Pants on fire?
OK, here’s a question: If you repeat the lies – and that’s what they are, lies – about election fraud, does that make you a liar?
And what if you endorse a candidate who insists on repeating the lies – over and over and over again … does that make you a liar by complicity?
Such a philosophical conundrum is arising now that Guv Sununu has chosen to back his fellow GOPers in their respective races for US Senate and 1st CD. Both of them have long track records in repeating the election fraud lies.
While Senate wannabe Don Bolduc awkwardly did an embarrassing last-minute, and quite unbelievable, flip-flop on the matter, his counterpart in the 1st CD, Karoline (Trump 4Ever) Leavitt repeats the election fraud lies so often it’s becoming almost cringeworthy.
Leavitt and Sununu: A matter of principle
But back to the guv. In his endorsement of KL he called her “the new voice and principled vote New Hampshire needs in Congress.”
Interesting choice of words there, considering “principled,” at least in the definition that used to be universally accepted, means acting in a moral way and “showing a recognition of right and wrong.”
It used to be – before the former guy in the White House put his hands around the throat of the English language – that telling and repeating lies was not exactly a moral act and definitely fell on the “wrong” side.
The replacement
It’s one of those head scratchers that seems to defy reality. This one involves the last-minute change in GOP candidates in the District 16 NH Senate race, a switch made necessary after primary winner Michael Yakubovich of Hooksett dropped out, saying he had to do so because he is “very sick.” And the decision came only days after the primary itself.
In that primary, MY topped Barbara Griffin, a four-term state rep from Goffstown, by 925 votes out of 6200 votes cast.
When such an event happens, it’s up to the party to pick a replacement. The easy choice, pretty apparently, was to pick BG, who’s known in the district and has shown she can get votes there.
Murphy: Hand-picked candidate
But the NHGOP bigwigs – and let’s assume that would include the party’s head honcho, Guv Sununu – decided to let MY himself pick his replacement. And MY, a Free Stater, turned to a fellow traveler, nunuther than Keith Murphy, a former state rep in Bedford who recently moved to the North End of Manch, which is in Dist. 16.
In other words, the NHGOP decided not to choose a candidate who got over 2600 votes a few days earlier and went with the guy who’s so far gotten zero votes in the district.
So why did they do it? Folks are saying that MY told the NHGOP bigwigs that if they picked BG to replace him he wouldn’t quit the race, no matter how serious his health problems are. He insisted on KM, and the bigwigs bagged on BG.
All part of the NHGOP’s mission to keep those Free Staters happy.
Cost shift analysis
Not too long ago, Guv Sununu joined “Fox and Friends” to deliver a diatribe against President Biden’s initiative to forgive student loan debt.
“It doesn’t cancel any debt,” the guv told his hosts. “It just shifts it.” He charged the government was “picking winners and losers” and the debt would be paid by raising taxes. “It’s inherently unfair to everyone,“ said he.
Not for nothing, but the guv is the same person who extols the Education Freedom Accounts, introduced with much fanfare in New Hampshire. It’s a program that uses taxpayer dollars to subsidize the cost of tuition of students enrolled in private and parochial schools.
Although touted as providing “choice,” three-quarters of the 3,025 students enrolled in the program did not choose to leave their public schools but were already attending private or parochial schools when their parents received the subsidy. In other words, the program provides families with sufficient means to choose private or parochial education with a subsidy, funded by their fellow taxpayers, which spares them the full cost of the choice they had already made and were paying for already.
Talk about shifting costs and picking winners and losers. But for some reason Education Freedom Accounts are not “inherently unfair to everyone.” Except maybe those footing the bill.
Dems the breaks
Just the idea that the NH Dems aren’t being fully transparent to the press about the obviously dumb decision to send obviously fake absentee ballot mailers to hundreds of potential voters really makes ya wonder what’s going on over there.
Because when the AG calls you out over something so clearly illegal and then you scurry to do damage control … well, that’s a sign of something.
To refresh your memory: On 9/23, AG John Formella issued a cease and desist order to stop the Dems from sending the mailings. Some had wrong addresses on prepaid envelopes provided to voters for their applications and still others told the recipients – falsely – that they had cast absentee ballots in the past.
The NH Dems, quite expectedly, put full blame on the “mail vendor” (in Mass., BTW). But beyond that, the party’s exec director, Troy Price, refused to answer Keene Sentinel reporter Rick Green’s question seeking how many total letters were sent, the political party affiliation of the voters they were sent to, whether the mailing would resume after errors were fixed or what the party spent on the mailing.
Seriously?
MAKING THE ROUNDS
One other thing about the new Senate Dist. 16 GOP candidate: It sure will be interesting to see how Keith Murphy explains how he ended up being a potential defense witness in the ongoing Free Stater cryptocurrency money laundering case.
ICYMI: NH’s own legendary political genius Corey Lewandowski finally put an embarrassing episode behind him when he cut a deal last month with Vegas prosecutors to settle charges stemming from a ’21 incident after which the victim – the wife of a big-bucks GOP donor – accused him of repeatedly touching her and telling her she had a “nice ass.” And he allegedly threw a drink at her. Under the plea deal, CL will undergo 8 hours of impulse control counseling, serve 50 hours of community service and pay a $1k fine.
One other takeaway from the guv’s Rolling Stone interview: “The US Senate is the B team compared to governors,” he said. “Can you honestly tell me if we got rid of every US senator and replaced them with 100 randomly chosen, employed American adults that it would get worse?”
