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.

How About a Little Bias?

Much of the media bais that occures is subtle.  From choosing what stories to cover and what to ignore to how issues, ideas, and people are framed in context, word choice and tone convey connotation, intentional or not, to the reader. Here’s a classic example from Yahoo! News. Claudine Zap, writing for The Lookout – … Read more

NH House Votes to Prohibit Indefinite Detention in the Granite State

Indefinite detention - NH House votes against itHB 399, the New Hampshire Liberty Act, passed the NH House by a vote of 337-15.

Talk about bi-partisan support!  And yes, I am enthusiastic about that.  Back on February 18th, I challeneged New Hampshire Democrats to show us what they were made of when it came to the Federal Government, under the guidance of Mr. Obama,  giving itself the right to detain people indefinitely and they have spoken.

Dan Itse’s bill would make it a crime for anyone to aid or abet indefinite detention in the Granite State without due process and the Democrat majority House stood up to support that.

Now maybe it’s a no-brainer vote.  Perhaps it’s an easy one-off, a gimme.  Heck, Democrats voted to nullify National ID back in the day.  How hard could this be to support?

Well if it that were true why did 15 New Hampshire reps still vote against it (including one Republican)?

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He’s Even Got That ‘New Pope’ Smell.

Francis I, the new leader of the catholic church, is likely to get more than a few liberals to jump back on their crazy-train.  That’s because he’s a Catholic.  No, not your Pelosi-Biden ‘garden variety’ left wing catholic, who claims to be catholic–Pope Francis is an actual C-A-T-H-O-L-I-C. Francis has this crazy idea that marriage has something to do … Read more

They’re Kidding Right?

I couldn’t believe it when I read it. The White House on Thursday launched an audio series to give Americans the sense they’re along for the ride for some of Biden’s behind-the-scenes moments. Dubbed “Being Biden,” the series features photographs of Biden from events that aren’t part of his public schedule. Viewers can listen to Biden narrate … Read more

HHS Mandate Suffers Setback

From Caffeinated Thoughts, long time friend of the Grok Shane Vander Hart reports on a court decision in favor of Thomas Monaghan and his property management corporation, which objected to the HHS contraceptive mandate on religious grounds. Judge Zatkoff’s decision protects freedom granted under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  Thomas More Law Center, in their press release, … Read more

From The Edge of Sequestration – About Those Job Cuts…

We’ve been warned of tainted food as the FDA furloughs workers, thinning ranks as border agents get let go, and fewer Federal prosecutors, and don’t forget about those FAA employees that have to be let go. So why, in the age of sequesteria, has the Federal Government posted job opening to fill 2,596 positions in just the past ten days? … Read more

An Open Letter to Foster’s Daily Democrat (Updated and Bumped)

letter to the editor[Update: I was just informed that the day after this post originally went up Foster’s Daily Democrat decided to publish Dan Davis’ letter.   We take no credit.  I’m sure it was just waiting in the slush pile for a space to open up and the timing is coincidental.  We do appreciate Foster’s making room on their pages for Dan’s side of that debate and hope it is a trend that will continue on other topics and issues of importance to Granite Staters.] 

 

 

Original post

The following is a letter from Dan Davis of Kensington to Foster’s Daily Democrat, in defense of Free Staters and the Free State project.  According to Dan and NH Seacoast Liberty (where I picked this letter up at Dan’s request), Foster’s has refused to publish it despite publishing editorials critical of the movement.

We think Foster’s can do whatever the hell it wants including being like most other print news outlets that use editorials and letters to the editor to advance their left leaning preferences in ways they might try to hide in their news and other reporting.   But in doing so they should expect to be called out for any obvious biased, one-sided, or misleading  reporting, especially when they do it in their letters section.

Mr. Davis has done exactly that.

As a lifelong NH resident, I am disappointed with recent Foster’s editorials which incorrectly demonize the Free State Project. The paper continually mischaracterizes the FSP as a monolithic force, whose members are conspiring to “take over NH.”

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“Arbitrary and Capricious”

“We have a responsibility as human beings to do something, to save each other, to save the lives of ourselves, our families, ourfriends, and all of the rest of the people that live on God’s planet. And so while other people will wring their hands over the problem of sugary drinks, in New York City, … Read more

AFP-NH Says Hassan’s Budget is “Counterproductive to Job Creation and Economic Growth.”

AFP Logo

AFP-NH’s Greg Moore observed recently that NH Governor Maggie Hassan’s Budget is bad for growth and and burdens small businesses.

