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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.

This just made my head hurt – Illinois politics

Illinois – the State where famed Chicagoland politics is a corruption personified.  And not for nothing is a story of "somebody who somebody sent" with three players in playing musical political chair.  Yes, singular – chair: Someone who escaped Someone who slipped the handcuffs by refusing to sit Clueless The sordid tale of how the … Read more

I suppose this will be an annual post…

…at a minimum.  Last year at this time, I wrote "Not mine to Give" which included:

  • One general reason is the socialistic nature of Progressives (think mostly Democrats, but can be Republicans too – those that believe that only Big Government can make the right decisions for us all).
  • Lastly, another is that too many folks are too lazy or unwilling to live up to their own responsibilities – easier to outsource the fulfillment of a need to others (both the service and the cost). 

What was it about this year?  Once again, coerced charity at the end of last year’s Budget Season as "outside agencies" (think charities looking for property tax monies from towns) want the Budget Committee stamp of approval.  This year, same thing. Tonite was the Town budget Public Hearing on what the Budget Committee would be presenting at the Deliberative Session.

Sidebar: the P.H. is where the BudComm sits and does nothing but  listen to what people think we have done with the Budget (There is no discussion from us – ONLY listening).  Afterward, we may change our budget (or not), based on their input.

Deliberative Session: when the Townfolk actually debate the budget line items and vote to either add to or delete from them.  The final resulting budget is the one that is actually secret ballot voted upon by all the voters.

Well, I thought it was going to be like this past Tuesday for the School Budget – no one spoke up so we all went home (nothing controversial).  It ALMOST happened again tonite except one of the "outside agencies" came begging for us to change our recommendation for her group (which was "Not Recommended").

She did her spiel, lamenting that cuts in Medicaid had devastated their budget.  We listened and with no one else speaking, the Public Hearing was over.  However, since there was input, we had to have meet afterward to see if we wished to alter our budget based on this input.

And that’s when it got a bit interesting.

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Press Release: Jack Kimball announces Co-Chairs of his Finance Committee: Jim Bender and Bill Binnie

Press Release Jack Kimball Announces Finance Committee Chairmen Jim Bender and Bill Binnie to Co-Chair the State Finance Committee Portsmouth, NH -January 12, 2010:  Jack Kimball Announces Finance Committee Chairmen Jack Kimball, candidate for Republican Party Chairman in New Hampshire, is proud to announce that former Senate candidates Jim Bender and Bill Binnie have agree … Read more

Budget Committee season comes to a close – tonite

One more official night for the Budget season….Public Hearing on the School Board budget was Tuesday and the Town Budget one is tonight.  Then my elected responsibility is done for the year.  At the last regular meeting, I sorta tied things up for a bunch of people who might have thought it was going to … Read more

Facebook Doodlings – an example of the “tyranny of the minority?

I had put this out on Facebook a bit ago: Anyone else notice that the Letters to the Editor in your local papers are from Libs saying "NH Republican Legislators should not touch <name an issue the Dems passed latelly> because THAT has already been settled. Parental Notification, Gay Marriage – why was it fine … Read more

Abhorrent? Really? You really want to know what is abhorrent?

From the Concord Monitor: A few days after the New Hampshire Legislature, led by the newly-elected Republican majority, decided in its wisdom to allow guns into our State House, a U.S. congresswoman and her supporters are gunned down by a clearly deranged person who had much too easy access to guns. I do not share … Read more

Hey, it isn’t costing US anything…

Three Shell MonteThis is the vast "Three Shell Monty" played at the governmental level.  You send me your taxpayers money for my project, and I’ll send you my taxpayers tax monies for your projects.  We’ll hide it using other governmental agencies, but we politicians (wink, wink) have set the rules – just watch our hands.   And we’ll sell this game as "Free Money" – hey, it doesn’t cost US anything, right?

