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.

Bette Midler California Bag Ban – No, It’s Not About Plastic Surgery

September 26, 2018June 6, 2013 Steve MacDonald

If ever you needed proof that some celebrities are dopes then the recent effort by a cast of millionaire limousine liberals to help pass a state wide bag ban in California should serve. No, it’s not a bill to require plastic surgery, it would make the misnamed single use plastic grocery bag extinct across the left-coast utopia. But despite Hollywood has-been Bette Midler leading the charge the bill fell three-votes short in the state legislature.

Midler, who prefers the state force consumers to use the bacteria collecting, non-recyclable, foreign made “reusable” bags, was less than pleased by the result.

Rail Propaganda Campaign Approved By NH Executive Council

September 26, 2018June 6, 2013 Steve MacDonald

If a big pharmaceutical company was given $40,000.00 by the New Hampshire’s Executive Council to advertise the benefits of a drug therapy that had not only not yet been approved but was not even known to be viable, would people be up in arms about that? I think they probably would. So how about some outrage over this?

The New Hampshire Executive Council, by a vote of 4 – 1, has just spent $40,000.00 so that the NH-DOT and the New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority can hire…

“… a consultant for the sole purpose of public outreach and public relations to increase the public awareness of the mission of the NHRTA … and to educate the public on the benefits of rail as part of a comprehensive multi-modal transportation system, both statewide and specifically within the N.H. Capital Corridor.”

The NHRTA’s sole reason for existing is to develop commuter rail in the Granite State without regard for long term costs, efficiency, or even need, all questions which have been answered time and again, but not to the satisfaction of proponents because the answers were not favorable to their cause.

The IRS Can’t Find The Receipts…

September 26, 2018June 6, 2013 Steve MacDonald

You really can’t make this stuff up. IRS spends 50 million of your dollars and mine…on a boondoggle that wasn’t even supposed to happen after the whole GSA debacle, and they can’t find the receipts. Too busy targeting political opponents? Wait! I bet they blame the sequester.

SEXeter High School: Three Teachers on the Hook for Sex Asssault

September 26, 2018June 6, 2013 Steve MacDonald

Three teachers are under investigation regarding an alleged sexual assault at Exeter High School back in 2009. According to the Union Leader, two of those educators have already resigned and a third is on paid leave as a result of the schools investigation. The police are looking to speak with all the parties involved as … Read more

Claremont special election…

September 26, 2018June 5, 2013 Steve MacDonald

Osgood via doubleyouemyouare……..

“What To Cut”

September 26, 2018June 5, 2013 Steve MacDonald

Citizens for a Strong New Hampshire, a coalition of Granite Staters who support public policies that create jobs, limit government, lower taxes, and improve the economy, has released its first television advertisement, which will begin airing today. Titled “What to Cut,” the advertisement focuses on Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s deciding vote to pass Obamacare and the … Read more

Tune-In to GrokTALK! Tonight.

June 9, 2018June 5, 2013 Steve MacDonald

Just a reminder…GrokTALK! is re-broadcast every Tuesday evening on AC Nation Radio from 8-10pm. This week our guests are Rick Olson Jr., President of the New Hampshire Wildlife Federation and the current President of the Londonderry Fish & Game Club, New Hampshire Republican House rep JR Hoell, along with Susan Olsen, Mike Rogers, Skip Murphy and … Read more

Susan ‘Baghdad Bob’ Rice moves to NSA

September 26, 2018June 5, 2013 Steve MacDonald

Great news. The National Security Adviser within the Obama Administration tasked with leaking stuff meant to bolster the Obama Global brand is being ‘resigned.’ Tom Donilon, who is reputed to have let out secrets about our allies and missions is being thrown under the bus replaced by UN flack Susan Rice, best known for her … Read more

Eastwooding The New Hampshire State Senate On Roll Call Votes

September 26, 2018June 4, 2013 Steve MacDonald

Eastwooding The NH Senate- Where are the Roll Call Votes?

If party designations connote principles, and party pledges imply performance, and we extend that assumption to the relationship between electoral action and legislative response, then it should not be beyond the pale to expect the elected to provide proof of individual effort toward securing the principles and pledges upon which their election to office was presumably based.

And why do I care? Apart from an obvious and general interest in politics, as a conservative, I’d simply like to see some regular and consistent evidence that those people in the state legislature who style themselves as conservatives are, in fact, voting like conservatives, without necessarily having to go through some other groups filter (or here-say) to arrive at a conclusion, one way or the other.

Notable Quote – On “Reorganizing” the Republican Party

September 26, 2018June 4, 2013 Steve MacDonald

“…it is probably enough to observe here that in the nature of things the exercise of personal government, the control of a huge bureaucracy, and the management of an enormous mass of subsidized voting-power, are as agreeable to one stripe of politician as they are another. Presumably they interest a Republican or Progressive as much … Read more

Treaties, Irony, and Gun Rights – Oh My!

September 26, 2018June 4, 2013 Steve MacDonald

When second or third world Muslim Freedom fighters want to overthrow a controlling oppressive government, the Obama administration is Johnny-on-the-spot with…well…guns; other peoples money for guns or training in the use of guns, or some such thing. But when American citizens want to exercise their second amendment right to lawful gun ownership (at their own expense) as a long term deterrent to the ~~potential~~ threat of a controlling and oppressive government, Obama and the Democrats want to do everything and anything they can to make that exercise as difficult as possible, if not impossible.

So yes, you need guns in pursuit of liberty and freedom from controlling oppressive regimes just not this one.

GrokTALK! June 1st, 2013

September 26, 2018June 3, 2013 Steve MacDonald

This week on Grok Talk!… Skip, Susan and Steve talk about the upcoming CNHT Picnic, the Obama Bus, Press scandals, SB11, Anti-globalists, Harrell Kirstein, Patrick Abrami, Granite State Futures and their listening sessions, Jerry Garcia, enabling legislation, and microphones that are not golden. JR Hoell, New Hampshire Republican House rep, stops by to talk about … Read more

The Minimum Wage From Yet Another View

September 26, 2018June 3, 2013 Steve MacDonald

The notion that New Hampshire needs to set a minimum wage higher than the current and equally arbitrary federal rate is as flawed a notion as the faux-benefit of a federal minimum wage in the first place. But New Hampshire Democrats and some Democrats elected as Republicans, continue to make a case for it.

But allowing the government to define an arbitrary price point for labor is absurd and anyone who has ever had a job already knows why.

Curricululum

September 26, 2018June 3, 2013 Steve MacDonald

Hassan-a-Saurous Bugetus Excalmitous Ignoramus Overexaggeratus

September 26, 2018June 3, 2013 Steve MacDonald

Chess Move

Grant Bosse has a great piece over at NH Watchdog that addresses the hyperbole of New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan on the state budget and its priorities. Hassan has decided to ignore the striking similarities between her budget, the House version, and the Senate version, and has instead chosen to release her talking points to the professional left so they will be equipped to shout down anyone who dares point out the obvious.

Quoting Grant…

My colleague Joshua-Elliott Traficante at the Josiah Bartlett Center finds that the governor’s budget, the House budget, and the budget up for debate by the full Senate this week have nearly identical priorities for the critical areas that Hassan claims are at risk.