If You Hate the Electoral College You Can’t Love the UN

In this week’s G-File Jonah Goldberg talks about the UN vs. Israel. There is, as always, lots of good stuff, but when he contrasted liberal outrage over the Electoral College to loving how the UN does things, well… It’s kind of funny. We’ve spent the last six weeks hearing how eeeeeeevill the Electoral College is because … Read more

Notable Quote – Abigal Hall Blanco

But there is one thing I hope all my students remember forever—the role of prices and private property. In particular, I want them to remember how these mechanisms are vital for a free and prosperous society. I make it clear to them that I think this material is of the utmost importance. In fact, prior … Read more

Taxes for services or taxes for pensions

pensionsThe entire purpose of Government is providing services to its citizens.  We can quibble or argue over what services and in what quantity but they must be paid for. It is becoming increasingly clear that services must be paid for in the now but that past services are ALSO being paid for now and in the future.  Which as many towns, cities and States are coming to grips that those past services are very expensive indeed.  Especially out in California, services for the present are being drastically in many places due to the high price, via pensions, of those past services.

And now Nashua is feeling the price of former politicians giving too much to former government employees as they are seeing the cost of kicking that can down the road – only a snippet from the Telegraph (pay wall):

NASHUA – With the city facing a likely budget crunch in fiscal 2017-18, caused in large part by increasing pension costs, lifting the spending cap is seen as an unlikely way out of trouble.

The city’s spending cap can be lifted with a vote of 10 of the 15 members of the Board of Aldermen. That figure is out of reach given the current makeup of the board, said Brian McCarthy, president of the board…

Back to California, from Reason.com:

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Welcome to a Revolution

smirking-trumpTrump’s America is no longer putting up with people on the left and is more than happy to use their tactics against them.

Attorney Daniel Goldstein, of Brooklyn, New York, accosted Ivanka on a JetBlue flight from New York to San Francisco on Thursday, reportedly screaming: ‘Why is she on our flight? She should be flying private.’

His husband Matthew Lasner, who was also on the plane, claims Goldstein simply ‘expressed his displeasure in a calm tone’, but the couple and their child were asked to leave the aircraft.

Since then, both Goldstein and Lasner have been branded ‘scum of the earth’, ‘d*****bags,’ ‘political terrorists’ and ‘heterophobic bigots’, while Lasner’s book has been flooded with bad reviews on Amazon.

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Notable Quote – Jeff Jacoby and the Right to Free Association

Tolerance and pluralism are important values in a free society. So are choice and association. Your choices may not be mine; my preferred associations may not be yours. In a diverse, live-and-let-live culture, our differences are manageable — as long as government doesn’t interfere. The state can’t force Elton John to take a gig he doesn’t want. It shouldn’t be able to force anyone else to, either.

-Jeff Jacoby (Boston Globe columnist)

But, so it seems, if you are a Christian baker, florist, photographer, bed-and-breakfast owner, or wedding chapel operator, the State will, with the screams of the gay mafia, force the ordinary people to “take a gig” they do not want.  And the Left is perfectly fine in have local, State, or Federal Government force Individuals to go against their conscience for deeply held religious beliefs. Don’t let me forget the coercion that Obama and his pack of Progressives have forced me to support (via my taxes) abortion against my religious beliefs via the HHS “regulation” (that comes with the force of law) by redefining the English word “access” to now mean abortifacients must be “free” to those that want it via Obamacare.

Yet, when the shoe is on the other foot, as we are seeing with their candidate having been kicked to the curb by the American “flyover” public in favor of Trump, all of a sudden that long neglected clause of the First Amendment has become very, very important.  This tweet says it well:

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On “Street Conservatism”

A few excerpts from a piece by Matthew Continetti at the Free Beacon (emphasis mine):

This is the conservatism of Bill Gavin who, in his 1975 book Street Corner Conservative, gave voice to the instinctual conservatism of the men and women who populated the Jersey City neighborhoods in which he was raised. “They do not want to overthrow the system,” Gavin wrote. “But they are not quite satisfied with the system either. They supported the United States efforts in Vietnam, but at the same time deplored the strategy of piecemeal escalation that led to such a disastrous state of affairs. They are sick unto death with the follies and the arrogance of liberal Democrats, but they have not quite snuggled up to the Republican Party.”

The Queens-born Trump, like other street corner conservatives, has never quite felt at home in either political party. And while he went to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate, he, like other street corner conservatives, lacks the graduate degrees and credentials that establish oneself in society as a professional or as an originator and exponent of ideas. “We were all, I am convinced, conservatives,” Gavin wrote of his family and friends. “We never intellectually knew that we were, but instinctively, it seems, we knew that certain people and institutions and places have claims upon our loyalties.”

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John Kerry– Spasmodic Tongue Flicker Extraordinaire

What’s with Democrats and facial tics? I mean Hillary had those rogue eye wanderings when she was trying to fool the American public into voting for a lying sociopath under two FBI investigations.  And now John Kerry can’t stop licking his bottom lip when he’s trying to cloud the fact that Oblunder just screwed Israel.  … Read more

Stephen Forster – Just “We The People!”

forsters

By Stephen E. Forster

Four costly years for me AND the taxpayer, wasted. A very expensive exercise in English composition!

