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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.

GrokTALK! – Podcasts for 2010

Welcome to the GrokTALK! Podcast page for 2010!  GrokTALK! is the Internet Radio show that "airs" every Saturday morning from 9 – 11 am.  We cover all kinds of topics from a Conservative (with Libertarian leanings) and concentrating on things political here in NH, the country, and the world.     GrokTALK! – Podcast page … Read more

What’s with these jokers – yet another Lefty deciding that social conservatives ought to pack it in…on Gay Marriage

Oh, Parental Notification is "settled".  Abortions for minor girls is "normal".  Government bureaucrats coming between parents and their underaged girls is just "dandy" – and one more example of The Left Press winding up!  Next up – Gay Marriage!  Another case of "Don’t waste your time….that’s already been voted on!".

Sorry, Mr. Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign (a highly active gay group) – laws can be made, and laws can be unmade.  Your say so is insufficient; from the Concord Monitor:

Legislature should move on; gay marriage fight isn’t worth it

In the wake of the new Republican majority in the New Hampshire Legislature, some social conservatives want to turn back the clock on same-sex marriage. What a waste of time in a country and a state more rightly focused on righting our economic ship.

According to exit polls last month, voters overwhelmingly care about jobs and the economy, followed by taxes, terrorism and health care. Same-sex marriage is not even near the bottom of this list; it is at the bottom. It’s hard to imagine that New Hampshire legislators would spend an ounce of time on a settled matter.

Really? Settled?  How so? You and your backers sent how much money, sent so much human capital, and twisted so many arms to get what you wanted?  Just as with the Parental Notification deniers (yeah, we can use that word as well, with these folks wishing to deny Parents their natural and God given right to responsibly parent their own children), he follows the same mantra:

1. We have economic challenges here in NH!

2. Why are legislators going to spend time on monkeying with a woman’s reproductive rights nullification of our right to redefine marriage?  We are a pro-choice gay state! 

3. It’s already settled!

3. You need to work for all of us, and not just your own personal agendas!

What is this – sharing of the same playbook?  Pick an issue, just changing the words a bit, and think that we’d go "oh, ok"? Hey, you Progressive folks have GOT to be a bit more creative than that!  Add to it – your side didn’t exactly play nice; political hardball is just not forgotten around here.  Yankees have a history of being rather independent minded – we don’t take kindly about being told what is right for us by some outsiders.  Why should you expect us to simply take your word on this?

I will agree on one thing – I DO want our Republican super-majority legislature…

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“Food for Thought”

Yeah, our politicians and educators are homing in on the important item: Food for Thought Commenting on yesterday’s NRO editorial about first lunch lady Michelle Obama, Corner fan John, a local teacher, e-mails “A sample menu item for NYC public schools in January: ‘Mediterranean Roasted Chicken, Whole Grain Rotini with Fresh Herbs, Ellie Krieger’s Tri-Color … Read more

Welfare – providing the basics

I have no problem in providing a basic safety net.  I do, however, have a problem in defining "the basics" upward to include more and more and more: SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco has finished installing free Wi-Fi in its public housing facilities as part of a citywide housing improvement initiative. Mayor Gavin Newsom and … Read more

Conventional Wisdom – The Republican DEMolition made us safer. Skip’s wisdom – au contraire; and let me tell you why!

Many of us on the Right breathed a sigh of relief when we saw that the majority of the US House swung to the Republicans.  While not booting Reid out of the Majority Leader’s seat in the Senate, the gains by Republicans there got an approving nod as well.  Why not?  America expressed its political will, showed its disdain for Progressive policies, and changed its political leadership. 

We all thought: good, all these crazy laws and policies will now be stopped.  The Republic is safe.  Boy, are we all wrong! 

Nothing less than the Rule of Law and the fundamental philosophy undergirding our Republic are now under attack by the Obama  Administration.  Given the failure of the Democrat controlled House and Senate, and with the Obama Presidency, the Progressives are resorting to put into effect what was their main goal all along:

The Administrative State

This has been the la creme de la creme of all Progressive fantasies – an ordered society, not popularly governed by The Rule of Law and the full expression of  Constitutional values set by the Founding Fathers, but by the opposite: The Rule of Man via bureaucratic technocrats, well versed in the science of ruling and society, that would rule by administrative fiat.

