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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.

A simple practical example of the same service performed by the private sector vs the public sector

Coming home from San Diego, I ran into a very simple, but powerful example of the difference of how the same service was done by a private sector entity vs a public sector service: a bus.

Avis: taking the bus to the Terminal after dropping off the rental car.

Avis Bus

Not a new one, but in very good condition.  It was clean to the point of being spotless, maintenance was absolutely up to date from a cosmetic standpoint: the carpeting on the baggage holders was in good repair

  • the  seat cushions were looking clean and well cared for
  • the floor had no stains
  • and I only saw a couple of small instances of paint chipping. 

Oh yeah, and the glass was clean too and it "smelled" clean.

Having to go between Terminal 2 and Terminal 1, I took public sector "Red Bus"

First impression was of the driver.  My knee buckled and I had a problem trying to hoist my rolling bag up the front steps – he just sat there and looked as if I was a mere inconvenience – I got more of a response from one of the passengers for assistance than him.  Frankly, take all of the "good" items from the Avis bus, and turn them 180 and that pretty much sums it up.

Oh, and it needed a tuneup too (running rather roughly).

Why the difference?  Sad sack there could have cared less…

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WMUR 9 here in NH – Committment 2010

For those outside of NH, WMUR is pretty much the ONLY TV over-the-air broadcast station of note, so it gets watched.  They have their version of the obligatory political series that all stations run during this election season; they call theirs Committment 2010. Tonite, they had the four Republican Gubernatorial candidates on Jack Kimball John … Read more

I love slow motion stuff!

The egg on the mouse trap was cool and the fingers on the martial artist – yikes! (H/T: Boing Boing)

Drat – I was born too early, I guess….

I would LOVE to be hale and hearty enough to try this – REALLY!  But reality is sinking in that my mortal coil may get unsprung permanently if I tried.  From Boing Boing: Remember – all politics all the time makes for a very dreary place…

Here’s another thing Bill Binne has said: “I’d just call a lawyer” – I guess he did!

Update:Well, THAT was quick! I just got polled – a lengthy one – by Kelly’s campaign via the Terrence Group out of Texas (I believe). Certainly, Brooks wasted NO time in getting this done!

"You want a legal question, I call a lawyer. I’m not a lawyer." – I guess this is a general purpose line from Mr. Binnie – he’s actually done so and it is turning out to be SUCH a hoot!  Here’s Cornerstone’s new ad:

Drew Cline’s blog broke the story and I nearly bust a gut reading the "official" Letter from Mr. Binnie’s lawyer he posted up.  It scolds the Ayotte campaign for colluding with Cornerstone (Really? Cornerstone is a "shadowy organization"?  Somebody isn’t getting out much lately, are they?) on a "smear" of poor Mr. Binnie as he crows about these "demonstrated links".  Yeah, that amount of proof and a buck will get me a donut.

You know something? The real problem is that Mr. Binnie is rather upset that somebody decided to simply quote him. To challenge him. And I guess he has found his own words to be upsetting, less than of sterling quality in that it spoils his narrative.

Of course, when he said "I’d just call a lawyer", he was talking about a totally different topic (er, the Constitution?). It certainly seemed at the time that Mr. Binnie did NOT like being challenged for something HE said. Let me put up this reminder:

At the time, I heard the phrase "thin skinned" from the audience behind me at this micro-meltdown; after all, it really was an unforced error – NO one put him on the spot, twisted his words, or took him out of context concerning this most basic Constitutional issue.  Yet, a mild challenge from the Moderator gave us the first temper tantrum of the silly season.

Seems like this may be an on-going issue and that he has NOT learned the "Internet Lesson" – speak and act like you are…

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It isn’t JUST about the money…

From this  Conservative’s view, this seems to fit well; from Kevin Landrigan’s column of last Sunday, this caught my eye:

Binnie is socially moderate on abortion rights and related issues and if those dominate, he could get turned a shooting star that burns out fast, Scala continued.

"In some ways, Binnie is a throwback to the country club Republicans who ran New Hampshire for generations, very wealthy Northeasterners who worried about the bottom line but didn’t care much about social issues," Scala continued.

