GrokWATCH: Right To Know Request – Water Sustainability Commission public surveys

WSC-Logo Water Sustainability Commision

Two days ago, we launched our newest Right To Know series concerning Gov. Lynch’s Water Sustainability Commission – that which was ordered into existence by Executive Order:

Good afternoon,

Having just taken your survey, I have a question:  will you be publishing all of the surveys taken so as to validate the summary result?  Like any good scientific OR Governmental process, it is always best, for openness and transparency, to publish all raw data.

If not, please consider this a Right To Know request under RSA 91-A for all of the filled out surveys that were received from SurveyMonkey (or by other means) on that survey, as shown by your page (http://www.nh.gov/water-sustainability/).

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Yesterday was Chick-Fil-a day! And a hateful CFO is getting canned?

Update:  Yes, for the hate filled rant below, Adam Smith is no longer the CFO at Vante.  Thanks to the commentors for confirming it! “Always tastes better when it is full of hate!” All the way down to DC, I kept hearing how Conservative folks have been flocking (pun intended) to Chick-Fil-A outlets to support … Read more

GrokTV: NH State Senator Andy Sanborn (District 9) – Question 7

Question #7:  Adversarial relationship between State agencies vs ordinary folks?

To fix a perceived problem (which Questions 5 & 6 brought up), you have to know all about the problem – or at least the biggest and most influential parts of the problem.  In discussing State Agencies, we wanted to know if there was a sense of “us vs them”, if State Agencies had drifted into a condition of reversing the proper role of government serving the people and morphing into one of “we will ensure that YOU follow OUR rules”.

Question 7:

Adversarial relationship between State agencies vs ordinary folks?

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GrokTV: Jane Cormier, Candidate for NH House – Questions 5 & 6

# 5: Where on the Political Spectrum are you? #6: Proper Role of Government – Your outlook?

Labels, while not always completely describing who what is in politics, can generally give others a good idea of where one stands on the issues.  For instance, Democrats generally spend more and are more liberal than Republicans, who trend to greater fiscal frugality and more conservative social issues.  However, there are exceptions to the rules (like Zell Miller, who was a Blue Dog Democrat for years, being more fiscally tighter than most of his Democrat contemporaries)

On the other side of the aisle, there are also Progressive / Big Government Republicans that vote more in line with Democrat philosophies and, in the case of some, use the “R” next to their name as a cover.  A GREAT example of this is current NH State Rep Peter Bolster who calls himself a Republican but his voting record screams “I AM REALLY A DEMOCRAT!!”  and has admitted to such to some.  (think I’m wrong?  Do a search just on GraniteGrok and review the times he shown up voting AGAINST the Republican Platform!)

Fortunately, Jane Cormier is running against this “RINO to the max” in the primary in Belknap District 8 (Alton, Barnstead, Gilmanton).

  • Question 5: Where are you on the Political Spectrum (from Jim DeMint on the Right and Carol Shea-Porter on the extreme Left)?
  • Question 6: Should politicians be held accountable to their Platform?

  

Political Spectrum?       Adherence to Party Philosophy / Platform?

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Where the Celebrity Money In Politics Is…As If You Didn’t Know

One of the best sources for large dollar Political Donation history is Newsmeat.com.   I use it often, as regular readers may have noticed, but one of the features I have not used is the ability to look at large lists of Celebrities, Executives, Politicians, Media people, and see their contributions and party preferences.

The donation amounts are total reported (including all single donations of $200.00 or more) since 1978.  Donations under $200.00, if any, are not going to be included.  But you won’t be terribly surprised with the celebrities list–a snippet of which is posted on the jump.  That list includes actors, directors, producers singers, writers, radio personalities and so on. Take note of the % columns and how much is donated to each party or special interest groups.  (Click on the name to see their specific donation history and what groups they support.)

Oh.  They also point out how many winners and losers each has “backed ” in the WIN/LOSS column.  And Newsmeat says the entire list is updated every Monday so it is up to date.  (Newsmeat also has news, by the way.)

The real fun, I think, is looking for which of these popular people actually support Republicans since they are so few and far between compared to the liberal/Progressive support that dominates this industry–and dominate it does.

The Big table…on the jump….is just A through C.  Here’s the link if you want to browse the other parts of the list.

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Ted Cruz Wins Texas Primary

AP c/o Hot Air, calls the Texas US Senate Primary for TEA Party Backed candidate Ted Cruz. The followup should read…. Democrats double down on TEA Party is dead rhetoric. You know… that whole “The Bigger the Lie” thing.

Editorial Second Guessing And Blind Hypocrisy

“A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.”   —William Shenstone

Oh No Guns....and magazines...and ammoThe Keene Sentinel , last Thursday, featured an editorial, positing the question, “Could an armed citizen have stopped the shooter?  But they never really answer the question and instead make an argument that we should move toward more gun control.

The opening paragraph states,

Anyone who has ever aimed and discharged a firearm knows that accuracy depends on a number of things — the eye of the shooter, the weapon in use, levels of training and experience. There’s also the matter of setting. Hitting a target at a shooting range, with pulse steady and trigger squeezed, is not the same as, say, taking down a gunman in a darkened theater that’s filled with tear gas and screaming, panic-stricken movie-goers.

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Right Left Divide on The “Knowledge of Wrongdoing.”

Chris Donovan has seven staffers arrested by the FBIDemocrats and the media are all uppity about a Romney staffer yelling at the press.  I guess this is the next ‘Waterloo’ for the Romney campaign.  The fifth or sixth or fiftieth beginning-of-the-end for the GOP (presumptive) nominee.  Clearly a guy with a staffer who would insult the media is unfit for public office?

Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Connecticut State House, Democrat Chris Donovan (who happens to be the Democrat candidate for CT-congressional district 5), had seven members of his campaign staff arrested by the FBI for taking $27,000.00 dollars in campaign contributions to influence votes in the Connecticut state House.

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Water Sustainability Commission (a subset of the Granite State Future Plan, aka Sustainable Communities Initiative) – their own words. First Rep. Spang in her own words

UPDATE before publishing:  Apparently, Judith has responded to Ken and invoking both International Law and the World Court?  That’s only by email, but THIS I have to see!

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Our mission here at the ‘Grok is to promote and to protect Individual Freedom, Liberty, and Rights.  Period.  Sure, we do other things as well, but that is our main focus and raison d’etre.  I’ve been focusing on that my last few posts as the Federal mandate of the Sustainable Communities Initiative by the Federal Government (HUD / EPA / DOT) has, all of a sudden, climbed its way up the ladder from the muck in which it was derived.  And muck it is, and it has spread.

As Ken Eyring has pointed out, the Granite State Future Plan is being spearheaded by the NH Legislature spawned 10 Regional Planning Commissions with the intent, now funded with Obama money, to override local control here in NH by pushing for new zoning laws (back up with threats of lawsuits).  These are a fourth level of Government, creatures totally created by legislative statute that have no connection to the NH Constitution.  It is staffed by locally appointed members (for instance, my DPW department head is my town’s representative on the Lakes Region Planning Commission) with some paid staff.  They get State funding and also go around grubbing for town taxpayer monies by “billing” on population (e.g., “you have X number of people on town; based on $XX.XX / person, you should give us a total of….”).  Starting off as simply a way to “coordinate” transportation usage, they now do all kinds of things (when did road management make them experts in broadband deployment?) that stray far from their original mission (like all good bureaucracies do!).

One of the things the zoning changes are going to do is push for higher density “center of town” living; whether or not it makes sense, these Federal clowns want “livable centers” where you can walk from your home above places of business, walk to work, and walk to work.  Need to go somewhere else?  IF you take the time, you will find out that you will be “nudged” to use public transportation.  Mass transit isn’t even ‘sustainable’ in cities already – how would that work out here in rural NH – Oh yeah, they have a solution for that, too, but that’s for another post.

And it will be done, bit by bit.  In a later post, I go through and use some of what the Water Sustainability Commission and others have said, in their own words, to “shape the battlefield“.  In the mean time, let’s start with what has already been posted.  Even Judith Spang, in her response to Ken, starts with the individual but then immediately goes to the Town level, as if the individual Right never existed:

1. Groundwater Law in NH is based on Common Law, not statutory law. The common law (dating back to English Common Law) says unequivically that a riparian landowner has the right to “reasonable use” of water flowing under or abutting his land.  “Reasonable use” is a limitation: you cannot take so much water that you are depriving someone else who has riparian rights to the same groundwater or surface water.  Neither you nor a foreign water bottling company who may own the land next to you has the right to take so much water out of your (or their) well that it dries up abuttors’ wells.

2. When the Commission talks about the need for a water policy that respects the inter-municipal nature of water supplies, it is based upon the above legal principle.

And then explicitly denies the Individual their property Rights:

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Now and Then…

A 2008 Obama voter interviews her 2012 self…. http://youtu.be/WbX5EwSp_W8

Well, while Judith Spang wants Government to take your water rights right from underneath you (literally), she sold her share to the Govt for $500K

Subtitle:      Once again, Progressive hypocrisy…..Do I say and not what I do, and never mind that other hand….

OR:                    Ya gotta love it – siphoning off taxpayer money for private interest groups for their hobby.

OK, just one more (I promise):   FOLLOW THE MONEY!

And in this case, LOTS of money followed Judith Spang, (NH State Representative from Durhan, Democrat). While Ken Eyring of the Southern NH 9-12 group is defending our property rights against Durham Democrat Judith Spang, I got a tip in from a loyal reader concerning NH Rep. Spang:

The US Agriculture office 2 Madbury Road, Durham, NH paid Judith over $500,000 for a wetlands easement on her land in Merrimack County so if we all own some of the water draining from her land do we get paid also?

Really – half a million water-bucks? She gets to “sell” her private property for sake of keeping water clean!  So, I googled her (all emphasis mine) and found a pattern:

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There is nothing more moral than eliminating government ‘charity’

As conservative Republicans work to eliminate or reduce the amount of money New Hampshire spends on government programs, critics on the political left have emerged from time to time with the idea that these policies are immoral—or as one outspoken critic said, “morally repugnant.”

This criticism is predicated on a belief that only government can provide for the basic needs of people who can’t provide for themselves. We agree that people need to take care of one another. It is our moral obligation. But it’s not government’s job to do it. In fact, one of the best things about American history is how well we have taken care of one another, even before the federal government launched its “War on Poverty” or created programs such as Medicaid or Obamacare.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a French political thinker and historian who traveled to America in the 1830s, wrote that one of the strengths of 19th Century America was its “robust civil society,” which he defined as the institutions, such as the family, the church and other secular civic organizations, that operated between the individual and the government. He praised these institutions, explaining how they tempered the isolating tendencies of individualism and the “despotic proclivities of centralized [government] administration.”

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Schumer’s Magazine Ban. (No, not Newsweek or Time, That Would be Useful.)

Oh No Guns....and magazines...and ammoWhen there is a law breaker with the gun, in a room full of unarmed people whom he (or she) is intent on or willing to kill… eleven rounds is one too many.  Law breakers never carry extra magazines, just like obese people will never think to buy two 15.95 ounce sodas in New York City if that’s what they really want.

But we are talking about liberal-Progressive Democrats.  Maybe the thought of actually having to re-load to kill more people will be the ‘conscious decision’ that stops the criminal from engaging in any kind of gun crime in the first place.

“You mean I can only shoot 10 people before I have to re-load?  I think I’ll go get a job at the Drive Thru instead.”

Nanny-State central planner genius.

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Madame Michelle de Obama Graces New Hampshire With Her Presence…

From the Telegraph de Nashua First lady Michelle Obama is planning a series of campaign stops in New Hampshire this week. She’ll make a swing Thursday through Holderness, Laconia and Manchester. The events include an early afternoon fundraiser in Holderness. That will be followed by grassroots events designed to boost on-the-ground support in Laconia and … Read more

Notable Quotes: Frederic Bastiat

Bastiat, Frederic Bastiat[There] “is this idea that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and prosperity from the power of the state.  And even worse, it will be stated that mankind tends toward degeneration, and is stopped from this downward course only by the mysterious hand of the legislator.

-Frédéric Bastiat

For Barack ‘You Didn’t Build That’ Obama and Elizabeth Warren – and just about every Democrat…

“Life, faculties, production—in other words, individuality, liberty, property—this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”

more…?

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Did Durham Outsource Cost of Obama Visit…to Other NH Taxpayers?

The town of Durham has reported that the costs of the Obama visit–which the Obama campaign refused to pay for–cost the town $19,851.00.  But it will only cost the anonymous donor around $13,000.00 because… c/o Gretyl MacAlaster -July 31st Union Leader “…town public safety officials were able to reduce local costs through careful distribution of … Read more

Notable Quote – Milton Friedman (on the occasion of the birth of this Nobel Prize winning economist)

What the market does is to reduce greatly the range of issues that must be decided through political means, and thereby to minimize the extent to which government need participate directly in the game.  The characteristic feature of action through political channels is that it tends to require or enforce substantial conformity.  The great advantage … Read more

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