NH Listens? No They Don't. They Tell!

NH Listens is running around the state training "facilitators" to advance a decidedly left wing agenda.  And why not?  The 'interim' directer of the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire--which runs NH Listens--is not only a well connected left winger, he doesn't even live in the granite State.

He lives in Maine.

And have you seen who he donates to politically?

Mallory, Bruce L Kittery Point, ME 03905 University of New Hampshire/Profess	SHEA-PORTER, CAROL (D) House (NH 01) CAROL SHEA-PORTER FOR CONGRESS	$250 primary	06/12/10
MALLORY, BRUCE L KITTERY POINT, ME 03905 UNIVERSITY OF NH/PROFESSOR	HODES, PAUL W (D) Senate - NH HODES FOR SENATE	$250 primary	03/09/10
Mallory, Bruce Kittery Point, ME 03905 University of New Hampshire/Provost	OBAMA, BARACK (D) President OBAMA FOR AMERICA	$250 general	09/06/08
Mallory, Bruce L Kittery Point, ME 03905 University of New Hampshire/Provost	SHEA-PORTER, CAROL (D) House (NH 01) CAROL SHEA-PORTER FOR CONGRESS	$250 primary	06/28/08
Mallory, Bruce Kittery Point, ME 03905 University of New Hampshire/Profess	OBAMA, BARACK (D) President OBAMA FOR AMERICA	$250 primary	03/06/08
Mallory, Bruce Kittery Point, ME 03905 University of New Hampshire/Profess	OBAMA, BARACK (D) President OBAMA FOR AMERICA	$250 primary	12/27/07

So we've got a guy from Maine who is an ardent left-winger, who invites nationally renown community organizers like Bill Ayers to the state, and runs a group of professional professionals from UNH, public employees of the state,  who actively train and then insert their "facilitators" between town boards, committees, and residents.

Is it just me or does it sound like this project is more interested in telling New Hampshire what it needs by using one of the oldest tricks in the book?.  Pitting trained professionals against amateurs.

I am reminded of a seminar in which a police officer and a lawyer tell you why you should always remain silent and ask for a lawyer, whenever you are likely to be questioned by law enforcement.  Years of cop shows have taught us to distrust people who "lawyer up' but the reason is actually very simple.  The police are trained experts at interviewing.  You, more than likely, are not.  It is therefore unfair for you to enter into any conversation which could lead you to accidentally incriminate yourself simply because you do not have the same skill-set as the person across from you.   And seeing as the outcome could result in your being under suspicion or even detained--literally denied your freedom--you should never engage law enforcement in such circumstances without a trained interviewer on your side of the table.

In the typical town meeting or board and committee format, the people elected or appointed may have better skills, or may feel like thy do, but at the end of the day they are accountable to you, your money and even your votes.  While there may be factors that give the town officials a turf advantage this is easily mitigated by the fact that these are still your neighbors.

NH Listens is not accountable to you, even when some of them are your neighbors, and is the social justice equivalent of the trained interrogator facing off against those with lessor skills.  The NH Listens 'facilitators' are taught how to use human nature, group dynamics, body language, interview and word choice to not just drive the discussion toward a pre-determined goal, but when possible to get the group to believe that they came upon the decision themselves.

Whether brought in my a board or committee member or elected official or not, they are not there to help you figure out what is best for your town, or your kids--in the case of Education, for example.  They are their to manipulate the conversation, and therefore policy, towards a set of preferred priorities that fit their political and social agendas.

Now this has been going on as long as man has used language, so the Carsey Institute at UNH, which runs NH Listens, is simply using these methods to help advance a decidedly progressive agenda by offering to "help' mediate discussions or debate so that people are convinced to arrive at policy decisions more geared toward their agenda than your own.  They are also increasingly found advising your town boards and committees, using their source pedigree - NH Listens and the Carsey Institute, to legitimize them in that role.

It behooves you to become aware of them and to find out if and what affect they may be having on your local government.

Examples?

From Tim Carter at Moultonboro Speaks wrote this regrading his experience with Dr. Mallory (the Democrat donor who runs the project) after an NH Listens session in his area.

