Skip

A former CIA officer serving jail time for leaking documents to the New York Times accused federal officials of setting a double standard by apparently refusing to aggressively prosecute Hillary Clinton.

Clinton was “a high ranking official who should know better, but completely given a pass, and almost an apologetic pass,” Jeffrey Sterling, who was found guilty of leaking classified information to Times reporter James Risen last year, said in an interview with the Washington Post published on Monday.

“So how should us regular citizens feel, especially with heightened concerns about national security?”

The operative questions is if we have moved from equal under the law, to what have we moved to?  Are we now well within the “Animal Farm” age, where some are more equal than others, and that “additional equality” has everything to do with to whom you are connected than a connectedness to a statute?

Read more

…Looking around the country, we find huge gaps in major metropolitan areas’ economic fortunes — for every booming Dallas-Fort Worth, there’s a sclerotic Detroit.

Adam Smith’s principles, put forth more than two centuries ago, go a long way toward explaining why some areas do so much better than others. In “The Wealth of Nations,” the Scottish economist linked prosperity to a political economy of freedom, built upon private property, market incentives, free trade, specialization and a culture of commerce.

Sor of like how the US was founded – freedom, respect for private property, marketplace over government, and for that time, commerce was seen as a public good to be elevated.  Sadly, we see these virtues being cast negatives (re: the rise of two Socialists in running for President).  I’ve posted before the listing of countries and the direct correlation of their economic freedom and the resulting heightened living standards of their citizens.  Here we see that it doesn’t just hold at the country level (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Read more

From Cafe Hayek:  Is Administrative Law Unlawful?:

“Evidently, the lust for power outside the law is a recurring danger, and it is confined neither to monarchies nor to the past. Understanding this, Americans in their constitutions carefully repudiated power outside or above the law.  Their constitutions, however, could no longer hold off the danger when an increasingly dominant knowledge class abandoned its attachment to the straight and narrow paths of law in pursuit of broader avenues of extra- and supralegal power.

The result, as in the past, is an alternate, parallel system of law, which is not law, but mere command, and which increasingly crowds out real law.  Americans thus must live under a dual system of government, one part established by the Constitution, and another circumventing it.

….[E]xtralegal power again threatens the liberty demarcated by law.  Of course, administrative law is said to have statutory authority.  This, however, does not alter the fact that administrative law confines Americans, not through law, but outside it, thus displacing the liberty under law with a subjugation to administrative command.

The liberty established by the Constitution is a liberty under law, not a liberty under administrative fiat.  It is a complete freedom to do whatever is not forbidden by law, and any attempt to impose extralegal constraints is unconstitutional.

Read more

“America’s new elites, fancying themselves superior to the rural, the old, the religiously inclined and the rest, have increasingly turned politics into something that is done to people, for their own good, rather than by people according to their moral outlook. And then they wonder why people go looking for something else, something less sneering.”

As I keep saying, you have brought us upon yourselves.  If you had done your jobs right and without fancy pants airs, keeping a sense of servant leaders, you wouldn’t have the Trump or Bernie phenomena biting you in the butt.  We are a people slow to anger but once ticked off, uncontrollable.  After all, we are descended from brigands, outcasts, fortune seekers, those seeking liberty, and outsiders.  Summary?

Read more

I knew it wouldn’t last long before some squish Republican US Senator would start the wimping out – it is who they are.  They were elected to do ONE thing: stop Obama and the Progressive agenda for which he stands.  Any.Way.Necessary.and.Possible.  Full Stop.  You only have one job to do to keep this country moving closer to full socialism.  I say that for I doubt they can actually move that Overton Window back to the right – they could have they wanted to but they lack the political will.  Doubt me?

Breaking from his fellow Republicans, Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk on Monday urged his colleagues to approve the next nominee for Supreme Court justice.

Allowing an ideologically sympatico judge to be seated on the Supreme Court bench is part and parcel of that Full Stop.  Yes, the President has the Constitutional power and

Read more

Ayup, we’re seeing all KINDS of Democrats who, back in the day (like 2006, 2007), were against the President nominating someone for the Supreme Court.  Of course, it was a Republican President doing the nominating – like then US Senator Joe Biden:

Ayup, the message is clear: a sitting President should not nominate in the last year because: NEXT PRESIDENT! But boy, are the Democrats showing their hypocrisy big time.  And this is the problem – Consistency. And in this case, the lack there of.  Which proves one thing:

No Principles

Yes, in politics there is always going to be some amount of wiggle,

Read more

Obama is looting the Treasury to pay off insurers

The Obama administration will tell any lie and break any law to prevent the president’s signature health-care program from collapsing.  Insurance companies such as UnitedHealthcare and Aetna are losing billions trying to sell ObamaCare plans, and the risk is they’ll drop out at the end of 2016. No insurance companies means no ObamaCare.

In 2014, the White House tried to avert that disaster by promising insurers a taxpayer-funded bailout, but public outrage and quick action by Sen. Marco Rubio put a stop to it. Now the administration is at it again.  Desperate to keep insurers on board, the administration scrambled to find another pot of money. Unfortunately, once again, a big part of that money pot belongs to the public. [see Crony Capitalism  -Skip]

President Obama doesn’t seem to care. On Feb. 12, the administration announced that the money will be handed out to insurers — a whopping $7.7 billion this year alone. But it’s not just expensive: That huge handout to the insurance industry is also illegal.

