Like a broken clock that’s right twice a day, the Union Leader made the right call on House Bill 1560. The legislation proposes a novel end-run around the federal health care law by creating an interstate health care compact that would replace all federal health care programs — including Medicare and Medicaid — with block grants.
Supporters of the proposal claim it would give New Hampshire the “authority to enact state laws that supersede any and all federal laws regarding health care” within the state. They suffer from “delusions of grandeur,” writes the Union Leader.
HB 1560 declares that states in the compact have a “right” to direct payments “funded by Congress as mandatory spending” to implement, presumably, their own health care laws. The idea that Congress would approve a multi-state compact that lets states ignore federal laws but keep all money intended to implement those laws is preposterous. This bill is a frivolity upon which legislators should not waste their time.
The state’s biggest newspaper, the New Hampshire Union Leader, is filling the position vacated by State House Bureau Chief Tom Fahey with a part-time staffer.
The Lobby reports Garry Rayno has been rehired by the Union Leader to a part-time position to cover state government. Rayno was laid off by the Union Leader just last week after the paper’s largest union, the Manchester Newspaper Guild, unanimously rejected the publisher’s contract offer.
At the beginning of the year, the Union Leader dropped The Associates Press as a news provider. “We would prefer that New Hampshire news consumers get that information directly from us,” said publisher Joseph McQuaid.
More than once, Dean Barker has castigated the New Hampshire Union Leader for building up Rick Perry in preparation for endorsing him in the New Hampshire presidential primary.
The New Hampshire Business Review provides more evidence, pointing out that a Politico column originally titled, “Is Rick Perry dumb?” was retitled when it ran on page A2 of the Union Leader. The Union Leader title? “It’s no accident: Perry ‘not just lucky, he’s good.’”
An editorial that ran in the August 11 Union Leader was removed from the web after a firestorm of criticism. The column praised Rep. Frank Guinta for holding town hall meetings “even though he knew full well that he was going to take flak” for his votes on the budget and raising the debt ceiling.
For that alone, he is an improvement upon his predecessor. After they voted for Obamacare in March of 2010, then Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes … took Speaker Nacy Pelosi’s advice not to hold big, open meetings in which lots of non-supporters would get to yell at them.
The claim that Shea-Porter and Hodes did not hold town hall meetings was patently false, as Dean Barker pointed out.
Of course, Shea-Porter had held EIGHT town halls just prior to that.
Why so many? It came on the heels of the historic health care vote, and despite the bogus hay made earlier by the dishonest in a similar venue, despite knowing that the Tea People were determined to make theatre out of every one, the Congresswoman was adamant about reaching out to her constituents’ questions about this legislation.
The facts were immediately challenged on the Union Leader web site and on Twitter. Editorial page editor Drew Cline eventually issued a correction on Twitter and the piece was removed from the web.
Correx: Today’s lead editorial erred in stating that Shea-Porter, Hodes did not hold town hall meetings after the health care vote. They did
Barker concludes:
My takeaway is that when you know you will never be given a fair shake by certain sectors of the media, you cannot give one inch when it come to errors, distortions, lies, etc… Rapid response is required, always.
Over 800 participants in the Free State Projecthave moved to New Hampshire with the stated goal of taking over state and local governments, slashing budgets and eliminating federal “interference.”
At least a dozen Free State Project movers have been elected to the state House and many more to local office. Most successful candidates were elected without the voters even being aware of their Free State Project affiliation.
That may be about to change. In today’s Union Leader, Beth LaMontagne documented the Free State Party associations of two candidates for Manchester alderman.
Manchester got a taste of the liberty-minded Free State set in June when eight people were arrested for protesting outside the Manchester police station. … Now at least two who identify with the movement have filed for local office.
Ward 5 Alderman Ed Osborne is facing a challenge from Mike Segal, … one of the protesters involved in the Manchester police station incident. Ward 2 Alderman Ron Ludwig is facing a challenge from Craig Haynie. … Both are featured on Free State websites.
An editorial in today’s New Hampshire Union Leader, “Jim Crow? Not Even Close,” blasted former President Bill Clinton for comparing New Hampshire’s voter photo ID bill to Jim Crow laws.
Legislators finally passed a voter ID bill this session, only to have Gov. John Lynch veto it. This week former President Bill Clinton compared it to Jim Crow laws. We suppose that as long as you’re going to make up stuff to discredit the opposition, you might as well go all in.
There’s only one problem with that claim, well, two actually.
1. The New Hampshire legislation that Clinton included as an example of the “disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators” to disenfranchise voters was the legislature’s attempt to prevent college students from voting in the town where they live while attending school — not the voter photo ID bill.
2. Clinton didn’t compare the new wave of restrictive voter legislation to Jim Crow laws, he said it represents the most determined effort to limit voting since the end of the Jim Crow era. That’s a very different claim — and one that’s hard to dispute.
The video makes all this clear. But hey, let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good story. As Sarah Palin would say, it’s just the lamestream media makin’ stuff up.
Last week, I described how the chairman of Speaker O’Brien’s House Redress of Grievances Committee had disclosed a brazen ethics conflict while hearing a child custody case. This week, there was rare agreement from the state’s three most influential newspapers.
