Skip

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.

Steve? Here’s the Republican names that voted for the HB617 Gas Tax:

Yeah Steve, the figure I’ve seen is up to $1 Billion in new taxes embedded in HB617 over the next few years – and YOU get to help pay for them each and every time you put the gas nozzle into tank for a fill-up (that is, if you can afford the 83% rise in the State tax).  IMHO, simply because the Politicians can’t keep their cotton picking hands outta the proverbial cookie jar called the Highway Fund.  They complain that there are roads and bridges that NEED REPAIR NOW – yet most of them were red listed when the Democrats held the supermajorities in the NH House and Senate, and holding the Governorship.

You asked, I provide – the list of Republicans that helped the Democrats in the House making life more expensive for Joe and Jane SixPack:

Frank Tilton          Mark McConkey            John Graham     Shawn Jasper     Dave Danielson     Charlene Takesian        Dave Kidder

David Hess              Priscilla Lockwood       Bill Friel               About Khan             Dave Milz                 Kevin Waterhouse        John Sytek

Jim Grenier

Yeah.  Two of Gene Chandler’s Leadership team (bolded) – way to go Team!     Consistency of action. Discipline of message. What do you say about a Leadership Team that can’t vote straight?   Good news coming from this session for taxpayers, I’ll say.

Read more

Belknap County Commissions – acting like Monty Python (“Run Away!”)

Yes, this is part of this post, where the emphasis was on how they left the County Attorney in a lurch – yes, she is an elected official but reports to the Commissioners (yet, the County Convention sets her budget). Yeah, playing politics.  It both rather amusing to watch this childish stunt (“Oh look, we’ll … Read more

Belknap County – final Budget Meeting

As with many towns, the Counties around New Hampshire are also constructing their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year.  Here in Belknap, two Republicans (John Thomas and Steve Nedeau) and a Democrat (Ed Philpot) crafted a budget that would raise the County’s portion of the property tax by approximately 9% – this in a time still beset economically with rising taxes at the State level (certainly, the Democrats are already hard at work doing that in Concord), rising taxes at the Federal Level (again, thank you Democrats), and the people looking at their thinning wallets every time they fill up their cars and see how few bags of groceries are bought for $25, $50, or $100 (inflation – the hidden government tax on us all).  However, the County Convention (the 18 elected NH House Representatives from all of the districts in Belknap County) has the final authority over that budget – and new Conservative leadership elected to head that Convention (led by the Chair Collete Worseman) reduced that percentage to 0.3%.  What did it take?

Simple – Leadership, a “say what you mean, do what you say” attitude.  A political courage to go against the grain of those that have no problem in spending other peoples’ money, the rent-seekers called social services that live at the teat of Government and have transformed themselves from being charities to mere outgrowths of that Government (or many as many levels and parts of Government they can latch onto), and the biggest Special Interest of all – Government itself.  Sticking to ones guns and Conservative values.  A willingness to put themselves between the hard working taxpayers and those that would spend their money by ensuring that essential services would be present – but not extraneous expenditures or “pet ideas”.

Government above people.  The Bigger the Government, the smaller the citizen.

Here is the final vote:

The full meeting (chopped into approximately 15 minute chunks each) after the jump.  And yes, there were heated words said, for not only has this been about Dollars but also about Power and Political Turf.

Read more

Belknap County Convention / Tardiff-Gammon lawsuit – Where Commissioners put the County Attorney in a really bad spot

As I alluded to here, there is not a whole lot of love lost between the Old Guard style County Commissioners and the County Convention.  Most of it currently stems from the fact that the Convention has set the budget and has brought out a very little used RSA to lock in the line-item accounts, thereby limiting the power of the Commissioners to transfer Dollars on their own (they will have to get permission from the Convention’s Executive Board).  Thus, with this lawsuit (brought by Tom Tardiff and Dave Gammons as the election of Collete Worseman as Chair in a secret ballot vs a call of the roll), there is a need for an attorney to represent Convention. The logical choice would be to have the County Attorney, Melissa Countway Guldbrandsen, represent the Convention.

