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.

MACDONALD: Blaming the Londonderry Fish and Game Club was Easy, Until It Wasn’t.

February 21, 2026February 21, 2026 Steve MacDonald

As a good friend and blogging peer of Rick Olson, the President of the Londonderry Fish and Game Club [LFGC], I have long been aware of the false accusations against them and the defamation suit they filed in response. Some local Litchfield residents who bought a home near a gun club that had been there … Read more

MACDONALD: NewsGuard is Back – Here’s How it Went (Part 2)

February 20, 2026 Steve MacDonald

Welcome to my ongoing review of questions challenging my “journalistic integrity” (except I’m not a journalist), in which I use their challenge to challenge theirs right back. Part one addressed the first of five “concerns” the lovely people at NewsGuard (that’s not sarcasm) expressed over content published at GraniteGrok.com. The individuals I deal with are very professional; … Read more

Friday Meme Thing.

February 20, 2026 Steve MacDonald

Get yourself some memes, my brothers and sisters. It’s Friday. The end of the week. .Time for the Friday meme thing. Can I get an Amen! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … Read more

Taxes crushing vermont original Photo by Chris Andrawes on Unsplash

MACDONALD: Here Comes Another Tax

February 19, 2026 Steve MacDonald

Vermont, once famous for its dairy – I dig a good Vermont Cheddar – is getting cheesy in other ways. Progressive legislators, some of them elected as actual progressives, are always looking for ways to steal money from people. Two facts or rules of progressive political life. First, when it comes to the Elected Left … Read more

MACDONALD: Why The Left Wants You To Hate the Rich

February 18, 2026 Steve MacDonald

Democrats claim to hate rich people, but like all things of the Left, there is more than one face. They need them, and their wannabe millionaire cousins. Political campaigns cost money. Sure, they can print it (money), hand it off to the numerous luandresses in DC and across the corruptible fruited plain, and buy votes … Read more

Midweek Memes

February 18, 2026 Steve MacDonald

Welcome to another Wednesday, where we wander idly with the best of intentions through a field of memes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … Read more

MACDONALD: Is DOGE Still At Work, Saving Your Money?

February 17, 2026 Steve MacDonald

It isn’t making news, probably because the left and its army of militant wine-moms, the toxic empathy army, is distracted by the paid-protester pay day in Minnesota. But that’s starting to wind down. And while there are plenty of opportunities for paid protesters to make “a living wage” by pretending to be angry about something … Read more

MACDONALD: Remember When Being a Lesbian Trapped in a Man’s Body Was a Bad Joke?

February 16, 2026February 16, 2026 Steve MacDonald

Not that long ago, right before someone decided there was political and cultural upside, the destructive variety, joking that you were really a lesbian trapped in a man’s body, was bad form. Now it’s defended by members of Congress at a Conference on women’s rights. McBride was the first “woman” to speak at Hillary Clinton’s … Read more

Monday Memes

February 16, 2026 Steve MacDonald

So you mostly survived the Valentine’s Day weekend. Or maybe you didn’t. Or you came out different from when you went in. Same treatment, same celebrations, same cure. Memes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … Read more

MACDONALD: Becket Academy in NH and Medicaid Reimbursement

February 15, 2026 Steve MacDonald

I am not saying there is fraud, just that something seems odd. Becket Academy Inc., Becket Family Services, and New Treks are listed as foreign nonprofit corporations based in Orford, NH (via a PO Box). See also, LIFECONNECTIONS SPECIALIZED SUPPORT SERVICES (Active). “community-based residential, day, and behavioral health services to youth and adults.” A Second … Read more

MACDONALD: When Are Lib Chicks Gonna Get Tired of Trannies Giving them a Bad Name

February 14, 2026 Steve MacDonald

For years, I have marveled as so-called feminists made excuses, even defending the practice of men in garish clown make-up, reading books to kids at local libraries. The same feminists ignore men wearing stereotypical garb from an era during which they claim women were oppressed, or who do drag shows, which are over-sexualized performances wearing … Read more

