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.

Could We Ever “Just Be Friends?”

The video seeks to resolve the question of whether men and women can ever be “just friends.”   A platonic relationship without any aspirations of hooking up.   Given that this “research” was conducted in a University Library, the outcome seems obvious but it is still instructive to see the parade of college-age women who think … Read more

What “The Grok” & “Blue Hampshire” Had In Common

Why hasn't the NH Democrats show outrage at story of Teenage prostituionSharing the “indiscretions” of the opposing party are the foundation of blogging and, in fact, politics in general.   Not sharing them, when they occur among your own party leadership, members, supporters, or factions your leadership have embraced, might be construed as bias or hypocrisy.

Case in Point: The criminal elements among the #Occupy movement, a movement that the left and its leaders (even some libertarians) had quickly embraced, have been summarily ignored by both local and national Democrat party blame-stormers, including the case of Justina Jensen who was arrested for trying to pimp a 16 year old girl she met at  #Occupy Manchester as an on-line teenage prostitute.

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Windham Welcomes Gingrich

John Sununu’s ears must be bleeding.  Yesterday Hot Air reported on the Sununu dig at Gingrich and what looks like a twenty year old grudge between them about Newt not supporting the Elder Bushes tax hike deal.  (The one that cost him the oval office.)  The problem is that by drawing attention to it, Sununu makes Newt look more conservative, with history putting Gingrich firmly on the proper side of the argument.

Meanwhile, New Hampshire is supposed to belong to Romney, and Governor Sununu has lined up all the right endorsements (including his own) to make sure it stays that way.  But most of us know Kelly Ayotte will never be Romney’s pick for VP (if Mittens even gets the nomination) and that this is just more establishment chain-yanking and game playing to make sure the ‘right people’ get elected.

Sununu is all about that.  Just ask Jack Kimball.

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Does It Come In Convict Orange?

Forever lazy - perfect for the unemployed or an #OccupierMy wife is watching Television.  I’m reading.  And what to my wondering eyes should appear…but a commercial for something called  Forever lazy.  It looks like a snuggie -jumpsuit with a hood.  Dr. Denton’s without the footies.  And it comes in several unflattering shades.  My only question after seeing it…does it come in convict orange, because it should.

The Ad shows grown-ups wearing mostly fuchsia Forever Lazy outfits, lounging, doing minimal tasks around the house, and even appearing in public; and I’ve got this image of every 70s (ish) Hollywood and TV future-state where everyone wears the same outfit, color-coded to identify your station in direct contradiction to the finger-nails-on-the-chalkboard-equality-memes pumped out by the leftist-Hollywood-utopian-future-statists.

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National Review – The Week

If the latest issue of National Review has graced your mail box (or you read the digital edition) you’ve probably read this already, but I can’t help but share it. “The case for Newt is that he is nothing like that guy who used to be governor of Massachusetts.  The case for Romney is very … Read more

Obama’s Orwellian AttackWatch Slayed!

Democrats are hypocrites.  I call them hypocrats.  They cry about government spies, burning the Constitution, and trampling on our rights, except when their party is doing the trampling.  They then institute speech intimidating spy on your neighbor  “trial Balloons” like #AttackWatch and go “What?” if anyone dares complain.

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Making ‘Cents’ To Democrats

Getting Pennies while we can - sunsetting the cigarette taxRep Ken Wyler, R-Kingston NH, took the Portsmouth Herald to task, in Fosters Daily Democrat, (Fosters.com) for its recent editorial on the cigarette tax decrease.  The Herald would like us to continue raising tobacco taxes every year, just like when the Democrats were in power, essentially pimping the Democrat party argument that we need the revenue, and that the tax decrease was pointless.

I’ve been arguing for a much larger decrease of the cigarette tax than the Republican House settled on for years.  It seemed obvious to me.    We make a hell of a lot more on Rooms and Meals taxes and that revenue is shared with towns–(ironic considering how Democrats pilfered that tax for reasons that will become obvious in a moment.)    Increased commerce overall is a benefit to the business community, profits, employment, wages, and the business tax revenue that grows as a result.  Cigarettes are a draw, even as sales drop.  Why don’t Democrats see it?

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Not Paranoid -Prescient

Guns - ATF emails implicate plan to use Gunrunner to regulate gun salesBack in May of 2011, the first stories about project Gunrunner and Fast and Furious started leaking into the blogosphere.  American guns were used by Mexican drug gangs to kill a US agent and US made guns were turning up at other crime scenes involving Mexican Drug traffickers.  But the story at the time was not the narrative the left was looking for.  It was about whistle-blowers inside ATF claiming that ATF and other agencies were selling those guns to the drug dealers and letting them walk into Mexico.  In May of 2011 I said this...