"Ayotte could win this race if she turns Binnie into a country club Republican and she convinces voters that she’s a Sam’s Club Republican because that’s where the mainstream of the party is."

On one level of reality, Binnie can’t shake the country club tag.

He owns one.

Like I said, I’ve been out on biz travel, so I’m still paying catch up here and will be most of the week (there are a NUMBER of things I want to post up on but have not had the chance to do so – yet).  This was one – part of the separation between the candidates.

If there is a bigger split within the Republican Party right now, it is the faction with the money (aka "The Country Clubbers") and those more concerned with First Principles (the Conservatives).  I have no problem with Binnie and his money – we ALL should be so skilled to have earned what he has (and while luck can play a role, Luck helps those that are prepared for its visit).  Given his biz success, he (and Jim Bender) have the absolute right to tout their accomplishments.

But if you listen to the majority of the …

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A phoney TEA Party Mantle – the story continues

To recap from my earlier post:

  • The Prequel – April 15, 2010 – TEA Party event in Portsmouth.
  • The Reminder: (7/16) Local paper article – "presser" (maybe 2 reporters?)
  • The Call: (7/19) Call to the campaign office.
  • The Email: (7/19) Having been effectively called a shill, I sent a "clarifier" email – it’s not about the campaign; it IS about making an unsubstantiated claim about being a mover and shaker in the TEA Party movement – and no back up for that claim.  And yes, I respond to a "challenge".

and I ended the post with this:

I never heard back from the staffer – but I certainly did from the "friend"!  It brought back memories of the McCain campaign ("McCain seemed tired…") – for the calls started up again.  

And then it got interesting….

Indeed.  Having been on a blogger call for McCain, my write up of that call included that line.  I thought nothing of it – look, McCain wasn’t a spring chicken than (or now) but had a lot more energy than most people a third his age; that said, sooner or later with the schedule candidates keep, ya gonna have a "power outage" sooner or later.  Well, given the calls that came in ALMOST immediately (who knew that the campaign was gonna monitor the ‘Grok??):

"Why did you say that?  What gave you that impression? He wasn’t tired – he was fine; WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?"

Whoa! Get that last part? I was immediately at fault – fix it.  At the time, I thought "OK, perhaps I did get it wrong"…but was surprised at the vociferous nature of the immediate pushback.  I filed it for future notation.

Glad I did; the attitude returned – with a vengeance!

  • The "YOU’RE IN THE WRONG" Emails

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Don’t worry, Democrat Progressives will figure out a way to protest this too

A great letter from Dan Boudreaux (Cafe Hayek) about the Left’s "selective" outrage on inequality: Like Michael Smith, I don’t suffer from the “Progressive” itch for income equality (Letters, Aug. 3).  Not only does achievement of such “equality” require the state to treat people unequally, obsession with income equality also reflects a Scrooge-like fetish for … Read more

Notes on the 17th Amendment

The 17th Amendment – the one that shifted the election of Senators from the State Legislators (a key part of holding the power of Federal Government in check vis-a-vis that of the States) was flogged by Progressives at the turn of the last century as being "anti-cronyism".  Why shouldn’t the public vote on Senators?

Much to the delight of Progressives, it passed – IMHO, it set the stage to vastly increase the power of the Federal government.  Why?  The "power governor" (like the speed governor in a car) that kept the States in the game that put the States’ rights and interests first was gone (watch the videos here and here from a 912er).  Obamacare – would it have passed?    Boortz has more thoughts (and a recap of the NH CD-1 Candidates thoughts after the jump):

Can you imagine how our own battle with illegal immigration might be different if the Senators still represented state governments? Illegals cost state governments tens of billions of dollars. The children of illegals have to be educated and their emergency medical needs must be tended to. Then there is the crime costs associated with illegals. Here are just a few estimates of the cost of illegal immigration to some individual states:

    * Florida: At least $2 billion a year.
    * California: Over $10 billion a year.
    * Kansas: (yes … Kansas) $442 million a year.

