So, “the fix” has already been baked into the Republican Convention cake? Thanks, Jim Merrill

for spilling the beans.  So, it doesn’t matter what the Republican primaries churn out – it will be a brokered (e.g., “smoke filled back room of Party hacks”):

N.H. Republican Power Broker Says NO Trump, NO Cruz – Promises Brokered Convention

So says former New Hampshire Republican governor Judd Gregg, a longtime and highly influential Republican power broker in the Granite State who during an interview with Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business network this morning declared all current polling in New Hampshire to be null and void, and the likelihood of anti-establishment GOP front-runners Donald Trump or Ted Cruz winning New Hampshire as unlikely.

Well, that will be of matter of opinion and most of them not your’s.  Be that as it may, though, it’s that last part about the convention that should be most concerning – a very good application of the Progressive “tell” – ‘we know what is best for you’.  Which generally means “better for us, who cares about you and what you think”.

Then he dropped a bombshell that clearly had Fox Business host Neil Cavuto a bit stunned.

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So it IS the influx of new people that changed NH’s politics?

I’m not going to put much of the UL piece here on the Carsey Institute’s Demographic study but this gem I thought I’d share (reformatted, emphasis mine): …But the truth is that only a third of New Hampshire residents over the age of 25 were born here, Johnson pointed out. “People are always just amazed … Read more

I wish Chan had just gone that one step further

Over at WeekendPundit, Chan quoted moi (but not my extreme liking for their breakfast burritos – darn!):

This is a lesson any mature business has to relearn again and again if it wants to stay in business.

This is what happens when McDonald’s listens to its customers – success.

Some corporations get so big that they believe they can dictate to their customers what to buy. But examples abound that disprove that notion, some of which meant the bankruptcy and dissolution of many companies who ignored the old axiom “The customer’s always right.”

That one extra step?

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BlogHeadline of the Day – from your poll to God’s ear

This IS AWESOME! HONESTLY, THIS SOUNDS PRETTY AWESOME: 25% of Feds Would Consider Leaving Their Jobs if Trump Becomes President. And no action, be it legislative or Executive Order, required!  This would accomplish, in one fell swoop, what many limited government folks (like us here at GraniteGrok) have been working for for decades. Unfortunately, the … Read more

Breaking News: Ted Cruz declared winner of Republican Iowa Caucus

Data analytics and a ground game beat celebrity.  Republican candidates dropping out: Mike Huckabee.  Democrat candidates dropping out: Martin O’Malley. Percentages with 99% of the votes in. Cruz – 28% Trump – 24% Rubio – 23% Carson – 9% Paul – 5% Bush – 3% Kasich – 2% Fiorina – 2% Huckabee – 2% Christie … Read more

Blog Irony of the Day: forget the “a dollar short and a day late” schtick

We’re in the BEST of hands!

New House Task Force Considers Push Against Presidential Overreach

House Republicans have put together a team to address what they consider unauthorized expansion of presidential power. In coming months, the Task Force on Executive Overreach will explore how Congress can begin to reassert its legislative authority.  But it’s not political. So says House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who authorized the task force.

The effort is meant to address some of the habitual abuses against the constitutional separation of powers, he said.

Ay-yi-yi! Clutzes to the left of me, morons to the Right!  Hey, geniuses, it only took you SEVEN years to figure this out?  But here’s their big problem:

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NH State Rep Joe LaChance: “I will EXPOSE YOU!”. Guess he wants to be the next

Al Litizio and Dennis Senibaldi.  Remember, they started whimpering like feral curs after they attacked fellow Grokster Kimberly (as well as threatening GraniteGrok with legal proceedings).  We don’t cotton to that much around here.  As the Knight Templar said in Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail: “He [they] chose poorly”.  Now someone else has made the same decision.  Silly wabbit.

Donkey ButtYes, NH State Rep Joe LaChance who said that this past week to a little ole’ sweet Texan belle friend of our: Susan Olsen.  That would be OUR Susan Olsen as she was challenging him on being the Prime Sponsor (and perhaps, patsy) for the NH Republican cum Democrat Leadership cabal to continue foisting Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion, thinking that his fellow NH citizens are too stupid and will believe “NH taxpayers will never pay for this”.  What a dope – I guess he’s at the lower end of the scale for not realizing that most NH taxpayers are also FEDERAL taxpayers.  By being the Leadership’s scapegoat, thanks for picking my pocket (as well as condemning 10s of thousands of our fellow NH residents to Medicaid because if you fall into  its clutches YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PURCHASE their own insurance; that’s the law.

It’s not like these facts aren’t known – we’ve been blogging about Obamacare for years.  And just for the record, numbnuts, here’s the Supreme Court decision that said that Obamacare Medicaid Expansion is NOT mandatory settled law – that it was deemed to be unconstitutional and coercive to withhold other Federal funds because a State refused to expand their Medicaid Expansion.  Hey, I guess we could hold a class for both you AND NH State Senator Nancy Stiles who didn’t believe me either.

