Thin-skinned John Bircher

Apparently I've gone and ticked off the John Birch Society. Check out this poorly written screed, filled with a lot of interesting assumptions on Mr. Hal Shurtleff's part about what I "have no problems" with.

The writer is Hal Shurtleff, a regional field director for the John Birch Society. The conversation I've been having with him is beginning to cause him to unravel. This is one thin-skinned employee of a hate group:

Conway Daily Sun


Here's a video of Hal dispensing some agitprop to his flock:

Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, really? It's just such a silly, and unimaginative lie. Obama isn't nearly interesting enough to have been friends with them. He's a very conservative centrist Democrat. The right wingers have worked damned hard to persuade the mouth breathers of the nation that Obama is  a Commie, a socialist, a pinko, - when in reality, he's less liberal than Richard Nixon was.

But, for the JBS, any port in the storm to try to discredit the guy in the White House. That the guy  happens to be black is surely just a coincidence, where the JBS is concerned.

A little Carlin to cleanse your palate:

Thank You, Have a Nice Day

On November 8 (the day after the election), the NY Times had an article in their style section titled: “NH’s All-Mother Congressional Delegation (and Governor),” written by KJ Dell’ Antonia. Ms. Dell’Antonia writes about how NH has become the first state to send an all female delegation to Congress. Both of our US Senators, and now both of our Congresspersons are all women. So is our new governor. Not only are they women – they’re all mothers. OMG! Imagine that!

It’s clear that we haven’t come a long way, baby. Not when women are writing stories for the NY Times with awful headlines, focusing on how all these women are mommies. If we’d elected an all male delegation, it would not have been a story, just business as usual. And no writer would have commented that all of these men are daddies, wondering how that might impact their decision-making.

Switzerland has had four women presidents, including one that served two terms. Finland, Iceland, Ireland, and Argentina have all had female leaders. Right now there are 20 women around the world serving as leaders of their countries – the most ever women serving simultaneously as leaders of their countries. Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Kosovo, Costa Rica and Slovakia are some of those countries.

Here in the US, we still appear to be light years away from a woman serving as our chief executive. Instead, we have the NY Times breathlessly praising an all female Congressional delegation, 92 years after the passage of the 19th Amendment. Make no mistake: I’m delighted that NH is making history. I know that Carol Shea-Porter and Ann McLane Kuster will be fine Congresspersons. At the same time, I also know that women in the United States earn less than their male counterparts, and are underrepresented politically. So, yes, this is an outcome worth noticing and praising, but it’s also worth keeping in perspective. In other words - it is indeed a big deal, but the fact that it is noteworthy only underscores how very far behind we are.

Some history: Marilla Ricker paved the way for all women who run for office in NH. Marilla was widowed (and financially independent) before she was thirty and spent the next 50 years working to ensure women got the right to vote. She was the first woman in NH to try to vote, arguing that since she paid property taxes, she should have the right to vote. In 1910, a progressive Republican named Robert Bass was running for governor. Marilla decided to challenge him. She ran on a platform of property tax reform (Basses and property tax – nothing ever changes in NH) and voting rights for women. The secretary of state wouldn’t put her name on the ballot because, he said, she wasn’t a voter, so she couldn’t be governor. Nine year later NH became the 16th state to ratify the 19th Amendment.

The next year, NH women voted. They ran for office, too. Two of them won. The first women to be elected to the NH legislature were Jessie Doe, a Republican from Rollinsford and Mary Farnum, a Democrat from Boscawen. Jessie Doe served one term after her election in 1920, and then ran (and won) again in 1930. In 1932 she was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. UNH named a residence hall after her in 1964.

Mary Farnum was a physician who graduated from the Boston University School of Medicine in 1900. She was elected to the NH legislature in 1920. She served as the vice president and secretary of the NH Association of Women Legislators during her term. Dr. Farnum only served one term, but in 1922, three more women were elected to the legislature. In 1924 more than a dozen women were elected, some in near unanimous votes. At long last there were women voting and women holding office. Eventually there were women in leadership positions in our state.

Eventually, there may be a woman serving as president of the United States. That is, if we continue to have a United States. One of the more amusing outcomes of our recent election has been the number of states bleating about secession. Texas has revived their desire to secede. I say: let ‘em go. Before they head out the back door, however, they have to take their share of the federal debt with them. Oh, and no more gummint contracts and no more defense dollars. Thank you, and have a nice day.

Meanwhile, secession talk (and petitions) are underway in Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, both Carolinas, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Are you seeing a theme yet?

It’s sad when you think about it. These people were so desperate to oust the black guy from the White House that they chose the whitest, least charismatic Republican they could find - and now they’re so miffed that he lost that they want to leave the union. Seriously, they couldn’t find anyone better than Romney? I say, let ‘em go. Of course, it would mean no more red state welfare. All of those states (save for Texas) get back more than a dollar for every tax dollar they send in. Mississippi is in second place, getting back $2.02 for every tax dollar. No more red state welfare, no more gummint contracts, and take your portion of the debt with you. Buh-bye.

Naturally NH wouldn’t be left out of the fun. Someone named “Kevin A” from Conway has filed a petition at whitehouse.gov to secede. A new group calling themselves the Foundation for NH Independence has secession as their goal. This is also the goal of the Free State Project. Some of the (all male) board members of the Foundation for NH Independence are Free Staters. In Manchester, two Free Staters who are roommates ran against one another for a state rep seat. One ran as a Republican and one as a Democrat. The Democrat, Tim O’Flaherty won. He’s said on his Facebook page that he’s in favor of secession. Next month, he is supposed to swear an oath to uphold the NH and the US Constitution. Will he be honest enough to refuse to swear the oath? Or will he just cross his fingers behind his back? Isn’t running for office under false pretenses considered election fraud?

The Free State Project Loses One of Their Own

Remember Frank Szabo? He was a candidate for sheriff in Hillsborough County, who gained global attention for announcing that he would use deadly force to prevent doctors from performing abortions.
TPM :

In an interview on Wednesday with local television station WMUR, Szabo said he believed sheriffs were granted special powers under the Constitution. That means, he said, he would be empowered to arrest or even use deadly force against doctors for providing legal abortions for women.
“I would hope that it wouldn’t come to that, as with any situation where someone was in danger,” Szabo said. “But again, specifically talking about elective abortions and late term abortions, that is an act that needs to be stopped.”

He refused to drop out of the race, even after he was criticized by folks like Speaker O'Brien. Even the strange simmering stew that comprises today's NH GOP wasn't nutty enough to own up to supporting Szabo. At least not in public. He was trounced in the primary.

