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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.

Friday Humor – YET ANOTHER Obama and a “Plane going down” joke!

Once again, our Hero – Barack Hussein Obama – is on a plane that is proving that even the Obamessiah has to obey the Law of Gravity: An airplane was about to crash; there were 5 passengers on board, but only 4parachutes. The first passenger said, "I am President Obama, the chosen one. The world needs … Read more

“D” is for Drive – er, but not to the local Pawn shop

My response to Pat Wood’s Letter in the Laconia Daily Sun today (P 9):

To the Editor,

Mr. Wood in his Letter (10/28, p9) rightly points out that the voters took the keys away from the Republicans in 2006 for behaving like Democrats and increased the size of Government and its spending (contrary to Republican philosophy) and gave them to actual Democrats. Properly taken to woodshed and chastised by the distributed uprising of people supporting and sympathizing with the ideals of TEA Party / back to Constitutionally limited government movement, Republicans seem to be "getting it" (those not, have been "primaried out").

However, the "D" Pat defines is Drive to national bankruptcy (to the tune of almost $3 Trillion in annual deficits in two years) – not exactly a promising "progressing forward", is it? President Obama has said that he won’t give the keys back, that Republicans must "ride in the back" even when they retake the majority in Washington. 

Moral to the Progressive Democrats: taking the keys away was the right thing at the time;  Obama thinking it was alright to walk them over to the Pawn shop  is not. 

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Monday – TEA Party Express in Concord!

Americans for Prosperity - NH
TEA Party Express is coming to Town – Monday

AFP-NH is proud to host the Tea Party Express Welcoming Rally immediately preceding the Tea Party Express "Liberty At The Ballot Box" Rally on the State House Lawn on Monday, November 1st. Concord will be the Tea Party Express? last stop on its national tour and promises to be an exciting and well attended event.

During the day, AFP-NH will host events in Eagle Square in Concord and a volunteer phone bank and door to door staging center on November 1st from 11 AM to 9 PM at Tandy’s Top Shelf at One Eagle Square (directly across from the State House) in Concord, NH. A lunch and dinner buffet will be provided by AFP for volunteers throughout the day. AFP Tea Party events will also be held from noon until 5 PM in Eagle Square. Attendees to all of these events will be encouraged to come over to Tandy’s to volunteer, warm up, and grab a snack throughout the day’s program. AFP t-shirts will be given out to the first 50 volunteers. 107.7 FM The Pulse talk-show host Brian Tilton will be on live at Tandy’s from 1 PM to 3 PM.

PARTIAL EVENT SCHEDULE:

  • TANDY’S TOP SHELF, ONE EAGLE SQUARE, CONCORD
  • 11AM to 9PM – AFP’s Freedom Phone Bank Call Center.

· We are going to make 2010 calls at this phone bank!
· Free AFP T-Shirts for the first 50 phone bank volunteers
· Lunch and dinner buffet provided for all phone bank volunteers
· Special guests will swing by throughout the day to thank our volunteers

  • 1 PM to 3 PM ? Brian "The Bulldog" Tilton will host his show live!

· Special guests will appear on Brian’s show throughout the day. Stop on by to say hello to "The Bulldog."

  • EAGLE SQUARE, CONCORD (Behind the Bell Clock across from the State House)
  • Noon to 5 PM

· Eagle Square Rally Kick Off with Jeff Chidester of WGIR AM 610 and 96.7 The Wave, Corey Lewandowski, AFP-NH Executive Director, and Tom Thomson, AFP Honorary Chairman and son of former Governor "Ax The Tax" Mel Thomson.
· See AFP’s "Smart Car!"
· Local 9-12 group, Tea Party, and other freedom and liberty-minded speakers.
· Official Tea Party Express Vendors and Merchandise

  • STATE HOUSE LAWN, CONCORD

 

5 PM to 6 PM – AFP-NH "November is Coming" and Tea Party Express Welcome Rally

· A partial list of speakers include: Morning Talk Radio Host Todd Feinburg, WRKO AM 680 Boston, Jennifer Horn, Ovide Lamontagne, Jack Kimball, Kevin Smith of Cornerstone Policy Research, Corey Lewandowski of Americans for Prosperity and many more!

6 PM to 9 PM – Tea Party Express "Liberty At The Ballot Box Tour" Rally

· A partial list of speakers include: Conservative Radio Talk Show Host and former CEO of Godfathers Pizza, Herman "The Hermanator" Cain, Singer and Entertainer Lloyd Marcus, Tea Party Express Founder Amy Kremer, Fox News Commentator and NY Times Best Selling Author Tammy Bruce
· Expect a special additional guest or two!

 

Links after the jump

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Have had little time for actual blogging lately….

The live blogging / live streaming (and the travel to the sites) has taken up a whole lot of time lately – hard to put fingers to keyboard when eyeballs are on the camera, the sound VU LEDs, or the road. So, in addition to Steve’s correct assesment of Carol Scold-Porter (yeah, a scold…nobody likes … Read more

Heh! Another Obama and plane joke coming up for Friday Humor!

