The Assisted Suicide Bill in New Hampshire got benched for the time being, but not the topic. And we’re not saying you can’t choose to kill yourself. We’re saying the government will inevitably abuse it to the detriment of people and public health.

Related: Slippery Meet Slope: Medically Assisted Suicide Could Save Millions in Health Care Costs

Numerous examples have already crossed these pages, but someone sent us a new one. Canadian Allison Ducluzeau was diagnosed with stage 4 peritoneal carcinomatosis. She was told to get her arrangements in order and to consider medically assisted suicide. Allison chose to do some research instead. She spoke to specialists across the globe, got scans in California, and treatment in Baltimore.

Today, Allison is in remission. She lifts weights daily, and goes running and cycling. She recently married her partner on a beach in Hawaii in front of her children. But she remains infuriated that Canadian doctors offered to kill rather than treat her.

She had to fundraise money to pay for her treatment, but these days, she’s just offended at how Canada’s healthcare system responded to her condition.  “The way it was presented was shocking,” she told me. “I was disgusted to be offered MAID twice. Once, I was even on the phone when I was on my own, having just come back from Baltimore. It left me sobbing.”

Public Health across the globe is still reeling from how badly it handled the Wuhan Virus. Systems that were not socialized behaved like they were monolithic interventions that ruined or ended lives over what was dangerous to a small demographic of people. The freshly-minted fearmongering over bird flu appears to be headed once again in the wrong direction. Public Health cannot be trusted, and as systems get stressed – especially those that rely heavily on taxpayer-backed support – budgets get between doctors and patients.

In Oregon, nearly 80% of people who end up suicided are on government health care. States like Colorado and Hawaii have tried to shorten the wait time. Is it so patients can be convinced to take the death drugs rather than be a strain on resources in the hours and days after a terminal diagnosis? Perhaps not but given the trajectory of health care in the West and its increased alignment and dependence on government – or at least the bully pulpits of politicians and the massive grant funding they control – the issue is not if but when.

Canada has had socialized medicine for a long time and (IMO) not coincidentally is the poster child for fast tracking reasons to offer MAiD to just about anyone it thinks it could afford to do without. That sort of medical ethics is the slippery slope of which we speak. Like the Canadian woman who suffered almost immediate and debilitating side effects from a dose of Moderna mRNA COVID “vaccine.” Her medical issues became so complex that she was offered assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide has been suggested for vets with PTSD, the poor, the homeless, those with mental illness, and children with spectrum disorders. There seems to be no limit to what policymakers and doctors might consider a reason to recommend death to treatment or life.  Keeping in mind that these “authorities” are the same people who will decide what mental illness looks like.

Canadian Truckers, Dutch Farmers, Marie Le Pen’s political supporters in France, and deplorables who oppose open borders. The list knows no end, and there lies the problem. Arguing to allow the government to define the conditions for assisted suicide is a lot like letting it decide what is information and disinformation. You can’t trust it to do either.

The post Slippery Slope: Assisted Suicide Will Always Be Cheaper Than Treatment appeared first on Granite Grok.

In the blogging business, if someone is complaining, there’s a good chance you’re doing something worthwhile, especially when the unhappy people are in government. Reporting roll call vote attendance has had its fair share of negative responses, suggesting we must keep doing them.

I think we will publish the entire list for the entire House next week so you can examine both sides and make your own conclusions.

This week, the final day of the regular session, Republicans listed a few good bills because of attendance, so without further exposition from me, here we go.

Note from the data guy: “Lots of Republicans missing, very few roll call votes. More than a few were lopsided for or against and were not affected by missing Reps. Lots of division votes, but can’t tell how many might have been lost due to missing Reps.”

The post Your Final NH House Republican Attendance Report of the Session (Some Reps are Applauding) appeared first on Granite Grok.

Today, we learned that this was the last day of the House Session until the Fall when we come back for “Veto Day.” Today’s program included three memorials by colleagues who remembered past House Members who passed away this year.

The Hon. David Babson (Ossipee), the Hon. Timothy O’Connell (Milford), and most recently, the Hon. Russ Ober (Hudson). They all contributed so much to the NH House in service to their constituents, and they will be missed by many.

Today, we also learned that our House Speaker temporarily passed his gavel to Speaker Emeritus, Rep. Steve Shurtleff (D-Penacook), and Minority Leader, Rep. Matthew Wilhelm (D-Manchester). Rep. Shurtleff will not be seeking re-election and his contributions to the NH House were lauded. We wish him well in his future endeavors. It is customary for the Speaker to allow the Minority Leader to have some time as acting Speaker as well. My thought was although Rep. Wilhelm presided well enough, he should not get used to it.