As I wrote in an email this morning, look at what the Executive Branch is doing all on its own: 

Just look at the tyranny that the Feds are doing via the Administrative State:

  • HHS Secretary saying, with no authority to do, that a 10% rise (or more) in premiums announced by some insurance companies (some in reaction to Obamacare law and regulations she is penning) is "unreasonable" with no single legal basis on which to state that.  Further, she has administratively put back in the "Death Panels" that were removed from the Obamacare law because of the public furor. 
  • The EPA is "tailoring" current law to fit its agenda of regulating anything economic under the guise of global warming (even as the actual law gives them no leeway to do it). 
  • The FCC, against the expressed will over 300 members of Congress and with no legal basis, and having already been rebuffed by the Court system, has decided on it’s own that it can regulate the Internet simply on its own say so.
  • The Dept. of Agriculture, via Michelle Obama’s "we can’t leave it to the parents" nanny food law, can determine if Moms can send cupcakes for a school bake sale.  True, a law was passed, but much of the actual effects of the law will be determined by bureaucrats and not legislators
  • The Interior Department, with no input from Congress, has now effectively killed off all new exploration for energy in the Gulf of Mexico by either not leasing new plots or by making the permitting processes so onerous and time consuming, it is unprofitable for any drilling or spectating to be done.  Ditto for land exploration for oil or exploitation of our newest discoveries of natural gas

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Sticking to Basic Competencies ?

Over at The Corner (emphasis mine): The blizzard is definitely a force for conservatism, and not only because it has had the global-warming crowd scrambling for explanations. The blizzard reveals something basic:  Liberals in government want to tell us what to eat, counsel us about how and when to die, and in general attempt to … Read more

When you hear the Educational-Industrial Complex saying that we don’t spend enough money…

…and that’s why our kids test so badly, I just shake my head.  How much do they want?  Really?

Educational spending internationally

And ask them – where are the better results for that larger amount of money?  You are supposed to be providing a service – educating our children.  It is obvious that the service is lacking – but costing us more.

So, why should we give you more?  We should be giving you less until we see positive trending results – without the excuses.  We are #2 in expenditures – certainly not #2 in results…

(H/T: Big Government)

Think I’m kidding – it is behavior like this that does NOTHING to educate – merely line the pockets of the Robber Barons of Public Education:

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Formulaic Letters to the Editor – The Left Press is winding up!

Today in one of my local papers, I spotted two letters.  No, not exactly the same, but using the same construction:

1. We have economic challenges here in NH!

2. Why are legislators going to spend time on monkeying with a woman’s reproductive rights!  We are a pro-choice state!

4. You need to work for all of us, and not just your own personal agendas!

Yeah, mark me impressed – one of them decided to mock those of the "faith community" by the use of the phrase "archaic belief systems".  Yeah, that’s gonna make me switch my views real quick, lady.

Here’s my response (the actual Letters are after the jump):

Dear Form Letter Ladies,

So nice to see that you could come up with an original idea between the pair of you!  While it is true that NH faces "economic challenges", we can lay much of that at the feet of your fellow Liberal Travellers that decided, without a shred of economic understanding among them, that they knew best just how businesses should be run, regulated, and taxed so as to produce "jobs".  We, thusly, find ourselves in the situation we currently now enjoy – shared misery instead of "a rising tide lifts all boats".

You know, I don’t remember seeing these same Letters as the Democrats put THEIR social agenda first during their time in power and control – where was your outrage over their lack of attending to economic issues then?  

I love the euphemisms in trying to hide YOUR agendas:

  • legislate family communication – "parental rights and responsibilities are outweighed by some unknown social service clerk that hardly knows your 8th grade daughter.  And that 26 year old boyfriend?  Irrelevant!"
  • womens’ rights – "in our world, every female is a full fledged woman, you patriarchial mysogynist!"
  • archaic belief systems – you moralistic Bible-Thumpers are just getting in the way of our ‘enlightened" secularism!"
  • slow us down even further – "we have to move society forward!" (ah!  the key phrase for Progressivism!  Which is nothing more than incremental socialism – yeah, that’s the ticket!  And where do we end up, dearies?)
  • potentially cost taxpayers even more money – "you think abortion is expensive?  wait until you have to pay for 18 years of welfare!"

