News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
Governor Scott’s plan for education reform does some things right, and others unnecessarily very wrong. What’s right? The move to a foundation-based funding formula and the primary focus on cost savings being the elimination of supervisory union level of bureaucracy. In no way shape or form do we need 52 supervisory unions governing 109 school … Read more
After learning of the issue of building a new County Courthouse during my campaign for Grafton County Commissioner, District 2, and attending most, if not all, of the Grafton County Commissioners’ Meetings every Tuesday morning since last June, I learned today that the County Courthouse Building Committee is refining its costs for the building of a new … Read more
“Incoming!” That’s what we hear on TV and in movies when the military unit is about to get shelled. This article serves to warn Granite Staters of an impending NEW TAX if the House and the Corner Office fail to stop it. Mr Sylvia told a Florida radio show host that the Senate is a … Read more
When it comes to the unaffordable climate change policies being pushed on Vermonters by the Democrat majority in the State House, the Clean Heat Standard for the home heating sector has received all the attention for the past couple of years, but heat only represents about 40 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. The … Read more
Almost everything taught about the Whiskey Rebellion stems from a coverup. The prevailing myth presents an unbeatable federal government easily crushing resistance, discouraging any modern challenge to centralized power. But the real history tells a very different story – one of widespread tax resistance and successful nullification that forced the federal government to abandon its … Read more
What’s to be done? Parents are distraught, school district budgets and property taxes are skyrocketing, and there’s bullying and declining academic outcomes in public schools. State legislators shrug their shoulders. They don’t know what to do. Most of them don’t even think they’re responsible for the mess. It “just happened.” But the problem is “so … Read more
Lawrence O’Donnell is a bloviating idiot on MSNBC who makes comments and claims that he cannot substantiate or are just too absurd to have to fact-check. While talking about the IRS, he referred to it as one of the hyperefficient agencies of the federal government that makes money for the government and costs nothing to … Read more
The Department of Governmental Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) reminds me of an old song titled “Who Let the Dogs Out”. The miracle of Google allowed me to review the lyrics! While President Trump and Elon probably would not approve of the lyrics, ironically, the title foreshadows the amazing accomplishments that D.O.G.E. has brought to the USA. The … Read more
Rep. Kathleen James (D-Manchester) chairs the House Energy & Digital Infrastructure Committee. She was appointed to that post by Speaker of the House Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington). Krowinski also assigned multiple bills that would repeal controversial, unaffordable, climate laws, such as the Clean Heat Standard (H.16), the Global Warming Solutions Act, and the Clean Car mandates … Read more
First, let me say for the record that any Republican that supports a new tax or the expansion of Big Government is really a Democrat. We all know that the latter gobbles up such bills like flies on fresh excrement. No matter how noble or popular the objective is, taxation is still theft. SB255 establishes … Read more
Wait, isn’t that backwards? Didn’t Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. famously say that ‘Taxes are the price we pay for civilization’? He did, but he had it backwards. Taxes are, as Tommy Shelby said of politics in general, a way of deliberately making things better for some people by deliberately making them worse for others. … Read more
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Dan McGuire’s Bill, that narrows down what an adequate education is in New Hampshire, has everyone in a tizzy. HB283 would reduce the list of subjects that define what an adequate education. You can see how an adequate education would be defined if this bill were to pass, and be signed into law. The state would … Read more
From local elections to legislative debates to legal challenges, discussion of public education in New Hampshire has been dominated by two persistent myths. The first is that more spending is the primary means of producing better educational outcomes. The second is that our educational outcomes are stunted because funding for K-12 public schools has “been slashed,” as … Read more
It’s become the norm for Superintendents to eliminate teachers if they do not get the budget they want. This time the Portsmouth Superintendent is threatening to eliminate teaching positions if he doesn’t get the increase in the school budget. Why is it, they never take that hammer to their own salaries? Most SAU administrators working … Read more
Then NH House Rep. Cindy Rosenwald used to let out-of-state campaign workers use her home address to vote in Nashua. The Democrat then got herself a promotion when she was elected to the State Senate. This has addled her already questionable mental health, a problem she shares with her party in general. Democrats are nuts. … Read more
Paul Ingbretson continues the Claremont Decision discussion with Senate Counsel Attorney Rick Lehmann, who also practices law in New Hampshire. He’s been involved with the Court filing amicus briefs on behalf of the Senate. ln this podcast Rick lays out some of the separation of powers issues resulting from those decisions. If you missed Part … Read more
A few days ago I read and shared an article by Ruy Teixeira on his Substack page, The Liberal Patriot, titled The Democrats’ Governance Problem; They’re bad at it and getting worse. It contained this key insight that I think applies particularly keenly to our little state of Vermont: “Democrats have developed a philosophy … that prizes … Read more
Boston’s City Council is weighing a tax on sugary drinks to improve health, advance equity, and increase its coffers by tens of millions of dollars a year. Such progressive policies seek revenue in the name of rescue but inevitably inflict more significant inequities on the marginalized communities they purport to serve. A sugar tax is … Read more
Okay, we have established that the Clean Heat Standard is an unnecessarily costly, unnecessarily complicated, ruthlessly regressive, unworkable word salad of legal confusion. But, hey, at least, so bleated its supporters incessantly for three plus years, it wasn’t/isn’t a tax, fee, surcharge on home heating fuel, right? So, what’s are the options for moving forward … Read more