Middle of the road The middle, compromising stance of those called “centrists” or “moderates” is very often mistaken for a balanced and reasonable position. Little else is worse than an entire world tricked into what rationally amounts to crime, thinking it is balanced, realistic, and optimal. The centrist has become convinced that their middle position is the only fair and just stance, and that anything else is imbalanced extremism. The opportunity to rationally examine these assertions has never been as important as it is now. Let us start by realizing that most people do not actually call themselves centrists yet are convinced that their views are a proper mixture of ideas, a negotiation to meet somewhere in the middle, which is what centrism entails. Whether this is a mixture of safety and freedom, socialism and capitalism, or collectivism and individualism, few have admitted that their unique mixture ratio is behind their confidence in their own political views. Most are convinced that they have the right mixture, while they believe those with different views have their mixture somewhat off. How many traditional conservatives are against socialism without realizing that many of their views are based in socialism? They do not put the label of “socialism” on their beloved military, police, and public schools, but these are textbook examples of socialism. How many progressives for wealth distribution via government will truly admit that they want the profit motive to remain as the deep well from which they can perpetually draw? Nearly everyone has a mix, if only so they can satisfy themselves that they are not radical extremists. To further the confusion, there are parallels in our world that suggest to us that a mixture is best, like the alloys of metals being more useful than pure metals alone, or the right temperature being a mixture of not too hot and not too cold. It is intuitive to infer a moderate compromise in social, economic, and political matters. Now let us see the mixture from a different perspective. Engineers do not strive for a healthy balance of both planes that continue to fly and planes that fall from the sky. They are very imbalanced in their view that all planes should continue flying without issue, to every possible extent. We would find it unacceptable if the legal system outwardly promoted a healthy mix of bringing criminals to justice and letting them do whatever they want. The point to see here is that we must not mix poison into our food and call that a healthy balance. No percentage of violent crimes have a fitting place in civilization, same with fraud, corruption, and a long list of wrongful acts. The practice of forceful plunder through the apparatus called “government” is the rational equivalent of criminality, asserting that the ability to do so equates to the right to do so, and dismissing other peaceful means for funding as if they are inferior. No degree of what is rationally criminal is somehow a quality ingredient to mix into one’s political stance, even if the current laws legitimize it. That it comes from the basis of “might makes right” and violates inalienable rights means that justifying any degree of it makes a person complicit with this criminality, which is objectively criminal and evil because objective reality is altered thereby, to the subtraction from objective and measurable well-being. Well-intentioned people of all kinds mix in ideas that are objectively criminal, not seeing with rational eyes because they used the going laws as their only measure for what is just. Even those reaching for higher moral ideology believe in things like city-states and small or local governments as the solution, as if to not have fully admitted that nobody is fit or entitled to rule, whether they are a person or a group. It is the rational that gives us the tools to collaboratively orchestrate law and order, and the same that stands as the constant standard for what is good and evil, what preserves rational rights and what depletes them. If rationalism can reveal what toxic and evil justifications we might have mixed into our views, it can be the tool for helping us clean up our views, even if someone thinks that doing so will amount to extremism. Author: Ben Jarick Ben Jarick is a writer, inventor, entrepreneur and lifelong student.

MACDONALD: Is it Just Me?

February 14, 2026February 14, 2026 Steve MacDonald

If you were jaded about politics and power before the response to the China Virus (say it like Trump; CHI-NUH), odds are good that it metastasized into full-blown cases of “you just can’t trust those f**kers about anything. And you can’t. You never could. Well into my second decade of mouthing off about almost everything, … Read more

Flag canada Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

MACDONALD: Once Again, The Problem isn’t Guns, it’s Progressives

February 13, 2026 Steve MacDonald

Remember Bob and Doug McKenzie. SCTV and later CBC TV. A filler bit that exploded into a phenomenon. An Album, the movie Strange Brew. I wonder what that would look like today. G’Day, Eh, and welcome to the Great Woke North. So, like, this is me as a gunperson in a dress, eh? Canada is … Read more

Friday Meme Thing

February 13, 2026 Steve MacDonald

You lived to tell the tale of another week, and here we are to celebrate. Memes, baby, tasteless, spicy, often painfully honest, not always making total sense memes. And probably a few that are full of it but funny as hell. Hey. It’s a meme. That’s what they are for. . . . . . … Read more

MACDONALD: Why You Need to Shadow Lunatic Lefties Online

February 12, 2026 Steve MacDonald

Remember Oyster River School Board Member Giana Gelsey. Last July, she was only slightly ahead of the outrage curve with demands that “we” need to dox law enforcement. She meant federal agents. Doxing is illegal in lots of places, but announcing to the world that “we” need to do it is protected speech. Even for … Read more

Prison Jail Image by Ichigo121212 from Pixabay

MACDONALD: Where Progressives Do Not Fear To Tread

February 11, 2026 Steve MacDonald

The idea that the globalist left, which includes elites and American progressives, will protect and defend speech, association, or assembly that they disagree with is absurd. At every opportunity, they actively work to control words, speech, and, by extension, thoughts. Any crisis, real or imagined, is an excuse to create fear and to silence dissent. … Read more

Midweek Memes

February 11, 2026 Steve MacDonald

Welcome to the middle of the emem week and, with it, midweek memes, with special thanks to Matt, Brian, Laura, Deb, David, the other Laura, and the rest of you who send me memes like there’s nothing in the world you’d rather do. We all appreciate it. . . . . . . . . … Read more

MACDONALD: Aborting a Blue Future

February 10, 2026February 10, 2026 Steve MacDonald

A headline like that could mean a lot of things. From America rising up again in 2026 and 2028 to push back against the systemic failure and cultural corruption of the political left, to preventing depression (emotional and economic), to Democrats committing political suicide as a matter of policy. In a manner of speaking, it … Read more

MACDONALD: Trump Makes “Health Care” Cost Less – Left Shrugs

February 9, 2026February 9, 2026 Steve MacDonald

If you are old enough to remember or know how to ask the internet, Democrats have been pretending to care about the cost of health care since Mrs. Bill Clinton hit the West Wing with a left hook. Hillary Care was a groundbreaking piece of First Lady-inspired “legislation” to give the government more control over … Read more

Monday Memes

February 9, 2026 Steve MacDonald

Memes keep piling up in my inbox so thank you to everyone who sends them and…yes, of course I’ll share. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .