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I was at the hearing this morning for HB474, the "Right to Work for Less" bill. I thought that I heard the woman who introduced herself as the spokesperson for Cornerstone tell the senators on the committee that they must pass his bill this year, that they could not put it off til next year. It did not sound like she was asking them to do that. It sounded to me like she was telling them that they had to. I did not hear the words "or else" out loud, but I heard them in my mind, from the tone and emphasis of her voice.
What is the GOPP? It's my conception of the new Republican Party in NH, and that is the result of a chain of thinking that occupied my mind yesterday evening, after we were interacting with our own representative from the sandbox brigade. So follow me below, patiently.
This is stunning on the one hand, though on the other it confirms what we have all suspected to be true:
O'Brien lobbied last week to save from certain doom a bill that barred state funding for Planned Parenthood and any other abortion provider.
Health and Human Services Committee clerk Rep. Susan Emerson, R-Rindge, steamed, "I really resent being pressured like that" when she emerged from the GOP mini-caucus with O'Brien.
She complained later that a bipartisan subcommittee from both sides of the abortion argument met for hours before voting, 8-0, to kill the bill, HB 228. They worried about the effect it would have on 26 hospitals and 24 health clinics across the state, as well health insurers, Emerson said.
"I've been here 10 years, and I have never had a speaker call us in and tell us he wanted a bill passed," Emerson said. "He told us he did not want that bill killed because Cornerstone wanted it passed."
Stunning. The General Court no longer works for the people of New Hampshire, but for a right-wing social issue group that gets its money from goodness knows where and is allied with the National Organization for Marriage, a known anti-gay group.
What do we learn from Tom Fahey's incredible vignette?
1) It doesn't matter for whom you voted in November, if you voted for a Republican; House Speaker Bill O'Brien gets them to vote however he wants, or, I should say, however Kevin Smith wants.
2) O'Brien is disliked enough by House GOPers to go on record trashing him - to the Union Leader!
3) O'Brien's and Bettencourt's full court damage control insistence that the recent crazy emanating from Concord has nothing to do with their real focus on jobs and the economy is a total con job. Bill O'Brien is in fact micro-managing these social issue bills for his apparent boss, Kevin Smith.
When you combine this with Rep. Foose's revelation that John Stephen is the puppetmaster behind the preliminary budget, you have to wonder who is really in charge that was actually elected?
Your actions are so loud, I can't hear a word you're saying.
There is no place in a civil society for such vitriol. We need to have objective discourse about important policy issues and not resort to despicable personal attacks if we are ever to make progress on getting the budget under control
-- Jack Kimball
My old friend and neighbor Peter Burling sends his thoughts on John Stephen's campaign style:
In his concession speech Tuesday night, John Stephen said he was proud of his "positive" campaign for Governor. I was stunned to hear his characterization. The Stephen campaign has been mendacious from the start. His statement put the final cap on the false narrative that characterized his entire effort.
Here is the truth: John Stephen and his storm troopers attacked Gov. John Lynch repeatedly for the past nine months, misleading the voters on the budget, on taxes and on public safety, lying about Gov. Lynch's leadership style, and telling whoppers about Stephen's own record.
In 1998, Karl Rove’s mentor, Lee Atwater, masterminded an infamous political ad that played on racial fears and portrayed Gov. Michael Dukakis as soft on crime. The Willie Horton ad featured the menacing mug shot of Horton, an African-American convicted of assault, armed robbery, and rape while out on a prison furlough. The ad was roundly condemned as racist and Atwater eventually issued a deathbed apology to Dukakis.
Histoy repeats itself in a direct mail piece attacking Gov. John Lynch. The mailer from Cornerstone Action attacks Lynch for his support of SB 500, the prison parole reform bill Cornerstone describes as "John Lynch's sex offender release bill." The mailer features Lynch in a line-up with four sex offenders, including two African-Americans and a Latino.
Why hasn't John Stephen denounced this mailer? Where's the outrage?
(How ironic that a group with alleged Christian values is basically, and falsely, equating John Lynch to a sex offender. John Lynch, who has been more successful than any other governor in keeping poverty at bay for his citizens. Disgusting. NB: both links are in .pdf format. - promoted by Dean Barker)
ACTION ALERT: MAKE SURE YOUR NEIGHBORS KNOW THE TRUTH!
A vile, outrageous and false attack from the National Organization of Marriage/Cornerstone Action arrived in many of mailboxes across New Hampshire this week. We need your help to make sure your neighbors know the truth!
The mail piece, which you can see here, continues John Stephen and company's false attacks on Gov. Lynch's strong record of public safety.