Poor Frank. Some guys just slither off into the shadows when they lose an election. And some take their ball and go home. From the Concord Monitor:

On Sunday night, Szabo announced on Facebook that he had left the United States. He didn’t name his destination, though other recent posts indicate he’s in the South American nation of Chile.

He didn't stay long:

Szabo, an aspiring organic farmer who moved to Goffstown from Pennsylvania in 2011 as part of the Free State Project, ran as a Republican for county sheriff, losing in the Sept. 11 primary to incumbent Sheriff Jim Hardy.


Apparently not being able to shoot doctors was a sign that Frank was never going to see "liberty in his lifetime" and he decided to leave the country. I think he made a brilliant decision, and hope that more of his Free State brethren choose to follow his example.

Bye Frank!!

It's a Fine Line

Any business putting up political signs is walking a fine line. During this past election, a chain restaurant that is new to the area put up nearly every GOP sign that was available. They hedged their bets before the primary, with signs for both Ovide and Kevin Smith. 

Those signs sent me a message, loud and clear. The signs told me that the owners shared the views of Smith and Lamontagne, notably the desire to regulate female reproduction. Those signs were themselves a sign. A sign that I would not spend a dime of my low income in their restaurant. 

Leavitt's Bakery allows any candidate to put up their signs. That's smart. 

These signs, put out by a local business were not smart:

( Photos courtesy of Gary Montford, and used by permission) 

The decorative details on Obama's collar points are little hammer and sickles. 

Then there was this banner, on the front of a shed that was not readily visible from the road:

(photo by susanthe)

What business was making these rather inflammatory statements? Our local Kawasaki dealership in Albany: 

(photos by Gary Montford, used with permission)

A complaint was made to the Kawasaki home office about the banners (not by me!) and they were subsequently removed. The Lewinsky banner on the shed was the only one that stayed, as you can see:

(susanthe photo) 

The Obama banners were certainly obnoxious, dishonest, and not without a tinge of racism. 

The "Lewinsky" banner is equally offensive. Women are the fastest growing segment of the motorcycle buying population. Monica Lewinsky was a young woman who made a number of really poor decisions. Those decisions were broadcast all over the world. She became the butt of jokes made by every comedian. Monica Lewinsky got a public shaming on an unprecedented level. 

Dredging that up, and mocking this woman AGAIN, to make some kind of coarse sexual/political joke sends a strong message to women, though not perhaps the message the owners intend. Something along the lines of: "Hey women, we don't want your business." 

What's your sign?

Seen on Election Day in Madison, NH 

Ousting Extremists

 Well, we had us an election.

Once again, NH has surprised me. In 2010, when the Tea Party/John Birch/Free Stater contingent took over our state it was a surprise. A lot of respected legislators were ousted, and replaced with people in possession of varying degrees of competence and sanity. The new majority promised a laser like focus on job creation, yet created policy that cost our state jobs, and increased unemployment. They turned the laser on social issues, and worked tirelessly to regulate ovaries, homosexuals, and poor people. They cut revenue streams, ensuring that NH would continue to be unable to afford the kind of investments in infrastructure and education needed to move our state into the future.

Thanks to the last legislature, NH became fodder for comedians on late night TV. We went from being a small state that no one paid much attention to until presidential primary season, to being a national and even international mockery. The volume knob on NH crazytunes was turned up a little bit higher each week that the legislature was in session. That probably wasn’t what most of you were hoping for when you cast your ballots in 2010.

You were probably hoping for property tax relief. You didn’t get any. Instead you got Free Stater Jennifer Coffey filing a bill to put up warning signs at the MA border. The voters in her district firmly ousted her. You got birthers – state legislators using their status to attempt to prove that President Obama is not a US citizen. Local birther Laurie Pettengill was gerrymandered right out of her seat by her own party. Harry Accornero was not given a second term by the voters of Laconia. You also got a bill to put quotes from the Magna Carta in new legislation, and a bill calling for vegetarian diets in our prisons and jails. Sponsor Robert Kingsbury was ousted by his constituents in Laconia.

Rep. Gregory Sorg last year chaired a committee aimed at ensuring NH received no federal aid for anything. In his report, he decried weatherization and fuel assistance programs, saying that NH residents should arrange their affairs so that they required no such assistance. As I wrote at the time:

“In short, we must all manage our affairs so that we do not get old, do not develop a serious health problem, do not lose our jobs, and do not suffer from sudden poverty caused by the destruction of the US economy. Based on these findings, Rep. Sorg should be expecting 3 ghosts to visit him on Christmas Eve. “

Apparently the voters in his district concurred. Rep. Sorg was voted out.

On the local level, Frank McCarthy was ousted. In a one on one conversation, Frank can be quite personable. His public persona, however, is probably what cost him the election. For two years he’s written bellicose diatribes to the newspaper, filled with inaccuracies and right wing propaganda. At the House candidate’s forum I attended, he didn’t need the microphone. His bellowing was audible in the next county. On the next planet.

Extremist Norman Tregenza was soundly defeated in his attempt to win the newly gerrymandered floterial district. Voters were apparently not won over by his laser like focus on the issues of Ron Paul and the John Birch Society – or by the ugly campaign he ran.

Ovide Lamontagne lost his second attempt at the corner office. In his concession speech, he complained that his positions on issues had been distorted. That translates as: they told the truth about me. The media was intent on presenting him as some sort of moderate, but his stance on social issues revealed him to be anything but. Lamontagne has now lost three elections because he’s just too extreme for NH. That’s the take away from this election. NH is many strange and wonderful things, but we aren’t a state that is willing to be governed by far right ideologues. 

On some level, I suspect that many local Republicans are aware that ceding their party to the extremists was a bad idea. They’ve paid a high price for allowing racists, homophobes, and misogynists to speak for them.

By far and away, the biggest mistake made by the GOP on every level (state and national) was the war on women. They might have gotten away with restricting abortion, but trying to restrict contraception proved to be a bridge to nowhere. GOP spokesman Rush Limbaugh called college student Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute for testifying before Congress about a mandate that insurance companies cover birth control. That was spun quite successfully and dishonestly as “taxpayer funded birth control.”

