Saturday • July 27 • 2024
Vol.XVI • No.XXX
Manchester, N.H.
The foundational ideas underlying the Constitution took root long before the founders drafted the document. In fact, they began to take root in the earliest days of American colonialization.
The Constitution was the culmination of a radical shift in political thought. Instead of government making rules for itself, the people established rules for government and wrote them down. And instead of trusting a king to wield almost unlimited authority, the founding generation distributed power between various branches of government, as well as between the general government and the various states.
Writing about the American Revolution, John Adams described it as a revolution in thought.
“But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. … This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.”
This revolution in thought began long before the outbreak of hostilities. We see it in the resistance to various laws passed by Parliament that the colonists viewed as oppressive and unconstitutional. Later, as the colonies declared independence, their distrust of centralized power and vague unwritten constitutions was reflected in their written state constitutions. The ideas that drove these actions influence the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution that followed.
But we can trace this revolution of ideas back even further.
A little-known agreement drafted just 23 years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock could be considered the great great great grandfather to the Constitution.
In the spring of 1643, delegates from the Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven, and Plymouth colonies met with the intention of forming a confederation. The threat of attacks by the French, Dutch and Indians motivated these four Puritan colonies to consider forming an alliance. They also hoped to better regulate trade between the colonies and develop a mechanism to settle religious disputes.
On May 19, 1643, the delegates agreed to what became known as “The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England.” The document itself states the purpose of the confederation.
“We therefore do conceive it our bounder duty, without delay to enter into a present Consociation amongst ourselves, for mutual help and strength in all our future concernments: That, as in nation and religion, so in other respects, we be and continue one according to the tenor and true meaning of the ensuing articles: Wherefore it is fully agreed and concluded by and between the parties or Jurisdictions above named, and they jointly and severally do by these presents agree and conclude that they all be and henceforth be called by the name of the United Colonies of New England.”
The very structure of this union foreshadowed the union of states created by the Articles of Confederation more than a century later. It created a federated system, maintaining colonial sovereignty while delegating a few powers to a central authority with limited power.
The central “government” was made up of eight commissioners — two from each colony. This commission was empowered to set quotas for men and expenses during wartime and arbitrate disputes with foreign powers or other colonies. There were also provisions in the agreement to facilitate the extradition of escaped servants, prisoners, and other fugitives, and to regulate affairs with the native people.
In May 1843, John Quincy Adams delivered a speech at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston celebrating the bicentennial of the confederation. He called it the first significant effort by English colonists to form an intercolonial alliance for mutual benefit.
“The New England confederacy was destined to a life of less than forty years’ duration. Its history, like that of other confederacies, presents a record of incessant discord-of encroachments by the most powerful party upon the weaker members, and of disregard, by all the separate members, of the conclusions adopted by the whole body. Still the main purpose of the union was accomplished.”
Despite difficulties holding together such a loose alliance, the confederacy generally succeeded in the goal of mutual defense. As Adams explained, “the concerted effort of the Indian tribes was counteracted and defeated for the space of about 30 years.”
The confederation made use of its treaty-making power. In 1650, it entered into the Treaty of Hartford with the New Netherland colony. The treaty established clear boundaries between the English and Dutch colonies. Significantly, the New England Confederation never submitted the treaty for ratification in England. It was one of the earliest examples of colonial self-government beyond the management of their local affairs.
The confederation also declared war on the Wampanoag Indians, joining other English colonies in King Philip’s War in 1675. The Confederation raised an army of over 1,000 men.
The confederation began to unravel for good in 1684 when the Massachusetts Bay Colony resisted King Charles II’s efforts to exert more control over the colonies. Charles revoked the colony’s charter. Two years later, King James II merged the New England colonies into a larger colony known as the Dominion of New England. This officially brought the confederation to an end.
While the confederacy only lasted a little over four decades, it left a legacy that influence the development of American government a century later. As the History of Massachusetts website put it, “the 40-year history of the New England Confederation amply demonstrated that unity between colonies was both possible and beneficial.”
There are shades of the New England Confederation in Benjamin Franklin’s “Short hints towards a scheme for uniting the Northern Colonies,” which was used as a starting point for the Albany Plan in 1754. This in turn carried over to Franklin’s early plan for an American confederation drafted and submitted to the Second Continental Congress in 1775. A year later, ideas in Franklin’s plan found their way into the first draft of the Articles of Confederation. And of course, the Articles created the foundation for the U.S. Constitution.
