New Hampshire Republicans caused a stir earlier this year when they elected Jack Kimball, a far right Tea Party politician, as the new party chairman. Since his election, Kimball’s extreme views have been eclipsed by Republicans in the legislature, who have spent the past months slashing funding for healthcare, education, and other radical right priorities. However, recent video from a local Republican event may thrust Kimball back into the national limelight.

Last week, Kimball and several legislators gathered in Greenfield, NH for a “Flag Day Picnic” with party activists. Explaining the sacrifices made by people in the military, Kimball warned ominously that all would be “completely in vain” if President Obama is reelected next year:

KIMBALL: Ladies and gentlemen, I’m looking at what has happened. All that we treasure lost: people, the loss of life, people who are psychologically and physiologically damaged for life, the sacrifices of the families that supported then. All of this. And I wonder what we did. Look at who we put in the White House. You think about that and we realize the profound responsibility that we have this time. In my view, if we reelect this man, all that all of the people fought and died for is completely in vain.

Watch it:

(HT: Miscellany Blue)

This past January, the House GOP caucus insisted that the session of Congress be launched with a reading of the Constitution. The member of Congress who led this idea into fruition was Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and he was also the first reader.

But at a town hall meeting that took place last week and was captured on YouTube, Goodlatte showed his pre-20th century view of the Constitution. At one point during the town hall presentation, Goodlatte displayed a pie chart to the audience showing the various programs that consume the federal budget, with Social Security and Medicare consuming the biggest sections. One constituent, referencing the pie chart, said that everything on the chart is unconstitutional. Goodlatte responded that he agrees, but that the courts keep ruling the opposite way:

CONSTITUENT: Everything that the federal government does on that pie chart is unconstitutional [...] If I violated my marriage contract the way the federal government violates the constitution I’d be in divorce court tomorrow!

GOODLATTE: I hope you’re not. Here’s the deal. You’re absolutely right! But you have one problem, the Supreme Court ruling that these programs are constitutional.

At another point, a different constituent made a similar point, saying that he couldn’t find Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security in the Constitution. Goodlatte agreed that the programs aren’t in the Constitution, but reiterated that the courts have stretched the document to say that these programs are allowed:

CONSTITUENT: I have three points I’d like you to elaborate on if you could. I’ve searched my Constitution for 20 years and I can’t find Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security in there. Those are forced on the American people by the courts. Now, we’ve all accepted that and American people have bought into that, but it’s unconstitutional simple as that, to me, I can’t find it –

GOODLATTE: Well, it’s not in the Constitution. The courts have stretched the Constitution to say its in the general welfare clause.

CONSTITUENT: So the courts are wrong, you can go back to Jefferson and check that –

GOODLATTE: Right, well we are where we are now.

Watch it:

It should be noted that Goodlatte voted, along with almost all House Republicans, for the GOP budget plan that would effectively privatize Medicare. Now we know why — he doesn’t think the health care system for seniors is constitutional in the first place. (HT: 2ndTCG YouTube account)

As ThinkProgress previously reported, a handful of billionaires and right-wing think tanks and foundations are pushing school voucher legislation nationwide, with the effect of undermining public education. These schemes funnel taxpayer dollars to private schools with the promise of better education for students — a claim that has never been backed up with actual evidence.

While many of the conservatives who are for expanding vouchers claim they are not trying to undermine public education but rather inject more competition into it — “school choice,” as they call it — Wisconsin’s superintendent Tony Evers said yesterday that it is morally wrong for his state to be expanding taxpayer funds for Milkwaukee’s voucher program while at the same time slashing money for the state’s public schools:

Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to expand the Milwaukee school choice voucher program to other Wisconsin school districts is “morally wrong,” state Superintendent Tony Evers told students and staff Monday at Green Bay Preble High School. [...] “Our public school system is under attack,” Evers said. “To spend hundreds of millions to expand a 20-year-old program that has not improved overall student achievement, while defunding public education is morally wrong.”

