The only bright spot for the Dems was the reelection of John Lynch as Governor. He is the first governor to ever win a fourth term in NH (we have two year terms for governor.) As the night went on it was apparent this was going to be bittersweet for Lynch.

The 24 seat NH Senate went from a 14 -10 Democrat majority to what is looking like a 19 – 5 or 20 – 4 Republican majority. The NH House held a Democrat majority for the last four years. Thanks to them, NH turned into Massachusetts North. Between tax and fee hikes, homosexual “marriage”, and a whole litany of liberal legislation that would make San Francisco blush (if that’s possible), the House was way out of the mainstream. That changed tremendously last night. It is looking like the Republicans picked up at least 250 of the 400 seats and may well have picked up the 2/3 supermajority needed to override any vetoes.

The final office of interest in NH is the Executive Council. The Governor cannot really do anything without the Executive Council’s approval. For an overview of what they do, go here.

The Executive Council of the State of New Hampshire (commonly known as the Governor’s Council) is the executive body of the U.S. state of New Hampshire. The Executive Council advises the Governor on all matters and provides a check on the governor’s power. New Hampshire is one of the few states that has an Executive Council, and is the state whose council has the most power. While the Governor retains the right to veto legislation passed by the New Hampshire General Court, and commands the New Hampshire National Guard, the Council has veto power over pardons, contracts with a value greater than $5,000, and nominations.

The Executive Council went from 3 – 2 Democrat to 5 – 0 Republican.

Hopefully, this will signal a return to NH’s roots. We have always been conservative and very independent. Recently, we have seen an influx of people seeking to escape the nightmare they created in Massachusetts moving into New Hampshire and electing the same type of candidates they were fleeing. It looks like the good old common-sense NH yankees have finally had enough and wanted to make themselves heard.

Live Free or Die.

This is good. This is good indeed. New Hampshire Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte was endorsed by Sarah Palin last night.

“It’s my honor to endorse a Granite State ‘mama grizzly’ who has broken barriers, fought off and locked up criminals, and battled all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the rights of New Hampshire parents – and won!”

While I’m not sure how many people actually rely on endorsements to make up their minds on candidates, this should help shore up any wavering conservatives. You can count me in as one of those wavering conservatives. I like Ovide Lamontange. However, he stands no chance in the primary and having the conservative vote split would usher in one of the RINO’s like Binnie or Bender. Neither one is acceptable. We in NH saw the results of splitting the conservative vote in 2002 when we had a field of good conservative candidates and ended up with Jeb Bradley as our representative.

The statement from Paul “Canada” Hodes campaign is delightful:

“So do we hope Sarah Palin comes to campaign for Kelly Ayotte? You betcha.”

We really hope she comes here as well. Judging from Sarah’s record in endorsements, we’ll take it. I’m more interested in seeing if BHO comes to NH to campaign for Paul Hodes.

No one who thinks abortion is the taking of an innocent human life could ever sell that position. It is ingrained in who you are. This just shows there is no such thing as a principled Democrat. They are simply whores holding out for the right price.

Blue Dogs fall into this realm as well, however they don’t sell out someone else’s life for their goodies. Like Stupak did.

Other restrictions included a ban on the sale or purchase of any type of firearm, ammunition, explosive or any possession of such items off a person’s own premises.

At least they took the Superbowl into account:

Effective Sunday afternoon, alcohol restrictions and a curfew were lifted. All other remaining restrictions would continue until Monday, said Paula May, King police chief.

On another note, every sheriff in NH, endorsed Kelly Ayotte.

SHERIFFS FOR KELLY. Ayotte yesterday was endorsed by all nine of the state’s county sheriffs.

Given her law enforcement background, it was no surprise, but it’s always a plus to have the sheriffs, with their extensive grassroots networks, in one’s corner.

They called the former attorney general tough on crime and a proven leader. The Ayotte campaign said she had worked with the sheriffs to “keep New Hampshire safe, and each of the last two years, New Hampshire was rated the safest state in the nation” by CQ Press.

Hopefully NH is coming back to its senses.

Among the highlights:

Tort reform:

We should start with medical malpractice reform to reduce frivolous lawsuits. In underserved areas, the threat of these lawsuits has forced doctors out of practice, and this is especially true for obstetricians.

This needs no further commenting.

