South Dakota to Hold Vote on Criminalizing Abortion
In an attempt to challenge the supreme court, South Dakota voters will be voting on a referendum to ban many abortions. South Dakota voted on a much more strict version of this bill two years ago and it was narrowly defeated. This bill offers a few changes.
The 2006 text allowed for exceptions only if the life of the mother were in immediate danger. The 2008 version takes into account cases of rape, incest, or risk of grave health effects for the mother.
This will be headed to the supreme court if it is ever passed and that is the intent anyway.
The referendum aims to press the US Supreme Court to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that allowed the abortion on the basis of the right to privacy, a legal standing that has been chipped away at by subsequent cases and the nomination in 2005 of two conservative judges to the high court.
This is designed to test the supreme court now that Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito have been added to the supreme court. I believe that President Bush’s supreme court nominees are going to be his ultimate long lasting legacy. Long after the war is over his nominees will still be presiding over the bench.
The new supreme court passed their first real test with their decision on the Washington D.C. handgun ban ruling. It will be interesting to watch this vote in November. It will be even more interesting if the law is passed to see how the supreme court rules in this case.
I am Sick of Conservophobes
This is the shit that I really get sick and tired of hearing and reading about.
David Plouffe( Obama’s Campaign Manager) tells Linda Douglass that real racists are probably voting Republican in any case:
“[T]he vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for Barack Obama in November based on race are probably firmly in John McCain’s camp already,” he says.
Somebody please explain to me why it is perfectly acceptable to hold stereotypes and prejudices such as the one above against conservative Republicans. Why is it that conservatives are the only group where it is not only acceptable to be bigoted towards, it is encouraged by people in the Democrat party?
When liberals such as Obama’s campaign manager use rhetoric like he did above, where he claims that people who would vote against Obama because he is black are voting Republican anyway, he is calling us racists. This is an old, worn out stereotype and I am getting sick and fucking tired of having to listen to this bullshit time and time again.
Last time I checked it is only Democrats who are voting against Obama right now, why are these people not considered racists? Because they are liberals and can’t possibly be racists? If you don’t think there are racists on both sides of the aisle you are just fooling yourself.
People who paint conservatives with a broad brush and call us racists are nothing but conservophobes. They are afraid of our ideas so they try to devalue us and our ideas. Well, I for one am tired of it. I am tired of the bigotry being levied towards us. I am tired of how it is not considered wrong to stereotype us. Every other group in this country is now protected. I want the equal protection under the law that everyone else receives.
Republicans aren’t voting for Obama, that is true Mr. Plouffe, but it is because they don’t agree with his ideology, not because of the color of his skin. If you can’t separate the two then it is you who are the bigot. You are bigoted against conservatives. You are a conservophobe.
I am sick of conservophobes, and I grow tired of their old, boring, useless, tired, false accusations against us. It is nothing but a ploy to distract voters from the issues we face. Debate us on the issues and stop the political games.
We know you conservophobes don’t like us, but what are you afraid of?
It was bad enough when Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick decided to go to New York and sign a million dollar book deal on the day that the staple of his budget plan, casinos in Massachusetts, was being debated and ultimately shot down by the man who really runs Massachusetts, Sal Dimasi, instead of fighting for it. This left Massachusetts with a $73 million dollar budget shortfall.
Then came word that a massive tax hike was passed to help with the budget deficit that Patrick was too busy signing that book deal to worry about.
Now we have this report from the Boston Herald. You would think that signing a million dollar book deal on the state’s dime would be good enough for the governor, but no. Governor Patrick let a controversial bill slip into law. A bill that he supposedly opposed. This bill could potentially bring in more revenue to the Patrick household.
Gov. Deval Patrick’s household could financially benefit from a controversial wage bill he allowed to slip into law – even though he criticized the legislation’s potential unfairness to businesses.
But some business executives, who generally opposed the legislation, have expressed bitterness that lawyers, including Diane Patrick, could benefit from what they fear will be an explosion in wage-dispute litigation due to the new law.
“It’s the irony of it,” said one business leader of Diane Patrick’s name on the Ropes & Gray “contact” letter.
