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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.

Christmas – thankfulness, hearing, and returning

Christmas That God would even consider sending His Son, to later die on the cross with foreknowledge for even the likes of me, is a gift beyond compare-a miracle too awesome to contemplate or understand. God incarnate, grace made alive, sin made perishable, forgiveness freely given – all in the form of a tiny, helpless … Read more

Jettiness – Let’s spend millions for jet to pull sledders

Posting has been light – have had a houseful of folks today and helped TMEW all day yesterday in getting ready. This is the next is the Jettiness theme here at the ‘Grok – all politics makes for a dull place.  This however, has got to be one of the most insane-silly clips I’ve seen … Read more

A “John Galt” reference….WHERE?

Not exactly what I thought I’d find!  Our friend Chan over at Weekend Pundit has this observation in his Christmas Eve version of his usual "Thoughts on a Sunday" type posts: Something I saw that got me smiling on my way home from last minute Christmas shopping this morning: Out in front of Funspot, a … Read more

Food fight alert! Does Hynsie realizes his cluelessness

Yup, Pat is trying to make himself credible again, having masterminded Sean Mahoney’s failure (…er, three strikes…) at obtaining the Republican nomination for Congress in NH CD-1.  See that he neglected AnkleBiting Pundits after having renamed it "CrushKerry" and then let Now!Hampshire lay fallow (except for promoting Mahoney and denigrating anyone that stood in that … Read more

Yes, folks, there is a fight going on for the heart of the NH GOP

Some time after I put this up, I surfed over to Instapundit and found this: A TEA PARTY TAKEOVER of the New Hampshire GOP? UPDATE: Reader Spec Bowers emails: The answer is yes! I am a newly elected State Rep and I am a Tea Partier. We have 163 Freshmen Republican Reps (out of 298 … Read more

NH Speaker of the House Bill O’Brien and NH House Majority Leader DJ Bettencourt endorse Jack Kimball for NH GOP Chair

As I had intimated here and Steve had here (and Tim commented upon), WMUR Political Scoop had the endorsements earlier this morning.  I have just received the official announcement from the Jack Kimball campaign: Kimball receives two major endorsements: House Speaker O’Brien and Majority Leader come out in support of Jack Kimball for NH GOP … Read more

There was election about this – did Huck miss the message?

The second wave of the American electorate’s ire came on Nov. 2 – the first being the protests engineered by the then much maligned TEA Party movement.  This second wave, the one that actually showed TEA party’s poltiical fangs that others scoffed at and called "extremist" was about one thing: a too big of a Government that didn’t know its bounds and spent too much of money that wasn’t / isn’t their’s.

The consent of the governed was being withdrawn.

Surely, the aim was on the fiscal side of the ledger, but with the machinations and final passage of Obamacare with its Individual Mandate, the emphasis now includes a huge helping of "How DARE you tell me how to live my life".  Ya think they listened to us in DC?

No; I blogged about the federalization of the Lunch Ladies, where Michelle Obama’s stand out line was:

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

Implicit in that piece of legislation is that the Dept. Of Agriculture has been tasked with writing even MORE regulations about what your kids can and cannot eat.  Bake sales?  Ha!  Kiss those cupcakes and Toll House cookies goodbye!

Look, I’m not happy that we’ve got chubby children – but who owns the responsibility for that?  Society?  Government?  The Schools? Any one except for the Parents?  It seems that Progressives, the Political Class, are fine with any of those options.  They DO believe that we, as individuals, are incapable of caring for ourselves – we have to be directed.

Well, Sarah Palin (Republican), I think, sent the message during her TLC Alaska show when making the s’mores that most of us liked: this is our responsibility – not the Government’s.  

Enter former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (Republican)… 

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Need Assistance? Really? What about that word “Priorities”?

Sheesh.  Well, as a society, we’ve brought this upon ourselves.  In the guise of helping people, government spends more and more to do more and more for more and more people – it doesn’t seem to end.  The problem is, even with reams and reams of regulations and ‘strings’ attached, is it effective in keeping people from gaming the system?  Is Government doing what it can, what it should, to keep people from becoming dependent on those handouts?

Not if I read this story. And the picture below came with the story.  And when

I saw that, and combined it with the sub-story of this lady:

“We were already too late,” she said. “It’s like impossible (to get a ticket). It gets in the way of people who need it. … If we’re there at 3 a.m. and it’s already too late, what time are you supposed to go?”