And then there’s Arizona … the cost there is over $1.3 billion a year. Arizona tries to do something to solve the problem. It’s clear that the federal government will do nothing to control illegal immigration so long as The Community Organizer is in office … so the Arizona legislature steps up. As soon as Arizona passes its law many other states reveal plans to do the same. The Obama steps up and orders the Justice Department to file a lawsuit against Arizona … to sue Arizona for its attempt to enforce laws that the federal government refuses to support. How might this have all been different if Arizona, New Mexico and all of the other states considering passing laws to stem the invasion of illegals had official representation in Washington in the person of two Senators each?

Then there’s the issue of unfunded mandates. Medicaid…

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Who SAYS stuff isn’t built like it used to be?

OK, this is not turning out to be the "serious post" night that I thought it would be…so, have some fun with this.  Just stay with it – the good stuff starts in at about the 52 second mark: (H/T: Boing Boing)

Notable Quote – Coyote Blogger

I understand that this is exactly what the Left is shooting for – an environment where the competent have no advantage over the incompetent.  If employers are resorting to FICO scores, it just demonstrates how all the other reasonable avenues of obtaining information have been closed to them. The only saving grace in this country … Read more

Choices – by YOU and ME, or by Big Govt?

Professor Arthur Brooks started out as a liberal teaching at Syracuse University – and started to change his views when his data that formed the core of his book ""Who Really Cares-The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism"" showed that the liberal mantra of "we care for the poor – conservatives are the cold hearted ones!" turned out to have flaws and hidden problems (normally taken as "conventional wisdom") whose results hindered rather than helped.  In fact, he was one of our first guests on Meet The New Press back on December 2, 2006:

MEET THE NEW PRESS

Hosted by Granite Grokers Doug Lambert and Skip Murphy, along with Patrick Hynes of AnkleBitingPundits. We have an excellent lineup scheduled for today’s program…
 

=====================================================================

Guest: author Arthur Brooks
Conservative values make them more charitable than the libs

As always (and if Skip escapes Chicago) the podcasts will be ready within a day or so, and available on the GraniteGrok podcast page here.

The podcast with Dr. Brooks is here:

But I digress.  Dr. Brooks has a new book out that a lot of people are talking about due to the topic AND the current political climate "The Battle: How the Fight between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future"

He was interviewed by Reason’s Nick Gillespie on this:

The longer version of the interview (about an hour) is after the jump…

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Well, it looks like the dripping is going to speed up…

 "…having attended and spoken at many of its events around New Hampshire…"

Well, I got sidetracked by the RightOnline conference and then by work, but now it is time to start finishing this sad tale.  So, as my fellow Groksters were telling me to get on with it, I shall – and the dripping faucet will proceed at a faster pace.  And this time, let’s proceed in a straight timeline instead of bouncing back and forth and giving everyone a good case of whiplash.

  • The Prequel – April 15, 2010 – TEA Party event in Portsmouth.  It seems that the candidate decided to torque off a number of organizers during the actual event.  While indeed providing some ideas and assistance on some of the details, it turned out that the instructions to keep spoken speeches "on a patriotic" theme and not on campaigns" was oh so skillfully skirted. It didn’t help matters much that a professional looking camera crew showed up and the speech "crossed the line".  At this point, the "coattail hairs" rose on the back of my neck – something that most of us had decided that we would not let happen

As a co-founding member of the NH TEA Party Coalition, I know pretty much all of the organizers and main TEA Party / 912ers in the state, so I contacted the Portsmouth folks as well as all of the others that I knew. As far as I could ascertain, this was pretty much the very first event in which Sean Mahoney had participated.

I let a "friend of the campaign" know of peoples’ ire, and then let it sit.

  • The Reminder: In my local paper (7/16) was this article of a Mahoney press conference inside the former showroom of a local car dealer that got shut down by Obama’s Auto Task Force.  I know the building well, having put up a picture of it a while earlier (7/12). Must have been some event; knowing the size of the show room, it must have been packed with local reporters – 2 maybe?

Asked about his participation in the Tea Party movement, Mahoney said that having attended and spoken at many of its events around New Hampshire, he understood the frustration of many of its members with government. He said the energy of the Tea Party has caused the GOP to focus back on "the very founding principles of our government."

