Kelly Ayotte bobs for Apple: ‘I have an iPad’

As a member of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a former prosecutor, confronted Apple CEO Tim Cook this week after a Senate investigation revealed Apple paid less than .06% in taxes on $104 billion in income earned outside the U.S. over the past four years. Atlantic’s Rebecca Greenfield was there:

When she met Cook during a hearing break Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, greeted the iCommander in Chief saying: “So nice to meet you. I have an iPad.” Either Ayotte thought that was the most socially appropriate way to greet Cook, or she was hoping to use it as a lead into all her questions about how to use the thing.

“Few things are worse in Washington these days than appearing ‘antibusiness,’ ” noted Wall Street Journal’s Danny Yadron. “So it would make sense if some lawmakers’ Apple flattery Tuesday was aimed at covering their political bases.”

Stella Tremblay on government, God and natural rights

Evil must be exposed. We want to elect those who understand the limitations of government, and the fact that Government was allowed to exist by GOD to protect our universal natural rights and laws that existed way before the earth was created for His children.

— State House Rep. Stella Tremblay (R-Auburn)

N.H. Senate inaction : #BakeSalesForBridges

Most depressing NH Senate session I can remember.Axed road toll, tobacco tax,medicaid expansion.Poor NH.

— Lucy McVitty Weber (@LucyMcVWeber) May 23, 2013

@susanthe #BakeSalesForBridges

— Dean Barker (@deanbarker) May 23, 2013

Neo-Nazi defends Kelly Ayotte in inflammatory letter

The heated rhetoric surrounding Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s vote against expanding gun background checks reached a new low today in a letter to the editor of the Concord Monitor.

Pembroke’s Allison Caldwell, a self-described neo-Nazi, condemned gun safety proponents for invoking the memory of children killed in Newtown by comparing it to a dog rolling around on a dead animal:

Imagine taking a dog for a walk in the woods and coming across a long dead animal. The dog will sniff at the carcass, then excitedly start rolling around in the remains. This behavior is no doubt to mask its own scent from other animals.

What makes Ayotte’s critics keep rolling around in the killings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School? … This tactic, if continued, will have them smelling very bad politically and will give strong resolve to we who see their agenda and the need to stand up to it.

Are N.H. lawmakers the ‘dunciest in the land?’

The Gem State has its share of “cretins and cretinesses,” writes Boise Weekly’s Bill Cope.

Case in point, he says, is the state senator “who ensured Idaho a spot on the dumbass map by authoring a bill that would have made Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s sloppy paean to the glories of not giving a crap about one another, required reading in Idaho schools.”

But Cope looks to New Hampshire and finds evidence that “Idaho’s lawmakers may not be the dunciest in the land:”

A legislator there by the name of Stella Tremblay has confirmed in her own mind, if no where else, that the Boston marathon bombing was staged by the U.S. government to deflect attention away from… well, away from what isn’t exactly clear.

Undoubtedly, it has something to do with Obama, thinks Madame Tremblay, who has a history of believing the worst about our president—from the place he was born to the Muslim Brotherhood company he keeps. However, the very fact we don’t know what the Boston incident was meant to mask is proof in itself that the deception was successful, isn’t it, as whatever it is those damn feds don’t want us to know about remains unknown to us?

New ad: Ayotte’s vote makes N.H. less safe

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the national coalition of mayors working to reduce gun violence, began running a new television ad today targeting Sen. Kelly Ayotte.

The ad criticizes New Hampshire’s junior senator for claiming she supports background checks — but voting against the bipartisan Manchin-Toomey background check bill. “And that makes New Hampshire less safe,” warns the narrator:

In the U.S. Senate, there was a key vote for comprehensive background checks. Sen. Ayotte voted no.

Sen. Ayotte voted against a Senate proposal to require background checks. Ayotte was the only senator from New England to oppose the measure. Ayotte’s vote helped defeat a modest measure to prevent the seriously mentally ill from purchasing firearms.

Now Ayotte says she’s for strengthening background checks. But when it counted, she was a key vote to kill it. And that makes New Hampshire less safe.

Gary Patton: Senate Democrats join chorus ‘moving us toward a more violent America’

Thursday, the state Senate will vote on House Bill 135, which would repeal New Hampshire’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law.

The bill is almost certain to be defeated. Three Democratic senators, Andrew Hosmer (D-Laconia), Bette Lasky (D-Nashua) and Jeff Woodburn (D-Dalton), have signaled their intent to join the Republican majority and vote against repeal.

Writing on Blue Hampshire, longtime party activist Gary Patton points to the weight of logic and evidence that shows “Stand Your Ground” endangers the public. A vote for “Stand Your Ground” is a vote for a more violent America, he writes:

So why should any Democratic senator vote to repeal a bill that seems destined for defeat? Because a vote against repeal not only defeats HB 135, it is a public declaration that this senator agrees with the premises underlying the Stand Your Ground law. That person adds his or her voice to a chorus which is moving us toward a more violent America.

Constituent responds to Rep. Tasker: ‘I am ashamed to have you representing the people of this town’

Yesterday, we reported on a Facebook comment from state House Rep. Kyle Tasker (R-Nottingham) directed at gun safety proponents: ”Just the thought of guns makes them piss themselves unless its arming the police to further crush their spirit,” he wrote.