Chosen in honor of our beloved NH Democrat and Republican Communications Directors!  Enjoy this "Political Correctness free" brand of humor… See?  Due to a prior protestation, no names will be harmed in this profession of my undying love for our political betters….heh!

Live blogging – John Stephen Debate Watch Party

Yup, three nights in a row, the ‘Grok is on duty!  We are in Manchester at the Actor’s Loft as John Stephen will be debating John "Do Nuttin’" Lynch.  As always, tweeting (some) and Facebook updates (some). Live Stream (usual caveats):

Why I WILL Vote for Charles Bass

Guest post by Bob Southard (a reaction to Tim’s post):

Over the past few decades, we conservatives have seen a parade of Republican candidates and politicians who espouse individual liberty, freedom and government, yet ride herd on a grossly escalating Federal government budget.  Conservatives, you say?  Hardly.  The party of Reagan has lost its way.
 
From the first George Bush to his son and with Olympia Snow and a host of other "Rockefeller Republicans", we watched as our party of restrained gov’t and individual liberty shoved a steadily growing budget of entitlement programs down our throats.  The Bushes and all their RINO variants did not believe what we and Ronald Reagan and the Founders of our country believe.  At their core, they remain decent human beings who bought the fallacy of Government as the "Protector" of our rights.  In this process, they have very nearly destroyed our Republican Party.
 
The Tea Party has become the single unifying rallying cry for conservatives all over the country.  People who actually believe in our constitution, who pay their taxes, who speak English and who obey the law.  These are the people who must take back our Party and our nation.  What we must stand for and fight at every opportunity is any philosophy or thought process that permits the enemies of our constitution to become elected to office.  This must stop now.
 
There remain many principled conservatives and republicans who twist themselves up in anguished knots when reviewing candidates on Nov. 2nd.  They believe that some of our candidates do not pass a "purity test" for conservatism; therefore, they can not bring themselves to vote for the republican.  Nothing could be more wrong-headed nor harmful in our determination to return our country to its birthright.  In fact, this thinking has the potential to destroy the momentum generated by the Tea Party.
 
The Democrats have successfully…

 

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Live Blogging – Frank Guinta Debate Party Watch!

Ah yes, strains of "…On the road again…." We are back at Jillian’s in Manchester to participate in and cover the Debate Party that the Guinta campaign is holding as he debates Carol SEIU-Porter in WMUR’s televised debate to be held at St. Anselm’s Institute of Politics. The actual debate starts at 7pm, there are … Read more

Another speaks up for Bill O’Brien

Again, Bill O’Brien has been endorsed by GraniteGrok for Speaker of the NH House; it seems that another powerful voice in the Liberty and Freedom movement is speaking up for him – and for the right reason (emphasis mine).  Heck, he made the Extremist 16, didn’t he?

Bill O’Brien for Speaker

I have served three previous terms in the House, from 2002 through 2008. Each provided its own education from an organizational standpoint. During the first, we had enormous Republican majorities in both Chambers and a conservative Governor. During the second, we had smaller Republican majorities and a Democrat Governor. During the third, there were large Democrat majorities and a Democrat Governor.

The most frustrating of these terms? Surprisingly, to me it was the first, under the Speakership of Gene Chandler, because despite having a golden opportunity to solidify and extend New Hampshire’s unique standing as a haven of free enterprise and personal liberty in New England, we were unable to pass even basic Republican Party Platform priorities. The reason? Leadership that allowed itself to be co-opted by process, more interested in meeting arbitrarily set deadlines for Getting Things Done than in the content of what was done; more interested in indulging in feuds with Senate Leadership and the Governor than in supporting solid Republican initiatives. Having high expectations and watching them die through the indifference, confusion and negligence of your own leaders is sometimes worse than having had no expectations to begin with.

Legislating is not a parlor game. Despite what people from the outside will tell you about the virtues of bipartisanship,…

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Well, here’s the guy that stood up to the League Of Women Voters Moderator.

I still suggest that you go and watch this "insurgency video" where Patriotism trumped "our betters" attitude!

Got this long comment a bit ago – and I have seen it on other sites that also posted the video – I decided to post it up as it is worth reading what he has to say!

BTW, about that moderator?  Yeah, The Exec. Director (Jan Czarnik) has called ordinary Americans, proud of their country and their allegiance to it, "phony patriotism.  And the moderator, Kathy Tate-Bradish, herself?  Organizing for America.

My name is Joe Ptak and I live in Island Lake, Illinois. I attended the Joe Walsh-Melissa Bean "forum" and I WAS THE INDIVIDUAL who stood up and wanted to know why the pledge of allegiance was not going to be recited? I thought it might have been an oversight. I was flabbergasted and stunned to hear the LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS moderator say to me, and the audience, that it was never part of their program at these events and in essence saying it will not allowed.