Kelley said she was unemployed for a year before recently landing a job. But her bills have stacked up while she was unemployed, and she needs the assistance.

I went "huh?  You have got to be kidding me!".  Look, I know hardship.  I know what it is like to be laid off for quite some time and have had to look for quarters (when my kids were small) and other change so as to buy milk for them.  And I know what it is like to say "Christmas gifts or food?".  And yes, I have sold stuff to have the necessities – the "stuff" became superfluous. When things are tough, priorities start to be come sharper and sharper in the current reality.

Or should be. But it seems that as Government gets bigger and does more, those individual priorities seem to remain…

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Jack Kimball makes it official: he is running for the NH GOP Chair

Received this earlier today – Jack has now made the news of last night official: Immediate Release – December 21, 2010 Portsmouth, December 21, 2010:  Jack Kimball, the leading conservative Republican in the State of New Hampshire, and past candidate for New Hampshire Governor, is pleased to announce that he will be seeking the New … Read more

A perfect example of Political Correctness, “creeping Shariah” and the use of “lawfare”.

Political Correctness will be one of the leading causes of the death of Western Liberal Philosophy and the civilization on which it is built.  I read this and saw – for all of the West’s military might, a word might bring it down.  Why?

It seems that anyone, at any time, can accuse of offense.  Whether it makes sense or not, we seem to be devolving to where the decision of "offense" is no longer made by society but strictly by the minority – and in this case, a minority of one.   The purpose of identity politics is not to ensure that the rights of a minority are protected.  In effect, it is a tool with which to wage war by which the minority can hijack the rights of the majority. 

From Powerline: It sounds like parody, but this story from Spain is evidently true:

The parents of a Muslim boy who attends a secondary school in La Línea, Cádiz province, have reported their son’s teacher for an incident in the boy’s geography class which the child said caused him offence as a Muslim.

The teacher, José Reyes Fernández, with more than 20 years in the profession, was explaining to the class how the cold climate in Trevélez, Granada province, aided in the curing of the village’s most famous local product, jamón serrano. The boy told his teacher that hearing the word ‘ham’ in class was offensive to him because of his religion and asked his geography teacher to stop referring to the product which caused him offence.

El Mundo newspaper reports that the boy’s parents then reported the teacher to both the National Police and to the courts. They placed a denuncia against the teacher for psychological ill-treatment in the context of xenophobia and racism.

One assumes that the boy and his parents had help from the Spanish equivalent of CAIR in pushing his "xenophobia" complaint. It is a great illustration of the effort to create a little bubble of walking sharia around each Muslim that we also see in the U.S.

On one level,…

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North Carolina is having this debate – we should be too!

Gee, the Chinese Communist Military runs all kinds of "capitalistic ventures’ as well.  Only point to be made, in that political system, the Government SHOULD own everything, run everything, and profit from anything.  In a democratic system, in which we are always saying that government should be limited, is running a "for profit" enterprise really … Read more

I think that this is a SPLENDID idea

It seems that every time I turn around, the anti-capitalists are always upset with how the upper echelons of private companies are compensated.  They are forever whipsawing the ideas of pay in cash, no, pay in stock, pay it now, no, pay it later, they have to be accountable this way, they have to be … Read more

NH GOP deleting pro-Jack Kimball for NH GOP Chair posts?

Update before I could even post this up!  I just emailed Ryan at NH GOP HQ and he called RIGHT BACK.  Apparently, they have a spam filter on the page that may have been responsible for deleting user generated content (er, that would be you, folks). That has now been turned off.  If you have … Read more

BREAKING! Jack Kimball is announcing: He is in the NH GOP Chair race

I just got off the phone with Jack Kimball – he has decided to run for the NH GOP Chair.  He realizes that this means he will forgo running in the 2012 NH Governor race. ——————————————————————————– Jack Kimball is now making it official – he is now in the race to become the next NH … Read more

BREAKING! NH Speaker Bill O’Brien will be endorsing Jack tomorrow!

Things can happen quickly here on the ‘Net.  The ‘Grok has just received word that NH Speaker of the House, the Honorable Bill O’Brien, will formally be endorsing Jack Kimball in his quest to become the next NH GOP Chair. I believe the race just went from 0 to 100 mph in 3 seconds….