Now that is just too good. The law goes into effect and Deval Patick’s wife’s company sends out contact letters the next day with her name on them. Come one, come all, step right up, get in line, Dianne Patrick is here to help you (for a small fee.)
The part that is the most bothersome is the way this bill became law. Governor Patrick didn’t have the stones to take action on it. He refused to either sign or veto the bill so it became law. He knew that by taking no action this bill would become law, so in effect he signed it by not signing it. He was too cowardly to put his name on it because of the rewards his wife will gain. Yet he was too cowardly to veto it also. By taking no action we now where he stands. Once again the governor is lining his pockets.
This shows a true lack of leadership by the man elected to lead the state of Massachusetts. A controversial issue comes up and Deval Patrick lays asleep at the wheel as the bill becomes law without his signature. Typical, he is much like New Hampshire Governor John Lynch in this regard. When a controversial bill comes up in New Hampshire, Governor Lynch refuses to say if he is for it or against it. He usually then signs it in hiding so there will be nobody protesting. Another man with a lack of leadership qualities.
Somewhere Mitt Romney is laughing his well-coiffed head off.
Hillary Clinton’s Flawed Argument to the Super Delegates
Cross Posted on Grizzly Groundswell
Hillary Clinton can’t overtake Barack Obama in the delegate count to win the nomination. Barack Obama can’t win enough delegates to earn the nomination either. This leaves the nomination of the Democrat candidate in the hands of the super delegates. This can all be blamed on the fact that the liberal’s whole idea of nobody ever really loses, everybody is always a winner attitude has crept into their nomination system. How else can you explain that you can lose a state and still win delegates? If a winner was a winner in this process the candidate would have long ago been decided, but no, Democrats need to reward the loser also. Or should I say reward the second winner also?
But that is not the topic of this post. I want to write about Hillary’s argument to the super delegates on why she should be the nominee. I can see no other alternative to this primary other than the super delegates having to decide their nominee. So both candidate must appeal to party insiders, I wonder who has the advantage there?
Hillary Clinton’s argument to the super delegates is the fact, and it is a fact, that she has won all of the big states. She has won Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida (even though it didn’t count), Texas (even though Obama managed to get more delegates while losing the state. Another example of the everybody wins mentality of the left), California, and New York (surprise!). She also rightly states that these are all states that Democrats must win in order to win the presidency. The Democrats don’t have to win all of those states, but probably a majority of them.
Hillary Clinton is using the argument that because she won those states, and those states are so important to the prospects of a Democrat winning the presidency that she is the only candidate that can beat Republican turncoat John McCain.
While she is right on two points here, one, that she did win those states, and two, that Democrats need to win those states in the general election, her argument is flawed.
She is proposing this theory as if she has beaten a Republican candidate in those states. She is also making it seem as though Obama has lost to a Republican candidate in those states by using this argument. Thus she is projecting that because she won those states that she is the only candidate that can win the general election. She is forgetting the fact that this primary is only between two Democrats. Democrat voters are trying to decide who should win their nomination. That doesn’t mean these same voters would not vote for Obama if he were to win the nomination. Her argument hinges on the fact that she is trying to convince the super delegates that because she won those states she is the only one that can carry them in the general election over McCain.
That is flawed logic. Democrat voters in those states are going to vote for the Democrat candidate regardless of whether they voted for Clinton or Obama in the primary. Just because Hillary won the primary in those state doesn’t mean she can win the general election any more than the fact that Obama lost those primaries means he can’t win the general election.
She is making the case that because she won those states once she can win them again. While I can see what she is trying to say it just doesn’t hold water.
Just because Obama didn’t win these states in the primary doesn’t mean that Democrats won’t rally around him if he gets the nomination. Once the candidate is decided it is a whole new ballgame in those states.
So while Democrats do need the states that Hillary has won, it doesn’t mean that Obama can’t win those states when he goes after the Republican turncoat. Winning or losing in the primary doesn’t necessarily guarantee the same result in a general election.
Global Warming Will Lead us into War
This is just another fear-mongering global warming scare article, which is why I feel compelled to write about it. According to the Royal United Services Institute global warming is going to lead to a centuries long world war.