In a very real sense, the New England Confederation was an early ancestor on the Constitution’s family tree.
Mike Maharrey | The Tenth Amendment Center
The post Constitutional Genealogy: The New England Confederation of 1643 appeared first on Granite Grok.
In keeping with the Climate Cult’s inability to predict a damn thing (where are those Vegas odds I keep asking about?), the Atlantic hurricane season has stumped them again – with a feat not duplicated since 1941.
By the way, I feel confident that if there were Vegas odds and Climate Cult Elitists were betting men and women (with their own money), they’d be betting against the Cult the same way people like Obama buy beachfront after warning us about catastrophic sea level rise. In other words, they know it’s BS, and they’d be as happy to make more money on the fraud betting against themselves.
In sports, that gets you banned; in politics, you get rich, fat, and happy off the fruits of other people’s labor and invited to give commencement speeches for fat honorariums, at which you mention how you achieved success without the bits about swindling people.
Anyway, NOAA predicted an above-average hurricane season. We wrote about it here and how it was not going well, but it’s NOT GOING WELL!
There were zero named tropical storms or hurricanes between July 3 and Aug. 30, which is the first time such a phenomenon has occurred in more than 80 years, forecasters noted this week.
“It has been surprisingly and freakishly quiet in the Atlantic,” University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy told The Associated Press this week, pointing out that weak Tropical Storm Colin fizzled out on July 2 and there’s been nothing since.
Let me translate. Above average means that we can’t predict sh!t, which is not surprising to anyone who lives in the Northeast. They can’t get tomorrow right; six months or sixty years is just an impossible narrative to stomach, but the heart wants what it wants, eh?
Things are so bad that we will be doomed in 12 years if we don’t embrace socialism.
No mention that we’ll be doomed immediately after embracing socialism? They always leave that out, but that’s one prediction they could get right, unlike NOAA and the Hurrican forecast for 2022.
“For the first time since 1941, the Atlantic has had no named storm (e.g., tropical storm or hurricane) activity from July 3rd-August 30th,” wrote Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach on Twitter. …
For the first time in about 25 years, there was no named Atlantic storm—tropical storm or hurricane—for the month of August.
Should we cue the quiet before the storm narrative?
“It is important to remember the lessons of Hurricane Andrew, which devastated South Florida and Louisiana in an otherwise quiet year,” the NHC’s acting head, Jamie Rhome, said in an email, referring to the Category 5 storm that hit Florida in mid-August 1992, as reported by AP. “It only takes one landfalling hurricane to make it a bad season for you, and we still have many months to go in the hurricane season.”
It is true that we should never let down our guard, but it is more true that the experts have no damn clue. And after a summer of heatwaves, and gnashing of teeth over the climate apocalypse, we get a record-setting nothing.
Will we have hurricanes? Of course, we will. This century has been unsettling quiet despite the cult’s non-stop doom and gloom. It’s a natural phenomenon. We should expect them. And there is one “named” Hurricane in September. Danielle. She’s murking about (35 N 45W headed for Europe) in the upper Atlantic and projected to weaken before reaching land.
We have Earl, but he’s just a tropical storm with some potential for rain in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, but not much else before it putters out in the Atlantic.
Not an impressive start to an above-average year, but you know as well as I that all they need is one big storm, and we’ll be inundated with climate apocalypse dogma.
At least we don’t have Climate cops (yet).
The post NOAA “Above Average Hurricane Season” Prediction Update – No Named Storms in July/Aug appeared first on Granite Grok.
The modus operandi of the Biden administration has been to say something publicly and let the press secretary and staff walk the statements back or clarify the actual message the next day. The aftermath of the horrendous made-for-tv speech by Joe Biden follows the Biden MO to the letter.
Joe was doing his own walking backward on Friday in an attempt at damage control.
This methodology lends tremendous confusion to the messaging of the President and the White House. Since he took office, joe has made statements, and the next day, you get an honest response. This tactic is amateurish at best but also leads to questions. Take this week, for example. On Thursday, Joe Biden condemned MAGA Republicans as terrorists and a threat to our democracy.
On Friday, the story changed completely.
Joe Biden is now denying that he claimed all Trump supporters are evil, but the damage was done. People read the headlines. Nobody ever reads the retraction on page six. CNN was one of the few networks to carry the President’s speech live. I give the others credit for seeing through the White House’s intentions that this was a President’s speech to the country. They saw it as a political campaign speech for Biden and the Party.
Though CNN’s ratings are at their lowest ever, its viewers soaked up the President’s vile rhetoric and the positive, giddy commentary following. The folks at MSNBC were over the top on Friday with praise for the speech and the tone of the President’s message. Some went so far as to say this moment was why Joe Biden was elected. At the same time, the commentators at FOX News were calling this moment Joe Biden’s deplorable moment, referring the Hillary Clinton’s famous gaffe. Biden’s speech cannot be his shining and deplorable moment simultaneously.
The fact that Biden was correcting his words the next day seems to nullify both views of his speech. If he claims his words were spoken or misinterpreted, then the reaction received is of the same value as the speech. They are both a waste of time and only help to confuse American and world viewers.
So, other than confuse us all, what has the President done with these twenty-four minutes of political theater? He has riled up both sides of the aisle, but I think he has further damaged his leadership position. He has angered the Right, which will have a longer-lasting impact than the euphoria felt on the Left. His performance has given the Right considerable material to be used in campaign ads at every level to exemplify how out of touch and unrealistic the President and his Party are. The projection contained in the speech was evident to anyone apprised of the facts.
We have gone through the list ad infinitum. The Border Crisis, the rise in crime, inflation, energy shortages, supply chain issues, gas prices, Fentanyl deaths, and falling educational standards are all the products of bad Progressive policies. To blame the Conservatives for these issues is, at best disingenuous and, at worst, a lie. I guess we will have to wait for the President to finish his backward walk to know the truth. Hopefully, he doesn’t fall in the process.
The post Joe, Walking Backwards is Dangerous appeared first on Granite Grok.
It is a humorous look at a humorless lot. A video “telling” of plot number 6,567.003 to take out Donald Trump. This time, for good. Or maybe not.
It’s outrageous, and it just keeps going…and going…
The post Need a Laugh: @TheUnitedSpot’s “Mar-A-Lago Redacted” appeared first on Granite Grok.
My name is Colton Skorupan, and I am running for the NH State House in the new District 45 Floterial that includes Greenville, Mason, Brookline, and Hollis. I am a pro-freedom, pro-liberty Republican.
I am a USAF veteran with frequent trips to the middle east under my belt, a patriot, a husband, and a home-schooling parent. My motto is “Freedom First” because it must be our first principle, and it needs to be considered as part of every question. Every law restricts somebody’s liberty, even if only in some small way, and for that reason using the law to fix problems should be a last resort. The messy interactions of freedom are far better than an overbearing state to organize our lives. We should have as few laws as possible but enforce the ones that we have.
We want to thank Colton Skorupan for this Press Release. Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
We live in a moment where the rubber meets the road: This is no time to squish. Leftist ideology has been running rampant and the world is in a mess because Republicans have worked with and not against Democrats for far too long. Most of the problems that animate you every day, inflation, shortages, Covid restrictions (never forget!), and potential wars, do not get fixed at the state level. They are national and international problems. But New Hampshire can take the sting out and the edge off.
New Hampshire is a sanctuary state for freedom. We can do even better. The best defense is a good offense. The Governor vetoed a check on his power? Amend the state constitution. Can’t decide if voting machines are rigged or not? Go ahead and use them, but by law, hand-count every vote before certification. Your schools are teaching CRT and forcing make-believe pronouns? Let the money follow the child to wherever parents want to send them. We need to push, we need to win, and we need to be uncompromising once we do.
I want to add transparency to state government, and I am willing to answer all questions. If elected, I will blog about why I voted the way I did and will regularly meet with anybody who wants to come tell me why I’m wrong.
Please visit my website and submit any questions to colton@skorp.us and I will post the answers. Thank you, and please vote for Colton on September 13th.
Freedom First!
The post Freedom First appeared first on Granite Grok.
Does anyone get tired of hearing this? The Democrats might. Despite being a Constitutional Carry state, with a series of recent laws favoring the right to self-defense and where you can legally carry, New Hampshire is again being recognized as the safest state in the US.
Who named us this time?
“TOP Data has identified the safest states in America by comparing all 50 states across 37 relevant metrics distributed in 6 key dimensions (Personal Safety, Public Safety, Financial Safety, Mental Health, Transportation and Infrastructure and Public Security).”
