I have never been a fan of Jamie Raskin. I have always thought that Raskin is second only to Adam Schiff as the most obnoxious and out-of-touch member of Congress. He is a person who loves the camera, even with his current bout with cancer and a different fashionable head cover daily.

But this Sunday, Raskin was on the CNN opinion show, “State of the Union,” and displayed his warped thinking.

In our current polarized environment, it is not only typical but expected that politicians have to be diametrically opposed to their counterparts on the other side of the aisle. Does that mean they must throw common sense and reality out the window? Apparently so, according to Raskin’s comments.

The first topic was the potential contempt charges by Congress against FBI Director Christopher Wray. Raskin is the Ranking Member of the powerful House Oversight Committee. Representative Jim Comer has been working to get a whistleblower report from the FBI for weeks. The document is not classified, and the whistleblower has been determined to have high credibility. The document, an FD-1023 form, is reported to detail a potential bribe of then Vice President Joe Biden by a foreign government for his support of specific legislation.

If true, the offense could lead to impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden. Though the FBI falls under the scrutiny of the Oversight Committee, Wray has denied the form to the committee despite a subpoena demanding Wray turn over the document. Wray has finally capitulated that Comer and Raskin could view the document in a Capitol s&if on Monday but could not take possession of the document. This action by Wray does not satisfy the subpoena, but not according to Raskin.

Raskin was adamant that the Republicans were overreacting in proceeding with contempt charges against Wray. He claims that Wray has cooperated completely and done everything asked of him. There is only one truth to a situation. Wray in no way cooperated, and his actions point to the FBI Director protecting the sitting President. This is a black-and-white situation, but Raskin sees it through magical glasses. He could not be more wrong in his assessment and comments.

The second topic involves Biden’s decision not to be active on the campaign trail and refusal to debate any Democrat challengers for his job. Most see Biden’s actions as designed to protect him from his current mental acuity. Biden’s handlers do not want to have Biden in public or in any situation where he may suffer from his usual gaffes. Raskin does not see it that way.

Raskin claims that Biden’s current state of mind should not impact his electability. Raskin feels people should vote for Biden solely on his years of service and accomplishments. Raskin sees no value in discussing Biden’s view of the future or having his views challenged by either Democrat or Republican challengers. Raskin could not be more wrong. Elections are certainly about accomplishments but also the future. If Joe Biden is declining so quickly that many do not see him as fit to be President today, the thought of Joe Biden as President five or six years from now is disconcerting. Raskin saying he is comfortable with Biden and not concerned about his accelerated aging process should direct attention to Raskin’s suitability to serve.

Raskin should be embarrassed by his performance on CNN, but these leaders on the Left are immune to critique and constantly circling the wagons around this President. They best hope these circles don’t become firing squads when the facts about the Bidens start falling.

The post Jamie Raskin Is Proof Of DC Insanity appeared first on Granite Grok.

There is such a disconnect between the Establishment-GOP and reality. The Establishment-GOP … in the words of Mitch McConnell … believe, or at least want Americans to believe, that that the most important thing going on is the Blackrock/Chase/insert-name-of-globalist-institution War in Ukraine. It’s NOT. Not even top-50. DeSantis had it right when he said that it was a border dispute that does not affect vital American interests … until his donors who see dollar bills every time another Ukrainian or Russian dies needlessly demanded that he retract the truth.

To his credit, DeSantis understands … or at least I think he understands … that WOKE, not Putin, is an actual existential threat to America. “Family-friendly,” as defined by the WOKE-dictionary, means promoting dildos to children.

At Boston's family-friendly "Trans Resistance March" over the weekend, a Boston Medical Center @The_BMC table gave out snacks and dildos. #Trans

Video by @RebsBrannon: pic.twitter.com/QN1TfDpjn9

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) June 5, 2023

The post Don’t Worry … Those Dildos Are Family-Friendly appeared first on Granite Grok.

Constitutions don’t enforce themselves. That’s why James Madison called them “parchment barriers.” While there are plenty of examples of this at the federal level, it’s worth looking at a situation at the state level that perhaps demonstrates this even more so.

Despite the clear intent of the state constitution, the Washington Supreme Court recently upheld an illegal capital gains income tax by simply changing the definition of a few words and declaring the tax to be legal.

To understand how absurd the situation is, you need to know a little about Washington’s history.

Under the Washington State Constitution, property can only be taxed at a uniform rate. That means the state property tax must be the same rate regardless of where you live. Back in the early 1900s, there was an effort to tax other types of intangible property, such as income. The problem was that as written, the state constitution required intangible property to be taxed at the same rate as tangible property like real estate. Having a 6 percent tax on property and income from stocks and bonds wasn’t what proponents had in mind.

So, in the 1930s the fourteenth amendment to the Washington State Constitution was approved by voters allowing for different property tax rates for separate classes of property. It also included a definition of property as “all things tangible and intangible, subject to ownership.” The pro-amendment section of the voter pamphlet at the time made it clear that its purpose was to allow the taxation of income at a different rate than other tangible property.

In the 1933 Washington Supreme Court decision in Culliton v. Chase overturning a progressive income tax, the high court wrote that “it would certainly defy the ingenuity of the most profound lexicographer to formulate a more comprehensive definition of ‘property’ than that found in the Washington state constitution. Income is either property under our fourteenth amendment or no one owns it. If that is true, anyone can use our incomes who has the power to seize or obtain them by foul means.”

In the decades that followed, the Washington Supreme Court repeatedly held that a progressive income tax was illegal in Washington state due to these two constitutional provisions. At the same time, voters consistently rejected proposals for a progressive income tax at the ballot box.

After a progressive income tax failed at the ballot box yet again in 2010 via Initiative 1098, a movement grew attempting to enact it through the courts instead of a constitutional amendment. Proponents hoped a politically-friendly court would rule on ideological grounds rather than jurisprudence. In 2017, the city of Seattle approved a local income tax that was challenged in court, and though it was overturned by a court of appeals, the Washington Supreme Court refused to take up the case.

Then in 2021, the state legislature enacted a capital gains income tax above a certain income threshold – except there was a catch. They didn’t call it an “income tax.” Instead, they described the tax on the income derived from the sales of capital gains as an “excise tax.”

As former government reform director at the Washington Policy Center Jason Mercier extensively documented, there’s no such thing as a capital gains excise tax. By definition, an excise tax is paid regardless of whether a profit is made from the sale. Washington state’s capital gains “excise tax” only applies when the sale nets profit.

No state imposes an excise tax on capital gains, and the Internal Revenue Service itself insists a capital gains tax is an income tax.

You’d think the new tax wouldn’t stand a chance, and if it actually made it to the state’s highest court, the judges wouldn’t uphold it.

But that’s exactly what happened.

In its opinion, the Washington Supreme Court simply reiterated that it was an excise tax because, well, they said it is and the state tax system is racist so they need this tax. If you think that’s an exaggeration, read the majority opinion yourselves. It is perhaps one of the worst legal arguments you’ll ever encounter.