Wellness programs:

We should look more seriously at wellness programs that provide economic incentives for people to live healthy lives and use preventive care programs that have been implemented successfully by many large companies.

My current insurance pays for a portion of my gym membership. My company is instituting a smoker’s surcharge on our insurance premiums for the upcoming year. While I have the knee-jerk reaction of intrusion into lifestyles by outside entities, I think there is merit to rewarding behavior that helps in driving down costs.

Transparency in the cost of services:

We need more transparency in our health care system. Health care is one of the only services we purchase where it is tremendously difficult to compare the prices of procedures and to obtain reliable information on quality. Consumers should have access to better information on the costs and quality of health care so they can make informed decisions about their own care.

Ask anyone how much their last doctor visit cost, not the copay, the actual visit. Most wouldn’t be able to tell you. We have become removed from the cost because of the way health insurance works. We go, pay our copay, and go home completely oblivious to the true cost.

Effeciency:

We need to improve the efficiency and delivery of care with electronic medical records and better coordination of care.

I’ll buy that.

Purchasing in the open market:

We should allow small businesses to form a pool to purchase health insurance together.
…

Finally, we should allow the purchase of insurance across state lines.

I support state’s rights. However in this case we need to get rid of the over regulation by states. This market is so burdened by state regulations that we only have a few providers for each state. Competition in the open market would help this dramatically. Look at the car insurance industry. We need cut throat competition like that for health insurance.

To recap some of her points:

While the Democratic leadership in Congress is responsible for the debacle we face today, Republicans of past majorities must also take responsibility for the role they played in opening the door to a government that is too big, too intrusive and too expensive.

Over the last several elections, the only thing that changed with regards to spending is who got the money. The D’s and R’s both used us as piggy banks to send our hard earned money off to their favorite charities, their own reelection bids.

Somewhere along the way, we started thinking that the way to win elections in New England was to sound like a Democrat. We abandoned our principles and embraced big-government and big-spending policies. As a result, Republicans were fired in 2006.

Amen. If you told me ten years ago that the New Hampshire I grew up in would have a D governor, house, senate, both representatives, and one Senator, you would have been laughed out of town. But look what happened. We elected Charlie Bass and Jeb Bradley (RINOs) who served as useful idiots for the D party until they had no more use for them. Then when it came time to vote for a Democrat or a Democrat Lite, they both were voted out for the honest candidate – the one with the D next to their name.

We have two paths before us. We can go back to nominating Republicans who sound like Democrats and hope that by blurring the lines between the two parties, the voters will choose us. Or, we can stand firmly for the principles that make our nation strong and offer the voters a real choice.

We’ve tried the first way, and we saw our party lose election after election in the Northeast, and the country suffer as a result. This summer, citizens tried the second way, and they started a revolution.

Sounds to me like we have a candidate we can get behind here. I am not in the second CD however if Frank Guinta can start sounding like this, we will have two great candidates for Congress in NH. The sleeping giant of conservationism is awakening in NH.

You can donate here.

Seems innocuous enough.

Now we look into the memo.

Before the speech:

Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?

During the speech:

Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?

After the speech:

What do you think the President wants us to do? Does the speech make you want to do anything? Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?

Extension of the speech:

Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

Maybe I’m just paranoid but given the agenda of this administration, I have good reason to be. I will be looking very closely at what he wants my nine year old daughter to do.

The Alliance Defense Fund has reported that Judge Lucinda V. Sadler has ordered a 10 year old girl into public school. The order can be found here.

One would think the underlying reason is of course that the mother is not providing a proper education causing the child to fall behind other children in her age group. Apparently that is not the case since the court order states she is “well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising, and intellectually at or superior to grade level” and that “it is clear that the home schooling…has more than kept up with the academic requirements of the…public school system”. So that’s not it. Her education is excelling.

Maybe it’s the new liberal mantra about children not being able to interact with other children because of their sheltered lives. Again, this would not seem to pass muster since she attends the local public school to take art, Spanish, and gym classes. The public school instructors have also commented that she is well rounded in her social skill.

No. It seems the reason the reason this child was ordered into the public option to quote Marital Master Michael Garner, “vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view.” Digest that for a minute.

