The New Media Militia

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In 2004 John Lynch primarily self funded spending 2 million of his own money out of roughly 3 million dollars.  It is worth noting that $300,000.00 of that was from outside the state, a wee bit more than the 200K he’s gnashing his rhetorical teeth on these days. (spent by NOM)

 

When we jump to the totals for the 2006 and 2008 gubernatorial campaigns, we find that John Lynch collected $1,800,000.00 dollars from outside the state.  That 1.8 million represents almost 40% of all the contributions used by Governor Lynch to affect local politics right here in New Hampshire. 

Read the entire article here: http://www.nhinsider.com/steve-mac-donald/2010/6/10/a-smudge-on-the-teflon-john.html

Steve Mac Donald

 

 

 

Originally poseted Jun 8th 2010

Steve Mac Donald

 

 

 

Protecting property is the primary purpose of incorporation.  The State of New Hampshire, seeing itself as a unique collection of property owners, exists for the sole purpose of a shared interest in how the rule of law and contracts can be best applied to ensure liberty while still protecting private property. 

 

Sometimes people forget about this fragile balance required to sustain liberty and property and elect bus loads of street mountebanks spewing feelings and promising sunshine and happiness if we simply let the government take on a few more responsibilities.  People are lazy or simply don’t listen and the next thing you know we’ve got recurring deficits and the siren song for more revenue–also known as someone else’s property.

Read the entire articel here: http://www.nhinsider.com/steve-mac-donald/2010/6/7/what-property-rights.html

Steve Mac Donald

 

 

 

One of my prevailing issues with public education is its evolution away from critical thinking.  Agenda driving curricula and the pervasive left wing university bias that churns out public school teachers has created generations of educators who are just as biased (if not more so) than their counter-parts from the media and journalism schools.

Read the rest here: http://www.nhinsider.com/steve-mac-donald/2010/6/6/what-to-think-not-how-to-think.html

Steve Mac Donald

 

 

 

Having a family of five and working can make it difficult to keep all my blog posting up to date.  Posterous, Live Free or Die and Twitter, for example, have been kicked to the curb for a few weeks as I have been too busy to cross post.   Cross posting often requires re-establishing in-text links to other sources, keywords and tags, and I simply do not have the time (or skills more likely) to do this for every post.  At between 400-600 blogs/year, well you do the math.

But I can provide a synopsis with a link to the full article at either NH Insider.com or Granite Grok–where most of my work gets posted.  So I will make that my habit for now until I either get better at this, or find more time.

I appreciate your continued interest in my blathering and hope this does no inconvenience anyone.

Thanks for reading.

Steve Mac Donald

 

 

(1) single out business groups for outright bans on political speech: government contractors would be prohibited from engaging in political speech as well as companies in the United States (even those with 80 percent of American shareholders) that attract  minimal foreign investment—no similar restrictions were included for labor unions with foreign connections, unions receiving government money or public employee unions negotiating for salaries and benefits; (2) create a far more onerous and vague disclosure regime than the Supreme Court cited in Citizens United, deterring grassroots groups from speaking out in midterm campaigns; and (3) explicitly sow chaos and confusion among those attempting to comply with campaign finance law by mandating that the law go into effect without clarification by the FEC of numerous vague and undefined provisions as well as slowing down the judicial review process. 

So much like our own evil cousin, this attempt at disclosure is more the big bully majority bending the speech curve in their favor.   CCP elaborates here.

“Although corporations are forced to certify that foreign investors hold less than 20 percent of the company’s voting shares, unions are not required to certify that 20 percent of their members are not foreign. In rejecting such similar treatment, Democrats cited the rationale that unions lack the luxury to choose their members. The fact that corporations also do not choose their shareholders is meaningless when the true purpose of this act is to protect the Democratic majority as opposed to promote similar treatment across various types of organizations. Democrats offered weak excuses to justify their opposition to this and other measures, citing the lack of an explicit mention of labor unions in the Citizens United decision or a worry for small unions—just not small groups like the Mom and Pop store owners who wish to speak out about a candidate threatening to raise taxes that would cripple their business. Ultimately, Democrats included an outright ban on the political speech of countless companies while leaving similarly situated union allies untouched.”

Hodes and Shea-Porter wish this upon you so read the whole thing, it’s very enlightening. 

So our job is not done yet.  It would be a shame to have put in all this effort to kill partisan speech profiling right here in the Granite State only to have the lefts Godverment impose it on us from atop the sacred mount.   So get busy.  None of them are to be trusted, but Democrats in particular, are the perfect fertilizer for growing domestic constitutional threats. 

One final point.  CCP managed to translate the acronym DISCLOSE for us given its actual and obvious purpose.   “Democratic Incumbents Seeking to Contain Losses by Outlawing Speech in Elections.”

Live Free or Die.

Steve Mac Donald

 

In a rather expensive looking effort to reassure that she is in fact on the job defending us from top heavy, ill mannered, ne’er-do wells we are presented with the following from a recent Carol Shea Porter mailer.

“The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act enables the government to identify large interconnected companies engaged in risky business practices.  Those companies will be subject to increased oversight, higher standards, and tighter regulations.” 