But, as you watch the videos, it is clear that the most logical solution is lost in politics – and it gets even better when the County Commissioners decide to pull a page out of the Michigan Wisconsin (yes, WI….thanks to Grokster Steve for pointing out my mistake) Democrat Representatives playbook (as when the latter group ran away to Illinois to deny the Michigan Legislature a quorum when the Right To Work law came up for debate) and scampered for the door (see Part 3) when the Convention started to ask about using the County Attorney in earnest.  And, yes, they were leering from the doorway until a question came up and a voice was heard “They’re in the hallway”.

Part 1:

Read more

And Obama makes three….

Worthy sayings of worthy Presidents?  Wonderful legacies all… (H/T: Instapundit via Powerline)

“I wonder how the other Groksters are faring in the midst of the destruction….”

Tim posed that question yesterday, my answer is “Not too shabby, actually”.  Sure, just like the Federal Government, I had to take a 2% haircut financially earlier this year (1/1/13) as  Obama decided that His Progressive policy to “better perfect” tax policies, decreed that I had to give up not paying the FICA tax that His Highness earlier had decreed was necessary to “better perfect” our tax policies.  I still am not sure which was the better “better perfect” perfection I’m supposed to believe in.

Go figure – Progressive Perfection policies; how do they keep straight faces with this kind of stuff?  In the mean time, I had to “perfect” a lesser personal budget quick.

Then I had to do it again (“better perfect” my personal budget).  You see, even while the Feds haircut just started yesterday as His Excellency decreed that His Progressive policies had to “better perfect” our healthcare, my cost went up – and a whole lot more than by 2%.  In fact, string a bunch of 2% cuts together and that adds up.  Plus, with his “perfection” of His Progressive energy policy, my weekly grocery bill has soared (as corn crops are  turned into ethanol that eats our car engines) and my gas bill is mirroring it.  So, I have to make do with even less.  I guess this is the way that Progressives wish to “perfect us” to be better people.  Maybe I am doing more shabby than I thought….yet, His Head Honchoness is still crying that that SequesApocolypse would crash society simply because Government programs and bureaucrats would get 2.4% less to spend: 2 cents out of every dollar.

How come that 2% out of their Government wallet means more to them than they think it is taking it out of our wallets?

Read more

Notable Quote – Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA)

(Emphasis mine) It’s the latest example of why the Obama years will be remembered as the Era of Government Greed. There isn’t a problem President Obama thinks can’t be solved by more taxes and more spending. His solution is always to take more money out of the American economy and put it into the government. … Read more

Freedom depends on who gets to choose and make the decisions

How Liberals Define Choice

The abridged definition of “Freedom” is how many choices one can make, unforced and unfettered.  I get to make the choice – not you and not Government.  When you and Government starting making those decisions for me, that by definition, is less Freedom.

The Bill of Rights, the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution, was written solely because it was felt at the beginning of our Constitutional Republic, that the innate Liberties and Freedoms that were assumed to part and parcel of the Constitution of a limited Government needed to be specifically enumerated to PREVENT an attempt down the line for Government to override them.

And now we see this happening, as the Obama Administration is working overtime to rewrite the the meaning of the First Amendment containing our first and most important Right – that of the free expression of religion (vs Obama’s “freedom to worship within a set of 4 walls”).  Rooted deeply with that free expression is the Right not to be forced to violate that – and in this case, the Right to not be involved in the killing of the unborn.  But Obama believes that there is an unwritten and unemumerated Right to Government to tell people “this is the way you will think – and it will be what we tell you to think and to behave”.

Read more

Hassan already trying to pull an “Obama Blame Game move?”

Ask Maggie Hassan: What Pledge Did You Take?Well, it seems that Obama is bound and determined to blame his idea and his signing of the BCA law (that has brought the Sequestration to life) on the US House.  Oh, that rebellious Legislative branch, how could they EVAH go against The One as he grows Government ever larger and larger to Progressively “better perfect” us all (and achieve his salvation because he has brought our “collective salvation” to fruition in his idea of a Utopia on Earth).  It never ceases to amaze me, however, that he believes that he can usher in this Heaven on Earth by bullying absolutely everyone that disagrees with him.

