Skip, Author at Granite Grok

NoBrown / Second Amendment Rally: Micro-Interviews with GONH members Dennis and Steve

September 26, 2018May 22, 2014 Skip

After the GONH (Gun Owners of NH) meeting with Scott Brown had finished (or, as some did, just got up and left – which also “concluded” the meeting), some of the member / attendees strolled over across the street. I was introduced to Dennis (for the first time) and he explained that he wanted to … Read more

Moms Demand Action forced Jack In The Box to be a gun-free zone.

September 26, 2018May 20, 2014 Skip

The wholly owned creature of former NYC Mayor Bloomberg, Moms Demand Action, is an organization whose intent is to rid guns from lawful Americans by any means possible. One of their “victories” of creating yet another gun free zone, Jack In The Box restaurants, has kind of backfired on them. In fact, we can blame them entirely for creating another gun-free-zone victim! First they rejoiced:

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America is thanking Jack in the Box for its statement out today that it will begin enforcing the company’s no-firearms-in-stores policy. The company’s statement comes in response to a social media campaign and national petition launched just over 24 hours ago by Moms Demand Action to ask Jack in the Box to enforce its policy after last week’s semi-automatic rifle carrying demonstration at a Fort Worth Jack in the Box store that terrified employees so much that they locked themselves in the freezer, according to local police. The petition launched just yesterday has already received more than 5,000 signatures and social media hashtag #JackedUp in popular use.

A statement out today from Jack in the Box’s Vice President of Corporate Communications Brian Luscomb makes it clear the company is responding to pressure and acting on behalf of its corporate and franchise stores: “The presence of guns inside a restaurant could create an uncomfortable situation for our guests and employees and lead to unintended consequences.” According to Luscomb, copies of the company’s entire statement will be available in restaurants for employees to hand out to guests.

And then reality barged into their narrative:

Yesterday, a shooting occurred at the Jack in the Box restaurant at 1504 Hampton Street in Nashville, TN. Yes, you read this correctly. Jack in the Box! The same Jack in the Box that caved to pressure from Moms Demand Action asking them to ban guns less than 1 week ago!

Read more

Kevin Landrigan has got his “unbiased” panties in a bunch again

September 26, 2018May 20, 2014 Skip

Really, can a single man, a town-level elected official, ruin an entire State’s reputation? Or was this an excuse to list a bunch of Republican politicians again (with a single Democrat to be “fair and balanced”?). Once again, star and ace political reporter, Kevin Landrigan goes uber-Collectivist in damning a whole state of 1.3 million people for the actions of a Senior Citizen (emphasis mine, reformatted):

Analysis: Wolfeboro official’s racist slur about Obama threatens state’s reputation

A Wolfeboro police commissioner’s use of a racial slur against President Barack Obama attracted nationwide attention, and the state’s political leaders joined local residents in calling for his resignation. But that doesn’t mean Robert Copeland, 82, will step down willingly. The longer he lingers, the more harm will be done to New Hampshire’s reputation as a family-friendly, politically savvy, well-educated state, an expert said. “The problem with this kind of controversy is that once it becomes viral, it threatens to stick as a toxic narrative about what life is like where this man comes from whether it’s accurate or not,” said Dean Spiliotes, civics professor at Southern New Hampshire University and author of the blog nhpoliticalcapital.com.

Actually, at the time he wrote that, Copeland was not resigning. Tonite, we know he has. And I think that Spiliotes is off base as well. Certainly Wolfeboro newbie Janet O’Toole took the opportunity to get her name out there (I wanted to find out where she traveled in from and such, but there were just pages and pages of the same story in Google and I didn’t bother to further bore myself) but that wasn’t the purpose of the hit piece.

NH GOP Annual Meeting – a couple of livestream interviews

September 26, 2018May 20, 2014 Skip

I have been kinda swamped the last few weeks and I’ve been late on getting videos up. In addition to recording all of the speeches, we had our livestreaming kit set up in the foyer hall to do some ad hoc interviews. With all of the cellphones in use, even with Mike’s super-duper MiFi and … Read more

Workforce Housing – Bob Ward: “YOU HAVE YOUR FUTURES! YOU HAVE YOUR AGENDA 21s!!!”

September 26, 2018May 20, 2014 Skip

That would be Bob Ward, the SanborntonTown Planner screaming those words at NH State Rep Jane Cormier when the Planning Board held an “information session” on May 1st on six amendments that wound themselves making more of the town open for workforce housing. It was obvious that actually educating folks as to what was really below the surface Granite State Future / Sustainable Communities Initiative was really getting under his (and the other “urbanizers of NH” skin; the jig is up as the word is getting out. As I said in the post, it was clear that there was an Agenda (that was just for you, Bob) that the board wanted these to pass and seemed to be rather annoyed that the townfolk assembled were not all that enthused. And, as the post relates, all of the amendments that changes boundaries, changed terminologies, and changed the nuances went down for flaming defeats.

Perhaps this next meeting (without Bob Ward, the town lawyer and a few others) had a bit to do with it: Jane Cormier and Susan Olsen went back to talk about some of the items that the Board conveniently left out of their “information session” (as Mom always told me, there’s lying by commission and lying by omission). Yes, some of these segments go for a while (the meeting went two hours plus) but are VERY much worth your time – especially in the reactions, the questions, and discussions of the residents that showed up. I am betting that no small amount of Trust evaporated that night.

Introduction to the paperwork, players, and their roles in why and how the Feds want to change your zoning laws & the Regional Planning Commissions’ legislative goals

If rape is so endemic on college campuses, why is something missing?

September 26, 2018May 20, 2014 Skip

NH, for its size, has a lot of colleges. Certainly UNH and Dartmouth get a lot of attention but there are a bunch of colleges dotting the NH landscape. I keep reading about the “rape epidemic” at our college campuses but I keep wondering: “If the stat is that 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted, where are all the watchdog reports on it??”. Yes, tongue in my own cheek here – but where ARE all of the media reports (newspapers, TV, radio, blogs, social media) reporting them all. C’mon, with college students making up an inordinate percentage of NH’s population, it should be “a standing head” (headline) that we see all the time – FAR more than what we do.

Well, it seems that “the truth” seems to be different than “conventional wisdom” as portrayed by some that would have us believe otherwise:

Look, there are going to be those that will scream at me “how DARE you!” for even bringing it up. Public policy cannot be done (GOOD public policy, that is, which should be what all of us that are not pursuing an ideological dogma should be about) just on the back of a few anecdotes. Violent crimes have been falling for years now and this FBI stat shows that rape is no different.