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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.

Another Presidential candidate calls a halt to the race – Herman Cain

After several weeks of dealing with allegations of improprieties and a media hell-bent on chasing him out of the race, Herman Cain decided to suspend his campaign to be the next Republican nominee for President.  Unlike John McCain when he suspended his during the fiscal crisis to go to DC, went back to Senate deliberations, … Read more

2012 Presidential Primary banter – Buddy Roemer

Heh! On Huntsman‘s lack of ’guts’: I got a word for Jon Huntsman: do something! Quit bitching and lead. You got a Super-Pac. The only way you can win is get a billion dollars from your daddy? Grow up! He‘s a decent guy but he doesn’t have the guts to stand with me. Let me … Read more

A fine example of Governmental expertise!

Certainly in the blogosphere, many bits and pixels have given up their virtual lives in the discussion of the Occupy “We are the 99%” vs the eveeeel “1%” capitalists who force Government to participate in crony capitalism.  Yet, the real 99% should be viewed as Society at large while the 1% are the Government workers (actually, the percentage is much higher, but go with me here).  The Leftists / Statists are all up in arms about the eveeeel capitalistic 1% with a vengence but go ahead, ask them about the “Governmental 1%”.

The Statists are still all about redistribution, but with a twist.  With the #OWS crowd, they want the redistribution flowing from the 1% to the 99%.  On the other hand with the “Governmental 1%”, they demand that the redistribution flow from the 99% to the 1%.  Cognitive dissonance or intellectual dishonesty? Yet, study after study has shown that when all issues are factored in, the Public Sector is oft compensated far higher than the equivalent job in the Private Sector.

One of the reasons that they do the puffery on is “Government workers are more educated and have more experience than Private sector workers”.  Hmmm, well, let’s see what you think when you review Exhibit A”:

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“We don’t want to have to spend this much energy and attention to your job.”

The above quote is from a post over at The Corner of NJ Governor Chris Christie.  Very much in line with what Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has said:

“My goal is to make Washington as inconsequential to your daily life as possible.

People DON’T want to think about politics all the time.  For most people, it is a waste of time as they deal with their jobs, their spouses.  They have reality based lives to lead, actual families to take care of, jobs to perform in.  Hobbies, past times, and causes other than politics to care about and in which to get involved.

Problem is, Progressives are convinced that it IS their job to hijack (word specifically chosen) Government so as to then be able to “shape” our lives so that “we will be better”.

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Welcome to GraniteGrok 2.0!

We opened the doors on GraniteGrok five years ago now – right near the “end of the beginning” part of time when the blogosphere really started to take off in popularity.  At the time, when Doug and I agreed to start the site, I looked around for the most scalable and flexible platform I could and settled on Moveable Type 3.35.  We customized it, learned some of its ins and outs, and it stood us in good stead for its time and its design capabilities.

Well, during the last year, it became clear that its shortcomings were becoming too long in the tooth to ignore.  With almost 10,000 posts the Search had started to crawl, the back-end area in which we write our posts and do normal SysAdmin stuff was really behind the times; it was almost impossible to to keep up with “the latest and greatest” in social media….you get the picture.  I will tell you, though, letting go of the old site was hard to do (given all the work I did over the years on it), but the other Groksters convinced me (er, near to a mutiny???) it was time.  So we started in.

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Live blogging – Herman Cain’s event in Manchester

Well, I got here what I thought was very early as I had been told that the “Volunteers” part of the evening was to be around 7:30pm. So, I arrived about 6:20 – and all of the street parking was already taken. Three satellite trucks (Channel 9 from NH, NECN for New England, and MyFox out of Boston) had already set up camp and running cabling. While the campaign office was pretty empty when I first arrived, it is since (as at 7:30pm or so), it has pretty much filled up with almost as many volunteer as media (a camera is trained on me as I type as they are getting B-roll).

The volunteers, for the most part, are rather angry – not at Herman but what seems to be the media and the “dirty tricks” that seem to go along with every major campaign. One lady came down from Augusta, ME to be here to show support – her mood was as red as her jacket. Another, a teacher, was also here in support not happy with the current events.

MSM sharks – the “press avail” (or should that be “shark tank”) with Channel 9 WMUR’s Amy Coveno

Tonite was a great “teachable moment” in how the MSM can make anyone appear in a bad light – all it takes is an uppity attitude, a whiny voice, a TV camera, and a pre-determined narrative.

I made it downstairs it to the press availability (already in progress) after the event – it was CLEAR that the press had an agenda and they were pursuing it like sharks attracted by chum in the water. All of the reporters there were yelling to get their questions answered – decorum?  What’s that? – and they were all of a single mind with the narrative of “when are you going to quit?!?!?!?!?!”  and they all seemed to be flummoxed that he hadn’t already quit already.

All I could think of was “Gee, mainstream press, how come the ONLY one of you lot that pursued the John Edwards story with equal vigor was…the National Enquirer?”  Remember, that story turned out to be true, actually turned out to be great gumshoeing and reporting, and the MSM elite elite denied them a Pulitzer Prize because of they were a “grocery store tabloid”.