Once again, we run into the case that when the locals either don’t have the money or are unwilling to ask their taxpayers for more to pay for what they want, they go for the "free money".  From yesterday’s Laconia Daily Sun (P. 9):

Pulling together the funds to buy Colonial is going to be complicated

In the next town over, Laconia, there is an old building that houses what used to be an old style stage theater that, now that its run as a converted "multiplex" is over, has now sat vacant for a number of years.  Simply, no entrepreneurs wanted to buy it for any purpose.  Yet, there are those in town that just want to see it restored to its former magnificence and start doing plays and such.  However, I do think that the sub-head says it all:

Formation of non-profit corporation seen as needed because for profit business is not going to step forward

Ya think?  If folks, over the years, are not willing to ante up their own personal money (most people, even the uber-rich, are loathe to just throw their money away) for a project, it generally means it is a loosing proposition.  Loosely put, if there is no profit, there is no need there for which people are willing to spend (unless it is flat out given to him).  Yet, there are those that still want to City to buy it?

“Where do we get the $1.4-million to buy it?” asked City Councilor Bob Hamel (Ward 5). “It’s not coming from the city.”

No one questioned Hamel’s presumption that the city would not contribute to the cost of purchasing the property.

So what does it say when even the City Fathers won’t ante up?  In short form,

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They think us all Rambos that have to be “handled”

An untold story of the chaos at the Tuscon tragedy of a civilian’s gun – unused.

We have covered the Tuscon tragedy from the political viewpoint and how the Left let loose volley after volley of verbiage trying to pin the actions of a lunatic on political philosophy (and trying to pin it on the Right and the TEA Party movement).  Of course, the major mainstream media types (who, as we know, lean Left enough to need crutches for support if they weren’t already sitting down reading their teleprompters) have run to their support.

And as we, along with most of the Right, have refused to go along with this nonsense.  As I mentioned before, it has almost been like the WW II Turkey Shoot (or the Gulf War one) because while Leftward pundits and politicians have all "decried" incivility, even we at GraniteGrok have found it far to easy to find concrete examples of them pulling the pins and throwing their grenades (and this latest stretch of liberal rhetoric is just that – verbal handgrenades).

And thus, having wasted their "first wave" of a line of attack, the flanking move is onto the second target – gun control.

Why? They frankly don’t trust their fellow citizens.  They also believe, because of their belief in Big Government, that we all should outsource our well betterment and safety to Government (after all, THEY are the professionals).  Certainly, anyone that reads the ‘Grok on a regular basis, we believe that to be utter nonsense as well.  While we do operate and live in communities of others, we do not give up the sense of self-reliance that should be primary as a basic American philosophical underpinning.  We do believe that we are responsible for ourselves, including the basic right of self-defense.

Now, combine their misguided idea that Government will instantly be available at their time of physical threatening with this: their shared idea that once a gun is place into their fellow citizens hands, we lose all sanity and rationality and become nothing more than grunting Rambos whose only urges are to pull the triggers and find more ammo.

Yet, nothing could be further from the truth – the vast majority of us who use and carry firearms see it as a huge responsibility.  We would no more use…

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So, the Democrats hated married women when they passed this law!

Ah, yes, once again, we see what happens when clueless politicians (in this case, the Democrats who rammed the Credit Card Act) plant their noses squarely into the cement wall that is called the Law of Unintended Consequences?  Wall Street Journal (emphasis mine):

The suggested measure is "intended to enhance protections for consumers and to resolve areas of uncertainty so that card issuers fully understand their compliance obligations," according to the Fed proposal.

But retailers say the measures go beyond the original intent of the Credit Card Act that sought to limit financial institutions from offering credit cards to college students who don’t have income to pay bills.

So, no income or low income means no credit card at worst or very low limits on the card since only that person’s income could be used.  Rich Daddy’s income just didn’t apply (or Mom’s).  Problem for students solved by our paternalistic Congressional overlords as low limits means low capability to get into high debt.

Uh-oh….not quite.  Maybe for students, but what about other people with low personal incomes trying to get more credit:

Stay-at-home Moms also fit that description, and from now on, they’re going to have a hell of a tough time getting credit in their own name:

Yeah, that’s a bug (vs. a feature).

