Tag Archives: new hamsphire

Feb 17 2015
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Economics

Say NO! to House Bill 386 – NH Taxpayers Cannot Pay Big Business’ Bills!

As explained in the write-up from the New Hampshire advocacy group, Citizen’s Alliance, Republicans in the New Hampshire house have put forward a bill, HB 386 that proposes to lower the tax burden for businesses in New Hampshire.

Unfortunately as stated in the write-up below, this “burden” is only borne by the largest and wealthiest businesses in the state.  These businesses most often are not New Hampshire based or originated, but large global businesses.  They will benefit from this cut but New Hampshire residents will have to make up for it.  It amounts to a deliberate shift of income upward and out of the state of New Hampshire and the tax burden downward onto New Hampshire residents.

The libertarian wing of the Republican party loves to cry about the costs of government and the burden on New Hampshire businesses.  But this argument has no basis in fact and instead relies on a myth created during the Reagan years based on the “trickle down” effect that all citizens would supposedly enjoy.

The UK’s The Guardian’s take on the Laffer curve (they suffered Reaganomics under Thatcher) : So the Laffer Says Tax Cuts for the Rich?
Paul Krugman weighs in :  The Laffer Test (somewhat wonkish)
Economist’s View: A forum for economists, this post giving a summary of economist’s general support for the Laffer Curve (hint: there isn’t any) : Laughing at the Laffer Curve

[We aren’t posting those articles in support of the laffer curve or supply-side economics from the Cato Institute or the American Enterprise Institute, or other right-wing orgs which dominate the Google search engine.  Both Cato and AEI are in the forefront of pushing any rhetoric that supports the libertarian ideology of getting the rich richer at everyone else’s expense. Since these “thinktanks” feed most national news stories and provide fodder for pundits, we don’t feel we have an obligation to repeat what Americans have drummed incessantly into their ears by corporate media already.]

As a direct result of upward income distribution, big businesses have grown since the Reagan years far faster and higher than real growth in the larger economy.  They have used that wealth to hire slick lawyers and lobbyists to wager with, bargain with, manipulate and cajole our legislators on the state and national level to push bills that favor their profit margins while screwing the American public.

This needs to stop.  The only way we can stop this is to take action to stop it.

Please read the Citizen’s Alliance summary below.  As it says there will be hearings today on the house bill.  If you can’t make the hearing, please call or write (email) the members of the committee to tell them to stop large corporations from shifting their tax burden onto the shoulders of New Hampshire residents.

This bill is currently in the House Ways and Means Committee.

Now for the skinny from Citizen’s Alliance:

NEW HAMPSHIRE CAN’T AFFORD A $120 MILLION BUSINESS TAX CUT

Reducing the rate of the business profits tax (BPT) as proposed in HB 386 would principally benefit the very largest corporations operating in New Hampshire. According to data from the Department of Revenue Administration for 2012, just 397 businesses – or 0.7 percent of all businesses filing a tax return – accounted for two-thirds of all BPT collected that year. All of those businesses owed more than $100,000 in BPT that year.

Cutting the BPT rate to 7.0 percent would mean that most of the revenue loss would flow to these very large businesses, most of whom likely have operations across the country and the globe. Smaller businesses would see little to no change in the amount of taxes they owe. In fact, more than 48,000 businesses – or 75 percent of businesses filing a tax return – already owed no BPT in 2012.

Cutting business taxes will force other taxpayers to pay for the public services that big businesses use and rely on to succeed. Cutting state business taxes creates a vicious cycle. Lower state revenues mean fewer funds are available to provide aid to cities and towns. That, in turn, puts more pressure on local property taxes.

There will be a hearing in front of the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday 2/17/15 10:30 in Room 202 of the Legislative Office Building.

Sign on in opposition to HB 386 here.