Look, there is no reason why Republicans (the unstated Party in their diatribes) shouldn’t revisit the Parental Notification law that codifies that the responsibility of a minor child resides, not with the State, but with her parents.  It also treats abortion as it truly is – a major medical procedure and should handled in the same manner as an aspirin from a school nurse.  Treating the two is mere hypocrisy in the fight over ideologies.

Heck, we should be treating the life of an unborn child with FAR most concern than a pill.

But that seems to be all that the anti-Parents crowd wants…after all, just like Michelle said:

"We just can’t leave it up to the parents."

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The Chief Blue Hampster may have learned a dead language but not so much on math….

Dean over at Blue Hampshire is kvetching again.  Over Social Security.  Figures:

If we Gen Xers had a nickel for every Very Serious Older Person in the Village who clamors for Social Security "reform" that doesn’t affect those nearing retirement – but is mum on those Gen-Xers who have been paying into it for decades – we’d have enough nickels to fund our retirement outside of this allegedly secure and social system.

So fun to read (between the lines) over and over again how I’ll be in the first wave of those who gave more and are left with less!

Hey Dean – meet the "Mother of all Ponzi Schemes" – no, not Bernie Madoff, but your US Government.  Started by the most wonderful Progressive of all (or second, your choice), FDR.

And no, you aren’t the only one – I figure that I will have paid into that scheme for FAR longer than you – but am doubting that it will be able to pay anything.  Frankly, the time of "retirement for the common folk" based simply on government dependency is probably over.  Simply, a casualty of demographics – not enough rich people to tax, and certainly not enough workers of any strip to tax.  The system works with "large family culture: (you know, the kind that the Progressive environmentalists hate – 4,5,…15 kids) that continually add to the base of the Ponzi pyramid to pay the previous generation.  But our current culture looks down upon that type of thing.

Add to that, the massive stealing by the Political Class of the money that was in that "Trust Fund" – yeah, that’s working out real well now, isn’t it?  And you have only you, and your philosophical brethren that never met a government expenditure on social issues you didn’t like, to blame.  Suck that money out, replace it with…

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A practical lesson on raising taxes – revenues drop! Unexpectedly!

I just through that last word in – after all, it seems that the Obama covering press always seems to present bad news modified by that word ("Today, the Labor Department reported another unexpected rise in the unemployment rate…"). Well, it applies to forecasts as well, as the clueless Oregonian politicians and class envy voters … Read more

Data Point – the 111th Congress liked to spend money – a LOT of money!!!

From CNS News: 111th Congress, Democrat controlled, has accumulated more new debt–$3.22 trillion than the first 100 Congresses combined 111th Congress, Democrat controlled, has given each American $10,429.64 in new debt. Each American is now in debt to the tune of $44,886.57 for the total national debt of $13.859 trillion. 111th Congress, Democrat controlled, has … Read more

Oh my Lord – Shea-Porter blames the CHINESE for losing?

From the Campaign Spot: Outgoing Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter implied the Chinese cost her re-election in November and secretly funneled money to help her Republican opponent Frank Guinta during a post-election interview with ABC News. Carol Scold-Porter famously made her main campaign point that Frank Guinta had an illegal source of fund.  You know, I think … Read more

Ramifications of a Positive Right – what real Rights does it violate?

One of my favorite economists, Don Boudreaux, easily demonstrates that when civil rights morph from the negative ones of the Constitution ("…Congress shall make no law…") to positive ones (e.g., FDR’s Second Bill of Rights), someone else’s Rights become violated.  In each and everyone of the cases that FDR posits, it is impossible to fulfill without first requiring someone else to have something taken from that.

Got it – actual freedom taken from someone, to give a faux sense of freedom to someone else.  And that is supposed to be Freedom as defined by the Founding Fathers?  The problem, our Educrats have done such a poor job, it seems that more and more citizens cannot figure this out (or has this been done with forethought?).

And that, my friends, is the road to tyranny – for that road basically says that all things are possible, provided you have the money and the lobbyists to convince the few to change a regulation or a law to take from others to fulfill your needs, or your "charity" to others.  The barrier to keeping a limited government is broken, as what cannot be broached in order to find the finances to provide a Right? 