Dr. Mallory asked me to call him after the meeting. I did, and we set up a subsequent face-to-face meeting. While sitting at the outside tables at Burrito Me in downtown Laconia, NH, Dr. Mallory wanted to know what I and the Tea Party felt about NH Listens.

I pulled out a print out of the home page of the NH Listens website. Right there was a list of their Board of Advisors - a veritable Who's Who of the most liberal people in New Hampshire.

My response was pretty simple. If I recall, I said something like, "Dr. Mallory, until such time as you put an equal amount of conservatives on your Board of Advisors as you have Liberals, NH Listens is suspect of advancing a liberal agenda."

Dr. Mallory denied that NH Listens used the Delphi Technique at the meetings they facilitate. But you know the old saying, right? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and squawks like a duck, then it's a duck.

As soon as he saw the print out of his website with this damning information he told his right-hand woman attending the meeting, "We need to remove that from the site." And sure enough they did. They completely remodeled the website and scrubbed away any reference to any person whatsoever on the site. That alone should cause you great consternation.

Why would such a public group hide who they are, who runs the group and how they get their funding to advance their agenda? When you visit the NH Listens About Us page, there's nothing there but smoke and mirrors.

Emphasis mine.

And he's right.  To this day you have to chase links back to UNH and the Carsey Institute to see the rouges gallery of liberals who are perpetrating this fraud; a procession of  professional professionals who just "know better."  And look at all the psychology "experts' that work at Carsey.  Expert experts in manipulating humans with psychology and social justice, who train people to help you agree with them or the goals of whoever has brought them in, all working under the cover of good intentions and their public University associations.

But they are literally 'from the government and here to "help" (r trained by them)...and they want to help you agree to the need for more and more government," or this and that program, even if it has a history of failure, makes no sense, or is simply ill-suited to your local circumstanced.

But they want to homogenize policy and link your towns up with wider ranging government programs that inevitably tie you to Federal programs as well.  But once you accept Federal money you accept their rules, and their oversight, regardless of what the "facilitators" have to say.  They are not there to be honest, they are their to politely manipulate you into agreeing with them and their programs and they are wheedling themselves into local boards and committees as consultants and advisers.

And they are or will be showing up at your town meetings.

You would do well to learn more about their methods, and how to spot it and counteract it.  You would do well not to trust their intentions.

If New Hampshire listens carefully they will discover that NH Listens is not about New Hampshire at all.

You are reading  "NH Listens? No They Don’t. They Tell!"   by  Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)

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

Cop Killing LA Spree Shooter Is Big Fan of Obama, Biden, MSM, Piers Morgan and More…

Yesterday we reported that Floyd Corkins, a gay rights activist, was motivated to kill by the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center.

Today we get to meet Chris Dorner, former LA cop (fired in 2009), murderer, cop killer, (and now mass murderer/spree killer)...who also happens to be a big fan of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, CNN, MSNBC, Piers Morgan, gun control, and oh yeah, he hates the NRA.

And he wrote and posted a 22 page manifesto to tell us all about it.

Not only is there a 22 page manifesto, no one has to jump through hoops to make the connections.  Dorner has shout outs for all his liberal homies.  Shout outs that the lefty media have been leaving out of their reporting.

The manifesto they are sharing has a page count that might be a bit lower.  You see, the same left wing media/industrial talking head complex that strains every vowel to tie any other shooter or bomber to the right, is doing all it can to hide the lunatic Chris Dorner's ideology...because it is the same as theirs.

From Human Events

About half of the manifesto has been delicately excised from press reports… the parts where he praises gun control, Senator Dianne Feinstein, MSNBC, CNN (especially gun control sensationalist Piers Morgan), Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama.  On the other hand, he really hates the NRA, particularly Wayne LaPierre (who he incorrectly identifies as the organization’s “president” – that would be David Keene at the moment) and George Zimmerman.

Here, John Hayward at Breitbart reminds us how hard Piers "Musket" Morgan labored to add to the left wing narrative.