Now, did any of the local media challenge Mahoney on this claim?  Of course not! Remember, in The Prequel, I had already established that no such thing had been done.  I contacted folks again – no such memories existed.  Pretty much, this was A Claim spun out of thin air and cloth (think: Emperor’s New Clothes).  I’ll apologize if I’m wrong, but unlike the media, I decided to research it more – at the source.

  • The Call: (7/19) …

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Has this one finally realized what Congress has done?

The time on being on "government auto-pilot" is over.  We have seen what Government does when ordinary folks like us just merely voted and then dismissed government from our minds, feeling that we have done our civic duty.  Why not?  Government, GOOD government, should always be in the background, perhaps the "third" background, as we take care of the really important things in life: God, family, friends, jobs, and the like.  Most Conservative have, and still believe, that Government should be limiting itself to only a few things, and doing them well – but only those things.

So little we have realized that while we have done thought so (truly believing that government SHOULD be limited, thus it is, but now waking up to the fact that it isn’t), there are those that decided that their mission was to push the boundaries of government.  Like this yutz – Congressman Pete Stark of California. 

We now hear "The sleeping giant has awoken"; the electorate, those that still believe in the principles that drove the ideals in the Declaration and the Constitution, have come to the conclusion that WE are the responsible ones for OUR government and NOT just those we elect.  Simply just voting is no longer sufficient – because of Progressives, we are in a "Forever War" over what this country should be – lest they continue to move us to a totalitarian state, not at the barrel of a gun but by dint of a pen, laws, and regulations.

And we have become educated…and we have had to.  Ed Morrissey has it right:

Normally combative (and aggressively insipid in most cases), Stark seems to be collapsing in on himself as the woman builds an argument effectively enough to win applause from her fellow constituents. The bombastic Stark is almost inaudible when he admits that ObamaCare is a symptom of a federal government that no longer adheres to Constitutional limitations, and indeed doesn’t recognize them at all.

We were given a government that was meant to be limited.  Have we thrown that away? Or have we recovered our roots, and our senses, in time to save it for our children and grandchildren?

A longer version of the video after the jump:

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Data Points – an assortment of “stuff”

I thought these added some value – you may as well:

(H/T: The Enterprise Blog)

Kinda makes you believe that the current crop in Congress just like to see themselves write, eh?  the Dodd-Frank bill totally ignores one of the biggest problem of the recent meltdown – HUD telling Fannie and Freddie to lower their standards to subprime levels to give people money to buy houses that they couldn’t afford in the first place (and in no small matter, the Community Reinvestment Act used by ACORN as a gun against the local banks as well).

*****

In additional to that, how about these stats from the Campaign Spot concerning promises by the present Speaker of the US House, Nancy Pelosi (at whose feet, my two CongressCritters, Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes, worship):

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OK, let’s get this back on track….a combination of Binnie and Bass?

One is the $$ guy and the other is trying to run on TEA coattails?  Does this mean monied coattails?  Kinda seems that way

I had started to go into some of the details but got sidetracked by both the RightOnline conference and then long hours for work in San Diego.  So, once again, time for a restart and continuing.  After all, leaving things undone is just so….unsightly and messy.  And engineers hate slipshod.  So let’s recap, via a timeline,  shall we?

  • The Prequel –  April 15, 2010 in Portsmouth.  TEA Party organizers torqued off as an invitation to speak (and to be fair, helping with some details for the event) turned into a campaign video.  After being specifically told that this was NOT to be such.  In talking with the organizers of the Portsmouth event, they felt they had been hi-jacked. Period.  I personally called or emailed every TEA Party organizer I knew (and being a co-founding member of the NH TEA Party Coalition, I know them all), not one had any memories of Mahoney speaking or offering to help prior to this event.  Not one.  Period.
  • Making It Local – 7/16 – I recognized where this presser was held – after all, I had posted up the outside earlier.  I also chuckled at it being "a press conference" – knowing the size of the former showroom (as it is only about 10-15 minutes from my house and have passed by it for years) – there must have been a whole raft of media people there – 2 maybe?

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