Marilinda Garcia wins Rockingham Primary

Marilinda Garcia emerged victorious in today's special primary election for an open House seat in Rockingham 4.   By collecting 65% of the Republican votes she will now have the opportunity to represent her party in the general election next month against democrat Sheila Murray.

With high NH House Republican ratings and a strong showing with pro gun and pro life groups, Marilinda is exactly the kind of candidate that Republican grass roots activists are seeking out and supporting.

Given the need for solid conservative vioces in an overly liberal legislature, those seeking balance have an excellent opportunity to take another step in the right direction.

My congratulations to Marilinda, and to all her supporters and best of luck in the upcoming general election.

Results.

Marilinda Garcia 742* Republican
Jim Holland 272
DeClerq 99
Donna Mauro 32
Sheila Murray 55 Democrat*

*The democrat, Sheila Murray, ran unopposed in the primary.

DiFruscia goes to Holland

Can having a bluish-purple DiFruscia shaped concrete block chained to your leg get you the primary nod and a shot as the Republican candidate in next month’s general election race for Rockinham-4?  Probably not.  But some Salem residents have indicated that Rep Tony DiFruscia (R-DNC) has endorsed Jim Holland in the Republican Primary Tuesday and that Holland is OK with that.

Mr. DiFruscia, a Democrat from Taxachusetts, chose to climb on the Republican bandwagon when he came to New Hampshire some years back, but has a thing for endorsing democrats against Republicans, so any "republican" who might see things his way is immediately suspect.  With a NH Republican House rating of 39% in 2007, and with 2008 ratings that were not much better, DiFrusica's endorsement of Holland has raised a few Republican eyebrows in the area.

Many of the Windham and Salem Republican residents I've spoken to in the last few days say they won't vote for Holland.  DiFruscia's endorsement presents too much of a risk.  They want to be able to differentiate the candidate they send to the general election from the Democrat opponent.  They want someone who will stop the liberal creep; someone who will support freedom and more local control, things which Rep DiFruscia has not championed for the Republican party in New Hampshire.

And candidate Holland hasn't done much publicly to allay their suspicions. With all the issues boiling up around last years bloated democrat state budget, and ways to cut spending to protect the taxpayers in a down economy, instead of running on a platform of small government and personal freedom, Jim Holland's major concern appears to be the environment. The environment?

You've got to be kidding me.

Arrogance + Incompetence + Greed

Today, Rep Hodes made what sounds a lot like a Broadway debut whose crescendo had to be this…(and I paraphrase) that “AIG now stands for Arrogance, Incompetence, and Greed.”

But doesn’t that Arrogance belong to representative Hodes who when charged with overseeing the public trust only now appears offended by a problem for which he himself is complicit?

Hodes Press release regarding the Stimulus 2/17/09

… I will remain vigilant in monitoring the use of New Hampshire taxpayer money to make sure it is invested to create jobs, help middle class families who are struggling, and help rebuild roads, bridges and schools.

Upping your ‘Q’ factor with a haughty televised floor speech is a great way to impress potential voters for your planned Senatorial run, but not when you’re commitment to vigilance only raises your ire in ex post facto diatribes regarding provisions you actually voted in favor of and should have already known about.

So who is Incompetent?  Rep Hodes, voted for the bill, clearly without much idea of what it included.  Had he been more aware of the provisions in the Dodd amendment--that permitted the contracted bonuses he is now so offended by--he could have then voted against the bill, or made some public comment regarding his objection to the provision and it’s likely outcomes. He could have pointed to AIG’s bonus schedule—which any vigilant tax advocate probably should have known something about before handing out billions of other peoples dollars.  That at least would justify his sudden outrage.  But I guess the memo for Pelosi left that part out eh?

You see, you have to read the legislation to know what’s in it, so to be outraged now appears as little more than an emotional sacrifice to Thespis for the benefit of the cameras, you’re supports, or those who can’t or won’t be bothered to see past your complicity, your own arrogance, and your own incompetence.  It now appears, to paraphrase Hamlet’s mother, that “Rep Hodes doth protest too much.”

Finally, we come to Greed.

Mr. Hodes views AIG’s actions as those of greed, but the greed of which Mr. Hodes is guilty is far more insidious. He assumes that the government can and should have the fiscal and discretionary power to decide who fails and who is saved, using the very legislative authority whose details eluded even the ‘vigilant’ Mr. Hodes.

His blind commitment to this massive extraction of wealth from the people--so that government may dole it out with strings attached-- is driven purely by the obsession for power within his party leadership and his own desire for personal advancement within its ranks. But it is this greed to empower the federal government over the very foundations of freedom outlined in the constitution he swore to protect that is most offensive.

So now, as he uses the government appointed CEO as a personal punching bag for populist political points, we are expected to honor his commitment to vigilance? We are meant to be appeased vicariously though him at the injustice he rails against. We are meant to project the pithy acronym of Arrogance, Incompetence, and greed upon the people of AIG and not those who empowered them, financed them, and then failed to follow through?

Sorry Congressman Hodes, but you must reap what you have sown.

Disarmed

Mr. Obama has quietly diverted the 2 million in pilot training money used to keep Commercial Airline Pilots armed.

Congress overwhelmingly approved the measure that would premit pilots to carry handguns in response to September 11th attacks but Obama has been systematically pulling back the congressional authority and slowing the permitting process.

Since Mr. Obama’s election, pilots have told us that the approval process for letting pilots carry guns on planes slowed significantly. Last week the problem went from bad to worse. Federal Flight Deck Officers — the pilots who have been approved to carry guns — indicate that the approval process has stalled out.

Make of it what you will.

Update on Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 10:35AM by Steve Mac Donald

After significant resistance the program has been salvaged for now.

Swineherd!

Earmarks are good.

That's the latest spin from the Democrat echo chamber, not that they hold the patent rights on it.  It's been spun in the past by porky Republicans, but never with this much enthusiasm, or this much money.

Dick Drubin gets the award for best of show in defying the foundations of a Federalist Republic regarding earmarking taxpayer funds this time around...

"...Otherwise what happens?  We give the money to the agency downtown and they decide where to spend it.  It isn't as if it the money wont be spent. Oh, it'll be spent.  But it may not be spent as effectively or for projects that are as valuable."

This has two translations.  First, that allowing the locals to decide where the money should go would prevent Dick Durbin from using earmarks as a money laundering tool to fill his campaign coffers.  Second, that the yucks haven't the smarts to know what they need the money for--But Dick Durbin and every other pig on the Hill does.

The attitude that Washington knows best how money should be spent locally is merely an extension of the growing obsession with central command and control.  Money comes with strings, and the strings either lead to campaign cash or local control at the federal level.  Either way the taxpayers get porked, because it's their money to begin with.  And only an arrogant prig would publicly announce that only a Washington bureaucrat knows best how taxpayers money will be spent in their cities and towns.

So what of the locals?  I have not heard anything from NH reps on the latest spin, but Senator Shaheen's web presence is a laundry list of press releases that look like the cash award payouts lists from Publishers Clearing House or Readers Digest.  (I'm gonna have to say she's with Durbin on this one.) 

Selling earmarks as good government is smart if you want to get away with wasting taxpayers dollars, but its bad for taxpayers, its bad for democracy (by giving incumbents an impossibly unfair campaign cash advantage), and in the end its just another broadside effort to redefine the language so people will forget that politicians are actually just herding more pork belly pigs into the big sty that is Wasington.