I hope everyone has seen the flashback video of Piers Morgan telling Mark Kelly that Sarah Palin should call Kelly's wife, Rep. Gabby Giffords, to apologize for her alleged role in creating the "Climate of Hate" that led to the Tucson shooting

If not, give it a couple of spins while you listen to Morgan whining and crying like a pitiful wretch, now that L.A. spree killer Chris Dorner specifically named Piers Morgan as one of his inspirations.  Time to live up to your own standards, Piers.  Get on the phone and start apologizing to the families of Dorner's victims for your role in the murders.  Do it live on the air, and maybe you can squeeze out a few more ratings points for CNN.

Powerline reports on how hard the media is working to hide the facts they usually scabble for like seagulls over a chicken wing.

Dorner, it turns out, is a fan of President Obama, Dianne Feinstein, Colin Powell, Piers Morgan, Chris Matthews, Brian Williams, Soledad O’Brien, Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Vieira, Tavis Smiley, Anderson Cooper, and Ellen DeGeneres. Meanwhile, he reviles the NRA and Wayne LaPierre, believing that the latter’s advocacy warrants the death of his family before his eyes.

But, as Charles Cooke points out, “in the combined 3,240 words of the lead stories from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press, there is no mention whatsoever of the political contents of Dorner’s screed.” To be sure, they all mention the manifesto, but not what’s in it, even in New York Times’ specific post about the document.

So we have a left wing ideologue motivated to kill.  He's got a 22 page rant that names left wing lights and their propaganda mules by name.  And they are hiding all the inconvenient bits to avoid what...?

Their culture of hate comes to mind.

Oh, and Dorner is still on the loose.

You are reading  "Cop Killing LA Spree Shooter Is Big Fan of Obama, Biden, MSM, Piers Morgan and More… "   by  Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)

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

The Ideological Left's Equivalent of a Gold-Digging Trophy-Wife

I've been blogging this subject for years because at every opportunity Democrats (and a handful of Republicans) resurrect the notion that running a commuter rail line into and or up through the Nashua-Concord corridor would be good for something.

That's like saying "hey doc just leave the endoscope in my colon, that way the next time I need it it will already be there."

It is damn near the biggest waste of time and money we could imagine, destined to become nothing more than a fiscal albatross that bleeds us dry, and yet like some three-year old who relentlessly carpet bombs you in the ten-items-or-less aisle with ear piercing screams until you relent and buy them that chocolate bar, the mass-transit zombies you thought you'd put down keep getting back up so they can eat your brains.

Commuter rail is as useless in New Hampshire as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest and whose only possible value (and I use that word very loosely) is as the ideological lefts equivalent of a gold-digging trophy wife you can never divorce--that's more expensive, and paid for by you whether you use it, need it, ever see it, or not.

So hey, how about another study on commuter rail?  If we keep getting studies done eventually we'll have one that says exactly what we need it to say in a way that will allow us to get our future, gold-digging, commuter rail trophy wife to the alter.

Sooner or later.  I'm still on the side of later and I've laid down plenty of text in support of that.  So rather than re-write it again I'll just give you some links and pull quotes and let you take it from here.

Here are some links with pull quotes to previous 'rants' on New Hampshire commuter rail

December 2009 'Rail'

Passenger rail costs are not limited to the root infrastructure itself.  That would be rails versus roads.   Taxpayers would have to subsidize passenger rail-cars, fuel the cars, maintain the cars, probably pay the workers and their benefits, and support the entire system when it fails to turn a profit, which will be always and probably forever.   While roads have some other infrastructure nothing compares to rail.

In contrast people buy their own cars, and pay for their own fuel and maintenance.  They may buy the car to get to a job that’s probably not funded by taxpayers either. (Except in Concord) Taxpayers do not need to subsidize any of that where with rail we’re supporting all of it.  So there is no possible apples to apples comparison to road and rail taxes.

February 2010 'The Real Third-Rail for Commuter Rail'

... Such is the case for commuter rail in New Hampshire, a liberal fantasy that is a solution looking for a problem.  And apparently it’s found one but not the one it was hoping for.  A recent report has revealed some of the thinking behind the cost and revenue options available in forcing commuter rail down the throats of New Hampshire residents; and it’s filled with words and phrases and clauses that might just derail conjunction junction before it ever leaves the station.