This is a “property rights” issue. I wish it were as simple as “it’s your property and you can do what you like on it.” Well, that’s not exactly true. As we relinquish control to our elected/consented land use boards, hourly planning consultants and/or full-time planners, and lack of citizen’s involvement in the laws that are passed, the property owners end up in court fighting for the plain, ordinary and literal meaning of a statute.

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Democrat Plantation

“This meme proves that their desires have remained unchanged since the days of slavery. In fact, it’s gone national. Regardless of skin color, Democrats want you to be a slave to the government.” After these last eight years, one thing stands out – Democrats still wish to rule YOUR roost by having Government make all … Read more

Betcha she’ll no longer be proud of the US come Jan 21, too

SHOT: “We feel the difference now. See, now, we are feeling what not having hope feels like,” she told Oprah Winfrey in an interview, a clip of which aired on CBS on Friday. “Hope is necessary. It’s a necessary concept and Barack didn’t just talk about hope because he thought it was just a nice … Read more

Obama End Days

(Image H/T: Liberal Logic 101) “He has been all too happy to preside over the loss of American influence.” –Richard Cohen We here at GraniteGrok predicted this – while others have said that he’d be a failure of a President, we thought he’d be a most successful one.  The problem is that “success” in Obama’s … Read more

The Progressive policies have taken hold – hard

We’ve railed about the vivisection of what used to be the common morality of right and wrong, of duty and honor, of a shared work ethic.  Since the 1960s, with the Free Love, If it Feels Right, God is Dead (or should be), we’ve seen the century long fight to unhook our Society from the traditional mores.

And have succeeded – out of wedlock births, binge drinking, drug abuse, higher mortality

Post reporters Kimberly Kindy and Dan Keating want to blame increased alcohol consumption by women on advertising. Using the left’s favorite new word, the Post argues that clever advertisers have used social media to “normalize” heavy drinking by women. This is hardly an unexpected line for a liberal newspaper to take.

An alternative view would connect the rise in alcohol abuse with the phenomena I pointed to at the beginning of this post — the increase in single-parent families, the rise in drug abuse, and a declining work ethic. The Post implicitly makes some of these connections by including its article on alcohol abuse in a series that also encompasses drug abuse. As noted, though, when it comes to drinking the Post elects to focus on advertising.

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Obama decided to bring a knife fight to Israel

SHOT:

Alan Dershowitz: “Obama Had Israel’s Back So He Could Stab Them In It

CHASER:

John Bolton: Obama Didn’t Stab Netanyahu in the Back; He Did in the Front

Front, back, no matter – I can only think of the most defining of Obama’s words why he decided to not protect Israel at the UN vote last week:

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Michael LaSean Lewis: A Vote Thief Strikes in Hooksett [Updated]

37769086-nh-votes-jpg WMUR
original Image: WMUR

I spent about an hour and a half at Hooksett District Court this morning hoping to meet a new friend, Michael LaSean Lewis. We haven’t met in person yet but I know so much about this vote thief, like his birth date 05/14/73.

Being a same-day registered voter since 7 pm on November 8, in Hooksett, Michael LaSean Lewis is as legitimate a NH voter as you or I, according to the asinine interpretations of our election laws the NH Secretary of State and NH AG’s Office use. His vote counted on November 8. 2016.

Here is his/our story:

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And I thought Democrats say they are rooted in “reality”??

So let’s see what the Reality-in-Chief has to say about his reality: SHOT: “I am confident in this vision because I’m confident that if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could’ve mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it,” Mr. Obama said, CNN reported Monday. “I know that … Read more

New Symbol for Social Justice Warriors

(thepeoplescube) Your community organizers have succeeded in creating a spectacular movement of snowflakes who they hope will one day solidify into an impenetrable iceberg that will sink the Titanic of capitalism. And yet you’re still struggling to create an emblem you could put on your armbands, banners, and social media icons. We hope this design … Read more

Carrie Fisher – Dead at 60

princess-leia-organa
Carrie Fisher, who had a massive heart attack on a plane 15 minutes out from Los Angeles a few days ago, passed away this morning at 8:55am local time. Fisher is best known as Princess Leia from the Star Wars universe, and to many as an author.

Carrie Fisher, the iconic actress who portrayed Princess Leia in the Star Wars series, died Tuesday following a massive heart attack last week. She was 60.

“It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning,” Simon Halls, a spokesperson for Fisher’s family, said in a statement to People.

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See – they are Democrats with bylines – “a lot of us, our reaction was…right but a lot of them are deplorable, a lot of them are racist.”

The question is whether they realize that we already knew they agreed with Hillary?  Finally, an admission from Jake Tapper about the whole flock of ’em (emphasis mine):

BASH: Number one —you and I talked about this in the break —for sure, Hillary Clinton’s deplorables comment.

TAPPER: Basket of deplorables, yeah.

BASH: Baskets of deplorables where she said  — She wasn’t caught on tape, she was saying it  with a camera there at a fund-raiser, she was talking about Donald Trump supporters. Accusing them of, at least half of them of being deplorable.

TAPPER: And irredeemable.

BASH: And she sort of apologized but she didn’t really apologize properly. And correct I’m wrong. I think it was — your interview with Robby Mook, the campaign manager, where he said that was sort of the under-reported thing that really changed their polling internally and made them realize, ‘You know what? It wasn’t necessarily just Comey. It was that issue.’ It made the traditional Democratic base, the people who ended up going to Donald Trump think she really doesn’t get us.

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