Hassan spokesman Marc Goldberg responded, “The governor’s balanced budget proposal begins restoring critical investments in the priorities needed to create good jobs and build a more innovative economic future, such as higher education, economic development, mental health and public safety.

So if we dump more taxpayer money into a University system that, according to Democrats, consistently creates graduates who then leave the state–no matter how much money they spent on the university system, spend more money on the idea that the government taking more money from business owners knows best how to attract and grow business, and add more cops and state-payroll therapists, the Granite State will leap forward from the dark ages of the Republican Majority.

All this does is add state employees, state payroll, dues paying union members, and expands the budget.  Maybe they are great jobs “for favoring elected Democrats” but it’s our money.

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Vote New Hampshire

Not all but most towns in New Hampshire are voting today.  Please make time to get out and vote, and if possible, bring some neighbors with you. Just do it!

Shea-Porter Promotes Air Traffic Controller Sequester Scare But Ignores FAA Waste on One-Percenters

Shea-Porter on potential FAA cuts at Manchester airport

Democrat Carol Shea-Porter, the Democrat parties “narrative mule” for congressional district one in New Hampshire, has a link on her official “I’m Your Congresswoman!”  Facebook page.   Shea-Porter’s status update simply says “Control towers at airports such as Manchester’s could be left unstaffed by budget cuts.”

Unstaffed!  Holy Air traffic controller-less tower Batman!

The link provided with this ‘news’ leads to a story at NECN about how the airport tower in Manchester, New Hampshire is on the list of candidates in New England that could lose it’s midnight shift as a result of some $600 million dollars in cuts to the FAA budget as a result of Barack Obama’s sequester.  That would be the sequester that the White house and Democrats arm-twisted the House into passing (with Democrat support), and has since decided to blame them for in its entirety.

Carol, the dutiful Democrat sheep that she is, has happily toed the assigned narrative without regard to the veracity of its claims, but someone might want to tell her a few things about how much DOT, and more specifically the FAA, requests annually in its budget, and how much of that massive sum gets wasted on what the FAA itself calls “low priority spending.”

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Goodies from the 2013 Warner Warrant

I thought Dems and Progressives were all “Trees – Not Towers” all the time: Article 12 Shall the Town vote to authorize the selectmen to enter into a 5 year lease agreement, with an automatic renewal for four (4) automatic give (5) year terms, with AT&T to locate a tower (on town owned property on North … Read more

It’s Maple Syrup Season Again…

 

Maple Syrup and Global Warming

..so it must be time to make fun of Jeanne ‘Global Warming’ Shaheen. (Or just Greene Shaheen if you prefer.)

When Mrs. Greene Jeanne ran for the Senate in 2008 she made a point of making some dire predictions about the ill effects of Global Warming–if left unattended.  (Back in 2008 they were still calling it that even though there hadn’t been any warming in a while.)  One of the dire consequences–none of which came true by the way, was an impact on New Hampshire’s Maple Syrup production.  So every year we visit the topic.

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Sequester Will Destroy 170 Million Jobs

I confess that I missed this (until now).The-Sequester-Bee

Democrat Maxine Waters (D- Doh!), relieved that she is not in prison for all the corruption she has engaged in while elected to the US House of representatives, is making up for that by just being herself.

“We don’t need to be having something like sequestration that’s going to cause these jobs losses, over 170 million jobs that could be lost – and so he made it very clear he’s not opposed to cuts but cuts must be done over a long period of time and in a very planned way rather than this blunt cutting that will be done by sequestration.”

As Charles C.W. Cooke points out at NRO’s The Corner, there are only about 134 million jobs in America.

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Manchester Ward 2 Special Election

Help send a Republican to the NH State house. Hillsborough 9 (Manchester Ward 2) Special Election is Tues 3/19….and Win Hutchinson needs YOUR help to WIN! Door to Door this Saturday…starting at 10am and again at 1pm. Free Corned Beef & Cabbage Dinner for volunteers to follow. http://www.facebook.com/events/425858194168111/ Election Day Activities on Tuesday: Poll Standing … Read more

From the Edge of Sequestration – Mopping Up Another Obama Lie

Obama lies a lot, or…he is about as well informed as Carol Shea-Porter. Obama: “Starting tomorrow, everybody here, cleaning the floors at the Capitol. They’re going to have less pay. The janitors, the security guards. They just got a pay cut. They’ve got to figure out how to manage that. That’s real.” Architect of the … Read more

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