Skip

Jim Geraghty over at the Campaign Spot has a great observation:

Perhaps the most galling line in last night’s speech:

I know some of the critics of this action call it amnesty. Well, it’s not. Amnesty is the immigration system we have today — millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules.

Yes, but before last night, they feared deportation. Which is the opposite of an amnesty!

And now, with Obama’s edict, they don’t have to worry about deportations AT ALL.  For all of the bluff of “heightened deportations”,

Read more

The one thing about Progressives and Big Government types – they can’t seem to want to let go of 19th century technology – trains.  They get all goose-bumply every time it seems to come up and provide yet another opportunity to spend other peoples’ money to advance their fascination to relegate the many for paying for the few “privileged”.  Oh sure, they have lots of excuses and obfuscations – they’ll wax eloquently about “working while riding”, Green transportation, evil cars, emissions, economy, and oh yeah, the economy.

Always the economic benefit but none of them can refute one Important Fact – NONE of them wants to pay full boat themselves for the cost of it – and how can it stimulate the economy when it can’t even pay for its own existence??  In today’s UL is an article talking about the options that are making these old fashioned tech fanboys and girls – and it summarizes it well be asking “Who REALLY pays?” (reformatted, emphasis mine):

The Manchester Regional option calls for $246 million in total capital costs, with half that coming from federal grants and another $51 million coming from the value of MTBA supplying the trains and track rights. Calculations show about $7 million beyond ticket and advertising revenues would be needed annually to pay the debt service and the remaining operating costs.  By comparison, the Nashua Minimum scenario would cost $120 million in capital costs or $39 million after federal and MBTA contributions. That would leave a $4 million yearly gap to bridge.  The Concord Intercity option would cost $256 million, or $128 million after federal funds. The Concord option would not get any MBTA contributions, so $15 million a year would be needed beyond ticket and advertising revenue.

Put another way, that annual cost that still would need to be funded breaks down to $10 per estimated rider per one-way trip under the Manchester option, $22 for the Nashua alternative and $61 for the Concord option, according to the study.

Get that? 

Read more

And you wonder why Congress might be dysfunctional?  “Do the Right Thing” – that was ingrained in me when I was a Sr Consultant at DEC working with our customers, their customers, and all the internal departments within DEC.  Is that the problem with our Federal Government – that their definition of “Do the Right Thing” is dysfunctional?  This from Betsy’s Page caught my eye that started on a run by Senator Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) absence at committee (emphasis mine):

Defenders will say that legislators typically miss committee hearings. Perhaps that is evidence that Congress is doing too much missable stuff. I do an activity with my students when we cover the Congress unit and give them an excerpt that David Price, a Democratic representative from our area of North Carolina wrote. He includes a schedule from a typical day in his life as a congressman. The students soon notice that he has overlapping meetings all day long. He meets with constituents and interest groups, pops in at several committee meetings and then goes to several fundraisers in the evening. He’s busy from early in the morning until late in the evening. Then I ask the class what he does not have on his schedule. Someone will finally notice that there is no time on his daily schedule for him to read bills, do research, or have a briefing on a policy. If this is what they’re doing all day long, how do they have time to understand the policies they’re voting on? They have to just vote the way their party leadership or interest groups or aides advise them to.

And then she asks the most important question:

Read more

Barring any Doug Scamman type hijinks in two weeks (Organization Day for the NH House when the full House votes on the Speakership), Bill O’Brien will be this session’s Speaker (having won the majority Republican nomination race).  As with the rest of the Groksters, I congratulate Bill!

NOW it is Happy Feet dance time and for one short night, I can gloat that this election has turned out well enough – not just here in NH but for more Conservatism across the nation.  Here in NH, the Progressives (the “All Hail Power To The State” kneelers) have had the Senate, Executive Council,  and the House torn from them; under the rubric of “screw DC, save NH” this has worked out ok so far (and leaving the only major office held by the Dems, Guv, neutered to a large degree).  To be sure, not as Conservative as we are here at the ‘Grok, but it works and in addition on a country-wide basis, you have a lot of Ray Buckley whine-alikes wailing about those nasty extremists….

…who the voters decided, this time, that their new BFFs were those “extremists”.  Thus, actually making the Dems the ugly extremists (having taken almost complete power away right now).  Operative phrase: right now.  NH is getting a history of

Read more

The Senate just voted on the Keystone XL pipeline (aka, “Mary’s Hail Mary to save Mary Landrieu’s Senate Seat” – from the dude who WROTE the Hail Mary that is about to take her seat and contrary to her vote total (“I’ve got the 60 votes!”), it went down to defeat 59-41.  Her leadership (that would be Dingy Harry Reid and Dick Durbin) also voted against her – after allowing this to come up for a vote.  Nice, just nice.

But I am confused – I thought that to be a REAL woman, especially on the Democrat side, woman have to stick together, support each other?  That already makes Carol Shea-Porter a turncoat to wymens’ issues everywhere like Steve pointed out – does that mean she voted like a man?  But that’s not the only thing Steve brought up:

All of the Above, across the aisle, “New Hampshire First” Senator Jeanne Shaheen will have an opportunity to vote on this bill Tuesday.

Can guess what her DNC Narrative Homunculus will tell her to do?

For ALL of her talk of reaching across the aisle,

Read more

That from the meme of “Consistency breeds Trust yields Votes”, and yes, NH House Representatives, we at GraniteGrok are unanimous in endorsing Bill O’Brien once again for the most powerful political position in New Hampshire.  Beyond “deserving” it (a hackneyed worn our phrase in this Entitlement Age), he has earned it.  While we have a few nits to pick with Bill (no one is perfect), they are far overshadowed by his results.  Results for New Hampshire that are in line with traditional New Hampshire results – and rolling back those foreign based Progressive ones.

Read more

“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 Barack Obama, Inauguration, 1/20/09

20,000 FEMA Katrina projects in limbo years later; feds can’t verify work done

More than nine years after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, billions of tax dollars in recovery funds remain in limbo because the vast majority of federally backed projects in New Orleans have yet to be properly documented.  It is the job of the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, which has administered $14.5 billion in recovery grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency since 2005, to document that the projects were completed according to federal regulations and that there are no outstanding funding issues.

Read more

Last question that the GraniteGrok Editorial Board had for NH State Rep and Candidate for the NH Speaker of the House seat, Bill O’Brien, and it was what most folks would ask first.  However, we wanted to find out, as we said before, not only his stances but WHY he holds those stances on issues that Convervatives are both interested in and concerned about?  Certainly we had a view of former Speaker O’Brien from his time as NH Speaker two cycles ago – and we know what the results were in practical policy and financial aspects and THOSE are what matter (as opposed to mere “intent” common to much action ascribed to more Moderate or Liberal proscription into which we, the electorate, as herded into.

Question 18:

Top 3 Priorities if you are elected Speaker?

Previous Questions:

Read more