Feb
10
2020

LFODapalooza

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As I've noted every so often, I have a Google News Alert for appearances of the phrase "Live Free or Die" out there in the world. This morning, it came back with 10 of them! Most, but not all, primary-related. Let's take a look.

  • The Washington Post diligently searches for bad news in the Trump era, and finds it in Berlin, New Hampshire: Ahead of New Hampshire primary, few signs of Trump's economic boom in state's poorest city as Democratic candidates campaign. One Paul Labrecque is quoted extensively:

    For those looking to work, the jobs do exist. But few offer the pay or protection once promised by a unionized mill.

    Labrecque endured two shutdowns at the mill before he was permanently laid off from his $22-an-hour job. He had worked 41 years and 11 months — but was still too young to retire.

    After a stretch of unemployment, he found work cutting grass and tending a cemetery.

    “Things are going to get worse before they get better,” he predicted as he tucked into a well-buttered English muffin at the Eastern Depot, a diner on the edge of town where the state’s flinty motto — “Live Free or Die” — is chalked above the counter.

    No question, Berlin's in bad shape. The WaPo article is a textbook example of how to report economic decline as depressingly as possible.

    LFOD invocation rating: S for Snarky.

  • Town Hall has reporter Matt Vespa on the scene: A Trump Supporter Had to Give a Lesson in Manners After Some Liberals Yelled ‘F**k Trump’ at Him.

    Yet, as we’ve seen often in events in the Manchester-Nashua area, Trump supporters are not just sitting at home as Democrats race to the finish line in the Live Free or Die state. They’re animated—just like these Bernie folks are. For one truck driver, Chris Harding, who proudly touts that he works 14 hours a day and gets nothing for free because you have to earn it, saw the lines around the [Rochester NH] opera house and just had to come back. We actually saw him driving walking into the event. He was in a pick-up truck yelling some pro-Trump chants. He had been grocery shopping and had minimal sleep, but he just had to come out here and let the Bernie crowd know—Trump voters are ready for Election Day.

    And indeed, Harding and a friend chastise a woman driving by in her car, after she drops an f-bomb on them.

    LFOD invocation rating: L for Lazy.

  • In a separate article, Matt also covered the Trump beat in Nashua: In New Hampshire, Trump Supporters are Letting Democrats Know They’re Ready for Them.

    LFOD invocation rating: A for Matt's obvious Aversion to typing "New Hampshire" once again.

  • TV station KUSA in Denver reports Michael Bennet is still running for president so we sent Marshall Zelinger running after him.

    Bennet is from Colorado, so I guess they had an excuse to send Zelinger (and a "photojournalist") to NH. This article is probably the lowlight of today's crop, a tedious litany of their travels. Did they get their mislaid luggage?

    9:45 p.m. EST - It’s here!!! New Hampshire, Live Free or Die!

    LFOD invocation rating: B for Boring. Don't try to make your travel woes interesting by adding exclamation points, Marshall.

  • LFOD appears in an editorial from the Columbus Ohio Dispatch, amidst a collection of random reactions to news items:

    ↓ Chaos in the Iowa caucus was especially disappointing as many are hoping for someone — anyone, really — to finally emerge as a credible candidate to challenge the re-election of President Donald Trump. “Live Free or Die” might be a nice motto, but we won’t hold our breath for New Hampshire this week to deliver Democrats’ best hopes for 2020.

    Wha…? LFOD invocation rating: N for Non sequitur.

  • Macau Business found us newsworthy: New Hampshire: tiny state packs punch in US presidential race. Yes, the mysterious Orient tries to grok our fair state.

    Polls show Sanders, a leftist who handily beat Hillary Clinton here in 2016 before ultimately losing the nomination to her, likely to win New Hampshire.

    But independents are a potent political force in the state, whose motto famously is “Live Free or Die.”

    New Hampshire has more independents than registered Democrats or Republicans, and they are allowed to vote in either primary, prompting both parties to campaign hard to attract their support.

