED Senator McConnell has officially come out against earmarks:“Today, I am announcing that I will join the Republican leadership in the House in support of a moratorium on earmarks in the 112th Congress,” he said].

NYT Link Here

Original post

Senator Mitch McConnell (R- KY) is said to be working to undermine an effort at banning earmarks in the US Senate.  This is not surprising.  Senators, as a rule, abuse the privilege more.  And while appropriations of this nature amount to a fraction of the total budget, it is an impressive fraction that rarely serves the interests of anyone more than the Seantor themselves.

Was it Carol Shea-Porter, 2012 congressional candidate in waiting who said that earmarks are necessary so that the state can get back it’s fair share of the federal taxes it’s residents pay?  Or was that Hodes?  Does it matter? Sure, congressman abuse them as well, even those who swear they have sworn them off.

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Progressive Trade Rules

Being beholden to unions causes you to say and do stupid things.  Take Carol Shea-Porter for example.  She was against a trade deal with Panama because she claimed it would cost American jobs, when it would actually open up trade from us to them–they already had unfettered access; result?–it would have created American jobs. Provisions … Read more

Maine Squeeze

Maine by degrees of Republican-ness

Maine has something of a bi-polar disorder.  They have purple US Republican senators, democrat congressman (still) and just elected a tea party-ish backed governor while handing their entire state legislature over to Republican control for the first time in about 30 years.

Why do that?

For all the why’s and what-fors that can be imagined, at the end of the day it is hard to ignore the pressure from on high.  Two years of high-profile democrat campaigning to advance what turned out to be a very unpopular progressive-national agenda, was felt most strongly in the places where voters felt they have the most control–local state house and state senate races.  It’s been true all across the country.

Moderate to democrat Maine, it seems is no different.  In a state that has let the left dominate state government for decades, Republicans successfully sold the need to be more state-centric and that resonated locally, perhaps to fend off the nationalization of local government from massive federal overreach.

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VoteCrier.com

Someone has just performed what appears to be a great service to the People of New Hampshire. (I just have not figured out who they are yet.) It’s called VoteCrier.com. It’s premise is to provide a database where New Hampshire legislators can explain how and why they voted for particular bills, and a method by which voters can sort and read these responses.
In the words of the Guinness guys. “It’s Brilliant!”

This Week’s GrokTALK 11-13-2010

A mixture of politics, culture, current events, and well, politics, it is an Internet Radio show streaming live audio and video directly from GraniteGrok. Using a solidly Conservative and Rational Libertarian lens, we’ll take on almost any topic and have notables from the news, political figures, authors, and other opinionated folks for your edification and amusement.

What Was He Thinking?

Gene Chandler has been taking a good deal of heat lately.  He deserves it in my opinion.  He knows full well the Democrats will make the same hay over the trumped up corn roast scandal, just like they did back then.  That means if he wins he’s on the defensive every single day instead of focusing on business.  It also means that the entire caucus has to defend their electing him to the post as well, even if they didn’t vote for him to be Speaker.

And if they try to claim they did not vote for him, now we have to defend against attacks of party division over the so-called "ethically challenged" Gene Chandler.

If you, for one moment think that won’t happen you are deluded.

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To Spend And Protect

Image Courtesy of The Tizona GroupThe State Supreme court announced that is sees a conflict between current state law and spending cap initiatives approved by voters (Manchester in particular).  This is not unexpected but it is fortuitous, and to some degree ironic.  In their quest to defend any liberal-leaning municipalities desire to spend beyond the ability of their residents to pay for it, groups like Keep Manchester Moving have just financed the blueprint by which the now Republican super-majority state government can adroitly engineer a fix.

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The Biggest Special Interest Of All

Two Sheets PleaseThere’s something you might want to keep in mind about the state level Democrat wind machine as we move forward toward 2012.  It has been their practice to ignore their own out of state campaign dollars as they attack anyone or anything on the Republican side with even the most tenuous connection to influence from outside the state.  Even the governor has stood up and declared that he is against the influence of money from outside the state, while hundreds of thousands have poured into his pockets from places farther  and wider than the political borders of the Granite State.  But that’s all superficial by comparison to this.

How do governor Lynch, Chairman Buckley, presumptive democrat candidates for 2012 at every level, the whole of the democrat party, even their RINO sympathizers, explain why they embrace massive infusions of out of state money and all the disruptive influence it has at the state and local level…from the federal government?

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Can Gene Chandler Salvage The Liberal Agenda?