 By far and away the most damaging move made by the GOP was allowing itself to become the party of redefining rape. Missouri Congressman Todd Akin told us that in the case of “legitimate rape” a woman can’t get pregnant, because “the female body has ways of shutting that down.” Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock told us that a pregnancy resulting from rape is something God intended to happen. All over the country Republican men were telling women that a rape baby was going to be a little blessing for them – and one that they would be forced to bear. Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan was part of an effort to redefine rape, attempting to ensure that only victims of “forcible rape” would be eligible for federally funded abortions.

Women across the country proved that they have ways to shut THAT nonsense down. They voted Akin and Mourdock out. A record number of women will be US Senators in 2013. New Hampshire has made history with an all woman Congressional delegation: both of our US Senators and both of our newly elected Representatives are women. We elected a female governor. Record numbers of women will be serving in the US Senate and the US House.

There are women now serving in every single state legislative chamber. It’s shameful that it’s taken all this time to get there, but we are there now. The GOP would do well to take notice.

© sbruce 2012

Published as an op-ed in the November 8, 2012 Conway Daily Sun newspaper. 

Tregenza and the Mystery of the Unregistered PAC

My sincere condolences to Norman Tregenza, Jr. and the rest of the Tregenza/Lyman family on the loss of Norman Sr. Even when someone we love has been ill for a long time, we're still never prepared for that moment when they aren't with us any longer. Losing a parent is a big, big loss, and one that takes a very long time to grieve.

I'm truly sad for Norman.

But, sad or not, he's still running for the NH legislature. And losing his father doesn't erase the fact that he's run a disgusting, mean-spirited, and dishonest campaign against Ed Butler as they vie for the newly created seat in the newly gerrymandered floterial district.

Someone advised Norman. He's not clever enough to have thought to focus on the so-called "bathroom bill," a meme that is being used all over the state. That's straight from Speaker O'Brien and his pal Kevin Smith, formerly of Cornerstone Policy Research. I suspect he was told to go on the offensive and stay the course. It's not surprising. As we've seen in two weeks of newspaper ads, Norman doesn't have any legislative accomplishments to boast about. Norman focused on sponsoring bills asking Congress to return to the gold standard, asking Congress to withdraw the United States from the UN,  and affirming the state's powers based on the Constitution for the US and the Constitution of NH. Another bill he sponsored urged Congress to amend or repeal legislation expanding the constitutionally delegated powers of federal government. Then there was a bill urging Congress to withdraw the US from NAFTA, and  one urging the NH delegation to support bills requiring a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve. The UN withdrawal bill he filed in 2011 and again in 2012. In fact, a number of his do nothing bills were filed both years of the biennium: The withdrawal from NAFTA, the affirming state's powers bill, and the audit the Fed bill.

Each bill filed by a legislator costs taxpayers approximately $1500 - for researching and writing up by legislative services, publishing costs, etc.  Each of those bills norman filed twice cost us $3000. He wasted $12,000 on bills that had nothing to do with state government, and were absolutely meaningless, just to prove some Ron Paul/John Bircher point. And he has the audacity to speak of fiscal responsibility.

Because Norman is so bereft of accomplishment, someone decided that he should run an ugly and mean attack campaign. For a couple of weeks now we've been treated to the daily newspaper ad from his campaign, alleging that former Rep. Butler is aiding and abetting perverts. To fight perversion, Tregenza urges employers to cut out his ads and post them on bathroom doors. Apparently in Bircherville,  any pervert who catches a glimpse of Norm's Arayan youth photo in the ad will flee from the ladies room, never to be seen again.

The ads became unpopular. People started writing letters to the newspaper. It was apparent at the candidate's forum held at the VFW that Norman had nothing else to offer in his campaign. He wants to protect loons from lead sinkers in our lakes, which may be the only laudable cause he's involved in. He wants to fix our roads - or so he says - but he voted for a budget that slashed spending on roads and bridges. When asked about the bill in question, Ed Butler's response was so calm, so informed, and so adult that Norman was left with nothing else to say on that subject.

In a desperate measure to look as if he'd done something good, he ran an ad about being a co-sponsor of a bill that renamed a bridge in Grafton County. The bridge was renamed after a young man who died  at age 17.  Norman failed to ask permission from the family to use their dead son as a tool in a political ad. They were outraged. Norman responded by taking out another ad:

He apologizes to the family, but whines that he was trying to do something positive in the midst of all the negative advertising - as if he'd played no role in the negativity. And in this ad, he not only exploits a dead boy for political gain, he also exploits his recently deceased father, telling us that he designed this ad while he was holding his dying father's hand. I know better than many, that grief can cause someone to be unhinged. This ad is proof. Then bizarrely he has a text box at the bottom to show inform us that HE isn't dead, it's his father who died. Weird. Really weird.

Today's ad was not as strange, but still out there. He informs us that he's STILL ALIVE, that it was his father who died (a plea for the sympathy vote) and then, after bleating the day before about negativity, he jumps right into phony outrage about bathrooms. And yes, it is phony outrage. Norman voted against women at every opportunity - so his oft professed concern about what transpires in ladies rooms  is as phony as it is hypocritical.

At the bottom of Norman's signs and his numerous newspaper ads is a statement about who is paying for the ads and signs. It reads: "This ad is paid for by Mt. Washington Valley Campaign Fund to Elect Tregenza, Lisa Hayford, fiscal agent, PO Box 205, Madison, NH 03849" In other words, a political action committee, or PAC, was formed to handle the contributions and expenses of the campaign. This is very common. The Secretary of State's website has plenty of them listed: Friends of Fenton Groen, Committee to Elect Gene Chandler, Friends of Jeb Bradley - you get the idea. The rules that these PACs must abide by are also listed at the Secretary of State's website, in the Election Division section of the site. The very first rule is:

Any political committee, except that of a political party, must register with the Secretary of State not later than 24 hours after receiving any contribution in excess of $500 OR before making an expenditure in excess of $500, but in no event later than 14 days after the formation of the committee. 

As I mentioned earlier , I was at the Secretary of State's (SoS) office yesterday going through candidate and PAC reports. These are, of course, a matter of public record. In the course of my research I learned that there is no "Mt Washington Valley Campaign Fund to Elect Tregenza" registered with the Secretary of State. You can see this for yourself on the SoS website, where all of the registered PACs are listed. I wanted to be sure, though, so I asked. This committee has never been registered with the SoS.

 I did find 2 candidate reports that Norman had filed. The first was received September 19.

This report makes no mention of the committee. This is his report for the primary segment of the election. He claims a total  for the primary of $4, 211. 07 in campaign receipts. (That means contributions) He claims $1095.50 in expenditures on this report, and $1,441. 55 in prior expenses. His campaign expenditures to this date total $2537.05, which leaves a reported balance of $1684.07.