 The proposed business tax cuts would force steep cuts in the public services vital to New Hampshire’s quality of life and its economic future.
  • New Hampshire already faces a substantial budget shortfall in the upcoming FY 2016-2017 budget. Cutting business taxes would only make that problem worse.
  • According to the fiscal note, HB 386 would reduce the business profits tax by roughly $120 million in the FY16-17 biennium and every biennium after that.
  • To put that in perspective, $120 million is nearly one and half times the entire amount of General Fund support provided to the state’s Community College System in the current FY14-15 budget; it is more than three-quarters of amount provided to the University System.
  • In the FY14-15 budget, the Departments of Resources and Economic Development and Environmental Services combined received $67 million from the General Fund.
  • In other words, to afford these tax cuts, you’d have to eliminate these departments almost twice over.
Reducing the rate of the business profits tax (BPT) would principally benefit the very largest corporations operating in New Hampshire.
  • According to data from the Department of Revenue Administration for 2012, just 397 businesses – or 0.7 percent of all businesses filing a tax return – accounted for two-thirds of all BPT collected that year. All of those businesses owed more than $100,000 in BPT that year.
  • Cutting the BPT rate to 7.0 percent would mean that most of the revenue loss would flow to these very large businesses, most of whom likely have operations across the country and the globe.
  • Smaller businesses would see little to no change in the amount of taxes they owe. In fact, more than 48,000 businesses – or 75 percent of businesses filing a tax return – already owed no BPT in 2012.

Cutting business taxes will force other taxpayers to pay for the public services that businesses use and rely on to succeed.

  • Cutting state business taxes creates a vicious cycle. Lower state revenues mean fewer funds are available to provide aid to cities and towns. That, in turn, puts more pressure on local property taxes.
  • These cuts will increase the strain on New Hampshire cities and towns and their ability to maintain safe infrastructure and vital services that are central to our shared economic future. State aid to cities, towns, and school districts has already fallen sharply over the last decade – between FY 2000 and FY 2015, such aid is expected to fall by more than $250 million after adjusting for inflation.

Business taxes are already quite low in New Hampshire.

  • According to the Council on State Taxation (COST), the overall level of business taxation in New Hampshire ranked 34th lowest in the country in FY 2013.
  • COST’s research doesn’t look just at the BPT or BET, but at all the taxes business pay(e.g. property taxes, gas taxes, etc.). It finds that the taxes businesses pay in New Hampshire amount to 4.4 percent of private sector gross state product, below the national average of 4.7 percent and less than 33 other states, including Vermont and Maine.
New Hampshire has enacted numerous business tax cuts since 2010, with an untoldimpact on state finances.
  • Since 2010, New Hampshire has made more than half a dozen changes to either the business profits tax (BPT) or the business enterprise tax (BET), from allowing businesses to write off more of their losses for tax purposes to raising the threshold at which businesses owe the BET.
  • Unfortunately, the state still doesn’t know how much all of these changes have cost in terms of lost revenue. If we don’t know the price tag for changes already in place, we shouldn’t put even more on the state’s tab.
Tax revenue in New Hampshire – including business tax revenue – still has yet torecover from the recession.
  • After adjusting for inflation, total General and Education Fund revenue in FY 2014 was nearly $290 million less than what the state collected in FY 2008.
  • The combination of the business profits tax and the business enterprise tax together produced $550 million in FY 2014. That’s 19 percent – or $136 million – less than what they generated in FY 2008, after taking inflation into account.
Business tax cuts are not an effective means of spurring economic growth. Investments in education, infrastructure, and other services are.
  • Extensive economic research indicates that state business taxes, because they are such a small share of business costs, have little to no effect on businesses’ decisions to locate or expand in New Hampshire. Factors like the quality of our workforce and infrastructure are much more important, but New Hampshire won’t be able to provide those if it doesn’t have the necessary resources.
  • As Robert Lynch, Chair of the Department of Economics at Washington College puts it:

 …differences in tax burdens across states are so modest that they are unlikely to outweigh the differences across states in the other costs of conducting business. These other “costs of conducting business” are the most important factors affecting business investment decisions and include the cost and quality of labor, the proximity to markets for output (particularly for service industries), the access to raw materials and supplies that firms need, the access to quality transportation networks and infrastructure (e.g., roads, highways, airports, railroad systems, and sewer systems), quality-of-life factors (e.g., good schools, quality institutes of higher education, health services, recreational facilities, low crime, affordable housing, and good weather), and utility costs.

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Feb 08 2015
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Free Staters

At the Grafton Town Deliberative Session Wherein Free Staters Ran Amok…

nothing happened.

No busloads of Free Staters
No raucous happenings with patriotic Patriots of Liberty standing up for the trampled liberties of the liberty-seeking.

Nothing.

But a typical town deliberative session with about 100 people and a few irritating regular cranks irritating everyone; a typical meeting that by the end of the night was around 75.

Now for the rest of the non-story, turn the page and read, What Did (and Didn’t) Happen at the Town of Grafton Deliberative Session

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Feb 05 2015
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Free Speech/Free Press, Law, National Politics, NH Politics

ACTION ALERT: Show Up Friday 13th and Tell Legislators “Pass the Resolution!”