Homesnacks, Nerdwallet, some whose names escape me, and Top Data have all named the GraniteState the safest over the years. A distinction we enjoy despite being the gunslinging wild west destined for blood in the streets every time Republicans pass a gun bill and Governor Sununu signs it. But the only thing “in the streets” is the rising number of homeless in Democrat-run cities like Manchester, which accounts for a large slice of the violent crime pie in our state.
For the interactive map, go here.
The criteria are always interesting, and this one is no different. Actual violent crime is always a consideration, but how about the risk of a mass shooting, credit card fraud, road conditions, or the number of mental health facilities?
The location has a huge impact on people’s safety due to the unique conditions surrounding it, such as the condition of the roads, the likelihood of a mass shooting occurring, or the financial security offered.
New Hampshire continues to reign supreme whatever the formula, but what about Vermont? I like to compare them because Vermont is very blue, sliding down the slippery slope into a full-blown East coast California (without the warm weather or the beaches). A state with a long history of supporting a right to self-defense that has come under assault in recent years.
Bits of Vermont have embraced the defund movement, illegal alien voting (in local elections), more spending (and waste), with a rise in homelessness and street violence. All things that follow in the wake of prolonged one-party Democrat rule.
TOP Data ranked them fifth, and they seem proud of that, but it is another year and another decline.
In 2020 Homesnacks ranked them number four down from number two in 2019, and the problem is Burlington. Its declining public safety situation is pulling the entire state down.
Not long ago (2017), Vermont and Maine were neck and neck with New Hampshire, but the only real difference since then is the people left in charge of public safety. Elected politicians. Vermont and Main have been electing Democrats, while New Hampshire’s state officials are majority Republican. With more than a few of them being actual Republicans.
Vermont is swirling the Blue Bowl in part because their Republican governor is more like a Democrat than a Republican. And Maine appears headed that way, though it is not nearly as far down the same road.
They are a lesson for New Hampshire. We see states not so dissimilar a few years ago making mistakes and what happens to the things we take for granted, like public safety. If you put too much of it into the hands of people who insist they are better at managing it, it is one of the first things to go downhill.
If you need more examples, look at any Democrat-run city in the US *Chicago, Baltimore, DC, or even progressive rule in the UK. London banned guns, and now its knives. At some point, you run out of things to blame, and bigger people just beat the crap out of little people who can do nothing but take it until the police show up to take notes and speculate about the means of their demise.
I don’t know about you, but my idea of public safety is my family alive while I answer questions at my kitchen table about the criminal lying motionless with a sheet pulled over their head.
The post 2022: New Hampshire is Still the Safest State in the Nation appeared first on Granite Grok.
I really didn’t want to write about Gail Huff Brown. I didn’t meet her until last year, but she lives half a mile from us, and I didn’t want any friction in town. Plus, when I first heard her speak in Portsmouth, she said she would never attack her primary opponents because Republicans are “a family,” and I respected that.
Of course, she allowed Scott Brown, her husband and the former Senator from Massachusetts, to speak right after she did and attack her GOP “relatives,” but I figured that was fair. Amusing even.
We want to thank Frances Erlebacher for this Press Release. Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
It wasn’t long, of course, before Gail herself started attacking her opponents, particularly apparent frontrunner Matt Mowers. For months she’d been answering questions about the 2020 election results with a cowardly “COVID won.” When Democrats unearthed that Mowers voted in two states in 2016, Gail’s top issue suddenly became “election integrity.”
Both states, New Hampshire and New Jersey, said he had done nothing illegal, but she continued to say he had. Of course, legalities aside, the double voting reminded many that Mowers had been considered a “carpetbagger” in 2020. Gail didn’t mention that, though, because that moniker haunted husband Scott Brown throughout his 2014 senate run, and, indeed, many question Gail’s own ties to New Hampshire.
I started having real doubts when Gail announced in May she had been sounding the alarm about the baby formula shortage “since February.” She said her daughter was having trouble finding formula for her baby, Gail’s grandchild. I found this highly dubious and rather tasteless. Apart from the fact that there was no formula shortage in New England in February, she brought the baby to an event in April and said not a word about the scarce formula.
Who would not have responded if she had asked us to keep an eye out for her? Not a word. Instead, she mostly talked about her “thirty years in Rye.” Trying to dispel that carpetbagger issue, perhaps? She really didn’t talk about any issues until the Q&A portion, when it became apparent she didn’t know about the J-6 political prisoners, wouldn’t take a position on 2A, and had another go at Mowers for double voting. She had to be reminded by a supporter to talk about the border, which had been her “top issue” a month earlier.
Alarm bells went off in my head, but I stayed quiet. Then, this week, Gail says that Matt Mowers “appears stuck in the mud” and “hard right voters” are moving to Karoline Leavitt. Wow. So much for “family.”
The thing that got me is that Gail hasn’t been running as a moderate. One of the first things she said when we met was, “I’m much more conservative than Scott.” To this day, her ads call her a “conservative” and a “Trump Republican.” Now she says she’s the choice for “moderate Republicans.” Her big issue is abortion. Either her ads lie, or she thinks the base is—what? Semi-fascists, like Biden, said last week? Or will she just say whatever is necessary to get elected and back to DC?
So who is Gail Huff Brown? I truly have no idea. I’ve heard her speak several times, but I don’t know what she really believes or what she would do if she won. Would she stand up for those who elected her or be another Mitt Romney? Liz Cheney? No idea. What I do know is, win or lose, after the election, we won’t see her again.
Reminder: Content about candidates or by candidates is not an endorsement by GraniteGrok.com or its authors.
The post Will the Real Gail Huff Brown Please Stand Up? appeared first on Granite Grok.
Under no circumstances do I want anyone to silence the free speech rights of anyone, but here’s the rub. “They” think the State should be able to shut “you” up, and COVID set a new benchmark for three critical points in that debate.
First,
As it turns out, an astonishing new release of discovery documents in Missouri v. Biden—in which NCLA Legal is representing plaintiffs including Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Aaron Kheriaty against the Biden administration for violations of free speech during Covid—reveal a vast federal censorship army, with more than 50 federal officials across at least 11 federal agencies having secretly coordinated with social media companies to censor private speech.
Secretary Mayorkas of DHS commented that the federal Government’s efforts to police private speech on social media are occurring “across the federal enterprise.” It turns out that this statement is true, on a scale beyond what Plaintiffs could ever have anticipated. The limited discovery produced so far provides a tantalizing snapshot into a massive, sprawling federal “Censorship Enterprise,” which includes dozens of federal officials across at least eleven federal agencies and components identified so far, who communicate with social-media platforms about misinformation, disinformation, and the suppression of private speech on social media—all with the intent and effect of pressuring social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech that federal officials disfavor.
The scale of this federal censorship enterprise appears to be far beyond what anyone imagined, involving even senior White House officials.
There is compelling evidence of a cabal weaponized during the COVID era to suppress free speech. None of our readers will be surprised. An already willing deep-state, weaponized during Obama’s tenure, and left unaddressed during Trump’s term as president, has a compelling interest in silencing dissent. But the First Amendment is a problem, so they used fear and forced preference falsification to bypass its protections.
The answer lies in forced preference falsification. When those who speak up in principled opposition to a dictator’s policies are punished and forced into silence, those with similar opinions are forced into silence as well, or even forced to pretend they support policies in which they do not actually believe. Emboldened by this facade of unanimity, supporters of the regime’s policies, or even those who did not previously have strong opinions, become convinced that the regime’s policies are just and good—regardless of what those policies actually are—and that those critical of them are even more deserving of punishment.
Senger points to Mao as an example of how this plays out, which is essential, especially after PedoHitler’s recent hate Speech targeting Republicans. The State is attempting to create a forced preference falsification that Trump supporters are not human. That Republicans are Jews in Hitler’s Germany. There’s no mistaking it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t stop it.
While many still cling to the COVID fearmongering chapter and verse, out in the real world, vaccinated people are getting COVID two, three, or even four times. The armor surrounding that authoritarian impulse has chinks, and even though states like California are prepared to silence doctors who dare point them out, they are there.
The State is not just fallible. It is demonstrably incompetent.
Point Two.The evidence of failure is abundant. COVID set a standard, not just of fear-politics but of bumbling incompetence. The experts are idiots and not to be trusted with anything, especially power. California can’t punish everyone, and threatening Doctors will only result in fewer of them practicing in the State.
The First Amendment isn’t dead, and if you climb high enough up the Federal Court system, even the liberals on the US Supreme Court have defended it.
You can’t control the narrative if you can’t shut people up. You also can’t prevent people from exposing how the corporate media is just as corrupt as the State.
The Daily Signal helped clarify that in a video titled “10 times experts lied about COVID.”