Ronald Pies, MD, asserts that every individual has a “right” to “basic health care” – meaning, a right to receive such care without paying for it (Letters, Dec. 26).

The rights that Americans wisely cherish as being essential for a free society require only the refraining from action.  Your right to speak freely requires me simply not to stop you from speaking; it does not require me to supply your megaphone.

Not so with a “right” to “basic health care.”  Elevating free access to a scarce good into a “right” imposes on strangers all manner of ill-defined positive obligations – obligations that necessarily violate other, proper rights.  For example, perhaps my “right” to basic health care means that I can force Dr. Pies away from his worship service in order that he attend (free of charge!) to my ruptured spleen.  Or perhaps it means that I have the “right” to pay for my health care by confiscating part of his income.  If so, how much of his income does my “right” entitle me to confiscate?  Who knows?

And if Dr. Pies is planning to retire, do I have the “right” to force him to continue to work so that the supply of basic health care doesn’t shrink?  If Dr. Pies should die, am I entitled…

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Data Point – Obamacare popular? Not so much

Ah yes, that law that will eventually help to answer that question Are we clients ("Mommy, take care of me!"), subjects ("you work for us to pay for them!") or a sovereign people ("you’re from the Government? Get lost!") Yup, it’s Obamacare.  Now, if you have listened to Progressives for the last two years, you … Read more

Juliana Bergeron – self proclaiming herself to be the Grassroots Leader?

I thought that this was a rather amazing statement to make (From DiStaso), Juliana Bergeron concerning her ability to manage the grassroots: "I believe that I am the best person to manage the party and expand the strong grassroots organization that we have built over the past two years." Really?  Doesn’t that presupposes that those … Read more

Accountability – Frank Guinta

$634,688,279,170

That is the total that I came up with from "Frank’s Fifty", a "cut a program a day" that he had during the campaign.  Even for the Feds, that’s a lot of money – and it adds up!

Now – he campaigned on it….what will he do on this?  To be fair, not many politicians will even come close to this kind of promise – all they wonk about is "waste and fraud" and leave it as that (the impression being, they are all for cutting spending but absolutely refuse to elaborate on the chance that they’d get called on it.  Grant Bosse did it during his campaign, but that’s about it.

My plan, from time to time, is to check in with the Congressman’s office and ask IF he has made any headway on any of these.  To be sure, Frank Guinta will be a freshman.  To be sure, one guy, no matter how well meaning and the campaign promises made,  cannot make this much of a difference (unless the title going along with the name is POTUS, and a lot of the time, not even then). 

Be that as it may, the effort should be made, it HAS to be made (every $$ counts when you’re broke, and since the Democrats and Obama ran up a $2+ Trillion dollar credit card this year, we are out of bucks).  It’s a start – here is it in least listed first: 

Campaign Day

Proposed Item Cost / year
46 Terminate the House of Representatives Wheels for Wellness Bike Sharing Program. Saves $22,000 a year. $22,000
38 Flat-screen televisions for the State Department. Saves $37,000 $37,000
34 Effects of cocaine on monkeys. Saves $75,000 $75,000
40 Study of weather patterns on other planets. Saves $298,543 $298,543
42 Study of galaxies formed two billion years after the Big Bang. Saves $314,964 $314,964
41 Study of the atmosphere of Neptune. Saves $456,663 $456,663
35 Effects of “inequality and unfairness” on monkeys. Saves $675,000 $675,000
37 iPods for Utah high school students they get to keep just for graduating. Saves $1 million $1,000,000

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Our Superintendent, Dr. DiMinico, had something to say about this:

Once the elite high school in Washington, D.C., Dunbar High is out of control, reports the Washington Post. Nearly half the senior class is not on track to graduate, more than 100 students are taking courses they’ve already passed and the campus is growing increasingly unsafe. Oh Wait!  He DIDN’T!  Mea Culpa!  That was actually … Read more

This is one thing I hate about faux Christmas cheer…

Now, this card seems to be just fine on the outside:

Juliana Bergeron

Nice card, nice New England type scene, even with a church in it!  THere’s one small problem with this – after the jump.  And yes, it is connected with the races now going on within the NH GOP…

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