While there is an ongoing lawsuit to overturn the tax for violating the U.S. Constitution, it’s irrelevant to the point here. What should have been an ironclad constitutional restriction on a certain type of tax was demolished, not through amending the constitution to allow for a progressive income tax, but through judicial fiat and word magic. The judges literally declared that words that mean one thing now mean something else in order to circumvent the meaning of a written constitution.

What makes it even more inexcusable is that, unlike the U.S. court system, Washington Supreme Court judges are elected and can be removed. So can the legislators who proposed and voted for an illegal tax. But when left to themselves, none of these branches of government maintained the rule of law.

All of it could have been avoided if voters had been more vigilant to protect and defend the state constitution because, just like the U.S. Constitution, it does not and will never enforce itself.

Washington residents likely face learning this lesson the hard way via a potential income tax on all levels of income. Americans elsewhere would do well to learn by their example.

 

TJ Martinell | The Tenth Amendment Center

The post Yet Another Example of How Written Constitutions Don’t Enforce Themselves appeared first on Granite Grok.

Does anyone in the army of self-proclaimed activists called the Tyre Extinguishers (deflating tires on SUVs across Europe in the name of their false green god) know how much additional carbon will be emitted due to their actions?

Assuming you think that’s a problem, and the dolts deflating tires certainly do. And I’m not sure about Europe, but in the US, in most locales across the fruited plain, the act is a misdemeanor—criminal mischief. It could also get you hot-winged (pepper spray), tazed, or shot, again, depending on where you take it to the SUV-driving Man and get caught.

But then, much like every other little green lie, the secret has always been not to get caught, even while bragging about what you do.

“Overall, activists associated with the Tyre Extinguishers are responsible for deflating tires on more than 10,000 SUVs. On a single night in November last year, the group boasted that its members “disarmed” more than 900 SUVs in a coordinated action across multiple cities in the U.S. and Europe,” according to FOX News.

 

How many unnecessary calls (cellular networks emit carbon) were made for tow trucks or auto club services to come and reinflate them, or calls to the police who had to drive out to file a report? And how often was it two of these things and not just one? Call the police. Call the European equivalent of AAA. Emissions, emissions, emissions.

Depending on the miles driven, round trip by police or services, plus the emissions from the compressors to reinflate the tires or generators to run the compressors, you’ve likely added a pile of unnecessary crap into the biosphere … in the name of reducing it.

And did you walk to wherever it is you went to deflate all the tires, or did you catch a ride there and there and there and back?

I know, they think – big picture – this will be a net win, but it is no different than anything else the greens claim. Neither wind nor solar are green, and for good measure, wind turbines kill birds, bats, and now whales. Solar recycling is a monster of an environmental hazard and starting to get out of hand, and wind turbines are too. And none of that idiocy can be accomplished without burning coal to make coke for steel and using natural gas or other fossil fuels.

I’d suggest that the problem is fumes inhaled while gluing yourselves to things, but this 600 cm3 brain-thinking predates that idiocy. Green activists are stupid. But not just stupid. They’ve offered the world’s vandals an excuse to cause more unnecessary emissions with their mischief, some of whom will escalate to tire slashing, which is all the things noted above, plus the carbon footprint to make, deliver, install replacements, and dispose of the damaged tires.

And while dumb and counter-productive, I confess to being excited about this trend coming to America. At least a few green weenies will likely get their asses kicked by an equal number of gold ole’ boys, but there is a way you might prevent that. Focus on the greater Washington, DC, area. There is an abundance of oversized black vehicles with tinted windows. If you get caught, try showing them your Liberal Privilege card. Maybe they’ll treat it like shoplifting in many a modern Democrat-Run city and punish the person who ratted you out.

 

 

The post Do Enviro-Activists Deflating Tires on SUVs Realize How Bad that is for the Environment? appeared first on Granite Grok.

By Jp Cortez, Money Metals News Service In recent days, sound money champion Congressman Alex Mooney (R-WV) introduced H.R. 3712, the Digital Dollar Pilot Prevention Act – legislation that would block the Fed from unilaterally pursuing any form of central... Tom Bowler

The political and financial class breathed a sigh of relief when Congress passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. The bill suspends the debt ceiling for two years, thus avoiding the establishment’s nightmare of a government default on its debt. Rather, it allows the government to continue adding trillions of dollars of debt that will be monetized by the Federal Reserve.

Of course, this default will be felt by the people in the form of an inflation tax. This inflation tax may be the worst of all taxes, because it is both hidden and regressive. Politicians love to point the finger at greedy corporations, labor unions, and even consumers for increasing prices instead of taking responsibility for the legislation they pass that incentivizes the Federal Reserve to create more inflation.

Republican supporters of the bill claim it begins to roll back the excessive spending of the Biden years. While the bill does rescind $28 billion of unspent COVID funds, it just recycles that money into the Fiscal Year 2024 budget. Thus it does not save taxpayers a dime. The bill does cap domestic discretionary spending for Fiscal Year 2024 at $704  billion and spending for Fiscal Year 2025 at $711 billion. However, these caps come from a budget whose baseline includes the increased COVID spending. The bill only cuts spending by 0.1 to 0.2 percent of gross domestic product over the next two years  – assuming Congress does not reverse the cuts. Of course, it makes no attempt to actually cut spending, much less eradicate any illegitimate and unconstitutional government agencies, cabinet departments, or programs.

Even though “defense” is the third largest item in the budget (behind social security, Medicare, and interest in the national debt), our annual military budget alone is more than the combined budgets of the next ten biggest spending countries. The Fiscal Responsibility Act doesn’t take a penny away from the military budget; instead, it matches President Biden’s request for a 3.2 percent increase.  This increase comes despite the fact that the Pentagon has never complied with the law requiring it to pass an audit.

Biden’s military budget is the largest in United States history and probably world history. Deep  State Republicans like South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham never met a war he didn’t love.  Graham and his allies threatened to block passage of the bill unless the military spending was increased and more taxpayer money—and Ukraine and Russian lives — wasted in the Ukraine-Russian conflict.

Hawks alienate current and potential allies with their hyper-interventionist policies. This, along with the increasing national debt, is leading to increased challenges to the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. The dollar’s status is the only reason Congress has been able to run up such a huge deficit without causing a major economic crisis.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act will result in increased government spending, debt, and deficits. It will also further erode the value of the United States Dollar, thus making it more likely that the US dollar will lose its world reserve currency status sooner rather than later. The Fiscal Responsibility Act is to fiscal responsibility as the Affordable Care Act is to affordable health care and as the Patriot Act is to true Patriotism. Perhaps a future Congress will introduce legislation that actually begins to cut back on the size and scope of government called the Fiscal Irresponsibility Act!

 

Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

The post Republicans Fiscally Irresponsible Act appeared first on Granite Grok.

Last year the Woodsville Fire District had sued the Town of Haverhill for $490K in road funds as specified in SB 75, but they never “[gave] bond to the Town,” a critical requirement to meet before any taxpayer funds were released to the District.

We want to thank Marie Bjelobrk for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
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I sent an urgent email to those Haverhill Selectboard officials to hopefully delay/prevent the signing of any agreement with Woodsville Fire District based on this lack of bond.

Woodsville Fire District never gave bond to the Town for the $490,000.00 they were suing for in court.