Indeed, it is a stunning statement on Walker’s priorities to have championed nearly $900 million in education cuts in his budget proposal while at the same time proposing a $750 million expansion of the state’s voucher system. Yet Walker isn’t alone in cutting back funding for public schools while expanding it for private schools. ThinkProgress has assembled a list of other states that are conducting a similar tradeoff:

FLORIDA: In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott (R) proposed nearly $3 billion in cuts to public education spending, claiming that he had no choice due to the state’s budget problems. Yet Florida Republicans — along with a bloc of Democrats who have received thousands of dollars in funding from related special interest groups — are simultaneously pushing school voucher legislation that is expected to cost “nearly $100 million in the upcoming fiscal year and would have a potential recurring cost of $242 million.”

NEW JERSEY: One of the first things New Jersey legislators did this year was to finance a school voucher expansion which “would cost about $825 million.” Yet at the same time, Gov. Chris Christie (R) slashed $820 million in school spending last year — meaning that there was an almost equal transfer of funding away from public schools towards private schools.

PENNSYLVANIA: In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Corbett (R) proposed nearly a billion dollars in education cuts, telling the citizens of his state that he had absolutely no choice, given budgetary constraints. Yet at the very same time, conservative legislators are, with Corbett’s backing, pushing a voucher plan that “is estimated to cost taxpayers $730 million in the first four years.”

By slashing funding for public schools while rapidly expanding funding for private, even religious, schools, these conservatives are showing their true colors. Their aim appears to be undermine public education and Americans should arm themselves with the facts.

For more on the war on public education, see today’s Progress Report, “The Billionaires Who Want To Privatize Our Schools.”

Republican state representative Frederick Ladd Wintle is in custody today after allegedly threatening to shoot a photographer with the Maine Morning Sentinel in the parking lot of a Dunkin Donuts in Waterville. The representative from Garland, Maine, approached the photographer, Michael Seamans, in a deranged manner and then pointed a gun at him at point-blank range, according to the Portland Press Herald:

In what police termed a “bizarre” series of events, Wintle allegedly started talking to Seamans about the infant that died this week at Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter on Ticonic Street and said he was looking for the mother’s drug dealer.

News reports made no mention of drugs involved in the infant’s death and did not reveal the family.

He then pulled a .22-caliber handgun out of his pants’ waistband and pointed it at Seamans in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot, located on Kennedy Memorial Drive.

Police confirmed that Seamans was “an innocent bystander” who did nothing to provoke Wintle. The two men reportedly had never met before. Wintle seems to be something of an amateur historian, and has “penned a series of stories about his miss-spent youth and family, faith, and heritage.” In what appears to be Wintle’s website promoting his writing, his biography suggests an interest in hunting, saying he “was born on opening day of deer hunting season October 21, 1952.”

Three weeks ago, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) signed into law a major tax break for Delta Airlines — the world’s largest commercial airline — that would enable it to purchase jet fuel at a lower rate. The tax break blew a $30 million hole in the state’s budget, and was given to the company at a time when its profits are topping $1 billion:

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has signed a hefty tax break for Delta Air Lines Inc. The bill Deal signed into law on Wednesday will save the Georgia-based airline up to $30 million on jet fuel taxes over two years.

Supporters say the state must work to keep Delta in the state because it brings in millions of dollars in economic development. Opponents said when the tax break on jet fuel originated several years ago, the company was facing bankruptcy but it reported more than $1 billion in profits last year and doesn’t need the help now.

Many wondered why Deal and his GOP allies in the state legislature were so eager to reduce the flow of revenue to the state’s coffers at a time when budget cuts are forcing thousands of elderly Georgians to go without home-delivered meals and cutting deeply into the education system.

Now, a new investigation by Atlanta’s WSB-TV finds one possible answer why the state’s top GOP lawmakers gave Delta such a treasured tax break. The station found that Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle (R) and five Republican leaders in the legislature were given free “upgrades to platinum or gold frequent flyer status,” which include access to special security lines, far more frequent flyer miles, and free upgrades to first class in some circumstances.

While the company did register the upgrades as campaign contributions, the station argues that the company undervalued them. Delta said the upgrades were worth $1,600-$2,400, but renowned consumer reporter Clark Howard said the actual value of the upgrades was closer to $10,000-$15,000 a year, and that they should be registered as gifts from lobbyists, not simple contributions. Watch WSB’s report about the upgrades:

Commenting on the case, Georgia Politico’s Dustin Baker writes, “There are much more cost-efficient ways to get bumped up to first class. Then again, since you’re paying for it with Georgia tax dollars, I guess it is pretty much free for you.”