Revenue Prediction

No, I’m not going to guess how New Hampshire will fare on tax revenue. I am going to predict how democrats will respond to the news of a surplus and business tax revenues over estimate.

The Red Herring Of Granite State Gambling

“I don’t gamble, because winning a hundred dollars doesn’t give me great pleasure. But losing a hundred dollars pisses me off.” — Alex Trebek

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 Back in the early 90’s while attending college at night, I took an elective course called Public Policy. At that time, I was a staunch advocate for expanded gaming in the Granite State.  “Put a couple of Casinos up around Breton Woods and the North Country!” I made all the usual pro-gambling arguments we see here today. Since that time, I have changed my position. I am against expanded gambling in New Hampshire now, but for the very narrowest of reasons, chiefly, that we are all being lied to.  

Conditions in the late 80’s and early 90’s were excellent to consider and adopt expanded gambling in the Granite State. Now it is not.  New Hampshire missed the boat on this big opportunity and the reasoning for the push now is faulty. One simply cannot advocate for something simply because Massachusetts is doing it. That logic fails right out of the gate. There is a shared sentiment in the Granite State that if Massachusetts does it, New Hampshire ought not to.

 The reason for the change of mind is not only simple, but quite logical. In the 80’s and 90’s there were far fewer gambling venues for Granite Staters to enjoy. Casino Gambling meant taking a trip to Atlantic City, Las Vegas or Down to Connecticut. However,  Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 literally saturated the gambling market with options. Since then, Rhode Island, Maine and Connecticut have jumped on board and now offer venues.  The market is saturated. More casinos means less revenue for all as each one fights and lobbies for those dollars.

 For years, I have watched busloads of seasoned citizens leave New Hampshire for Casino destinations. Now pro-gambling advocates warn that a Bay State Plan could siphon off Granite State gambling revenues. Well, not so much…dollars already leave the state “en mass” so in reality we have been losing this revenue all along….and now it is a big issue?  

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The TEA Party is for America not for a Political Party

Jim Hightower’s recent article titled, “Playing politics with humanitarian aid”, (see Jim Hightower.com) is just another anti-TEA Party screed falsely attempting to link it with the Republican Party.  The article can be summarized:  Republicans and TEA Partiers cannot complain about Democrat wasteful and irresponsible spending which rewards Democrat supporters because Republicans similarly spend to reward Republican supporters. 

The TEA Party objects, equally strenuously, to wasteful and irresponsible spending by both parties.  

The TEA Party believes that politicians in Washington are only authorized to raise and spend money to pay for Constitutionally authorized functions.   Politicians are not authorized to tax or borrow money to reward friends or to buy political support.          
   

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Proud of President Obama

For the first time in my life I am finally proud of President Obama!! 

President Obama stood up for the gay soldier who asked a question at the last Republican debate.  It is so rare that President Obama or any leftist shows respect or says anything positive about our soldiers, that we need to recognize and appreciate it when it happens.   

Yes, I would have been prouder of him if President Obama had actually defended our soldier from a real slander, derision, or attack.  For example, if someone had actually “boo’d” the soldier, then I would have been more proud of him.  Since President Obama presents a false picture suggesting that our soldier was “boo’d” when he wasn’t (it was the soldier‘s question that got a few “boo“s), that takes away from the recognition President Obama deserves.    
     

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Alinsky’s Rule #5 can apply to President Obama

Not a bad idea! A reader writes to me, “I have a suggestion. Instead of the formulation ‘If you believe X, I have a bridge to sell you,’ let’s say, ‘If you believe X, I have a shovel-ready project for you.’ I’m hoping for a one-term Obama presidency, but I hope he is forever memorialized … Read more

“The Coming Post-Obama Renaissance,” by Victor Davis Hanson

“I fear we have not seen such a divisive president since Richard Nixon….The Obama administration — let me be candid here — seems clueless, overpopulated as it is by policy nerds, academic overachievers, and tenured functionaries….They tend to flash Ivy League certificates, but otherwise have little record of achievement in the private sector.” “Why, then, … Read more

Jeanne Shaheen: “Porking” Those Tax Increases Down Our Throats

  “If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how it is with representation …” —Rush Limbaugh

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Today’s Union Leader Editorial, entitled, “Free Cops!” points once again to the ills of  having a big-government Democrat like Jeanne Shaheen serving the Granite State in the U.S. Senate. Like her liberal counterpart, former Congressperson Carol Shea-Porter,  Shaheen brings home the bacon … To wit: a $1.4 million federal grant to pay for six new police officers;  Providing four for Manchester and one each for Pelham and Claremont.

Not a new scheme at all. During the Clinton years we see how well it worked here in the Queen city the last time the Federal Nanny doled out money for cops. And as always, there is an end on the horizon for that funding which only segues the bitter fiscal fight also on the horizon.  Police administrators, Union hacks and those in city government with a shameless fealty for tax and spend policies to keep those positions, will seek to have them funded on the backs of local taxpayers. Epic Fail. This latest grant is a mere redux of the same scheme.

Senator Shaheen is the epitome a big-government liberal. She does not respect local government, nor the people who elected her. This is a clear second example of such in just a few short months where Shaheen advocated for the Feds to contract locally with Planned Parenthood in the wake of the Executive Council’s vote not to fund Planned Parenthood services in the Granite State. Now she gives Manchester government a back-handed slap.  

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Obama’s Economy…

 “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” —Thomas Sowell                       

Jeanne “Central Planner” Shaheen

Jeanne Shaheen The Central Planning MachineThe Union Leader has done us a service these past two days by exposing Governor Shaheen for who she is.   In back to back staff editorials we see that her priority is to filter money through the hands of distant bureaucrats rather than find ways to keep it in New Hampshire in the first place.