Climate change could cause global conflicts as large as the two world wars but lasting for centuries unless the problem is controlled, a leading defence think tank has warned.
The report said: “If climate change is not slowed and critical environmental thresholds are exceeded, then it will become a primary driver of conflicts between and within states.”
The article doesn’t bother to tell us why global warming will lead to war but I am guessing that less and less habitable land is the bullshit answer to that question. The article then goes on to say that there will never be peace in Afghanistan until the global warming issue is resolved.
“No strategy for long run peace and stability in Afghanistan can possibly succeed unless local livelihoods can survive the impact of a changing climate on water availability and crop yields.”
Once again I say it about gloabl warming, now I have heard it all. Every time I say I have heard it all something else comes up. This is another example. I think there is a much larger problem with stability in the Middle East and global warming isn’t near the top of the list. Although I am sure that the car bombs have to be bad for the environment.
How does the group propose we solve the impending war brought on by global warming?
a tenfold increase in research spending, comparable to the amount spent on the Apollo space programme, will be needed if the world is to avoid the worst effects of changing temperatures.
An increase in spending, of course. That is always the answer when it comes to solving the cliamte crisis that is supposed to be coming. While I am talking about the point above let me say that I would also love to see the whole space program gutted as well, talk about a billion dollar industry of wasted money.
As I have written about many times before, am writing now, and will write many times in the future, global warming is all money driven. It is a scam designed at funnelling more money to an already bloated federal budget. Stop the insanity now.
Before the election of 2006 when Democrats regained control of the house and senate Democrats promised that they had a plan to lower the cost of gas. All we had to do was elect them and they would unveil their secret plan and gas prices would magically be reduced. It hasn’t happened, as a matter of fact gas prices are up over one dollar a gallon since the Democrats took over.
Here is a press release issued by Pelosi before Democrats took over control of the house and senate:
“Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.”
Not only have they failed to deliver, but gas prices have risen exponentially since they regained power. Now Republican leaders are calling out Democrats for their still secret plan to bring down gas prices, wondering when they are going to unveil it. Here are a couple of excerpts from a letter Republican leaders sent to the speaker of the do nothing house:
“Two years ago this week, you stated that House Democrats had a ‘commonsense plan’ to ‘lower gas prices,’ ” the letter said. “In light of the skyrocketing gasoline prices affecting working families and every sector of our struggling economy, we are writing today to respectfully request that you reveal this ‘commonsense plan’ so we can begin work on responsible solutions to help ease this strain.”
“Once a nightmare scenario, $4 gasoline is now a very real possibility of becoming a summer staple,” the letter stated. “In some cities, including San Francisco and Chicago, it is already a startling reality.”
Nancy Pelosi could not be reached for comment, what a surprise.
Democrats made many promises to their constituents before the 2006 election and other than raising the minimum wage nothing has been accomplished. They promised to end the war, they haven’t. They promised to reduce the cost of gas, they haven’t.
It is about time that they were called out for doing absolutely nothing. It is time to hold their feet to the fire. This is a do-nothing congress.
This is naturally a ploy by house Republicans to bring attention to the fact that the congress has accomplished nothing, but it proves a point. The Democrats knew they could do nothing about the price of gas but they told the people that they could anyway. The only thing raising taxes on oil companies would accomplish is raising the price of gas as companies would pass the additional costs of business on to the consumers.
There was no secret plan, there is no secret plan, and now the Democrats have been called out. They remain silent. The only way congress can lower gas prices is to eliminate or reduce the federal tax on gas. And we know that ain’t going to happen.
Read more here.
Has New Hampshire Changed Forever?
Cross posted on Grizzly Groundswell
Here is a link to an article that sums up the current state of New Hampshire perfectly. The author agrees with a point that I have been trying to make here for quite some time, and that is that New Hampshire is slipping away. Slowly but surely. It is a gradual decline, but it is noticable if only you look. Too many people aren’t looking though.
This is the article in it’s entirety from the New Hampshire Union Leader:
By CHARLES M. ARLINGHAUS
IS NEW HAMPSHIRE changing for good? For years New Hampshire was called an island of sanity in a sea of socialism, a free market holdout surrounded on all sides by a growing and more intrusive government. But the Old New Hampshire is increasingly being replaced by a larger more involved government moving us ever closer to Massachusetts.
To be fair, the mythological version of “Old New Hampshire” may have been exaggerated. The Granite State was not colonized by Milton Friedman and conservative economists didn’t sit around pushing a free market agenda. Instead, in contrast to other exploding state governments, we just didn’t grow as much.
Our taxes were low because we didn’t raise them. When other states passed a sales tax and income tax, we said no. After Gov. Sherman Adams said government needed a broadbased tax, we resisted. Instead we turned to Gov. Hugh Gregg who said let’s hold down government spending so we don’t have to raise taxes.
As recently as 10 years ago, that attitude still prevailed. After the worst recession since the Great Depression, Gov. Steve Merrill used a large electoral majority to eliminate two taxes and cut others including a pro-growth cut in business taxes. His budget was the first in modern times to actually reduce spending. Like Gov. Gregg 40 years earlier, reducing spending to limit an average citizen’s tax burden was the policy goal.
In that same time period, a selectman famously refused to sign his town’s bid for federal emergency relief funds after a snowstorm. He announced sensibly that snow was neither unexpected nor a disaster in northern New Hampshire.
Slowly but surely, however, New Hampshire is changing. We’re not changing all at once but it is gradual and steady. Steve Merrill’s great budget spent $1.7 billion. The most recent two-year budget will spend about $3.2 billion, an 88 percent increase. In the same time period, inflation will be about 38 percent. With education funding, the total paid for with state taxes is $5 billion or 193 percent more than we had to tax 12 years ago.
Government is getting larger but it’s also getting more intrusive. On the smallest issues and the biggest issues, the impulse of the Legislature is to pass more laws and regulate more things. Last year, the House of Representatives passed a new balloon tax. It was a silly $250 fine for releasing a balloon. The bill was ultimately killed by the Senate, but it’s a symbol of the new impulse to regulate.
The state decided to ban smoking in all restaurants. Never mind that many restaurants chose to do so on their own for marketing reasons. Smoking sections in a minority of restaurants weren’t enough. Smoking is a legal if unhealthy act but you can’t do it in a bar. Even a modest bill this year to allow cigar bars is likely to die. Smoke at home if you want, but we can’t allow people to smoke together and have a drink at the same time.
Each year we add new rules to health insurance. You can’t buy basic coverage, there are more and more mandates that drive up the cost so that New Hampshire, the healthiest state in the country, has the highest health insurance. This year, we intend to move from government dictating some of the rules of insurance to government actually designing the product.
The state will require every private insurance company in the state to offer a wellness plan designed not by their own professionals but by regulatory officials of the government. That seems to take us most of the way to having state government itself get into the business and eliminate the need for these pesky insurance companies.
Each step along the way is well-intentioned. A fund for preserving barns? We all like old barns. A system of price supports for producers of milk? I don’t want to see the state without dairy farms. While we’re at it, we might also subsidize those cute little soft serve ice cream stands too, everyone likes those.
The problem isn’t one action, it’s the cumulative value and the mindset. What other businesses should we provide price supports for? If the state can design insurance plans better than the company can, what other businesses can we run better?
This article sums up my feelings perfectly. It is time for New Hampshire voters to wake up and save us from the nanny state, tax and spend, liberal government before it is too late. If it isn’t already.
As I write this, Hillary Clinton is projected to win Pennsylvania, currently she has an 8% lead and it is projected to go up. This appears to be just what the doctor ordered for Hillary. But what does it mean?
Hillary has no chance of catching Obama, she has almost no chance of winning the popular vote either. So what has this accomplished? I think it puts doubt in the voter’s minds in the upcoming primaries as to whether Obama can win the election. But even if this drives voters away from Obama, it is too little, too late. What this could do though is start to bring super delegates back to Clinton.
All of this is nothing but speculation on my part but the one thing that I do know is that this ensures that Hillary Clinton is going to stay in this race for the long haul. These two candidates are now going to bloody each other up for the next nine primaries and after those are over the Democrats will still not have a nominee, it will be a brokered convention. All of this seems to fare well for the Republican nominee, but then I look at who the Republicans nominated and it makes me sick. A wasted opportunity. A chance gone by the wayside. A shame.
I do find it interesting that ever since “bittergate” Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been trying to out-gun and out-God each other. Both candidates have tried to become more conservative on these two issues. Both candidates have been campaigning in Pennsylvania as if they were trying to replace Charlon Heston as president of the NRA. Suddenly both candidates are pro second amendment activists.
It tells you how far left Obama must be when Hillary wins the church going, gun toting voters of Pennsylvania.
The campaign is now destined to go on, the Democrat candidates will continue to hammer each other until the party is in disarray, and when a nominee is chosen the party will then try to come together as if everything is okay. But it won’t be okay, it will be far from okay. After a long bloody primary battle the Democrats should be ripe for the picking, but the Republicans field a weak candidate. John McCain will not be able to take advantage of what the Pennsylvania primary has provided, a chance to derail the party that is trying desperately to divide itself.
So while this victory won’t provide Mrs. Clinton with any realistic gain in the delegate count it does keep her in the race. It gives her a reason to carry on. This victory really doesn’t help her gain on Barack Obama but the perception will be that Hillary has gained on Obama. Sometimes perception is more important than reality. Hillary can lay claim to victory in all the big states and swing states. She will now be able to use this as a rational to seduce the super delegates to vote for her and steal the nomination away from Barack Obama.
Al Gore Used Fictional Scenes in “An Inconvenient Truth”
This really isn’t surprising to me. Al Gore took a scene from the (fiction) movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” which in itself was a propaganda movie, and used it in his own propaganda “documentary,” “An Inconvenient Truth.” The scene in question was a computer generated image and is not real.
On Friday, it was revealed by ABC News that one of the famous shots of supposed Antarctic ice shelves in the film was actually a computer-generated image from the 2004 science fiction blockbuster “The Day After Tomorrow.”
I guess if you can’t find what you are looking for to prove your point you can just make something up. That appears to be Al Gore’s template. The inconvenient truth is, at least for Al Gore, that this movie is nothing but a fraud, the whole idea that global warming is man-made, if it exists at all, is a scam.
Al Gore has been exposed for the con artist that he is. It is time to rise up and demand that this hoax be immediately halted. Global warming is an inside job. Con job, that is. It is time for the climate realists as the article calls us, or global warming truthers as I am now going to call us, to stand up and be heard. Join the global warming truthers.
This whole scam has been based on questionable science. More and more scientists are starting to question it even as politicians begin to glom onto it. Global warming is a political issue, not a scientific issue, or even a moral issue as Al Gore has claimed it is. Why are politicians glomming on to it? Thats an easy one, for tax revenue. They want to guilt the American people into paying more taxes to save the environment.
If the “documentary” that is supposed to be the defining work on global warming has fake scenes from a Hollywood work of fiction as one of it’s main visuals how are we supposed to believe that any of it is real?
Al Gore is in the midst of conducting one of the greatest hoaxes on the American people in history. Other politicians are beginning to jump on board. It is being taught in schools as fact. Why? Because there is too much money to be made on it. That is the truth.
As a global warming truther I am looking to expose this for what it is. A money grab of epic proportions. Will you join me? We need to wake up the American people before it is too late and the government is taking our money from us and spending it on useless environmental “carbon credits” that line Al Gore’s pockets. That is the truth.
Why would Al Gore have to use computer generated scenes to show us how the earth is being destroyed if the earth was actually being destroyed? Because it is a lie. That is the truth.
Please open your eyes and join the truth movement before it is too late. The global warming truther movement is in it’s infancy, but it is needed.
I call on all of you 9/11 truthers to give up your fraudulent conspiracy theories and join the fight against the one true conspiracy. The global warming conspiracy.
Join the global warming truther movement before it is too late.
Small Town America; the Simple Life
Last weekend was the first really nice weekend of the spring. The weekend before was warmer, but a little rainy. I still managed to get quite a bit of yard work done. Winter came early last year so there was quite a bit of work to do around the yard. See, here in New Hampshire we had allot of snowfall this Winter. As a matter of fact it was the second snowiest Winter in history, missing the record by four inches. However, it is New England and we still have a chance to break the record. So much for global warming, it missed us up here.
