Shea-Porter and Hodes on Proper protection?

The Stimu-less bill the NH twain rubber-stamped on Wednesday included a provision that would require all those supposed shovel-ready projects to get their steel from American companies.  That’s right, no foreign steel.

And you thought they cut the 400 million for “protection” out of the bill.

So is this how Obama heals our tarnished image with the global community.  Trade protectionism.   Who said experience doesn’t matter?

Well, the foreign governments got the message.  They are already lining up to give Mr. Obama piece of their mind, suggesting that similar actions against us would have to follow if the provision manages to survive and become law.  (Is this the test Biden warned us about?)

Preliminary estimates by several fortune 500 companies peg the potential job losses from a slew of global trade barriers in the tens of millions as the increased cost of global goods, and the problems in acquiring them strain an already fragile US economy.

So yeah,  Hodes and Shea-Porter voted for a stimu-less bill filled with lefty handouts, and hundreds of billions in non-stimulus spending, but they also  supported trade protectionism on top of it.   This must be part of that helping the middle class mantra, right?

So I am of course assuming that they actually knew what they were voting for.   I mean you don’t actually vote for 800 billion in pointless handouts after whining about fiscal responsibility and accountability, or about the culture of corruption you’re going to help clean up, do you?  You don’t blindly support trade barriers in a global economy that will affect every job sector while you are claiming to create jobs for (your union buddies) do you? Do you? 

Is it possible they never even pulled Pelosi’s sunshine yellow  post-it off the front, the one that said “just vote yes?”  Are their copies filed away in the ‘Victory’ drawer without even one dog-eared page?

No matter how it played out, as the bill meets stiffer opposition in the Senate, the public is learning a lot more about just how bad this bill really is, something our House Reps–the fiscal conscience of congress, seemed unconcerned with in their rush to give Obama a quick victory.

It’s good to know where their priorities lie.  Of course we always knew didn’t we, yet for some reason they got re-elected anyway.  So you know the old saying, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…

Judd Gregg-Filibuster slayer?

A good tyrant kills off any pretenders to his throne to protect and secure his power.  While that’s not exactly how it’s done these days, President Obama may be executing a strategy that accomplishes the same thing.

 

Roll Call is reporting that Senator Judd Gregg is aware of a potential nomination by Obama to be the next commerce secretary.  Gregg, who has been warming to Obamanomics, and appears to be cozying up to the new administration, has never been considered long on republican principles by conservatives, and likely to have a fight on his hands in two years to seperate himslef form any Democrat rival.  (Or any serious conservative primary cadndaites) So It’s not difficult to see him taking the job.   

But is he willing to make that kind of mark on history?   He could forever be known as the Republican who helped give Mr. Obama and his massive liberal agenda  with a filibuster-proof Senate. 

 

And there-in lies the subterfuge (if genius isn’t the right word) of the Obama administration.

 

Picking any Republican Senator (but Gregg in particular)—whom any democrat led Senate committee would confirm for obvious reasons—allows Democrat Governor John Lynch to appoint his replacement until the 2010 election when Greggs term expires.  It’s a pick destined to be a Democrat, most likely a congressional house member from New Hampshire like Paul Hodes.

 

Now there are those who claim that Lynch might exercise his “independent streak” and appoint a Republican, but that’s total nonsense.  Lynch is as doe-eyed for Washington as Gregg is, and being the democrat who could have given Obama a filibuster-proof senate but decided not to because of some ‘independent streak,’  is not something he wants on his resume.  Lynch would appoint a democrat given the chance and I suspect Obama knows this.

 

So if Judd Gregg is on the short list, and he gets a shot at being Commerce Secretary, he has a big decision to make.  Will he kick his party to the curb and give the liberals their shot at a utopian collectivist agenda, or stand tall for the resistance?

I am the Lorax and I speak for the trees!

Rumor has it that the Obama administration is preparing to use its executive authority to have the EPA declare a naturally occurring gas a pollutant.

That’s right, the stuff you exhale every minute of your life, the same gas that plants love, is going to be tagged as a pollutant so it falls under the regulatory authority of the Environmental Protection agency.

What environment exactly are they protecting if the stuff plants breath is declared a pollutant?  The moon?  Can we send Al Gore there to do a meet and greet?

And now I’m wondering how this might affect the Swiss governments Bill of Rights for Plants.  Seems to me we are risking some tin-foil hat policy overlap with this one.

Wait, I figured it out.  If decreasing CO2 means fewer plants, that’s more like little plant abortions, which as we all know is not the immoral killing of  a life because if the plant is not actually breathing yet, it’s just someone else making a choice.

Of course that still leaves us with the EPA regulating naturally occurring elements in the atmposphere to advance the Presidents political agenda.  Better watch out Obama.  If it turns out that CO2 is not a WMD (weapon of man-made destruction) your going to have some esplaining to do.

Might I suggest staying away from banners that read “Mission Accomplished.”

PSNH rates go up–anyone surprised?

Thanks to the government the cost of living and doing business in New Hampshire just went up again.

It goes like this.  In 2007 the state mandated that by 2025 providers get 25% of the energy they provide from renewable sources (Wood, wind, solar, etc) and that process (its called RPS, the Regional Portfolio Standard) is already under way .  This  Jan 1st 2009 we began the RGGI cap and trade scheme which requires energy providers to buy carbon credits quarterly whose increased costs are also passed on to rate payers.

So these government mandates are now pig-piling on top of your lifestyle, in a down economy no less, during a ten year cooling trend, all to solve a problem that doesn’t even appear to exist.    How bad is it–get the numbers on the jump.

Deval-u-ing your borders

Deval Patrick knows spending, and so he also knows taxes.  And when you think you might have taxed your own state about as much as you can–and no I don’t think he’s even come close to that yet–you start taxing other states.

“What I would love to see is … border tolls at all of the interstate entrances, maybe Route 3 as well. In other words, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York. If we did that right, it would be possible to remove all of the tolls inside of the Commonwealth. Maybe you’d keep something at the tunnel,”  -Gov. Deval Patrick as reported in the Boston Globe

Three thoughts come to mind.  First, just another reason to spend my money in New Hampshire; Second, if he charged people to leave the state he’d make alot more revenue; third, who does he think he’s kidding with that “it would be possible to remove all the tolls inside the Commonwealth…” schtick.