Articles tagged as

Posts By Steve Mac Donald

Brunelle’s Road To Damascus Moment?

Road%20To%20Damascus.jpgAfter four years of defending the democrat budgeting strategy of spend first tax later (during what any democrat worth his donkeys-ass referred to endlessly as the ‘worst recession in history’), NHDP executive director and NH House rep from Manchester Mike Brunelle shows us his new conservative streak.

“No matter who you are, Republican or Democrat, you were elected to work on the economy and jobs. I don’t think the people of Manchester want them to be dealing with these social issues,” said Brunelle. “We need to be focused on the working families in this state. … Anything other than that is beyond frivolous.”

It is all part of their new strategy, as I pointed out here yesterday…

Read more

I Tried It At Home

I%20tried%20it%20at%20home.jpgFergus Cullen has some advice in his Union Leader column this morning.(print or e-edition) Resolutions that do not include exercise or dieting, to quote the author.  They are all of course political, the most entertaining of which is a suggestion that Carol Shea-Porter run for President.

But my favorite was this one.

For bloggers and online posters, man up and identify yourselves when you comment. There are too many anonymous cowards in the online world. Civility is more persuasive than angry rant. If you don’t have the courage to say who you are when taking a shot at someone, you probably shouldn’t say it.

I agree, mostly.

Read more

What’s In Your Narrative?

Plenty of people who think they are quite attuned to the echo chamber are spending a good deal of time doing the progressives and RINO’s dirty work.  These are people on the right, so-called insiders who get how the game is played.  Yet again (and again) I find the chorus repeating the message which the left and the media have ingrained in them…every time they hear the bell ring.

"Sarah Palin." Ding!

Independents will never vote for her.  Her resignation as governor is a deal breaker.  You can’t bring social issues into the debate or Republican’s lose the center, she is stupid, inexperienced, too provocative, and on and on and on.

This is the message of the establishment elites on both sides.  It is the growl of a cornered animal that fears for its life.  A life dependent on the growth and power of government.  And it has been picked up and repeated by people who should know better.

Read more

Hasbro Capitalizes on Beer Pong

"Cuponk! Beer pong without the beer.The Greatest Name in Games" has paved the pathway to future Beer Pong excellence with a series of "games" called Cuponk.  The object of Cuponk, a creation of Hasbro, is to get a ping-pong ball in a cup doing any number of special moves or trick shots using whatever surfaces are available.  The cup makes noise to reward you for your talents and if you actually use the cards provided, and complete the trick called for, you can get points and keep score.

Fortunately for us, you should not put beer in a Cuponk cup.  I suspect the electronics will not like it.  I can’t comment on whether the instructions warn against such amendments to the manufacturers guidelines, they seem to have gotten about as much attention as a 2000 page piece of legislation in the US House.  Or maybe I threw them out with the wrapping paper.

It’s a cup and a ball. How frikkin complex could it be? "Mind it I play through?"  ‘Oh by all means?’

Read more

Low Road To China

Carol believes what she has been told by Nancy Pelosi and the influence peddlers in her own party, believes it so strongly that she could never be bothered to accept that the truth was anything more than the opposition “pushing back.”

Ancient Chinese Secret

In an amusing week for Carol Shea-Porter, in which she almost sounded McCarthyesque in her suspicions of Chinese communist cash infiltrations into the campaigns of domestic candidates, how long can it be before she blames her 2010 election loss on Global Warming?

You heard me right.

It’s been 57 days since Carol "I wasn’t saying the Chinese cost me my election" Shea-Porter lost and she has still not called the winner to congratulate him and concede the race personally.  This is a woman scorned, trapped in a world of denial, in which it is acceptable to ignore the big business, special interest international/domestic union machine that funded her own campaign while continuing to make offhand remarks about foreign and special interest money that doesn’t even exist as is she has to keep working off the same talking points palm card until the DNC sends her a new one.

Read more

What Would We Do Without Studies Like These?

Riding in on the heels of the UNH/Hirshberg cow fart research we have other news from the research front of which is just begging to be made fun.

Someone has discovered that oral sex is a gateway drug to intercourse among teenagers. A three-year study determined that teens who have oral sex are more likely to have intercourse than teens who do not. And if you ask the Baptists they will tell you that intercourse leads to dancing, or was that the other way around?

“I see most of the health policies out there and guidelines for preventive services talking about sex generally, but they do not specify oral sex. That is an important distinction because teens don’t consider oral sex to be sex, and many are not aware of the risks involved,” Halpern-Felsher said.