Read more

“The late Justice Antonin Scalia will be remembered for his colorful comments from the bench, but court watchers say his true and lasting legacy will be the way he transformed the Supreme Court.  Scalia, 79, died while on a hunting trip in Texas and will be buried on Saturday after a funeral in Washington. His sudden passing has set off a flurry of remembrances, with friends and foes alike hailing his intellect and rigorous approach.

“Justice Scalia changed the terms of the debate, if you will,” said M. Miller Baker, a partner at international law firm McDermott Will & Emery in Washington.  “He made the Supreme Court a more rigorous place — more precisely, he required the court and litigants to focus on the actual meaning of the Constitution and the meaning of the statutes before the court.”

Read more

I’ll just say it loud: some people just don’t deserve free stuff.  After all, it’s worth every penny they paid for it seems to be their outlook.  How many of us know people that once having received something free, trash it?  Not everyone and some people are REALLY appreciative of what they have been given.  Those aren’t the people I’m talking about.

I watched a ton of kids in college just waste everything that was given to them for “free” – their parents paid and paid and they simply partied and partied and partied.  They left school haven blown 10s of thousands with nothing to show for it – betcha not even any memories given how wasted they were.  I know – I was the one that picked them up (or dragged – some of the guys were really big guoff the dorm floor and got them back into their rooms.

Free stuff given out by politicians is a seriously bad idea – no skin

Read more

Silly Season Phase One is now over. Just a few things off the top of my head from last night’s S. Carolina Republican primary and Nevada’s Democrat one:

• South Carolina: Dead Men Walking – Jeb Bush knew it and was both bright enough and Old School enough to know when the game is over.  John Kasich and Ben Carson are just Vanity Candidates now.  Politicians love the limelight and will do anything do stay in it – even if they know they are going to be made sport of.  Look, they can keep on going, even get media time but they aren’t going anywhere.  People to continue to donate to them might as well put the bills on the grill, shut the cover, and light it.

Read more

Guess  what product spawned this legal warning:

“WARNING: Cycling can be dangerous. Bicycle products should be installed and serviced by a professional mechanic. Never modify your bicycle or accessories. Read and follow all product instructions and warnings including information on the manufacturer’s website. Inspect your bicycle before every ride. Always wear a helmet and use lights at night. Failure to heed any of these warnings may result in serious injury or death.”

Read more

JEB BUSH HAS SUSPENDED HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

85% of the Nevada Caucuses reporting: Hillary – 52%, Bernie – 48%

Fox predicting Donald Trump will win South Carolina.  Close race between Cruz / Rubio for second, following by Bush/Kasich/Carson in the bottom tier far behind top 3 (see after the jump, frequent updates) 

Read more

Or is it the ANGRY people?  Like the people knocking on Grokster Mike’s door one night and and my picture fell out of a folder and threatened to arrest James O’Keefe if they could get their sticky fingers on them?  Yeah, these people:

(Click to embiggen)  The question is WHY and WHOM might they be investigating?  Remember, those of us on the Right, when we saw the videos last Primary Day and then this Primary Day was “how easy it is for drive by voting by the Dems – and how election officials were condoning / enabling it”.  It’s like the latter folks almost already had blinkers on.

But these folks, the NH Attorney General Elections folks, weren’t concerned with the enablers that are supposed to uphold the law – they went after James O’Keefe.  They said for Voter Fraud – we believe it was because “the Establishment” got embarrassed by some upstart now PIA.  So they decided a course of action: payback.

Guess who got the last laugh?  

Read more

“Tipping Point“

And the incessant “asks” for money (with little to show for it in terms of the Conservative agenda being being implemented) have become tiresome and irritating.  A ‘Grok reader responds to yet another “ask” with a promise (emphasis mine):

Earlier today I received an email from Lauren Lofstrom, national finance director for Ted Cruz. My response to her is below. If you want to post it in Granite Grok, you have my permission to do so.

Lauren,

Unlike yourself, I am very sure of what else to say.

Since January 1st of this year I have received over 48 emails or physical letters from individuals such as yourself, or organizations such as the NRSC, RNC, Republican Liberty Caucus and others asking me to donate money. Seven of these just from the NRSC.

All saying that if I don’t help out with a sizeable donation, the wicked witch will end up in the White House, and our hope for tax cuts, balanced budgets and controlled immigration will vanish like snow in the spring thaw.

This is my tipping point.

Read more

Will more legislation come out or will the Progressives / Statists / Marxists continue to water things down such that this will continue (emphasis mine)?

New Hampshire Senate
News Release

For Immediate Release:

February 18, 2016

Media Contact:
Kate Giaquinto
kate.giaquinto@leg.state.nh.us
(603) 271-3043

Carson, Birdsell concerned by lack of protections against drive-by-voting

Concord, NH – In response to a video released depicting election workers providing inaccurate procedural information to voters, Senator Sharon Carson (R-Londonderry) and Senator Regina Birdsell (R-Hampstead) issued the following statements.

“New Hampshire voters deserve to have confidence that their votes count in an election and that they are not diminished by drive-by or out of state voters who decide to cast a ballot in a New Hampshire election. The video depicts campaign workers who suggest using a friend’s in-state address in order for an out-of-state citizen to take part and vote in the New Hampshire primary, despite claiming residency in another state. I urge the Attorney General’s office, who we know has chosen not to place emphasis and deploy recourse on enforcing election laws, to take these claims seriously and engage in a full investigation,” said Senator Sharon Carson (R-Londonderry). “This video clearly indicates a need for tighter and clearer voter eligibility and residency laws in the state providing stronger protections to our voting population.”

Read more