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Data Point – Income of “the 99%”

For all of the hootin’ an’ hollerin’ and “mic check!” of the the Occupiers, we see that incomes of “the 99%” has actually been going up despite what they have been saying: (H/T: The Enterprise Blog)

A note on the Herman Cain news

Well, we all know what the latest Prez Primary news is – another allegation concerning Herman Cain.  Yes, GraniteGrok endorsed Mr. Cain (before all these allegations started).  Knowing that, someone asked me, last nite, what I thought about them; my response (edited to add additional thoughts):

Boy, SOMEbody wanted him out of the race BADLY.  And I think with this, they may have succeeded with the last nail whether or not the allegation is true or not.  Even if this is politics, our system is to presume innocence before guilt.  Yet, we all know that perception is reality in this sphere.

You know, I was going to post some thoughts on this post as I agreed with it: 

On Sunday evening, October 30, Politico broke the story that two women had complained about Herman Cain while at the National Restaurant Association.  In that first week, Politico ran several dozen stories about the accusations without telling us what the accusations were, while characterizing the accusations as sexual harassment.

During the subsequent three weeks, the name of one of the accusers in the Politico story, Karen Kraushaar, was released, but she has refused to release details of the accusations she made, despite initially indicating she would do so, and it turns out this was not her only employment complaint.  Another accuser with a dubious background, Sharon Bialek, came forward, but she was not part of the original Politico story and her supposed corroboration also was suspect.

While the media regularly referred to 4 or 5 accusers, we only knew the names of two of them and only knew the accusations of one of them.

But back to Politico.

After hundreds of articles at Politico, what do we know about the specific accusations against Herman Cain which gave rise to Politico’s original reporting:  Nothing.

After hundreds of articles at Politico, what do we know about the specific evidence against Herman Cain which gave rise to Politico’s original reporting:  Nothing.

Truly incredible.

But this newest story continues the dreaded drip.

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Say it ain’t so….Joe??

“I am asking independent-minded voters to imagine what we could accomplish with this ticket,” Roemer wrote. “Americans are justifiably frustrated with their politicians and parties. Joe and I could change that. To me, it’s a dream team.” ” target=”_blank”>No, Governor Buddy, thinking that Joe Lieberman as Veep would add to your appeal, at least during … Read more

Where David Frum threatens to leave the Republican Party

My response to his threat of "Romney, Huntsman, or bust"? Thank you, and that whole swinging door and butt schtick Frum is a talking head ensconced well within the GOP Beltway mentality.  Just the fact that his number one guy (seemingly) for the Republican Prez candidate is the same pick (also seemingly) that the mainstream … Read more

The Obligatory “Hey, Barney Frank will soon be gone!” post

I first saw the news at Hot Air ("Exit stage left"): Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) will announce later today that he will not run for re-election. So, we see yet another example of a politician not being held accountable for what he (or she) has wrought.  Bahnee Fwank will take his decades of service (and … Read more

“Eurocrats, however, have insisted on taking Italy and Greece’s problems and making them everyone else’s”

The post from where the above came from is about the European Euro mess – first Greece, now Portugal and Italy are on the brink (with Ireland having already taken its fiscal medicine).  In all cases, the pols there did what the Dems (and Repubs to a bit lesser degree) have done for decades – used other peoples money to achieve fame, notoriety, and votes. 

Thanks to the "Euro Union" where the currency is one but the political (and fiscal) outlooks are multiples, Germany’s taxpayers have already shelled out billions of euros to rescue the idea of the euro being a uniter (the Greeks merely being the stage on which the Eurocrats are pontificating "we are one – we MUST stay as one or bad things will happen" even as that ‘bad thing’ is already in process).  But I digress.  Look at that line again:

Eurocrats, however, have insisted on taking Italy and Greece’s problems and making them everyone else’s

The thought that immediately ran through my mind was "But doesn’t the Left ALWAYS do that – gather the lemmings together?"

Not every problem has a solution (even though the Left believes there is – or at least, the Political Class does; at a minimum, the Political Class or thinks it has to "do something" about a problem).  Neither does every problem needs everyone’s attention.  Let me pile on – not every problem requires we to be in "all for one mode".

WHY does the Left believe that every problem (for when there really is a problem) can only be solved with everyone’s action?  Why does the Left believe that making a probelm everyone elses problem will actually involve / get everyone active about it?

The second thought was:

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Notable Quote – Donald Boudreaux

Like too many western aid experts, Samuel Loewenberg misses the fundamental reason famines still ravage developing countries (“The Famine Next Time,” Nov. 27).The reason isn’t drought.  Yuma, Arizona, gets vanishingly little rainfall, yet denizens of that city aren’t ever threatened with starvation. Nor is the reason a lack of Well-Researched Plans designed and implemented by … Read more

A Classic! Sowell & Friedman vs Francis Fox Piven

I had never seen this clip before, so this was fun to watch.  Coming from free market economist Milton Freidman’s PBS Free to Choose series, this featured one of my favorite political pundit / economist, Dr. Thomas Sowell who argues the points as a conservative black commentator when white socialist Dr. Francis Fox Piven (she of the "collapse the system" theory that nearly bankrupted the City of New York) decided to espouse that the black civil rights movement was about equal outcomes.