ACTION ALERT:

A hearing at the will be happening on Friday, February 13, in Room 210 at the LOB (Legislative Office Building – behind the State House).

Show up and support HCR-2, [House Concurrent Resolution 2] the move to get Citizen’s United overturned.  You can sign up to testify as to why you think, as a citizen, this resolution and considering an amendment is important.  You also can stand by and stare down a politician.  Your presence speaks volumes!

Also: A constitutional amendment is the ONLY way to overturn the Citizen’s United decision!

HCR-2  asks the New Hampshire state legislature to bring forth a resolution to Congress to have convention as explained in Article V of the US Constitution to consider adopting an amendment differentiates personhood from corporate existence. Article V in the constitution reads as follows:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

Therefore, the move is on to get New Hampshire on the list of states to comprise the two-thirds necessary for a convention.  The convention would convene for no other purpose than to consider the adopting of an amendment to clarify that corporations cannot claim “personhood”.

The body of HCR-2 reads as follows:

ANALYSIS

This bill applies to Congress for a convention under Article V of the United States Constitution for the purpose of proposing amendments to the United States Constitution in order to address concerns raised by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), and related cases.

15-0135

05/09

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Fifteen

A RESOLUTION applying to Congress to hold a convention for amendments.

Whereas, the government of the United States is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people; and

Whereas, George Washington, the first President of the United States, stated in his 1796 farewell address that, “The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government”; and

Whereas, it was the stated intention of the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America that the Congress of the United States of America should be “dependent on the people alone.” (James Madison, Federalist 52); and

Whereas, the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” which has consistently been interpreted to allow the several states to establish their own laws governing the financing of elections; and

Whereas, the United States Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), removed restrictions on amounts of independent political spending and established a de-facto imposition on the several states denying them the ability to establish their own laws governing the financing of elections; and

Whereas, the current state of federal elections has become such that tremendous power is given to monied legal entities, which have supplanted the will of the people by undermining our ability to choose our political leadership, write our own laws, and determine the fate of our state; and

Whereas, natural persons are endowed with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, while incorporated legal entities exist only under the revocable authority established by the people through Congress and the several state legislatures; and

Whereas, the Congress of the United States has thus far failed to address the multitude of problems created by the United States Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010); and

Whereas, it is in the self-interest of the Congress of the United States not to address the issues raised by the ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010); and

Whereas, Article V of the United States Constitution requires the United States Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments upon application of two-thirds of the legislatures of the several states for the purpose of proposing amendments to the United States Constitution; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring:

That the legislature of the state of New Hampshire hereby applies to the United States Congress to hold a convention, as stipulated by Article V of the United States Constitution, for the purpose of proposing amendments to the United States Constitution in order to address concerns raised by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), and related cases, including events occurring long before or afterward or for a substantially similar purpose, and desires that said convention should be so limited, and

That delegates to such a convention from New Hampshire shall propose no amendments which do not have a primary goal of addressing the grievances listed herein, and the delegates to said convention from New Hampshire shall be comprised equally from individuals currently elected to state and local office, or be selected by election in each Congressional district for the purpose of serving as delegates, though all individuals elected or appointed to federal office, now or in the past, be prohibited from serving as delegates to the Convention, and the legislature intends to retain the ability to define the power of its delegates within the limits expressed above; and

That the state of New Hampshire intends that this be a continuing application considered together with applications calling for a convention currently pending in several other states, and all other passed, pending, and future applications, until such time as two-thirds of the several states have applied for a convention and said convention is convened by Congress; and

That the clerk of the New Hampshire house of representatives transmit copies of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, the President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate, each member of the New Hampshire congressional delegation, and the presiding officers of each legislative body of each of the several states, requesting the cooperation of the several states in issuing an application compelling Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments pursuant to Article V of the United States Constitution.

***************************

Sponsors of the bill are:

Rep. Tim Smith, Hillsborough 17
Rep. Robert Theberge, Coos 3
Rep. Linda Massimilla, Graf 1
 Moveon.org is also having an online petition drive which they will also present to the state legislators.  Please sign the petition as well as a citizen of New Hampshire who is concerned about how the Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision is effecting the political discourse in this country.

Also, for more information on the original Citizen’s United decision and its effects, please refer to the following articles:

Citizens United vs. FEC – Open Secrets.org – a lot of good links and basic information, updated with new analysis on what the decision has done to the political process.

Citizen’s United Supreme Court Decision An excellent detailed analysis of the decision and its meaning and effects from the League of Women Voters of Minnesota with many good links.

Money Unlimited In-depth article in the New Yorker from 2012 on Justice John Robert’s work to get Citizen’s United the victory it sought.

State’s legislatures and local governments that have passed a resolution and sent it to Congress are listed on United for the People,org’s List of Local and State Resolutions

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Jan 31 2015
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War on Women

Action Needed! NH Domestic Violence Services Funding Threatened by GOP House Bill

urgent

 

 

House representative David Bickford of New Durham (R), representing Strafford, District 3 has sponsored the bill, HB 654 that aims to eliminate the sole source of funding for domestic violence services; a portion of marriage license fees.

Action needed now! A hearing on this bill is to be held on February 2nd at the Legislative Office Building in Concord, as explained below, can you make the hearing to testify against this bill? 

Can you call Mr. Bickford and the members of the committee hearing and considering this bill?  Information on David Bickford:

Strafford- District 03
Seat #:2011
Incumbent

Home Address:
183 Brackett Road
New Durham, NH  03855-2329
Phone: (603)859-7899
Email: davidabickford51@yahoo.com

Currently the bill is in the house finance committee, please see the list of committee members at the bottom of this post, please contact them all by phone or email and tell them to stop this attack on domestic violence funding.  New Hampshire always works to find inventive ways to fund programs, the use of a small amount from the marriage license fee makes complete sense, takes from no one and works as a means to preserve healthy marriages and families in New Hampshire.

As explained below in a plea for action from the public, this bill would effectively starve the only source of steady funding that any domestic violence services have in the state.  As we outlined previously in our post Domestic Violence Top Killer in New Hampshire, the lives of women and children hang in the balance when it comes to reaching them in time.  Making services such as educational outreach, court advocacy , crisis outreach via phone and then shelters saves lives.  Representative Bickford’s thinking behind this bill defy the imagination; as explained even in the text of the bill, only $38 is taken out of the marriage license fee and appropriated to the domestic violence fund.  Bickford proposes instead to put these funds directly to the state general fund.  What has to wonder, does Bickford not value the lives of women and children?  Does the general fund need that $38 more than a woman or child needs a safe way out of violence?

We’ll let the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic Violence speak further on this:

HB654 redirects a dedicated fund for domestic violence to the General Fund

For Immediate Release
January 30, 2015                                    
Contact: Amanda Grady Sexton -603-548-9377, 
Amanda@nhcadsv.org

(Concord, NH) On Monday February 2nd at 11:15 in LOB 210-211 there is a critical hearing taking place for a bill that threatens to take away the sole source of state funding for domestic violence services in New Hampshire. The Domestic Violence Prevention Program (DVPP) is mainly funded through a portion of the state marriage license fees. ($38 of each $45 license.) Sponsored by Representative David Bickford, HB654 would redirect DVPP money to the general fund. (http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2015/HB0654.pdf)

If passed this measure would be devastating for the state’s 14 crisis centers that have been struggling to provide services over the last several years due to funding reductions. In 2013 these crisis centers managed to serve over 15,000 people, and these funds could mean the difference between life and death.

Last year members of this legislature passed an unprecedented number of domestic violence bills including Joshua’s Law which is considered model legislation by the rest of the country. The Coalition is concerned that without adequate funding for victim services these laws will not be effective.

Survivors, as well as members of the Coalition, law enforcement, and other legislatures are expected to testify at the hearing. Please contact Amanda Grady Sexton at the Coalition for more information.

This bill will be considered by the house finance committee.  The finance committee is a Standing Committee, that is it is one that is essential to basic functions of the house, considers most bills and always exists.  It is an important committee and thus is also very large.  Because Republicans hold the majority in the house, it is currently majority Republican.

Also, because its large, we will simply provide a link to the page that lists all the members and information about the committee.  The members’ names are linked to their respective house information listing, with phone numbers and email addresses.  We recommend also that you make sure you contact the committee chair, Neal Kurk a longtime Republican representative.

NH House Finance Committee

We’ll leave you with this video on domestic violence, One Voice, A 15 Minute Short Film on Domestic Violence:

 

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Nov 25 2014
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Undoing Racism

Manchester Marches for Mike Brown

Folks in the city of Manchester and surrounding areas disgusted with the grand jury verdict have decided to make their voices heard.

Michael Brown is seen on a tie worn by his father during the funeral

Photo from Reuters news service, mourners at Micheal Brown’s funeral.

 

On Saturday at 1:00 pm people will meet at Veteran’s Park to possibly do a small march and some sharing as well about their thoughts about the murder of Mike Brown and the fact that his murderer has been set free.

Veteran’s Park is located downtown on Elm Street between Central and Merrimack Streets. There will be plenty of parking around on Elm, Central and Merrimack Street.

Bring your friends, bring signs that express your outrage and be ready to express your outrage at this latest injustice against innocent citizens in this country.

For more information please see the Facebook event page at:

Manchester Marches for Mike Brown

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Nov 20 2014
1 Comment
Free Staters

Colbert Reveals the Keene “Difference Makers” for What they Are: “Huge Douchebags”

These children are free from the tyranny of Big Government.

These children are free from the tyranny of Big Government. Their early life experiences will probably lead them to positions of great wealth and entrepreneurship.

And apparently the extremist wing of the Free State Project adherents don’t get the joke.  Chris Cantwell, the most recent immigrant to Ian Freeman’s Keene commune (a duplex in the city of Keene) posted last night on his personal blog about his appearance on the show.  Not surprisingly he seems completely unaware that the entire Colbert show consists of satire.  Amazing really considering how they like to think of themselves as masters of the art of propaganda.  One would think that a master of propaganda and messaging and self described masters of the stealth attack using media would know when the jaundiced eye turns on them.

The intro does a wonderful job of making the obvious tie-in between the far right extremist establishment Republicans and the basis of the libertarian ideology; they both make hyperbolic statements about “tyranny”.  Although the origins of the tyranny assumption may vary slightly;  its not lost on most who bother to notice that the evangelical far right and the Tea Party crowd especially felt tyranny sneaking up when a black man took a position of leadership over the country.  The Free Keeners, the more radical end of the Free State Project adherents and capitalist libertarians in general tend more to see all civil infrastructure,  including that in place to protect human rights and safety to be tyranny against capital.

Slight difference only in that the libertarian anarch0-capitalists deserve credit for being honest; they just hate government because they are selfish, greedy psychopaths.  Having a humane and peaceful society requires some sacrifice on everyone’s part, but elitist capitalists tend to have a problem with this and why not? If they don’t need government services they figure, why should they pay taxes for others to have them (you and me that is)? When we work for two cents an hour, they win.  What happens to you is your own business.

Tea Partiers on the other hand,  like to cloak their greed and selfishness in language that pulls on old class divisions, racism and other hatreds.  In the end though, they all push the same agenda; pulling our civilization back a few hundred years so the people get the chance to start the struggle for justice all over again, but this time in a far more controlled and closely watched global environment.

The fact is that those who follow the libertarian agenda of global capitalists but aren’t global capitalists really need to have something to hold onto.  Afterall, you have to have something loose in your head to believe that removing all protections for workers, protections against discrimination, protections against industrial pollution, protections for consumers and so much more would mean that “liberty” would blossom for us all. Most of us can understand that the number who’d enjoy such liberty in such anarchy would be small and probably wouldn’t be us common folks.

So when the far-right libertarians such as the Free State Project followers rear up their ugly heads and commit their antics to the public eye, the temptation to mock their foolishness cannot be overlooked.  Here for your entertainment we have the Colbert report giving a pretty good picture of the bravery and hard work of the “Free Keeners”, none of whom work but support themselves on pixie dust and the generosity of a local trust funder whilst harassing city employees just trying to do their job.

Before you, our intrepid readers venture onto watching this highly entertaining well executed segment, we’d like to draw attention to some note worthy quotes.  Most notable was Chris Cantwell stating what’s obvious to everyone; that open carry is a form of intimidation and a direct effort to suppress speech.  At about 4:12 Cantwell states, “I find that when I carry a gun people are very unlikely to hit me.”  They are also very unlikely to speak up and call you a jerk or even say that your ideas are wrong.  Ironic for people who profess to be all about free speech isn’t it?

This really is a rare confession of the bullying mindset that proffers among the gun-nut crowd.  They do see themselves as armed vigilantes for what they see as right.  In fact Stephen Clark of Portsmouth Patch also highlighted the gun factor among the Free Staters and their antipathy for anything agreed upon by the collective people, including elections and their right to use “force” to turn the tide their way.   Please help yourself here:  Opinion: William Kostric and Me

Also, before we move onto the video, note one other quote from Garett Ean right after Cantwell, who says, “You cannot be free from an idea so there cannot be freedom from Free Keene for people who just live here.”