So oral sex leads to intercourse and intercourse leads to unwanted pregnancy.  Who is surprised?  The experts, of course.

Read more

Why I Need Your Tax Dollars, by Gary Hirshberg

Gary Hirshberg CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farms wants you to know what he thinks about a recent taxpayer investment in organic farming. His editorial in this mornings Union Leader goes on at great length extolling the virtues and benefits of organic farming. It will create jobs, better food, help grow the organic farms footprint and provide fresh local dairy products.
He never mentions that his fresh local dairy farm is owned by a huge multinational French conglomerate of which he is a prominent international player. (Big Dairy!)

How Do You Say “Klaatu barada nikto” In Chinese?

One source inside the Shea-Porter camp who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, admitted that the congresswoman was trying to learn to the phrase “Klaatu barada nikto” in Chinese. She claimed that if she spoke these words before the 2012 campaign that donations from the Chinese controlled conglomerates, to Caribbean front-companies, who would then move money into New Hampshire via a courier named “Falcon” traveling in a saucer shaped balloon, would stop and she would be able to win re-election.

Breaking The Addiction To Government

Image: thesassyminx.comThe December New Hampshire labor report, period ending October 2010, is not all that remarkable.  Coos County is still suffering while overall the state is hanging in at 5.4%.  This number is still reflective of issues with the size of the labor force versus mid 2009 numbers.  We have to watch that as we head through the November and December reports into January, where holiday hiring will add to the labor force, and then most likley drop off.

What may have been the most interesting aspect of the new report however, was this paragraph from the first page.

In New Hampshire private industry GDP growth was below that of government. The current dollar change in private industry between 2008 and 2009 was almost non-existent. less than a $1 million dollar difference.  When adjusted for inflation private GDP saw a 1.5% percent decrease.  Government however (this is New Hampshire State Government) saw a 4.6% increase in current dollars.

This is how Democrat-controlled states feign growth. 

Read more

The True Meaning Of Christmas

Starting in 2011, public sector workers will no longer get days off related to any religious holiday, nor will they receive any compensation for these days unless they actually work. If as the liberals and secularists suggest, that we can’t have any God in government, then no one in government should get a paid day off as a result.

Little Footprints In The Digital Snow

someone-wrong-on-internet.pngSome of the establishment ‘insiders’ in the New Hampshire political news firmament are clinging to their status as the connected resource for information, defending their political crack house like some kind of punditry-pusher for the news junkies in the Granite state.

One of their weapons is the exclusive.  They need them to feel relevant.

Case in point, James Pindell, who unknown to most, had posted the news of Jack Kimball’s announcement to seek the state GOP chairmanship as a WMUR/Political Scoop exclusive.  But he did it after it had been posted by GraniteGrok, on GarniteGrok.com, the Grok’s facebook page, each of the Groksters facebook pages, at NH Insider.com, at the NHRVC web page, at my Live Free or Die WordPress page, and on several email lists like those of the NHRVC and RLCNH.

After a conversation with one of the Grok’s contributors, the word "exclusive" was reportedly removed from the Political Scoop post, but the act of trying to claim exclusivity still remains, embedded in the original web address to the article as posted.

http://politicalscoop.wmur.com/exclusive-kimball-to-run-for-nhgop-chair

[Emphasis mine]

It’s just like little foot prints in the digital snow, staggering away from the scene of a crime.

Read more

Day 50

As the sun rises over New England on December 22nd, 2010, we will have begun the fiftieth day since the November 2nd Election. As it comes to a close, fifty full days will have passed. Fifty sunrises and sunsets. Fifty breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. And by some estimates, as many as 250 billion phone calls will have been made in that time period, and not one of them (to the best of my knowledge) was from Carol Shea-Porter to congratulate Frank Guinta on his victory over her in the the NH first congressional district race.

Four Years All For Naught?

I have just three thoughts to share for the moment; Carol had four years in a democrat majority congress–which promised to clean up the swamp, two of them with a democrat president, and I do not see any attempt by her party or by Carol herself (she is defined legislatively as a follower not a leader) to address this or anything else outside the big blue box of liberal progressive agenda items.

For Quite Some Time

For quite some time more than a few of us out here in the private sector have been paying into our own retirement plans–if we can–for years.  After the Housing bubble burst many of us began reducing the amount we contributed as a lousy economy consumed opportunities, wage growth and jobs–our neighbors jobs or even our own. 