Please keep in mind that this "forum" was organized in Grayslake High School for the benefit of the students, who were asking the questions. Furthermore, there were numerous students present (gaining extra credit) as well as 350 adults and media who packed the auditorium.

I served in the USAFR’s for ten (10) years and there were many veterans in attendance. I was so proud when the audience rose up one by one, then in mass to recite the pledge of allegiance with loud and heavy emphasis on the words LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. The moderator then had the gall to admonish the audience and for "disrespecting her"? My wife told me if that woman did not shut up she was going to get her "Brooklyn up" (being from NY).

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Taxes and Government is NOT Individual Charity

In a Letter to the Editor to the Wall Street Journal, one of my favorite economists (and Libertarian), Professor Don Boudreau over at Cafe Hayek, gets it EXACTLY right concerning taxes, charity, and those that conflate / confuse the two (emphasis mine):

Jack Kinstlinger alleges that Tea Partiers are motivated by “greed and selfishness” and “reject what is fundamental to our religious teachings – that it is our duty to help those less fortunate and that we cannot live in isolation but are part of a larger community” (Letters, Oct. 23).

I have no idea what motivates the typical Tea Partier, but I do know that opposition to a heavy-handed government is not evidence of “greed” or of the absurd belief that human beings are not “part of a larger community.”

There’s a long tradition of classical liberalism – boasting names such as Adam Smith, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Madison, Jefferson, Tocqueville, Macaulay, Gladstone, Cobden, Mencken, and Hayek – based on the understanding that forced “charity” is not generosity; that no agency better serves the narrow and anti-social goals of the truly greedy than does the state; and that individuals left to regulate their own affairs with a minimum of interference from government will create extensive and deep patterns of social cooperation that are far more effective at meeting human needs than will any bureaucracy or program imposed by the state.

Indeed – those that "special interest" the Government are almost ALWAYS…

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Data Points – Who got stimulated, and who gets the bucks??

Did our Founding Fathers truly believe that Government should have primacy over Society / citizens? Hardly.  Yet, that is EXACTLY what has happened the last few years – Carol Shea-Porter, Paul Hodes, and Jeane Shaheen have voted to enable this to happen. Who got the bulk of stimulus money?  The Political Class: Who is deemed … Read more

Who has got the money?

I just heard on Meet the Press (yeah, but nothing else was on) that in toto, we will have spent about $3.2 billion this year on elections.  That is a staggering amount of money.  Certainly the TEA Party related amounts, given in normally small donations, have been the big surprise this year.  Given the "final nail in Conservativism coffin" that the Left crowed about (even as the same was said for the Left during Bush), this two year old movement has been the surprise of recent political history.

With the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court that allowed corporations to "speak" for their own self-interests, coupled with enthusiasm gap, the Progressives are wailing – who is giving the money???  They forget one thing – they’ve owned the Presidency, the House, and the Senate for the last two years – if they REALLY wanted to put the stopper back in the bottle, they could.

Simple fact: they don’t want to.  Of course they don’t!  They won’t tell you and they will hide behind the veil of disclosure for two mere reasons:

  • they wish to appear to be "for the little guy" in this area – even as they deconstruct, for example here in NH, the Right To Know law (elsewhere, known as FOIA, Freedom of Information Act).
  • they aren’t getting the same amount of money, the same way, this cycle

And it is those last two words, this cycle, that makes the difference.  The Dems know…

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Liberalism’s Intolerance…

Filed under Hypocrisy

For all of the vaunted "tolerance" demanded by the Left, if nothing else, the curtain has been yanked aside and the smoke has been drawn out of the room by NPR’s firing of Juan Williams for speaking what millions feel inside.  As a frequent flier for decades, after 9/11 you BET that I looked at every person coming onto the plane – unless you are a sheeple and will accept any multiculti stream of pap thrown at you, I can tell you that *I* was scanned by everyone else as well.  Why?

Families at home – "Let’s roll!".  When confronted by a threat, most Americans will weigh the odds and then respond. From those on the Left (or those that of the CAIR persuasion), I point out Jesse Jackson’s and Obama’s own words – it is human nature to evaluate threats.

But I digress – Political Correctness will be the death of this nation.  The organized march to control, not only speech, but actual thoughts, are the end game.  For simply expressing a personal fear, Juan was cashiered.  Further, there are those on the Left, are demanding another scalp – how tolerant!

(H/T: John)

The Right?  Well, there the head of NRP, Vivian Schiller, who said that Juan’s outburst should be between him and his psychiatrist – how Stalinist of her?  I’d make an exception there. 

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GralkTALK! – Can you smell that November is nigh?

GrokTALK! Saturday morning at 9 – 11 am!   GrokTalk! A mixture of politics, culture, current events, and well, politics, it is an Internet Radio show streaming live audio and video directly from GraniteGrok.  Using a solidly Conservative and Rational Libertarian lens, we’ll take on almost any topic and have notables from the news, political … Read more

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