In other words, all the tax paying, community participating people in Keene who live, work and raise their families there, you “just live here” according to Garett.  Possibly Garett could tell us all exactly what he’s doing in Keene if not in fact just living there in the purest sense of the phrase because as far as anyone has ever been able to tell and actually in accordance with the Free Keene and Free State Project ideology and practice, most of the Free Keeners don’t work and if they do, they do not pay taxes.  So much for the evils of the “nanny state”;  it seems that Keene has become the unfortunate nanny for this bizarre cult of Koch Brothers style libetarianism.

http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/dvppp6/difference-makers—the-free-keene-squad

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Nov 06 2014
2 Comments
NH Politics

So Where is James Pindell?

UPDATE:

James has surfaced and is apparently still able to exercise his right to function as a reporter as he posted something on Seacoast online.  Also he’s still calling himself a WMUR reporter so we’ll assume he just needed a minor readjustment break after handing Brown his ticket to nowhere.

The political reporter for WMUR the only major New Hampshire commercial television station beautifully laid the bombshell that showed Scott Brown for the clueless carpet-bagger that he was.  See video:

James Pindell asked a very rational and obvious question, one that required some knowledge of simple geography of the state and that opened an opportunity to demonstrate some knowledge of the area.  Really a typically banal question a debate panelist will throw at a candidate, especially in a local or statewide election.  The question related to asking Brown what he thought about the particular challenges of Sullivan County and what he’d do about them.  Again, typically an eye closer save for those who live in Sullivan County or close to it.

But the fact is, Scott Brown doesn’t live in New Hampshire and never did.  So even though he’s asking people to put faith in him and have him make crucial decisions about their lives and their state, but he can’t even get the geography right.  He wouldn’t be able to drive from here to there because he doesn’t know where there is.  So he did what all of us would have done if we hadn’t done our homework; he fudged.  He answered with general and obviously coached references to Obamacare, electric rates and the ski industry.  To anyone with half a brain his half attempt question resembled the half-attempt to lie to the people of New Hampshire.  The first consisted of pandering to the GOP line against any form of national healthcare, electric rates were reference to the efforts to get Northern Pass (a large electrical line to feed southern New England from Quebec) and the ski industry was just feel good reference to local business, strong on winter tourism — all in the north country.  Not in Sullivan County, save for one small ski resort.

Brown fumbled.  He fumbled hard and rolled like a flat rock.  Pindell made the reference that possibly he didn’t understand where Sullivan County was and seemed to be referencing the north country when in fact Sullivan County is west.  The debate went on but the curtain had been pulled back.  The man that failed a run against Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts because he just couldn’t keep up with her intellectual skill had just screwed his second chance to take the crown; 2 for 0, confirmed loser.

What happens next though is what’s astounding; Pindell takes it all on his shoulders.  The fumble was his fault and he took it all by going on Twitter shortly after the debate to say Scott Brown was probably referring to Sunapee, yeah that’s the ticket.  But he didn’t do that just once, he did it twice, then he went on the air the next day and took the blame again, deflecting the damage as best he could, attempting to throw water on Brown’s burning derriere . Huffington post has more details with Pindell’s apologetic Twitter posts.

Since that debate it has been noted that Mr. Pindell, the sole political reporter for WMUR has been strangely absent.  His last Twitter post is November 3rd, his last Facebook post is November 3rd.  Of course most telling and curious was his absence during the election results.  Wouldn’t a political reporter be the one giving the tallies and the analysis?

Since WMUR has a strong reputation as a slave to the Republican side we’re hoping that he’s possibly decided to hunt for employment elsewhere, that maybe he’s had it with the pressure to compromise his journalistic integrity.  The fact is, for whatever its worth, he has a master’s from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and a good resume of solid experience, you’d think that would empower him with the ability to at least know real news and his obligation to it.

Here’s our message to you Pindell:  You did a good job.  Some of us up here in New Hampshire have noticed that you slide over to the other side quite a lot and we’ve wondered if you’re just another tool.  But we have to hand it to you, you did your job and exposed Brown for the fraud he was and possibly saved New Hampshire from a Koch Brothers take over.  Maybe you are in the mountains right now on a vision quest to find truth in yourself and your purpose.  Brighter horizons await the truth-tellers.  We don’t know where you’ll find that among the big networks, but hey, what’s worth more, truth or lots of money?