Provocative title, yes?  Well before you complain about it ask yourself a question.  Why does Dean "Bob" Barker, and the leftistas prefer Chandler over O’Brien?  "That the Dems, if unified, can play a role in preventing him [O’Brien]from being House Speaker, is good news. Dean is part and parcel to the entire Buckley/Sullivan progressive fringe … Read more

Taking All The ‘Air’ Out Of “Fair”

The Nashua Telegraph spent most of the election season giving up huge chunks of their Sunday commentary page to the mouth-pieces of special interests promoting left wing causes like health care deform, so why stop now that the election has passed?  This week we get the implausible assumptions of Cathy Silber, the coordinator of the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition (GSFTC), who upon seeing the blood in the water on November 3rd, has attempted a preemptive strike for her pet special interest project–an income tax for New Hampshire.

Silber has been fighting "The Pledge," an oath signed by Granite State candidates who promise to vote against any sales or income tax should they meet that big bad wolf tax on the way to Grandmothers house, or anywhere else.  So Silber is the "Anti-pledger," plying class warfare rhetoric dressed as "fairness" in her quest to drag New Hampshire down the broad based tax rabbit hole, with the lie that it would take pressure off property taxes and create a more fair redistribution of wealth…oops I mean a more fair distribution of the tax burden.  Wait.  I had it right the first time.

What, you don’t think GSFTC is seeking the redistribution of wealth?

Take a look at who is in the "fair tax" coalition.  Union heavyweights; the NEA-NH, SEIU-1984(NH), and the NH State Employees Association, our state government employees union.  Who else?  How about a slew of social justice groups like the Unitarian Universalist’s and the NH Council of Churches, anti gun, pro-global warming, supporting redistribution of wealth, all left wing causes aided in their minds by a new broad based tax.

Takes all the ‘Air’ out of Fair, don’t you think? 

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Freshman Get A Voice

November 9, 2010 Dear Freshman Member–Elect, As you prepare to come to Washington for Orientation during the week of November 14th, we wanted to bring to your attention the various leadership opportunities available to your class.  The incoming GOP freshman class for the 112th Congress is no ordinary freshman class, and this is no ordinary … Read more

Does The GOP Want That New Direction Or Not

Should the New Hampshire Republican House Caucus have the opportunity to vote for their Majority leader? That’s majority leader not Speaker. Traditional wisdom says yes but today, rumor has it, that three of the four candidates for speaker are said to have voted no on the matter.

A Word From The Chairman Of New Hampshire’s Super Minority Party

Over on Facebook last week the Chairman of the New Hampshire Democrat party wished we had this law on the books.

British Election Overturned Because of "False Statements"

The Independent reports that former British immigration minister Phil Woolas "lost his seat as an MP today after an election court ruled that he knowingly made false statements about an opponent in May’s general election."

Bloomberg notes Woolas was guilty of "an illegal practice" by making statements "he had no reasonable grounds for believing were true and did not believe were true."

"It is the first time in 99 years that an election has been overturned as a result of a candidate making false statements. Woolas told reporters he is applying for a judicial review of the decision."

Why?  Mr. Buckley claims that if we had this law…

"Hardly a Republican would hold office in New Hampshire if we had this law here…"

 

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Playing 52 Pick Up, And Then Some

New Hampshire Election Information (http://nhelection.info/) has the results posted of its 52-pick up page an effort to identify and track the replacement of fifty-two "of the most statist and the most vulnerable legislators in the New Hampshire House of Representatives."

The final accounting is impressive.

Only four of the fifty two reps listed survived the 2010 election season; Evalyn Merrick (Coos 2), Peter Ramsey (Hills 8), Daniel Sullivan (Hills 8), and Nick ‘The Nuke’ Lavasseur (Hills 11) survived.  The other 48 got washed out in the roughly 296 seat sweep of the House.

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A View From The Progressive Wilderness?

Seems to me Ray should be accusing the voters of overreach, and that’s probably what he’s doing. But a 75% Majority of State government sends a message about someones agenda, even when that message is delivered to democrats. It’s, what’s the word, a referendum.

Inconveninet Truths About The October Jobs Numbers

Is there really any improvement?Jobs numbers are tricky things.  Politicians will always tell you what you want to hear and leave out what they don’t want you to hear.  So it is no surprise that we are getting the same old song and dance, that "the economy created private sector jobs again."  That’s a nice thing to hear, but is it an improvement or are we still arranging deck chairs on the Titanic?

Deck chair anyone?

Unemployment is still at 9.6 percent and despite claims of job growth for ten months, unemployment has been at or above 9.6% for 20 months.

The numbers do not add up.

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Notable Quote – Russell Kirk

If men are discharged of reverence for ancient usage, they will treat this world, almost certainly, as if it were their private property, to be consumed for their sensual gratification; thus they will destroy in their lust for enjoyment the property of future generations, of their own contemporaries, and indeed their very own capital.

Notable Quote – Edmund Burke

One of the first and most leading principles on which the commonwealth and its laws are consecrated, is lest the temporary possessors and life renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their ancestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should act as if they were the entire masters; that they … Read more

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