Good times but that report could use some updating. The vaccinated do not experience milder symptoms when re-infected; another lie from the experts. They can end up in the hospital or dead, and most COVID deaths are not among the vaccinated. A truth they still try to hide.
So, the lies keep coming, which is why California wants to legalize protecting them. Biden needs a mob’s worth of folks to dehumanize his political opponents – something they’ve been working on for years.
Pedohitler’s got his red guard (Antifa). But he doesn’t have the truth. And as long as we can share that, there is hope that we can get out of this without Uncle Joe calling up the F-15s to bomb his own citizens.
As if they would. A problem the State is also working on, but I don’t think we’re there yet. And that leads to a third point.
Will enough elected Republicans ever step up and get in the way, or will they all sit at whatever table the Democrats set and act like proper dinner guests for a meal whose main course is the heart of the Republic?
The post If You Truly Wanted to Stop Disinformation, Shutting up the Government is a Good Place to Start appeared first on Granite Grok.
Hung out to dry. Absolutely. Here he is, I’m stuck with this elected Representative (NH House) by the decennial redistricting mandated by the US Constitution. Having advised him, as a constituent, to NOT participate in the Belknap Delegation’s illegal meeting back on August 1, he then not only went to the meeting but helped to organize it and run it. Ambitious young feller with respect to his political future, ain’t he? Illegal it was. Even during yesterday’s “Day of Coup” Delegation meeting, Laconia Daily Sun’s Catherine Mclaughlin’s reporting included this (emphasis mine):
…and a ratification of the actions taken by the delegation at an Aug. 1 emergency meeting, the legality of which has been challenged both verbally by Sylvia and in court by a private citizen.
…A quorum of the delegation, led Rep. Harry Bean of Gilford, called an emergency meeting on Aug. 1. Meetings are usually called by the chair.
Sidenote: I’m relying on her reporting (as well as first-hand reports by some of the innocents at the meeting yesterday) for this post.
And that last bit is what made it illegal. Bean was NOT the Delegation Chair and thus was ineligible to call for a meeting under RSA 91A (but the Chair could). While a quorum was met, that would have invoked RSA 24:9-d but THAT mandates a 7-day notice (the House was not in session so the two-day proper notice was not available). Sorry to have to repeat that once again but shouldn’t we expect and demand that our Lawmakers NOT BREAK the Law? And both Bean and Hough willingly, therefore, broke the Law.
…The emergency meeting’s minutes were unanimously approved by those who attended it. As Rep. Thomas Ploszaj noted, this was an approval that “legal or not, this is what happened” at the meeting. Ploszaj was the sole attendee of the Aug. 1 meeting that did not vote to ratify the actions taken there. He noted that, at the time, he had voted against acceptance of Strang’s resignation, with regrets, because he did not believe that Strang had in fact resigned.
If a meeting is ILLEGAL, there was never a meeting. Thus, there are no valid meeting minutes. Whether it correctly maps out what happened is irrelevant. However, I digress – back to Gregg Hough.
So for yesterday’s meeting, he doubled down by seemingly said an untruth, as told to me by my sources. Apparently, he and Mike Sylvia had a discussion before the meeting about the original short agenda dealing with just a supplemental appropriation:
- Call to Order
- Pledge of Allegiance
- Consider Cost Items
o Public comment
o Vote- Supplemental Appropriation
o Open Public Hearing
o Presentation of Requests
o Public Comment
o Close Public Hearing
o Vote- Adjournment
Sylvia relied on what he was told by Hough that there was not going to be any monkey business once the meeting started. Yeah, that lasted for about a millisecond after Sylvia gaveled the meeting to order as NH State Rep Tim Lang IMMEDIATELY wanted to change the agenda – Sylvia was set up and Hough created that on-ramp. The result was that Sylvia immediately resigned and:
At the end of the meeting, Lang was appointed as vice chair in a close vote where Rep. Gregg Hough of Laconia was also nominated.
And now for the back story on that election. It was a decision between Lang and Hough. At this point Juliet Harvey-Bolia had been elected to fill the spot that Barbara Comtois had vacated when Bean was elected to be the Chair. What happened is that instead of calling the role alphabetically per normal procedure, she simply went around the room – that made Lang last to vote. he asked a question that I’ve not ever heard during a meeting BEFORE vote is finalized: “What’s the vote so far”? Confusion and consternation ensued but I’ll leave that aside for now.
Harvey-Bolia announced it was a 4-4 tie (with the Conservatives that were left simply voted “Present” to show their ire on how the meeting had been hijacked and refused to participated).
