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.

Notable Quote – Professor Don Boudreaux

Richard Ammerman, a registered nurse in Rhode Island, challenges me by e-mail to answer “yes or no” to the question: Do I care about income inequality? No. I do not in the least care about income (or wealth) inequality. I suspect that some of my bleeding-heart-libertarian friends will berate me for being insensitive, so it … Read more

Pretty much how I feel today

And yesterday….hopefully not tomorrow.  Yes, the gifts that grandkids “share” with you – colds… (H/T: The Chive)

Data Point – Growth of the NRA

“Keene then exulted in the fact that despite incredible money from leftists and a mainstream media that opposes gun rights, that nonetheless over 58,000 Americans joined the NRA in one day after Obama gave his initial gun-control speech. Amazingly, the NRA’s membership has grown by roughly one million—an astounding 25% increase—since the middle of last … Read more

Carol Shea-Porter: too bright to be that stupid to get it wrong on background checks; so what is it?

WMUROn WMUR Channel 9’s Closeup this morning, Congressman Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH CD-1) decided that she was going to talk about gun control  at gun shows and certainly made it clear that NO background checks happen at gun shows.  Well, she may not be the brightest bulb in the lot, but she’s not the dimmest (damning with faint praise: that would go to Congressman Hank “Guam might tip over” Johnson before CSP could rise to take the prize), but one of these is true:

  • Maybe I HAVE judged her brightness wrongly?
  • Perhaps she is subject to that line “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt”
  • She is lying (employing the Saul Alinsky principle that “In the beginning the organizer’s first job is to create the issues or problems”?)

So, what is wrong?  And where is she lying?

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And you think that the MSM is fair and balanced about gun control? Bah! Cokie Roberts shoots that down.

On This Week with George Stephanopolous, the round table turned to gun control and politics.  Mary Matilan, a long term Republican political operative and strategists, said that she had just done something because of how the Progressives have poisoned the debate on guns.  While she is explaining, listen for the word “Good!”.  Yeah, listen to the nervous laughter over the attempt to cover up this “national TV gaffe”.

Cat out of the bag.

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But there was a Republican Sheriff there!

WMURFrom this week’s Political Scoop:

This is not to excuse some of the national types. They story was there in the audience. Ayotte’s team was able to pack the audience the same way gun control groups artificially packed the audience. But Team Ayotte wasn’t doing any effective blocking and tackling either. Just one example: with all the Republican sheriffs who backed Ayotte in 2010, no one was put out there to defend Ayotte?

Well, for starters, James Pindell, there was at least one “Republican” Sheriff at one of Kelly’s town halls: Craig Wiggin of Belknap County at the Tilton event. Two friends of mine was there and relayed these takes on how “supportive” the Sheriff was:

We were told at the door by a police officer that no signs were allowed in the auditorium. We complied and played by the rules. However, the left wing radicals were allowed to display two signs while in the auditorium, one disparaging Ayotte and the other a pro-gun control slogan and nothing was done about it. These signs were not far from Ayotte where the media could film and exploit them for their usual purposes. Jeb Bradley who moderated this said nothing while the media cameras kept rolling.

So, who actually made a stink about following the rules and trying to knock this down for Kelly?  Well, the other friend made it clear that it was neither Jeb Bradley or Sheriff Wiggin:

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Competency counts

Exhibit A.  Barack Obama.  My, he looks so uncomfortable “skeet” shooting (one of those photo-ops trying to show him trying to “be one of the guys”). Then there is a guy who actually knows how to shoot a long gun; of course, it’s the guy from Texas: It was unfortunate how his run for President … Read more

Christian? It’s a private thing. Gay? Tell the whole world! What’s that say about our culture?

Tebow vs CollinsIs the culture, led by the MSM and other cultural “elites”, anti-Christian?  Seems to be, when one reviews how denigrated Tebow has become these last couple of years – simply for being a man of faith, giving credit to a higher power than himself, professing a traditional sense of faith, and sticking to set of morals that, at best, is considered “prudish”.  With all that, we have seen how intolerant the tolerant Left truly has become to traditional mores.  Expressing them publicly gets you knocked down – by those, perhaps, that realize that they do not measure up (either can’t or decide to go “the low road”)?  No, I don’t mean to be “holier than thou” – I do wish to point out that those holding to values other than what is in the current popular culture are always in for a hard time.  Winning two national championships and the Heisman should a concentration on what he has accomplished in his field. Instead, he has been skewered for his faith.

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Why 10 rounds is not enough

I’ve been shooting for a couple of years now and while I can “game out”a situation like this, I do not know, can’t know, what my reactions really would be.  Would 10 rounds be enough?  Certainly for one intruder, I hope.  Two?  Didn’t work out for that Dad – or his family.  And if Reid … Read more

Carlee87, these polls are for you!

And they don’t exactly help your supposition, do they? Quinnipiac:   NYT / CBS:     Steve’s post (“Did NH Democrats Encourage Erica Lafferty to Crash Kelly Ayotte’s NH Town Hall?“) has a fair number of comments and we acquired a new one calling herself Carlee87.  She keeps insisting that we are all wrong about … Read more

Reid: “Government is inherently good”. SSA goes after son after they overpay Mom (who is deceased).

Really?  Let’s put aside the continual slur laid upon the TEA Party by Reid as he continues to assault anyone or any group that poses a threat to limit the growth of Government (for if it is good, then more MUST be better, right)?  Problem is, how’s these apples, Harry?   This, is good governance?  That an agency as large as the Social Security Agency can take someone’s tax refund willy-nilly after deciding that person needs to pay for SSA’s mistake to another (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Imagine if your parent received an over-payment from the government but decades later, the government took the money out of your tax return.   Gilbert Stokes, 60, of Jacksonville, said it happened to him.   “I’m angry,” Stokes said Wednesday morning.  Stokes felt the same way when he received a letter from the Social Security Administration in January.   “[The letter] said [SSA] was going to withhold my taxes unless I contacted about this social security over-payment,” Stokes explained.

Forty-two years ago in 1971, Stokes’ mother Ruby Lee received an over-payment of $895 while he was in the Navy.

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Where Treehugger doesn’t add the 1 + 1

cost-of-solar-power-graph-1980-2012(H/T: Treehugger) As most readers know, I used to go over Treehugger a lot and bring back “stuff” as a Doodling – rather easy when they have a big slant for Progressivism, Urbanism, and UberEnvironmentalism all wrapped up into a single package.  However, since they’ve been purging of the likes of ‘Grok commenters Cris P Bacon and C. Dog, it’s been rather barren over there (and they got sold, so there’s a “bit” of a different focus there).  However, I did venture over and saw the graph – they’re all going ga-ga over this as they all seemingly hate any kind of energy source, it seems, that has anything to do with it coming from beneath dirt or water levels.  “Soon!” they believe, “we’ll be free of hurting Mommy GAIA with our noxious need of hydrocarbons”.

They’re believing that all of this taxpayer funding of solar and alternative energy start-ups has been the primary driver of the lessening cost to PV panels.  Well, in a way they are correct, but from my layman’s eyes, probably not the way they think.  I’ve seen this play before, and I think this has more to do with it than not:

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GrokTALK! – the downloadable podcast!

Well, I got a quick email from a loyal reader / listener with a complaint: Hey Skip, Ummm, I see embedded player and that is cool but where would a person go to download an mp3 to stick in a portable player? I’m not parking myself in front of the ‘puter for 2 hours 🙂 … Read more

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