And once again, we see the Democrats in Concord trying to emulate the Democrats in DC.  Didn’t we already have four years of this?  In the Concord Monitor:

Hassan: Without revenue from a casino, Legislature will have to make difficult decisions

(No, I’m not linking to the article because of their paywall).  So, Hassan automagically pulls an $80 million pixie dust amount of revenue out of thin air, puts it on a bright and shiny rainbow unicorn, and shoves it into the political war…

Read more

MSM Journalist Food Fight – nice to know they still knock Republicans

Well, the inside-the-beltway kerfuffle is that Bob Woodward (yes, THAT Woodward whose Deep Throat took down Nixon and his WaterGate crew) let the cat of the bag.  The White House ain’t exactly groovin’ to the news that Woodward put in his book (right, letting journalists free reign in the WH in important meetings – what DID you think was gonna happen??) that it was Jack Lew (our new Secretary of the Treasury, among others) that came up with the Sequester idea that gets triggered tomorrow as part of the agreement between Obama, the Democrat controlled Senate, and the Republican controlled House that was signed into law.

Well, the Republicans jumped all over that and have been able to finally do a bit of political ju-jitsu and finally get a bit of an upper hand, as Obama had been fully blaming them for this sordid tale.  Now we are seeing some of the Obamaphilic journalists (as in “you all voted for me”, or “Democrat operatives with bylines”) doing the “shark frenzy” all over Woodward as he has claimed that he was threatened by the White House (which usually means “you’ve lost your access – and your employer too!”).  I guess the standard fare is that journalists mostly just “take it” and shut up – only he didn’t.  Certainly, Obama hacks like Obama Campaign weenie Plouffe have started the standard thuggery response by trying to cover up the truth of the matter (that the Squester was the White House’s idea and not the Republicans as Obama has tried to portray) by discrediting Woodward (standard practice with this Alinsky-bred crop of creeps).

Well, a few others have chimed in that they, too, have been dissed for stuff they have written, including Ron Fournier of National Journal,  While this is about him “stuffing” an Obama White House official, he just couldn’t help himself (defending his card certainly a card carrying member of the MainStream Media.

Why Bob Woodward’s Fight With The White House Matters to You

And why I iced a senior Obama White House official.

The fight between the White House and journalistic legend Bob Woodward is a silly distraction to a major problem: The failure of President Obama and House Republicans to lead the country under a budget deadline.

Got that?

Read more

Guest post by “Paladin”

Reader “Paladin” had earlier asked if we publish a guest post by him – it can be found here: Guest Post by Paladin – a short commentary on HB135 (the NH “Run Away!” bill) sponsored by Stephen Shurtleff.  Now that HB135 has passed out of committee in the NH House, he asked if this could be his follow up.

*****

Deputy Dawg Shurtleff, a Democrat who introduced HB 135 to repeal New Hampshire’s “stands your ground” self-defense law was endorsed yesterday by the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. Rep. Dennis Fields (R) of Sanbornton and Rep. Steve Vaillancourt (R) of Manchester, joined the Dawg’s posse supporting the bill while all six “no” votes came from the other Republicans.

Deputy Dawg Shurtleff enjoys immunity from the his own bill by virtue of the fact he is a retired U.S, Marshal. He falls into the latter of the two classes of persons as defined by the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act – “ a United States federal law, enacted in 2004, that allows two classes of persons, the “qualified law enforcement officer” and the “qualified retired law enforcement officer” – to carry a concealed firearm in any jurisdiction in the United States, regardless of state or local laws, with certain exceptions. The law does not limit or change an officer’s authority within their own state or jurisdiction from carrying or to where a firearm is carried “off duty” or “on duty” under their own state law.

But it seems Deputy Dawg doesn’t think you should be allowed to protect your family and possible others. It seems instead, since he can do as he pleases, he will only provide this protection to those he chooses, his offspring and their kin. But not folks like Katherine Booth , the victim of an attempted kidnapping at gun point:

Read more

Guest Post by an angry Belknap County taxpayer

I have to say that I have been quite happy with the leadership of the Belknap County Convention this year in setting a “protect the taxpayer outlook” in examining and correcting the budget that the Belknap County Commissioners set at the beginning of the budgetary cycle.  Yes, I said correcting!  Even though they are elected officials, they showed a Statist’s view of other peoples’ money – spend it!  Even as they couched it in terms of “Oh, needs have risen so much but we have carefully cut to bone – and we are giving the taxpayers of Belknap Conty an almost 9% tax hike in their property taxes“.  In other words “screw you – we are taking your money for our purposes”.