Now, remember that Hough, who had rarely attended the Belknap County Republican Committees, had told the BCRC Executive Committee that GraniteGrok shouldn’t be allowed to be present (here, here, and here) (imagine the Chutzpah, as I said). He also has had Sununu telling folks to can him. The Citizens for Belknap (Progressive PAC) is gunning for his seat. That’s 3 entities right there that are now arrayed (not allied, just arrayed) against his re-election). And now we know how the Lang Gang views Hough (or at least Lang himself). So as recounted to me (paraphrased, emphasis mine):
After hearing that the vote was tied, Lang smiled broadly, looked over at Hough, staring at him, and announced:
“I will be voting for myself”.
And that trapdoor under Hough’s political ambition snapped open, leaving him dangling – and locked out. Isolated. Any ambitious hopes of “moving up” – like a ghost fading into the ether.
Which also says something about Lang. After all, he’s running for the NH State Senate. Whether he wins his primary/general elections, he’s gone and no longer part of the Delegation. IMHO, he did this to Hough for spite and to torment him. And in doing so, let Hough know, once more, that he’s made himself a pariah.
Heh! Self-induced. Who can now trust him at all?
The post Well, There Was One Bright Spot in Yesterday’s Coup D’Etat – Once Again, It’s about Gregg Hough appeared first on Granite Grok.
Ticks are a problem. Yes, Democrats, but I’m also referring to the parasitic arachnids that cling to us and our pets. Back in the spring (when ticks are abundant), some experts predicted tick season all summer long which inspired us to do some research to test the theory.
As many of you know, I have a yellow lab with white fur. We also have a large enough yard, backed up to woods and near enough to wetlands that we get a fair selection of New Hampshire wildlife walking through it. And when ticks are typically numerous, we get lots of them too.
As previously reported, it was a busy spring. We saw a lot of ticks on the “white dog” and at least a few crawling on us.
In the July update, we reported none. Zero. But June was cool, and July, while warmer, may not have satisfied the Warmist’s impulse to predict tick summer. Late July into August produced one of the better heat waves we’ve seen in a good while. The Climate Cult lost what passes for its mind.
Tribal drum circles, repeated demands to sacrifice western civilization on their altar, dogs and cats, living together, mass hysteria…but no ticks—none in July, and none in August.
We checked. Every day. Every trip outdoors with the pooch. It is a must. His preventatives will result in the ticks dropping in the house and claiming on us. We dislike this almost as much as listening to hair-sniffing pedo-Hitler dehumanizing republicans so his IRS stormtroopers can arrest and imprison them.
Those aren’t people; they are …Trump supporters.
Mao would be proud.
And there are ticks, but you’ll have to go deep woods, I suspect, for them to find you, and there’s nothing new about that.
It means that the only ticks we need to concern ourselves with are those attached to the US government and sucking the nation dry.
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Maybe it’s just me but I just don’t get that reasoning or logic. Sure, getting endorsements is great and fine and all that – but not from our political enemies, who are not just Democrats but include The Ruling Class Republicans.
For anyone heading down to DC, I want to see endorsements from people, for any candidate, that I know and that either *I* have vetted for myself or others that I trust have vetted (e.g., the political friend of my political friend can be my political friend, too – after I’ve vetted them as well).
The more NH people, as opposed to DC people, the better.
The problem for the Slickster (Matt Mowers) is that he is becoming known as an “Establishmentarian” (otherwise known as a “Republican’s Republican for the sake of the Republican Party”). Matt Mowers has raised a ton of money outside of the environs of NH. That gives me cause for worry as I categorize him as being the first to “go Swamp” of those in the poll below.
So with all that, WHY is Karoline Leavitt so close – a mere 2% difference (basically, a statistical tie) given the huge money lead he has? From the Granite State Poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center:
Sure, even this close to the Primary (we’re ten days out) that Undecided is going to make a big difference IF THEY SHOW UP. The question will be, as always, are they voting per the last sign they saw, doing a bit of homework themselves, or relying on someone they know (a political influencer)? Or will it be the “air war” of TV and radio ads that turns their head?
What did surprise me was that Huff-Brown…
Sidenote: her husband is Scott Brown, who, when campaigning to be NH’s next Senator after moving up from MA, famously said that at the beginning of his special election term that he voted with Republicans, but by the end of his term, was voting more in line with the Democrats – and had the record to prove it.
