Steve MacDonald

Steve is a long-time New Hampshire resident, an award-winning blogger, and a member of the Board of Directors of The 603 Alliance and the National Heritage Center for Constitutional Studies. He is the owner of Grok Media LLC and the Managing Editor, Executive Editor, assistant editor, Editor, content curator, and more (yes, there's more) at GraniteGrok.com. Steve is also a former board member of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, the Republican Volunteer Coalition, and has worked for or with many state and local campaigns and grassroots groups, and is a past contributor to the Franklin Center for Public Policy.

Bush 2010

The Democrat National Congressional Committee (DNCC) has announce plans for their collectivist reelection strategy for congressional House members in November.  Run against George Bush.  Oh yeah baby.  The idea is to claim that any Republican is just like Bush and voting for them is a vote for failed policies of the past.  I waited for … Read more

Starving Leeches

In every argument convenient to their agenda, liberals like to whine about ‘sustainable resources.’  They pride themselves on their promise to manage resources for the future.  They brag about their compassion for the environment.  But liberals are the worst resource managers the world has ever seen because they ignore the single most important resource of all, wealth.   Wealth is the resource.  It comes from managing people, equipment and materials to provide something people want or need.  But for Paul Hodes and liberals in general, the goal is to take wealth other people have created and spend it on what Paul Hodes wants people to need, independent of any other reality than the one he and the liberals have imagined. 

In the real world the marketplace is forever finding new ways to create wealth which it then uses to hire more people, buy more equipment, and purchase more materials, to fulfill real world needs.  Those in the free market that fail to manage effectively are consumed by those that do, and the circle of wealth continues, absorbing the people, equipment, products and ideas that work, and discarding those that do not.

Willing participation is a critical part of this process.  It is rewarded based on things like determination, critical thinking, intellectual agility, personal integrity and hard work.  Any American with these traits, regardless of where they started, or where they were educated, can live reasonably well almost anywhere–in any field.   

But Paul Hodes thinks that participation and decision making are best left to ‘experts’ in far away places.  He believes that what happens to you is not your fault; it is merely a product of an unequal society that prevented the government experts from doing for you what they deem you incapable of doing for yourself.  So success and personal behavior are not related.  Failure is rewarded whether it is your own, or foisted upon you by your government.  And the reward is making you more reliant on government, enshrining the failure model in exchange for your vote.  And the only solution to dealing with any failure—be it yours or theirs–is to add more government which you must pay for if you are able

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Republicans For Obama

  Back in November 2007 Obama For America published a press release listing 68 New Hampshire Republicans who had publicly announced their support for Obama.  One signatory was quoted thusly… “Barack Obama is the only candidate who will be able to break the partisan logjam and inspire Americans to come together around real solutions.” This of … Read more

Deficit Deceit

Liberalisms, like “this won’t increase the deficit,” or “this will reduce the deficit,” or “John Lynch will never leave a deficit” are misleading regurgitations whose success as a political tool rely entirely on the electorates inability to ask the follow-up question.  How?    Here’s an example.  John Lynch has 100 apples to use.  The left wing … Read more

Hate Pimps

  Anyone else getting bored with the left wing hate meme? I know I am.  It’s like living with some insane relative whose run out of psychotropic meds.  Or how about that dog from America’s funnies home videos?  He’s using his nose to roll a rock around the yard and the voice over is “Pushing … Read more

No Lessons Learned

Representative Shea-Porter, when given a simple solution invariably chooses the more complex one because it does a better job of hiding the true costs and intentions of any given legislative endeavor.  Insurance reform is the fine example, but a more obvious choice is Cap and Trade.  A basic sin-tax on carbon, like those on tobacco, would … Read more

There Will Be No Drilling

  Mr. Obama tossed out a rhetorical bone to the pro-carbon energy crowd by granting indulgences to the oil industry.  He promised to take their money for mineral rights leases but this is a feint and should not be misconstrued as an admission of or desire to increase domestic oil production. First, he will not … Read more

Socialized Education

  The federal college-loan money-grab was crammed into the Health Insurance boondoggle like the last blue frosted donut testing the frontiers of elasticity on our now calorically challenged, spandex wearing constitution.  And unlike the obvious fascism of the bank takeovers and auto industry takeovers–and of course the health industry takeover, this one was not over advertised. While … Read more

Sit Carol Sit

  After a brief review of the game film from Rep Carol Shea-Porters–she’s calling them Town Halls–I’ve decided that any and all future interaction could be just as (or perhaps more) productive if we used either a cardboard standee of the congresswoman with three to five pre-recorded responses played by an aid (Assuming there is no loose … Read more

Carol Shea Porter’s Ignorance & Arrogance Tour

Ms. Carol, central-planning-government-first-teabgger-we-dont-need-to-vote-on-that-to-deem-it-passed-Shea-Porter (D-Utopia) is doing town halls over the Easter recess in which (I suspect) she will try explaining how good insurance reform will be for us.  If she gets the chance.  Most of the people who will come out to meet her, other than the assigned Liberal Pride groupies, union hacks, and women’s studies laureates, know more about the legislation than she.  And with any luck, a few of them will honor the Shea-Porter of old and get uppity and verbally disruptive so we can all write more blogs calling her a hypocrite when she gets them thrown out.

While I commend her for doing the tour, had insurance reform not passed we can bet she’d be in hiding, but in either case Carol still has plenty to answer for.