Please see attached emails, as they will provide proof of my statements.

All information is located on the Town of Haverhill website, but I was the only resident to read it thoroughly.

The Town of Haverhill was prevented from ever presenting this issue in court as a result of the deliberate actions of Selectboard members Fred Garofalo, Steve Robbins, Michael Graham, Katie Williams, and Kevin Knapp.

Williams and Knapp had been on the Selectboard for only two months at that time.

All Selectboard members voted unanimously, without hesitation, to award Woodsville Fire District $490,000.00 of taxpayer money in a closed settlement agreement instead of going to court.

This rush to settle conveniently eliminated the need for the surety bond, as required by SB75.

There was no attempt even to delay the settlement meeting, so an investigation into the bond issue could be performed.

The time and date stamps of the attached emails demonstrate a deliberate delay in consulting the Town Attorney by the Selectboard Chair until after the settlement negotiation was concluded.

The Town of Haverhill was prematurely blocked from having their day in court by this Selectboard, ensuring that Woodsville Fire District could get their money.

Timeline to consider while reading attached emails, attached in order:

1. Monday, May 30th, 2022 at 1:44 PM

My original urgent email indicating the lack of a surety bond, sent to all Haverhill Selectboard members

2. Monday, May 30th, 2022 at 9:31 PM

Initial email response by Haverhill SB Chair Fred Garofalo stating he would check with the Town attorney regarding this discovery. (6.5 hours later)

3. Tuesday, May 31st, 2022 at 10:15 AM (During closed meeting)

Email response by Haverhill SB member Katie Williams during the closed settlement meeting regarding Woodsville Fire District. (1.5 hours into the closed meeting)

This response from Katie Williams came during the 9 am closed meeting with Woodsville Fire District before the settlement agreement had been signed.

Concerned residents had gathered at the Clifford Building to protest the settlement but were soon sent home by the Selectboard.

Michael Graham, Katie Williams, and Kevin Knapp refused briefings on multiple occasions from the Haverhill Town Attorney in the days prior to, and during this settlement meeting.

All Selectboard members received my urgent email the night before via BCC.

4. Wednesday, June 8, 2022 1:39 PM

Email sent from Chairman Fred Garofalo to Vice Chairman Steve Robbins stating that there was no issue and Woodsville Fire District would get their money upon signing the settlement agreement at the next SB meeting.

5. Wednesday, June 8th, 2022 at 9:27 PM

Email response from Chairman Fred Garofalo admitting to me that the Town of Haverhill could have filed for injunctive relief due to the lack of a surety bond, per the Haverhill Town Attorney.

This was too late, however, because they had already signed the settlement agreement 8 days before.

That’s how they bypassed the need for the surety bond before releasing funds, which Woodsville Fire District would not have been able to obtain after the fact.

Chairman Garofalo had cut and pasted the information from his email with Vice Chair Robbins in his email response to me regarding the statement from the Town Attorney, minus his commentary to Vice Chair Robbins.

The fourth email listed, resulting from a separate 91-A request,  demonstrates that there was never any intention to stop the signing of a settlement agreement with Woodsville Fire District in spite of the fact they never obtained the bond.

The members of that Selectboard should be held accountable for rushing to sign an agreement and awarding road money to Woodsville Fire District when the District did not meet this critical requirement of  SB 75.

The Selectboard members in question deliberately ignored the surety bond requirement and then unethically eliminated it by signing the settlement agreement with Woodsville Fire District.

The law that Woodsville Fire District used as the basis of its lawsuit is clear. Lines 11-14 required them to “give bond to the Town,” which they clearly did not do and is not the same as being bonded individually.

 

The post Haverhill Selectman Block Town’s Day In Court appeared first on Granite Grok.

Barry Obama is concerned about America’s divided conversation. “I’m much older than you… when I was coming up, you had three TV stations, and people were getting a similar sense of what is true and what isn’t, what was real and what was not.”  Translation: We had message control, and now we don’t.

 

“Today, what I’m most concerned about is because of the splintering of the media, we almost occupy different realities,” Obama said, adding “If something happens, in the past, everybody could say, all right, we may disagree on how to solve it, but at least we all agree that, yeah, that’s an issue.”

“Now people will say, well, that didn’t happen, or I don’t believe that,” he complained, asserting that “one of, I think, the goals of the Obama Foundation, and one of the goals of my post-presidency, is how do we return to that common conversation? How can we have a common set of facts?”

 

So, to clarify, if things were Obama’s way, Hillary never had an illegal email server, Benghazi was caused by a YouTube video, and the Steele Dossier was not a pack of lies spun up to smear and impeach a duly elected president. Hunter’s Laptop would be Russian Disinformation, SARS C0V2 came from some Chinese wet market and not a Lab in Wuhan, and the climate cult didn’t get every single prediction wrong.

I’ve kept the list deliberately short. We could go deep on Biden (for example), but I try to stick to my own word limit for articles on GranteGrok, and such an expedition would most certainly exceed it before I got to the point. Obama is trying to go yard for the ongoing disinformation narrative the Dems have been spinning as a way to innoculate Americans into accepting limitations on speech, and we can see why? They spend so much time lying and deceiving people that without such protections, the truth emerges, and the despotism for which they pine cannot brook speech on these terms.

It’s a problem, and they are hoping to convince America we need to let them solve it in their favor. Misinformation is protected speech. Even the Congressional Research Service has to admit as much.

 

The Supreme Court has said the Free Speech Clause protects false speech when viewed as a broad category, but the government may restrict limited subcategories of false speech without violating the First Amendment. For example, defamation, fraud, political advertisements, and broadcast speech are subject to special considerations.

 

But that’s about it.  And even those often fall under the strictest of scrutiny because the exercise of free speech and a truly free press – as opposed to Barry’s contrived muppet media – is essential to liberty.

 

The Supreme Court has recognized that false statements may not add much value to the marketplace of ideas. Even so, there is a concern that by prohibiting false speech, the government would also “chill” more valuable speech, meaning it would cause people to self-censor out of fear of violating the law. Consequently, the First Amendment creates “breathing space” protecting the false statements and hyperbole that are “inevitable in free debate.”

 

You would think these nuances would please the Left, given its penchant for deceit, but it is not enough. They seek to control the message because, as noted above, their preferred form of government is impossible. Obama implies we are better off if we are all on the same page. It is simpler, easier, and I guess the government would be doing us a favor and making our lives easier.

But,

The only model that asks nothing of its citizens in terms of learning, autonomy and decision-making is the authoritarian one. By arguing that freedom from speech is often more important than freedom of speech, advocates unwittingly embrace the nineteenth-century (anti-)speech justification for czarist power: the idea that the Russian peasant has the best kind of freedom, the freedom from the burden of freedom itself (because it surely is a burden).

 

 

 

The post Barack Obama Reminds Us How Much He Hates the First Amendment appeared first on Granite Grok.

By Clint Siegner, Money Metals News Service Everyone loves an early inflation. The effects at the beginning of an inflation are all good. There is steepened money expansion, rising government spending, increased government budget deficits, booming stock markets, and spectacular... Tom Bowler

With an enforcement deadline looming at the end of May, potentially affecting millions of stabilizing braces, the new ATF rule is – as the founders told us – a test or an “experiment of your disposition.”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted its “Final Rule” on pistol stabilizing braces to the Federal Register on January 13, 2023. This new gun control rule by executive order could turn millions of previously legally-owned firearms with a brace attached into NFA-regulated short-barreled rifles (SBRs), and the people that possess those weapons into felons – with the stroke of a pen.

The penalties they’re threatening are significant – federal felony charges carry up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines for each firearm in violation.

But, as the Founders and old Revolutionaries told us – any act beyond the limits of the Constitution is an act of “usurpation,” or a theft of power from the sovereign people of the several states. All such acts are void, and in the words of even big-government-loving Alexander Hamilton – they “deserve to be treated as such.”

Just a quick overview of some of their writings tell us exactly what that means.

In response to the Stamp Act of 1765, for example, John Dickinson urged the people to refuse to comply with the act. He wrote:

“IF you comply with the Act by using Stamped Papers, you fix, you rivet perpetual Chains upon your unhappy Country. You unnecessarily, voluntarily establish the detestable Precedent, which those who have forged your Fetters ardently wish for, to varnish the future Exercise of this new claimed Authority”

Like so many others of the time, the “Penman of the Revolution” understood that mass compliance just encourages government to take more and more…and more. He continued:

“THE Stamp Act, therefore, is to be regarded only as an EXPERIMENT OF YOUR DISPOSITION. If you quietly bend your Necks to that Yoke, you prove yourselves ready to receive any Bondage to which your Lords and Masters shall please to subject you”

Compliance with unconstitutional acts just guarantees more of the same in the future. And in the other direction, James Madison told us that non-compliance and “a refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union” is an essential part of how to keep the federal government in check – without relying on the federal government to somehow, magically limit itself.

Yet, some people want us to “wait for the federal courts to sort this out” – as if potentially years of waiting for one part of the government to tell another part of the government to stop doing what the government never should have been doing in the first place is anything close to what a “free people” would do.

In fact, it’s the opposite. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “A free people claim their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as a gift of their chief magistrate.”

When you get down to it, waiting on the federal government to stop itself is not a people living in a “land of the free.” It’s a population on its knees, begging for permission.

When it comes to the right to keep and bear arms, we’re definitely talking about the “laws of nature.”

Mercy Otis Warren put it this way, “Self defence is a primary law of nature, which no subsequent law of society can abolish.”

James Wilson took it a step further, “The defence of one’s self, justly called the primary law of nature, is not, nor can it be abrogated by any regulation of municipal law.”

That’s part of why we take the position that the number of federal gun control measures that are authorized by the constitution is ZERO.

This includes the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934, which the ATF claims is where many firearms with stabilizing braces will now be regulated as SBRs.

While following Madison, Dickinson – and even Hamilton – to treat this latest act of usurpation as it deserves to be treated is not without risk, ultimately, it’s up to the people to protect and defend their own constitution and their own liberty – whether the government likes it, or not.

Thomas Paine may have summed it up best:

“The strength and powers of despotism consist wholly in the fear of resisting it.”

 

 

Michael Boldin | The Tenth Amendment Center

The post ATF Pistol Brace Rule: An “Experiment of your Disposition” appeared first on Granite Grok.

With a generous grant from global pharmaceutical giant Pfizer the University of Vermont announces plans to break ground this summer on a new School of Sorcery.

Eager to capitalize on a generation still under the spell of Harry Potter, UVM plans to be the first to offer a Bachelors in Divination, Sorcery and Magic (BDSM).  Applications for the school have already been flooding in as competition for the limited number of thirteen spots intensifies.

Some concern over the claims made by applicants has the registrar’s office working over-time to verify them. One hopeful student reports they have already defeated multiple dragons in the Forbidden Forest behind their house in downtown Los Angeles while others claim to have conquered entire armies of trolls – not on the internet, actual trolls.  Another hopeful matriculator says they have a gnome farm.

“We take our jobs as witches and warlocks very seriously, so it’s a little unsettling to read some of these outlandish assertions” states incoming Headmaster Molgrom Ridiculi.  “One does not simply defeat a dragon in Los Angeles without years of blood, sweat and magic rituals practiced under the guidance of proper wizardry!”  This has led the staff to require video evidence of “extraordinary claims” while raising some concerns students will use A.I. to generate them.

Among the courses offered will be A Guide to Magic Mushrooms, Summoning the Dead to Vote, Warlock Robes and Wardrobes and Hexes, Curses and Writing in Cursive.  The course with the most applicant interest is in Black and White Magic, however UVM’s D.E.I. board chair Sha’Karen Finkelworthy (she/her/shay/sho) says the name is problematic.

“Why black magic gotta be the evil one? Can’t nobody tell me!” Miss Finkelworthy crows as she waves her finger back and forth at the new staff, who appear to take the gesturing as a challenge.  We reached out to Miss Finkelworthy for comment but were told she was unable to report to work after waking up covered in boils.

Still the excitement over the new school has many wondering about the forthcoming building.  The architectural plans look to be early 14th century gothic in design, which has other area residents complaining.

A recent letter to the editor included the following statement from Sandy Plumbottom, board chair of a nearby subdivision:

“We have a Home Owners Association (HOA) covenant and this violates the building code for our neighborhood.  It strictly prohibits non-eco friendly structures and the color code only allows earth tones, with the exception of yellow and blue paint if you stand with Ukraine.  Or rainbow décor if you have a pride member in your family.”

Bananas Media reached out for a follow-up interview with Miss Plumbottom and were told she had been committed to a nearby sanitarium after being spotted crawling around her front yard clucking like a chicken.

Despite the hotly contested venture the school’s opening date is set for this fall.  The magical staff has agreed to respond to concerns via old fashioned mail requesting all letters include a locket of hair and be addressed to:

UVM School of Sorcery

33  Maleficium Way

Burlington, VT 05405-0666

The post Bananas: UVM To Open New Pfizer School of Sorcery appeared first on Granite Grok.

Losing a family member, especially if they are a part of your immediate family, is something that, despite the overused cliché that ‘time heals’ is something that never gets better, just farther away.

Although the process of grief and acceptance is an entirely individual and personal journey, it would certainly help to focus your mind on looking for ways and means of memorializing them.

With that being said, here is rundown on how to easily keep the memory of your treasured loved one alive in a practical way.

Plant a Tree Sapling

First and foremost, one of the most beautiful and, indeed, most popular ways of memorializing your loved one who has passed away, whether that be fairly recently or else many years ago, is to plant a tree sapling.

Representative of new life, you could even choose to add an inscription on a plaque underneath the tree, dedicating this new life to the memory of your loved one.

Garden Furniture

If your deceased loved one was someone who loved everything related to the great outdoors and, indeed, you are fortunate enough to have a good-sized backyard and garden attached to your property, then you could consider an engraved plaque.

Garden furniture, from individual chairs to benches and other garden equipment, that uses beautifully and professionally engraved memorial bricks is both a functional and thoughtful way to remember your loved one during a break from potting flowers.

