We at GraniteGrok are going to be exceedingly stingy with endorsements this year.  It isn’t because of poor candidate quality – indeed, there are some very good candidates that have decided that they have positive things to offer to NH citizens that want a limited government.  One that will stop overreaching and spending their money “on stuff” simply because somebody else believes that “Government is the thing we all do together” and leaves no choice to opt out of those actions that more rightly belong to a vibrant and large Civil Society.  We simply are going to set our bar very high.

Our first endorsement was in the NH State Senate Republican Primary in District 16, announced at the CNHT Annual Picnic, was for former NH State Representative Jane Cormier and now running for the NH GOP nomination in the NH State Senate’s District 16.  Ever since she appeared on the scene, she has been a stalwart defender of, and advocate for, Conservative values and leading the charge on several issues such as the Life issue and the Federalization of local zoning issues due to the EPA / DOT / HUD pushing of “Sustainable Communities Initiative”. Here she gives her speech and then gets surprised by our endorsement:

Her competition has not, Dave Boutin, has been

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At the end of the event, as I said here, Marilinda did give us a few minutes to do one of our “patented” Micro-Intervews.  Given the news of Friday from the Supreme Court as well as in anticipation of today’s decisions, those result served as the basis of the quick questions:

Also, one of the coolest things that I have ever had the chance to do at a political event was to take a few laps around the mile oval in one of the track’s Pace Cars:

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To recap:

As we mentioned (here, here, here, and here), NH State Rep Marilinda Garcia’s campaign (for US Congress, NH CD-2) had an event named “Race to Congress” to which it donated two Gold VIP passes to the event that we tried to raffle off during GrokTALK!.  Unfortunately, I think our normal Saturday 9-11am listeners took one look skyward, saw the sun, saw no clouds, felt the warmth, felt no humidity, and vamoosed outside without setting their smartphones to listen in.  So, I took advantage of the tickets and TMEW and I headed down to the NH Motorspeedway for last night’s event.

When we arrived, a Mustang car club was doing “hot laps” so TMEW and I knew we were in the right spot: roaring exhausts and the whine of superchargers spinning up.  The Peter Parcel Band out of Boston provided the background music (for ONCE! a band that understood that political people not only want talk, they want to hear what their conversation partners are saying back) and then Jerry Gappens of the NH Motorspeedway arrived and in addition helping to set up “the accoutrements”, he introduced Marilinda Garcia (I had the chance to chat with him briefly – he is rightly proud of what goes on there starting in April all the way through racing season – and that the track distributes over $200K / year on causes for children).  Marilinda then presented a quick talk on why running is important and why she should be the candidate as she wanted the attendees to enjoy getting on the track before dark (more on that later):

She did grant us time at the end of the event for a micro-interview (which will be posted tomorrow).  Also, a bit more of the band after the jump:

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Granite State Futures (the US Federal Govt HUD/EPA/DOT “Sustainable Communities Initiative” here in NH):  Identifying and Overcoming Barriers – One of the steps in the visioning and planning process to be used by each region will be to identify existing and potential barriers to ensuring sustainable communities and to articulate the strategies the regions will use to mitigate or overcome each barrier. Anticipated barriers include NH’s strong tradition of individual property rights and resultant resistance to planning and zoning…Tim Carter:  “There is absolutely no uncertainty in those above statements. Translated: Private property rights are under attack by Granite State Future.”  (Progressives and The Proper Role of Government)

Previous video of Bernie Waugh’s presentation here.  The second lawyer making his presentation to this rather sparsely attended event was Daniel Crean.  Part 1 here, Parts 2 & 3 after the jump:

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I have always maintained that we at GraniteGrok always put up the complete video such that if we use an abstract from an event, especially where there might be some controversy, people can check the complete context of what was said (or what we say in response).  When I went to the last Gilford School Board meeting and Kurt Weber attempted to give “a civics lesson” and then the Board decided to go and codify EXACTLY what I was accusing them of (that of elected officials working hard to insulate themselves from the redress of grievances by those that had elected them, a Board that believes it is above criticism from the voting public).  I had put up a series of videos (here, here, here  and here) but failed to put up “the back context” – so here they are.

First is an amalgam of the excerpts linked to above:

An edited down version of the longer School Board meeting where only the Board’s spoken words served as the impetus of my comments during the two Public Input sessions (re: “go ahead and flap er gums ’cause we ain’t listening anyways”) during the meeting.

The full meeting video (sliced simply into smaller time slots) after the jump:

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Video: Jack Kimball reports, along with Bill Wynne, as Karen Testerman drops out of the race for US Senate and endorses Bob Smith

Video Credit:Bill Wynne

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As I was watching Fox News Sunday (along with This Week with Stephy, and the other talking head shows) I was struck by what Juan Williams said about Bowe Bergdahl (as all the shows were talking about him:

You can’t get lost in the fog for key, very clear principle.  The clear principle is that we do not leave soldiers behind.  And at the moment, what is necessary here this Sunday is that I am reminded of the story of the Prodigal Son.  You don’t make judgments as you have the opportunity to bring that child back.

America should be loving this child at this moment.

So here we have an adult, who made an adult decision to join the military, had the adult forethought that he’d be deployed, had the adult training to go and kill our enemies, and then made another adult decision to leave all of his gear (excepting water, a journal, and a compass) when he made his adult decision to deliberately walk away from his platoon mates in a very adult situation of a battlefield to deliberately find our enemies (the Taliban) even so as to ask other adult Afghanis “where is a Talibani that can speak English”?  That also left an adult message behind.

I dunno, maybe it is just me, but I’m not seeing much of a “child” in all that. 

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GrokTALK! for the week of 6/7/2014.  As always, Steve has the entire audio podcast up here.  So, here are the videos:

Pre-Show – The “Eye of Sauron” returns, Skip turns it on Steve (who is not amused).  Discussion on Smartphones; The room temperature; the new GraniteGrok bookmarks are in; References from “The Last Star Fighter” (1984), and what it presaged – contemporary US Military crew served weapons.

• Segment 1 – We welcome new Groksters JR Hoell and Kimberly Morin!  Grokster Mike comes in by phone and Steve Kenda joins us early (candidate for the NH GOP nomination for NH State Senate District 24 (Greenland, Rye, Strathan, North Hampton, Kensington, Hampton, Hampton Falls, Seabrook, South Hampton, Newton)
• Segment 2 – We continue out talk with Steve Kenda
• Segment 3 – Gary Daniels joins the crew; after 18 years in the US House, he has thrown his hat into the ring for the NH State Senate District 11 (Wilton, Milford, Amherst, Merrimack)
• Segment 4 – former US Senator Bob Smith joins us by phone as he continues his campaign to become the Senior US Senator from New Hampshire.

Pre-show

Next videos after the jump:

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