Maryland – A US Senate Race to Watch

Maryland manages to suffer from its proximity to the bureaucratic beast that is Washington DC (and the Bos-Wash blue belt of the Atlantic coast), and as such is a place where Democrats just expect to get elected.  But Republican Dan Bongino is making an impression in his quest to challenge Maryland incumbent Senator Ben Cardin. … Read more

BE BREITBART: DoIT Right To Know Request : Outbound Internet traffic summarizations – Update 3

Telephone Rotary

Well, a quick update on setting up the Commish meeting:  Got a call yesterday afternoon from the “DES Commish Lady” (Commish Burak  Administrative Assistant, but DCL sound more bloggish) – the tentative meeting with Commishs Burack and Rogers (DES and DoIT) this  Friday at 6 pm is out of the question – somehow, I was not surprised.  Here’s how the [admittedly paraphrased] conversation went (hmm, next time I should just flip on the sound board on and record such conversations):

  • She asked – how about next week?  SURE!
  • And then I aGAIN explained we all work full time day jobs – we’re located all over the state and I said I’ll have to check schedules – several of us travel for biz and that can mean country-wide rather than just state-wide.
  • Hesitation on her part: “Er, well, the only days he REALLY has is Wed or Friday.”
  • Well, that will be OK – still at 6pm, though?  Remember, we’re working stiffs.  And being computer folk, we REALLY want to ask some questions (yes, I made a point to say it that way to make it PERFECTLY clear what our intent is).
  • Another hesitation moment.  “Um, that could be a problem – you see, he has a lot of work appointments – like ground breaking ceremonies and the like”

Yes, you REALLY read that right- she REALLY did say ground breaking ceremonies.

OK, I just hate to be cynical (watch for a post a bit later this evening – you’ll understand why my outlook would be a bit “shaded”), but methinks I be getting a sniff that perhaps  he’s not all that willing to make time after his working hours even as we are after ours – having dealt with politicians personally for a while, the “is it a ‘for show’ deal meter” is starting to twitch a tad.

  • I reiterated: I’ll ask about Groksters schedules
  • Her parting words “Commissioner Burack remains committed to meeting with you”

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Too much information: Multicultural News You May Not Want to Use

Ahem. This from MailOnline.com: It is reported that under the new Egyptian Parliament, “[H]usbands will soon be legally allowed to have sex with their dead wives – for up to six hours after their death. The controversial new law is part of a raft of measures being introduced by the Islamist-dominated parliament. It will also … Read more

NH Governor race – let’s start talking about it

This November, voters in NH are going to have a stark choice for Governor: On the Left, it will be one of two extremely hard Left, Progressive, “Government-centered society” candidates: Jackie Cilley or Maggie Hassan – both who are trying to “out-Progressive” each other On the Right, it will be either Ovide Lamontagne or Kevin Smith.  … Read more

The Misleading Claim about Medicare Administrative Costs

A recent caller to Niel Young’s radio show, “The Advocates”, claimed that Medicare’s administration cost is much lower than for private insurance companies. But, Medicare’s formula for computing administration costs doesn’t include all the costs which government requires in the calculations for private companies. So the comparison is not valid, and the claim is misleading.

Medicare’s formula for administrative cost excludes more than half of its real costs: some management costs, policy setting costs, tax and fee collection services, costs of capital, and many services provided by other government agencies.

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4.4 Million Reasons to Tell PPNNE to Kiss Off.

The next time some uninformed “women’s health rights” drone takes you to task over your defense of the idea that New Hampshire should not be funding abortion providers with taxpayer dollars (or that the people do not have the right to elect officials who will pass such laws for them), provide the following instruction on Planned Parenthood of Northern New England’s Spending Priorities

“..PPNNE’s 2010 annual report indicates $3.1 million spent on administration; $822,000 on public policy, including the aforementioned lobbyist; $445,000 on marketing. And they warn of having to turn women away if HB 228 passes?

Thanks to Ellen Kolb (here) for this quote from her blog (which you should check out by the way). Ellen is referring, among other things, to a vote on HB 228 in the NH State Senate today, “AN ACT prohibiting the use of public funds for abortion services.”  The Senate should pass this bill, not just because I don’t want taxpayer dollars supporting them but because PPNNE obviously has plenty of money to waste on things other than the actual care, whatever that care may happen to be.

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Will Debbie Washerwoman Schultz Lose Her Re-Election?