Last week, a blatantly obvious conflict of interest was revealed. It should have resulted in the swift removal of a committee chairman. Instead, it elicited yawns.
As a sponsor earlier this year of a legislative bill of address to impeach a martial master whom Johnson accused of malpractice, Ingbretson was conflicted up to his eyeballs and never should have chaired the hearing.
It should be reheard under a different chairman and with the involvement of the girl’s mother. Otherwise, the Redress of Grievances Committee will have created another grievance to redress.
When House Speaker William O’Brien, R-Mont Vernon, established the House Redress of Grievances Committee at the start of legislative session, it marked the first time in roughly 150 years that the redress process spelled out in the state constitution would be put into practice by the state Legislature.
If what happened during a committee hearing last week is any indication of how this process is supposed to work, maybe it should be put back on the shelf for another 150.
Now, out of New Hampshire’s history-making 2011 Legislature comes this riddle for philosophers: Can a violation of ethics occur in a farce, which by definition is a ludicrous, empty show?
The Committee on Petitions for Redress of Grievances is nothing more than a kangaroo court, albeit one whose only power is to make trouble and issue reports. It should be disbanded. If it isn’t, the committee’s four Democratic members should consider whether they really want to remain as players in this embarrassing farce.
Update: The chairman of the House Redress of Grievances Committee agreed to step aside following a request from the general counsel to the judicial branch.
Last week, the New Hampshire House passed HCR 19, a Tea Party-backed resolution asserting the state’s authority to nullify federal laws it deems unconstitutional. Yesterday, the bill that 242 New Hampshire state reps supported was disavowed by Newt Gingrich and a Union Leader editorial.
“I think Andrew Jackson dealt with that” during the nullification crisis, he said, adding that Lincoln dealt with it in a more profound way a few decades later.
State politicians who think the federal government is acting unconstitutionally can sue the federal government or direct their delegation in Washington to oppose the unconstitutional actions, he said.
“It would strike me as very implausible that states could actually nullify,” he said.
[T]hey are wrong that the State of New Hampshire can simply declare those actions null and void. If states had that authority, the union would collapse, as every state nullified whatever federal laws it disliked. This question was settled in the 19th century. It should remain there.
In a Union Leader piece today making her argument to lead the New Hampshire GOP, Jennifer Horn rewrites history by claiming Republicans have historically led the fight for social justice, including civil rights:
[I]t was a Republican Congress that fought for and finally passed civil rights legislation in the ’60s.
No. It was a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress that fought for and finally passed civil rights legislation in the 1960s.
The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was first proposed by President Kennedy, a Democrat, in his civil rights speech of June 11, 1963 and championed by President Johnson, a Democrat, after Kennedy’s death. It was passed by the 88th Congress, where Democrats held a 258-177 majority in the House and a 66-34 majority in the Senate, and signed into law by President Johnson, a Democrat.
This is not to diminish the contribution of Republican legislators in passing the civil rights legislation. But fallout from its passage led the Republican party to adopt a “Southern strategy,” exploiting Southern racism and promoting state’s rights — and effectively ending the party’s historic commitment to civil rights and social justice.
William Loeb once penned an editorial in the Union Leader in which he spoke out against the growth of New Hampshire’s minority population. The state has undergone much change since then. Apparently the state’s largest newspaper has not.
Same-sex marriage became legal in New Hampshire on January 1, 2010. This week, the Union Leader refused to print a wedding announcement for a gay couple getting married in Portsmouth and released this statement:
This newspaper has never published wedding or engagement announcements from homosexual couples. It would be hypocritical of us to do so, given our belief that marriage is and needs to remain a social and civil structure between men and women, and our opposition to the recent state law legalizing gay marriage.
New Hampshire Union Leader Publisher Joe McQuaid and a photographer are in Afghanistan to chronicle New Hampshire National Guard Co. C, 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry. Telling the local troops’ story is certainly laudable, but the fact that the Union Leader says its series “is made possible in part through the assistance of BAE Systems, Next Step Orthotics and DEKA Research” seems a little problematic. Yes, two of those firms have products designed to help amputees, but how do you cover a war objectively when you’re indebted to Pentagon contractors?
There’s just one week to go before New Hampshire’s September 14 primary election. It’s been said that voters really don’t start paying attention to November elections until after Labor Day. If that’s the case, New Hampshire voters have precious little time to decide how to cast their primary votes.
To help sort things out, WMUR-TV and the Union Leader are sponsoring a series of televised debates to be held this week at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. Each debate will be one hour long and will feature questions to the candidates from WMUR and Union Leader journalists. The debates will be broadcast on WMUR and streamed live on WMUR.com.
Here’s a preview from James Pindell in his new role as WMUR.com Political Director. Full debate schedule and participating candidates are below the fold.
There’s just one week to go before New Hampshire’s September 14 primary election. It’s been said that voters really don’t start paying attention to November elections until after Labor Day. If that’s the case, New Hampshire voters have precious little time to decide how to cast their primary votes.
