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.

If the economy is getting better…(Part 7)

Obama Economy down the 'Toilet'…then why does median household income keep declining?  Overall, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% since December 2007 once you account for inflation.

The only thing rising is debt. (Along with real unemployment, poverty…etc)

Household debt is rising because people are out of work and trying to get by on credit.  The national debt is rising because Obama lied about cutting the deficit and Democrats have added trillions to it in just a few years.  Debt we cannot pay for with more debt.

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If The Left Really Cared About Women

Progressives are hypocrites, doubly so when it comes to women.  Take rape for example. Based on the gaping void in commentary from the Democrats on more than a dozen acts of sexual assault, including rape, of women at various occupy events around the nation last fall–and those are just the ones that were reported–we can … Read more

New Hampshire L&F Republicans to Democrats and other socialists: “We’re here, we’re clear, get used to it.”

One of the largest groups within the New Hampshire GOP is the “Liberty and Freedom” or “L&F” Republicans. This increasingly vocal and effective sub-coalition includes  movement conservatives, libertarian conservatives, free enterprisers, TEA Partiers, and yes, social conservatives. What each group has is common is the crucial centrality of individual liberty versus ever-growing government power.

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Planned Parnethood Sells Sex

[Updated] –the video was pulled.  I’m looking for another copy. Sex sells, and so does selling sex.  When your core business is sex, selling sex is how you increase your market share.   Planned Parenthood sells sex, then makes money because people are having sex, and then uses their friends in the government and the media … Read more

Building the American Underclass

Theodore Dalrymple (pen name), has produced some of the most compelling work I’ve read about the welfare state and how it creates and sustains the underclass.  If you are still staring out across the crumbling wreckage of the fruited plain, wondering how we got here and where we may be headed, Dalrymple has some very relevant observations.   A doctor with the British Health Service (Blimey Obamacare), he has and continues to write at great length about the victims of government largess, and the sorry state of his country as a result of it.

In a recent article in City Journal, he wrote…”The riots are the apotheosis of the welfare state and popular culture in their British form.”

RGGI…still a Scam (Audio)

RGGI Picking your pocketsIn my quest to mix it up , how about Blogs on Tape?  Here’s the audio version of “RGGI…still a Scam,” my GrokTALK! special presentation about the ongoing effort to end the scourge of the Regional Greenhouse Gas initiative.  (or something…)

If you’d prefer the print version the full transcript is on the jump.

 

[jwplayer mediaid=”17907″]

 

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How About A Donation Comrade?

NH DoL can fine people to bump up their budget…or why we might want to NH HB 1534.

HB 1534 reminds us of one of those ingredients in the sausage of government that we know are going to be bad for us.  Somehow the New Hampshire Department of labor was  allowed to collect fines into a restricted fund that is then used to fund the Department of Labor.  Need more revenue, collect more fines.  What could go wrong?

I don’t know…a bunch of bureaucrats, looking to pad their own budget, free to fine whomever they please… no worries.  Just make a “donation” to the Department of labor Budget expansion fund, and you’ll be in the clear comrade.   We won’t come back for another month.  Or, do we have to fine you for something now…?

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Lets Call It Steve

I was compiling some audio clips for this and that, and came across this (as opposed to that.) It’s from the movie “Over the Hedge,” when our hearty woodland creatures encounter that giant, mysterious Hedge.  I edited it down so it is only a few seconds long, but let me assure you in advance, Steve … Read more

Democrats – Party of No…Budget

debt -generational debt that isHarry Reid has been told to keep things from reaching Mr. Obama’s desk that might make Obama look bad.   So for over 1000 days the Democrats have avoided passing a budget.  The House has sent them plenty of budget related items, complete budgets, budget measures, spending and revenue measures, all dead or dying in the Senate, where Democrats own the landscape.

What’s that?  It’s the Republicans fault we don’t have a budget?  Sorry, that just aint so.

You can’t filibuster the budget. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 stipulates that debate is automatically cut off after 50 hours of debate. At that point, a budget can be passed by a simple majority, 51 votes. Democrats currently hold 53 seats in the Senate. They can pass a budget on a simple party-line vote.

You might ask yourself why, when the Democrats had the votes for two years, and both Houses, they refused to pass a budget?

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All Things Being Un-Equal

Following its move to force religious organizations to do things in violation of their conscience, the Obama administration has declared that in the name of fairness and equality, some additional mandates may be in order. Vegan restaurants will now be required to sell meals that include meat and fish. Health food stores will be required … Read more

A Cure For The Common Cold?

My wife had the flu the other day.  It really knocked her out.  She had the whole boat, sinus congestion, coughing, head aches, exhaustion, she was even having a hard time sleeping.   So I got her some condoms. That didn’t work.  I have to admit I was a bit surprised.  According to the TV contraception … Read more

Gambling On Our Future

A few days ago I wrote this (among other things) about the risk of bringing casinos to New Hampshire… Years of Casino ‘revenue’ in Concord would inevitably create the opportunity for entrenched incumbency and make every race about money, and who can spend it.   The special interest money would favor those who support Casino interests … Read more

Notable Quote: Paul Rahe – “Obama’s Tyrannical Ambition”

It is easy enough to see why progressive doctrine should be attractive to our masters. Tyrannical ambition is nothing new, and throughout human history it has nearly always presented itself to men in the guise of idealism. We are all inclined to meddle in other people’s business; we are all inclined to think that we … Read more

Palin Rocks CPAC

No one speaks to the base like Sarah Palin does, so I’ll stop typing and let her start talking.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXsrajvFGk8&feature=player_embedded

If the economy is getting better…(Part 6)

Children in poverty Rising under Obama
Full size graph on the jump

…then why has the number of children living in poverty in America risen for four years in a row?

Isn’t it all about the children?  It is.  And in a startling bit of irony, according to the Foundation for Child Development at least, the number of children living with families at or below the poverty line, has risen about 4-5% since the year of Obama, to around 21%.  The irony is that 20% is equal to the number of American families on the Obama Plantation who are trying to live on some kind of government support.

It hasn’t been this high since 1992/93.

So if the economy is getting better, why are so many people still being forced into government assistance programs, and how can pro-government Democrats continue to insist that these programs do anything but entrench people in poverty?

Better implies moving towards a desired goal.  Are they trying to suggest that this is the kind of economy they were waiting for?

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If the economy is getting better…(Part 5)

No room for small business to grow on the Obama Plantation
No room for small business to grow on the Obama Plantation

…then why has the number of self-employed Americans fallen by more than 2 million?

It’s one thing to say you support small business, but Democrats attaching the word jobs, small-business, or main-street to every bill that comes out of congress doesn’t make it happen.  But after 2008 every press release about every vote manged to shoe-horn in some BS about how that vote would help put Americans back to work.  Really?

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Gambling? Seriously?

Will Republians roll the dice on Gambling in New HampshireThe success of any move to add Casinos to New Hampshire will hinge on the Libertarian Republicans currently crowding the House and their ability to override a likely Lynch veto.  While I am on their side in almost every other case, when it comes to casinos we part ways, and not for the reasons you might think.

This is not an issue of social conservatism for me, not exactly, not the way it is a social issue for some Democrats like Governor John Lynch or the left wing social justice cabal at the New Hampshire Council of Communist Churches (NHCcC).   I see this as a matter of personal restraint, not because I object to people gambling, but because I am willing to pay a personal price, and forgo the risk of casino revenue, to ensure the liberty and freedom that I am convinced a casino culture in the halls of the State House would inevitably destroy.

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Why did M.I.A. Flip off my 11 Year Old Daughter?

Why did M.I.A Flip off my 11 year old daughter?
Why did M.I.A Flip off my 11 year old daughter?

I know that media and entertainment people live in intersecting bubbles where hordes of grovelers kiss their backsides 24/7/365 for the chance to ride on the coat-tails other peoples fame.  I get that even the most grounded among them will begin to believe that everything they do and say is as great as all the butt-kissers tell them it is.  But what kind of performer comes to the conclusion that giving 100 million people the finger (including my 11 year old daughter) is a form entertainment?

“What, this isn’t pay cable?”

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If the economy is getting better…(Part 4)

…then why is the percentage of Americans living in “extreme poverty” at an all-time high?

Extreme Poverty at an all time high in the obama economy
Extreme Poverty at an all time high in the obama economy

Nothing says economic recovery like rising poverty.  Not just poverty but extreme poverty.  What, you hadn’t heard about that?

Then maybe you hadn’t heard this either.  Joblessness begets dependence, begets poverty, begets slaves to the will of the government.  Big brother doesn’t have to spy on you, he’s controlling your income.  If that isn’t a clear enough map how about this one.

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