No, they are not!

Oh, those absolutely horrid capitalists – finding a void in the marketplace and supplying goods and services that buyers value!  Heaven help us – the voluntary attribute is working! Er, that would be working AGAINST the Government – no wonder the Principal has this to say: School officials want the city to pass an ordinance … Read more

Operative word for me: “mischievous”

This is just SUCH a great line! “I take a mischievous glee in being the greatest thorn in the side of people who desperately need to be humbled.” We don’t have the ability to do "voter initiatives" at the State level here in NH.  However, we do have that ability, at the town level, by … Read more

In response to Kathleen Sullivan’s recent Op-Ed column

Guest Post by Dan Kanna:

Kathy Sullivan talks a great line about separation of powers and gay rights; but what is she really talking about? Whose power is she in favor of separating?

She correctly notes that we have 3 branches of power in the State government; but fails to mention that we have a compound republic (one with many parts), so the balance of power extends not just horizontally at the State level but vertically between the State, Federal, and local governments. This is called Federalism, and is the foundation of the Constitution for the United States of America.

The State Legislative and Executive branches are elected by the people whereas the Judicial branch is not. She would have us believe that all authority on the State Constitution should reside in the Judicial branch; an unelected and unaccountable branch of the State government where we the voters have zero input. Considering the Democrat party is also opposed to State sovereignty and wholeheartedly believes that we should be at the mercy of our Federal masters in Washington D.C., it seems to me that she is in favor of a separation of powers from the people of New Hampshire both horizontally and vertically. Who do the Democrats represent? Certainly not the voters of New Hampshire.

We as a people should start thinking in terms of this vertical balance of power; consider that New Hampshire has…

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Next up? Prez Wannabees….we’ll be following them all.

OK, we are ALMOST done with the highest level of State politics – the campaigns have been worked, the primaries run, the elections held, the Speaker of the NH   House and the President of the NH Senate chosen.  Committee assignments have been, well, assigned.  Prelim bills have already flowed in, caucuses have formed (and true to form here in prickly, independent NH, multiple caucuses have been formed based on different views on a given subject).  The only major items that are still left over are the picking of the respective political party Chairs.

Thus, we are all but done with November 2 and its required follow on events. Other events at the grassroots are STILL in play and still in force with respect to capturing the hearts, minds, and attention – activities at the local level. Like many, I’ve been active at the town level – as a member of my elected Budget Committee.  In these latter weeks, much time has been spent as the budgetary season, both municipal and school budgets, is also starting to wind down in anticipation of Town Meeting time here in NH (yeah, I have another post mentally cooking about THAT process as well) that will be in force in a few short months.

Thus, for political wonks, activists, and obsessives…

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Last time, it was about Flip-Flop. This time, it is about Individual Freedom

Certainly, here in NH, one cannot talk about the NH Prez Primary without mentioning part time NH resident and former MA Gov, Mitt Romney. He had the baggage in the last Primary of flip-flopping (a la the other well known MA politician: US Senator John Kerry (D-MA), AKA, "LiveShot", or "Lurch").  I will say that he had unneeded and absolutely unwarranted potshots concerning his religious affiliation that played a role in his failed campaign last go around.

However, the next problem he will have to surmount is one at which he worked hard and long at and has tried to take credit for numerous times; this phrase caught my eye:

“It’s a personal responsibility principle,’’ Romney maintained, arguing over and over that an individual mandate was the only alternative to letting uninsured “free riders’’ show up at hospital emergency rooms and get medical care at public expense. In 2006, as he was gearing up for a presidential run, Romney called it “the Republican approach’’ to say: “Everybody should have insurance. They should pay what they can afford to pay. If they need help, we will be there to help them, but no more free ride.’’

Sure, the governmental situation is different from Obamacare – at the Federal level, massive barrages of verbiage and rhetoric (not to say, time, effort, and money) are being leveled each side concerning the Individual Mandate being Constitutional or not; there is no such limitation from a Constitutional mandate (or lack thereof) at the State level such as there is in Massachuesetts.

In my opinion (such as it is), I tend to look at this as an incursion upon my free will to decide what is best for me – my choice, not a demand of and by government simply because it MAY be good for me.  Simply put…

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