Companies, small businesses in particular, that were once able to provide some benefits and 401K matching dollars shifted gears, re-directing that revenue (if they had it) to keeping the business afloat so they could pay enough remaining core employees to keep the company "a company"–with desks, paperclips, sticky-notes, and a space to keep them in.  We paid for our own retirement plans, owners and managers paid for theirs, took pay cuts, employees took pay cuts, millions accepted reduced hours, part time status, or were overcome by the recession and had to be let go.

At the same time various levels of government were handing out (or handed) billions and billions of dollars that did not exist, to prop up the public sector unions.  These unions, collective bargaining groups (emphasis on collective) were the primary benefactors of the past two years accumulation of debt.  Government rules favored them in opposition to all else and in contradiction to common sense, not just for cash handouts but the hand out of sparse jobs as well.  Even at the local level, the public sectors union handlers, who are really nothing more than fat cat capitalists selling shares in human flesh for a profit, in the from of a dues check each pay period, have fought against the tide to raise union salaries, benefits, and keep or create more jobs that must be paid for by the people going the opposite direction.

So the public sector unions, operating as nothing more than a private business, whose goal is to grow revenue, continued to do just that at taxpayers expense, all the while whining about private sector greed and malfeasance. We need to call them out for this. 

Read more

Did Maggie Hassan…Just Take A Step To The Right?

which%20way.jpgNow that she has so much free time on her hands, former State Senator Maggie Hassan is proudly advocating for her newest hobby, the group No Labels.  This means that Maggie ‘The Red’ Hassan is advocating for moderate debate that is open to all sides with a goal of non-partisan compromise.  I also hear that Michael Vick would like to buy a dog?

I’d sooner trust Vick with the dog.

This is a woman who tried to socialize medicine in-state, legislate away free speech she objects to, advocates for abortion from conception to delivery, and is committed to advance the size, scope, control, and cost of the government.  If she has a middle ground, it is not just left of center, it is far left.  So Hassan advocating No Labels is like Kathy Griffin, or Janeane Garofalo advocating tolerance.

It’s only funny because it is so absurd.

But could Hassan have had an epiphany?  Has her unexpected defeat resulted in a cathartic de-gentrification of her traditional ruling class elitism?   Is it possible that a woman steeped in the progressive super culture could abandon her pro-government/liberal materialism to spend forty days in the desert on a moderate vision quest? Or is this, more likely, just a flanking maneuver.

Maggie ‘The Red’ Hassan is advocating No Labels because she wants to be governor Hassan; think of it as an undocumented progressives worker program or Fascists anonymous–only it’s not about recovery or remission, it is about hiding who you really are from the voters until after you get elected.

But it can only happen if we allow it to. So let us agree not to allow it.

And for those who caught the Rocky Horror Picture Show reference, take a jump of your own and get your reward.

Read more

DADT Meets The Matthew Shepherd/Pentagon Funding/Hate Speech Law

Now that DADT has passed, how long will it be before a homosexual service member caught in a sexual act with another service person who is not their legal “partner” files a lawsuit against the military,–probably prompted by some activist left wing lawyer–based on violations of the Matthew Shepard (Pentagon Funding) hate speech law?

Revisiting Censorship In the Wake Of “Nickel And Dimed..”

The dust up in Bedford over the Book ‘Nickel and Dimed’ continues to linger in the local news–which reminded me that back in 2009 we had a similar situation in the sleepy town of Litchfield where  comments by locals and students emerged in defense of the material on the grounds that its exclusion would constitute book banning and or violate protected free speech rights.

This was (and is), of course, total rubbish.

So I wrote at least two articles on the subject back in 2009, this one–from June 20, 2009 on the bankrupt educational-industrial culture that leads to this kind of moronic nonsense, and then a followup on censorship in general after a local ACLU lawyer felt the need to add her two cents.

What follows on the jump is my response, the article from July 5th, 2009–originally posted at NH Insider.  I believe it (and my comments in the previously mentioned post here) are equally relevant to what has transpired in Bedford over the past few weeks, and demonstrates a lack of understanding by the public (and progressives) of the differences between first amendment speech and censorship.  That this keeps coming up in the context of the public school curriculum is nothing short of ironic.

Read more

Share to...
BufferCopyFlipboardHacker NewsLineLinkedInMastodonMessengerMixPinterestPrintRedditSMSTelegramTumblrVKWhatsAppXingYummly