The War on Poor Children by Religious Bigots in New Hampshire

There is an excellent article over at Math Wizards, on the effort by some in New Hampshire to repeal a scholarship program for poor kids titled “HB370: A WAR ON POOR CHILDREN IN NEW HAMPSHIRE by RELIGIOUS BIGOTS?”

The article observes that opponents are pointing to the NH State constitution as a reason for repeal, but then walks you through a) how the Blaine Law that was the source for Article 83 is religious bigotry, b) how the constraints of article 83 don’t even apply to the program they seek to repeal, and c) that local districts (and this is something I have pointed out repeatedly) still end up with all kinds of local tax money and no student to spend it on.

So the real problem is that the people who object to poor kids getting private scholarship money from New Hampshire business owners either have the constitutional agility of a small soap dish, are paid hacks of some monolithic special interest who are clinging to power, or they hate poor kids.

I’m not averse to the presumption that opponents have internalized all three.

Check out the article.    It is well worth your time, and your brain will thank you for making it smarter.

You are reading  "The War on Poor Children by Religious Bigots in New Hampshire"   by  Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)

Steve has been recognized as the Americans For Prosperity Blogger of the month for December 2012

Is Ann Kuster Happy We Violated the US Constitution?

Ann Kuster is excited that the House Republicans decided not to change the Senate version of the Violence Against Women’s act.    I’m not sure what the House had in mind but Tax dodger Ann Kuster is happy to assume it’s because they hate women.

What a difference a day makes! On Wednesday, Speaker Boehner had big plans to limit the protections for women who are victims of domestic and sexual violence. Apparently, House Republicans believe that some women – namely lesbians, immigrants and Native Americans – do not deserve equal protection under the law.

Problem.  This bill violates the US constitution in it’s effort to protect women from domestic and sexual violence.

Heritage dissects the details but here’s the synopsis.

The bill would authorize Indian tribal courts to adjudicate certain domestic violence criminal charges against non-Indians and to enter a final judgment authorizing the confinement of convicted offenders. At present, tribal courts cannot exercise that authority because, as the Supreme Court held in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe in 1978, tribal courts lack criminal authority over non-Indians.

Oliphant said that Congress could empower tribal courts to adjudicate criminal charges against non-Indians, but to do so, it must pass legislation giving tribal courts that power. Congress could do that by passing VAWA, but the problem with the Senate version of the legislation is that it violates Articles II and III of the Constitution in the process.

Any Tribal court that tries to exercise this unlawful authority could expect to find itself on the way to Federal Court or even the  Supreme court, complete with all the costs and time associated with such a journey, at the end of which they might find that the White man (and woman) has just screwed them again.

Personally, men who beat or abuse women are at the top of my sh*t list next to people who abuse children.   If there is a hole in the law that allows people to get away with either I’m happy to support legitimate efforts to correct that.  But Ann Kuster (and very likely everyone else cranking out the Democrat fund raising form letter-o-false victory) thinks they just won a battle in defense of women.  A noble cause.   But all congress really did is set a trap.  A trap Kuster is using to bash Republicans and raise campaign money.  And guess what?  Whoever you are, you helped.

But you made a difference. Your voice was heard. Thank you for joining our petition to protect women across America from violence.Today, the House voted to defeat the GOP bill and instead to pass, overwhelmingly, the Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act.

Yes we did.

Annie

PS: I hate to ask but we are facing a big deadline tonight, can you chip in a few dollars and help us meet this vital deadline today? (Link removed)

So is Ann Kuster happy we Violated the US Constitution and set a trap for the tribal courts?  I doubt she has the slightest clue. Nor do I think she cares.   She just want’s to hear the electronic clink of digital silver in her little virtual tin cup.

Note: I have not seen the House version.  If anyone has a link, I’d love to know why House Republicans joined the senate in approving this mess.

Democrats Always Lie About Taxes and Spending

Democrats lie about taxes, spending, and caring about the middle class, and two opportunities to prove that have recently presented themselves.

