So, “the fix” has already been baked into the Republican Convention cake? Thanks, Jim Merrill

for spilling the beans.  So, it doesn’t matter what the Republican primaries churn out – it will be a brokered (e.g., “smoke filled back room of Party hacks”):

N.H. Republican Power Broker Says NO Trump, NO Cruz – Promises Brokered Convention

So says former New Hampshire Republican governor Judd Gregg, a longtime and highly influential Republican power broker in the Granite State who during an interview with Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business network this morning declared all current polling in New Hampshire to be null and void, and the likelihood of anti-establishment GOP front-runners Donald Trump or Ted Cruz winning New Hampshire as unlikely.

Well, that will be of matter of opinion and most of them not your’s.  Be that as it may, though, it’s that last part about the convention that should be most concerning – a very good application of the Progressive “tell” – ‘we know what is best for you’.  Which generally means “better for us, who cares about you and what you think”.

Then he dropped a bombshell that clearly had Fox Business host Neil Cavuto a bit stunned.

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So it IS the influx of new people that changed NH’s politics?

I’m not going to put much of the UL piece here on the Carsey Institute’s Demographic study but this gem I thought I’d share (reformatted, emphasis mine): …But the truth is that only a third of New Hampshire residents over the age of 25 were born here, Johnson pointed out. “People are always just amazed … Read more

I wish Chan had just gone that one step further

Over at WeekendPundit, Chan quoted moi (but not my extreme liking for their breakfast burritos – darn!):

This is a lesson any mature business has to relearn again and again if it wants to stay in business.

This is what happens when McDonald’s listens to its customers – success.

Some corporations get so big that they believe they can dictate to their customers what to buy. But examples abound that disprove that notion, some of which meant the bankruptcy and dissolution of many companies who ignored the old axiom “The customer’s always right.”

That one extra step?

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BlogHeadline of the Day – from your poll to God’s ear

This IS AWESOME! HONESTLY, THIS SOUNDS PRETTY AWESOME: 25% of Feds Would Consider Leaving Their Jobs if Trump Becomes President. And no action, be it legislative or Executive Order, required!  This would accomplish, in one fell swoop, what many limited government folks (like us here at GraniteGrok) have been working for for decades. Unfortunately, the … Read more

Breaking News: Ted Cruz declared winner of Republican Iowa Caucus

Data analytics and a ground game beat celebrity.  Republican candidates dropping out: Mike Huckabee.  Democrat candidates dropping out: Martin O’Malley. Percentages with 99% of the votes in. Cruz – 28% Trump – 24% Rubio – 23% Carson – 9% Paul – 5% Bush – 3% Kasich – 2% Fiorina – 2% Huckabee – 2% Christie … Read more

Blog Irony of the Day: forget the “a dollar short and a day late” schtick

We’re in the BEST of hands!

New House Task Force Considers Push Against Presidential Overreach

House Republicans have put together a team to address what they consider unauthorized expansion of presidential power. In coming months, the Task Force on Executive Overreach will explore how Congress can begin to reassert its legislative authority.  But it’s not political. So says House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who authorized the task force.

The effort is meant to address some of the habitual abuses against the constitutional separation of powers, he said.

Ay-yi-yi! Clutzes to the left of me, morons to the Right!  Hey, geniuses, it only took you SEVEN years to figure this out?  But here’s their big problem:

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NH State Rep Joe LaChance: “I will EXPOSE YOU!”. Guess he wants to be the next

Al Litizio and Dennis Senibaldi.  Remember, they started whimpering like feral curs after they attacked fellow Grokster Kimberly (as well as threatening GraniteGrok with legal proceedings).  We don’t cotton to that much around here.  As the Knight Templar said in Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail: “He [they] chose poorly”.  Now someone else has made the same decision.  Silly wabbit.

Donkey ButtYes, NH State Rep Joe LaChance who said that this past week to a little ole’ sweet Texan belle friend of our: Susan Olsen.  That would be OUR Susan Olsen as she was challenging him on being the Prime Sponsor (and perhaps, patsy) for the NH Republican cum Democrat Leadership cabal to continue foisting Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion, thinking that his fellow NH citizens are too stupid and will believe “NH taxpayers will never pay for this”.  What a dope – I guess he’s at the lower end of the scale for not realizing that most NH taxpayers are also FEDERAL taxpayers.  By being the Leadership’s scapegoat, thanks for picking my pocket (as well as condemning 10s of thousands of our fellow NH residents to Medicaid because if you fall into  its clutches YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PURCHASE their own insurance; that’s the law.

It’s not like these facts aren’t known – we’ve been blogging about Obamacare for years.  And just for the record, numbnuts, here’s the Supreme Court decision that said that Obamacare Medicaid Expansion is NOT mandatory settled law – that it was deemed to be unconstitutional and coercive to withhold other Federal funds because a State refused to expand their Medicaid Expansion.  Hey, I guess we could hold a class for both you AND NH State Senator Nancy Stiles who didn’t believe me either.