Being who they are,  (Democrats) would demand that they short-stroke this ‘discovery” into expanding gun control legislation, and I’m not convinced that this was not a convenient side effect if not the entire point of the program.

And it turns out I was right.  I wasn’t being paranoid I was prescient.

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Quote: Jonah Goldberg–On Obama’s Kansas Speech

Via Twitter: “If you just woke up from a coma & this speech was playing in your hospital room, you’d have no idea Obama’s been POTUS for 3 years.” -Jonah Goldberg   Goldberg is referring to Mr. Obama’s speech in Kansas the other day in which Obama admits, in far too many words as usual, … Read more

SETI Gets Its Game On

SETI gets funding to resume search for alien lifeThe Search For Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) had to shut down its Allen Telescope Array back in April.  Not enough money.  According to Mashable.com the Allen Telescope Array…

…consists of 42 20-feet-wide telescopes located some 300 miles north of San Francisco. Originally funded largely by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who donated $25 million to the project, the ATA had to go into hibernation after state budget cuts affected the project’s funding.

New funding has resurrected the project.  The funding comes from private donors as well as the US Air force.  That would be “the 1%” and the Federal government.  Private donors, as we all know, sit atop their hordes like mythical dragons consuming members of the lower classes with dead-end, low wage jobs, and on occassion…let a few dollars slip out the cavern door to bribe politicians, bankers, and look for Alien life on other planets.

The Air Force just wants to test the Array  for “Space Situational Awareness,” according to the article.  Isn’t that just ripe with possibilities.

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Another Challange To Carol SEIU-Porter in CD-1 Primary

Matt Hancock just abother cookie cutter Progressive
Donkey Cookie Cutter

Portsmouth Democrat Matthew Hancock announced this week that he has added his name to the list of primary pimping Progressives wishing to mount a challenge to the GOP held first congressional district seat in New Hampshire.   But after reading Matt’s press release I’m not quite sure what he brings to the table that is any different than the left wing clone-troopers already running?

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Governor Jon Huntsman Snubs Windham NH [Updated]

Southern NH 9-12 Snubbed by jon HuntsmanSouthern New Hampshire 9.12 announced today that the forum for a Lincoln-Douglass style debate between Governor Jon Huntsman and former Speaker Newt Gingrich has had its venue changed without their knowledge or permission.   The debate was scheduled for December 12th, at 7 pm, at Windham High School.

From what I can tell it appears as if the Huntsman campaign arranged the event at St. Anselms College without including the Windham organizers in the process. Speaker Gingrich has said he will attend that debate but is still planning to appear in Winhdam where hundreds of people have already reserved seats for the event, far more than the facility in Manchester.

In their official Press release Representative David bates and Ken Eyring, the debate organizers and two of the founders of Southern NH 9.12 said…

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Stem Cell Research Company Walks Away From Embryos

Adult stem cell therapies for heart patientsStem cells.  You heard of them?  Democrats love stem cells.  But just the Embryonic variety.  Progressives love them so much they put embryonic  stem cell research on the pedestal right next to renewable energy as evidence of their commitment to “science.”  We heard all about it back in 2008.

President Obama rode the Stem cell nag all the way to March of 2009 when Dear Leader signed an order sending big bags of taxpayer funding, in the name of science, to support the next generation of cures for things like diabetes, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and Spinal cord injuries.

Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat Senator from New Hampshire, stood beside Mr. Obama, diabetic granddaughter/prop at her side, crooning in a press release after the executive order announcing that  “Today, President Obama took a major step in restoring America’s role as a leader in science and medicine by lifting the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.”

It was the damn Renaissance, brought to you by Jeanne “I need a Blue Ribbon Panel to tell me how to tie my own shoes”  Shaheen and a guy who had visited all 57 States.   What could go wrong?

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Hurting New Hampshire Families?

Here's Johnny - Frozen from lack of LIHEAP fundingStill waiting on the New Hampshire State Democrat Party Apparatus to unleash its year long media campaign against President Obama and the matter of Heating aid.  Obama, who has time to sell guns to drug lords and loan billions of your dollars to failing solar energy companies run by his campaign bundlers–two things we are also waiting on Suckley and the NHDP to denounce–cut LIHEAP funding in half back in February.  LIHEAP is federal heating aid assistance.  His reasoning was simple.

The HILL.com: “Energy prices have now gone down but the cost of the program has stayed the same,” Obama said during a press conference Tuesday. “Let’s go back to a more sustainable level.”

And it almost makes sense, particularity after giving foreign banks 7 trillion, Billions to unions, or dropping your class-warfare rhetoric to allow your friends in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get millions in bonuses.  Cutting off $2.5 billion in heating aid to needy families is couch cushion  money.  And yet he still cut it.

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#OccupyKepler22-b

The big news in science is the discovery of a ‘Goldilocks’ planet orbiting an Earth-like sun at a distance referred to as the ‘habitable zone.’ This is great news. The party of ‘Science’ should build a ship and occupy it as soon as possible. No need to wait for conclusive evidence of habitability. I mean, … Read more

Just Another Day In The Village

In a tweet posted a few days ago, State Democrat Party Propaganda minister Harrell “Jersey Shore” Kirstein basically threw Governor John Lynches signature program to reduce High School drop out rates under the bus.  No, he didn’t intend to do that but the tweet included a link to a Nashua Telegraph opinion piece by a local woman whose daughter had run off and stopped attending High School as a result of a funding cut to another program.  So much for the drop out rate.
Harrel Kirstein - NH Democrat Propoganda Minister
Despite that Kirstein still seems content to use this one parent and one child as props for the Progressive party agenda attack on a legislature that refuses to run the soaring deficits of its democrat predecessors.
But if that argument is even a remotely credible then that same “student” must not only be an indictment against John Lynches faux-reporting changes that “improved” drop out rates, but also on the Lefts decades long obsession with exposing kids to the so-called superior environment of a government run school system.  They clearly can’t manage to keep the kids coming back to the classroom without forcing taxpayers to spend millions more on additional state funded programs in addition to the millions spent on public education.  Given all those millions, shouldn’t this girl just love public school?

Maybe We Should Call Them “Lefts?”

Former John Edwards supporter and leader of what used to be NH Freedom to Marry, director Mo Baxley, is having a rough November.  Maybe not as rough as denying to herself and her credibility for what must have felt like years, that Edwards was not in fact the total scum bag he turned out to be; but then having your out-of-state sugar daddy cut your funding (after whining about other groups out of state funding), and having them give it to some other group to do what you thought you were doing, well that’s just got to hurt.

Or maybe not.  The facade fell as fast as the paycheck so maybe we’re looking at the total package.  A hypocrite who liked to insist that people denounce her definition of hate, racism, or bigotry or be marked as complicit in it, but who never once held her Democrat accomplices to the same standard.

A recent case in point?  Taylor Garrett, Republican, Christian, Homosexual, assaulted in what is being described as  a hate crime against a gay man.  (…)

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Repost: You Can’t Be A “Republican” And Vote Against Right To Work

(Originally posted September 21st, this seems like a suitable follow up to yesterdays post.  The premise?  Refusing to allow conscientious objection to union participation forces people to fund the Democrat agenda.  How can you claim to support Republican principles when you refuse to allow people the ability to opt out of paying union dues.)

You Can’t Be A Republican And Vote Against Right To Work

Supporting forced unionization is the same as supporting mandatory campaign contributions to the Unions and the Democrat party.  There is no conceivable way to separate the two.  Unions are funded by dues.  Democrats receive millions of dollars from unions to promote their agenda.  And in some cases to promote it violently.

You can’t separate the two.

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Republican Defectors

I think I made my point about Right To Work clear enough when I said this…

 A vote to sustain the Lynch Veto and permit forced unionization is a vote for the mandatory and state funding of abortion;  financing efforts to cripple or bypass our second amendment right to self defense; you are supporting state financed birth control, confiscation of property, increased taxation and broad based taxes, an expanding regulatory state and more centralized top down government, gimmick accounting, Gay marriage, genderless bathrooms,  seat belt laws, the food police, socialized medicine, restrictions on free and corporate speech, and the entire manifold of Democrat party policy wishes which those dollars will continue to support and advance as long as workers are denied the opportunity to decide if they are willing to fund these policies or not on their own.

Unfortunately for New Hampshire we’ll have to wait until next year to fix the problem of worker choice but in the mean time, we can enjoy the benefit of the roll call vote, posted on the Jump.

One point of interest: Union bought and paid for RINO Kevin Janvrin voted against Right to work. That and so much more on the jump.

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Be Pro-Choice: Vote For The Right To Abort Unions.

If unions were abortions everyone would have the right to chose not to be party to it. Some liberal justice would have long ago ensconced that “right” into the US Constitution. And we would not be having this debate in New Hampshire. Workers could decide if they wanted to abort the union. But Democrats are hypocrites and choice shall not be permitted in the workplace. You will not, cannot be permitted to choose for yourself.

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