First, Nashua Democrat David Campbell, from whose progressive womb sprang the 15 cent per gallon gas tax, recently remarked in an email to Democrat party leadership that the Democrat gas tax was...

..."the gift that keeps on giving"

...

"As my father used to say, 'Don't spend it all in one place!" Rep. David Campbell, D-Nashua, chairman of the House Public Works and Highways Committee, wrote on Friday in explaining that his gas tax hike bill will generate "bonus monies" for purposes not directly associated with highways, roads and bridges.

Not directly associated is right.

The gas tax will screw you, your family, your small business, and the entire  state economy out of millions more annually once fully implemented, money that will not got to wages, jobs, or anything but the Democrats government first addiction.

When his proposed four-step gas tax hike is fully phased in, Campbell wrote, it will generate $1.25 million annually for the Fish and Game Department, $658,000 annually for the general fund and $593,000 annually for the Department of Resources and Economic Development's Bureau of Trails.

Democrats will say, it's just a few bucks a week.  Sure.  Every week.  Week after week. For every vehicle you own.  And for every vehicle that carries goods and services--added to the cost of those goods and services--which you will also pay in incrased prices, or potentially lower wages, or fewer jobs.

Those millions for Fish And Game and "other departments" have to come from somewhere before state government wastes them on "purposes not directly associated with highways and bridges."

Democrats don't care they are just happy about the bonus money.  Millions more every year than they need for the stated purpose of the tax they are voting on.   Happy!

Happy to steal your money from you for whatever they want.

The second example relates to a Union Leader non-scientific poll whose results just happened to be sidled up next to John DiStaso's Granite Status column describing how the Democrats were happy about soaking the middle class under the cover of their infrastructure desperation narrative.

The poll asked "How would you use 80 million in new revenue from casino gambling?"

Fifty percent of respondents said, lowering taxes and fees.

Hello?  McFly?  Don't you listen?  Democrats need more money because they've already spent it and 80 million isn't even the tip of one nipple on the Democrats big fat spending sow.

The party that is giddy over robbing you of an extra 2.5 few million "for other purposes"on top of the millions for which the tax was created, hav an endless list of ideas about how to spend your money.  Just two years ago they had willfully spent 800 million more than they had after raising around 100 other taxes and fees--some of which crammed costs and actually raised taxes on towns and cities.  And That still wasn't enough.

There is no limit.  New Hampshire Democrats could spend a cool billion without blinking and plan to pend more and you'd never see one dime of tax relief.  Not one.  Nor will you ever.

So wake up.  (I SAID WAKE UP!!!)

The gas tax is just another way to deprive you of your hard earned wages for their laundry list and the only thing Gambling taxes or fees will ever do--no matter how much or how little it might be (if any at all)--is allow Democrats to spend that and more, and more, and more.

No amount of your money will ever be enough because it's not their money.

It's yours.

It's what they do.  it's all they do.

You are reading  "Democrats Always Lie About Taxes and Spending"   by  Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)

Steve has been recognized as the Americans For Prosperity Blogger of the month for December 2012

Big Money Equals Access To Obama

It's the Clinton Coffees and the Lincoln Bedroom writ large but with a bit more daylight.  (Who says history doth not repeat?)

OFA, Organizing For A-h****,  is stating right up front that you can buy access to the President.  Just give them a big bucket of cash and they can get you in touch with the people who run the s**t wagon formerly known as America.

And let me tell you.  Access to these people will greatly increase your odds of getting to sit up front, instead of in back.  (OK, so it is also illegal, unethical, immoral...)

The New York Times says ‘giving or raising $500,000 or more puts donors on a national advisory board for Mr. Obama’s group and the privilege of attending quarterly meetings with the President along with other meetings at the White House.’

Excuse us? This just looks bad. It looks like the White House is selling access. The definition of how you define selling access. If you believe money has a stranglehold over the entire political system, this is ceding the moral high ground. And the President always has, from the moment he first announced his presidential bid in Springfield, six years ago, he stressed the need to curb the influence of special interests in Washington.

I'm now forced to decide which is more surprising to me?  Obama's convenience-store campaign organ selling access to the crown or the new York Times getting out in front of it; as if even low information voters might realize this is bad?