We’ll be HAPPY to give you an education.  Oh, that starts now –  

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“Hospitals and insurers who benefit from the NHHPP have agreed to make voluntary contributions in order that the NHHPP be reauthorized.” – Jeb Bradley

That would be NH State Senator Jeb Bradley (and I wonder what NH State Rep Joe LaChance thinks of this?).  Boy, he’s turning into being the Poster Boy for Crony Capitalism – on the Government side.  Of COURSE they will give “voluntary” contributions.  He certainly can’t call them payoffs for his other bill that essentially made “no compete” areas for these same hospitals – rendering the CON-Board impotent.  So now they can charge what they want.  Steve has the info: Jeb Bradley’s Hospital Monopoly Bill

Jeb Bradley’s Health Care CON board bill is on the State Senate to-do list today. It sounds like your average, run-of-the-mill regulatory business as usual, which is usually bad enough. This particular bit of regulatory “business as usual” is much worse.  It will create health-care fiefdoms around the major players (Hospitals) in the state, dividing the territory like a crime family, and forcing other players to bow to the regulatory gods of Bradley Care or get out.

SB 481 will result in,

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Notable Quote – Roger Simon

“The worst thing about Barack Obama’s legacy is not any particular policy or program. You might think, as I do, that Obamacare is a disaster, that his foreign policy has been criminally inept, and on and on. But when Obama stood before his adoring fans in 2008 and promised that he was on the threshold … Read more

“11 Reasons the Sexual Revolution Has Been a Complete, Utter, and Deadly Failure That Have Nothing to do with the Catholic Church”

  1. Women are depressed. Polling shows that with the widespread availability of the contraceptive pill, rather than entering into blissful sunny uplands of consequence-free sex, women are, well, sad, increasingly so.
  1. Young women are even more depressed.
  2. Declining rates of marriage.
  3. Fatherless children. When Daniel Patrick Moynihan first raised alarms about fatherless black children back during the Nixon administration, he was excoriated. The black fatherless rate at that time was roughly 25 percent. It is now more than 70 percent. The white fatherless rate now stands where the black rate used to be. The nearly intractable problems in the black communities are coming to a white suburb near you.
  4. Our immense porn culture.
  5. The objectification of women.

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Data Point – State-Local Tax Burdens by State

State-Local tax burderns by State

We have Democrats, once again, calling for an Income Tax here in NH.  We have Republicans getting ready to pass a huge increase in the size and cost of NH State Government – Medicaid Expansion using Obamacare money (whose percentage of payments by the Feds about to downard trend leaving NH taxpayers on the hook).  The Republicans are creating the reason for the Democrats’ call for that tax (for neither will cut other parts of Government as a trade-off).  I ask you: how well did implementing an income tax in NJ because of high property taxes work out for their overall taxes?

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BlogHeadline of the Day – for any rock ribbed Conservative…

New York Times endorses Kasich in GOP primary Should be exactly this scene from the GodFather: Really NYT; if you think this was going to help persuade the Republican base to vote their famous, they are clueless.  Even though GraniteGrok (and I) have endorsed Ted Cruz, if their decision was to have picked him, I’d be sorely … Read more

Iowa: but there is still a reason they (and we) play the game

Said mostly about sports but still in politics too.  This is just out – the Bloomberg Politics / Des Moines Register poll.  I hadn’t taken much notice of this in previous races but I am seeing, not that this “breaking news” is out, it is rather spot on the majority of the time.  Sure, it … Read more

Notable Quote – Larry White

Government grows as its beneficiaries find ways to outmaneuver the interests of the taxpayers. -Larry White ( The Clash of Economic Ideas) (H/T: Cafe Hayek) It’s always “The Bigger the Government, the smaller the citizens”  

Data Point – Electric Obama

GM EV-1I’ve blogged a number of times on how badly Obama’s promise to transform our car buying behaviors (as that’s what Progressives do with their I know better than you what is best for you “tell”. And then we, who make up the Free Market decision makers (aka, telling the Central Planners to go….do something else) actually told the auto economy our choices. And given that this was his last year to get to that Million Electric Car end point, I am happy to anounce #FAIL:

In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama predicted that there would be “a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.”  But only 382,176 plug-in electrified vehicles (PEVs) have been sold in the U.S. since 2008, according to Hybridcars.com. That’s just 38 percent of Obama’s one million vehicle goal.  And although auto sales in the U.S. were at an all-time-high last year with 17.47 million sold, electric vehicles actually lost market share, dropping from 3.47 percent of all vehicles sold in the U.S. to 2.87 percent, according to the Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA).

But of course, Americans MUST have heeded his call to be more efficient (via the EPA / DOT jacking up mandatory MPG standards – yet another Administrative Law decree (instead of Congressionally pass legislation)), right?  Er 

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Need a short, pithy definition of Conservativism? This is BRILLIANT!

From US Senator Ben Sasse who points out, for the Progressives that have lost their way (and their minds) that America is not great because of its Government but because of Civil Society.  That would be the interactions of individuals who our Founders knew were the sovereigns and not a Monarchy, a Royal class, or the courtiers.

I keep saying that Progressives are not FORWARD looking but are,

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It’s not just Groksters ticked off by US Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)

I had to run out this morning to do a couple of errands for TMEW and while getting some gas ($1.94/gallon for mid-range!), met up with a long time Republican activist.  After chatting about this primary (we both agreed that this has been the wildest, most upside everyway one we’ve seen with Trump upending all of the regular “rules”.  The Internet became a disruptive force for a number of industries; he has done it in politics like Obama did starting in 2008 (Big Data analytics for the latter, celebrity and media manipulation for the former).

That said, he is disgusted with how the NH Republican Leadership are turning themselves in the Jr. Partners of the Democrat Party and to point, Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion here in NH (and certainly not limited to that, either).  He’s about to leave the Party because while it says it stands for one thing, its leadership (its elected officials in the NH House and Senate).  He also mentioned Kelly Ayotte, like what I received from her (front of the mailer envelope:

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