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This snippet from the UL caught my eye as we on the BudComm saw (and heard) that retirement costs are skyrocketing from almost every department head lamenting its impact on their budgets, especially as the State broke its “promise” to help local towns and cities pay the costs that go into the State wide pension plan (which is underfunded by $5-6 BILLION dollars) (reformatted, emphasis mine):

The House narrowly defeated a bill sponsored by Rep. Renny Cushing, D-Hampton, to restore a 15 percent state contribution to municipalities for the retirement cost of local police, firefighters and teachers. HB 413 failed in the January session of the House by a vote of 172-166, but was brought up for reconsideration on Thursday, and failed again, 171-170.

“As part of the budgeting process, payment of a percent of retirement payments was discussed and dismissed as an uncontrollable cost to the state,” according to Rep. J. Tracy Emerick, R-Hampton. The state ended its annual contributions to municipal retirement funds 10 years ago, with a contribution of about $50 million to municipalities in the last year of the program.

As I said last night, all of us taxpayers should be downright tired and disgusted with all of the politico talk of up-shifting and down-shifting of costs between the

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So, because Dick Devens hasn’t understood, can’t understand, and seemingly never will, he wants to change a vital part of our Representative Republic to take away yet another Check and Balance that was DESIGNED to have checks and balances.  So because he doesn’t understand something, he wants it simplified; even if he doesn’t understand the severe repercussions of doing so.   From the Laconia Daily Sun (reformatted, emphasis mine):

For years I have read and listened to explanations of the Electoral College. They don’t make sense to me. Googling it is mind-boggling. The Electoral College didn’t make sense to me when I learned about it in high school, in the ’50s. The person who gets the most votes should win. 

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UPDATE: because of trolls, I have disabled GUEST commenting.  If you wish to comment here, you will need to open a public DISQUS account first. Apologies to our regular commenters – you may now need to verify your email addresses with DISQUS before continuing; see troll, above, if you want to blame someone.

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And miserable is the operative word. As many of you know, we’ve been having a number of trolls coming in lately.  Now, I have no problem with those that disagree with me or other Groksters but it is clear that’s not why they are here. For years, I’ve had one rule for both authors and commenters:

Rule #1 – Adult themes, kid friendly.  Don’t post something

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SHOT: Rupert Darwall on the Alarming Roots of Environmentalism.

If you look at what the Nazis were doing in the 1930s, in their environmental policies, virtually every theme you see in the modern environmental movement, the Nazis were doing. It happens to be historical fact that the Nazis were the first political party in the world to have a wind power program. It also happens to be a fact that they were against meat eating, and they considered…it…terribly wasteful that so much grain went to feed livestock rather than to make bread. It’s also the case that they had the equivalent of fuel economy rules because they had the most expensive gasoline in Europe and so they basically had very few people driving cars…I think actually the most extraordinary thing that I came across was this quote from Adolf Hitler where he told an aide once, “I’m not interested in politics. I’m interested in changing people’s lifestyles.” Well, that could be…That’s extraordinarily contemporary. That is what the modern environmental movement is all about. It’s about changing people’s lifestyles.

CHASER:  Environmentalists Push Global Wealth Redistribution

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Like Al Letizio and Dennis Senibaldi, here comes this MIT alum (or so says her email address). Out of the blue, I get this email from her (reformatted, emphasis mine):

From: “Donna Sawyer” <dls@alum.mit.edu>
To: skip@granitegrok.com; steve@granitegrok.com
Cc: “Donna Sawyer” <dls@alum.mit.edu>
Sent: 2/5/2018 6:08:59 PM
Subject: Granite Grok site and Windham School District image share from 2/1 article

Hi Skip and Op-Ed,

I hope all is well. I am a Windham, NH resident and I clicked on an article shared on social media bearing the Windham School District sign from 2/1, written by Op-Ed. I realize now this is not a WSD-endorsed article, but an article on your independent PoliGrok LLC site.

Your site shows signs of affiliate marketing. The Amazon links have a tag for “granitecom-20” which typically indicates the site will achieve a profit when folks use your links to purchase on Amazon.

A profit, she says.  That there’s right funny, I don’t care who you are.  Really, a profit?  Hahahaha!  No, that’s getting paid for getting eyeballs.