What this appears to say is, we as Christian parents have to allow our children to consider other religious points of view without a vigorous defense of our Christian beliefs or risk government intervention? And the best way to prevent our Christian beliefs from being passed to our children is by enrolling them in public schools.

“I hope NH is better than letting this guy off the hook. Let Obama know what ‘Live Free or Die’ means (hint: it isn’t reckless TAXING and SPENDING). Otherwise, Portsmouth will just be another glorified photo-op for the Socialist-in-Chief,”

Wanna know what it got him? A phone call from Dear Leader’s Secret Service detail.
Read for yourself.

On the other (same) hand, Rep. Hodes will be holding “office hours” in Atkinson, NH town hall today from Noon until 2 PM to talk about health care. I guess that pretty much rules out anyone with a dreaded private sector job from attending.

I ran across this newsweek article and after some head shaking, I broken heartedly have to agree with the author. Although I am not a Catholic (I am a non denominational Christian), I have seen this trend throughout evangelical churches as well. We have opted for the feel-good social justice approach while ignoring the root principles of Christianity. Namely that our job here on earth is to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel, call people to repentance, and put their trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Obama’s pragmatic approach to divisive policy (his notion that we should acknowledge the good faith underlying opposing viewpoints) and his social-justice agenda reflect the views of American Catholic laity much more closely than those vocal bishops and pro-life activists. When Obama meets the pope tomorrow, they’ll politely disagree about reproductive freedoms and homosexuality, but Catholics back home won’t care, because they know Obama’s on their side. In fact, Obama’s agenda is closer to their views than even the pope’s.

This is a shame. Have we lost our way so far that we can look the other way at someone who would allow a human baby to be born alive and not feel that child deserves to get medical attention? Will we really look the other way at the exportation of abortion through the Mexico City initiative because we happen to agree with the president that we should feed, clothe, and shelter the poor? Do we ignore what Scripture has to say about homosexuality and the sanctity of human life so that we can feel good about ourselves and our community service?
Apparently we do:

Yet polls bear out that American Catholics do not want to be told by the Vatican how to think. Despite the rhetoric of love and truth, the Vatican shows disdain (if not disgust) toward gays. But 54 percent of American Catholics find gay relationships to be morally acceptable, according to a 2009 Gallup poll.

If there is truly 54% of any group of Christians finding homosexual relationships morally acceptable, there is a total breakdown in the teaching of the church. This would also explain how someone with views like the president can garner support from within the faith community.

For Obama, respectful disagreement and a willingness to recognize differences was the animating spirit of the presidential campaign, and it was central to his Notre Dame speech. That is the kind of politics many Catholics practice. They’re tired of watching the church grasp frantically for control at the expense of truth and love. In America last November, it showed: 54 percent of Catholics voted for Obama.

Interesting that this is the second time “truth and love” have been used to make a point contrary to Scriptural teaching. Start with love. We as people of faith are willing to show love to anyone. We do not hate homosexuals. We do not hate people who have abortions. We do not hate the president. We as Christians have a love for all of humanity. We know what God has said and done for us. We also know what is in store for those who love God and obey Him, and our heart breaks for those who choose to blatantly disobey Him. It is our love for mankind that drives us to reach out and try to find those who are lost.
We do this through the truths that have been revealed to us through God’s word.

As Christians, we take the Bible to be God’s word to mankind, inerrant in its entirety. We have a president who believes that MOST of the Bible is inerrant. I am also afraid that we have a large body of professing Christians that feel this way as well. In this case, all bets are off. We do not have the ability to pick and choose which parts of the Bible are true and which are not. We either accept it as a whole or we reject it as a whole. Truth is not relative. Either something is true or it is false.

There is a principle in Biblical study called hermeneutics. This is how it is determined which scripture is meant for us today and which scripture was meant for a certain people at a given time. For example, dietary laws were given to prevent the widespread death of people eating shellfish when there was no refrigeration and worked very well keeping God’s people alive. As a general rule of thumb (very condensed version): Dietary and ceremonial worship rules were meant for a specific group of people at a given time. Moral laws, such as the Ten Commandments, were meant for all people at all times.

Biblical truth is not subjective. If you walk down the middle of the highway because you believe there is no such thing as 18 wheelers, the truth is that they do exist. And eventually one is going to get you. Not believing in Biblical truth is going to be completely irrelevant when you are standing in front of your Maker. Going to church every Sunday doesn’t make you a Christian much like working in a garage every Saturday doesn’t make you a car.