But last weekend was perfect in small town America. I was able to spend a Sunday just cleaning up the yard. Raking and gathering sticks. It is the gathering of sticks that leads to a tradition of sorts for our family. A day of yard work that will be rewarded by fire in the backyard. All true New Hampshirites revel in a good bonfire, it is part of New Hampshire tradition. It is this tradition that makes the yard work more bearable and less tedious. It was Timmy who suggested that this would be the perfect night for our first fire of the year. He gleefully told me about how the temperature was going to get a little chilly as the day wore on. That would bode well for the grand finale of our traditional burning of the sticks.
Sunday morning I went to the fire station to get my fire permit. This is the only problem I have with the whole ritual. The fact that I need a permit to have a fire on my own private property, and that I can only burn at a certain time, I am a little bitter about that. But that is for another day.
As the day wore on and the yard began to look more presentable I snuck in the house just in time to watch the Red Sox score four runs in the eighth inning to take the lead and eventually beat the Texas Rangers. It was turning out to be a perfect day.
Timmy was counting down the hours by now, waiting for five o’clock.
When five o’clock finally arrived we brought out the newspapers and the smallest of the sticks and began to build our fire. Once the fire was started Andy asked if we had any marshmallows, we didn’t. So Andy hopped on his bike and headed over to the country store to rectify this situation. Another perk of small town America. Not having to worry about Andy as he treks to the store alone. Nothing to be bitter about here.
As the fire starts into full blaze, Lauri puts the chicken that she has been marinating on the grill. This is going to be a perfect evening with the family. Quiet, relaxing, without a care in the world. Good food by a good fire, with family, and the grand finale yet to come.
Andy has made his way back from the store with the marshmallows and now the boys have to find the perfect sticks for the marshmallow toasting. This doesn’t take them long. They are now eating marshmallows as the chicken still cooks on the grill.
Timmy, who had been counting down the hours until we started the fire is now wondering when we will have the grand finale. It will be soon. But first we must eat.
The chicken is ready. Lauri, Andy, Timmy, and I all pull up chairs to the fire and enjoy some barbecue chicken wings and rice. I enjoy a beer. We are all sitting around the fire, it is quiet except for our laughter and the crackle of the fire. I can’t help but think that sometimes when life can be so hectic it is simple times like this that make it all worthwhile.
It seems like just yesterday that I was in high school and dating my high school sweetheart, but it was more than twenty years ago now. My high school sweetheart is still by my side at this fire, now as my wife and best friend of almost twenty years. Amazing how the time has gone by. It seems as if it was yesterday that my two boys were both babies, yet now they are both teenagers. Time marches on, you can’t stop it, you just have to embrace and enjoy it.
We are finished eating and I managed to also burn my old picnic table. Something Governor Lynch would not approve of, but hey, he doesn’t have to know. The fire is now dwindling down as we are running out of sticks and leaves. It is time for the grand finale, much to the delight of Timmy who is now smiling from ear to ear. Andy is trying to act too cool to be impressed by the grand finale, but I know better. Before the grand finale can get under way there is one bit of business to take care of. We must get the hose ready, just in case.
The grand finale has become a tradition of ours. We have several fires a year, but at our spring cleanup fire we always have the finale. It is time to drag last year’s Christmas tree out of the woods and throw it on the fire.
In a matter of twenty seconds a fire that is almost out is now throwing flames into the air about twenty feet high. We all have to back up from the heat as we are now sweating. Lauri isn’t sweating, she is enjoying the extra heat. A minute later the tree is done burning. It is quick, but it is incredible how fast it goes up in flames. This always reminds me why the Christmas tree isn’t lit when nobody is at home.
It is time to extinguish the fire and head inside for the evening. The boys have to go to school tomorrow and Lauri and I have to work tomorrow. Real life catches up with us again.
Most days aren’t as relaxing as this day was, life moves fast. Before you know it the children are grown and you didn’t even see it coming. But for one day at least life was simple.
That is what I picture when I think about small town America. The simple life.
Not only am I not bitter, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