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Help Wanted

The administrations media lap dogs in the distractatopia are promoting the arrest of some “militia group” in Michigan bent on killing police officers to start a civil war.   I’m not sure about the finer details, but I think the media is misrepresenting their intentions.   These would be cop killers might just be vying to host Mr. Obama’s … Read more

What No False Outrage?

Just a few days ago Kathy Sullivan set the standard by which comments of a potentially racist nature must be judged by people associated with those who make them.  She said they…  …should denounce this racist crap immediately,”.. “True patriots don’t countenance racism, and if you don’t denounce it, you are countenancing it. They should … Read more

The Gamble

Just a reminder as the pro-gambling lobby turns up the heat in a defict ridden era of irresponsible liberal management; the debate is not about rights, or revenue, it is about the gambling lobby buying up your state government. The pro-gamblers argue that we’ve had gambling for years, and while that’s technically true,  we’ve not had … Read more

Tim Horrigan Secret Squirrel

Have you seen this man at your NHLA event, Tea Party rally, cook out, seminar or other Republican or pro-liberty gathering?  Have you found him lurking in your yahoo group or commenting on your web site or blog?  His name it Rep Timothy Horrigan.  Mr. Horrigan, a State Rep from Strafford District 07 says… I am one … Read more

NH House School Musical

Last year, at budget time, liberals, democrats, a few RINOs, and even some chickens were asking where the cuts were.  No, not cold cuts but budget cuts.  The libs had just added another 10% to the state budget, and they wanted to know where, how, and what part of that we could possibly cut.

Let’s reminisce on the stupidity of that for a moment.  They took the budget they had ballooned by 12%-13%, added another 10% to it, but had no idea where they could cut it under the growing umbrella of job losses in an economic downturn?

“Show us the cuts!”  So we did.  They ignored them.

Buckley, Sullivan, Larsen, Norelli, Eaton, Smith, and all the rest of our left-wing fiscal castaways who promoted or legislated more spending were still stranded on a Desert Island of their own making from whose only possible escape was a broad-based tax.  To prove it, they lined up another few dozen smaller fees and taxes on the beach, like coconuts, to spell out the words “Show us the cuts.”  They then ignored the cuts we showed them, acted like they didn’t exist, and instead added an exclamation point called the JUA money grab and the tent tax, then lit it all on fire with a small business tax.

They were very briefly, quite happy with themselves.  But as it turns out, while people can be convinced to vote for Democrats when they are mad at Republicans, they still don’t like taxes and irresponsible spending and have forgotten that you can’t have one without the other.  (See hypnotic gas spewed by Obamunism for some idea of how that happened)  They also forgot that liberals have a hearing defect known as left-wing pattern deafness that not only prevents them from listening to constituent objections, it worsens as their majority grows.  But midnight robberies and an LLC tax in a state where some 95% of business is a small business is just like passing a broad-based tax and killing job growth all at the same time, and none of the usual democrat memes could be made to fit into their growing budget hole.

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Liberal Pride

The New Hampshire Liberal Pride (NHLP)  group lead by Ray Buckley and Kathy Sullivan, sometimes referred to by its front name The New Hampshire Democrat Party-an organization funded by prominent left wing donors from all over the country–have not yet taken to burning giant cardboard tea-cups on peoples lawns but that could begin any day now.  … Read more

Weapons Ban Stands

NH House Bill 1693 was killed in the House yesterday by a vote of 191 to 167 almost entirely on party lines.  (Roll Call) Four Republicans voted with the majority of democrats that the measure was Inexpedient to legislate; DiFruscia, Messier, Pilliod, Vallincourt.  Ten democrats voted with the Republicans in their effort to move it forward.  So the legislative facilities commission restriction stands until at least next year–what a short few years of freedom it was.

Many of the bans supporters like to point out that until 2006 deadly weapons were not permitted in the State House.  That it shouldn’t make much difference after only three years.  But that is a line of logic you will never hear applied to anything progressives want.  Once they enact something any effort to repeal becomes an epic battle for ‘families," "the children," or "the globe."  Whatever the victim class might be, freedom lovers are second class citizens unworthy of their compassion.

The lack of evidence that there was ever a problem was not a reason to leave well enough alone, so they hyped up gallery rowdiness after the democrats killed HCR6 and used it to justify a pointless, paranoid shift back in time.  If only we could get them to think about the budget and spending in pre-2006 terms we might not be in all the trouble we are in fiscally now.

So I submit for your approval, from the public record, the list of those 187 democrats and four Republicans, who are not prepared to trust you with weapons on the State House campus regardless of the evidence. (With a reminder that they rescinded that permission in a democrat majority committee with no vote by the full House.  Just the way Liberty Deniers like it.)   May we never suffer any consequences their selfish abuse of power and a decidedly myopic world view.

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Where Do We Put The Vagina?

Desperation has been known to drive good people to do bad things.  “Bad” is of course subjective.  You have to be willing to accept that humans are flawed and prone to weakness.   It is also imperative that you are not in awe of the power of the state as a beacon of morality or as … Read more

The Bradley Amendment

Not wasting any time, State Senator Jeb Bradley has already released an amendment for SB 505 to protect the people of New Hampshire from the overreach of the federal government on the matter of Health Insurance. Without further delay… -start- Floor Amendment to SB 505-FN-A  Amend the title of the bill by replacing it with the … Read more

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