That is, until what I consider the conservative wing of the Convention stepped in to protect taxpayers – as they are promised to do.  The running rise now is 0.3%.  My take is why is it always the taxpayers that are on tap to take the haircut – let the County Commissioners, County Admin Debbie Shackett (whose antics apparently haven’t  improved all that much since being Evans Juris’s sidekick here in Gilford – remember that wonderful Code of Ethics you and Evans  spent “hours” working on – only for me to discover you both had plaigerized it from Sunnyvale, CA?) and the rest sit in the barber’s chair….but I digress.  Here is the guest post from an interested reader from the Budget meeting for the County this past Monday:

********

The meeting on Monday, February 25th was nothing but a disgrace. The County Commissioners, who believe they are all high and mighty treated the delegation and Representative Worsman with disdain and disrespect. They are the first to yell point of order, and make faces to the public. Their conduct is unbecoming elected officials. As I sat and listened to the antics of whom I now call the Three Stooges, I wonder how three grown men, can treat a lady, who always treats them with respect with such disdain. When Chair Worsman, told Rep Holmes he could not abstain from the vote, the stooges along with their cohort County Administrator Shackett, asked what parliamentary procedure she was using, and said it it Chair Worsman’s rules. I almost became unglued, because during the last budget session of 2012 when then Chair Millham, told members of the delegation they could not abstain from voting, not once but twice (review the videos) they never said a word. This just shows that they have no intention of being civil, no matter what the delegation does.

Read more

Guest Post by Susan Carroll, Rochester 912 – “Lie after Lie”

Yes, tonite is Guest Post nite – and can be almost any night.  We try to have new and interesting content on the ‘Grok each and every day – but we Groksters all have full time jobs and full time families (to whom are are grateful in allowing us to soldier on in the fight for Liberty & Freedom).  Part of our mission to engage and increase those that would be willing to stand with us – and if they wish to write, well, doing guest posts is the Right thing to do and are happy to do so!

********

Lie after Lie

As a country we are at a critical juncture: which path will we take? I love America, just not the America I find myself in today. The lines of community vs. collectivism have blurred. Generosity is now taken out of your neighbors pocket not your own. Much of what we see happening today is the direct result of lies, outright blatant lies. Lies spread by those who wish to “transform” America, change America into what it is not, and they are succeeding. The seeds of these lies have been disseminated for many years.

First lie: Democracy. Every pundit and talking head, left or right, states we are a “democracy”. Indeed we even profess to be spreading democracy in the Middle East! Our Founders are rolling over in their graves as they went to every possible extent to enshrine a Constitutional Republic, a Nation of Laws. They knew all too well the failings and evils of democracy. They classified “democracy” as two wolves and a lamb deciding what is for dinner”. Liberty is an armed lamb contesting that vote. The only thing “democratic” about our form of government is our elections process. In a democracy the majority can take the rights away from the minority. In our Republic, our rights come from our Creator as stated clearly in our Declaration, and are protected by our Constitution. Rights are not privileges; rights that you are born with and are protected by these documents cannot be taken by a tyrannical government. In a Democracy, if 51% of the people decide that all people who are 5’3” with green eyes should be exterminated it can be done: not so in a Republic. In a Democracy if 51% of the people think the other 49% should pay to support them, it is done…this is what democracy breeds. It is where we are today.

Second lie: Separation of Church and State..

Read more

Data Point – Household Indebtedness

“At $11.34 trillion in Q4 2012, total household debt is up from $11.31 trillion in Q3.  This suggests that the great consumer deleveraging story may be over.” (H/T: Business Insider)

Share to...
BufferCopyFlipboardHacker NewsLineLinkedInMastodonMessengerMixPinterestPrintRedditSMSTelegramTumblrVKWhatsAppXing