 

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Mar 25 2013
1 Comment
Economics, Labor and Worker Justice, legal, NH Politics, Protecting our Environment

Corporate Prison Leaders Tell the Truth About Themselves

prison factory

From our friend Arnie over at Inzane Times, weighing in on the ugly truth about the corporate prison system and their efforts to get our Congress and state legislators to sell off justice:

Corporate Prison Leaders Tell the Truth about Themselves

March 17, 2013 by aalpert

FORM 10-K IS A TREASURE TROVE OF INFORMATION

Maggie Hassan made it pretty clear during her successful campaign for governor that she has no interest in turning over control of New Hampshire’s prisons to for-profit corporations.  The majority of Executive Councilors elected in November feel the same.  While the State is still formally reviewing proposals from four private companies to build and operate its prisons, the chance that a contract for prison operation would be drawn up in the next two years is about as close to zero as it can get.  So why have at least two of the companies (CCA and MTC) bothered to invest in lobbying services to defeat HB 443, a bill which would ban private prisons in New Hampshire?

Read more on: Corporate Prison Leaders Tell the Truth About Themselves directly from the source.

For more on the privatization of public services: check this excellent article at truthout.org : Five Poisons of Privatization

thanks to the folks over at the Privatization Blog

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Mar 25 2013
2 Comments
NH Politics, Protecting our Environment

Jeb Bradley Hikes With Eyes Closed

jeb bradley stampAn email we received from the kind folks at Bury Northern Pass reference the moratorium bill, SB-99.   Apparently the well known, avid hiker of the White Mountains, Jeb Bradley has decided that as long as he doesn’t have to live with giant high tension power lines in his backyard and he closes his eyes while hiking, he won’t have to see the results of his handiwork.  Hey as long as you can notch off another peak and claim yourself a member of the 4,000 footer club, who cares if transmission lines spoil the mountain experience?

Because of course, getting the support of PSNH, NSTAR and Hydro-Quebec, three of the large corporate utility companies frothing at their mouths at the potential profit for Northern Pass, is more important than representing the poor little people of your state, amirite?  According to the folks at DownWithTyranny, rubber stamping corporate agendas at the behest of the people’s interests and just generally being a corporate whore is nothing new to ‘ole Jeb.

SOMETHING’S ROTTEN IN CONCORD – A TRILOGY
 
POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE SINKS TO A NEW LOW! – PART ONE
 
by 
 
The Alliance against Northern Pass

CRONYISM REARS ITS UGLY HEAD –This past Wednesday, March 20th at the State House in Concord, honest, transparent  governance, what New Hampshire used to be famous for, took a back seat to cronyism.  Jeb Bradley, a member of the Senate Energy Committee considering Senate Bill 99 slipped a decidedly underhanded maneuver past the public and his fellow senators on the Committee using questionable, disrespectful parliamentary procedures.   In doing so, Bradley ignored the wishes of tens of thousands of Granite State citizens who wanted SB 99 passed in order to implement a one year moratorium to slow down the current breakneck pace of approving huge elective energy projects like Northern Pass and the proliferation of gigantic wind turbine fields.  The moratorium, if passed, was designed to give our state’s regulators the time and resources needed to properly vet these projects.  Our state needs to be sure that ALL optional energy projects, not needed to keep the lights on, truly provide a net benefit to New Hampshire’s businesses and residents, not just the energy companies’ stockholders, before they are given a green light by the state’s regulators.

WHAT’S AT STAKE? –It’s our state government’s obligation to make sure that the unblemished character of our state, especially north of Concord, so critical to our tourism based economy, is protected from an unsightly proliferation of wind turbines, power towers and cables that, once erected, will wreak havoc with the reasons why tens of millions of people come to visit our lakes, hills, rivers, mountains, and forests every year.  Tourism and its many components make up our state’s largest single industry.  Why mess up the beds we sleep in by destroying the magical nature of our surroundings that stimulate people to come here year after year after year?  The notion of messing up our landscapes with projects like Northern Pass for no net benefit to our state is tantamount to sheer, utter lunacy.
THE “FIX” WAS IN –One purpose of this news release is to make as many people in New Hampshire as possible, aware of how certain politicians in Concord are doing business, but this article is also meant to reach the Committee that heard Senate Bill 99 this past Wednesday.  Another objective is to call attention to the actions of one individual on that Committee, Senator Jeb Bradley, who was the person primarily responsible for the shameful performance that went on in Room 103 under the guise of being a so-called Committee Hearing.  Apologies in advance to the rest of the SB 99 Committee members who were hopefully not complicit in the pre-planned deceit and subterfuge that was inflicted on those members of the public who drove many miles, perhaps hundreds of miles in some cases, to attend a hearing where there was no intention by Bradley from the outset to pay any attention to what the voters had to say because “the FIX” was in before the meeting ever started.