Now, on to the itemizations:

As you can see, there are no itemized receipts (contributions), so we have no idea where the money came from. There is one expenditure, to Mt. Washington Graph-fix and Printing for signs, to the tune
of $1095. 50.

The only other report thus far is from the General Election, received by the SoS on October 17.

This report makes no  mention the Mt Washington Valley Campaign Fund to Elect Tregenza. Norman brings forth a balance of $1674. 07. (He's only off by $10, according to the last report.) He reports $950 in contributions thus far in the general election cycle, with $0 previously reported during the general election. Adding the balance brought forward and the new contributions, he claims a new balance of $2634. 02. This new balance includes the $10 he was previously off by.

There are 3 items in the receipt section. One donation from the Carroll County Republican Committee for $350.00. The second is a $200.00 contribution from Margaret Devine of N. Conway. The third is a donation of $100 from Barbara Jane Tupper of West Ossipee. Try as I might, I can only get those donations to add up to $650, not the $950 claimed on the front of the form. There is one expenditure, for $1000 to the Conway Daily Sun newspaper for advertising.

Let's just say that the math doesn't exactly work out - but there's no smoking gun in the math,  just a person who appears to be inept at filling out forms.

The smoking gun is the committee. Why do Norman's signs and newspaper ads refer to a PAC that is not registered with the Secretary of State? Why are thousands of dollars in donations not itemized?

What's really going on here?

Why in the world would we trust this guy with taxpayer dollars, if he can't be trusted to engage in honest record keeping?

There You Go Again, Maynard

Poor Maynard Thomson. He was the Chairman of the Carroll County GOP, until he had to step down because he filed faulty PAC reports. Since he stepped down on the same day that the cease and desist letter was sent by the NH Attorney General's Office, with the flimsy pretext that he was leaving to serve the Rick Perry for President campaign in some capacity.

I mentioned this incident in a recent column, since Maynard of the deliberately incomplete paperwork is now running for the NH House. He's counting on the fact that no one will remember what happened a year ago in 2011, or care. In fact, he was quite miffed at me for bringing it up, as one can see in his rather hastily penned letter to the editor that appeared in the October 26 edition of the Conway Daily Sun:

She’d also know that the state required me to re-file the forms because I’d done a sloppy, hurried job, and one of the local Democrats complained. There was no effort to conceal anything in the original filings — sorry, but the Carroll County Republicans were passed over when the sinister, right-wing billionaires were handing out the money — and no sanction for my errors, or any finding of wrong-doing.  The forms — originals, and corrected — are available for viewing on line.

As one can clearly see, Thomson admits to filing forms that weren't correctly filled out. As one can also clearly see, despite the oft sung GOP mantra of personal responsibility,  Thomson refuses to take any. He's not to blame for filing incorrect paperwork - a Democrat is to blame for reporting him.

What is interesting about this letter NOW, is that I wrote about his fall from grace on several occasions in 2011, and Thomson said nothing. In GOP Values on Display, which was published in the October 7, 2011 edition of the Conway Daily Sun, I wrote about Thomson's shoddy paperwork:

It seems that under the stewardship of romance novelist Thomson, the Carroll County GOP failed to properly report, itemize, and provide receipts for their expenditures during the 2010 campaign. It seems that some expenditures went on Chairman Thomson’s own personal credit card. According to the AG’s letter (which I have a copy of), the report that was submitted just lumped everything together as one big expense, without itemizing. From the letter: “Your conscious decisions to fail to report the committee’s expenditures for political advertisements until after the General Election and to lump them together with the committee’s cable bill violates RSA 664:6.” 

In an October 6, 2011 diary at the blog Blue Hampshire I was even more direct about Thomson:

As many of us know, political committees, just like candidates, must file expenditure reports as soon as they have taken in more than $500 before an election. Those reports must contain itemized receipts and expenditures.
According to the AG's investigation, Maynard Thomson's first report was filed on Sept. 22, 2010. It reported $10, 842.90 in receipts and $3,218.70 in expenditures. Unless they had a sudden windfall, Thomson was rather tardy in filing this form. About $1200 worth of tardy, in fact. None of the receipts or expenditures in the report were itemized.
The AG's office also learned that Thomson (on behalf of the CC GOP Committee) signed agreements with 2 radio stations to air political ads. He spent $879.75 at both stations. The bill went on Thomson's credit card, dated October 13, 2010. The fiscal reports from Thomson to the state on October 13th and 27th, 2010 do not list the expenditures.
The November 10, 2010 shows a lump expenditure of $6,215.30 for the CC GOP cable bill, advertisements in the Conway Daily Sun newspaper, and the advertisements on Mt. Washington Radio. No itemized anything. No receipts. The AG's office refers to  this as "conscious decision" to fail to report this until after the election.

At the time, Thomson told the Conway Sun that he had "no inkling" that anything was wrong with his reports. As anyone who has ever run for office knows, the reporting is pretty simple and straightforward. One reports the donations coming in, and one reports the expenses going out. Anyone who keeps a checkbook should be able to manage this. Maynard Thomson is an attorney. It's difficult to imagine that he had "no inkling" or that he was incapable of properly filling out the forms.

In any case, I wrote those two pieces in 2011, and Thomson undoubtedly saw both of them, yet he didn't write to the paper to correct me. He didn't send me a behind the scenes letter, or threaten to sue me, as he has in the past.

He's counting on the fact that voters have forgotten, if they ever even knew about his problems with the NH Attorney General's office. Being the stalker/misogynist he is, he feels compelled to attempt to discredit ME for reminding everyone of his borderline criminal actions.

It's fortunate for Mr. Thomson that the state doesn't enforce the rules of their rather shoddy reporting system.

But - as granny used to say, a leopard doesn't change his spots. I was in Concord yesterday at the Secretary of State's office, going through candidate reports, when I came upon the only report Thomson has filed since the primary. It seems that old dog is up to the same tricks:

This is Thomson's October 17 report. As you can see, he's claiming a sum of $3, 615. 37 as being brought forward from the donations he received during the primary, and this is listed as his total receipts  taken in to date, for the campaign. Receipts is the term used for contributions.

Thomson listed $655.27 in expenditures for this report. On the line asking for total of expenditures previously reported, he's claiming zero. The receipts and expenditures are supposed to be itemized. Under receipts he has a zero. Under expenditures  he has written: "see attached." There was no attached.  There you go again, Maynard.

