New England Archives - Page 62 of 404

Press Release: ACTA Classical Schools Foundation Names Seacoast Classical Academy as its third “Sponsorship School”

May 30, 2025 Steve MacDonald

For Immediate ReleaseMay 27, 2025Contact: Richard Merkt (908) 507-5033 ACTA Classical Schools Foundation Names Seacoast Classical Academy as its third “Sponsorship School” — Real Action to Promote Classical Education — ACTA Classical Schools Foundation, a New Hampshire-based private charitable organization established to encourage schools offering classical education, has announced that it has selected Seacoast Classical Academy in … Read more

The Word “Nuisance”

May 30, 2025 Julie Smith

No, I’m not talking about the governor of California; my article is about the possibly only tool left in dealing with the madness of so many housing bills. If they materialize, it won’t be the local government, but the state (which could have a blue government at any time in the future) that must be … Read more

Podcast: Shadow Banned

June 4, 2025May 29, 2025 Shadow Banned

This week, another test podcast to mix things up. Julie and Tyler welcome Keith Hanson and Julian Acciard for some local and national news and opinion. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts. Speakers’ opinions are their own and may not represent those of Grok Media, LLC, GraniteGrok.com, its sponsors, readers, authors, … Read more

Ortolano: Chilling the Chamber – How Politicizing Public Input Silences Civic Voice

May 29, 2025 Laurie Ortolano

Since the outset of Mayor Donchess’s leadership, our City’s political climate has shifted to destabilize our democracy. A persistent pattern has emerged, with elected officials, appointed or endorsed by the Mayor, making statements that marginalize concerned citizens, question their motives, and dismiss their input. This ongoing trend chills free speech, erodes public trust, and weakens … Read more

Opinion: Do We Really Need City Managers?

May 29, 2025 Megan Schmitt

The idea of having a city manager might sound like common sense – someone to handle the day-to-day work of running the city, keeping things organized and professional. That’s why cities like Concord use the “council-manager” system of government. But over 100 years after this model was first introduced, it’s fair to ask: is this … Read more

Cline: Deregulation Beats Subsidies

July 9, 2025May 28, 2025 Andrew Cline

After years of making little progress on housing affordability, the Legislature finally is moving forward in large strides. As significant reforms near the finish line, a surge of advocacy has emerged for an old, failed method of addressing the state’s housing shortage: government subsidies. New Hampshire’s primary method of addressing housing affordability has long been … Read more

Best: “The NH Justice System Is Rotten to The Core”

July 9, 2025May 28, 2025 Claire Best

Dear Governor Atotte, AG Formella, Police Standards & Training, John Scippa: Helen Hanks stepped down from her position at the Department of Corrections. The timing coincides with evidence that she tampered with witnesses during a criminal investigation regarding the murder of an inmate. Allegedly, per reports, there were Laurie List officers involved as well. Helen … Read more

MacDonald: NH Dems Rush to Change Juneteenth Event Image – Hilarity Ensues

May 27, 2025 Steve MacDonald

I’m not going to say that this is precisely what I hoped would happen, but yes, I am. I did. Not long after our story broke earlier today, exposing the NH Dems’ Juneteenth African American Caucus celebration notice with the picture of a bunch of white Democrats, they changed it. It used to look like … Read more

Granite State Live 5-27-2025

May 27, 2025 Granite State Live

This week, Keith and Julian welcome guests Erica Layon, Ann Vandersteel, and Maureen Steele. The topic is sex trafficking locally (Erica) and Nationally (Ann and Maureen). Plus local news and the odd rant. Join us for Granite State Live! This week, Keith and Julian welcome guests Erica Layon, Ann Vandersteel, and Maureen Steele. The topic … Read more

Smith: Who’s High On Housing Bill Kool-Aid?

May 27, 2025 Julie Smith

As Housing bills designed to chisel away at local decision making continue to and through their 2nd chamber of the legislature, my thoughts have returned to the skilled salesman’s mantra. Know your customer. Housing bill madness is a product presented as a solution to an imaginary crisis that’s been sold to its supporters, who range … Read more

NH DEMS Make Their “White People Party” Problem Worse

May 27, 2025 Steve MacDonald

For a bunch of Marxists with white guilt, the New Hampshire Democrat party still can’t seem to get out of its own way. They lost their First Nation primary in 2024 because the local diversity scolds didn’t have any. That was according to the DNC “birthing person” (mother) ship, which claims to have stripped them … Read more

Tyson: Vouchers and the Vision of the Un-Anointed – A Rebuttal to Andru Volinsky

July 9, 2025May 27, 2025 Kevin P. Tyson

Introduction In his polemical essay against school vouchers, Andru Volinsky trades on well-worn tropes: that public education is a pillar of democracy, that vouchers threaten social equity, and that the Civil Rights Movement should be invoked to shield the status quo. Yet this rhetorical sleight-of-hand obscures deeper truths. Public education in America was not built … Read more

MacDonald: June 7th, Jeanne Dietsch-Splains The Free State Project

May 27, 2025 Steve MacDonald

The infamous Democrat scold, Jeanne Dietsch, has been struggling to find political relevance for years. Since being booted from her very short stint in the NH State Senate, she has launched project after project, unable to accumulate meaningful traction because – let’s be honest – they are little different from the rest of the Left’s … Read more

Podcast: Right Side Up 5-26-2025

May 27, 2025May 26, 2025 Right Side Up

This week, Mike and Dylan discuss Education finance, California’s EV mandate, border security, fentanyl ODs dropping, & Seniors are healthy but poorer.” Speakers’ opinions are their own and may not represent those of Grok Media, LLC, GraniteGrok.com, its sponsors, readers, authors, or advertisers. Follow these links for current and past content for the entire podcast … Read more