(Part Two of the Three Part Trilogy Coming Soon)

FOOTNOTE – The title to this trilogy, SOMETHING’S ROTTEN IN CONCORD, is a phrase lifted from Shakespeare’s, “Hamlet” in which Marcellus says, “Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.” In modern days, the phrase has come to mean “things are unsatisfactory; there is something fundamentally wrong.”

ALLIANCE AGAINST NORTHERN PASS
C/O POST OFFICE BOX 1732
CAMPTON, NH 03223
603-759-2510, Phone; 603-726-4897, Fax
CONTACT: Thomas N.T. Mullen, tntmullen@owlsnestgolf.com

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Mar 24 2013
1 Comment
NH Politics, Protecting our Environment

Top Ten Myths of Wind Power Generation

Iberdrola turbines on Tenney Mountain, NH

Iberdrola turbines on Tenney Mountain, NH

From the very interesting and informative site, Stop Ill Wind, we put up here for your perusal the well researched and thorough answer to the wind industry’s claims about their wind power plants.  In order to ensure that people will take the time to look through these, we have copied them here and linked each myth.  This took a lot of time, but we feel it was worth the effort; the wind industry, like all industrial giants with making a buck in mind, have lobbyists and marketing professionals working for them full time, for good pay.  A few hours assembling this for public information seems the least one should do.

It should be noted that although the writing focuses on wind turbine development efforts on the Northern eastern region from Maryland to Virginia and out to the mid-Atlantic regions, the similarities to the attack in New Hampshire cannot be ignored such as:

1. That the wind industry targets in-land areas with high ridge tops that are primarily low income and poorly developed economically.

2.  That the wind industry depends on such government incentives as double depreciation allowances, tax credits and lopsided lease contracts with private land owners which shelter them from liability and also guarantee an immediate profit even if actual output is marginal long term.

3.  That communities are promised income benefits, increased tourism and other glowing incentives which rarely materalize or are greatly exaggerated.

4.  That the number of jobs created, like long transmission line projects produce over the long-term only a couple low-wage, subsistence level maintenance jobs, that almost all skilled labor is imported to meet machinery warranties and that all jobs (besides the one or two maintenance personnel) last only on average about six months.

5.  That estimates and results of attitudes of potential buyers in areas affected to threatened with wind turbines decreases, causing damage to areas that all too often depend on their mountain top or ocean viewsheds for tourism and real estate dollars for local income.

6.  That the environmental destruction wrought by the construction and placement of wind turbines, with their attendant easements and buildings interrupts natural habitats, causing serious damage if not death to delicate ecosystems and wildlife.

7.  That wind turbines have a history of interrupting the flow of bird migration, especially pronounced when placed on ridgelines.  That bat populations are decimated by wind turbines — so much that among ornithologists and others, serious concern about resulting species destruction exists.

8.  That wind turbines have a history of creating noise, light and other nuisances, to the point where most turbine companies will put waivers in place in contracts with owners to avoid possible lawsuits regarding disruption to persons living near wind plants, within a number of miles.

There is more, please read on.  The claims are similar if not exactly what residents and especially legislators have been told about wind power.  It is important that people in all parts of New Hampshire become aware.  Wind power is not green, will not reduce CO2 emissions nor can the wind industry provide support for its insinuated claim (they don’t even make the claim directly because they know its false) that wind energy does something to save us from the threat of climate change.

So without further ado:

Myth #1: Industrial Wind Developers are Interested Only in Providing a Public Service

Myth #2: Wind Plants are Harmless to Wildlife

Myth #3: Windplants Will Reduce the Mining/Burning of Fossil Fuels and Lessen Dependence of Foreign Oil

Myth #4: Windplants are Highly Efficient and Provide Power for Significant Numbers of Homes

Myth #5: Locals Who Oppose the Wind Industry are NIMBY’s

Myth #6: Windplants Will Generate Significant Tax Revenue and Increase Property Values

Myth #7: The Wind Industry Will Create Many Local Jobs

Myth #8: Wind Technology is Noiseless and Creates Few Disturbances

Myth #9: Wind Technology Consists of “Wind Mills” on “Wind Farms”

Myth #10: Those Who Are Concerned About Wind Power are Not True Environmentalists

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