Also on today’s menu:
Healey Indicted By Belknap County Grand Jury
Merner Faces Loss Of Voting Rights In New Hampshire
Ahead of her 2 p.m. appearance today in Meredith and a 6 p.m. stop in Wolfeboro, former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley has picked up an endorsement for the Republican nomination for president from the Americans for Prosperity super-PAC, which is backed by the Koch network. The group believes Haley has the best chance to beat former president Donald Trump in the primary election and President Joe Biden Jr. in the general election.
The endorsement says the Republican party has been putting up “bad candidates who are going against America’s core principles” while Democrats are implementing “extreme policies” that run against its free-market principles.
The AFP contends that nearly three-quarters of Republican voters are ready to move on from Trump and said it will sponsor mailings and both television and online ads to support her candidacy.
Commentary: Conservatives who still value democracy and the tenets of the U.S. Constitution recognize that Donald Trump embodies fascism that would destroy the country that patriots have fought to preserve for two and a half centuries. The Democrats’ “extreme policies” are intended to actually make America great again by restoring the balance that existed from the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal to Ronald Reagan’s attempt to convince people that “government is the problem”. Since then, wealth has gone to the top and failed to “trickle down” to ordinary Americans. (For other views, read the Café Chatter below.)
Healey Indicted By Belknap County Grand Jury
A Belknap County Superior Court Grand Jury has returned three indictments against former contractor Gerard Michael Healey, 56, charging him with two Class A felony counts of theft by misapplication of property and one Class A felony count of theft by unauthorized taking or transfer. The latter charge accuses Healey of taking deposits for home restoration projects from eight customers but using the money for other purposes. The theft by misapplication charges claim that Healey took money for payments on behalf of others but failed to make those payments.
The indictments arose from an earlier investigation that led to 19 misdemeanor counts of violating New Hampshire’s Consumer Protection Act. Healey’s total alleged thefts amount to just under $209,000.
Healey’s arraignment in Belknap County Superior Court is scheduled for December 19.
Merner Faces Loss Of Voting Rights In New Hampshire
Former State Representative Troy E. Merner, 63, of Carroll is facing a Class B felony charge of wrongful voting for casting ballots in the March 8 Lancaster town election while residing elsewhere, as well as a Class A misdemeanor count of theft by deception by submitting mileage cards from Lancaster to Concord when, in fact, he resided in Carroll, resulting in greater legislative travel reimbursements from the state. Merner also faces Class A misdemeanor charges of unsworn falsification and tampering with public records or information by falsely reporting his address.
Anyone convicted of a willful violation of the state’s election laws loses the right to vote in New Hampshire, as well as carrying a potential prison sentence of 3½ to 7 years and a fine of up to $4,000. Each misdemeanor charge carries a potential penalty of up to one year in the House of Corrections and a fine of up to $2,000.
Merner is scheduled for arraignment on December 28.
Commentary: Merry Christmas, Gerard Michael Healey and Troy E. Merner. While innocent until proven guilty, each has had a lesson in following the law and avoiding defrauding others.
Offering a commentary section after news briefs serves to make a clear distinction between the facts and opinion, while also aiming to encourage others stopping by the News Café to jump in with their opinions. It is succeeding in generating some chatter, as you see below.
Café Chatter
On Where We Stand: Thank you Tom, I must admit that I haven’t been keeping up with your posts (which I appreciate by the way), having a multigenerational family keeps me hopping. Especially this time of year. Living here in Florida has been a trial since DeSantis was re-elected. He seemed to believe that, even people who voted for him, wanted this extreme right agenda. Well, this is not true. He did not run on any platform that suggested he was going to push through such a radical agenda. Our legislators are just puppets. He ignores what is really important to people who live here. Such as the out of sight increase in insurance premiums costs. Both home and auto. The high cost of rents. Our homeless situation. And, a number of other maybe less pocketbook issues, but as important. He likes to say that Florida is the ‘free state’, what a joke. People are moving here, but, almost half to 2/3 of that amount are leaving because they are on a fixed income and can no longer afford to live here. He also says that he wants to make America like Florida. God forbid. Trump, he is just dangerous and doesn’t seem to know who he is running against. He keeps mentioning Obama.
— Candace Skurnik
On Where We Stand: Health Care Under Attack: You know while this is Tom’s personal opinion newsletter sub-stack, he allows all of us to post articles, even rebuttals, here is mine to his article called Health Care Under Attack.
Before Obama Care Aka Affordable Cares Act (ACA) I had family insurance that was considered Cadillac care, meaning, most everything was covered 100 percent from a doctor’s visit to a hospital stay. Even my doctors marveled at the coverage I had. One doctor told me he had to change to another practice because the practice he was at wouldn’t even cover a knee replacement, that was a shock to me, I thought doctors would have the best coverage of all of us.
Fast forward 10 years or so and my health care was mediocre. I paid up to $3,000 out of pocket before insurance kicked in 100%. I was now paying 20 percent of all care until that $3,000 limit was met, where before it was near zero or 100 percent covered. And also, my premiums jumped over years and I received less and less covered. Cadillac care was now the Pinto care (these are make/models of cars if you didn’t know).
Fast forward a few more years now retired, my health care is similar to what it was when I retired (Medicare), so no gotcha there. However, we now have to pay for my wife’s health care. She is healthy, no issues and doesn’t use doctors very often. Her cost for care by ACA model is about $500 per month with a $9,000 deductible before they start paying for anything. This is Obama/Biden care the so-called AFFORDABLE health care. What she has is called catastrophic care to be used if something serious happens and remember, this $9,000 deductible resets each year so if you get sick in November or December and it goes into the next year, we’ll pay that $9,000 again. We could pay $900 or more per month, but again she hardly ever needs to see a doctor.
Obama and Biden screwed the American people with ACA. Now that Trump wants to do something about it, well it’s called ripping it apart. If Trump touches or does anything they bash him and try to send him to jail so he can’t. If Trump points out how he is going to go after the evil people in America they say he is a fascist, yet the FBI, DOJ, CIA and I am sure more agencies have been used by Biden and the democrat machine to attack and try to destroy him. Trump is not perfect, but Biden is so much less than perfect. Remember Teflon Don? Now you are looking at Teflon Donald 2.0.
Trump, Trump, Trump, that is all you hear from Tom. I seldom hear Biden, Biden, Biden who is selling us out to China, lying to us about Hunter’s laptop and who knows what else, storing of classified documents in several unsecured placed (as a VP, totally illegal), raking in millions of dollars from shell companies, and the list could go on. You and I have no proof of any of these accusations unless we were there during the events as they took place. I no longer watch or believe any main stream media, they have lied to us too many times, I can no longer trust anything they say.
One thing Tom has right, this November will be the election of our life and if Biden or his ilk’s stay in power (including state officials) then I predict our nation and REPUBLIC will be lost forever.
Our country needs to come back to God and repent for all the wrong doings we have done starting with killing our babies via so-called legal abortions, destroying our schools with socialism, communalism and now the latest thing called social emotional learning (SEL), destroying the family and natural parental rights, and finally destroying our way of life given to us by our founding fathers. I believe repenting to God almighty via the son of God Jesus is truly the only way our country will survive. We are losing morality by the day.
When I stand before God, I will at least be able to say I tried to save lives, protect our children and the family, what will you say? Don’t believe in God, ok, but just what if you are wrong and He does exist, will you be able to justify yourself? I would not want to be on the wrong side of that coin. Repent and be saved, God does love you and wants you to know the truth in a world of lies.
— John Sellers
National Gratitude Month
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