We learned that at the beginning of the day, we had 186 Republicans voting and 182 Democrats voting. By the end of the day, the numbers dwindled to 175 Republicans and 178 Democrats. Unfortunately, we lost some important bills because of that.

We learned that most of the Committee of Conference (CoC) Reports were passed via voice vote. Starting the day, there were five Senate bills on the Consent Calendar and eight Senate bills on the Regular Calendar. All of those CoC Reports passed on a voice vote, except one that had a division vote and passed 188Y-179N. That was SB340 CoC Report. The bill included an amendment that addresses issues found in the recent LBA Performance Audit on Special Education Due Processes. It contained measures that will assist the Department of Education in monitoring and tracking the status and resolution of issues between districts and parents regarding services to their children. It will also give the Office of Special Education Advocate the tools to perform their statutory functions. This is a win for parents.

We learned that there were 5 House CoC Reports on the Consent Calendar. We then tackled 33 additional House CoC Reports on the regular calendar, which took us until 4:30 pm to finish. Of the 33 House bills, 20 of those CoC Reports passed on a voice vote; the rest were debated.

We also learned that HB1018 CoC Report passed 190Y-176N and it allowed land owners of land in current use to get an extra discount as long as they allow recreational use of their posted land. The bill also reduces the restrictions relative to the laws on-premise and off-premise liquor licenses. But please, don’t drink and bird watch!

We learned that HB1091, relative to financing political campaigns, passed 190Y-181N. This bill mandates that if someone makes small donations and over time passes the $50 mark, then the contributor’s information (name, address, phone, etc) must be reported. This means every time a small contribution is made (even passing the hat or in a raffle), you still have to collect information in order to aggregate the amount for that person. This is an awful Democrat-sponsored bill, and I hope the Governor vetoes it. It will be a record-keeping nightmare for campaign treasurers.

We also learned that HB1127 CoC Report passed on a voice vote. The original bill ends the physical return of a suspended license allowing its use for ID and closed a loophole where a person with a surrendered suspended license could avoid a search of their driving record in NH if they move out of state. It also included the “Right to Mow”, which rightfully corrects our statute to prohibit operation of a motor vehicle “on a way in the state” instead of “in the state” with a suspended license. This impacts farmers, landscapers, and individuals. It does not permit a person to take a riding mower on the road with a suspended license. So, individuals with suspended licenses can mow lawns without penalty, they just can’t drive the mower on a road. As they say, “Grass doesn’t grow on a busy street”… or something like that.

We learned that HB1215 CoC Report died with a roll call vote of 102Y-261N. After a lengthy debate, the House decided not to give the selectboard of Hampton special dispensation to decide on closing “D Street” and leasing it for 99 years to a developer. Normally, if a town wants to do something like this, they draw up a warrant article and hold a special town meeting for the voters to decide on what to do with, or how to dispose of, a town road. Supporters claimed that current RSA’s only allow for a 5 year lease, but the statute is very clear, and it looks to me (and many others) that the town can vote to lease for 99 years (RSA41:11-a II).”The authority under paragraph I shall include the power to rent or lease such property during periods not needed for public use, provided, however, that any rental or lease agreement for a period of more than one year shall not be valid unless ratified by vote of the town.” According to paragraph III the selectboard can lease up to 5 years WITHOUT ratification from the town. Passing this CoC Report would have set a nasty precedent for selectboards to make decisions that the taxpayers should be making.

We learned that before we headed out the door to enjoy the Speaker’s ice cream social (which was wonderful!) some pink haired lunatic started throwing some leaflets down to the State House floor from the gallery.  The Speaker started yelling for the person to stop and apparently security was not quick enough to subdue such activity before the person dumped a load of paper over the gallery rail and fled out the gallery door.  I did not happen to read what was written on the papers, but I heard it had something to do with trans rights.

We learned that HB1265 CoC Report passed with a roll called vote 183Y-172N. It was clear that House Democrats did not want transparency with regard to how schools spend our money. This legislation requires school districts to post mandatory reports of school expenses, including average cost per pupil, average teacher salaries, and top administrator salaries. It also creates a civil remedy for the enforcement of this requirement. For consistency and accuracy of data in the district reports, the department provided information identifying the expenses to be included.

We learned that HB1292 CoC Report regarding sanctuary cities in NH was Tabled 192Y-165N. The CoC language removed the overly broad requirement for law enforcement to assist with Federal immigration law and only required law enforcement to honor criminal detainers that are discovered subsequent to someone being arrested for a violation of New Hampshire law. Furthermore, the language specifically prohibits law enforcement from questioning people about their immigration status. The bill did not prohibit any town from adopting an ordinance or resolution welcoming immigrants to their community. As stated, the bill only prohibits towns from ordering their law enforcement to ignore requests from immigration to either notify or temporarily hold someone already in custody who is wanted by immigration for either being a deportable person, which means they have already met the threshold requirements and orders exist to deport them; or they are wanted on a criminal detainer for being suspected of, or charged with committing another crime in the United States in a different jurisdiction. United States Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has specifically asked under the current Administration, that localities refrain from adopting any laws or ordinances that would prohibit cooperation with ICE. They say that doing so not only interferes with their ability to carry out immigration law, but also puts citizens and other immigrants in danger by allowing known criminals and dangerous offenders to remain in our communities. Suffice it to say, we already know that Lebanon, Harrisville, and Hanover have “welcoming policies” in place for immigrants.. whether legal or not. It’s too bad this bill was tabled, but it could have been a stronger bill to begin with. House Democrats were very happy with this CoC Report being Tabled.

We also learned that HB1370 CoC Report was Tabled 223Y-141N. This bill would have eliminated voter identification exceptions. It removed any exceptions for proving voter identification and removed the voter affidavits as proof of identification. It also repealed the procedures for affidavit ballots and creates a judicial review or data verification process for persons aggrieved by the decision of an election official which denies that person the opportunity to vote. The amended version of the bill provided that once the voter has called the hotline, they must be taken care of within 20 minutes, or they may vote anyway. Opponents of the bill said this was an unwieldy process and probably would not be able to be put into place by November’s elections. The affidavit process will still be in play in this upcoming election, but at least a ballot won’t be included in the count unless they provide their information within a certain timeframe.

We further learned that HB1633 CoC Report, the legalization of cannabis, was Tabled 178Y-173N. Any hopes of legalizing weed in NH this year went up in smoke, even as the Senate passed it. It’s just as well…the bill was a hot mess anyway. Later, a motion to remove it from the Table failed 162Y-189N.

We then learned that HB1665 CoC Report, which would have raised eligibility for Education Freedom Accounts died on a Roll called vote of 168Y-185N… with ALL 178 House Democrats and 7 House Republicans voting against it. Losing this bill was a heartbreak as this bill could have easily passed earlier in the day. I’m sure this will be back next year.

Finally, we learned that all of the CoC reports that passed will go to the Governor for signature if the Senate approves them as well. We now wait to see what will get signed into law, vetoed, or passed without signature. Then, we’ll return in the fall to deal with Vetoed bills. House members will be off for July and August, with some working on legislation for next year and/or interim study bills. About 1/3 will not be seeking re-election, and the remaining 2/3 who have filed to run again will be busy campaigning. Have a great summer, and support our candidates! Let’s elect a much bigger majority of great Republicans next time around because “this slim margin” thing was really for the birds! Cheers, and thanks for reading!

The post So Kids, What Did We Learn From This Week’s House Session (6/13/24)? appeared first on Granite Grok.

When you’re getting big bucks to hold a public meeting and nobody from the public shows up, what do you do? Get one of your employees to play the role of “good citizen.” This is what happened at the first legally mandated public outreach forum that was supposed to inform the public about the Clean Heat Standard and get feedback from us folks who are about to get roadkilled by this “Mack Truck” piece of legislation, to use the description coined by Department of Public Services commissioner June Tierney.

As BTL reported earlier, only two members of the general public combined have attended the April and May public outreach meetings. (See: The Clean Heat Standard Public Engagement Fiasco.) And, as BTL also reported earlier, neither one of them had anything to say. So, to fill that awkward silence, moderator Curtiss Reed asked his colleague and Special Projects Assistant at The Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, Gemma Seymour, to vamp a little and share her own story about home heating. She did! Oh boy, did she!

Seymour must not have received the memo that her firm’s mission was to explain to the public, with a special focus on traditionally marginalized and vulnerable populations, how the Clean Heat Standard is supposed to work, because she embarked on a ten-minute excoriation of the program, illustrating in stark terms how it is too expensive, too impractical, and cannot work in the real world. Especially for those vulnerable populations the politicians promised (fingers tightly crossed) to protect.