So let me see if I have this worked out.  A large interconnected serious of uncountable bureaucracies, overseen by incontinent tax and spend politicians, engaged in risky business practices, who refuses to be subject to increased oversight, higher standards and tighter regulations—That’s the Federal Government—is going to do what it is incapable of doing for itself to an industry which floods billions of dollars annually into lobbying and political campaign contributions to favored incumbents?

 

She goes on to suggest that failing firms will be shut down with Wall Street, not taxpayers, paying the price. 

Who elected this simpleton? 

 

Not only has she failed to see the irony of her own press she seems incapable of understanding simple economics.  No matter who controls them, mandates them, or incurs them, all costs find their way into the wallets of everyday Americans. 

 

Oh, and then there is the matter of this  Act she refers to not only entrenching crony bail outs at taxpayer expense, but that it hides them in the hands of unelected bureaucrats so that members of congress don’t have to vote openly or be held accountable to the taxpayers. 

 

You did know that was what this bill does, didn’t your Carol?  Did you?
 

 

 

Steve Mac Donald

 

 

NH Congressional district one residents will have been treated to another spiffy looking, tri-fold, heavy card stock, multi-colored mailer from Carol Shea-Porter.  I’ll get to the content later.  For now I would like to take a moment to share ten words from the back of the mailer.

 

“This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.”

 

Steve Mac Donald

 

 

The Home School Legal Defense Association has declared New Hampshire Hostile to Home schoolers. 

 

Currently only six states have “earned” the distinction of being considered “red” states. These are Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York and North Dakota. HSLDA will be adding New Hampshire to this list not because its law is inherently unfriendly, but because its legislative climate has been persistently hostile to homeschoolers for the last four years.

 

Although the trend nationally in homeschooling regulation has been toward reducing regulation, since 2006 serious attempts have been made by a determined group of legislators to dramatically increase the level of regulation on New Hampshire homeschoolers. As a result, New Hampshire homeschoolers have fought intense legislative battles to defend their freedom from excessive government regulation over the past several years. The Department of Education in New Hampshire has also demonstrated its antipathy to the current status of homeschooling in the state by its actions. The Department recently attempted to circumvent the Home Education Advisory Council by proposing a set of rules that would have imposed new restrictions, some contrary to the law. To the great credit of New Hampshire State Board of Education, this process was handled in a way to minimize the negative impact on homeschoolers with only minimal changes to the rules being made as required by changes in the home school law in recent years.

 

Emphasis mine.

 

Maybe this “determined group of legislators” (we’ll just call them democrats) who took control in Concord in 2006 could have spent more time on accurate revenue projections and responsible budgeting practices instead of as attack dogs for the teachers unions.

 

(H/T MadIrishMan)
 

Steve Mac Donald

 

 

There is speculation that part of the problem with some incumbants and candidates who are seeking higher office (like an Arlen Specter or Charlie Crist) is that they want it too much.  They want the office more than anything.  In Specter’s case he switched parties to keep his senate seat.  Crist crooned about his devotion to the GOP until the people who make up the GOP made it clear they were not going to choose him, and he declared himself an independent.  His reward will probably be a third place finish.  Specter has been handed his walking papers.  They both wanted it too much.

 

While there is nothing new about the self-interest required to achieve an elected office, blatant displays are considered gauche and Crist and Specter will not be the only ones to suffer for it.  In New Hampshire I can think of at least two example that fit this criterion.  Sean Mahoney and Charlie Bass.

 

Off the top, I don’t know either.  I’m sure they are great guys who have done great things at one time or another.  But in the midst of a surge in which we are looking to replace politicians more interested in politics than the people, candidates that appear to “want it too much” are a poor investment.

 

Mahoney is only on my short list for the reality television drama-queen departure he executed in the face of a minor scandal/non-scandal which he then used as an excuse to run for office.  Magnify that into the realm of all possibility and tell me if candidate or congressman Mahoney can ever carry that one-time back-ally victory with his so-called conscience to DC?  It’s for show so the answer has to be no.  So Sean looks to me to be little more than an opportunist with money and connections.  Although one might hint that the connections are all to that corrupt misguided GOP he could have better fixed as a committeman than a candidate, which makes him something of a political pied piper.  I think he wants to be elected to something more than he wants to serve as my congressman.

 

I have a greater concern for the candidacy of Charlie Bass.  It’s a small-government party and while he was good on taxes and defense he’s not so good on spending, the environment, heck you know the list.  He has conections to the evil GOP empire of GWB which will never run well.   He ran for office on term limits then dumped that promise.  He has been unable to win an election at any point in recent memory.  Now he is running again–and I don’t think he is running on term limits.

 

Does he want it too much?  I think he does.

 

So how does it play out?  I happen to think Bass and Mahoney are wasting money, but they are more than welcome to do so.  Perhaps we will see something that catapaults them beyond the ‘specter’ of opportunism, but that remains to be seen.  For now, they just look like they want an invitation to the ball so they can say they were there, and in Charlie’s case there again.

Steve Mac Donald