She fares not well at all:

In this clip from the 1980 Free To Choose, socialist Frances Fox Piven tangles with Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. Sowell, in particular, is incisive with his discussion of "process" versus aspiration — concluding that whatever the purported social goals, liberty suffers.

Sowell is right; just as the TEA Party, Conservatives, and Libertarians lament that Big Government under Obama is on a tear to pick economic winners and losers, the Democrat use of Identity Politics actions is also used to pick political winners and losers.

In both cases, Sowell rightly points out, as in the economic sphere, when Government tries to "give" something to one set of people, it must necessarily take something away from others in the area of results, with the result in the diminution of Freedom from the "donor" group in some fashion.  Progressives have no problem with this problem – they are blinded to the ‘side effects’ or collateral damage sustained by others that are not the focus of the direct actions.

Or, as in a practical example using the current Occupy Wall Street movement (versus the 1980s topic of affirmative action), while the "open" desired result is the "re-empowerment" of the 99%, the tearing down of the 1% is the actual aim at the second layer, with the ultimate destruction of capitalism at the next deeper layer.  In this example, the economic freedom to choose and act of the 1% would be curtailed for the freedom of the 99% (a badly worded sentence, but given the lack of conciseness of what the OWSers want, who knows?).  The problem, which OWSers confirm, is that they cannot distinguish which of the 1% have legitimately earned their wealth vs those that have used crony capitalism to illegitimately taken their wealth. 

So, in the grand tradition of Democrats, Socialists, and Communists,…

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What can we learn from the European financial crisis?

Another video from the Center for Freedom & Prosperity Foundation Economics 101 series that talks about why Big Government is less than optimal: Higher taxes do not lower deficits Just say NO to a VAT Big Govt cripples human capital Tipping point: when moochers outnumber the producers (wagon riders vs wagon pullers)  

Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman speaking from the past to the Occupy Wall Street of now

Freedom and Liberty – that’s why we write here at GraniteGrok.  The radical concepts that the individual was sovereign, that our Rights that stem from natural law and from God to each and every person, was the gift given to us from the intellectual firepower of the Framers of the Declaration and Constitution, and the actual firepower used against what was the most powerful nation in the world at the time.

Yet, since the Progressive era starting in the late 1800’s, those concepts have been under attack – that Security and Stability should be the guiding foundations of society, with non-partisan technocrats providing the expertise to bring us to political utopia.  And without the State to "guide" us, we can never obtain that "Heaven on Earth" of equal outcomes and being the best that they know we can be.

Milton Friedman, a Nobel winning economist, knew well that a free people making their own decisions based on their own self-interest (and for that of their families) and a free market (with voluntary transactions that tell the market which direction to take, based on the combined decisions of those freely made purchases and sales) could do more to achieve that than the top-down command structure that purports to "be for the 99%".  From Carpe Diem (via Cafe Hayek), these three videos speak volumes:

Redistribution of Wealth:

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Thanksgiving – Wherein US Senator Jeanne Shaheen joins in the perfidy of the New York Times regarding Freedom of Religion

Maybe, somebody ought to read this to our US Senator, Jeanne Shaheen, as she seems to has misplaced its importance:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That would be the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for the clueless (or graduates of the Government school system); from the US Constitution, by the way, and not the Human Secularist one.   Why is this important, and why should Sen. Shaheen at least be embarrassed?

On a day that historically that has been reserved for the Nation to give thanks to God by President Lincoln for His bounty, a bedrock idea of this county, the New York Times (the Bible of Liberalism according to its editor, Jill Abramson, who said "In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion…" ) sees fit to further the process of denying those of faith their Freedom ensconced in the  Constitution simply because it is in the tank for Obamacare.

And US Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) goes along for their disingenuous  ride as the NYT continues to prop up Obamacare, tosses the importance of religious tenets of faith minded people over away in washing religion from the public square, and continuing their "precedence march" of State’s importance over citizens in determining what is ethical:

The Battle Over Birth Control

In August, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, announced new rules that included contraceptives for women in the package of preventive health care services that all insurers must cover without a deductible or co-payment beginning next year.
Related

The policy follows the recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. It will help drive down the rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion by making birth control more accessible.

It was distressing but came as no surprise that the new rules prompted protests from Roman Catholic bishops and other church leaders. What is surprising, and even more distressing, is that the White House is considering caving to their call for an expansive exemption that would cover employees of hospitals, universities, charitable organizations and other entities that are associated with religious organizations but serve the general public and benefit from public money.

What they don’t go into detail (knowing it destroys their narrative) is that in proclaiming "for the public good" is in direct opposition to the freedom to religious belief.  What is it when one is forced to believe something that otherwise they would not voluntarily by the State?

Yes, Tyranny.  Not any surprise, that’s what Big Government brings ("The Bigger the Government, the smaller the citizen"):

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