“I was sent to Washington to restrain spending and exert some fiscal discipline.”

Yes, those were Congressman Frank Guinta’s words as Fox News Shannon Bream paraphrased his campaign words as "When you get to washington, you’re going to cut and then cut some more."

Yes, you were.  The TEA Party types, like GraniteGrok, expected you to lead – not follow. 

And not be told where to go, either.

You said, over and over, that Federal spending was unsustainable (about the only word from the greenies that seems to actually be applicable right now).

We expected Congressional life in DC to be hard.  We expected it to be a pressure cooker for you like most of us cannot imagine (with all those hands and pleas and yells to give people money that used to be other peoples’).  We expect that you would be surrounded not only by the Progressives (typified here in NH by Zandra Rice-Hawkins).  We expected, being a TEA Party backed candidate, that the DC Establishment (especially the Repub kind) were going to rub their hands in glee as they joyfully said "ah, new red meat to grind up and mold OUR way."

We expected you to lead.  Really, we did.  And do. We sent you because of your fiscal promises to cut the spending and cut the size of government.  And to it quickly.  We believed you.

I have said since Nov 2 that we had to watch your backside and protect it from the Progressives and Establishment types, with pikes.  Like these guys (<—-). 

I also said that we would hold you accountable – that those pikes might be pointed at your backside.  You said "Please do".

So, when I heard that the second short term Continuing Resolution was being voted on (because the Democrats in the last Congress couldn’t even vcarry out their basic reason for being there – passing a budget), I decided to look who was leading to cut government and Federal spending.  I looked at the list of Republicans that decided enough of this fiscal tomfoolery and decided to lead:  GOP Reps. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Justin Amash (Mich.), Jeff Duncan (S.C.), John Fleming (La.), Tim Huelskamp (Kan.) and Allen West (Fla.) have all said they will vote against the new measure.

Oh wait – a name was missing!

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Obama – kinky

 Obama’s energy policy:     After all, he declares that it is GOOD for us! While Rahm may now be ensconced at another money loosing proposition (new mayor, Chicago), will his words "Never waste a crisis" ever leave the Obama Administration? (H/T: Michael Ramirez)

It’s The Christian Thing To Do.

Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson’s remarks, as expressed in a Sunday Union Leader staff editorial, suggest that it is immoral to reduce what the government spends on health and social programs.

As quoted, "When sacrifice is perpetrated on the vulnerable and weak by the strong and prosperous, it is social abuse."

He goes on to include the poor, the disabled, the blind, the unemployed, the impoverished elderly, the uninsured and children living in poverty.

His point (one of them at least) is that by reducing government’s fiscal contribution to bureaucracies established to manage such things, that governor John Lynch and the New Hampshire legislature are considering immoral choices to balance the state budget.

So where do I begin?

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GrokTALK! – Podcast page for 03/12/11

Podcast – week of 03/12/11 GrokTALK! Streaming Live! from GraniteGrok To play (or "stream") a clip now, just click on it.  To download it to your PC, right click on it and tell the process where to save the file for you. When we are live – join in at either GrokTALK@GraniteGrok.com or call us … Read more

Boehner is not listening

The republican House leadership seems to too timid to actually do what they promised and defund Obamacare.  So, I sent a letter to the leadership telling them they are not doing job one.  
 
The most leverage they will ever have to take away funding is by tieing it to the continuing resolution.  They are letting a rule they created get in the way of ending Obamacare funding. 
 
If you are as concerned as I am, you may wish to write a letter as well as make some phone calls.  Perhaps my letter which I will put below will give you ideas.  If it helps in anyway, that is fine with me.  Yes, I cc’d Guinta.   
 
Following the letter will be the addresses.
 

March 11, 2011
Dear Speaker Boehner, Leader Cantor, Congressman McCarthy, Congressman Price, and Congressman Sessions:
 
YOU ARE NOT LISTENING!!

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GrokTalk! Saturday March 12th, 2011

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

It’s GrokTalk!     This Saturday from 9-11AM…

EMail: GrokTALK@GraniteGrok.com      Call us!  603-524-7478

Jenn Coffey, NH state House representative and vice chairman of the Commerce and Consumer Affairs committee.  

Tom Woods— yes, that Tom Woods; best selling author, and senior fellow at the Ludwig con Mises Institute…

And, House Rep’s George Lambert and Andrew Manuse of  our very own New Hampshire Natural Rights Caucus.  Plus  (perhaps) a special guest co-host or two.

(More about some of our guests on the jump)

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The Lie That Persists: Guns and the State House in Concord

It’s unrelenting. Never ending. With the seating of the New Hampshire Legislature, house rules were returned to where guns were allowed in the state house. And oh how gunfighters.jpgthe liars and demagogues lined up to have their say.  The pablum-puking hoplophobic liberals don’t like it. We get that already. Repeating it, “ad nauseum,” ain’t going to change a thing, folks.

 This past Wednesday Concord Businessman Glen Currie opined in the Concord Monitor, “Unfortunately, the new folks in town seem to want us to become the place where Little House on the Prairie hosts the Gunfight at O.K. Corral,” conjuring television and movie images of Tom Mix or John Wayne facing off with some cowboy in a tumbleweed street. Mr. Currie, however,  is little more than full of crap…and himself, irrespective of whether he thinks the legislature is a bunch of “wing nuts“[sic].