…is so far ahead of Tim Baxter. While we have endorsed Karoline, I also think well of Tim. He’s got a good track record, knows the NH politics and issues, and has a good philosophical base in addition to being (for a little while longer, anyways) a NH State Rep. I would have thought that the percentages for him and her would have been swapped. What is Huff-Brown’s record?
But this is why the game is played. And let’s see if this changes in a week.
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Joe Biden’s “red-speech” answered at least two questions. I will address each in turn.
QUESTION: What do you get when you combine Adolf Hitler and a pedophile?
ANSWER: Joe Biden.
Seriously, it was a speech that could have been delivered by Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong or Pol Pot. Never before has an American President declared half the country enemies of the state:
Joe Biden should be ashamed of himself and should spend every day he has left in office profusely apologizing for his hateful invective that makes him the moral equivalent of the worst dictators of the 20th century. But in Biden’s defense, he has no idea how he degraded the office of the Presidency because his dementia is such that he has no idea what he did yesterday or the day before or the day before that. He is a mere figurehead for Team-Obama.
And this brings us to the second question:
QUESTION: Will the Brandon-Democrats peacefully transfer power should the GOP win in 2022 and 2024.
ANSWER: Of course not.
If you believe the opposition are fascists, that they “are a threat to the very soul of this country”, then you do anything and everything to keep them out of power. We already saw this playbook following the 2016 election. The Democrats, the permanent government … i.e. the Deep State … and many Republicans simply refused to accept the results of the 2016 election and did anything and everything to negate that election: the Russia hoax, the Secretary of Defense refusing to withdraw troops from Syria, the DOJ refusing to prosecute BLM and Antifa militia … and the list goes on and on and on.
Expect Trump to be indicted shortly. And then they’ll go after DeSantis and other prominent America-First Republicans.
Team-Obama, through figurehead, imposter-President Biden, has unmistakably shown us who they really are.
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This Letter to the Editor appeared a while ago and yes, I am late on reporting on it – a snippet from it with emphasis by me:
…a once seemingly rational and even-handed politician has become visibly shaken and filled with apparent rage. It begs the question of those of us witnessing this sudden sea-change: Is there something in it for him? Nobody gets so worked up like this unless they’re hiding something or been promised some sort of reward. Same could be said of his allies. Could it have something to do with constructing a massive hotel and restaurants on public lands that have been rightly preserved since the ’30s? Who knows? Sadly, now that there are people serving on the Commission that want only what’s best for Gunstock and its owners — the residents and taxpayers of Belknap County — there are forces seeking to prevent it. Beware the corporate fat cats.
And now, the more recent allies of those fat cats. It’s been amazing to see that those that were put onto the Gunstock Area Commission to ferret out what was decried in the above went so quickly rogue – almost at the snap of somebody’s fingertips. And that question remains – why this sudden sea-change? What IS it that’s in it for him? And with recent activities, what is that something that is still being hidden from we citizens of Belknap? WHY is he now part of the forces seeking to prevent it?
This LtE was written about now-former NH State Senator Bob Guida – and many people outside of the Gunstock bruhaha had been noticing a change in him over the last year and a half to two years (and not for the good). The Letter writer was correct – WHY such a change so quickly? I can ask the same question about Bob as I’ve known him for a number of years. Still can but I still don’t know the answer. I now hope only that he enjoys his retirement.
But now, we who know who the LtE writer is, are asking the exact same questions. Written back in May, it is eerily prescient as to another: Doug Lambert (and he’s telling us his company’s name outright so I don’t have to mention it).
But the exact same words that Lambert wrote about Guida before Lambert did his “in the twinkling of an eye” metamorphosis to join those “corporate fat cats”, apply to him now. I wonder, upon reading it now (and he will, or someone else will let him know about it), will he ask himself “was it worth it?” to have sold his soul (which after his first falling off the political high wire, he told me he had to go find who he really was).
And does he need to reflect, once again, if he’s lost his soul a second time?
You know, I read those words he wrote and I can only wonder what has happened that has transformed him into being just yet another self-serving politician where Power outweighs decency.
Why should I be surprised? I shouldn’t – he was always quoting Niccolo Machiavelli (the person from whom “Machiavellian” is derived (to wit: “The term Machiavellian often connotes political deceit, deviousness, and realpolitik.”) who wrote The Prince.
The LtE can be found here in its entirety. I am just amazed at how well he described his current state of being – back in May.
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