WHEN POLITICAL RHETORIC MEETS BUDGET REALITY!!!

We all know that when politicians are campaigning they sometimes will say or do anything to get votes.  When Governor Maggie was running she was saying how, if elected, she would tell her department heads to give her budget numbers that were 3% less than what the Republicans gave them in the last budget.

When Bully was running for State Rep in the last election he said he was going to cut spending by 400 million $’s.

Well it looks like the state is about 300 million $’s short in the budget, depending on who you listen too, which is probably about Gov. Maggie was talking about for numbers.  But now that the numbers are probably close to what she was talking about the world seems to be collapsing with the lack of money for this program and that program.

One of the problems seems to be that NH is lagging behind on coming out of the recession, in short the revenue projections are down.  If the department heads are not careful they will start taking money out of the 2d year of their two year budget to cover shortfalls in their first year’s budget.  You don’t need a degree in economics to see the problem.

It is still too early to call the shots on the proposed budget; but, it is clear that reality is setting in.

GOOD NEWS!!!

The rumor is Bully O’Brien is going to run for Congress in the somewhat liberal 2d CD, the seat is currently held by Annie Kuster.

That means that every Republican that Free Bagger O’Brien screwed over can now have another shot at him.  Republican from around the state will show up to hold signs for his opposition in the primary.

Anybody that doesn’t believe in a living god should rethink their position.

MORE GOOD NEWS!!!

I have been hearing that more and more Free Staters are complaining that they made a mistake in coming to NH.  Evidently they feel they were sold a bill of goods and thought they were going to be welcomed with open arms, only to find that when they are identified, they are being rejected by NH Citizens.

Some of the people who openly admit to being Free Staters are very smart and just nice people; but, like in the NH Republican Party the nuts are the ones bringing down the whole program.

LIVING PROOF THAT BOTH PARTIES HAVE THEIR SHARE OF NUTS AND THE LUNITIC FRINGE!!!

I have been told this picture was sent to Senator Ayotte on Mother’s Day from the Londonderry Democratic Committee on their website.

These are some of the pictures of victims of the shooting in Newtown being used to promote a liberal political agenda.

I have been active in Republican politics since 1972 and thought I have seen it all; but, nothing as low as this, no matter what party or what candidate, this is most despicable.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!!!

                  

It was good to see the current Republican State Party Chairman and two prior State Party Chairman come out and chastise the State Rep from Auburn for her remarks about the government being behind the Boston Marathon bombing.  Two prior chairmen referred to her, I believe, as a “nut case”. The current State Party Chairman just disowned her and promised no support from the Republican Party if she decides to run again.

The Rockingham County Republican Party will now have to make a decision on whether to put up enough candidates to unseat her in the next election.

The assessment of her by the two prior chairmen is right on.  Although I welcome this timely assessment it is about two and a half years too late.  Unfortunately, she is not the only one in Concord that made us cringe when some of them open their mouths before engaging their brain.  Couple this last embarrassment with referring to women as “vaginas” and another State Rep that wants to purify the Republican Party in NH and you end up with NH being the laughing stock of the country right now.

If we are going to clean up the mess in the NH Republican Party it needs to go top to bottom.

In Exeter it appears that we have a selectman who is telling people that part of his job is to uncover what the other selectmen or members of town government are hiding from him.  Nobody that I know of is hiding anything except, perhaps, their lack of respect and trust for the 5^th selectman.  What he doesn’t understand is if people do not trust you, and they have plenty of reasons not too, they don’t want to talk to you.  So far four members of the board have been too nice not to bring out what they think of the 5^th, maybe they are saving it until they get closer to the election, I can only hope.

The warnings have been out there for a couple of years, as a party we are destroying ourselves with more and more people saying, “I didn’t leave the party the party left me”.  I’ve talked about this issue for a couple of years and now you can all see what the state has had to endure.

The good news for Republicans is Obamacare is a horror show and some insurance brokers and professionals are saying this will set us back for years to come and cost us a fortune.  If they are right and I have no reason to doubt them, this will cause the voters to reject the democrats in the next election, and no matter how crazy the Republicans look right now blindly vote in anyone who has an R after their name.

Matt and I have always been proud of our Republican roots and have not compromised on our conservative principles.  However, there have been times when we were not proud of our party and things that have taken place; we came to realize that with either party it is all about money and power and not about people.  Even in our beautiful little Town of Exeter, Dennis Brady and a small group of very strange people (who’s hiding whatever’s) tried to politicize the non political selectman’s race.  In a selectman’s race you look for leaders, not the name callers.

I can see some similarities between the Concord “nut cases” and what is happening in Exeter.

THERE ARE RADICALS AND THERE ARE NUTS!!!

I believe it is becoming clear that the Republican political fabric is torn.  Matt and I saw this a few years ago when we decided to run for State Rep as independent Republicans.  People would ask us what an independent Republican was and it was easy to explain; that is someone who subscribes to less government, less spending and to keep your nose out of people’s personal business. 

It is a Republican who serves his constituents and not the ever changing political agenda, motivations, and elitist power brokers who want to control the party and their own agenda.  Republicans who believe that people come first and the party agenda comes second (or third or fourth).

Just recently Free State supporters in Belknap County want to have another Republican Party made up of just conservatives, who defines conservatives, they do.  That is not as bad as the Free State group that wants NH to secede from the Union.

In Auburn there is a Republican State Rep who just posted on line that she believes that the bombing in Boston was actually done by the US Government; if you remember there were Democrats that argued that George Bush was behind the planes flying into the towers, so both parties have them.

