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.

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…
 

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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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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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Milton Friedman does a smack down of Michael Moore?

Did not have a lot of time for blogging last week, so I have a few bookmarks that I’m going through right no a w.  I watched this video and Friedman comes to the right conclusion: is the young man arguing about an absolute principle (the saving of a life) or simply some amount of … Read more

More on Anita MonCrief and Obama’s donor list

I did an interview with Anita MonCrief during the RightOnline conference concerning her role in whistleblowing on ACORN’s shady dealings with Obama’s campaign donor list.  Well, Warner Todd Houston (my interview with him is here) brings news of her new website: Now, that donor list is now available for scrutiny. Remember, the big deal during … Read more

“Jobs created OR SAVED” – Such a meme!

Saved or Created  vs.  Killed or Thwarted ?

Certainly, the first (Saved or Created) is what the Obama Administration has been talking up since the inauguration.  Sure, one CAN figure out when a new job has been created (although the Census job hiring / firing process certainly seemed to have monkeyed with the numbers with the rumored hiring people, firing them a few days later, and then re-hiring them with a bit different job). The absolutely insane measurement of "jobs saved" is completely insane and has been debunked several times.

However, I think this post that brings up a new meme:

Jobs Killed or Thwarted

that may well give the Right a chance to fire back – especially when unemployment has continued to be well above that promised by Obama if the Porkulus was passed and that the ONLY reason why it isn’t higher is that so many workers have just simply dropped out of the workforce.  And with the news that the private sector has $1.8 Trillion sitting on the sidelines, Caroline Baum writes:

When I heard last week that the White House would be announcing the number of “jobs created or saved” as a result of the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, my first reaction was embarrassment.

Imagine how Christina Romer must feel. The chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors was dressed in a cheery, salmon-colored jacket, a complement to the upbeat news she had to deliver on July 14. The $787 billion stimulus enacted in February 2009, which subsequently grew to $862 billion, increased gross domestic product by 2.7 percent to 3.4 percent relative to where it would have been, and added anywhere from 2.5 million to 3.6 million jobs compared with an ex-stimulus baseline.

“By this estimate, the Recovery Act has met the president’s goal of saving or creating 3.5 million jobs — two quarters earlier than anticipated,” Romer said with a straight face. (More than 2.5 million non-farm jobs have been lost since ARRA was enacted in February 2009, all of them in the private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

And then the post goes on to describe that the numbers come strictly from computer modeling.  The money line, however, is this:

“If the administration wants to take credit for ‘jobs created or saved,’ it should also accept responsibility for ’jobs destroyed or prevented,’” said Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business. 

A politician not taking credit for downsides?  Oh, just slap me for my impertinence!

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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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RightOnline – the last of the vids

Finally – the last of the videos that we took at the RightOnline conference – and yes, this was a "busman’s holiday" – given the opportunity to go, the decision was made to go to work.  This post:

  • Tim Phillips, President of Americans for Prosperity
  • Dr. Joe Heck, Congressional candidate from Nevada
  • Steve Eggleston of NoRunnyEggs

First, Tim Phillips talking about wealth redistribution and that the fight still goes on, and must go on, concerning Obamacare as the freedom to make our own about our own decisions is at stake:

Next is Steve who is walking encyclopedia on all things politics in his state of Wisconsin.  He talks at length about the Congressional and Senatorial races in WI:

And since my interview with him, I’ve come across some info on the races in Wisconsin:

Ron Johnson is now polling AHEAD of Russ Feingold in the Senatorial race.

Was he right, or was he wrong – watch the video and decide!

And then Chuck Muth, Nevada conservative activist, introduces Dr. Joe Heck; befitting his status as a Col. in the US Army Reserves, his campaign theme for Nevada’s 3rd District is called Operation New Direction against the Democrat incumbent, Dina "Tax-us" Titus.  You bet – change from the Change that the Progressives brought that no one wants!

Sidebar: is it just me, or can a more inane label could not be found in politics than Progressives? It should be ridiculed as much as the other label from which they run from, Liberal, for both  represent, in the end, nothing more than an idea as old as humanity – the rule of a few against the freedom of the many.

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RightWingNews poll on Racism – tale of the Conservative bloggers tape

John Hawkins over at RightWingNews is a good blogger buddy of the ‘Grok and has been asking us to help out in his polls from time to time.  Given the taunts of the TEA Party being racists by Democrats and Progressives (and Republicans that just hate the TEA Party because it is threatening to pop them off their perches of power [i.e., Republican Trent Lott’s sneer that TEA Party candidates MUST be co-opted if they win]), John decided to ask a whole bunch of us some serious questions (the sites are after the jump).  Overall, I’m not surprised at the answers (although I bet the race-baiters are just HOPPING mad!):

The bloggers were asked to give answers to the following questions (because some bloggers skipped particular questions, gave answers that weren’t listed, or gave answers that were difficult to categorize, there are not 74 responses to each question.)