We’ll be HAPPY to give you an education.  Oh, that starts now –  

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“Hospitals and insurers who benefit from the NHHPP have agreed to make voluntary contributions in order that the NHHPP be reauthorized.” – Jeb Bradley

That would be NH State Senator Jeb Bradley (and I wonder what NH State Rep Joe LaChance thinks of this?).  Boy, he’s turning into being the Poster Boy for Crony Capitalism – on the Government side.  Of COURSE they will give “voluntary” contributions.  He certainly can’t call them payoffs for his other bill that essentially made “no compete” areas for these same hospitals – rendering the CON-Board impotent.  So now they can charge what they want.  Steve has the info: Jeb Bradley’s Hospital Monopoly Bill

Jeb Bradley’s Health Care CON board bill is on the State Senate to-do list today. It sounds like your average, run-of-the-mill regulatory business as usual, which is usually bad enough. This particular bit of regulatory “business as usual” is much worse.  It will create health-care fiefdoms around the major players (Hospitals) in the state, dividing the territory like a crime family, and forcing other players to bow to the regulatory gods of Bradley Care or get out.

SB 481 will result in,

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Iowa Caucus as explained by a kid toy

Legos, that is: I dryly note the bias shown – Vermont Public Radio says “How the Iowa Caucuses works” and then goes on to tell how the DEMOCRAT cauci work with just a passing reference to the Republican version.  Yet another example of a Democrat “bait and switch” (heh!) – like during election times, they campaign about … Read more

It really is looking like The Law no longer applies to Federal Employees

VA to reinstate official who stole $130,000 from agency

“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.”  – President Obama, Inauguration (2009)

VASo when you steal and defraud, is that the way our Federal Government is supposed to work?  Certainly Lois Lerner (of IRS targeting of Conservative groups, but also did so while at the FEC) is emblematic of it and Hillary Clinton is starting to become the even bigger poster child of it as her use of a private email server having classified, top secret, and “I have to kill you” level documents on it.  But PLEASE, how bad can this get, especially in the VA that has been accused of allowing those they are supposed to serve die because they simply wanted money (emphasis mine, reformatted)?

A Department of Veterans Affairs official who was demoted after allegedly stealing thousands of taxpayer dollars from the agency was quietly reinstated to her position earlier this week.

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“This is what happens when McDonald’s listens to its customers”

mcdonalds sign - Unions ending jobs inviting technology to replase peopleMickey D’s has been a hurtin’ puppy in the fast food industry for quite some time – its competitors have been eating its lunch (and supper, pun intended).  Sales down, franchisees mad (and broker given the $$ spent on store redoes for a more contemporary look), and the “more healthy” food didn’t make it for them.  So a change was made and imagine that – they actually listened to what customers wanted and SURPRISE!

Customers bought what they said they wanted to eat!

Sure, polls are one thing, sales are another and they don’t always align; this time, they did:

On Monday, McDonald’s said that same-store sales (those open for at least 13 months) increased by 5.7 percent in the last three months of 2015, more than twice what analysts had expected. The hefty jump is the largest the company has reported in almost four years.  For years, adoring fans pleaded with McDonald’s to extend its breakfast menu beyond the current 10:30 a.m. cutoff. For nearly as long, the fast-food behemoth shrugged off the ask,

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Notable Quote – Roger Simon

“The worst thing about Barack Obama’s legacy is not any particular policy or program. You might think, as I do, that Obamacare is a disaster, that his foreign policy has been criminally inept, and on and on. But when Obama stood before his adoring fans in 2008 and promised that he was on the threshold … Read more

“11 Reasons the Sexual Revolution Has Been a Complete, Utter, and Deadly Failure That Have Nothing to do with the Catholic Church”

  1. Women are depressed. Polling shows that with the widespread availability of the contraceptive pill, rather than entering into blissful sunny uplands of consequence-free sex, women are, well, sad, increasingly so.
  1. Young women are even more depressed.
  2. Declining rates of marriage.
  3. Fatherless children. When Daniel Patrick Moynihan first raised alarms about fatherless black children back during the Nixon administration, he was excoriated. The black fatherless rate at that time was roughly 25 percent. It is now more than 70 percent. The white fatherless rate now stands where the black rate used to be. The nearly intractable problems in the black communities are coming to a white suburb near you.
  4. Our immense porn culture.
  5. The objectification of women.

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Data Point – State-Local Tax Burdens by State

State-Local tax burderns by State

We have Democrats, once again, calling for an Income Tax here in NH.  We have Republicans getting ready to pass a huge increase in the size and cost of NH State Government – Medicaid Expansion using Obamacare money (whose percentage of payments by the Feds about to downard trend leaving NH taxpayers on the hook).  The Republicans are creating the reason for the Democrats’ call for that tax (for neither will cut other parts of Government as a trade-off).  I ask you: how well did implementing an income tax in NJ because of high property taxes work out for their overall taxes?

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BlogHeadline of the Day – for any rock ribbed Conservative…

New York Times endorses Kasich in GOP primary Should be exactly this scene from the GodFather: Really NYT; if you think this was going to help persuade the Republican base to vote their famous, they are clueless.  Even though GraniteGrok (and I) have endorsed Ted Cruz, if their decision was to have picked him, I’d be sorely … Read more

Iowa: but there is still a reason they (and we) play the game

Said mostly about sports but still in politics too.  This is just out – the Bloomberg Politics / Des Moines Register poll.  I hadn’t taken much notice of this in previous races but I am seeing, not that this “breaking news” is out, it is rather spot on the majority of the time.  Sure, it … Read more

Notable Quote – Larry White

Government grows as its beneficiaries find ways to outmaneuver the interests of the taxpayers. -Larry White ( The Clash of Economic Ideas) (H/T: Cafe Hayek) It’s always “The Bigger the Government, the smaller the citizens”  

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