Regularly Donate to Their Favorite Cause

For those people who have always been charitable of nature, another lovely idea to carry on the memory of your loved one and, indeed, positively impact other people’s lives is to set up a regular donation schedule to their favorite charity or cause.

You could even donate each month through a direct debit and always give the name of the donator as your loved one who has passed away rather than your own.

Dedicate a Local Event to Their Name

Perhaps your local town or neighborhood regularly arranges block barbecues, or else a charity fun run whereby each runner asks for sponsorships for a variety of different causes?

Regardless of the event, you could either choose to organize, arrange, and promote your own, or else contact the organizers of an existing one, to see if you are able to dedicate the next one to the memory of your loved one.

Create a Website in Their Memory

The final suggestion for ways to help keep the memory of your loved one alive in very much a practical manner is to create a website in their memory.

Particularly applicable in the cases of individuals who have lost partners or other family members more recently, the website page could become a safe place to share photographs, videos and written memories of time spent with them.

One of the main benefits for you personally should you choose this option is that there is a high chance you may well be sent photographs and videos that you have never before seen.

 

The post How to Keep the Memory of Your Loved One Alive in a Practical Way appeared first on Granite Grok.

At its root, Democrats are mutilating mentally ill kids to fill the ranks of their army of gender warriors. Children who show no signs of gender dysphoria are confused by the Left and pressured by peers until they have it.

Disney uses cartons to normalize it.

Target sells them queer gear to celebrate it.

Parents who object are pilloried or shunned.

Local School boards notify child and family services, who may investigate the parents for abuse.

The Federal government creates profiles and watchlists inside the FBI.

Someone is probably feeding these names to the IRS.

If parents or relatives speak out, they are accused of hate.

And at some point, if allowed to continue, they will be separated from their children, detained, questioned, and perhaps even incarcerated, all so progressives can castrate or neuter other people’s kids in the name of human rights.

 

 

 

The post Quick Thought – The Left’s Child-Borg Army of Gender Warriors appeared first on Granite Grok.

Democrats have unjustly criticized the Republican Party as one of old white men who do not reflect the tapestry of America. You can look at the diversity of the field of Republican candidates for President to know how false that statement is.

Former Press Secretary Jen Psaki was on the air this week defending her former boss. She described Joe Biden as old, white, and comfortable. Those are not adjectives I want to hear when referring to the United States President and the free world’s leader. We do not need a comfortable older man sitting in his easy chair on the beach in Delaware. We need a President who will not hesitate to stand up to aggression from any of our adversaries. Joe Biden is too comfortable to show strength.

Three situations are hot spots and require our President’s firm stance and strong statement. Our Border with Mexico, Iran’s movement toward nuclear power, and China’s goal of global dominance are on most people’s radar screen. Will we find them on Joe Biden’s? I’m afraid Joe’s is a test signal from MSNBC!

We know the Border is not one where we will see action from Biden. The Democrats have not only destroyed our sovereignty, but they are impacting the makeup of every city and town in every state. The incredible flow of humanity is precisely what Biden and the Left want. Municipalities use any structure available to house illegal immigrants transported from Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona as these aliens wait for housing, jobs, and school for their children. The demographics of America are changing forever, and there is no plan for this insanity.

Iran is on the verge of possessing nuclear weapons. This weaponizing of Iran is the work of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Donald Trump stopped the process and kept Iran in check. Joe Biden restarted the process immediately when he took office in 2021. What could possibly motivate Obama and Biden to create instability and danger in the Middle East by arming Iran? There is no logical explanation, and it questions whether Israel can count on an America under Democrat control.

China has been attacking us for years, but never as they have since Biden took office. They have been working with the cartels in Mexico to supply the raw fentanyl that the cartels process and ship to America. There are 100,000 Fentanyl poisonings yearly from this illegal drug, but not enough deaths to get the attention of Joe Biden. China has been complicit in destabilizing our economy for years. They are enticing American businesses to China and flooding our country with cheaply made Chinese products. China floats a balloon into our airspace. Biden lets it traverse the country flying over numerous military bases before finally shooting it down when it is over the Atlantic. The damage was already done. China got the info it needed before the balloon was destroyed. China has been buying American property, some surrounding our military bases. Biden has not done anything to deter this, but fortunately, some Governors have. Biden has done nothing to hold China accountable for the leak that became the COVID Pandemic, and the United States is still sending money to the Wuhan Lab for research. Why???

The Left loves to talk about existential threats and always points to the climate as our biggest threat. China is far more of a threat than the climate, but not if you look at the actions of Joe Biden. While the evil players of the world are testing America, America is wasting our energy changing the names of our forts. Fort Bragg lost its name today and became Fort Liberty. God help us if the names of our military bases are the most critical threat our leaders can see.

The post We Do Not Need Comfortable, We Need Strength appeared first on Granite Grok.

The family is the enemy of Communism. Family members, in healthy families, live for each other; belong to each other … NOT for the State; to the State. In the Communist State, the ruled class are merely worker bees … indistinguishable, interchangeable, always replaceable. Family is just the opposite … you are an individual … unique and irreplaceable.

In Communist New Mexico, the family is being canceled. The Communists are winning.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signs law that will permit minors access to sex-change care and abortions without parental knowledge or consent. https://t.co/K8YWj9jexe pic.twitter.com/58rVNs7YLl

— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) June 3, 2023

 

The post The Communists Are Winning appeared first on Granite Grok.

This is the kind of info that seems to have been suppressed for a very long time in this Transgender Culture War.  We’ve been told, over and over, that it is “child abuse” to not allow a child to do the drugs and surgery that will cause them to be sterile along with a ton of other health ramifications. We’ve known for years that such kids BEFORE they get the Jabs and the Knife are already in bad shape from a mental illness standpoint (with gender dysphoria being NOT the only one). And the Trans-Authoritarians make sure that we know it with their emotional blackmail of “Would you prefer a dead son or a live daughter” and then they trot out the suicide rates with the nuance that if Parents don’t do what they’re told to do, they’ll end up paying for a funeral. Don’t doubt me on this – I’ve heard it too many times.

And now we know the truth – it ain’t matching up with the Trans Propaganda. As in all cases for these snippets, reformatting and emphasis mine:

• ‘Gender-Affirming’ Surgery Leaves People Lonelier and Depressed, Study by Transgender Surgery Department Chairman Finds

The head of a facility that carries out so-called “gender-affirming care” has published a study confirming that transgender surgeries do not improve mental health and make people feel lonelier than those who avoided surgical intervention altogether.

“In our study, the level of life satisfaction in transgender people was not increased in transgender people who had undergone gender-affirming surgery as compared to those who were unoperated,” says a study published Tuesday in BMC Public Health, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

“[O]ur data indicate that transgender and gender-diverse people, who have undergone gender reassignment surgery feel lonelier” than transgender-identified people who have not elected to have surgery, finds a separate study by the same four researchers, originally published online May 11 in the journal Healthcare (Basel).

The researchers also reveal that people who identify as members of the opposite sex experienced greater isolation if they played sports. “[H]igher loneliness levels were significantly associated with … already having a gender-reassignment surgery [and] more than 4 [hours] a week of sports activities,” as “compared to no sports activity.”