... (how to pay for it...?)

[A] business improvement assessment" of $1.02 per $1,000, on top of existing local and statewide property taxes, could be levied on all properties in a mile-wide corridor along the track, a half-mile on each side.

They could also choose “…to add a 16 cents per $1,000 property tax surcharge on all properties in 27 communities in the Nashua-Manchester areas.”

Then there’s “a vehicle registration fee [which] "has actually been a pretty common approach across the country. You basically tax what you want people to avoid, if you will," Williams said He said that with 528,273 vehicles in the 27 communities in the region, a $15.82 charge would be needed to raise $8.3 million.

May 2010 ' De-Railed?'

According to the state Department of Transportation, I-93 costs roughly $10,000 per lane per mile to maintain. At four lanes, I-93 between Concord and the border would cost about $1.6 million a year. After the Manchester to Massachusetts widening, it would be about $2.6 million a year — roughly half of Burling’s lowest estimate for operating the train. Double the I-93 maintenance figure, just to be safe, and we’re still at the low estimate for the state’s portion of operating a train.

 February 2011 'Democrats, Trains, & HB 218'

(Includes a round up of previous content related to the newest effort to get Railed.)

Democrats are aghast that the NH House would dissolve the New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority–the head of a beast seeking to force commuter rail upon us–because hey it doesn't cost anything.

But it does cost and it could lead to something that costs us even more in the future.  A lot more.

April 2011 'Psst.  Hey Buddy.  Want to Buy A Train?'

The morning Union leader chides New Hampshire Governor John Lynch for saying this to the Nashua Telegraph.

“I think rail would be an economic driver for this region. Ultimately, we would realize more money than we could even contemplate at this point.”

...What he meant was that if we added commuter rail "there would be more spending than we could even contemplate at this point."

There's more but I think that should cover it.  All the same arguments against it still apply, the most important of which is that it will never pay for itself, which means that all of us will end up paying for something most of us do not want, do not need, and will never use.  And that more or less describes Democrat governance up and down the line.

You are reading  "The Ideological Left’s Equivalent of a Gold-Digging Trophy-Wife"   by  Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)

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

No Labels is Now New And Improved!!!

No Labels has grown tired of being No Body, of No Interest, and having No point, so they are "shedding their centrist label."

For those of you who slept through the first part of this 'movie,' No Labels started out under the assumption that we could get a lot more done if we left our political labels at the door.  "Not Left.  Not Right.  Forward."  That was their slogan.

"Forward," being a the same historical buzz word for left-leaning progressive socialist publications, should have clued everyone in as to the true purpose of a group founded by progressives from both the right and the left.

Not long after No Labels was trying to look forward, the very partisan left leaning MSNBC was trying to "Lean Forward."  Obama and the Democrats ran for election/reelection in 2012 using on moving Forward.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

I repeatedly framed No Labels as ..."the latest of many left wing funded efforts to drag the right into the middle and the middle leftward."  I saw No Labels as a bivouac for progressive Republicans looking to polish their bi-partisan cred and to provide cover for lesser known radical leftists who needed to appear centrist--like then-former NH State Senator Maggie Hassan.

Hassan was at the first No Labels launch, which prompted me to ask this back in late 2010...

But could Hassan have had an epiphany?  Has her unexpected defeat resulted in a cathartic de-gentrification of her traditional ruling class elitism?   Is it possible that a woman steeped in the progressive super culture could abandon her pro-government/liberal materialism to spend forty days in the desert on a moderate vision quest? Or is this, more likely, just a flanking maneuver.

Maggie ‘The Red’ Hassan is advocating No Labels because she wants to be governor Hassan; think of it as an undocumented progressives worker program or Fascists anonymous–only it’s not about recovery or remission, it is about hiding who you really are from the voters until after you get elected.