1) How big a problem is racism in our society today? Is it a big problem, somewhat of a problem, a small problem or not a problem at all?

A) A big problem: 4.8% (3 votes)
B) Somewhat of a problem: 20.6% (13 votes)
C) A small problem: 60.3% (38 votes)
D) Not a problem at all: 14.3% (9 votes)

2) If you honestly assessed yourself, would you say that you’re racially prejudice?

A) Yes: 1.6% (1 votes)
B) No: 98.4% (62 votes)

3) Do you think blacks have achieved racial equality, will soon achieve racial equality, will not achieve racial equality in your lifetime, or will never achieve racial equality?

A) Have achieved: 78.7% (48 votes)
B) Will soon achieve: 16.4% (10 votes)
C) Won’t achieve in your lifetime: 4.9% (3 votes)

4) In general, do you approve or disapprove of giving preferences to blacks and other minorities in things like hirings, promotions, and college admissions?

A) Approve: 0% (0 votes)
B) Disapprove: 100% (63 votes)

5) Do you believe that the government discriminates against white Americans based on their skin color?

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Maybe this is why the Obama Administration doesn’t

Facts are SUCH an annoying thing….especially for Secretary of the Treasury, Tim "Turbo-Tax is SO HARD to use" Geithner: Geithner: [The president has] proposed to freeze discretionary spending, to keep the overall size of the government at a very modest level as a share of our economy. If you look again at what the president’s … Read more

RightOnline-Herman Cain radio show broadcast

During the RightOnline conference, Herman Cain broadcast his radio show and had several of the "names" at the conference on his show including Michelle Bachman, Sharron Angle, Tim Phillips, and Joe Heck.  TMEW decided that this was one of the events that she was going to go to, so recorded it.

RightOnline-General Session Speaker: John Fund of the Wall Street Journal

John, one of the "lower keyed" speakers (when compared to Curtis Sliwa) talked about the current political environment in great detail and range (er, lower key does not mean less content!).  He brought up the NetRoots problem; the general public do not like the "nice things"  government is giving them.  They are plunging in the … Read more

RightOnline-Workshop FaceBook 101

Update: Wait!  There’s more!  Er, a Facebook movie?? Every business law professor should love talking about Facebook.  The formation issues; the business model issues; the privacy issues; the IP issues; the list could go on.  And now, there’s a movie!! The Social Network is due out on October 1 and promises to dramatize the origins of … Read more

RightOnline-General Session Speaker: Phil Kerpen

Phil Kerpen is the Vice President of Policy for Americans for Prosperity (sponsors of RightOnline) so it made sense for him to speak at his own conference.  The main thrust of his talk was summed up by a quote from Van Jones, that if green jobs are the death of capitalism, and he has been … Read more

A small, lean military to protect us from foreign invaders….

This just in from Jamie Dupress at wsbradio.com. Please read the following list and explain why each of these military construction projects are necessary to protect the United States from foreign invaders. This is why they call it "the Welfare-Warfare State." We must dismantle both sides of the government spending-monster, or continue our spiral downward as a nation.

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RightOnline-General Session Speaker: Guy Benson of Townhall

One of the lesser known speakers (at least to me) at RightOnline was Guy Benson who will be the next political editor at Townhall.com.  He brings up the fact that Harry Reid’s son, running for Nevada Gov., isn’t using his last name.  He talks about DC, his upcoming projects at Townhall – especially going after … Read more

RightOnline-General Session Speaker: Rodger Hedgecock

Roger is a conservative radio host out of the San Diego area – whenever I am there, I try to listen in (sometimes hard to do, given time schedules).  He takes quite the pleasure in raking the NetRoots over the coals for being America-haters, talks about Arizona being under attack, and is in disbelieve that … Read more

A little drink, or putting out the fire that should be the economy?

Still out on biz travel and putting in long hours at the office so blogging has been REAL light.  Saw this though, and thought you might like it.  Pretty much says it all – ostensibly offering help but knowing what the offer will really be doing… (H/T: NetRightDaily)

RightOnline – Interview with Anita MonCrief

Another person that came in the door of the Bloggers’ Lounge at the RightOnline conference (sponsored by Americans for Prosperity) was Anita MonCrief. During the time when ACORN was exposed in that investigative reporting as shown by BigJournalism.com, she was revealing damning details about ACORN’s Project Vote collusion with the Obama campaign donor list. Obama … Read more

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