…The most recent study finds that people who identify as transgender have lower overall life satisfaction than the general population — and young people suffering from gender dysphoria have worse mental health than older people. Blessmann, et al., found 31% of transgender-identifying people felt “dissatisfied” or “extremely dissatisfied” with life, while 17% said they were “satisfied” and just 1% felt “extremely satisfied.” People who identify as transgender were 1,290% more likely to describe themselves as “extremely dissatisfied” than “extremely satisfied” with their lives.

…The latest conclusions come as no surprise to experts. “This finding is sadly consistent with other studies,” Mary Beth Waddell, director of federal affairs for family and religious liberty at the Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “One study showed that the suicide completion rate for those that had undergone surgery was 19 times higher than the general population.”

As many of us have thought for years, if the root problem are other mental illness, getting sliced, diced, and pumped isn’t a longer term cure. And as a bonus, the post references a Swedish study as well:

A study taken in transgender-friendly Sweden concluded, “Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population.”

So, don’t let them gaslight you to believe what they want you to believe.  And they try, HARD, to do that with linguistic manipulations.  Remember, women don’t have prostates but transwomen do (unless they REALLY do a thorough bottom surgery):

• Trans Activists Have No Right to Pervert the English Language

…In 1946, George Orwell wrote his classic essay, “Politics and the English Language,” in which he argued “political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible”. Because political speech so often justifies the irrational and inhumane, Orwell wrote, “political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.”

The sinkhole of vagueness Orwell described has now swallowed up the word “woman.” Instead of meaning “adult human female”—or the half of humanity who have ovaries—politicians such as Fentiman now say a woman is anyone who feels like a woman, even if they come with penis and scrotum. The attempt to change the meaning of the word “woman” is justified by politicians such as Fentiman because it is argued that being a woman is a social role and not a biological category. Any person can become a “woman,” just as any person can become a police officer or a nurse. When it comes to social roles, biology is irrelevant.

It’s one reason why I ALWAYS demand, when in a debate with a Lefty, to define their definition. Do a pregnant pause, then smile broadly, and let loose your broadside. We cannot allow them to redefine our common language out from underneath us all – or they win in putting “their truth” as the accepted definition. Change the meanings of words and you change everything. After all “Free Speech” is now defined, for many young people, as “violence”.

In a free society, trans activists and their allies can use the word “woman” to refer to anybody in a dress or wig, but they have no right to coerce the rest of us to share in their alternative language. Yet this coercion is exactly what is happening across the world and across the states of Australia.

WE are not allowed to have Free Speech but they demand they have free reign to muck up the debate to control the debate. But of course, their dim-witted attempts to do so are meant to accomplish one thing – HURT their opponents that defy what they wanted us on bended knee. Like here – they are trying to claim that only THEY can define what a normative version of “democracy” looks like (so we just say “Republic” to tick them off). Add to it, just like “hate speech” is just speech they don’t like and “extremists” are people that refuse to agree with their worldview – they cannot brook any form or amount of dissent:

• Washington Post article accuses ‘bigoted’ right-wing ‘extremists’ of inciting ‘anti-democracy‘ Target boycott

The Washington Post is receiving pushback for publishing an article painting conservatives who support the Target boycott as “extremists” and opponents of democracy. The Washington Post published an article titled: “Target gets caught in cultural crossfire over Pride month items.”  The article about supposed right-wing extremism stemming from a retail boycott begins with the account of a female customer allegedly upset because Target was “carrying Pride month merchandise.” The woman reportedly using her own scissors to cut her Target credit card in front of the guest services at a Target location in South Florida, and informed employees, “I am never shopping here again.”

The article touched upon bomb threats that targeted several Target stores in multiple states. However, local news reports said the bomb threats were made by an individual who claimed to be angry that Target was cowardly for turning their back on the LGBTQ community and “decided to cater to the homophobic right-wing redneck bigots who protested and vandalized their store.”

…However, the article did not mention that the boycotts really took off after it was revealed that the big-box chain was selling “tuck-friendly” bathing suits, LGBTQ onesies for babies, and products from a transgender designer promoting Satanism, violence, and drug use.

Yeah, that reference to “domestic terrorist” was a nice touch – and par for the course: we GOOD and YOU BAD, EVIL, and should be put out of their society. Seriously – we’re terrorists and extremists because we don’t want to buy what you are demanding that we should? Even with the cacophony of names from the Left to demonize us as “undesireables”, most of America Society is still Normal and still trying to keep their kids’ innocence intact. A chocobloc amount of polling info here. To summarize, most people want to keep Trans-Authoritarians from infesting their childrens’ lives:

• Across the board, majorities of American adults reject gender ideology when it threatens minor

Across the board, majorities of American adults reject gender ideology, when it comes to the number of genders, school indoctrination without parental consent, and transgender surgery and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for minors, a new Rasmussen survey reveals.

Self-identified Democrats are the least likely to oppose gender ideology, according to the survey of 1,116 U.S. adults, conducted May 24-25, 2023. But, even for Democrats, majorities agree that there are two genders and support laws prohibiting transgender surgery and HRT for minors. And, while not a majority, more Democrats say schools and teachers should not be allowed to counsel students on their sexual and gender identities, without parental knowledge or consent, than disagree.

Married adults and those with children are particularly supportive of measures to protect children from HRT, surgery, and school indoctrination regarding sexual and gender identity without parental knowledge or consent. Even significant percentages of those who believe there are more than two genders oppose legal surgery and hormone replacement therapy for minors.

By a three-to-one margin, Americans agree that “there are two genders, male and female.” Fully 71% of adults agree, including 57% who “strongly agree.” Conversely, 23% disagree that there are just two genders, including 10% who strongly disagree. Four in five (83%) Republicans and two-thirds (67%) of Democrats believe there are two genders. Among married adults (78%) and those with children (76%), three-fourths agree that all people are either male or female.

…Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Americans approve of laws making it illegal to give hormone replacement therapy to minors, including 43% who strongly approve. Regardless of whether they have children at home (70%) or are married (66%), Republican (70%) or Democrat (54%), majorities support these laws protecting children. Thirty-one percent (31%) disapprove of laws against HRT for minors, with 18% voicing strong opposition to such measures.

…Americans are strongly supportive (62%) of legislation making it illegal to perform sex-change surgery on minors. Nearly half (46%) “strongly approve” of these laws, more than the 30% who disapprove (18% strongly). Majorities in every political category also oppose sex-change surgery for minors, with 73% of Republicans, 56% of Democrats and 59% of the unaffiliated at least somewhat approving of legislation making it illegal. Americans who are married (72%) and those who have children at home (73%) are most likely to approve of laws prohibiting sex-change surgery of minors. More than a third (36%) of those who somewhat disagree there are only two genders approve of laws prohibiting sex-change surgery for minors. Even 30% of those who strongly disagree that the only genders are male and female approve of laws protecting minors from undergoing sex-change surgery.

Only 26% of American adults think schools and teachers should be allowed to counsel students on sexual and gender identity without parental knowledge or consent, while 60% are opposed to such school practices, and 14% are not sure.