Seymour explained that she rents an apartment in a four-unit complex in Brattleboro. She is responsible for her own heating and electric bills. Her first concern: if her landlord is forced or incentivized to spend the money to swap out the existing oil system for cold climate heat pumps or advanced wood pellets, he will certainly use it as “an excuse to raise my rent. And I don’t want my rent to go up.” Yeah, who does?

Then she makes a very good and perhaps overlooked point: “In order for the heating system in this [apartment] unit to be replaced, the unit would have to be vacated. I’d have to move someplace else for, you know, probably at least a month in order for that to be done. And in today’s housing market, how does that even happen? I mean, even if the money were available for me to just pick up and move to another place, there’s no place to move to.”  True that!

She further notes that sixty-five percent of the people in her neighborhood are renters, and likely in the same boat. This is what “social justice” and “a just transition” look like under a Clean Heat Standard mandate. Nice words smashed like bugs on the windshield of reality.

Next Seymour takes a nice meaty bite out of the hand that’s feeding her to host this event, calling out the legislators who passed Act 18 for gross incompetence. “If you look at the operable part of the legislation, the obligated parties in Act 18 are the fuel dealers, and that’s it. Fuel dealers are obligated to obtain Clean Heat Credits, and the Public Utilities Commission is charged with creating a system by which this is going to happen. There’s no hard targets put into place as to how much reduction has to take place. There’s no incentives for homeowners to actually upgrade systems, or landlords to upgrade systems. It’s an expense for them that they are going to recoup in rental costs. And that’s a big red flag for everybody who rents in Vermont.” Tell it, sister!

She goes on, “In order for the oil system to be replaced in this building, somebody would have to pay thousands of dollars to have all of that ripped out. And, oh by the way, that oil tank is hazardous waste now, so that has to be handled in a certain manner. I’d have to vacate the building. Find a new place to live. And somebody’s got to foot the bill. All of which is ultimately going to make my rent go up.” Yup!

She did the math. “If I divide my $800 [annual heating bill] by nine months of the heating season, that means my electric bill [plus any rent increase] could go up ninety dollars a month before I was paying more money than I was before. Now I’m willing to pay a little bit more if it means a cleaner environment. But the reality is I don’t want to pay THAT much more.” Says the professional climate activist. How do you think everyone else feels?

But this is a sentiment that jibes with the polling done last December by Campaign for Vermont that showed while a majority people like the idea of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in theory, they have almost zero interest in paying anything extra in order to do so. And the Clean Heat Standard is going to cost LOTS extra.

So, if this is what you’re paid DEI spokesperson has to say about your signature program, I mean, good luck selling it to the general public. Which may be the strategy behind holding meeting ostensibly for the public that nobody from the public attends.

In closing, I’ll just remind Gemma, if she’s reading, not to be too shocked and surprised that she, a lower income person from a traditionally marginalized background, is getting the doo-doo end of the Clean Heat Standard stick. Senator Mark MacDonald did warn us all as he and his colleagues passed this law, “We don’t do things based on helping poor people. We’re doing things based on saving the world.” You’re just being asked to do and pay your fair share.

The post Night Cap: Expert Gives Masterclass In Why The Thing They Came To Advocate Won’t Work appeared first on Granite Grok.

Steve had this post, “Night Cap: Did The EU Just Make the Net-Zero Transition Illegal” in which the CURRENT EU head honchos passed this resolution:

The European Union’s (EU) cabal of meddling ministers has passed a resolution “requiring firms and their upstream and downstream partners, including supply, production and distribution, to prevent, end or mitigate their adverse impact on human rights and the environment.”

In this case, they are going all-in on renewables. Not so fast, mi amigo!  After all, the EU countries just held their national elections over the weekend and the EU Parliament is about to get buffeted as a result. The MSM is all aghast that “the continent” may be drifting to the Right.

Marie Le Pen’s Party is about to take over France and will govern conservatively. Gert Wilders, a politician that the Netherlands would just go away, is riding on the “Farmers Party” (started at regular folk farmers who decided to politically whack the Greens, literally pushing to put them out of business because of “sustainability”) and is forming a conservative government. Germany is headed rightward as well, and the new AfD party has won bigely locally and in the national elections. Nigel Farage just decided to run for office again via the new Reform Party, and it looks like that is going to upset both the Tories and Labour in Britain. The socialist government in Belgium just fell as well.

In each of all the countries, the Green Parties took a shellacking – people are standing up to these enviro bullies and demanding:

“When I turn on that light switch, dang it, that light had better go on!”