Just out of curiosity, is the covering up of an alleged rape of a 14 year old girl by a 31 year old man what they are defending?

LiveAction.org does some great work on the pro-life front. They expose blatant violations of the law by Planned Parenthood on a regular basis. You may want to view this while you can since Google has a tendency to take their videos down on a regular basis. If the video has been removed, you can download it here.

For those not following the controversy arising from David Letterman’s “joke” about Sara Palin’s daughter, here it is in a nutshell. While what he said about a 14 year old girl is repulsive, he has apologized, and the Palin family has accepted it.

There are two things we can do when someone has wronged us. We can forgive them or we can let it consume us. When someone is truly sorry for what they have done, aka repentance, the only option we have as Christians is forgiveness. While it may be tempting to smell blood in the water and try to take down someone who we perceive as hostile to one of our friends, we need to look upward to what our Father has done for us. The words of Jesus himself tell us to ask the Father to “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

It is so easy to look at what someone else has done and want to take vengeance on them. It is when we look at ourselves and all that we have done to transgress against God, and the grace, the undeserved forgiveness, that the Father has bestowed upon us, that we see that we have no other option than to forgive. I think we can all follow the example of the Palin family in this matter.

New Hampshire used to be a bright red state swimming in a sea of blue in New England. Now, thanks to the hopey changey election of 2008, we have a legislature that has tackled the tough issues of the state like the trans gender “bathroom bill”, a seat belt law, smoking regulation, and now we are the 6th state in the nation to legalize the abomination known as homosexual marriage.

What the legislature seems to forget is that they do not have the power to legislate the definition of a word. They can pass a law this afternoon stating that from this point forward we are now required to refer to pigs as dogs. While the pigs may be happy being called dogs, they are still pigs. Marriage is a union between one man and one woman, no matter what the legislature tries to redefine it as. It is a covenant contract between the two people involved and God.

The state has no business in marriage. There are legal benefits bestowed upon married couples that come automatically when a couple is married. The state should offer these benefits to any two people who sign the contract in City Hall. In short, from the state’s point of view, civil unions to all.

What we have done in NH is created a new revenue stream for the trial lawyers. The governor sought to have protections for religious groups not wanting to perform ceremonies written into the law. But what about the photographers, caterers, and everyone else who would choose not to participate? They are now open to discrimination lawsuits for wanting to honor their God and not partake.

What the legislature did was attempt to redefine a word. What it did not do was force acceptance.

I came across this yesterday. It seems that a couple in San Diego have been entertaining a bible study with about 10 – 15 people every week. Seems harmless, right? Not so fast. The couple have been threatened with escalating fines if they continue their studies. Particularly disturbing is the line of questioning reportedly carried out by a county official. “The county asked, ‘Do you have a regular meeting in your home?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you say amen?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you pray?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you say praise the Lord?’ ‘Yes.’”

Is this the United States? As far as I know, we still have a Constitution. However, beyond the first amendment issues here what does this say about our society? We now have people of faith threatened with the power of the state coming down on them for the unspeakable of act of worship and study of God’s word.

The pastor, his family, as well as the county officials involved are all in need of prayer.

On this earth day, I can’t help reflecting on what was created for us to enjoy here. Looking around at the sun, sky, trees, grass, clouds, and oceans, I am awed at just how well designed everything is. Yet some will look at the world around us and think this was the result of some cosmic accident. These same people would never look at a building or a bridge and think that they result of some massive explosion billions of years ago. No, there must be another explanation. Unfortunately, for those who want to deny a creator, a cosmic accident is the only other explanation.

For some, the God of the bible has been replaced with an idol. The idol is the creation itself. We will hear Pagans talking about “Mother Earth” and the like all day today. Those who do not want to bend a knee to the One who spoke the world into existence will use today to push their agendas. While we should respect what we have been given, we need to put it in context. If you choose to leave the lights in your office off today, or walk to lunch instead of driving, or throw that can into the recycle bin instead of the trash, do it out of stewardship to honor Him who created the world and everything in it.

Paul wrote in Romans 1:24 -25:
” So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.”

And of course the obligatory Democrat senator defending the expenditure.

You can’t make this stuff up.