Articles tagged as

Tea Party

GrokTV Event: AFPF Defending the American Dream – NH GOP edition (sorta)

Travel 500 miles and what do you get?  NH folks who are willing to talk with you.  Earlier, it was Bill O’Brien, Speaker of the NH House that attended a couple of the workshops that the Americans for Prosperity Foundation had at its Defending the American Dream Summit 2012.  This time, it was two activists, Diane Bitter and Alan Glassman who were on the hot seat and helping me out was fellow Grokster Don Ewing.

Funny thing; both Don and I are Members of the NH GOP State Committee yet ended up grilling Diane (Rye Republican Chair, an NH GOP area Vice-Chair, and Assistant Secretary, and is a much beloved and respected activist in the TEA Party / 9-12 Project / Liberty & Freedom movement) and Alan (Barnstead-Alton Republican Committee, Belknap County Republican Committee, and also an NH GOP Area Vice-Chair) on a number of topics including one that was prescient for what came up at this week’s Belknap County Republican meeting – NH GOP Leadership unwilling to maintain Party discipline when elected Republicans “stain the brand”.

  

Part One                            Part Two

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NH TEA Party Republicans Better At Revenue & Spending Estimates Than Democrats…Again

TEA Party Republicans are smart spenders - NH Revenue looks solid againI know… New Hampshire Democrats were losing sleep in hopes of some politically-beneficial revenue numbers, and guess what?  They were politically beneficial….To TEA Party Republicans.

The Union Leader is reporting that New Hampshire state revenues were slightly above estimates in July, with solid performances that suggest we are budgeting wisely so that the working families and small business owners in New Hampshire can continuing to drag us out of the economic quick sand in which Democrat tax and spend polices have had us trapped.

So How well did the TEA Party Republicans manage your money for July 2012?

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Is the GOP dead in the long run? The WSJ begs to differ.

DC statists are really scared of this guy....

I recently quoted political analyst, author, commentator, and former Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, who says “In the long run, the GOP is dead.” Why? Because the GOP’s voting base of white people is shrinking, while the numbers of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians—all of whom tend to vote Democrat—are rising. Goodbye GOP?

“No so fast,” says The Wall Street Journal.

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Ted Cruz Wins Texas Primary

AP c/o Hot Air, calls the Texas US Senate Primary for TEA Party Backed candidate Ted Cruz. The followup should read…. Democrats double down on TEA Party is dead rhetoric. You know… that whole “The Bigger the Lie” thing.

Nullification…Liberal Style (part deux)

Thanks to the NHTPC, I found a video in which Carol Che-Porter, then candidate for Congress (beating Jeb Bradley shortly after), spoke at a NH Tea Party rally! Yes, it’s true!  Gadsden flags were flying, tri-corner hats were worn, and such liberty-loving creatures as Rep. Neal Kurk, Elbert Bicknell (GONH), Katherine Albrecht, and former State … Read more

What The…? How About That NH Ranking Report Thing Take 2…

WordPress ate my post….

Sorry.  I tried to add links from reports released in 2012 to the previous post and WordPress nuked me.  I lost some stuff.  It was a regular Shakespearean tragedy.  But I’m not giving up so let’s try this again.

New Hampshire is awesome and despite  “TEA party Republicans” eliminating the 800 million dollar deficit Democrats admitted to leaving (without raising taxes,)  writing a state budget that came in 1% under actual revenue (without all the tears and chest pounding and left-wing make-believe), and even after they added money to the Health and Human Services budget over the previous budget (shhh, that’s a secret),  we are still one of the best places in the nation to live.  As if you didn’t know that.

Point being, the narrative from the Democrats is the sacrifice of women and children on the TEA Party alter, and that is simply not the case.   In the 2012 reports New Hampshire is number one on children and families, number two on health, and number 1 to 3 on safety in the nation depending on which factors you look at.

Republicans didn’t sacrifice anything but the bad spending and revenue practices left by the departing Democrats.  The Republicans returned us to the kind of stewardship that got us where we are today and saved us from the brink of broad based taxes which would have been the beginning of the end of New Hampshire’s dominance at the top of almost every leading indicator of overall quality of life.

To heck with the chatter, how about some links…

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Bill Clinton Endorses Maggie Hazz…um….Hasss….uh..Who Are You Again?

Bill Clinton in Nashua, No Reports of Sexual HarassmentThere have been no reports of sexual harassment (that’s Her-Ass-Meant) during President Bill Clinton’s recent drive-by endorsement of New Hampshire Democrat Margret ‘Louisville Slugger’ Hassan.  But Clinton did have enough time to say some stuff.

“There’s a great plan for the future of the state of New Hampshire: Smoke more, learn less,” Clinton said.

You’d think reducing tobacco taxes would be a plus for a guy with Bill Clinton’s ‘appreciation” for  cigars.  But hey, honestly you are right Mr. Bill.  Taxpayers should pay for someone elses kids to get drunk and earn a degree in the History of Gender Philosophy Studies .  Making them pay for their own education is so self -responsible and free market.  No one would want people like that.  And when they ‘graduate’ with a major in “The Catharsis of Economic Freedom And Opportunity Under Democrat Rule” they can stand in line for a job at Staples or Burger King and use their degree to keep the rain off their $500.00 iPhone.