Debbie Wasseman Schultz (DWS) is very busy being one of the worst DNC chairs ever.  (Not as easy as it may sound).  And we think that’s great.  In fact, we would like to help ensure that she has more time to pursue the disaster that is DNC chair DWS,  so please take a moment to … Read more

Based on what the NH GOP Elite are saying about us – is it time to withdraw support and work on alternatives?

bumped and updated:  Paul Jacob who puts out Common Sense on a regular basis, had these bon mots concerning this (emphasis mine):

Though it may be that “it’s only a matter of time” before Tea Party folks run the GOP (as “the longtime national committeeman” from my state put it), the price of admission to the higher ranks seems calculated in the abandonment of principle. Hohmann quotes one old party hand as saying that Tea Partyers need to learn “that everybody who is in government is not evil, that we’ve got some really good people in government. Let’s don’t burn the barn down to get rid of the rats.”

And here you have the real problem.

Real change isn’t about putting “better people” in office. It’s changing the principles by which anyone in government — good, bad, or indifferent — must operate.

The founders knew this. Today’s Republican insiders do not.

*****

In the same post where James Pindell asked “how many is enough to be successful?” concerning the turnout of the Granite State Patriot Liberty PAC’s TEA Party , he also had this to say (emphasis mine):

The Republican Establishment: While Jack Kimball tries to mount a comeback, the fact of the matter is that the Republican Party is being run by establishment types like Wayne McDonald, Steve Duprey, Juliana Bergeron, Kelly Ayotte, Charlie Bass, Frank Guinta and Peter Bragdon. Yes, Bill O’Brien is the exception.

Now, as Grokster Mike pointed out, I did launch a stealth campaign to run against Steve Duprey for the RNC Committeeman on the idea that no one should run unopposed; when I heard that no one else had put up their hand, I did.  Given that I spent no money on campaigning, no time spent on campaigning (except a select few words whispered before the vote that evoked “WHAT?” responses followed by smiles), I figure that I had a decent ROI.  Now, I had no illusions about winning  against a multiple time NH GOP Chair / RNC Committeeman.  But my takeaway were these:

  • standing on the auditorium floor looking upwards at the crowd, it was amusing to listen to the gasps and looks when it was announced that there were TWO contested races for the RNC representation
  • I receive 68 votes just by showing up.  It showed that a sizable number of folks were open to an alternative to the status quo.  How will this be received going forward by the Establishment?

That should be a message – but from this piece from Politico, it seems that the NH GOP Leadership is not all that in love with those of us that made 2010 possible

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GrokTV Special Event: GSPLPAC TEA Party – The Speakers Part II: Rep. Dan Itse, Irena Goddard, Karen Testerman

In addition to Nat Healy and Dr. Joe Tarta, there were three more speakers:

  • NH House Representative Dan Itse on the NH and US Constitutions
  • Irena Goddard, Freedom activist,  speaking about life growing up in a Communist nation and why she is scared for America
  • Karen Testerman, founder of Cornerstone, speaking on traditional values.

Dan Itse (he of the tri-corner hat!):

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BE BREITBART: DoIT Right To Know Request : Outbound Internet traffic summarizations – Update 1

Right To Know TagWell, with all of the coming and goings of the weekend, I forgot to “note” that we had received a response to our latest Right To Know request that read, in part:

As noted in that final response:

When a user enters a URL or IP address for a particular web page, the outbound request passes through the state’s internal network until it reaches the internal firewall. There, the request is routed through DOIT’s web filtering software. That software categorizes web sites based on historical content. Agencies establish filter policies that determine which categories are accessible or blocked. Based on a user’s login information, the software is able to associate a user with his or her IP address and based on the policy assigned to that user, determines whether the requested page is allowed or blocked. If allowed, the software permits the requested web page to be sent from the requested server to the user for viewing. The date, time, and destination of the outgoing request, as well as all IP information sent to the user from the destination web page, are recorded by the web filtering software. The actual content of what was either sent or received is not recorded.

We hereby request,  in electronic digital form (in order to minimize time and cost on behalf of DES and DoIT), those records bolded in the above paragraph and to which the State has now admitted to possessing. Further, we also request the file / record layout description of the resulting file (fixed or variable field lengths, data types, et al). As computer consultants, our expertise will allow us to examine the data once received (we have several projects in mind for that data).