    LFOD invocation rating: T for Trivial aside.

  • Our Canadian friends at the Globe and Mail published an actually-quite-good article about our state from David Shribman, full of insights and things you might not know: Middle of nowhere, centre of everything: New Hampshire’s crucial role in U.S. politics.

    Today’s New Hampshire, however, is marked by the slowest population growth since the decade beginning in 1910 – along with low unemployment and a rapidly aging citizenry. While those 55 and over comprised one in seven workers two decades ago, today they account for more than one in four. “The limitation in the number of available workers might add roadblocks to companies’ ability to expand,” according to a recent report from the state’s Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau.

    Through all this change – more dramatic here than in any other corner of the United States except perhaps the Research Triangle of North Carolina – New Hampshire held fast to its primary and to the folklore that animates its politics to this very day, when “Live Free or Die” – an excerpt from an 1809 letter by the state’s Revolutionary War hero, John Stark – remains atop the state’s licence plate, a kind of Yankee Je me souviens.

    David, although the citizenry might be rapidly aging, it's my observation that the citizens are aging at about the same rate as everyone else in the USA: one year per year.

    We award David an LFOD invocation rating of H+ for Historically correct. The plus for connecting it to the Quebec motto.

  • The Daily Wire published the latest display of weapon ignorance from Wheezy Joe Biden: ‘Rational’ Gun ‘Policy’ Is Banning ‘50 Clips In A Weapon’; AK-47 Won’t Protect You From Government.

    Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden said on Sunday that he believes that having a “rational policy” on guns means making sure that people can’t have “50 clips in a weapon,” which is gibberish, and said that a person would need a lot more than an AK-47 to take on a tyrannical government.

    […]

    Federalist co-founder Sean Davis wrote: “Joe Biden is so dain-bramaged that he thinks ‘The government will bomb your house if you get out of line’ is an A+ argument against the 2A in the state whose motto—’Live Free or Die’—was coined by a militiaman who personally defeated the British Empire.”

    LFOD invocation rating: G for Good point there, Sean.

  • A Reuters report hosted at Yahoo! News: Pondering politics over ice fishing ahead of NH primary. Their intrepid reporter went out on the big lake [Winnipesaukee for you flatlanders] and harassed the contestants in the annual ice fishing derby:

    And while attendee Roz Jones, a resident of Massachusetts, would not be voting in the New Hampshire primary, she said she would be closely watching the results.

    "New Hampshire is 'live free or die' so I tend to think they're going to go toward a more moderate candidate," she said. "That's my gut."

    I assume that Roz means that the wacky leftists are antithetical to the motto's spirit. Hence, the LFOD invocation rating: C for Roz's Correct observation.

  • And finally, a website called "The 74 Million" has an article that only mentions the primary glancingly: Three Decades After Its First School Funding Lawsuit, New Hampshire Turns to the Public for the First Time to Find an Equitable Solution for All Students.

    It’s been more than a generation since the first of New Hampshire’s school funding lawsuits was decided, and yet the state is starting from scratch — again.

    The Commission to Study School Funding, which met for the first time in January, has a $500,000 grant from the state legislature and the mandate to find a way to provide an equitable education to all its 184,670 pre-K-12 students, whether they live in the poor, rural towns of northern New Hampshire or the bustling and property-tax-rich communities in the south.

    It is the third such state commission in 20 years, and it comes into focus just as Democratic candidates for president descend on the Granite State for the Feb. 11 primary, many with their own plans for how to finance public schools.

    But in the Live Free or Die state, officials aren’t turning to the federal government for solutions. New Hampshire has been experimenting with its own remedies since the state Supreme Court ruled in the Claremont lawsuits of the 1990s that it had to provide an adequate education for all.

    Eye roll. A half-megabuck "commission" that will not teach a single kid how to read.

    LFOD invocation rating: W for Wasting taxpayer money.


Last Modified 2024-01-23 5:33 AM EDT