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New Hampshire Democrat Party Ad – Mostly False…According to Politifact

(reposted)

Let me state upfront that most ‘Fact-checkers,’ those of leftish media entities in particular, are not much different than so-called ‘non-partisan’ groups set up by Democrats.  They exist to mislead people by reinforcing a progressive narrative.  So I provide these observations about this report with a large grain of salt, even though ( in this case) it tends to favor my potions on the issues presented.

PolitiFact has awarded a recent New Hampshire Democrat Party Ad with the distinction of being ‘Mostly False.‘  This would be important if not for the fact that almost everything Democrats actually believe is false to begin with, but let’s play along and see why, in this case, “mostly” proves both PolitiFact and myself correct.

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Batman, culture, guns….freedom vs safety / security…..Second Amendment vs “Responsible” – Part 1 on ABC News

OK, I’ve been REAL busy doing interviews and then taking care of the care, feeding, and placement of the videos

Sidenote: which means take the video, transfer to the PC, bring it into the editing software, start chopping it up, export each question (making sure to, you know, write the question down), upload to YouTube, make the post on GraniteGrok, and then filling in the “post” on YouTube – not a small amount of time and I just do it as a blogger and not taking the time that a REAL videographer would be taking (ouch!)

and since I’ve been running 4 threads per day for a while, that DOES take up a lot of time prepping.  But they’re almost all up and scheduled, so back to writing.  Finally.  Now to play lots of catchup here.

A horrendous event in Aurora, CO for the midnight screening of Batman.  Now, I’m not a movie person and there’s no way that I’m going to a midnight showing of pretty much anything except the “count the sheep” flick (I’m such a fuddy-duddy).  But now we have the one of “our national discussions” once again.  I have a bunch of things to say but a couple of things real quick.

First, why hasn’t ABC’s “Chief Investigative Reporter” (and using the scare quotes deliberately) been fired yet?  You know, bloggers get dumped on all the time by the lazy Mainstream Press all the time because we do not have the “layers of editors and fact checkers” that they do (well, when you have no income from what you do and still have to pay the hosting charges, there is no money for those “layers”).  Yet, to say that Brian Ross was irresponsible is to say that a tsunami will give you a bad hair day.  Years and years of being the “go to Journalist” allowed he and Democrat hack George Stephanopoulas (also posing as a tried and true journo) breathlessly coming up with fact they wanted “Hey, this guy, this James Holmes, HE’S A TEA PARTY GUY!”.  They thought they finally had the clincher to the meme they’ve being trying to make for the last three years – TEA Party folks are violent and gun crazy”.  Yet, a simple Google search showed up an entire network’s resources as being worse than being Lefty hacks – in fact, they were just incompetent, untrustworthy, and in the rush to “move the story”, showed their ideological spines under the bright TV lights (in fact, they guy they “found” was in his 50s and not like the shooter who was in his 20s).

Yet, how forthcoming was ABC on issuing an apology?  Not far at all, it seems – a “move along, nothing to see here”:

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Guest Post by Scott Morales- “Atrocity, Mass Murder, Mayhem? It’s the Tea Party!”

GraniteGrok is proud to introduce Scott Morales to our pages.  He is a regular contributor over at Merrimack Patch but we liked his work so much we’ve invited him to share some of it here at GraniteGrok.

-Steve

Atrocity, Mass Murder, Mayhem? It’s the Tea Party!

Is it really surprising that ABC jumped to Tea Party accusations, immediately tying them to the movie theater shooting in Colorado? Maybe to some. I mean, anyone not living in a left wing bubble can easily discern some characteristics of the pathetic psycho who opened fire during a Batman movie and place them on the political spectrum, but they do not do so. Most people do not and will not see this atrocity as a political statement or it being motivated by the crushing burden of Obamanomics, but the brilliant, perspicacious rogues that occupy the left will and do see this through the smudged, greasy lense of politics. This is because most don’t think in terms of politics, but the left does. So what is the motivation for those who do place all things on the political spectrum? What compelled ABC’s Brian Ross to insert the Tea Party into the story? Steve pointed to one possibility in this case, but I think it goes deeper.

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So WHY is our Second District Congressman, Charlie Bass, not signed up to defund Obamacare?

Bass No Sign Defund ObamacareCharlie Bass promised to vote against Obamacare – did.  That should have signaled the intention to kill it anyway possible or needed – so why didn’t he sign the Letter?  Would he actually vote to defund Obamacare?

241 US Congressmen are Republicans.  127 of them have signed a Letter saying it was time to use THE power of the US House of Representatives – the Power of the Purse.  They have voted to repeal Obamacare multiple times (33, by some counts) but given the Democrat leadership in the Senate, it died.  And no one would ever think that a sober Obama would kill off his legacy namesake for the ages and sign a bill that would do exactly that.  Thus, defund it.  And then have the stones to stick with it.  And that scenario would come up with the bills to run the Government – the Doomsday setup. The House vs the Senate, I think, in this case.  Here’s the Letter:

Dear Speaker Boehner and Leader Cantor,

We are outraged by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to rewrite and largely uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”), as we know you are as well. And we know that our sentiments are in line with the vast majority of Americans who believe that healthcare should be controlled by patients and doctors, not by the government.