This request is asking for those records from January 1, 2005 to the present time (i.e., April 20, 2012), inclusive.

We also request that you name a single point of contact who will be in charge of complying with this RSA 91-A request. If possible, we would request Mr. Peter Demas be that person – we established a very good working communications protocol with Mr. Demas that proved to be beneficial to both parties in our last request.

Well, I think that the tenor of this RTK is going to be a bit “different” than the last one, given the inbound email:

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Bon mots and “turn of phrases”

Since becoming a blogger, I have learned to appreciate a good turn of phrase or the use of an unusual word.  In line with that topic is one of my favorite lines from the last US Senate race here in NH – Jim Bender’s “line of the night” when talking about Washington DC attitudes: Self … Read more

Kathy Sullivan and the Destructive Democrats

The rallying cry of the Destructive Democrats

The Union Leader today had a column by super-Democrat Kathy Sullivan (she’s a member of their national committee and is former chairman of the NH Democrat Party). In it she attacked a proposed refugee moratorium in Manchester, Mayor Gatsas, and those who support the idea.

All that is fine by me…but then the dishonest old socialist (is there any other kind?) went after the Freestaters.

And that got my hackles up….

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GrokTV Special Event: Granite State Patriot Liberty PAC TEA Party – Intro Ceremonies

Yesterday the ‘Grok went to the Granite State Patriot Liberty PAC (“GSPLPAC”) “Jack is Back!” TEA Party. Meant as the start of a rallying point, a number of conservative candidates and speakers talked to a crowd that was double that which was originally expected. Sure, most of the TEA Party rolled up its sleeves and went to work politically to effect the changes it knew had to be done – and the 2010 elections were the results.  Even with that amazing result, the Dems and media kept kvetching about “well, where are you” (even as I kept saying “and the huge rallies by the Democrat / Socialist leaning Occupy Wall Street movement are – where?”.

We can be an obliging bunch.  As I said here, the expectation was 100.  I’ve been told by “official counters” that the actual attendance was just about 200 – far more than my lower range estimate of 150.

Sidenote: although not present at the rally, Jerry Delemus was mentioned often with many thanks for stepping up and stepping into the GSPLPAC Chair when Jack had his run at the NH Governorship.  GraniteGrok extends its thanks to Jerry for taking on a hard job with no notice and getting the PAC into the fray!

This video is of the intro ceremony: Invocation, Moment of Silence in honor of the slain Greenland, NH Chief of Police (Michael Maloney who died protecting his men), Honoring our Veterans, Pledge to the Flag, and the singing of the National Anthem:

Right after that, Jeff Chidester (host of “NH Perspectives” and Conserva-tarian [Conservative / Libertarian] activist) stepped into the role of Master of Ceremonies and had some introductory remarks:

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GrokTV Special Event: Granite State Patriot Liberty PAC TEA Party – Conservative / Libertarian candidates make their case and ask for support

No one can accuse Ovide Lamontagne, candidate for NH GOP nomination for NH Gov.,  of sitting and waiting for that nomination to come to him.  He doesn’t feel entitled to it – he knows he as to earn it.  Here at Saturday’s GSPLPAC  TEA Party, Friday night at the AFP/NH Conservative of the Year award for Kelly Ayotte – he’s working!  He brought a message that fits the TEA Party philosophy (and the worst nightmare of Democrats / Socialists / Statists everywhere):

  • Free Markets
  • Limited Government
  • Constitutional outlook

The TEA Party can always count on the support of Ovide.

There were also others looking for TEA Party support:

  • Dennis Lamare (Republican nomination for Congress,  NH-CD2)
  • Brendan Kelly (Libertarian nomination for Congress, NH-CD1)
  • John Hikel (Republican nomination for NH Senate,  District 20)

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Concord Monitor Wont Cover it, But They’ll help Cover It up.

There is Free Press and then there is Free Speech.  And then there is The Concord Monitor.  The Concord Monitor would like you to believe that it is a defender of both Free Press and Free Speech.   But if that were true, they would not be deleting comments that include links to posts at GraniteGrok.  … Read more

Big win in federal court for jury nullification movement and activist

    This is big news for the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA.org), as well as its New Hampshire affiliate where FIJA activism has been energetic for years, and where the state legislature’s majority Republicans generally support the effort. Read this, from Newsday on April 19, 2012: “NY judge tosses out jury nullification charges” “NEW YORK – … Read more

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