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Yep, other kinds of trolls – back to Donna Sawyer from Windham NH. Again, it is not enough to have the discussions or arguments – they view us as “societal infidels” (just like militant Islam – just sideways) and must be silenced, put down, or destroyed.  Thus, her opening salvo about our affiliations and about “profits”. Yes, a SPECIAL kind of troll – one that sees herself as doing the [Progressive] Lord’s work, for any dissent from their orthodoxy cannot be tolerated (like  Windham School Board Approves Unconstitutional “BATHROOM BILL” Policy).  As I said before, the timing of the incoming trolls in the comment area and the timing of her email was exquisite.

So, I wrote back:

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OK, Fred Butler has another LtE in the local paper and, of course, he is off-point.  Not only off-point in the way that our own inimitable commenter Timothy (factual but of no real relevance in his own special Progressive way) but blames the BudComm for not cutting budgets.  To which I point out, he was part of that problem:

To the Editor,

Fred Butler complains, again, in his Letter of today, of how little the cuts have been to the Municipal and School District budget that the Gilford Budget Committee has made over the years. He knows why – during the time I was on the BuddComm while he was there, I can’t remember a single time he voted in favor of saving taxpayers some money. In fact, near one of the end of BudComm seasons, he argued in favor of more money for the town employees along the lines of “think of the economic impact that would have as they spend it on Christmas presents”.

Shades of Bastiat’s broken window – he failed to mention the economic impact if that money had simply been left in Gilford’s taxpayers wallets.

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Private payrolls grow by 234,000 in January, vs 185,000 expected: ADP/Moody’s Analytics

Private companies hired 234,000 jobs in January, well above expectations for 185,000, according to ADP and Moody’s Analytics.
Service-related industries led with 212,000 new jobs; manufacturing added 12,000 and construction 9,000.
The report often differs significantly from the government’s more closely watched nonfarm payrolls count, with ADP reporting growth of 242,000 in December vs. the Labor Department’s 148,000.

This is good news

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Concord Monitor ran a Polti-“fact” piece on US Rep Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) calling for the arresting of any illegal aliens attending the State of the Union address even if they were a guest of a sitting (Democrat) CongressTwit; they rated it true that he did say it.

My response was:

As well as he should be; any and all illegal aliens should have been arrested and immediately removed.

Our country is founded on the Principle that no man is above the law – from the lowest station in life to the highest, we all should be subject to it. You may not respect the law; change it. You may think that the law is discriminatory, or immoral, or unfair; change it. Until then, obey it. It shows the depths to which this country is falling when our highest lawmakers in the land bring in illegal aliens – those that should not be here. They told the rest of us that both themselves and their “guests” are not subject to The Rule of Law even as they make new ones and expect us follow them; and they wonder why their approval rating is just above that of whale snot?

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Even if he doesn’t, there’s a whole bunch of us that can and will taunt him with “See, told ya so!” as the Baby Daddy of Medicaid Expansion here in NH is finally meeting up with fiscal reality as the Sugar Daddy (the Feds) are tightening up their wallet and taxpayers here in NH are finally going to see Bradley’s decisions come home to roost as EVERY Socialist / Welfare program always costs too much.  Bradley thought he could violate the laws of politics with M.E. just like the Democrats did with Obamacare and now both are looking up from the well of fiscal woes (which will be our woes if it doesn’t get fixed; reformatted and emphasis mine):

Lawmakers weigh reducing Medicaid expansion eligibility level

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Obama was right: “I won”…”You don’t like my policies? Go out and win an election“.  So, the Republicans did and Trump has certainly changed policies.  Pretty much all of them.  And made sure that everyone knew it – good news for us that voted to sandbag the Socialists None of those programs have been Progressive/Socialist in the least – while Trump may still not be a Conservative himself, he certainly is governing as one.  As I have said before, don’t listen to what they SAY, pay attention to what they DO!

So the Dems last night not only were sucking on lemons-on-steroids but had to listen to their LightBringer’s legacy, built on ephemeral Executive Orders, crumbling around them with a few Republican legislative efforts thrown in (deleting regulation after regulation via CRA, Tax Reform, getting rid of the heart and soul linchpin of Obamacare – the Individual Mandate).  And let’s not forget Trump signed an E.O. last night that canceled Obama’s E.O. to close Gitmo!  But last night, the Democrats showed what Socialists do best (when they’re not in power) – sore Loserville losers.  Here’s a list of the topics that they refused (with very few exceptions) to stand or applaud for:

– job creation
– higher wages
– lower African American and Hispanic unemployment rates
– bonuses for employees

Not even the Congressional Black or Hispanic Caucuses would stand for that – what, they want them POORER??

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