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.

(Re-Post FlashBack!) Introducing Rep Kevin Hodges (D-Awesome Cool)

(Originally posted April 20th, 2010, this is–I think–one of my classic rants and worthy of a re-post)

Introducing Rep Kevin Hodges (D-Awesome Cool)

Ah, the arrogance of youth.  Not long ago it was Brian “I have an LSR to get minors off for getting busted for possession of alcohol” Poznanski who was the whelp–having then gotten himself busted as a minor in possession of alcohol in front of a house full of minors and his LSR subsequently pulled.  That was fun, and illegal, but so five months ago.  Now we have Kevin Hodges (Hillsborough7) who hasn’t done anything illegal that we know of, but based on a chance encounter documented below I think we can draw a pretty picture of Mr. Hodges.

I’m just guessing but I bet Kev-Bo is wicked sick when it comes to the general court, and he’ll probably tell you as much.  But when you look up his voting record, he’s really just another BORG wired into Norelli’s hive.  He’s a big spender (No spending caps HB 1522), wants to make sure he can tax you as much as he needs to after he spends your money (Killed CACR 26) he’s not interested in the constitutionality of the general courts activities (voted to ITL HB 1343), and he seems more than willing to let the facilities committee pass judgement on things of a decidedly constitutional nature like banning guns from places (voted to kill HB1693) even though when given the chance to ban them legislatively he voted against it. (HB 1654).  Afraid to vote for it, but you’ll let them paper push it into existence, I see how you are.  And I didn’t look, but I bet he’s against parental rights.  Most young healthy men his age are.

What attracted my interest in Kevin–if you are wondering–was a recent encounter between Mr. Hodges and a new voter, (She’ll be 18 before November) documented in a letter to the editor of the Goffstown News.

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GSLPAC Tea Party Event – Live Streaming…

Granite Grok is Live at the Granite State Patriots Liberty PAC Tea Party Event at Guppy Park in Dover New Hampshire. Speakers include… Cliff Hurt Jack Kimball, Chair, GSPLPAC Ovide Lamontagne (Candidate, Republican nomination for NH Governor) Dennis Lamare (Candidate Republican nomination for Congress CD-2) Brendan Kelly (Libertarian Candidate Congress CD-1) John Hikel (Candidate Republican … Read more

Remembering Democrat Rule In New Hampshire – Part 1

New Hampshire Democrats treated your money like toilet paperIn the 2006 Elections Democrats took control of the New Hampshire House for the first time in 95 years (giving them complete control of State government for what would end up being four years).  What happened after that must not be forgotten, for it is the doom of men that they forget.

They forget that the House Democrats first move was to turn budget policy on its head.  Instead of estimating realistic revenues so that the governor could have a guideline for his budget, they would let the governor request a 14% expansion of state government in February of 2007, to which they would pad or add their spending spree agenda items before figuring out how to tax New Hampshire citizens to pay for their wish list.

In the now infamous shout heard round the State House, Democrat House leader Dan Eaton would later condense the entire four year budget strategy of the New Hampshire left into one sentence.

 ‘It makes sense to know how much you’re spending before you decide how much money to raise.’

Now that might just make sense for a school trip or new band uniforms but this wasn’t a fundraiser.  Eaton was talking about using the force of law and the power of the state to extract juice from the fruits of other peoples labors based on the whimsy of big government legislators with little or no regard for its affect on the state, our economy, or the people who would be paying, and that was exactly how the Democrats would govern.

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Obama, Birth of Hope (Ack!)

I was in the midst of a two year run with New Hampshire Taxpayer Radio when Obama and the Democrats were elected so I have file folders full of weekly show notes (not unlike Rush Limbaugh’s daily ‘stack of stuff’).  There is a good deal of material there and I don’t venture into the printed pile often, but I had to find something (which I did) but not before stumbling across this glorious discovery (on the jump).

It is from an October 2010 edition of The Weekly Standard’s parody page, only this was not a parody.  It was an example of just how badly a majority of American’s had been fooled by the Great Deceiver–Barack Obama–and how obnoxious the cult of personality had become; a sin they would punish his party for (at least a little bit), a few weeks after this issue was printed, in the November 2010 blow out.

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Is the Liberty-&-Freedom wing of the NH GOP a paper tiger?

PamTucker head image
Pam Tucker: Smart, feisty, tough. Doesn't like socialists, either.

Not really…but they sure as hell were AWOL at the New Hampshire GOP State Committee meeting on April 14, 2012.

As the meeting opened, there were 366 members reported present.

The big election battle was for National Committeewoman between Rep. Pam Tucker and Juliana Bergeron. Pam Tucker was the Liberty-&-Freedom (aka Tea Party) candidate, while Ms. Bergeron was the “establishment” nominee (for want of a better term).

The election was held late in the meeting. When the smoke cleared…

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Win The Future (WTF)

Worst recession in history.  Had three years to work on it, two of them with a Democrat majority congress, no budget from the Senate since 2009,  the economy still sucks, we have an election coming up, and what are Democrats running on? – Contraception. – A billionaires Secretary – Dogs Seriously?

What could go wrong? LA Set to Ban Paper and Plastic

paper-or-plastic-or something moreDemocrats don’t think things through.  (Progressive Republicans are no different, to be fair.)  They enact policies in response to the echo chamber of voices in their ideologically isolationist heads, all the things Edmund Burke warned us against centuries ago.  The result is almost always bureaucratic nonsense, another small loss of freedom, massive expense with little or no gain, followed by a parade of newer and more expensive (and intrusive) policies to “correct” the first.

The progressive Darth Vader might say of such people, “The urge to meddle is strong with this one.”

So what could go wrong if the Los Angeles City Council decided to ban all paper and plastic bags from Supermarket checkouts?

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0.375%

People need to re-think how they think about progressives.  For example, the Buffett rule, which is already dead in the water because even Democrats won’t support it, would only generate enough tax revenue to pay 0.375% of the 1.2 Trillion dollar estimated annual deficit.  That’s for this year.  (0.375%) Using history as a guide, even if implemented, that percentage would go down because the number of people the legislation taxes will go down.  If you tax it you get less of it.  They will leave, move their money, or no longer make enough.  And if Obama gets re-elected, well, the deficit will go up and the percentage down. (Don’t worry–the left has a plan for that).

The “increased tax eventually leads to diminishing returns” rule is one that Democrats willingly ignore for the sake of rhetoric, sound bites, election politics, (as a matter of policy in general), and let’s be honest here–to use class-warfare-angry-minority-mob-rule populism to implement yet another new tax that the Democrats can later broaden to affect more and more people, including people who are not at all rich, probably because they were actually dumb enough to support this tax now.

If you do not change how you think about progressive motivations you will pay the price.

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Juliana Bergeron – One Term Committeewoman?

I won’t waste time listing the dramatis personae of ‘Conservative-esque’ and ‘Libertarian-ish’ Republicans who probably fell for whatever passed as Juliana Bergeron’s Faustian bargain to earn their vote.   I’ll just say, “we-told-you-so” instead.  I know, that sounds divisive.  So let’s see what your new Committeewoman has to say about that. Keene Sentinel; Juliana is … Read more

[Updated] TEA Party April 15th

In case you forgot, the annual TEA party event at Victory Park in Manchester is this Sunday at 2pm to  5pm. A list of speakers has been added- beginning at 2:15 Update- (corrected time of event and added list of speakers) Tom Flaherty will introduce Pastor Joe DiChiarowho will be doing the invocation. Our Master … Read more

HB 1607 – Public Schools Could See Buckets of Free Money

Skip just posted a nice letter from the Londonderry Superintendent of schools in which the Super appears to lobby the state Senate in opposition to HB1607.  This bill establishes an education tax credit for businesses or groups that set up scholarship programs to help offset the costs of non-public school tuition.  This could allow more parents to enroll their kids outside of the governments education monopoly and on paper at least take the paltry sum of $3,450.00 per student with them when the business is reimbursed for its donations with a tax credit of that amount.   The business is, of course, free to set it’s award at any sum above that at their discretion, but the credit is (I assume) maxed out at $3450.00 per student.

Needless to say, the Super (Nate Greenberg) doesn’t care for the bill.  By his calculation each school district will lose money it needs to teach students and would necessarily downshift those costs onto local property taxpayers to make up the difference.

That argument sounds like it might hold water–the entire lobbying question Skip raises aside–but only if taken in the vacuum of the space between the typical bureaucrats ears.  I wont revisit all the Super’s arguments here, just follow the link if you feel confused, but in my district, this bill would, on paper at least,  be like the school district finding a winning lottery ticket every single year.

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The War on Women Is Not Over

How do you know when a Democrat is lying?  Their lips are moving.  And Rosengate, the shooting star calamity set off by Hilary Rosen’s orchestrated  remarks about Ann Romney and how stay at home mom’s don’t work, provides that much more proof that the adage is true.

Brad Woodhouse from the Democrat National Committee, from yesterday I believe…

“On Thursday, as the Rosen saga unfolded, DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse echoed her plea for peace. ‘I’m not a fan of the term,’ he said in an interview. ‘I mean, I’m sure I’ve probably used it. We all fall into these easy vernaculars … but we in the DNC have not been running a campaign based on the term ‘war on Women.’ That’s a myth cooked up by Republicans.’”

Really?  Cooked up by Republicans?

May 26th 2011, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (DWS), in one of her earliest public speeches as the DNC chair siad…

“The war on women that the Republicans have been waging since they took over the House,” she said, “I think is going to not only restore but possibly helps us exceed the president’s margin of victory in the next election.”

I’m sure we’re taking this out of context but when the Chairman of the DNC says…’The war on women that Republicans have been waging…” that whole “myth cooked up by Republican’s thing” starts to lose some of its umph!

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God Bless Joe McQuaid and the Union Leader!

Says McQuaid in a Union Leader editorial today: “Banning a personal income tax in New Hampshire by means of a constitutional amendment makes all the sense in the world — unless, of course, you like the idea of such a powerful and corrosive government confiscation of your money. With Democratic gubernatorial candidates once again refusing to … Read more

What If You Held an Election and No One Showed Up?

Merrimack held it’s local town elections yesterday.  A town of roughly 25,000, with (I’m guessing) close to 18,000 people of voting age, that typically sees 4000-6000 ballots in the average Town election, produced only 2500 ballots yesterday. A bit of advice? When you let one third of the voters decide tax and spending policy for … Read more

What about the New Hampshire Budget?

New Hampshire Democrats are like three year oldsOne of the major themes of the New Hampshire Democrats is that the current New Hampshire Republican majority is not focusing enough on the budget and the economy, and spending too much time on other issues.   But this is an understandable position for leftists.

When the Democrats ran the entire state for four years, every session (almost every week) was about the budget, and how they had to raise more revenue.   The reason for that is that their estimates were always so distant from reality, and their over spending so profligate, that they could not help but be obsessed, at every opportunity, with trying to fix a mess of their own making.  The budget (and the economy)–how they might milk more taxes and fees out of the taxpayers or regulate and tax local businesses–was always on the agenda, often into the small hours of the morning of the day after the day they were supposed to have this all worked out by law.  So Democrat stewardship of the budget and the economy was one long, constant, cluster-***k.   (With what time they could spend ducking their budget woes wasted on trying to stomp out free speech, socializing medicine, scaring off more business, and a long laundry list of other nonsense too long to regurgitate here.)

The Republican majority, on the other hand, doing what you do at the grown-up table, already took care of  all that business in the first session.   Budget, estimates, revenues, done.   No last minute nonsense, no late night sessions.  No passing bills without hearings or making up taxes or fees they would later have to rescind–whose revenue they would then also have to “find” again and again…  and no Rube Goldbergian accounting tricks, or counting money from this year for that year, or adding in the potential sale of things like land that you will never actually sell.  None of that.

The Democrats hate the Republicans for that.

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The Divine Right of Democrats

From DaTecguy’s blog, an excellent post on Neo-crats–my word not his. He compares the Old Democrats to the new with a little help from some other great sources…

When Democrats lose, that’s not a coup, that just means you lost this years elections. Don’t blame it on the Koch brothers, Halliburton or anyone else, sometimes the voters don’t like you. The Republicans spent 40 years in the wilderness until Election 1994 (Congressional elections not Presidential ones) — not one Republican thought of changing the rules or the constitution.

It has been ever so, when the GOP took the congress in 1994 Peter Jennings called it a temper tantrum, for eight years the left insisted that George Bush was not legit and when in 2010 the voters threw out the democrats America is dumb.

I’ve been writing about the elites and Feudalism since 2009. Because they see them selves as our betters their actions are no surprise.

…and links to the other good stuff…

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