 The unending plethora of references to the New Hampshire Statehouse becoming analogous to the Wild West, the O.K. Coral, Wyatt Earp, and Billy the Kid has now become an annoying cacophony to those of us who have spent considerable time, energy and academic capital studying American History. Despite the multi-disciplinary and long-existing peer-reviewed, scholarly works of contemporary academia, these references manage to hang on like herpes…or a bad penny.  

 The overlying thesis of Wild West narratives and presentations is that, without government, society becomes disordered and out of control. We need only look to early television shows like Wagon train, Have Gun will Travel, Cheyenne, Bonanza, and the Lone Ranger to see Hollywood’s consistency in their liberal advocacy of a government solution through the lens of television. [insert picture of Mr. Currie in a cowboy suit sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a 60’s vintage tube TV eating a Swanson Frozen Dinner watching, “The Big Valley.”]

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Maryland Can’t Pass Same Sex Marriage

Tim Gill won’t be happy. He and Political Outgiving have been pouring money into Maryland and the pockets of its governor, Martin O’Malley, O’Malley was one of Tim Gill’s special guests at last years secret gathering along with our own governor John Lynch. The goal was, as it was in New Hampshire, to buy up local politicians at the state house level and ensure the governor of finanaical support to pass same sex marriage.

US House kills TARP

I’d be interested to hear the rhetoric from Political consultant and former congressman Paul Hodes who claimed he was against TARP but voted to spend paid back TARP funds on other left-wing stimuli.

What Changed For State Workers In Wisconsin?

If we ignore the change in national perception based on weeks of evidence that public union employees (and democrats) are selfish, angry, violent, children what actually changed when the Wisconsin legislature and Governor Walker succeeded in passing changes to collective bargaining?

Northern Pass: Redux Of 1970’s Pope County Michigan

Northern Pass wants to build a build a 180-mile power line corridor through 44 Granite State Communities from as far North as Pittsburg down to Deerfield.

Powerline_Book.jpg

House Bill 648, “An act relative to eminent domain petitions by public utilities” brought 250 supporters, roughly 170 of which are property owners located on the proposed or alternative route of the project. According to the Bill’s analysis section, the bill seeks to, “Prohibit public utilities from petitioning for permission to take private land or property rights for the construction or operation of a private large scale transmission line.” The bill drew overwhelming support by those who fear their land might be taken from them or rendered worthless.

Such fears are not without precedent. This fight is not a new fight. This very situation played out in Minnesota in the early 1970’s where farmers waged a fight against big power companies taking farmland by eminent domain. The farmers ultimately lost this fight. This account is detailed in the book Powerline: the first battle of America’s energy war, written by the late Senator Paul D. Wellstone and Barry M. Casper (Forward in 2003 by lefty Senator Tom Harkin). Aside from the book being written by a couple of liberal progressives, the book is otherwise instructive in the plight of these farmers against Big Power.

Arguments against the project range from blighting the landscape and disparately affecting the tourism industry to devaluation of land have been leveled. those are all reasonable. But there is one component given very little attention in the discussion here.

Big Power will nearly always make an attractive financial offer to you for a utility easement over your land. But what few really comprehend what happens after such an easement is given by a landowner. Read the account of a Fond-du-Lac Wisconsin Farmer that granted a power company a lease to install a wind turbine on his farm land.

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Gilford, NH School Board Chair DEFIANT in face of Gilford vote?

Yep.  That’s the title.  The quote? "The law is very clear," said Webber. "The School Board makes the decision on how the schools will be run. We are not going to change our position." Ah yes, just like the present administration in DC who has, thus far, continued to steer a course of "voter will … Read more

Time for the GOP to go bare-knuckles? Uh…long overdue.

Is there a lesson here for the GOP super-majority in New Hampshire? Well yeah….

Yesterday the super-majority Republicans in the Wisconsin State Senate voted 18-1 to strip government employee unions of all collective bargaining rights. The unions now are essentially…not unions. For all intensive purposes, they have been outlawed. Good. The "Demorat" members of the Wisconsin Senate weren’t there to help their government union friends. They’re hiding somewhere in Illinois, denying the Republicans a quorum to conduct financial affairs. That’s why the vote was so lopsided: No Demorats present.

In the meantime, some say "It’s About Time." The GOP needs to man up and realize they’re in a war. A political and cultural war. They need to admit it, understand it, and act accordingly. Here’s a comment about the Wisconsin events from a RedState.com member:

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Union Thuggery -Coming Soon To A State House near You.

WI ThugsI was just thinking back to all the loose talk from the left about ending the gun ban in the New Hampshire State House.  How they imagined someone just unloading over testimony supporting same sex marriage–to use one example–kids getting cut down in the cross-fire.  And how they fell over themselves trying to scare parents into keeping their children from ever visiting the place because it was now just too dangerous.

Then I look at the way the union run leftists in Wisconsin are acting.  How they are storming the state house, climbing in through windows, and forcing people to flee for fear of their well being.  These pro-union forces are pushing against state troopers trying to get past them.  Maybe being let in by union cops.  Just because they demand the ability to collectively bargain for benefits (not wages–they still have that privilege as far as I know.)

What is perhaps more instructive is that the left in New Hampshire supports them.  I’d bet money you will not hear a peep in opposition to any of this from the state leadership of the democrat party.  Nothing about State Senators running away like spoiled children.  Nothing about the hate speech, the Hitler signs, the threats or the aggressive mob tactics and intimidation.  They support that–and by their own rules support it through their silence.

So what of it?

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