Her supporters will say, as they did with the earmarking debate, that we need these kinds of representatives "to get our money back from Washington."  But I have always said, would it not be better if we had representatives who just worked harder to keep it here?  Why must it leave in the first place?

It must leave so our former governor can brag on her press page about how she has helped bring money into the state for this or that.  And this or that is always from a list of benefactors and favorites of the political left.  And that is why she cannot leave the money in state where it belongs.

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Socialist Fallacies

Socialist Fallacies is a book written by Yves Guyot and readily available in the public domain as a pdf.  If you have not read it, I highly recommend it.  Every page (so far) is loaded with observations about socialism that are as relevant today as they were in the early 1900’s.  Guyot relates the problems … Read more

GrokTV Special Interview at the Granite Oath PAC – Union Leader Unionists

Of COURSE other "issue advocates" are going to start showing up at higher profile political events.  In this case, unionists from the Union Leader showed up to make their case why Ovide Lamontagne and Gov. Rick Perry should be confronting their employer to prevent layoffs and pay cuts. 

Gee, when I keep pointing out that the business model for newspapers is crashing, they refuse to acknowledge that technology & the Internet are the disruptive forces that are combining to lessen the demand for their product AND that the lessening demand can be met by using fewer people.

You know, the guy that actually came on camera was genial enough to go on the record (thus, filing this under "Unions" instead of "Union Thuggery").  Yet, I still get the impression that when confronted with the facts (not that I know what the actual books look like at the Union Leader) of being able to do more with less is anathema.  He especially did not agree with my argument that if I wanted to find out the local booking report from the Police that I could find that out on my own and not really needing a newspaper to do that for me.

Like Progressives, the media (and those that work for them) refuse to see that "reporting" can and is being done by citizens – and like what we do here at the ‘Grok is a good case in point.  Sure, there were other cameras there from other organizations – media organizations.  In watching the news last night and this morning, how much of yesterday’s event showed up?  About a 30 second sound bite.  Contrast that with this, this, this, and this.

Plus this…

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President Obama at the Human Rights Campaign Dinner last night

Yes, you are absolutely right, this IS APPALLING!  Bullying is horrible, and somebody has to stop the leaders of Government from bashing those that could help us out of our current economic straits.  Obama even said so at last night’s Human Rights Campaign / LGBT dinner :

Obama reminded the group of the White House summit on the issue, and promised to stand with members of the business community, "who might feel alone or afraid because they’re profit oriented or conservative — who may be getting picked on or pushed around because they’re different."

Bullying isn’t, "just ‘kids being kids,’" Obama added, "It’s wrong.  It’s destructive.  It’s never acceptable.  And I want all those fat cat bankers and stingy business owners that are getting picked on for not hiring new employees and have trillions on the sidelines to spend to know that the President and the First Lady is standing right by them every inch of the way."

Heh!  Obama’s actual words after the jump. 

Dontcha just love it that even as he castigates some for bullying this politically sensitive group, his words and actions can easily be construed as bullying others in pursuit of his political agenda. Gee, isn’t bullying the stock in trade for Community Organizers?  Isn’t demonizing part of the process?  Nice to see he’s brought it to the Oval Office… 

(H/T: Washingon Examiner)

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Historical Perspective: The Atom Bombs Dropped on Japan

I have had many discussions with libertarians who say "dropping the atom bombs in World War II on Japan was a war crime!" Such foolishness partakes of a certain lack of historical perspective, as do many "pure" libertartian positions (not to mention those of the political Left, which are always wrong). So here’s a little perspective….

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What brings societies like our to an end? “We all know what will save us and what is destroying us.”

From Victor Davis Hanson, an author and University of California professor of classics: "Redistribution of wealth rather than emphasis on its creation is surely a symptom aging societies…A  new entitlement in a matter of minutes becomes an institutionalized right whose withdrawal causes far more anguish than its prior nonexistence….But as we see now in postmodern America…the costs finally equate to an implosion as we see in Greece or California.

"We all know what will save us and what is destroyinging us."

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Inane Jane-ane Gar ‘awful’ oh

Janeane Garofalo should have her own breakfast cereal.   It would have to come in a small, narrow box.  We’d call it Gar ‘Awful" Oh’s, and it would come with the bitter taste of guilt.  Left wing guilt.  Guilt that makes you say and do incredibly stupid things.  Because that is who and what Gar-awful-oh is, the poster child of this inanity about racism.

People like Karl Rove liked to keep the racism very covert. And so Herman Cain provides this great opportunity say you can say ‘Look, this is not a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-female, anti-gay movement. Look we have a black man.

Sound like projection?

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GrokTALK! Saturday October 1, 2011

Live Streaming local and National News with opinion you could only get from GraniteGrok.

EMail: GrokTALK@GraniteGrok.com  or Call us at: 

603-524-7478

This week, 9-11AM…

This week, we are in studio instead of running around the countryside doing remotes, and we have a full lineup!  We will have Buddy Roemer (former LA Congressman and Governor) who is looking to become the next Republican nominee for President, will be on to talk Presidential Primary.  Also, Jerry Delemus, Chair of the Granite State Patriot Liberty PAC, will be on to talk about State politics and what he sees happening in the near term as politics really start winding up to a higher gear here in NH.  Also Seton Motley, Founder / President of Less Government and Editor in Chief of StopNetRegulation.org, will be on to talk about the FCC instituting Net Neutrality even though the Court said no and Congress said no.

Live streaming video after the jump:

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Deconstructing Elizabeth Warren in 135 Words

First, where did the money come from that was taxed to build the roads, and pay the teachers, and equip the cops? The answer is the factory owners–risk takers who created the jobs and provided wages to be taxed. Without them, there are no wages, no taxes, and no government.

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