And then there are those that don’t care about Parents feelings as they are ALL IN that Parents only are interested in “oppressing” their children so they are all in about making sure that “accessories” are available to college kids that have been transed. Ayup, forget about clothes via “Transition Closets”, this is a whole ‘nother matter:

• Fake genitalia offered through University of North Texas ‘gender-affirming’ closet

The “OUTfits Clothing Closet,” a project of the university’s “Pride Alliance” office, “is a donation-based resource” that is accessible to students year-round, according to a description on UNT’s website. Among the available items are chest binders, which women use to constrict their breasts in an attempt to appear less female, as well as “packers,” bra inserts, makeup, and other “personal care products.” “Packers” are prosthetic objects resembling male sexual organs that women wear beneath their undergarments.

And yes, the Trans-Authoritarians have infested Government to MAKE us accept sexual mutilation or suffer the results of “child abuse”. Who knew that throwing away perfectly good organs from minors is “abuse”. And they want to implement such HRC’s “Love your LGBT Index” at the state level:

• Massachusetts LGBT Commission Says Refusing to Give Minors Sex Changes Should Be Treated as Child Abuse

The Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth recommends parents be held liable for child abuse if they do not allow their children to receive transgender medical procedures…The LGBT Commission’s recommendations for the fiscal year of 2024 include extensive coverage for sex changes in order to “incentivize care,”  as well as anti-bias and racial “equity” trainings for public hospital staff.

So those normal people (see poll, above) that don’t go along with this will be forced out of hospital employment – such a way to quash dissent from the Trans-Narrative, eh?

“With the significant rise in transphobia across the state, the Commission has serious concerns about the wellbeing of trans and gender expansive youth in the home, and advises that the state examine current laws around child abuse and welfare to ensure the unique situations faced by LGBTQ Youth are being addressed,” the group’s recommendations read. “In particular, the Commission recommends that the state examine the possibility of codifying gender-affirming child welfare protections in state law to better support youth and families.” The report asks the Massachusetts state government to “explicitly” classify “the withholding of gender-affirming care” as child abuse under state law.

Yep, they are definitely in the lane that says “YOUR children belong to US”. And not this next snippet addresses the “redefinition” of what child abuse is:

• Trans Activists, Anti-Child Castration Groups Draw Battle Lines Around Definition Of ‘Child Abuse’

A new battle line has emerged between transgender activists and those who oppose sex change procedures for minors. The winner will get to decide what constitutes “child abuse.” Should the term become codified according to either side’s definitions, doctors could end up in jail and kids from parents on either side could end up in state care, some experts tell the Daily Caller.

Transgender activists argue that without medical intervention to change a child’s sex, or at least delay their puberty, gender dysphoric children could commit suicide. Advocates on the other side of the issue argue that children do not have the mental maturity to make the decision to change their sex, citing medical research indicating that such procedures are irreversible and do not have the mental health benefits some activists claim they have. (RELATED: Texas Children’s Hospital CEO Announces ‘Heart-Wrenching’ Plans To Discontinue Child Sex-Change Program)

…A growing number of individuals who transitioned as children are warning of the dangers of providing sex change procedure to children. These “detransitioners” argue that the medical professionals who treated them did not sufficiently evaluate them for co-morbidities which may have led to their feelings of gender incongruence.

And the Trans-Authoritarians are PERFECTLY fine with totally cancelling people – lost their jobs, their livings, their homes, and their families. And then smile over it.

‘Chilling Effect’: States Are Cracking Down On Therapists Who Don’t Affirm Kids’ Trans Identities

State laws have made it effectively illegal for therapists to help children with gender identity issues come to terms with their natural bodies and biological sex in much of the country by labeling the practice an illegal form of “conversion therapy.”

“If someone tells you what their gender identity is you must affirm them; you must accept it at face value,” Joseph Burgo, a psychotherapist and vice director of Genspect, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It has a chilling effect on the whole profession. I know therapists who avoid gender altogether because they’re afraid of activists coming after them.”

Free Speech, much?  Nope – none at all. And now Sesame Street is all in and rammng this ideology down your kids throats. Parents, you MUST watch and vet what your kids are watching!

• Iconic Children’s Show Shoving ‘Pride Month’ Down Kids’ Throats: ‘Happy Pride! Elmo Loves You’

On Thursday, iconic children’s TV series “Sesame Street” went all-in once again for June’s “pride month” with several tweets celebrating the sexuality-based month of recognition. And the gay lobby claims they aren’t targeting our kids? While the show did not refashion its logo in rainbow “pride month” colors like so many other entities have, the show did post several tweets pushing the left-wing celebration onto its tiny fans.

Firstly, we must remember that “Sesame Street” is supposed to be aimed at tiny tots from ages 2 to 5. This should be an age where sexual activities should not even be part of a discussion. But here is the most iconic kids’ TV show pushing “pride month” on little ones, anyway. The first “pride” post was made on Thursday as “pride month” kicked off. It featured actress Ariana DeBose, who claims to identify as “queer,” in a video in which she explained the show’s “pride” celebration.

“Hi, Elmo and I wanted to share that everyone is always welcome on ‘Sesame Street,’” DeBose said in the video. “This month and every month, we want to uplift and celebrate our LGBTQIA+ family, friends and communities.” Elmo added, “From our ‘Sesame Street’ family to yours, happy pride.

Elmo loves you.”

Tiny kids – well, if ELMO agrees with this, my parents must be wrong, right?

The post Who Would Have Guessed? Slicing Off Boobies and “Twig and Nuts” Have Transitioners Lonelier and Depressed, and More – Stack of Stuff #48 appeared first on Granite Grok.

He fell! He fell! Biden has fallen! All we “Republicans” need to do is put up an acceptable alternative and HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN. Biden has fallen! He’s fallen! Or so goes the Establishment narrative. For example:

So … according to the Michael Grahams … Biden was totally in command of his facilities in 2020; no cognitive or physical decline; an acceptable, “moderate” alternative to Trump. And over the course of just two years has turned into a semi-senile, semi-invalid. Or so Graham and his ilk would have us believe.

The truth of the matter is that, even with the basement-campaign, it was clear to anyone paying attention that Biden was already in steep cognitive and physical decline in 2020. For example, look at the clips of the Democrat primary debates … where, for example, Biden rants about record players. And yet Graham and his NeverTrump cronies supported Biden because all they wanted for Christmas was to cancel Trump and put themselves back in charge of the GOP.

Biden’s falls, gaffes, etc. do NOT matter as much as Graham and his ilk believe because … as I have said so many times before … elections in the key swing States, thanks to the COVID “rules” that are now permanent, are about chasing/hunting/harvesting ballots, NOT persuading voters. By the time the GOP has the ad up showing Biden falling, the voter who would be moved by that ad has already been contacted by the Democrat ballot-harvesting machine and voted during “election-month.” Ask Dr. Oz how that works.

But keep pretending you can put that rigged-election genie that you supported in order to cancel Trump back in the bottle, Mikey.

The post Biden’s (Latest) Fall Tells Us Nothing We Didn’t Already Know In 2020 … And Probably Won’t Make A Damn Bit Of Difference In 2024 appeared first on Granite Grok.

Despite the lack of reporting, Monkeypox (MPOX) has still been on a few people’s minds. It was a year ago that the Gay Pride Festivals in Africa and Europe served as ground zeroes for the global spread of the disease, almost exclusively in men who have sex with other men. Well, guess what?

Related: Pride Month is Still a Week Away, But Monkey Pox Season Started Three Weeks Ago

That continues to be the case. According to the WHOs External Situation Report 23, published 26 May 2023 on the Multi-country outbreak of  Monkeypox, while it no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), 84.1% of those infected – when the information was given or available – “have self-identified as gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men.” The real number is higher as many men will not be in countries where that is something you can openly admit.

Another interesting detail from the same report in which “the WHO Director-General accepted the advice of the committee members that mpox no longer constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)” is this tidbit.

 

As of 22 May 2023, 24 of the 111 affected countries reported new cases within the last 21 days, the maximum disease incubation period, highlighting the fact that the multi-country outbreak is not over. Nine of them are in the Americas, six in the European Region, six in the Western Pacific Region, one in the African Region, one in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, and one in the South-East Asia Region. Some of these countries continue to have sustained community transmission of mpox, while others only report sporadic cases.

 

The massive global Gran Canarian and Belgium pride festivals went on as planned this year as well or have any number of similar expressions that lead to last year’s news-worthy outbreak—followed by all that fancy dancing to avoid the most common factor in the spread. The WHO will issue its first pride month monkeypox report next week and then again two weeks later in late June. We may see some interesting numbers if we look.

A spike, perhaps, not in media coverage, of course, but that’s why you read GranitGrok. Actual public health news you can use. For what? I have no idea. That’s up to you, but if you have friends who like to have sex with men, remind them that the monkeypox isn’t gone, and it is in their best interests to proceed with caution.

While rarely fatal, it appears to be very unpleasant. You probably don’t want to spend the summer with the pox.

 

 

The post Will Upcoming WHO Monkeypox Outbreak Reports Show Pride Festival Spikes? appeared first on Granite Grok.

So I filed three NH Legislative Ethics Complaints against NH State Reps Harry Bean, Travis O’Hara (below – I guess I forgot to post it earlier), and a third Rep who did not waived his Confidentiality (so I can’t discuss that Rep).

You’ve also seen the oral testimonies as well (again, see below if you haven’t).

As I mentioned before, I hadn’t seen the written responses from the accused to my complaints before the actual hearing – TMEW handed them to me when I returned from the State House when all was said and done (well, at least for that round). Thus, I was at a disadvantage, to a point, during that preliminary hearing (which determines if the Ethics Committee doesn’t believe there’s a basis for anything or does think that a full hearing should be held with other people piping into the process).

Remember, the first sentence out of Harry Bean’s mouth upon sitting to testify were “Well, I guess I did it”.  Sounded like an admission of guilt to me – you? However, this isn’t a court in the legal sense of the word – this committee is a political entity so who knows “who heard what”? All I know were my impressions afterwards:

• Bean admitted guilt to violating RSA 91-A and RSA 24-9d
• Both Bean and O’Hara said pretty much the same thing:
  • Didn’t know it was my responsibility to check that the public noticing tasks were done and done right
  • Didn’t know it was my job to worry about it
  • Assumed someone else was going to do the public noticing for the Budget subcommittee meetings
  • Plead ignorance of the Law (in Bean’s case) because he’s not a lawyer (but IS, by choice, a law MAKER).
• Oh, in Bean’s case, used the excuse that he was a high school dropout so he can’t be held responsible for something he didn’t bother to read.

Sure – but if WE ALL break a law he gets passed, can we claim those same things and get away using those same excuses? Sorry, willfully breaking the law is, by definition, unethical. However, we’ll have to wait and see if the Ethics Committee agrees with that.

Anyways, here are the responses by Attorney Paul Fitzgerald – the attorney that the county hired (who also is Bean’s personal attorney) to defend all three State Reps.

Bean:

NH Leg Ethics Committee – Paul Fitzgerald for Harry Bean

O’Hara:

NH Leg Ethics Committee – Paul Fitzgerald for Travis OHara

I’ve been through them once. However, before I comment on either of them, I’m going to reread them a couple more times.

 

Ethics Complaint against NH State Rep Travis O’Hara:

Legislative Ethics Committee Complaint – Travis OHara

Ethics Complaint against NH State Rep Harry Bean:

Skip Murphy Ethics Complain – Harry Bean

My oral testimony:

Bean’s testimony:

O’Hara’s testimony:

 

The post NH Legislative Ethics Committee – Paul Fitzgerald’s Response (Fitzgerald??) appeared first on Granite Grok.

Today, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu announced he would not seek the Republican nomination for President. I guess he looked at the polling and discovered that he’d reached his ceiling on electability (but won’t admit it). It’s a lesson he should have learned from not running for the US Senate.

From Joe Sweeney,

 

“Governor Chris Sununu shows Republicans how to win in purple states that are becoming harder to win due to petty games & craven personality fights – GOP candidates would be wise to learn from his style & approach if they want to appeal to a broader electorate and win.”

 

That’s a strange thing to say about a guy who bailed on a US Senate seat because his numbers against the incumbent Democrat were too close to call. He then dipped his toe in the presidential prospects pool but couldn’t get much above one percent in national polls, and now he’s bowing out of that.

But locally, you say, he’s the guy from whom the GOP could learn a thing or two. No, not really. His victories have been getting slimmer, though – to be fair – he crushed Dirty Dan Feltes a few years back, so almost anyone could have done better and did. Democrat Tom Sherman got closer but still lost.

Sununu magic doesn’t translate to the legislature, whose Republican margins grow thinner yearly. I’m sure he’ll blame that on petty games and craven personality fights, but I think we can blame the declining coattails of the guy who pokes the party platform in the eye every chance he gets.

Example?

 

To win, Republicans need our message to appeal to new voters, and we can do this without sacrificing classic conservative principles of individual liberty, low taxes and local control. But we must abandon the issues that are solely made for social media headlines, such as banning books or issuing curriculum fiats to local school districts hundreds of miles away from state capitals. Republicans should re-embrace local control and let parents within their own communities decide what’s right.

Governor Groomer is doubling down on porn in schools, systemic racism against white kids, and using the Left’s narratives. Good boy, Chris. Hey, can you be a character witness in Democrat Chairman Buckley’s defamation trial?

What a ****!

This time around (governor’s race-wise), he’d be facing who knows which Democrat loser the left coughs up. So far, we’ve got Cindi Warmington and Joyce Craig. Warmington is an Executive Councilor, and Joyce Craig has overseen the systemic decline of the State’s largest city (Manchester). I think Warmington has the edge in the Dem primary, assuming Sununu is interested in doing more than just ensuring Donald Trump doesn’t win the nomination. His focus will be “Not that guy!,” which is a noble pursuit, or perhaps, it is just petty and craven. What do I know?

 

I will not seek the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

The stakes are too high for a crowded field to hand the nomination to a candidate who earns just 35 percent of the vote, and I will help to ensure this does not happen.

Read my full op-ed:https://t.co/biZOzhV8K6

— Chris Sununu (@ChrisSununu) June 5, 2023

The post Sununu Isn’t Running For President appeared first on Granite Grok.