There's also a rather epic math failure here. Instead of subtracting the amount of expenditures from the receipts, Thomson added the expenditures to the receipts, and listed the amount as a deficit balance. If he'd subtracted the expenditures (as he is supposed to),  he'd be reporting a surplus balance of $2960.10.

Thomson has been attempting to belittle my intelligence for years, and I'll confess I did fail remedial math once in high school, owing largely to a lack of motivation on my part. Thomson trumpets his education and experience proudly on his website:

 After graduating from law school, I became an Assistant Attorney General in Ohio. From there, I went to the Kennedy School at Harvard, where I got a Masters in Public Administration.
We then went to Washington, where I worked for the Federal Trade Commission. That was where I developed my enduring interest in the economics of health care, and my conviction that there’s almost no problem that won’t be made into a far larger problem by a well-intentioned, government intervention.

All that education, yet seemingly he can't subtract, and clearly he will not properly fill out a simple campaign finance report. Do you really want to have him working on our state budget????

MoveOn.org Should Engage In Some Self Reflection

This is the mailer I received from MoveOn yesterday. Should I feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that I'm an excellent voter? Thing is - I already knew that. Some poor tree died a redundancy induced death on my account.

As it happens, I went to the post office with an elderly woman yesterday. She got one of these, too. Here's the email I sent MoveOn, as a result:

Dear Move On,
I received my voter report card from you in today's mail. I am rated as an excellent voter, which is no surprise to me. I'm a writer and an activist, and I vote.
I'm also a part time caregiver for an elderly woman. I drove her to the post office today, and she got her voter report card. She's classified as a "good" voter, because she hasn't voted in the last few elections. In the last 5 years, she's had a stroke from which she's never fully recovered from. She was forced to close her business. She doesn't know what year it is most of the time. She has dementia - and she has no business voting.
You have no idea why people aren't voting. Sending out blanket report cards to everyone means that some people,  like my elderly friend are being hurt, needlessly, by your organization.
I have to tell you, I think this sucks. I've watched this woman go from being a successful artist and business owner to being someone who can't remember to get up to use the toilet. Every time we go somewhere, someone who knows her greets her effusively - and she's canny enough to fake it, but she can't remember who they are. Some days that really depresses her. She didn't need another reminder of what she isn't any more from Move On. My advice to you is simple: don't ever do this again.

Susan Bruce

Their response:

Susan,
We're terribly sorry for sending our mailing to your client. Obviously, it's not appropriate for her situation.
Please accept our sincere apologies for the mistake.
Voter Report Card
Washington, DC

I guess I was hoping for a "yeah, we screwed up, we shouldn't have done this", or  a "we screwed up and shouldn't have done it this way." Or even a "we're going evaluate this project based on the mail we're getting." 

So much for my hopes. 

MoveOn lost me a long time ago. This was an organization that began in response to the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. In 2008 they endorsed Barack Obama for president, despite his campaign promise to escalate the war in Afghanistan. As an anti-war group they lost all credibility with that endorsement. 

I hope they hear from a lot of people who weren't thrilled to get that voter report card. 

This sums it up:

Backward Isn't Forward

Good news. Election Day is fast approaching. No more ads, no more robocalls or polls, no more emails, and no more debates. The last two years of national politics have been unbearable for all who aren’t marching in Tea Party lockstep. The last two years of NH politics have been unbearable for those who love the state and don’t care to see it continue to be the butt of jokes made by the rest of the world. The opposite of progressive is regressive, and the regressives have had too much control for too long.

Ovide Lamontagne is the regressive running for governor of our state. Ovide is opposed to abortion in cases of rape and incest. He supports the so-called personhood legislation that would make a clump of cells the legal equal of an adult woman. He’s also opposed to marriage equality, and wants to repeal Obama’s health care law.  Despite his obvious religious extremism, Ovide manages (with the help of the complicit media) to be presented as a moderate. All of the extremist legislation we’ve seen enacted during the last 2 years will be compounded with Lamontagne in the corner office. He’s no friend to education or infrastructure, the two biggest needs in our state.

Just this week, a report shows that NH is home to a huge gender based pay gap. On average, women earn $0.65 for each dollar a man earns in NH. Ovide said he didn’t think government should micromanage business, by telling them what to pay people. In other words, Ovide supports the right of employers to pay women less because of their plumbing. At the same time, Ovide does support the right of government to micromanage female reproduction. I’ve been seeing a bumper sticker around that reads, “Got Ovaries? Avoid Ovide.” It’s good advice for everyone, regardless of their ovarian status.

Frank Guinta is trying for another term in Congress. Frank ran in 2010, firmly clasped to the bosom of the Tea Party. In 2012, he’s running away from that bosom as fast as he can, and attempting to reinvent himself as a moderate. Frank in 2010 campaigned on alleged abuses on the part of Congresswoman Shea-Porter’s use of the Congressional franking system. In 2012, we learned that Guinta is one of the top franking abusers in Congress. He opposed Obama’s stimulus spending, but couldn’t wait to get his paws on stimulus funding as Mayor of Manchester. We’ve all seen the pictures of him at the infamous ribbon cutting ceremony for the road to the Manchester Airport that was built with stimulus funds. Above all, we’ve seen no resolution of the investigation into the “forgotten” bank account used to bankroll his 2010 campaign. No wonder Guinta’s regarded as one of the most corrupt members of Congress by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Speaking of corrupt - disgraced former Carroll County GOP Chair Maynard Thomson is running for the NH House. Thomson resigned from his position as County Chair on the day he received a “cease and desist” letter from the NH Attorney General’s office. It seems that Thomson (retired attorney turned romance novelist) was either too inept or too arrogant to properly file the expenditure forms by the state. Political committees and individual candidates are required to send in itemized receipt and expenditure forms once they’ve taken in $500 before an election. I suspect Thomson didn’t want anyone to know who was bankrolling all those ads that the local GOP ran in the newspaper in 2010. In any case, Thomson was either unwilling or unable to fill out these forms – and it really doesn’t matter which one it was. Either way, his actions should disqualify him from holding higher office.

State Senator Jeb Bradley is running radio ads that urge us to vote for him. In his radio ad, he mentions that he worked to save 5000 jobs at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. In the interest of honesty and full disclosure it’s important to note that he didn’t do that as a state senator. That was done in 2005, when he was in Congress. In the state senate he’s worked against the workers at the shipyard, by supporting out of state special interest groups trying to turn NH into a right to work state. Apparently even Bradley doesn’t think his record in the NH State Senate is attractive enough to win voters over, so he’s trying to blur the lines between his former role in Congress and his current $100 a year position in the NH legislature.  