After reading Tasker’s remarks, Nottingham’s Karen Davidson fired off an email to her representative:

Dear Representative Tasker:

I live in Nottingham, and I am ashamed to have you representing the people of this town and myself.

I don’t piss myself when I think of guns. But I do shake my head in wondering how someone like you got elected, and then makes statements like this. You have insulted the same people that probably voted for you. Gun owners and non gun owners think about gun safety. Gun safety laws do not take away guns from people who already have guns, but it stops those from obtaining them, to be used against our police officers or innocent people.

If you were aware of gun safety, your gun would not have fallen out of your holster, if you actually had one, in the state house. The members of the house were lucky that the gun didn’t go out and hurt or kill those in attendance or yourself.

It also doesn’t crush my spirit when arming the police. I want them armed to go up against those with automatic weapons or worse.

You are disrespectful of those people living in Nottingham, and you certainly have proved to me, that you need to learn more about those who you represent. Maybe there is a majority here in town that want Gun Safety laws, and you are not fulfilling what your constituents want, ie Senator Kelly Ayotte. Learn to be a little more respectful of all of the people you represent.

Davidson received a curt response from Tasker, who called her message “narcissistic:”

If you don’t like what I comment on someone’s picture they post on my private non political Facebook page, I think the logical first step would be to stay off of it. I’ve never seen your Facebook page, I plan to keep it that way. I find it odd you jump to the conclusion that when I say “they” that translates to Kareb [sic] Davidson of [address redacted]. This is narcissistic.

After a couple of follow-up messages, Davidson ended the thread, saying she was frustrated by “another NH Representative who doesn’t care what he says and doesn’t mind insulting others, including people in his district, that have different views.”

“I expect my representatives to be professional, expect to take criticism from those with opposite views, and use some common sense in responding,” she said.

Retired deputy police chief rejects Ayotte’s ‘specious’ argument against expanded gun background checks

Len DiSesa is a retired deputy police chief and a gun owner who “believes strongly” in the 2nd Amendment. In a letter to the editor of the Portsmouth Herald, he rejects Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s argument for voting against expanded gun background checks.

“I think Sen. Ayotte is looking to the next election and is pandering to the right wing extremist base of her party,” he writes:

Her rationale for voting against background checks defies reason, and seems to me to be very, very thin. Sure, we should all work to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. We should also work hard to keep them from driving a car or a bus, or piloting an airplane. That’s a no-brainer and a convenient smokescreen for anyone arguing against using background checks as another tool in our toolbox to protect innocent lives.

We have stronger DWI laws in effect today than we did 30 years ago. As a result, motor vehicle deaths due to drunken driving have dropped dramatically. We have not eliminated all DWI-related deaths or injuries, I doubt we could ever do that, but at least we have successfully put a dent into the problem. Using the argument of Sen. Ayotte and those who think as she does, we should have just enforced more strictly the existing DWI laws on the books, and we should not have legislated enhanced penalties because, according to that argument, if someone wants to drink and drive, they will. That is as specious an argument as is the one being used to block background checks.

More constitutional illiteracy from Rep. John Hikel

Last month, state House Rep. John Hikel (R-Goffstown) filed a House petition and criminal complaint to have 189 fellow lawmakers removed from office and prosecuted for voting to repeal the state’s “stand your ground” law.

Former state Supreme Court Justice Chuck Douglas condemned the action. “Pulling bits and pieces out of the constitution to create criminal charges reflects gross constitutional illiteracy,” he wrote, “not an attempt at good government.”

In a Facebook comment, Hikel argues the actions are indeed lawful — despite language in the New Hampshire Constitution that states, “The freedom of deliberation, speech, and debate in either House of the Legislature, is so essential to the rights of the people, that it cannot be the foundation of any action, complaint, or prosecution in any Court or place whatsoever.”

“IT DIDN’T SAY VOTE,” he writes. “If the framers wanted it to, it would have been included.”

Quote of the day: The thought of guns

Just the thought of guns makes them piss themselves unless its arming the police to further crush their spirit.

— State House Rep. Kyle Tasker (R-Nottingham) on proponents of gun safety legislation

Union Leader: Don’t confuse me with the facts

In an editorial defending the vote by Sen. Kelly Ayotte against expanding background checks for gun purchasers, the Union Leader claims the “great majority” of Granite Staters support her position:

A single poll’s number showing general support for unspecified “stronger” background checks does not mean that most constituents disagree with Sen. Ayotte’s position.

A single poll? Unspecified “stronger” background checks? Really?

I count at least three surveys of New Hampshire voters this year that include very specific proposals for expanding background checks. And all show overwhelming majorities of Granite Staters support the legislation that Ayotte voted against.

New England College (January 24, 2013)

“There is a national proposal for universal gun background checks for gun sales through dealers, shows, and private individuals. Do you support the idea of universal background checks for gun purchases?”

Strongly Support: 79%
Somewhat Support: 9%

WMUR Granite State Poll (February 8, 2013)

“Please tell me if you would favor or oppose … a law which would require background checks before people — including gun dealers — could buy guns at gun shows.”

Strongly favor: 84%
Somewhat favor: 7%

Public Policy Polling (April 23, 2013)

“Would you support or oppose requiring background checks on individuals who purchase guns at gun shows?”

Support: 75%