We appreciate your willingness to schedule a vote on the full repeal of ObamaCare. We should continue efforts to repeal the law in its entirety this year, next year, and until we are successful. However, in the meantime, there is more we can do in Congress.

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Evil Tea Party Manipulates NH House To Produce First Balanced State Budget Since 2006

Hey.  If we (the TEA party/Right wing activists, etc)  are going to get blamed (by left wing radical Democrats) for making the New Hampshire House and Senate write and pass legislation (that reduces spending, taxes, regulation, and increases liberty and freedom), then we damn well deserve credit for this.

NH Republians balance budget to within +0.8%It’s the end of the two-year fiscal cycle and revenues came in +0.8%.  That means we took in revenue just a little bit more than we spent. And for the first time since (cough cough) 2006–the last year for which Republicans were responsible for revenue estimates–we are not in a fiscal crisis.  No late night, last minute, emergencies.  No layoffs.  No mid-budget hiring or wage freezes, no sudden need to borrow more money, no special, late night meetings to pass unpopular taxes that never had a hearing, or draconian plots to sell as yet defined public lands while cramming pension costs down on towns becasue revenue estimates were not even close.  No forcing department heads to look for savings in the middle of the budget cycle. No abrupt, heavy handed, executive orders to bring spending in line with revenue.   No delaying the pain or kicking the can down the road for someone else to deal with.

These were all features of the four year budgetary disaster known as Democrat majority control.  And thanks to the TEA party–if Ray Buckley and his Tax and Spend Democrat Party are to be believed–we no longer have that problem.

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WMUR Closeup for 6/10/2012: in which NH Rep David Hess decides to widen the chasm in the Republican Party by insulting it on TV

Unbelievable – do the Establishment Republicans feel THAT secure that Hess can openly insult NH Seth Cohn on TV – and all those that ascribe to many of the same stances?  I am sorely wishing to violate my own standards to use a four letter Yiddish word that ends in “z” – but I shan’t (cute way not to violate my “adult themes, kid friendly rule; maybe I should have Seth explain it to him).

One of the big problems within the NH GOP is this divide: why be a Republican when you won’t speak, act, or vote like one?  Given that the TEA Party / 9-12ers / Libertarian part of the Party gave new spirit in the last election and a new attitude, why are you going to take them publicly to task?  Do you REALLY think that you can “muscle” votes out of these folks just on your whim?  Are you nuts?  Or do you have so little sense of the movement that you have forgotten that the TEA Party started out hating the Republicans first because they thought you all knew better than what you showed?

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Occuppy Wall Street – if you’ve lost Harvard….

Frankly, Occupy Wall Street has pretty much left Occupy Wall Street (with, perhaps, the lone exceptions being San Francisco and Oakland as the only sites still making national news once in a while).  This did catch my eye – as there was an abortive attempt at Hahvahd University to have an Occupy outpost there as … Read more

GrokTV Special Interview: Rep. John Hikel for NH Senate – Question 7 – Contrast the Occupy Wall Street movement with the TEA Party movement

Certainly two of the most talked about political movements of the last three years are Occupy Wall Street and TEA Party.  Pretty much the only thing that they agree upon is that the conflation of Big Government and Big Business has resulted is Crony Capitalism / State Corporatism – and vehemently disagree with the remedy.  … Read more

Observation of the Day – DaTechGuy

In his post on the TEA Party vs Occupy, DaTechGuy has it pretty well nailed down: OK you got one side cold cocking cops and the other side [is] beating sitting senators at the polls. Tell me which movement has a future again? Let’s also add in all the violence, the lawbreaking, and the defecating … Read more

TEA Party – not dead but more like the political hit man the opposition never sees coming

Certainly it is a talking point of the Democrat, the Obama campaign, and the MSM that the TEA Party is “old news” and can be ignored.  However, as Steve pointed out, that “conventional political wisdom” is dead wrong.  Me?  I think that they JUST want people to think that – frankly, I do believe that they are terrified that events are slipping away from them. Oh, they know full well that the TEA Party is around – and not just kicking but simply like most middle class / working class folk do in flyover country – see a job to be done, not waiting for someone else to do the job, and putting their work ethic in gear to get that job done.

Most of us just quietly go about the job now – the emotional events are done as those were just the intentions.  Unlike Libs for whom “intentions” are the most important issue and raison d’etre, most Conservatives concentrate on the actual results.  And 2010 saw those intentions turned into concrete results in a big way.  Seeing Dick Lugar ousted by the TEA Party, a 35 year incumbent with tons of seniority, shows that there is steel in the TEA Party spine: Principle over Politics.  The Triple threat of the TEA Party principles – free markets, fiscal frugality, Constitutional governance – overrode any thoughts of keeping pure political power.

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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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