"It is astonishing that people have forgotten how difficult it was 40 years ago, particularly for women, to establish credit," said Ms. Fortney, who represents banks and retailers on consumer-finance issues. "This would really take a lot of women back to where they were in the early 1970s."

In fact, if the rules are strictly applied, they’re going to impact a lot more than just stay-at-home Moms.  Most women still earn less than their husbands, meaning that they’re going to end up with less ability to secure credit in their own name than their husbands have.  That translates into less economic power to, say, open a business using her credit, or leave a bad marriage, because you might not be able to get a mortgage on your own with only a limited credit history.  Presumably, more women are going to end up as joint-account holders with their husbands, rather than limiting themselves to the piddly amount of credit they can secure under their own names.

This is a problem that happens way too often – one reason why more engineers should be elected to office instead of a mere professional hack.  By nature of what we do, we have to take into consideration things as a whole – as a system.  We know, from training and by personal experience, that "%$*&#" moment when we…

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Endorsement: Jack Kimball for NH GOP Chair

  It is with pleasure that GraniteGrok is announcing its choice in the NH GOP Chair race: Jack Kimball. We endorsed him for Governor in the GOP Primary race: He saw that the ideals of Liberty and Freedom that allowed us unequaled freedom of choice in our personal lives were being eroded by those that … Read more

Notable Quote – Ronald Reagan

  We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions. – Ronald Reagan, President of the United States   (H/T: Cathy G.)

See what happens when Legislators apply their own “tax caps”?

Here in NH, tax caps are fairly common in the news.  For readers in other states for which this may be unknown (think Illinois, California, or New York), these legal instruments put into place by votes of the general citizenry of the various local governments that limit the growth of spending by elected officials. Why?  … Read more

The five Journalistic “W’s”? Never more…

OK, wrong species for "Never more…" (H/T: TobyToons via RedState) Simply purveyors of information, as in "just the facts"?  No – in listening to the different news outlets and reading the news sites, it is clear that this is just the Grassy Knoll all over again.  Then, as now, the outrage was to blame conservatives … Read more

With Obamacare, just THINK of all of your private information they will have…

You can TRUST your government!  They won’t tell anyone about your private secrets!  Oh wait: "The US government’s 11-page document on how to get various US government agencies to prevent future leaks has been leaked. It doesn’t get any more ironic than that. After the various leaks made by WikiLeaks, the US government understandably wants … Read more

If Dean and the other Boo-hoo Hampsters wanna keep it up…

…let’s remember that they and their fellow sojourners are not the innocents they portray themselves to be: Gee, who said this? “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun, because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl.” Seems militaristic to me.  Seems to be ‘violence speak" to … Read more

Let’s get past the surface level, shall we?

A well written piece from my friend Will from the Samsphere group I belong to; abstracted (emphasis mine):

The triple crown of liberalism is relativism as opposed to absolute truth, multiculturalism as opposed to tradition and virtue, and self-indulgence (in the form of drug use) as opposed to self-discipline. Is this what led to the shooting in Tucson, Arizona?

Thanks to the tenets of relativism, the Arizona man who tried to murder a member of Congress, and who murdered 6 others, including a 9 year old girl, was able to imbibe in the worse possible ideologies without any real social constraints on such thinking or context.

Was the shooter’s avowed love of Karl Marx or of Mein Kampf, both manuals for totalitarianism, questioned or were his studies of these writings put within the context of writings of our Founders or the Bible? In our present culture, imposed as it is from above, he would not have received such instruction that might have dissuaded him from embracing the hatefulness of Marx and Hitler.

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Tragedy – the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords

We just posted this on our Facebook page: We are just hearing about the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-D) and her aides – our prayers go out to her, her family, those that were killed and their families as well. We are not a country that settles its political disputes with gunfire; we consider … Read more

Tragedy – the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords – Background

My friend Warner Todd Huston is following the story closely (early reporting here) with some of the shooter’s info here in a second post: A 22-year-old man named Jared Loughner has been arrested for attacking a group of people outside an Arizona grocery store with a firearm. Wounded in the attack was Arizona Representative Gabrielle … Read more

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