Watch for OFA to clarify their remarks/policy/intentions and then do it anyway.  I would not be surprised if they run a media campaign to make influence peddling legitimate and or blame "Republican grid-lock" for having to do it in the first place.  Whatever the plan, liberals everywhere will swoon and rush to their defense, checkbooks in hand.

Because some pigs are more equal than others.  (Sweeeee!)

H/T Hot Air

I,________, do solemnly swear, that I will bear faith and true allegiance to the 'Guidelines?'

Has ignorance reared its ugly head again in the New Hampshire Legislature   Yeah, yeah, more times per day than we could count with all those people there.  Actually, I'm referring to Debra DeSimone, Rockingham 14 who seems to have a questionable view of her relationship to the constitution.  According to Ms. De Simone, the constitution is really just a guideline and we have House Rep George Lambert (Hills - 44) to thank for sharing that news with us.

From Facebook.

"House quote of the day "the constitution is a guideline" not a requirement. - and yes she said "I swore to uphold the guideline" if it is just a guideline, how will it's protections actually defend you..."

And an inch is just a guideline when building a house.  So what if you are off a few inches or bits of inches here and there.  A foot here, a yard there.  (as long as it doesn't fall down while you're standing next to it, right?)

So it's Guidelines is it, Debra?  Well I checked the oath of office.  The word "Guidelines" isn't in there.

Is there something we need to know?  Are there other things you've changed the words to in your head, fingers crossed, while reciting them?  And could this Debra-DeSimone-constitutional-conundrum suggest the bluing of her once "more-Republican" political worldview?

Debra didn't start out as a RINO but with talk like that it may be too late.  She may have contracted a terminal case of Concord Fever.

You get Concord Fever from being immersed in the bureaucracy for too long.  The endless chatter, the lobbyists, the swarms of state employees, and the leftist stench that seeps from the fat folds of a corpulent government-dependent capital-city constantly crying for another giant  bag of tax-payer flavored Doritos.

It is New Hampshire's version of the Georgetown flu.   Some catch it quick, some never, some arrive with it by the bus-load like moths to flame, or groupies at a convention for typhoid Mary's,  intent on infecting everyone they can.

And because Human nature encourages us to seek the path of least resistance, to give in to peer pressure, to fit in, Concord Fever, or Georgetown Flu, has no shortage of new hosts among the brethren of the first church of government before the people.

And what of Debra?

Debra has been in the House since the 2008 election, serving 2009-2010, 2011-2012, and now again for 2013-2014.  Looking back, as a snappy freshman, her NHHRA score for 2009-2010--a sign of how well she votes with regard to her party platform-was a solid 90%.  That breaks down to a barely passable 83% in 2009 and an impressive 95% in 2010.  Surrounded as she was by a Democrat majority seems to have served her instincts well.

Moving on to the 2011-2012 session something changed.  She dropped all the way down to a 77%.  Her session score from the RLCNH was a 70%.  The only decent trend I could find was from the NHLA which gave her a grade of B every year she has served since 2009.  But in 2012...she dropped to a B-.

That means, more likely than not, that she migrated to the left on some social issues and has grown more comfortable surrounded by the clucking hens in the "something must be done crowd."

And now we've got this whole "guideline" thing?  (Are you already denying you said it?)

Debra isn't the only Republican with this potential problem.  There are a lot of people who look at the law and then act as if it were just a guideline.  Many of those people get arrested.  Some of them go to jail.  Do you know why?  Because the law is the law.  It is not a suggestion. It is not always right, or careful, or relevant, but there is a process for fixing that.

And the Constitution is the law of the law.  We didn't have a break-out session and come up with some action items.  The Constitution limits government power so that as it performs its basic duty to ensure that civil society stays civil it does not evolve into a despotic police state run by people who govern based on transient principles.

It defines what law can and cannot do how it is to be made and unmade, to ensure that peoples natural rights and freedoms are not trampled by busy-body legislators and peace officers infected with the uncontrollable desire to appear to be doing something, even when that something could threaten other peoples liberty and property.