Here's how you can help. Print out this flyer and distribute it your neighbors so that they know the truth: John Stephen's attacks are what the Portsmouth Herald has called "a cheap political trick."
Father Featured in Cornerstone Ad Writes Letter
Apologizing for Inadvertently Spreading Misinformation, Calling SB 500 "Good Policy"
Lynch Campaign Calls on Stephen Campaign and Friends to Pull False Ads, Apologize and Stop Deceptive Attacks
MANCHESTER - Michael Gilmore, the father featured in a recent National Organization for Marriage/Cornerstone ad attacking New Hampshire's bipartisan correction reforms, has written a letter to the Conway Daily Sun apologizing for inadvertently spreading misinformation and calling the law "good policy."
In his letter, Gilmore wrote, "Admit it, fix it, get on your life. It is how we were raised, how to handle our mistakes. Well, this is what I am doing here. It is in reference to some of my statements and 'facts' I posted about SB500.
"First, everything I (we) have said has been true to the best of our knowledge. As we continue to dig deeper, reach farther, and look everywhere, the details, more important details, are slowly coming out. There are enough 'sound bytes' floating around to confuse everyone. I apologize for my part in that and can only say that in our haste to get information out we were unable to get all the scattered details correct and verified," Gilmore wrote.
At the end of his letter, Gilmore wrote: "Conclusion: It is good policy."
The Lynch Campaign applauded Mr. Gilmore's courage in coming forward to correct the record, and called on John Stephen and his allies to do the same.
"Unlike Mr. Gilmore, John Stephen knows the facts. But John Stephen has chosen to mislead people and play politics with public safety," said Pamela Walsh, campaign manager for New Hampshire for John Lynch. "John Stephen's misinformation campaign is rapidly unraveling.
"John Stephen should apologize to the people of New Hampshire for deliberately trying to mislead them and call on his friends to stop their misleading attacks and pull their ads," Walsh said.
The National Organization for Marriage and Cornerstone, groups supportive of John Stephen's agenda, have been running misleading ads on this issue.
The Portsmouth Herald has called the misleading statements against the reform law a "cheap political trick."
"It is very clear from this ruling in California today, coupled with the recent DOMA decision in Massachusetts, that out-of-control liberal activist judges will stop at nothing to redefine marriage for the rest of the country.
I think I am going to make SOTD a new series.
Candidates for the series will include statements that are so hyperbolic that they evince a laugh, thus nullifying their power to persuade.
The right-wing and their media enablers still doing their darndest to derail the Republican candidate with the best general election chances against Paul Hodes.
Maybe if they close their eyes and ears and shout LALALA long enough, they can pretend the electorate in the Granite State is as far right-wing as they are?
(Great writeup. Part put below the fold, and thanks. - promoted by Dean Barker)
This is a public thank you to everyone who made it down to Manchester today as we stood as silent witnesses for equality against the National Organization for Marriage's unwelcome stop in New Hampshire on its nationwide bus tour.
Well, at least they're persistent. NOM pours money into the state to keep trying to thwart New Hampshire's decisions, attack our representatives and our governor (the only governor in the nation to sign a marriage equality bill!) and ignore our strong tradition of protecting civil liberties. We were there in Manchester today to bear witness to New Hampshire's commitment to marriage equality as NOM attempted to spread its lies here.
(Cornerstone strikes again. Thanks, Matt - this is interesting, indeed. - promoted by susanthe)
As Tom DeRosa reports at RedHampshire.com, today Cornerstone Policy Research publicly called on Governor Lynch to veto HB 648. In an email to the organization's action list, CPR executive director Kevin Smith is quoted saying: "We call on Governor Lynch to veto this bill because of the severe fiscal impact it will have on the state budget should it be signed in to law."
As some of you may have noticed (but most of you haven't) I have a web site TimothyHorrigan.com, which has Google AdSense ads on it. Basically, I give Google a few square inches of space which they auction off to advertisers and if someone clicks on the ads, I get a cut of the proceeds. Right now, many of the ads are incongruously urging Gov. Lynch to veto HB436.
Some actual information from the WhoIs database is shown below. The NOM is based at the same address as a conservative think tank known as the Witherspoon Institute, which sponsors seminars like "Natural Law and Economics."
Having just been made aware of the Cornerstone Policy Research outfit - obviously they're doing a great job getting their message out! - via an advance copy of their upcoming 2008 voters' scorecard, it occurs to me that they could be useful to progressive voters here by letting us know who to support and who to work to replace in state elections. Just reverse the polarity, and judge accordingly!
(What they consider "family unfriendly" is also pretty interesting - even curriculum standards accountability for home schoolers is bad!)
