The left is having spasms of glee over the passing of Rush Limbaugh. That is reason enough to miss the man and his contribution to the debate. He was a singularly unique individual with whom I have a very small (tiny sliver of a) connection. He once mentioned my name on the air.
ICYMI: Climate: If The Science Is Settled, Why Do They Keep Changing It?
You can read the transcript at the link, and yes, it was something of a rush. Skip heard it, called me, and left a message. I think he was more excited than I ever was, though I have to admit it’s cool. My name is enshrined in the Rush Archives, and in a good way. This brings me to a larger point. As cool as that was, getting stories from our readers is an even bigger rush.
People send us stuff. A lot of stuff. More than we can ever digest, let alone cover and publish. Please do not stop.
I was mentioned on Rush Limbaugh because I wrote a story about Democrat Cynthia Chase saying New Hampshire should create a political climate, using legislation that would make the Granite State unappealing to Libertarians. I may have stumbled across that on my own, but the odds are good that someone tipped me to it.
It ended up on Breitbart, and then Limbaugh picked it up.
The current Windham recount scandal is another example. It went national last week and has gotten so much attention that even local media has been forced to write about it and our involvement in reporting it.
That story hit major national Blogs, attracted interviews of principles of interest, and this past week a one hour webinar on the nuts and bolts of the issue and the folks we entrust to investigate such things ignoring, stonewalling, and refusing to take it or the citizens seriously.
The second story is the indifference of the watchdog media. The recount scandal in Windham is prime real estate for paid investigative reporters. Something went very wrong. A tiny town in southern New Hampshire discovered a 6% error in the election results. Six points is a chasm. Not one paid reporter, or their editor, anywhere in New England, thought that this was something that had legs.
A few hobby-bloggers, a Medical Doctor, some concerned citizens, and eventually a State Senator had to badger the powers that be for months. If this was above the fold every day across the state, it gets harder to ignore.
This week, Governor Sununu finally said something about the problem in Windham. After the story went national, and that State Senator – Bob Guida – amended a bill to demand the Attorney General investigate and convinced the entire State Senate to pass it.
This started when someone sent me a link to an (at that point) barely-viewed Facebook post. That started the brush fire, later fanned by other Grok authors and our own Ed Naile (on these pages) that turned into the roaring blaze.
Will anything come of it before it burns out?
History tells us probably nothing. None of the people in charge ever want these sort of things examined too closely. A problem the state’s watchdog media also ignores until critical mass forces their hand. It’s almost as if they are part of this ruling class cabal, protecting a dirty family secret.
Because they are, and that is why we continue to thrive, thanks in part to you, our readers, who send us things.
We are not Rush Limbaugh, nor ever shall we be. That’s not even a consideration. But we get more online eyeballs than all of the print media in the state except for the Union Leader, though we pass them often enough. And at some point, one of the stories you send us will find breath above the mountain of noise and make a difference because, more often than not, the so-called actual media has no interest in telling it.
Rush did that every day. If we truly want to honor him, if nothing else, we should continue to try and do that.
