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Co-founder of GraniteGrok, my concern is around Individual Liberty and Freedom and how the Government is taking that away. As an evangelical Christian and Conservative with small "L" libertarian leanings, my fight is with Progressives forcing a collectivized, secular humanistic future upon us. As a TEA Party activist, citizen journalist, and pundit!, my goal is to use the New Media to advance the radical notions of America's Founders back into our culture.

Data Point – Gallup and Americans view of the NRA

On the political side, 88% of Republicans and 24% of Democrats view the group favorably.”

Gallup view of NRA

Even with the full out attacks by anti-gunners and the media, Americans still have a favorable view of the NRA.  I’m just surprised that it’s only been a 5% drop. And the grassroots organization, even with the vitriol thrown against them, keeps out-raising its detractors:

The NRA’s Political Victory Fund, the gun-rights group’s PAC, raised $1,164,540.23 in the month of May. That’s nearly $325,000 more than the top three gun-control PACs combined. It is also, however, a retreat of $687,783.05 from the NRA PAC’s April fundraising total.

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Janus vs AFSCME: Let the union hem-hawing on the decision begin!

The Union is Dissolved - Civil War era secession has become popular talk of lateThis will be a running post for a bit as I know that the repercussions are going to last for a while – there’s a whole dump truck load of pebbles that are going to be launched in to the pond and ripple for a long, long time (most will be reformatted, emphasis mine). Let’s start off with this one from the Union Leader :

The court ruled that forcing non-members to pay agency fees to unions whose views they may oppose violates their rights to free speech and free association under the Constitution’s First Amendment. Workers in the public sector who do not want to pay agency fees could start withholding them immediately, said Bill McQuillen, president of the Professional Firefighters of New Hampshire.

“The Supreme Court has spoken and that’s the law of the land,” he said. “It’s an unfortunate decision, as it now makes it more difficult for people to represent the middle-class workers. That having been said, I don’t believe it’s going to have a big impact on our organization because by and large our members want to affiliate with the PFFNH.”

No,

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PragerU: James O’Keefe from Project Veritas

The job of a journalist is to report facts, add context where necessary, and leave it to the consumer to decide what he thinks. In this video, James O’Keefe, founder and president of Project Veritas, explains why fewer and fewer people trust modern-day “journalism.” (H/T: Project Veritas)

Janus vs AFSCME – it’s personal (although it’s not AFSCME, it’s NH SEIU’s local chapter 1984)

scotusUPDATE and bumped: Yay!  It looks like the NH Administration is taking this seriously (emphasis mine, reformatted):

The Union Leader obtained a memo Attorney General Gordon MacDonald sent to Administrative Services Commissioner Charles Arlinghaus making it clear that as of the next payroll on July 6 all state workers must give permission to have any fees withheld from their paychecks. “As a result of this decision, the Department of Administrative Services must immediately stop deducting an agency fee from any state employee,” MacDonald wrote.

“No agency fee should be deducted from paychecks issued on that date and thereafter unless the employee has given his or her consent.”

Works for me!  Now to get rid of the idea that a union can negotiate for me better than I can; how could they in that they have no idea what is best for me?

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I was talking with a number of folks this morning at a meeting when the word flashed around.  My go to blog for SCOTUS decisions is SCOTUSblog.com for their play-by-play calling out of the decisions that are released by The Supreme Court of the United States and the on-the-spot quick analysis of what the decisions mean to “the folks” like me who aren’t lawyers and make no claims no how to be such. Amy Howe summed it up well (all emphasis mine):

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Data Point: Fake News

Nearly all Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (92%) say that traditional news outlets knowingly report false or misleading stories at least sometimes, according to a new Axios/SurveyMonkey poll. Democrats and non-leaning independents also feel this way, but not nearly to the same extent. 72% agree: media does Fake News. Note that even a majority of Democrats … Read more

Failure – a great illustration why Govt should stay out of the marketplace and work only within its constraints

sticker shock MilkPravda on the Merrimack – that’s what we oft call the Concord Monitor because it almost always advocates for MORE government to solve whatever problem ails us – and here, doubles down when a government policy just isn’t working at all. This time, it is about Government trying to control the marketplace for that common table victual – milk.  Simple milk. It’s putting family farms out of business so what does the Fishwrap do?  That’s right – doubles down.  Notice what its LAST resort happens to be (emphasis mine):

Dairy farms are disappearing, as Taylor told our sister paper, the Valley News, where he once served as managing editor, because a federal program sets the price of milk but does not control the supply. When milk prices drop, farmers add more cows to offset the loss, which then keeps prices down. Milk prices that averaged $24 per hundredweight in 2014 have fallen to $15, less than the cost of production.

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Blogline of the Day – but REAL (Spanish) socialists can.

When a Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party government is tougher on uncontrolled mass immigration than our own Democratic Party, you know that the Dems have painted themselves into a corner.  No wonder the U.S. media are ignoring this story. Remember, when a number of top level Democrats couldn’t tell anyone what the difference was between them and Socialists, the … Read more

Janus vs. AFSCME – a personal take

John_Stark_statue,_Concord_NHUPDATE: As the Supreme court just decided for Janus and against the unions, this post is appropriate.  Best news? SCOTUS rules that public sector union MUST be opt-in for payments.   Essentially, this returns freedom to individuals over the unions; no more paycheck protection for unions.

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“Live Free or Die” – that’s our state motto and unlike many on the Left that find that absolutely abhorrent, it’s one of the reasons why I’ve stayed in the Granite State for over three decades (yep, came for a job, stayed for the motto).  The rest of the motto is not one that is repeated too often, that saying from General John Stark to his former soldiers: “Death is not the worst of all evils“. The Progressives here shudder every time it is stated.