Sweden has already announced that it is going all-in for Nukes. France is getting ready to build more Nukes. Germany has had to relight shuttered coal plants to keep up with power demands. One by one, the Socialists (or as we call them here in ‘Merica – Progressives) countries are realizing that citizens aren’t on board with lower standards of living because of an ideologically based secular religion. Given that they are still nominally democracies (even as the bureaucrats wish otherwise), they are all standing up and screaming “ENOUGH OF THIS NONSENSE”.

Add three more (but wait!  I have many more for later!) – the first is “Where would the Paris Agreement (on curtailing emissions to zero) without Paris?”. And this is a direct result of the EU elections:

• Is Paris About to Leave the Paris Agreement?

In a shock move, President Emmanuel Macron called a parliamentary election, describing it as ‘an act of confidence’

In a shock move, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has called a snap parliamentary election that will be held within the next 30 days. What happened exactly, why – and what might come next?…After suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of Marine Le Pen’s far right National Rally (RN) in the European parliamentary elections, the French president on Sunday evening unexpectedly announced a snap general election.

According to usually accurate projections, Macron’s centrist list, headed by MEP Valérie Hayer, scored between 14.8% and 15.2% in the European poll, less than half the 32%-33% tally booked by RN, whose lead candidate was the party’s president, Jordan Bardella, 28.

<snip>

But she has promised to cancel wind and solar subsidies and instead concentrate on nuclear power, and she has also indicates she wants to protect French manufacturing – she regards driving manufacturing offshore with harsh climate rules but still using the manufactured products, importing the products instead of manufacturing them in France, as “climate hypocrisy”.

• Did the Aussie Opposition Leader Just Call for Cancelling the Paris Agreement?  (Emphasis mine)

Dutton to pull Australia out of Paris Agreement if elected

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has signalled he will scrap the nation’s legally binding 2030 climate target and risk Australia’s membership of the Paris Agreement on climate change, following his vow to deploy nuclear energy to reach net zero by 2050. Dutton declared on Saturday that a Coalition government would not pursue Australia’s legally binding climate target to cut emissions by 43 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030 – a significant escalation of Australia’s long-running climate policy war ahead of the next federal election due by May next year.

Dutton told The Australian on Saturday that the government’s renewable goal was unattainable and:

“there’s no sense in signing up to targets you don’t have any prospect of achieving”.

The opposition has said if it forms government it would build up to seven emissions-free nuclear power plants to replace the energy supply from Australia’s dirty coal plants, which have begun to shut down across the country. He would also pause the rollout of wind and solar farms.

<snip>

“You can’t have the prime minister saying we aren’t going to have coal, we aren’t going to have gas and we’re not going to have ­nuclear power and we are going to keep the lights on – that’s just fantasy. We now have a debate about energy which I think we can win,” he told The Australian.

And again from the Land from DownUnder and from across the pond from us (a mashup of NZ and UK):

• New Zealand to revoke oil drilling ban amid fears of blackouts

New Zealand was on Saturday night expected to revoke a ban on drilling for oil and gas amid fears of blackouts, as Labour (UK) plans to impose a similar crackdown on the North Sea. The country’s coalition government is preparing to invite energy companies to resume exploration in the three major offshore fields that supply most of its gas. It comes after National Grid operator Transpower was last month forced to warn families to limit their electricity usage to avoid a shutdown during a cold snap.

The decision to reverse the ban, made by resources minister Shane Jones, will be a setback for green activists and likely to be regarded as a blow for Labour after Ed Miliband has repeatedly pledged to halt new drilling for oil and gas in UK waters.

<snip>

However, New Zealand’s change of course has been cheered by industry leaders. John Carnegie, chief executive of trade body Energy Resources Aotearoa, said: “We welcome a return to sensible, pragmatic policy settings that fairly manage the upstream oil and gas sector to the benefit of all New Zealanders.
“New Zealand faces an energy shortage which threatens our electricity system…

Heck, even Lloyd Alter (formerly of TreeHugger and now over at Substack as “Carbon Upfront!”) is getting on board with nukes – reality is slowly sinking into his “sustainability brain”.

The post A Response to Steve – Methinks You May Be Wrong? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Someone turned me on to this series, so I thought I’d take the opportunity of a missing podcaster slot to use it as filler.

There is no New England Take this week, so we’re grabbing some filler. This is the first of five parts.

In February 2021, millions of Texans lost power, and the state’s grid came within four or five minutes of a total failure that would have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. It’s hard to overstate the importance –– and complexity –– of our electric grid. But how did our most important energy network get weakened? And what can we do to fix it?

The post JUICE: Power, Politics & The Grid – Part I appeared first on Granite Grok.