Skip

How might politicians address voter anger at vanishing economic opportunity for working people that helped push unexpected numbers of Americans to Donald Trump’s corner on election day? Immigration and trade have dominated the discussion thus far, but it’s important that policymakers don’t lose sight of more subtle ways the government has distorted the economy to favor the politically connected.

One example: Onerous occupational licensing laws that force people to undergo thousands of hours of often redundant and gratuitous training to perform jobs like auctioneering, tree trimming, and hair styling. . . .

Read more

Home schooled teens helped Republicans win key Senate races.

“…Torsoe was one of several hundred home-schooled teenagers deployed by a group called Generation Joshua in key Senate races in the days before the election to work for Republican incumbents whose re-election would determine whether the chamber remained in GOP hands…For the home schoolers, it’s not just about helping elect someone who shares many of their Christian values. It’s also about getting hands-on experience. And for Generation Joshua, it’s also about grooming a new generation of conservative activists, operatives and leaders.”

Most homeschooler kids are home school by conservative or libertarian parents that:

Read more

The decline of faith and family in this country has led to the decline of American values and that lack of appreciation for our own history and virtue.  The misunderstanding of what is so great about America, or indeed if it is great or exceptional at all, is what is driving the elites to fundamentally transform America through a pagan inquisition and through unbridled and imprudent immigration.  The misunderstanding of what George Washington desired – a nation united behind a “common cause” encountering “common dangers, sufferings, and successes” – has been supplanted by the religion of multiculturalism.

As early as 1989, at the end of his farewell address, Ronald Reagan warned about the ill effects of the loss of American patriotism and appreciation for our heritage on the future generation – the one that is today leading our society.  He noted that our history, such as the reason “why the pilgrims came here” had been distorted based on what is in fashion, not what’s important.  Contrasting the growing movement of moral relativism, multiculturalism, and post-Americanism to the America he grew up in, Reagan observed the following:

Read more

After all, he has been not so reticent this last year saying that he donates to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund – the political arm of this taxpayer dependent non-governmental organization that gives thanks for the ability to kill unborn children and urges it followers to donate even more in the spirit of Thanksgiving.

And in the midst of their “how to talk to your family and friends” talking points was this little nibblet in which pleased them to no end in taking pleasure taking credit for – “of course, let’s inject politics into a national holiday” (always obeying the Progressive mantra of “The Personal IS Political, the Political IS Personal”):

How to Talk to Your Family About Planned Parenthood This Thanksgiving

…Opposing Planned Parenthood is an unpopular position with American voters of all parties. Just ask soon-to-be-former Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.

Now, I disagree that they can take full

Read more

From the Daily Signal, we see that it is still a “Nanny, may I?”

Turkey. Title 9, Part 381.76, of the Code of Federal Regulations directs turkey inspectors on the proper method of examining a frozen bird, to wit: “If a carcass is frozen, it shall be thoroughly thawed before being opened for examination by the inspector. Each carcass, or all parts comprising such carcass, shall be examined by the inspector, except for parts that are not needed for inspection.”

Cranberries. Title 7, Part 929, establishes a “marketing committee” overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set quotas on the volume of cranberries shipped to handlers from growers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and Long Island, New York. The grower “allotments” help to ensure that the price of cranberries remains artificially high.

And there’s more:

Read more

Or: how come a fashion designer is not held to the same standard as we’ve seen pizza shops, photographers, florists who the Left has shattered?

As we have seen these last few years, have been cited, fined, held up to ridicule, harm done to their private property, violence threatened to them and their families, businesses ruined, and bankrupted by being dragged through lengthy court cases where their fundamental Constitutional Right to Free Association has been trammeled by the triple evil of an expanded sense of what a public accommodation is, mere local ordinances, and petty officials wielding ideological clubs (“there can be no dissent to those of the Left”).

Now that it looks like Melania Trump is going to be the First Lady, why is it that this misbegotten, self-assured, self-righteous moonbat named Sophia Theallet has not just the temerity to say that she will not allow her “fashion goods and services” to be extended to Melania (as they have been to Michelle “the Lunch Lady” Obama) – and the Left cheers and joins in with her??

Her Letter is here (and after the jump).  Apparently, her protestations in not serving Melania or the other Trump females  center around her freedom to her free expression….

Read more

I have met more than a few journalists here in NH over the decade that GraniteGrok has been open.  Pretty much, I can think of, perhaps, only three that I would not categorize as “Democrats with bylines” and this is the major reason why – they refused to carry water for either the Left or Right.  The rest?  Confirm our stereotype of them (emphasis mine):

Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds’ characterization of reporters as ‘Democratic operatives with bylines’ is taking root in the American mind. Among independents, according to Gallup in September, the media had an approval rating of 30 percent; among Republicans 14. Almost everyone but Democrats think the media are biased, and support for that view goes way back. . . . This fall WikiLeaks confirmed everything conservatives have been saying about the media for more than 20 years. CNN, you have been busted. You allowed Democratic Party operative Donna Brazile to get hold of town-hall questions in advance and help Hillary Clinton prep with them. . . . John Harwood, New York Times/CNBC reporter and Republican debate moderator, you have been busted. You asked John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chair, for questions you could pose to Jeb Bush in an interview.

Dana Milbank, Washington Post columnist and longtime phony “nonpartisan” political reporter, you have been busted. You reached out to DNC flack Eric Walker and asked for help putting together a “Passover-themed 10 plagues of Trump” story.

Read more

We’ve all been blogging about the effort, spearheaded by a lot of folks who don’t believe someone’s money actually belongs to those that earned it, to organize the fast food industry to a minimum wage of $15/hour for flipping burgers.  Far above the economic worth of that actual job and believing that there would be no retribution – that consumers would be happy to pay much more for the same products, that employers would never mind that extra cost, and that everything else would stay status quo:

Behold “ramifications” (e.g., capitalist systems react and adjust)! Emphasis mine, reformatted:

Epic fail: McDonald’s reacts to ‘Fight for $15’ by placing automated ordering stations at all U.S. locations

From the “best-laid schemes” file comes word that McDonald’s has announced plans to roll out automated kiosks and mobile pay options at all of its U.S. locations, raising questions about the future of its 1.5 million employees in the country and around the globe.  Roughly 500 restaurants in Florida, New York. and California now have the automated ordering stations, and restaurant in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., will be outfitted in 2017, according to CNNMoney.

And why there? Psst: SEIU and the Governor of

Read more