For them, life is not to be free in the traditional sense of the word.  Freedom is the Collective.  Freedom is belonging to such a collective.  It also isn’t about remembering history because much of their philosophy regresses back to the mistakes and catastrophes of the 20th and 19th Centuries when Collectivism tried to overwhelm that most radical of American ideals – the idea that the Individual is sovereign and happens to have a government instead of what most of the world’s history and actions show to be the opposite – a country with subjects.

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Data Point – It looks like the New Normal tax/regulation regime is starting to work

Despite President Trump’s tit-for-tat trade barbs, America’s CEOs are not wasting anytime in taking advantage of his tax reform plan. Over $300 billion was repatriated to the U.S. in the first quarter, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) — the most on record.

“U.S. firms that used to build their factories overseas in order to avoid U.S. taxes, they stopped in their tracks because of the tax bill, they are bringing all the money home,” said Kevin Hassett, chair of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, during an interview on FOX Business’ Varney & Co. in June.
primary-income-chart

The BEA notes the main driver of the repatriation surge is that companies are no longer taxed on foreign earnings when returning the funds to the U.S. “We fixed that really, really stupid thing” said Hassett. By comparison just $38 billion was repatriated during the same period a year ago.

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I just thought I’d leave this here…not all is rainbows

Celebrating Gay Pride Month Pity the gay community.  They had their thunder stolen by crying kids at the border.  But, retailers are offering many gay pride pieces of merchandise.  H&M, Levi Strauss, Primark and my favorite- Target’s rainbow-themed “Pride Narwhal- are all the rage this month.  But a funny thing happened along the way to the … Read more

Blogline of the Day – About Maggie “The Red” Hassan’s intern, Keene State student Caitlin Marriott

Red Hen restaraunt

“She can spend the week at the Red Hen signing autographs. ” – WZ

(The DC restaurant whose owner told Trump’s Press Secretary and family to leave, and when they did, followed Sarah Sander’s family to another restaurant and organized a mob scene there as well).

The fact that she is only getting suspended for a week says more about Maggie Hassan than Caitlin Marriott.  Sorry (no, NOT! sorry) but if

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Data Point – Tired of all that WINNING! yet? Hardest hit: Obama

IF true, that would be 2.5 times MORE than Obama’s “get used to the 2% new normal as it will never change” economic results.  For those Progressives that are mathematically and economically challenged (I know, I used to tutor them back in the day in college), this is YUUGGGEEE!  Now if we can only freeze … Read more

Mindi Messmer threatens violence and hatred

Mindi Messmer, Democrat running for Congress in NH, mistakes her hatred and intolerance for “moral superiority” in Othering her political opponents:
Mindi Messmer threatens violence and hatred

Suffice it to say, Democrat Mindi Messmer doesn’t have the courage of her convictions – she deleted this tweet. Craven that – Ch  No matter, we have it and we also know that she is willing to hide her real self from her potential voters.  Open and Transparency much, Mindi?

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Dan – cutting off his nose in support of his ideology

Gun-industry-sees-banks-as-new-threat-to-2nd-AmendmentThe Concord Monitor has a piece applauding the fact that while Government has the stricture of the Second Amendment (…shall not be infringed), corporate entities have no such restrictions.  We’ve seen a number of the Too Big To Fail banks putting the hammer down on gun retailers and suppliers:

In the wake of high-profile mass shootings, corporate America has been taking a stand against the firearms industry amid a lack of action by lawmakers on gun control.

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As Glen Beck famously said during the TEA Party movement

Anger“You are not alone” in that you aren’t the only one person thinking that things in America have gone awry even as the Left and their shock troops in the media tried to convince we Normals that we were alone.  Glen Reynolds (of Instapundit fame) famously brought the phrase “Preference Cascade” into the common (for bloggers) lexicon – that when people, who once though they were alone, find out that lots of others share what they believe to be only a personal belief, public beliefs can change almost overnight as the singletons become a throng – and then a Pack (in Alinsky-speak, the opposite of the Left’s “woke” organized as instead of a singular Organizer but as a self-directed team with no apparent leader).

Conservative Treehouse has a post on an additional phrase into common usage – Susan blogged it back in 2015.  Now, CT has another post on Cold Anger:

When a Democrat, a deviant, displays their true identity, it is in our nation’s best interests to accept it for what it is.  Do not look away:

“Donald Trump’s supporters are angry“, or “uneducated”, or “unenlightened”, or (Fill_In_The_Blank).  This was clear in the latest round of sunlight upon how officials within the United States Department of Justice and FBI leadership feel about a nation of citizens beneath their authority. The corporate media narrative controllers are fully engaged.  The gaslighting is extreme as the same entities utilize their microphones in a brutal attempt to create a self fulfilling prophecy.  In essence, what they are really trying to save is themselves.  However, the reality disconnect only solidifies their irrelevance.

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RRftSotRP – I get stuff. Third lesson: “the NH GOP is ALWAYS fair”

That’s the lesson we are to absorb without question from the next part of The Writer’s missive.

RRftSotRP Missive - front-600 Part 4

Again, while there is the element of truth in “Primary voters select the nominees” what wasn’t mentioned in the politics that goes on behind the scenes.  Sure, there are a number of NH GOP officials that are not supposed to openly take sides in a primary.  Those of us that watch these kinds of races in details have seen how thumbs often come down on the scales.  Help is slow in coming from above, the “word” goes out about candidates to stay away from giving to certain candidates.  Popular activists that are desired to be on candidates staff are “warned” about their future.

Politics ain’t beanbags (as the saying goes) and the politics ARE high as the because so are the stakes.

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