Tag Archives: Politics

Did you know that NH has an all female (bi-partisan) Congressional delegation?

When I was younger, New Hampshire had a reputation for being solidly Republican, regularly voting for conservative men like John Sununu (or SayNoNo as I liked to say).  However, NH is now probably the only “Purple” state in the northeast and is easily one of the more progressive in the country.

With the election of the Democrats Ann McLane Kuster and former Representative Carol Shea-Porter to the US House of Representatives this past November, New Hampshire became the first state to send an all-female delegation to Congress.   In addition to the Congressional party, in November NH elected its second female governor, Margaret Wood Hassan.

I won’t suggest that an all female delegation will fix our problems, but I’ve not been too pleased with many of the all male delegations heading to D.C. lately and am open to the change.  I hope moving forward NH isn’t the only state to send an all female delegation to D.C.

Oh and for those who might point out that the delegation lacks racial diversity its probably important to point out that NH is pasty white with almost 95% of the state’s population identifying as caucasion so it might take the state a bit more time to break racial barriers, but they will get there.

Year in rewind: BosGuy’s favorite posts from 2012

I wrote this post after watching many of the Republican Presidential Primary candidates lambaste Massachusetts.  After one such debate I got fed up and wrote the following early in January 2012.

*****

Massachusetts has long been viewed (and probably rightfully so) as one of the most liberal states in the nation.  Social activists, academia, and politicians from Massachusetts have been a strong and consistent voice for the Left in a nation that is increasingly leaning Right.

Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren will be sworn in as a Massachusetts US Senator in January.  She won the seat in a hotly contested race from Senator Scott Brown who had an “A” rating and been supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA).  While gun control was never addressed during the campaign, in retrospect it seems worth noting this change.

Out-going Senator Scott Brown recently said he now would support federal action to ban assault weapons, but I can’t tell if it is political pandering since everyone expects Brown to run to replace Kerry should he be nominated as the next Secretary of State.  Massachusetts has some of the strictest gun control laws in the US so curious that he would get an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association; back-pedaling or change of heart?

One day before the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting the NRA tweeted that their facebook page had reached 1.7 million “likes”.  To anyone living in the United States, this would not be a surprise.  My personal views of outlawing all semi-automatic and automatic weapons,  restricting the production of ammunition and insisting upon oversight and regulations that are as strict as other industrialized nations makes me seem like a left-wing freak by comparison to my fellow Americans.

Nearly 30,000 Americans are killed by guns each year

Last week when I Tweeted about the tragedy and wrote a post about the shooting many were quick to point out that if someone wants to commit these crimes gun control would not prevent them.  However, I can’t think of a more naive defense.  Of course I don’t presume that if we had strict gun control laws we would never have shootings, but there is big difference between “never” and a significant drop in deaths caused by guns.  Don’t believe me; look at other democratic, industrialized nations.

The US accounts for 87% of all children killed by guns and 80% of all people killed by guns in the 23 wealthiest nations

Gun control works and it would work here too.  If we didn’t believe armament restrictions and regulation was effective, we wouldn’t make it illegal to  sell grenades, grenade launchers and bazookas. Its not that far of a stretch in the aftermath of this tragedy to imagine how many more might have been killed if these items were not banned so if it makes sense to restrict these armaments where is the defense for allowing Americans to legally purchase semi-automatic and automatic guns and ammunition with less paperwork than renting a car?

The murder rate in the U.S. is almost 20 times higher than the next 22 richest and most populous nations combined

Maybe if we had gun control the tragedy in Sandy Hook would have still happened, but at least as a nation we could say that we’re working to try to prevent it rather than shrugging our shoulders and shaking our heads at the senseless nature of it all.I recognize that there is a lot of discussion about if the shooter from this tragedy was mentally ill (and my guess is he must have been). While there is much work to be done to help those suffering from mental illness I see these as two separate issues.  Without easy access to guns who could say what might have been or if this tragedy would’ve been avoided. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that so many Americans naively assume gun control won’t work; all the data on this suggests otherwise.  I find it sickening that a nation with such incredible vision could be so blind on this topic.

It is one month to the day since the 2012 Presidential elections.  I’m still amazed by the results of the election and wanted to share a comment from Andrew Sullivan following the election which left social progressives giddy and was met with shrieks of disbelief from Fox News.

“The Republican candidate failed to get even 40 percent of the vote in New York State and California. The latter is the most remarkable. It was Nixon’s and Reagan’s home-state. And now their party is essentially based in Mississippi.”    – Andrew Sullivan

These were two of my favorite “funny protest signs” from a recent Huffington Post write up by the same name.  I love the hypocrisy of those who quote random passages in Leviticus but ignore the majority of the text that are inconvenient like this handsome protester points out.  However, it is the idiotic couple below protesting euthanasia who truly concern me; I’m sure they vote.

More funny protest signs here.