For reasons we won’t go into today ruling class institutions in New Hampshire like vote fraud. They like it so much that nary a one, in their ambling defense of dirty elections, wonders why out-of-state students can’t use an absentee ballot to vote like any typical person temporarily displaced from the address the IRS will come looking if they commit tax fraud.

One of those “institutions” is the NH-ACLU. They think they know better and a few weeks back one of their lawyers made a laughable defense for vote fraud in an article titled, ‘Residence’ voting bill has an economic impact.

Ed took a wack at the legal stupidity last week. This week I’m here to poke some more holes in their defense.

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On December 25^th, the New York Times published an editorial by liberal columnist, Paul Krugman. It was entitled “America Is Not Yet Lost,” and it was a message wrapped in hope, but filled with hate.

Still fuming about the 2016 election and its aftermath, Krugman ranted that Donald Trump has proven himself unfit for office – morally and intellectually, and that the Republican Party is composed of “cynical apparatchiks, willing to sell out every principle – and every shred of dignity – as long as donors get big tax cuts.”

He had no kind words for the media, either – the conservative media, that is – which, he argued, has given up even the pretense of doing real reporting. He failed to mention the Pew Research study showing that negative coverage of Trump in his first 60 days was three times that of Barack Obama during the same period.

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Yesterday, the New Hampshire Republican Party renewed calls for the resignation of state representative Katherine Rogers (D-Concord). Rogers is the representative who recently pleaded guilty to assaulting a volunteer during a ballot recount last year.

While most people believe Rogers should resign for her deplorable behavior of physically assaulting a citizen, the New Hampshire Democrat party has remained silent on the matter. In fact, according to the Concord Patch, they were there supporting her “guilty” plea:

A contingent of elected Democrats and other activists were in attendance to support Rogers including Ray Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, Minority Leader Steve Shurtleff, D-Concord, Kris Schultz, D-Concord, Ken Roos, a labor activist, state Rep. Tim Horrigan, D-Durham, and others.

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HB 628: Paid family and medical leave

SurPRISE!  Yet another Op-Ed in the Concord Monitor genuflecting at the Altar of Big Govt: “Pray, give us this “benefit” even as we could do it ourselves? Once again, supplication from one whose industry very well could be sucking at yet another teat of Government (you know, the medical part of Family and MEDICAL Leave Insurance system).  Golly, who’d a thunk that a past Prez of the NH Medical Society would be holding out the tip jar?  Notice how he starts out with the “gifting” part first – who DOESN’T want a brand new goody (especially of the lion’s share of the cost comes from others) (reformatted, emphasis mine).  Just like Steve Duprey, here’s the hand on the take right off the bat:

Creating a family and medical leave insurance system would ensure workers the benefits they need and help businesses of all sizes be more competitive. More than 100 New Hampshire businesses, including Concord Hospital, have signed a letter asking our lawmakers to pass HB 628.

That’s right, give me some of that old time religion Govt money!

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Todd Bookman, writing for New Hampshire Public Radio, left something out of his report on HB1319. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Ed Butler (D- Harts Location) modifies RSA 354: A to include a definition of transgender and adds the words “gender identity” in the statute in twenty-nine places.

That’s how many times the law lists those things against which thou shalt not discriminate.

Bookman notes that the “New Hampshire statute currently bars discrimination based on factors including age, race, religion and national origin.” But that’s not how they appear in the statue in any of the twenty-nine relevant occurrences.

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If you want an in-depth understanding of the 2016 election won by Donald Trump – and you are interested in one that was published one day BEFORE the Trump landslide, here it is.

For more than two years the American people, in a great majority, from left to right, have been in revolt against the political class and the financial elites in America. It is a revolt with historic parallels, most closely resembling the Jacksonian revolution of the 1820s. It is an uprising. It is a peaceful uprising of a people who see a country in decline and see nothing but failure in the performance of their leadership institutions. And they have signaled their intent to take back their country and to reclaim their sovereignty.

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“There are two sides to bigotry. There are those who openly oppose it, and then those who foster it. People who stay silent in the face of this bigotry provide quiet support for it.

I have no idea how I got put onto the “Cinema Libre Studio”‘s (that would be “Free Cinema” – will they be sending out free tickets?  I rather think not) email list but such as is it.  Given my response to their email, I don’t think that I’ll be on it for long.  I’ve bolded the part of this victim filled inbound email that caught my attention (and look at who is starring in it – CAIR and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Black Lives Matter…and nary a word that it is those of the Jewish faith that are most discriminated against (anti-Semitism anyone?):

Trump’s CDC Word Ban and the Reality for Minorities

THE UNAMERICAN STRUGGLE

Los Angeles, CA, December 19, 2017 (Newswire.com) – Winner of the Award of Merit at indieFEST Film Awards and Best Political Documentary at Atlanta Docufest, THE UNAMERICAN STRUGGLE documentary is the first examination of the rise in hate crimes and bigoted rhetoric since the election of Donald J. Trump.

Last month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that hate crimes had increased by nearly 5% since 2015 in their annual Incidents of Hate report. The report recorded that 5,818 “single-bias” incidents occurred, in which one or more offense types, or incidents, were motivated by the same bias. Of those, 59.2% were motivated by a racial, ethnic and/or ancestry bias; 19.7% by a religious bias; 17.7% by a sexual orientation bias; and 3.3% by a gender identity, disability or gender bias.

For activists on the front line of the identity politics movement, this rise in hate crimes is not a surprise, and many of them feel the numbers are underreported.

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Of course I can’t just leave this issue with just a post – I left a couple of comments where I hope Dr. Oge “Big Government” Young (seemingly both a rent-seeker and someone that believes that Government can and should solve all ills – sure thing, sport).  Sure, it was the primary bit for the post but I went a bit further:

“Creating a family and medical leave insurance system would ensure workers the benefits they need and help businesses of all sizes be more competitive.” Really?

Benefits used to be voluntarily offered by companies above and beyond what one receives as a salary or wage (that is, until Government decided to mandate them as with Obamacare). And in this case, the legislation MANDATES that employees take part (a la Obamacare) – where’s the Live Free or Die choice in that?

Further, if this was such a lovely idea to make businesses “more competitive”,

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If an average classroom size is about 25 students and we multiply that by the average spending, that gives us $275,000 per year per classroom. If you’re in a school with 40 classrooms that’s $11 million per year to run a school. “But Kira, not all that money is for the classroom. What about principals, staff, and other administrators at the district and state level? Surely those things suck some money out of the classroom.”  You have pinpointed the exact problem. Indeed, much of that money does get funneled to staff and off-site administration. So much that in many places administrative costs have massively outpaced school population growth. In some states, like Louisiana, the public school population actually decreased even as administrative hires exponentially increased.

From 1950 to 2009 the student population increased by 95% while school personnel grew by 386%. In contrast, teacher hirings increased by just 252% while administrators and other school staff increased by a shocking 702%.

The actual post started from a very different place and wound up here – go read it.  I will tell you how LITTLE

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Yes, I am deliberately being shameless in “culturally appropriating” a line from a well beloved Christmas carol – deal with it because FREEDOM!  That’s what Americans do – take from other cultures (after all, there’s plenty to “borrow” from) and repurpose it to make our culture better.  But here, the question fits as now the massive flurry of subcommittee meetings and report writing has calmed down and one can actually start to sit down and meditate, cogitate, and try to do something more than a surface cursory level analysis.  Like “how come it costs so much?”

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The past twelve months have seen a rise in comments overall so a big thank you to everyone who provided content, our readers, and those who responded to what they read (or thought they read) at GraniteGrok this year.

And as I’ve done every year since 2012, here are the top 20 most commented posts at GraniteGrok.com in the Year of our Lord, 2017.

Reminder: This ranking is based solely on the number of comments when this list was published. Links to previous top 20’s are included at the bottom of the page.

#20. Krauthammer’s New Comedy Routine – Not So Funny

February 9th, 2017
I just watched Charles Krauthammer on Fox News do his current routine – President Trump had no business stopping peaceful looking people from arriving from seven nations that have never had anyone commit terrorism here in America.

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