Exeter has not been spared in this contagion of craziness.  The town is wrapped up in a fight over should we have a receptionist or do we want to be more efficient in making it easier for you, the taxpayers, to have easy access to the town departments.  Personally I don’t like recordings or push 1 or push two; but, at least everything is still in English.  Do I like these systems, no; but, I think in financially tough times it is probably cheaper than paying the equivalent of a Wal-Mart greeter about $60,000 a year with benefits to guide us through the town office building, when we have easy to read signs that seem to be working well.

This issue will not go away easily because it is being pushed as a political issue being used to beat on four of the Selectmen by a fifth selectman who claims the other board members either don’t listen to him or don’t respect him; I can sympathize with him because Rodney Dangerfield had the same issues.

For those of us who use to be main stream Republicans, what is the difference between a radical, a nut or a main stream public servant?  That will be defined well before the next election.

POLL QUESTIONS TO SEE IF YOU SUPPORT EXPANDED GAMBELING!!!

       1.    Would you rather have expanded gambling or an income tax?

       2.     Would you rather have expanded gambling or sales tax?

       3.     Would you rather have a root canal without Novocain or      expanded gambling? 

If you answered yes to any of the above questions then you are definitely in favor of expanded gambling.

John Lynch did not support expanded gambling because he knew that the money pushing it forward in NH would eventually control the political process in NH to the detriment of the voters.  In this respect Governor Lynch was truly looking out for the people of NH.  The above questions, although facetious in nature are similar to the type used to see if NH wants expanded gambling as used in a statewide poll.

I have never supported expanded gambling and after seeing what is happening in NH with the gambling money being spread around I can definitely agree with Governor Lynch’s concerns.

Contact your local State Reps and Senator and let your feelings be known.

IF YOU ARE FEELING CRANKY, I'LL GET YOU A HANKY!!!

I just read a letter to the editors from one of Exeter’s fringe claiming there was no leadership on the BOS and Matt always did what the Town Manager told him to do.  After I read this delusional rant I stepped back and understood how little Dennis Brady and Frank Ferraro know about what was happening in Exeter this past year.

Anyone who watched the selectman’s meetings on channel 22 could see how well the four members of the board interacted and worked together with the town manager and department heads.  The issues Exeter is facing just in infrastructure, is monumental and need the full cooperation of the board and departments.  If you had two board members who were hell bent on pushing to fire the town manager when there is no cause, there would be chaos in Exeter and a sizable lawsuit to boot; thankfully the voters saw that and decided to keep everyone in place.  Make no mistake getting rid of The Town Manager is exactly what they want. There are two things preventing this from happening, first they need three votes on the board, secondly the Town Manager has to do a fire able offense.

It is obvious that the next selectman’s race started when the loonies lost the last one a couple of weeks ago and Matt is once again the target; if he wants to run for his Selectman’s seat it will be in the next election.

Dennis Brady, who claims to have graduated from the Coast Guard Academy, obviously didn’t pay attention to his leadership classes because he thinks the definition of no leadership is when he thought Matt, didn’t show any leadership because he worked with the town manager, other selectman and department heads to continue to move Exeter forward while trying to keep the taxes down. Matt’s definition of leadership is similar to mine, “leadership is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way as to make them look forward to the trip”; hey Dennis, have a nice trip.

I CALLED THEY ANSWERED WHAT IS THE PROBLEM???

We had an old saying in the Probation/Parole Department, “when in doubt, scream and shout”.  This has to do with the warrant article to have a receptionist answer the phones at the Town Offices.

I haven’t found anyone who likes answering machines or answering services, me included.

With cooperative management the Town has a new and I think a better system than they had.  If you remember the group in Town that is out of control in their attacks on the selectman and Town Manager, were attacking on financial audits that needed to be upgraded for quality and timeliness.  The Town Manager made a case that he needed additional staffing and the receptionist’s position was transferred into the finance office.  From what I have heard that move has taken care of much of the problems in that section of the town administration.  Then the Town automated their phone system explaining how to access the various town departments with a live person, Town Manager’s Secretary, on the end of the line if you need help.  I called the Town Offices just to see how the system worked and ended up on the line to talk to a real person and I did, the system works very efficiently.  If the new catch phrase is innovation, then it has been achieved; the number to the Town Offices is 778-0591 for anyone who wants to check this out for themselves.

MY MY!!!

          

We have to switch gears from the local loonies to the state level loonies.  The latest going around with the remnants of the once respected House Republican Alliance is that they are circulating a letter for signatures, to Gene Chandler; the minority Republican Leader, requesting that he removes Shawn Jasper from his Republican leadership post. It was always my personal opinion that in any dealings I had with Jasper I always felt he was untrustworthy and should never be put in any republican leadership positions.  I thought Gene learned his lesson the last time.

Evidently Jasper offended the Free Staters who have taken control of the HRA and they want him removed.  What Chandler isn’t aware of is HRA is supposedly going to make a move of removing him from his position and replacing him with none other than Bully O’Brien.  If you remember Bully is the former speaker that brought down the whole Republican agenda in NH, put the Republicans once again in the minority and to add insult to injury threatened to finish off the Republican survivors of the past election if they didn’t do exactly what he says.  Again, my opinion is this will be a touch and go situation because I don’t think Gene has as many old guard Republicans in the House to back his play or defense against the Free Staters.

Has anyone heard how the little band of jolly Free Staters are doing about getting NH to secede from the union?  You just can’t make this stuff up.

WOW boys and girls isn’t this what every Howdy Doody fan wants running their agenda and state.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, Concord is no longer about good representation it is about, money, control and power.