Former Rep. Norm Tregenza is worried about perverts. He’s been running ads (big expensive ones, who is funding those?) in the Conway Daily Sun all week, to tell us of his concern about perverts in bathrooms. Why? It’s all he’s got. He certainly can’t run for reelection on his own record, so he’s attacking fellow floterial district candidate and former Rep. Ed Butler for supporting a bill that would have provided some protections for transgendered persons. One of Tregenza’s ads shows a picture of Norm himself (looking rather Hitler youth-ish) telling us what an upstanding guy he is for wanting to keep perverts out of ladies rooms. The ad in Saturday’s paper suggested that the entire ad (squirrelly photo and all) be taped to the back of the ladies room door.  Norm’s picture on the bathroom door? Eeeeuuuww! That’s REALLY perverted.

Women know who the real perverts are. I’ve never spoken to a single woman who is afraid of encountering a transgendered person in a bathroom. The real perverts are the Republicans running for office trying to redefine and normalize rape.  The real perverts are the men who want to regulate women’s reproductive organs and make their most intimate decisions for them. Tregenza is one of those perverts. He’s voted against a women’s right to bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom every time he had the opportunity.

Norman comes across as a “nice young man.” As such, people tend to overlook the fact that he doesn’t appear to have ever had a full time job, never mind a career. He’s a member of the red baiting, racist, anti-Semitic John Birch Society, and was a supporter of racist/homophobe/misogynist candidate Ron Paul. He’s being presented as a sterling character – so please be sure to ask him exactly when he moved out of his district, and why it took him so long to resign his seat after moving.  

As for the three Constitutional Amendment questions, my rule of thumb in these matters is simple: always vote no. The first one is a poorly written mess that will lead to years of expensive court challenges and adversely affect NH’s bond rating. The second attempts to let the legislature run our judicial system. It’s an invitation to all manner of legal challenges. Think about the legislature we’ve had for the last 2 years and vote no. The last question calls for a convention to amend or revise our state constitution. This is an unnecessary action that would cost NH taxpayers millions of dollars.

New Hampshire can’t go forward by moving backward.

Voting records for incumbents: http://www.granitestateprogress.org

© 2012 sbruce  

Published as an op-ed in the October 26 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper. 

How Republicans Explain Rape:

So Much For Transparency

On February 7, 2011, newly minted Speaker of the New Hampshire House, Bill O’Brien had this to say: “We are committed to bringing transparency to state government and making it easier for people to know what their government is doing.”

That was certainly a lofty and admirable sentiment. Of course only a month later, O’Brien closed the House gallery to the people during a lengthy debate. The Speaker also refused to allow Concord Monitor reporter Ann Marie Timmins into a press conference. The Monitor had published an unflattering cartoon of the Speaker, and Mr. Transparency responded by taking it out on Timmons.

The Speaker’s latest foray into transparency came at the end of September, when we learned that he’d attempted to keep the LSRs filed by incumbents under wraps until after the upcoming election. There’s an early filing period (Sept. 17 – 26) when incumbents can file LSRs (potential bills for the upcoming legislative session) so that Legislative Services can get an early start on writing and researching the bills. With a 400 member House the proposed legislation can stack up, and indeed, they are. There are 255 proposed LSRs on the House General Court website today.

O’Brien denies making an attempt to change the rules. For decades proposed bills were released in writing every week. In recent years, they’ve been posted daily on the House website. The postings are not comprehensive – it’s generally a title or a reference to the subject of a bill that has yet to be fleshed out. There is often enough information, however, to discern what the bill is about. That’s why the Speaker wants these bills kept quiet until after the election – he doesn’t want the legislators filing them to be held accountable by the electorate. It is rumored that this all came about because flagrant homophobe Rep. Al Baldasaro filed a bill to repeal marriage equality. Apparently “making it easier for people to know what their government is doing” hasn’t turned out so well for a Speaker and a House intent on pursuing a far right social agenda.

A number of bills are coming back, some for the umpteenth time. The Speaker himself has filed a right-to-work bill, despite how thoroughly he was routed on that particular subject last year. Rep. Dan Itse has filed his perennial bill to form a state militia. This is the fourth time Itse has filed this particular piece of legislation, showing remarkable disdain for the taxpayers of our state who pay for the filing and writing of the bill, not to mention the cost of this militia to the state. (An estimated $500,000 per year in 2011) Itse also shows disdain for his colleagues who have to listen to it again. And again. Rep. Robert Kingsbury of Laconia became famous on late night comedy shows last year when he sponsored a bill to include a relevant phrase from the Magna Carta in each new piece of legislation.  Apparently he liked the spotlight, because that bill is back. He’s also filed a bill that requires the rebuilding of the Old Man of the Mountain. The bill to require random drug testing of food stamp recipients is back. As you may recall, in 2011 we learned that this would cost NH taxpayers $3 million a year, while saving them absolutely no money. There are also a few other bills taking a run at food stamp recipients. What I didn’t see were bills aimed at bringing NH into the future. Forcing food stamp recipients to urinate into cups won’t rebuild the NH infrastructure; in fact, it will divert money that could be used to fix our dreadful infrastructure into a witch-hunt against poor people.

The Speaker doesn’t want you to know what incumbents have in mind for 2013, but there’s little he can do to keep their voting history over the last two years a secret. The folks at Granite State Progress have put together a legislative report card database that is very easy to use. You can look up incumbents and learn how they voted on a number of issues during the last biennium. The data was compiled from some 200 roll call votes. This is a great resource, and I urge all voters to use it before they vote.

In July, former Rep. Norman Tregenza told the Conway Sun that the key concerns of valley residents are: “ jobs, liberty, and roads.” He mentioned his concern for road maintenance, and his intent to divert funds for repair work. Given his comments to the paper, I was shocked to learn that former Rep. Tregenza voted in favor of cutting the highway fund – which is where the monies for constructing, repairing, and maintaining our highways and byways comes from. Tregenza also voted against establishing a commission to encourage broadband service in underserved areas. He voted against allowing municipalities to bond for building their own broadband infrastructure. Roads and telecommunications are essential to the economic future of our state, a fact that seems to be lost on Norm Tregenza, despite his claims to the newspaper.  

He did vote in favor of every gun bill, though, including the ones that would have allowed stalkers and abusers to legally possess handguns.