Guess who our new governor is?  Yes, Maggie Hassan...(here's more from that same 2010 article)

This is a woman who tried to socialize medicine in-state, legislate away free speech she objects to, advocates for abortion from conception to delivery, and is committed to advance the size, scope, control, and cost of the government.  If she has a middle ground, it is not just left of center, it is far left.  So Hassan advocating No Labels is like Kathy Griffin, or Janeane Garofalo advocating tolerance.

She was there for cover...and it must have worked.

So what about that New and Improved No Labels?

They appear committed to resurrecting this monster and the lightning that will jump start it is bringing liberals and conservatives together to solve problems.   (Isn't that what congress is for?)  They are no longer, "Not Left.  Not Right.  Forward."  They are 'Committed to Fix not Fight.'

The center of the new logo says "Problem Solver."

That is an interesting notion but there is one small catch.   The biggest problem real conservatives need most to solve is how to keeping progressives out of power.  Somehow, I don't see anyone dancing that dance at the New and Improved No Labels cotillion.

So real conservatives would never go there.  They understand that most of our "problems" are the result of the Federal government doing things it was never meant to do.  The debt, all of it, ties to big government getting bigger not smaller.  And the only solution to that "problem" is to shed that authority and give it back the states.  Doing so will lessen Federal costs, debts, deficits, power, would shrink the bureaucracy and all manner of abuses at the Federal level.  It will lessen the need for lobbyists to flock to DC.  It would put the people and the states in more control of revenues and decisions that would no longer be diverted to the U.S. capital.  Can you name for me one Democrat in Congress who believes in that or would actually work to make it happen?

I'm stumped.

Everything Democrats do is designed toward central planning.  Bring it to DC, let the experts decide if or how to send it back and what and how many strings shall be attached attach.  There is nothing conservative about any of that.

So the only "problem" a No Labels Conservative will ever solve as part of this group is the problem of actually thinking they are a real conservative.  if that is in fact its true purpose than soldier on, I say.  Let's see who signs up!  But let us make sure we understand what this is.  It is just another Main Street Partnership looking for creative ways to push the center even further left.

You are reading  "No Labels is Now New And Improved!!!"   by  Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)

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

Socialist Fallacies

Socialist Fallacies is a book written by Yves Guyot and readily available in the public domain as a pdf.  If you have not read it, I highly recommend it.  Every page (so far) is loaded with observations about socialism that are as relevant today as they were in the early 1900's.  Guyot relates the problems in simple terms that even a Democrat could understand--if they were actually open-minded enough to absorb it instead of responding with the programmed, knee-jerk, overreaction and denial.

Here's an example of just how simple Guyot makes the arguments.

In 1893, Mr. Shaw Lefevre, as Commissioner of Public Works, arranged to pull down a part of Millbank Prison by means of the unemployed. When these men worked with the knowledge that their pay would vary according to the work done, they did twice as much as when they knew that whether they worked or idled their pay would be 6½d. an hour.

The prospect of gain does not exercise its influence only upon the wage-earner, it reacts upon all men, financiers, employers of labour, and investors, because it admits of an immediate and certain sanction, that of gain or loss.

A private employer will make profits where the State suffers loss. While individuals make profits and save, governments are wasteful and run into debt. Statesmen and local officials are free from direct responsibility, and know that they will not go bankrupt and that the taxpayers will foot the bill.

It does not get much simpler than that.  Profit motivates production.  Production is what creates wealth, savings, and furthers investment growth and wealth creation.  State regulated or state run entities do the opposite.  They drain resources, restrict production, and spend what does not exist to further their ends.  You do not have to scour history for examples.  You are living an example of this now.

The state, under the  Obamacrats, have regulated, confiscated, and spent our economy into stagnation.  We are idling on a hill with over-regulation and uncertainty blocking the way forward, and the massive weight of growing debt pulling us back.   At this point, backward is the only direction for us to travel.  And the only solution they have is to spend more; to let the state control more production; to tax private investment and savings to speed our descent toward economic ruin.

The lefts response to our objections is class struggle, the socialist response to everything.

The minority rises up to intimidate everyone else into following them back down the hill, where they promise an equality that  is nothing more than a parity of shared misery beneath the regulatory jack-boot of bureaucrats and central planners of the socialist state.

Cross posted: Socialist Fallacies