Law is serious business; more serious because the people most affected are those most inclined to follow it, even when they would like to suggest changes.

People of principle and character play by the rules and follow the law even when they wish to change it, while those less inclined to do so drift into a toxic gray area where feelings and emotions become the guidelines that define the edges of a now inconvenient social and cultural morality.

You do understand that Hitler got to power following the guidelines which he later disposed of when even those stood between him and his destiny as a dictator?  And he's not alone.  Republics reduced to raw democracies inevitably become despotic because of human nature and its relationship to power.  All you have to do is follow the guidelines and ignore anything inconvenient until the only inconvenient thing left is the people who are upset about losing their freedom--but that is what the secret police are for, right?  Evolution isn't just about explaining how you and a sperm whale could have descended from the same goo even if the math doesn't work.  It works for the destruction of freedom just as well.

How does the saying go, the biggest storm announces itself with a simple breeze?  Guidelines?  Did someone leave a door open?

Please do not presume to think I am accusing anyone of anything other than being caught saying something silly of succumbing to wrong-headed thinking.  I am merely using the occasion of this seeming indifference to the risk the notion of 'guidelines' presents to explore the larger problem.

For the record, it is a wholly progressive socialist notion, and it is there erstwhile wish that the document be neutered so that they may do whatever strikes their fancy without fear of interference from the people whom they swore--to the Constitution -to protect from government tyranny.

But seeing as these same people appear insistent at playing the role of "lawmaker," sworn to protect and defend that constitution, might I be so bold as to suggest that it is in our best interest to accept that the Constitution is not a guideline no matter how many well-meaning, progressive harpies, chat you up differently in the ladies room.  A constitution is the Granite upon which the waves of whimsy crash.

In case anyone has forgotten...a legislators first obligation is to those documents.

I, A.B. do solemnly swear, that I will bear faith and true allegiance to the United States of America and the state of New Hampshire, and will support the constitution thereof. So help me God.

The word support in the oath does not mean to carry it around and ignore everything it is means.  And in case you are curious, 'bear faith' has nothing to do with bears.  And claiming you swore to the guidelines is not "faith and true allegiance to..."  It's a cop-out and your constituents deserve better.

And if, for example, one of your own well-meaning constituents, the ones who email you weekly and call and stop you in the store,  ask you to propose or vote for something that clearly fails a constitutional test, your role is that of an educator, an instructor or interpreter of civics; not a drug mule who carries every bat-sh*t notion to the state house as a litmus test to see how far we can stretch those 'guidelines.'

When other representatives bring forward legislation your role is to serve as a constitutional filter for your constituents -who were supposed to have chosen you because they felt you qualified to protect their interests in the capital.  So when the clown car filled with LSR's unloads Bill after Bill, you will be there for them, to make sure it does not violate, first and foremost, the highest law in the land.  That would be the New Hampshire State Constitution and the US Constitution.

If a Bill passes that basic test, and there is a lot of room in there, then the rest is left to your understanding of your district, your judgement, based on your principles, assuming you  have some.  And I don't mean just you, I refer to every elected official, judge, appointee, paper pusher or public employee, whose actions can or will affect the liberty or property of the people who pay their way; far too many of whom--I might add-- see far too much of the constitution, the law itself, as little more than just a guideline.

That kind of thinking is lazy and we can get it, even indexed for inflation, at a dime a dozen.  But people of principle who know the law and understand why it can and often should be so hard to change are rare.  People who do not think of the government first every time the emotional wind blows their way are just as rare.

That is why we need a constitution and we need to defend it.  To protect us from the kind of knee-jerk, crisis legislating that leads to losses of freedom, intentional or not.

No one swears to uphold something as ephemeral as a guideline.  You might just as well have not sworn to do anything at all.  Oh, wait.  It appears that you did just that.

You are reading  "I,________, do solemnly swear, that I will bear faith and true allegiance to the ‘Guidelines?’"   by  Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)

Steve has been recognized as the Americans For Prosperity Blogger of the month for December 2012