Scaer: LGBTQ Org Targeting Kids Makes Changes After Contact by Authorities

May 26, 2025 Beth Scaer

NH Outright posted flyers in Nashua and on social media targeting kids as young as 11. The flyers invite children to join a “support group for middle and high school LGBTQIA+ youth.” The QR code on the flyer links to a form that collects the child’s name, phone number, email address, pronouns, and “identities.” Related: … Read more

Smith: Shared Districts, Make It Make Sense

May 26, 2025 Julie Smith

Most people assume there’s a method to the madness when it comes to redistricting every 10 years. Having voted in the 2nd largest city for so long and having only been paying attention to such things for a short while, I became somewhat simple minded. Nashua has a population of about 90,000, and it also … Read more

MacDonald: You No Longer Need A Local License to Sell Firearms

May 26, 2025 Steve MacDonald

Earlier in the week, New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte signed HB551, which repealed the requirement for an additional local retail license to lawfully sell firearms in the Granite State. Firearms dealers are already required to have a federal firearms license (FFL), which the previous Administration was systematically turning into a trap. Numerous FFLs I know … Read more

Podcast: The Blue Collar Intellectual

May 25, 2025 Blue Collar Intellectual

Jullian Acciard has the Citizen DOGE guys on the program, New Hampshire’s new local government accountability group. No VDCTV this week. Authors’ opinions are their own and may not represent those of Grok Media, LLC, GraniteGrok.com, its sponsors, readers, authors, or advertisers. Follow these links for current and past content for the entire podcast lineup.

Middle of the road The middle, compromising stance of those called “centrists” or “moderates” is very often mistaken for a balanced and reasonable position. Little else is worse than an entire world tricked into what rationally amounts to crime, thinking it is balanced, realistic, and optimal. The centrist has become convinced that their middle position is the only fair and just stance, and that anything else is imbalanced extremism. The opportunity to rationally examine these assertions has never been as important as it is now. Let us start by realizing that most people do not actually call themselves centrists yet are convinced that their views are a proper mixture of ideas, a negotiation to meet somewhere in the middle, which is what centrism entails. Whether this is a mixture of safety and freedom, socialism and capitalism, or collectivism and individualism, few have admitted that their unique mixture ratio is behind their confidence in their own political views. Most are convinced that they have the right mixture, while they believe those with different views have their mixture somewhat off. How many traditional conservatives are against socialism without realizing that many of their views are based in socialism? They do not put the label of “socialism” on their beloved military, police, and public schools, but these are textbook examples of socialism. How many progressives for wealth distribution via government will truly admit that they want the profit motive to remain as the deep well from which they can perpetually draw? Nearly everyone has a mix, if only so they can satisfy themselves that they are not radical extremists. To further the confusion, there are parallels in our world that suggest to us that a mixture is best, like the alloys of metals being more useful than pure metals alone, or the right temperature being a mixture of not too hot and not too cold. It is intuitive to infer a moderate compromise in social, economic, and political matters. Now let us see the mixture from a different perspective. Engineers do not strive for a healthy balance of both planes that continue to fly and planes that fall from the sky. They are very imbalanced in their view that all planes should continue flying without issue, to every possible extent. We would find it unacceptable if the legal system outwardly promoted a healthy mix of bringing criminals to justice and letting them do whatever they want. The point to see here is that we must not mix poison into our food and call that a healthy balance. No percentage of violent crimes have a fitting place in civilization, same with fraud, corruption, and a long list of wrongful acts. The practice of forceful plunder through the apparatus called “government” is the rational equivalent of criminality, asserting that the ability to do so equates to the right to do so, and dismissing other peaceful means for funding as if they are inferior. No degree of what is rationally criminal is somehow a quality ingredient to mix into one’s political stance, even if the current laws legitimize it. That it comes from the basis of “might makes right” and violates inalienable rights means that justifying any degree of it makes a person complicit with this criminality, which is objectively criminal and evil because objective reality is altered thereby, to the subtraction from objective and measurable well-being. Well-intentioned people of all kinds mix in ideas that are objectively criminal, not seeing with rational eyes because they used the going laws as their only measure for what is just. Even those reaching for higher moral ideology believe in things like city-states and small or local governments as the solution, as if to not have fully admitted that nobody is fit or entitled to rule, whether they are a person or a group. It is the rational that gives us the tools to collaboratively orchestrate law and order, and the same that stands as the constant standard for what is good and evil, what preserves rational rights and what depletes them. If rationalism can reveal what toxic and evil justifications we might have mixed into our views, it can be the tool for helping us clean up our views, even if someone thinks that doing so will amount to extremism. Author: Ben Jarick Ben Jarick is a writer, inventor, entrepreneur and lifelong student.

Underwood: ‘Education dollars’ make no more sense than ‘Transportation dollars’

May 25, 2025 Ian Underwood

I just got my new jetpack, and my new micro-helicopter, so I won’t be using the roads anymore. Who do I see about getting my ‘road dollars’ back? What, you say? There’s no such thing? We just pay for the roads, and whoever wants to use them can? And because anyone can use them, we … Read more

Gas stove LNG Natural Gas Original Image by lovini - Pixaby

MacDonald: Trump Trades Wind for Gas

May 25, 2025 Steve MacDonald

New York’s massive Empire Wind project has received the green light from the White House in exchange for the approval of two natural gas pipelines that would have to travel through New York State. When the news first broke that President Trump’s White House had agreed to let the offshore wind development proceed, I was … Read more