He voted for a bill that would have made it impossible for a married couple with minor children to obtain a no-fault divorce. He voted for every bill aimed at regulating women’s reproductive decisions and defunding Planned Parenthood. He voted to repeal NH’s marriage equality law.  Liberty, it would seem, is only for heterosexual men.

Governor Lynch vetoed a bill that would ban abortion even when the woman’s health is in jeopardy. Representatives Umberger, McCarthy, and Tregenza all voted to override that veto.  That’s right, women. They all voted in favor of letting you DIE rather than get an abortion. That’s right, men. They voted in favor of letting your wife (and possibly the mother of your children) DIE rather than have an abortion that would save her life.

These people are but a few of the extremists desperate to get back into the NH legislature. They all supported O’Brien’s election as Speaker, and will again, should he be re-elected to the House. Gene Chandler didn’t just support the Speaker, he’s also part of the O’Brien leadership team.

I wish I could say “vote for them at your peril” but by voting for them, you imperil the rest of us.

Do your homework before you vote: http://granitestateprogress.org/service/legislator-report-cards

h/t to Mike Marland for the cartoon

© sbruce 2012   This was published as an op-ed in the October 12, 2012 edition of the Conway Daily Sun Newspaper

They're here

Let me know if you want one/more. Every woman in the state should have one on her car. 

If We Don't Value Our State, Why Would Anyone Else?

I took an elderly friend for a walk today. She had a stroke a few years ago, and still has one leg that drags a bit, so walking on a flat surface is her preference. We went up to the 1st turnout on Rt. 16, above the Dana Place Inn and below Dead Man's Curve.

There wasn't anyone else there, so we began walking around the parking lot. There was a big pile of beer cans and bottles that some people had dumped there. We both found this distressing. Further down was a smaller pile of fast food packaging. (Burger King) There was also initially appeared to be a big pile of dog poo. Except it wasn't dog. It was human.

After we finished walking, I grabbed a trash bag from the trunk, and picked up the bottles, cans (Bud Light) and Burger King detritus. I left the pile.

There's a picnic table at this rest stop, but no trash can. No trash can anywhere at this rest stop. Of course, if there were a trash can, someone would have to empty it, and that would mean paying someone, and we certainly don't want to do that.

It's Columbus Day Weekend, and despite all the rain that we've experienced during this foliage season, there have been tourists here from all over the country - all over the world. As I keep saying, tourism is the #2 industry in New Hampshire.

We welcome visitors to our state with closed rest areas, with banks of smelly porta-potties, and with parks in desperate need of repair.

It's no wonder that visitors to the area left their calling card: cheap beer, fast food packaging, and a pile of human waste. They were simply imitating NH's own values.

Poppy Sununu

This is my favorite picture of former NH Governor John H. Sununu. Here he is as Poppy Bush's Chief of Staff (he's the short guy with the red tie)  - standing off to the side with his finger up his nose. 

Posturing, Promises, and The Pledge

Gubernatorial candidates Hassan and Lamontagne had another non-debate event (I don't know what to call these things) where they discussed their beliefs, plans, intentions for our state. This time the topic was tourism, which happens to be the number 2 industry in NH.

NH has some distinct problems. For starters, we fund our state parks entirely by user fees. NH is the only state that does this, and there's one very compelling reason why. It Doesn't Work. NH parks are in desperate need of repair, and investment.

I wrote about our rest area/welcome center problem in April. A number of our rest areas are closed, either full or part time, and banks of porta potties are lined up in front. One can see how welcoming this might be to a weary traveler with a full bladder.

The bottom line here is that NH doesn't want to invest in anything. That's been true since I moved here in 1984. NH's infrastructure is the 11th worst in the nation. That didn't happen overnight. It happened over a period of decades. NH is one of the wealthiest states (per capita) in the union. We are also the cheapest. We aren't willing to invest in anything that would move our state forward, because not investing worked for us for a long, long time, and our elected officials (of both parties) are firmly ensconced in the past. By that I mean both parties defend the Loeb/Thomson no tax "pledge." This creates an interesting problem:

From the Union Leader:

The two candidates agreed on a number of issues.

I find that statement alarming - but how can it be otherwise? Both candidates took the pledge, which guarantees that we'll never have the revenue to fix anything that needs fixing. This means a lot of posturing and promises from both sides, while nothing changes. The only place where there can be any serious disagreement between these two is social issues. 


The bridge over the Sawyer River, on Rt. 302 in Hart's Location was washed out during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. A temporary bridge was erected. No work has been done to repair/replace this bridge. Rt. 302 is one of the two main highways in the north country, essential to the transportation of goods and services.  

This is what pledge politics looks like:

Carpetbagger in Costume

Meet Michael Garcia. He's running as a Democrat, in Hillsborough District 34.

Members of the Free State Project became as popular as herpes during the 2011-2012
NH legislature, where they danced to the tune of Speaker O'Brien and helped him advance his radical right agenda. All of the FSP members who ran in 2010 ran as Republicans, and none of them disclosed their FSP affiliation to their constituents.

The FSP'ers all claim to be PROUD to be part of the Free State Project, but they get mighty defensive about having to disclose their affiliation. It's not a political party they say. We don't all agree on everything, they say. The simple truth is they know they aren't as popular or as welcome as they claim. They also know that if they were to disclose their FSP affiliation to voters, that they'd never get elected.

Since the FSP popularity is especially questionable in light of their fealty to O'Brien, in 2012, they've adopted a different plan. Members of the FSP are running for the legislature again, but at least 3 of them are running as Democrats. One of them is Michael Garcia, from the video above.

Garcia is no Democrat. He's spouting the same sloganese that is the language of the FSP. (freedom, liberty, sovereign citizens, etc.)  This  is a person who is pretending to be a Democrat in order to get elected. This is a carpetbagger in costume.

A reminder from the original Free State Manifesto written by Dr. Jason Sorens, the founder of the FSP. Sorens - a man so bitterly opposed to all things public that he teaches at the State University of NY at Buffalo.

Once we've taken over the state government, we can slash state and local budgets, which make up a sizable portion of the tax and regulatory burden we face every day. Furthermore, we can eliminate substantial federal interference by refusing to take highway funds and the strings attached to them. Once we've accomplished those things, we can bargain with the national government over reducing the role of the national government in our state. We can use the threat of secession as leverage to do this. 

That's what the Founder of the FSP has in mind for NH. In a state that has the 11th worst infrastructure in the nation, not taking highway funds is certainly an audacious plan. Some might even go so far as to call it a painfully stupid plan.

In any case, as one might guess,  Sorens hasn't moved to NH. He's still busy teaching at the publicly funded university. Sorens was funded for years by the Mercatus Institute, which was founded by Charles Koch of Koch Industries.

This CounterPunch  story is full of all manner of revelations about where the FSP really comes from. More right wing baloney, packaged with the freedumb label, and washed down with libertea.

Given the deceptive nature of the FSP grifters, be sure to check out every single candidate of both parties this year before you vote.

NH Legislator Report Cards

From our friends at Granite State Progress:

Legislator Report Cards

It’s hard to know whether our legislators are doing what we thought they would when we elected them for two years. Granite State Progress has selected more than 200 roll call votes on a wide variety of legislation to demonstrate the voting record and drive of your individual legislator. In addition we've also included details about the representative's affiliations and relevant press releases, news clips or videos.
To get started find your legislator's name from the drop-down box below, or visit the "Find My Legislator" link to figure out who your representatives are and then return to the report cards to learn more about them.

This is a great resource that GSP has put together. There's plenty of fodder here for opposition research, letters to the editor, and for sharing with friends, neighbors, and relatives.

Read it and seethe! Read it and weep! Above all, read it and ACT!

What Advantage?

The NH Advantage. This is the phrase constantly invoked by the trickle-down Republicans and defined as: no state income tax and no sales tax. This is touted as the reason for our great success as a state. The tricklers tell us that it’s the reason we weathered the most recent recession/depression. They also tell us that the evil unions and burdensome regulations prevent our state’s 27,000 millionaires  from getting to work on job creation. 

Earlier this week a group of economists got together at the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to discuss the economic growth of our state. The news isn’t good. NH is losing ground. Our economic strength compared to our evil taxated neighbors declined significantly in the last year, and has been on the decline for the last decade. Both Massachusetts and Vermont (states that are constantly derided as being socialist taxation empires) are gaining jobs just as fast as NH is losing them. Last year Massachusetts added 41,000 jobs. Vermont added 3,000. NH lost 2,000. Both MA and VT have state income taxes and sales tax. Neither VT nor MA is a right to work state, and presumably (since they’re full of tree hugging commies) both states are loaded with “burdensome regulations.” They’re growing jobs. NH is losing them. Where’s the advantage in that? 

NH has always been seen as a state with a fast growing population, with plenty of migration from other states. According to Dennis Delay, an economist at the NH Center for Public Policy Studies, this is no longer true. That trend is beginning to reverse. Delay also finds that not only is our population growth slowing, so is our private investment growth. 

This fits in with the CNBC report, “America’s Top States for Doing Business.” This report showed that NH ranked 2^nd in the nation for being business friendly. The “burdensome regulations” we hear so much about are pure bunkum. The NH economy came in 34^th place, a huge drop after being in 10^th place in 2011. (Google “Flat Earth Mode” to read the op-ed I wrote in July about this study.) A 2011 US Chamber of Commerce report found that the states investing in infrastructure and education were the most successful in bringing in new jobs. This is the opposite of what NH is doing. What NH is doing is very clearly not working, when the socialist republics are doing so much better than we are. 

For too long, NH has been governed by bumper sticker slogans that were fresh 40 years ago. Taking the pledge is considered an economic plan by all Republicans, and sadly by most of our media. It was very clear during the buildup to the recent state primary. Gubernatorial candidates who took the pledge were not pressed on their economic plans, no matter how insubstantial they were. Jackie Cilley, the only candidate brave enough to refuse the pledge was constantly hammered by the media, who didn’t care about the amorphous plans of the other candidates. She was also hammered relentlessly by the NHDP and the NHGOP working together against her, a rare instance of bipartisanship in our state. Republicans always bluster about Democrats wanting an income tax, but it’s a lie. The NHDP hierarchy is just as invested in the pledge as the Republicans who wrote it. In both cases the reasons for the fealty are the same – it’s the politics of fear. That’s how both political parties rule their membership. The fears are different, but the tactics are certainly the same. (Note: Susan Bruce left the Democratic Party in 2009.)

Ovide Lamontagne and the other Republicans running for the legislature have no plan that will reverse the downhill trend NH is currently experiencing. Their plan is just to cut even more spending; a plan that’s failed brilliantly so far, taking us from the 10^th rated state economy to the 34^th in a year. It’s policy that has cost us thousands of jobs and kept our unemployment rate inching up since the Republicans took control of the legislature in 2011. It’s the same policy that ensures our infrastructure will continue to be amongst the worst in the nation, and that our young people will continue exit our state, finding affordable colleges and better job opportunities elsewhere. 

Why are we losing out to Massachusetts and Vermont? Both states are investing in education and infrastructure. Vermont in particular has invested heavily in telecommunications infrastructure, and the VT Telecommunications Authority has set a very aggressive goal of statewide cellular and broadband access by the end of 2013. VTA meets very regularly. NH has the Telecommunications Planning and Advisory Board, which has no stated goal, and according to their website, hasn’t met at all during the last year. 

NH is in denial. We’ve been lucky so far, coasting along on the past. The legislature of the last biennium can’t take us anywhere but further down Stagnation Road. There are few Republicans running who have any vision for our future. Most have a vision of staying in the past. This is true, of course, from the top down. Mitt Romney, in his broadcasts from the Let Them Eat Cake Bakery, reveals a complete disconnection from reality, never mind sound fiscal policy. Lamontagne has been allowed by the NH media to present himself as a moderate, who is only interested in job creation, not in social issues. If that sounds familiar to you, it’s because you’ve heard it before. That was the NHGOP message in 2010 – the laser like focus on job creation. Once they took office, they began working to repeal NH’s marriage equality law, regulating NH women’s reproductive decisions, and passing the unnecessary and ridiculous voter ID law. It was all social engineering and no job creating. How do we know? The record speaks for itself. NH lost 2000 jobs last year. 

The last legislature made NH the butt of jokes and late night comedy around the world. A friend from Pennsylvania recently described NH as “the Texas of the northeast.” This shouldn’t be a goal. In fact, the last legislature may be one of the factors in our state’s decline. A company wanting to expand might not choose to come to a state where legislators claim that kindergarten causes crime, where warning signs are needed at the borders, where the Magna Carta should be quoted in new legislation. 

NH can do better. Indeed, we must, if we ever intend to join the 21^st century. 

h/t to Brian Gottlob/polecon for the graph

© 2012 sbruce 

published as an op-ed in the September 28, 2012 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper