News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
GrokTALK! has always been something of an umbrella of media posts, but for several years it was anchored by a weekly podcast. While we may drag that anchor back into the fold, it won’t be anytime soon, but that’s not the end. The umbrella is going to (hopefully) get bigger with or without that podcast.
We would like to use GrokTALK! as a place to aggregate Conservatarian content (podcast or video interviews or political talk) from New Hampshire and beyond and we’d like your help.
Yeah, one has to pass a background check to be able to attend after receiving the invitation to attend. That information was given to them on Tuesday when I first received the invite. Now at 7:42am this morning, I finally got the authorization that says “come on down”!
Good morning —
When I first received the invite, I thought it would be the regular Presser / Briefing that they have every day at the White House. Briefings – questions! So I thought, hey, they wouldn’t have asked the ‘Grok to come all that way down without a slight chance of being able to ask a question, right? So the original invite came in Monday evening – and the left over part of what used to be my mind started racing. There’s my task for tomorrow!
You all know what its like to lay down for your evening’s sleep – the body says “sure” but the mind goes “eat my dust, dude” and goes off to the races. Well, at 2:30am, I finally gave up and started in on 4 questions so as to make sure I’d be ready: an obligatory one, the real one, a serious one (that I’ve NEVER heard any of those High and Mighty Cream-of-the-Crop Pompous Journalists that inhabit that place as if they owned it, and then an amusing one. Hey, gotta be ready for anything, right?
PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP IS TAKING ACTION ON DRUG ADDICTION AND THE OPIOID CRISIS
“The best way to prevent drug addiction and overdose is to prevent people from abusing drugs in the first
place. If they don’t start, they won’t have a problem.” – President Donald J. Trump
DRUG ADDICTION AND OPIOIDS ARE RAVAGING AMERICA: Hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their lives to drug abuse, and it will only get worse unless action is taken.
A PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY: President Donald J. Trump is mobilizing his entire Administration to address drug addiction and opioid abuse by directing the declaration of a Nationwide Public Health Emergency to address the opioids crisis.
SHOT: San Francisco 49ers Pledge $500,000 to Push Suppressor Ban, Other Gun Control Measures
The San Francisco 49ers pledged $500,000 Thursday to secure a suppressor ban and other gun controls. The push comes in the weeks after the Las Vegas attack. Suppressors were not used in that attack, but the 49ers are dedicated to banning the devices anyway. According to ESPN, the 49ers presented the gun control pledge as part of creating a “more understanding and safer America.” The $500,000 will also be used to push a ban on bump stocks and armor-piercing bullets. The ban on armor-piercing bullets is somewhat ambiguous, but appears similar to a ban which was unsuccessfully pushed by the Obama administration in 2015. The Obama-era actually targeted bullets that would have to be re-categorized as armor piercing in order to be banned.
CHASER: NFL Ratings Continue to Crater As New Numbers Reveal Massive Two-Year Decline
According to Nielsen data obtained by the Sporting News, “League games averaged 15.1 million viewers through Week 7. That’s down 5.1 percent from 15.87 million viewers during the same period last season and off 18.7 percent from 18.35 million viewers during the same period in 2015.” As the Sporting News notes, “Ratings are lagging for a variety of reasons, not least the ongoing protests during the national anthem that former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began in 2016. Fans are still angry about Kaepernick’s continued unemployment as well as what’s seen as the growing politicization of the NFL.
“Queer people are taking steps necessary to protect themselves…” Good! Don’t feel safe? Want to be able to defend yourself against those who wish to do you harm? That’s what the Second Amendment is for. Good for you. Welcome to the club. This LGBTQ gun club says its taking up arms in the name of … Read more
In the growing shadow of new legislation designed to protect free speech on campus, the board of regents for the University of Wisconsin (UW) state college system voted 16-1 to adopt a new policy in advance of a bill expected to pass the legislature. Liberty McArtor, a staff writer for The Stream, wrote about the recent developments at … Read more
In this new video, I explain what happened when an investigator found that a New Hampshire mosque was preaching jihad: instead of investigating, police cried “Islamophobia.” Jihad Watch
WashPo is reporting that Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign and Democratic National Committee financed the Trump dossier. (c/o The Daily Wire)
The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about President Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.
On Senator McCain’s Trump bashing (emphasis mine):
Because of you, they think, we got identity-politician Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court, not another Neil Gorsuch-type justice instead. We had to read steady reports of “the emerging Democratic majority,” which told us our days were numbered, these conservatives fume. When we voiced other beliefs, cowering Republicans handed us the condescending, inclusive language they’d adopted to adapt to the Obama era. Those other beliefs — God and country, family and home — “That’s not what we’re all about,” conservative members were told.
On Monday, it was reported that a Manchester woman was arrested for “endangering the welfare of a child” because she had a loaded firearm in the glove box and a child was sitting in the front seat of her vehicle. 31-year-old Alycia Neely was pulled over for failing to use a turn signal and the story gets a little strange from there.
I only wished that the drone had gone in closer but hey, it’s better than having to go there in person: (H/T: Daily Mail)
But loves Government. Once again, it’s all about “inequality” and how to “fix it – at Davos. Think about inequality at the annual “aren’t we rich and Elite” party they throw for themselves? The AP decided to weigh in on this report from Oxfam (1/16/17):
Sidenote: Oxfam – weren’t they the folks that were just concerned about getting food to hungry people? Oh, right, once a charity, everybody’s morphed into a some kind of Social Justice Warrior – and once an SJW, you become a full spectrum SJW because: INTERSECTIONALITY (where SJWs play “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” with every issue where “We good, everyone else needs a hearty verbal lashing and internet mobbing”)
So how did it start (reformatted, emphasis mine)?
The 603 Alliance Invites you to join us for a special evening with Steve Bannon, former White House Chief strategist for President Donald Trump and chief executive of Breitbart News. Come hear Mr. Bannon’s insights on current happenings in Washington and around the country and his perspectives on the 2018 elections. Join us for this … Read more
This morning on ‘No Safe Spaces’ Rich Girard and I began with a recent article from The New Hampshire (TNH), the UNH Student Newspaper. Executive Editor Colleen Irvine does a nice job of pointing out to students on Campus that the first amendment doesn’t just protect speech on one side of the debate. Colleen also does an excellent job reiterating that these protections are limited to peaceful protest. But I think, maybe in a future article or two, she could go further.
TNH needs an open-minded exploration into what is at the root of the intolerance for opposing speech (primarily conservative or Republican) on college campuses.
That would be gay Ray “Bomb the Hague” Buckley of the militant LGBTQRSTUV (and whatever other letters have been added this week – I’m too busy to keep up) wing of the Democrat Party that will use any and all issues. In this case, he decides to use the Democrat Cultural Marxism tactic of “you’re either with us or you are GUILTY AND CULPABLE” tactic back on Aug 4 in the Concord Monitor against Gov Chris Sununu. You know, that collective guilt (emphasis mine, reformatted) should stick when thrown against the wall of his desire.
My Turn: Sununu’s position on transgender Granite Staters is dangerous
Concord Monitor (the ink-stained den for Progressives who have hard times stringing two coherent thoughts together) – on Jan 21, former CongressCritter Paul Hodes said that NH has to raise its entry labor costs in order to attract new businesses to NH (Yeah, as a former business owner, that gets my motor started on that idea again). In his Op-Ed, he’s taking a slap at Sununu for using the Federal minimum wage instead of upping NH’s costs to all the other New England (Democrat) States. But this is what caught my eye:
New Hampshire is the only state in New England that does not have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage dictates. Gov. Sununu opposes setting a higher state minimum wage, which is set to remain at $7.25 through 2018. For a full-time minimum wage worker in New Hampshire, that means $15,080 per year, which is slightly above the poverty line of $14,570 per year for a family of two. Gov. Sununu accepted a bigger pay raise than a New Hampshire minimum wage earner makes in a year. That’s not just bad politics. It’s bad policy.
Yeah, sure thing, Paul. No, that line is just Stupidity writ large.
LifeHacker is a place I go to because, well, tips on how to “hack” your life to save time and money – and cute tricks and sometimes just nerdy type stuff in a pop culture kinda of way. Or, at least that’s what it used to be. As SWJs are taking over as writers at the site, there are less hack posts and more political ones. It’s clear that there is one class of commenters that decry the politics (like me as it used to be an escape from politics) but it is clear that a majority of the commenters are Republican haters (it is rather amusing to see how many Progressive talking points I see) depending on post I’m reading. Like this one this is masquerading as a hack but really is agit-prop (Aug 17):
Your Insurance Premiums Could Be Huge Next Year, and Here’s Why
This week, the White House announced that the government would indeed make this month’s required payments to health insurance companies. We kinda dodged a bullet there, because those CSRs directly affect the price of your insurance if you buy an individual plan. But the threat is only temporarily paused, and your premiums could still spike next year.
But the author left out ONE REALLY IMPORTANT piece of information of these Cost Sharing Reduction / Insurance company bailout payments so I tried to enlighten her and her readers just a wee bit.
One example (emphasis mine):
According to the Los Angeles Times, Newsom said the ban will “help prevent the occurrence of high-fatality gun massacres, and … [will] reduce the bloodshed when these tragedies occur.”
Note that Newsom’s claim contains an admission that the ban will not stop “high-fatality” attacks altogether. Rather, it is yet another in a long list of California controls that is promulgated in the name of safety, only to result in diminished freedom.
Well, I am now, as they say, between opportunities. So my time is going to be a bit more flexible. Fortunately, I have a TON of bookmarks on stuff that I marked “use this” that I never got around to posting (perhaps a couple of years worth). Sorta like “reverse prepping” – couldn’t stockpile my time and now I have plenty!
Here’s a snippet from “Stossel” the Fox Biz News show that he left a while ago. Here, he has a guest on that, well, shows that free markets should always have govt regulation: