Breach!!! The Capitol has been breached!!! Right … if you believe a breach means being allowed access by “law enforcement” and entering through that access in an orderly and peaceful manner.

Of course, we never see this footage from the Regime-Media … just the same clip over and over and over again of barricades being torn down and windows smashed by … MOST LIKELY … federal agents/plants.

Tonkin Gulf, Weapons-of-Mass-Destruction in Iraq, Obamacare-Will-Reduce-Premiums-By-An-Average-$2,500, Trump-is-a-Russian-agent, mostly-peaceful-protests, Biden-got-81-million-votes, ETC., ETC., ETC..

UNSEEN FOOTAGE: DC cops retreat from position on upper west terrace around 2:30 on January 6. They had been attacking the crowd with gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets for over an hour.

They left that door unprotected.

Moments later, it was opened from inside… pic.twitter.com/GaZS2QWzIJ

— Julie Kelly (@julie_kelly2) September 13, 2023

 

The post The Capitol Has Been “BREACHED” … Footage Shows DC Police Deliberately Making Entry Accessible And Protestors Entering In Orderly Manner appeared first on Granite Grok.

In the 2011-2012 New Hampshire legislature, the Republican Super-Majority in both chambers was something unprecedented in politics. They passed a budget lower than the one they inherited. It is a rare thing.

No Republican majority legislature in New Hampshire has done it since then. Most legislatures don’t even attempt it. Reducing new spending, maybe. Lowering taxes, sure, but passing a budget that is hundreds of millions less than the one before it is rare. I’m not even sure it’s ever been done but that one time.

It is also unusual for elected officials to give up whatever passes for their pay. Congress is famous for giving itself raises no matter what the economy is doing. Donald Trump, on the other hand, donated all of his paychecks as President, but he’s mean. Sure he is.

The Selectboard in Pelham, New Hampshire, isn’t exactly a big-ticket spend, but they get stipends, and in the interests of their constituents, and likely becasue of the current economic conditions, they change the sum in the Seletmans budget to 1.00. It’s not a done deal, but that’s what they’ve decided for now.

By a vote of four-to-one, they reduced their annual stipend from 6,500.00 a year to one dollar. (at 1′ 48″ if you are so inclined).

According to the town website, those individuals are Kevin Cote, Jaie Bergeron, Heather Corbett, Charlene Takesian, and Jason Croteau, and by a vote of 4-1 the move was approved. Who was the dissenting vote? If you knew her, you’d be able to guess. Charlene Takesian. She used to be in the NH State House, where she pretended to be a Republican. Her last NHHRA score showed her voting with Republicans only 50% of the time.

It looks like not much has changed.

And while we could cheer the rest of the select board saving the town’s taxpayers a few bucks, my contact in town says that in the same meeting, they debated what to do with an $800,000.00 dollar surplus.

 

They are holding $800,000 in a slush fund that belongs to the people of Pelham. Time to hold them accountable by exposing this scam. The average property tax hike for Pelham was $1,000 per household. How much financial tax abuse can we endure?

 

Giving some of it back to taxpayers did not appear to be a priority. (at 2′ 18″, again, if so inclined) and this throws a lot of cold water on the earlier vote, but the people of Pelham get to decide what, if any of that means when these offices are up for re-election.

 

 

 

The post Local Selectboard Reduces its Annual Stipend from $6500.00 Each to 1$ appeared first on Granite Grok.

As we approach Constitution Day on September 17, eighteen Vermont elected officials, including our Lieutenant Governor, signed a shocking letter calling for the expansion of the U.S. Supreme Court by four members. Signing this letter should disqualify them all from holding any public office, not for the idea of expanding the Court – there’s nothing in the Constitution stipulating the number of members the Court has to have – but for the reasons they put forward for the change.

Let’s go through their letter and shed a little light on what is basically an insurrectionist call to delegitimize and overthrow a co-equal branch of our government, undermining the Constitution and our small “r” republican system. The letter goes…

Today, the Republican-appointed supermajority that controls the Supreme Court is an existential threat to our rights and our democracy. To secure the future of our rights, our democracy, and our ability to govern as state and local elected officials, we need to expand the Court and restore balance.

This is blatant attempt to politicize the Supreme Court, which was and is supposed to be separated from and be a check and balance on the partisan passions that drive the elected branches of government. The Court’s loyalty is to the Constitution, not to the voters or the other branches of government. That’s by design. Yet the stated purpose here is to alter the makeup of the Court along political lines to bring it into sync with the partisan political agenda of the Democrat party.  As such, the letter signers are essentially attempting to overthrow a legitimately appointed, co-equal branch of government, undermining the Constitution they all swore an oath to uphold.

The Supreme Court is controlled by an extremist supermajority that is enacting a partisan Republican agenda instead of following the Constitution and the rule of law. As we saw in the decision overturning Roe v. Wade…

No, what the signers of the letter don’t like is that this Court is actually upholding the Constitution by striking down laws that violate the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and/or overstep the bounds of the authority granted to lawmakers by the Constitution.

Our Constitution is designed to limit the powers of government, especially the federal government. The signers of this letter do not want the powers of government subjected to Constitutional limitations, as what they ultimately seek is a Left-wing dictatorship in the guise of a democracy with themselves in charge. No thanks!

It’s interesting that they use the overturning of Roe v. Wade as their example of overstepping bounds. They couldn’t have picked a worse one. Where in the Constitution does it discuss abortion? It doesn’t. The 10th Amendment reserves those issues not specifically delegated to federal government to the States, or the people, which is exactly what the Court ruled – it returned the issue to the states to decide per the Constitution and via the democratically elected officials in those states, who are responsible to their voters. In other words, this Court restored the democratic process – you know, democracy! — by following rather than ignoring the Constitution.

This is what the letter signers don’t like.

…no right is safe from the radical, far-right justices who control this Court.

Although this court has made some rulings that leave me scratching my head, I’m pretty sure the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press (which is not exclusively the media, but every citizen’s individual right to publish their opinions with the same freedom that we have to speak them), freedom of association, the right to bear arms, and to a generally the the preservation of decision making by states and, more importantly, the people are in much better hands with this Court than any recent configuration.

It is precisely these rights that the signers of this letter want to take away (just look at their voting records and the legislation that they sponsor), which is why they see the need to overthrow the third branch of Government.

We are especially concerned about voting rights and democracy, as the Court routinely steps in to make it easier for Republicans to suppress the vote, gerrymander districts,…

What the radical Leftist signers of this letter don’t like is the fact that the Courts are stepping in to make it harder Leftist legislatures to pass laws making it easier to cheat in elections. They worry about democracy? Do they forget that we established the most dynamic, successful democratic nation in history for over two and a quarter centuries without the “benefit” of mail in ballots, ballot harvesting, drop boxes, or early voting a month and a half in advance? What creates confidence in electoral results is a clear chain of custody for each ballot from voter to vote counter, and this is precisely what they are trying to do away with.

As for gerrymandering, it is supremely ironic that many of the signers of this letter wouldn’t be in elected office today were it not for the gerrymandering done by the Democratic Supermajority in Montpelier during redistricting following the 2020 census. Full disclosure, I served on the Reapportionment Board, and the partisan Democrats totally rejected the tri-partisan map put forward by the Board calling for all single member legislative districts – a concept that had overwhelming public support. So much for their love of democracy and distain for rigging the map!

As elected officials, we are especially concerned that the Court is making it harder for the elected branches at all levels to actually solve problems. The Court repeatedly steps in to overturn or restrict democratically enacted policies that do not align with the Republican Party’s agenda. We must be able to solve the urgent issues facing this country without being stymied by partisan judges who routinely overstep their authority.

The arrogance here is breathtaking! This being a free country founded upon the principles of individual rights and limited government – you know, those rights codified in the Constitution you say you’re so concerned about — it is not your job to solve most of the problems you think it is your business to solve. In fact, most of the problems that exist today are the result of you overstepping your authority and sticking your incompetent fingers where they do not belong in the private affairs of citizens.

The Constitution states that you “shall pass no laws” abridging citizens’ freedom of speech and press, the right to keep and bear arms, allowing unreasonable searches and seizures — or do anything not specifically spelled out in the Constitution. When you try to do these things, it is the Courts job to “stymie” you. That is the whole point of the Court. You don’t like it, so you’re trying to overthrow the branch of government that serves as a check and balance on your greed for power.

The Court’s overreach is all the more concerning because the Republican supermajority is illegitimate. Republicans blocked Merrick Garland’s nomination, rammed through Brett Kavanaugh despite credible charges of perjury and sexual assault, and confirmed Amy Coney Barrett after 60 million Americans had already voted in the presidential election.

Interesting…. When elected officials say the 2020 presidential election was illegitimate and call for it to be overturned (not a position I am endorsing, but just pointing out the hypocrisy here) they are accused of insurrection and subjected to criminal indictment and be banned from future ballots. But when you say that the makeup of the Court – an co-equal branch of government to the executive (and legislative) — is illegitimate and should be overturned, that’s totally cool I guess? Nope. Same thing. You all need to be thrown into the same cell with Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani.

As for your reasoning about Merrick Garland, etc., could you please point out where any those moves, albeit political hardball, was outside the Constitutional authority of the Senate? Remember that the Constitution you are ostensibly worried about requires the “advice and consent” of the Senate in appointing Supreme Court justices. In each of the cases you cite, the Senators either consented or did not consent to the President’s nominee per the rules of the Senate and the U.S. Constitution.

This Court has been hijacked by far-right special interests, and Americans will not be able to trust it until it has been reformed.

Nope. Elections in a democratic republic have consequences – those for senators as well as presidents – and the Court members were all duly nominated by the duly elected president and confirmed by the duly elected Senate per the rules set forth in the Constitution. No hijacking here. This is what de-mo-cra-cy looks like!

Expanding the Court by adding four seats is the clearly constitutional way to restore balance. It is in line with American history, and it will restore balance without delay. We join the growing movement of Americans demanding expansion to protect our rights and our democracy.

Yeah, right. I look forward to 2025, after Republicans retake the Senate and the White House, for your support in expanding the Court by four more seats. What the heck, let’s make it six. Because if what you’re advocating for is really a good idea for the Constitution and Democracy today, it’s should be timeless and therefore just as good two years from now. If not, you’re all just a bunch of partisan hacks trying to undermine and overthrow a legitimately established co-equal branch of our government.

Here are the insurrectionists who signed the letter:

Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (D/P-VT)

State Sen. Martine Gulick (D-Chittenden Central)

State Sen. Nader Hashim (D-Windham)

State Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (D-Chittenden Southeast)

State Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (D-Chittenden Central)

State Sen. Anne Watson (D-Washington)

State Sen. Becca White (D-Windsor)

State Rep. Daisy Berbeco (Chittenden 21)

State Rep. Mari Cordes (D-Addison 4)

State Rep. Bobby Farlice-Rubio (Caledonia 1)

State Rep. Troy Headrick (P-Chittenden 15)

State Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (D-Windham 7)

State Rep. Emilie Krasnow (D-Chittenden 9)

State Rep. Kate Logan (P-Chittenden 16)

State Rep. Emma Mulvaney-Stanak (P-Chittenden 17)

State Rep. Monique Priestley (D-Orange 2)

State Rep. Taylor Small (P-Chittenden 21)

State Rep. Joseph “Chip” Troiano (D-Caledonia 2)

 

Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics, including three years of service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free-market think tank. He is also a regular contributor to VermontGrok!

The post The “Expand the Supreme Court” Letter Is a Call for Insurrection. appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you get into the details of this study, you will see it includes other countries. This is critical because Fauci and Birx juiced the numbers for the United States, essentially classifying virtually all deaths where the deceased had COVID (and remember the tests were also juiced) as deaths DUE TO COVID. Not only, however, has there been no apology from Sun-King Sununu for his part in pushing the BIG LIE, nobody is even demanding an apology. New Hampshire has the government it deserves.

COVID death rate:

0-19 years old 0.0003%
20-29 0.002%
30-39 0.011%
40-49 0.035%
50-59 0.123%
60-69 0.506%

0-69 0.063-0.082%. https://t.co/aCyT0jCwZf

Yet they did this to children.

Why? pic.twitter.com/owyh4xk75y

— Kevin Bass PhD MS (@kevinnbass) September 13, 2023

The post “Ball Don’t Lie” … There Was No COVID “Pandemic,” Just The “Big Lie” appeared first on Granite Grok.

To all those who are sending in memes, thank you!  Keep them coming please, as it helps me gather weaponry to fight the Left.  Please do share this post, and if you share an individual meme, consider mentioning you saw it on the Grok!

Speaking of, from this week, Monday Edition and Wednesday Edition.

 

*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Based on feedback passed through by Steve, I will be switching to a pure meme format.  From front to back, nothing but memes – perhaps a comment or two but no serious discussion – and then three palate cleansers at the end.  That’ll start Monday.

I tried a different format with the intent of providing more / broader information and adding my own insights.  Apparently “the market” doesn’t like that.  OK.  Back to pure memes.  On the plus side that’ll save me a lot of time to prep for the fall.  And I don’t mean autumn.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

“Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.”

-Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Specifically on Covid / medical – because it’s that important to highlight:

 

 

 

 

Got to admire Big Pharma… when they buy regulators, they stay bought.

 

 

 

 

COVID-19 Vaccines Have Never Been Shown to Reduce Hospitalization or Death – Leading Report (theleadingreport.com)

Wow.  Related:

mRNA Vaccines Go Airborne: How to Protect Yourself from Involuntary Vaccination (vigilantnews.com)

They want this gene therapy in you.  Bad.  So bad they openly talk about making it in a way you can’t refuse… if you even know it’s there.

—

The Dirty Secret About How Masks Really “Work” | ZeroHedge

 

 

 

 

Please tell me this last person doesn’t have children.  And notice how empathy – normally a good and wonderful thing – got weaponized to make people obey.

—

This Is What Happens When You Don’t Jab Kids: Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Data (vigilantnews.com)

I’m going to get the book.

—

AIRLINE PILOT TELLS COVID SECRET (bitchute.com)

So they redefine the window of what’s allowed on EKGs just to make sure pilots are available?

—

‘I Regurgitated the Party Line’ – Cardiologist Regrets Pushing Vax After ‘Undeniable’ Rise in Heart Conditions. » The National Pulse+

At least he admits it publicly.  Related:

CDC Admits It Faked 99% of COVID Deaths To Scare Public Into Taking Vaccine (planet-today.com)

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem is not that we don’t know.  IMHO anyone with three brain cells that talk with each other knows.  The problem is that The System will never fix things in a way that threatens The System.  Which means TINVOWOOT.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this point I’d be tempted to just walk through that sucker.

 

 

 

 

The only thing being hidden – with malice aforethought – is WHY those pilots have major health issues in the first place.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

 

Frankenstein was a novel, but it was also a morality tale about scientific hubris.  And the creation kills the creator.  And Tesla is reported to have said:

You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, the KKK was founded by a Democrat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Pick of the Post:

 

 

The late Walter E. Williams once wrote that if a 10 percent tithe was good enough for the church, it should be good enough for government.  I’ll go with that.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Collected links with commentary, very mildly organized:

 

90 Miles From Tyranny : Twitter Throttles Account Exposing The Obscene Books Libraries Give Kids (ninetymilesfromtyranny.blogspot.com)

A group doing good work on this and related:

MassResistance

—

WWIII on the Horizon | NC Renegades

Double-plus ungood.  Related:

Will Democrats False Flag Us into a War with Russia? – American Thinker

—

It Really Can Happen Here (townhall.com)

What the [California] state government here is trying to do to parents of school kids reminds me of what happened to my friends Karl and Sandy in 1984 after they escaped from what was then called the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

They escaped with their 1-year-old child, lived in Austria for a year and came to Los Angeles without knowing how to speak English or having any money.

Sandy stayed home with their child. Karl got a job in the kitchen at the Disneyland Hotel and began working his way up to eventually becoming a successful contractor specializing in kitchens.

Meanwhile, the communist government in Czechoslovakia put Karl and Sandy on trial for stealing state property – their child.

The government’s thug’s beat-up Karl’s father but he wouldn’t tell where his son and grandson were.

Karl and Sandy were found guilty of stealing government property and given sentences of 25 and 20 years, respectively, which they would have had to serve if they ever went back to their communist homeland.

This is what scares me. The government of California – like other state governments – is undermining the control of parents and essentially saying their children belong to the state and it knows what’s best for them, not the parents.

Related:

A blunt and chilling (but accurate) appraisal of where our government schools are taking us – American Thinker

—

Has The Left Reached Peak Viciousness Yet? – Liberty’s Torch (libertystorch.info)

 

 

Understand, I’ve seen people lock up, body rigid, face in a grimace, when they learn I’m a registered Republican who likes Trump.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

—

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Wealth, Poverty, and Politics

 

 

Sowell is such a treasure.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

And don’t forget… come back Monday for another edition.  Same Meme Time.  Same Meme channel.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

The post Memestream News: Friday Edition appeared first on Granite Grok.

The media has a problem. It continues to publish headlines prognosticating our climate doom, but if you look at NOAA’s Average US Temperature Anamoly Record (we’ll call it “the science”), you won’t find one.

NOAA isn’t precisely an unbiased player either, so given the fearmongering, you’d expect to see something dramatic, but there is zero evidence of any long-term trend in temperature unless, by trend, you mean the same old same old.

 

 

If we drill down into the past dozen years (Dec 2011-Auf 2023), during which the media hyperbole has been more dramatic, things look even less so.

 

 

And if we peek at just the past few years (the 2020s), again – where’s the emergency? There is none. And you won’t find it in the global record either. Other than the odd month spiking in one direction or the other, the running average is… well, average. Boring. Not cataclysmic at all. There isn’t even any evidence of ramping up that could be mistaken for cataclysmic.

Fraud is the word that fits them to a ‘T.’ But they aren’t the only ones. The global data, or at least the reporting on the relevance of current temperatures to historical temps – essential when using terms like ‘hottest ever’ – is incomplete and often manipulated by stakeholders who make their living from the scam. Tony Heller at RCS has several videos on this particular act of deception, this being the most recent, in which he shows how the NYT created a webpage to show you how your hometown has gotten hotter since you were a kid and then had to change it when the data showed the opposite to save their warming narrative.

 

 

HT | WUWT

 

The post Guess What’s Missing From NOAA’s Temperature Anomaly Record – Evidence of a Climate Emergency appeared first on Granite Grok.

Those who gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that the government exists at the behest of its citizens. It is there to protect, defend, and even enhance our freedoms, not violate them.

“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” — Abraham Lincoln

Unfortunately, although the Bill of Rights was adopted as a means of protecting the people against government tyranny, in America today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

In the 22 years since the USA Patriot Act—a massive 342-page wish list of expanded powers for the FBI and CIA—was rammed through Congress in the wake of the so-called 9/11 terror attacks, it has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.

The Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, violating at least six of the ten original amendments—the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments—and possibly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well.

The Patriot Act also redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience are now considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state.

The Patriot Act justified broader domestic surveillance, the logic being that if government agents knew more about each American, they could distinguish the terrorists from law-abiding citizens—no doubt a reflexive impulse shared by small-town police and federal agents alike.

This, according to Washington Post reporter Robert O’Harrow, Jr., was a fantasy that “had been brewing in the law enforcement world for a long time.” And 9/11 provided the government with the perfect excuse for conducting far-reaching surveillance and collecting mountains of information on even the most law-abiding citizen.

Federal agents and police officers are now authorized to conduct covert black bag “sneak-and-peak” searches of homes and offices while you are away and confiscate your personal property without first notifying you of their intent or their presence.

The law also granted the FBI the right to come to your place of employment, demand your personal records and question your supervisors and fellow employees, all without notifying you; allowed the government access to your medical records, school records and practically every personal record about you; and allowed the government to secretly demand to see records of books or magazines you’ve checked out in any public library and Internet sites you’ve visited (at least 545 libraries received such demands in the first year following passage of the Patriot Act).

In the name of fighting terrorism, government officials are now permitted to monitor religious and political institutions with no suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government has subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation; monitor conversations between attorneys and clients; search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without showing probable cause; and jail Americans indefinitely without a trial, among other things.

The federal government also made liberal use of its new powers, especially through the use (and abuse) of the nefarious national security letters, which allow the FBI to demand personal customer records from Internet Service Providers, financial institutions and credit companies at the mere say-so of the government agent in charge of a local FBI office and without prior court approval.

In fact, since 9/11, we’ve been spied on by surveillance cameras, eavesdropped on by government agents, had our belongings searched, our phones tapped, our mail opened, our email monitored, our opinions questioned, our purchases scrutinized (under the USA Patriot Act, banks are required to analyze your transactions for any patterns that raise suspicion and to see if you are connected to any objectionable people), and our activities watched.

We’re also being subjected to invasive patdowns and whole-body scans of our persons and seizures of our electronic devices in the nation’s airports. We can’t even purchase certain cold medicines at the pharmacy anymore without it being reported to the government and our names being placed on a watch list.

In this way, “we the people” continue to be terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of compliance by a government that cares nothing for our lives or our liberties.

The bogeyman’s names and faces have changed over time (terrorism, the war on drugs, illegal immigration, a viral pandemic, and more to come), but the end result remains the same: in the so-called name of national security, the Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded with the support of Congress, the White House, and the courts.

A recitation of the Bill of Rights—set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and the like (all sanctioned by Congress, the White House, and the courts)—would understandably sound more like a eulogy to freedoms lost than an affirmation of rights we truly possess.

What we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago. Sadly, most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights.

Here is what it means to live under the Constitution, with the nation still suffering blowback from the permanent state of emergency brought about by 9/11 and COVID-19.

The First Amendment is supposed to protect the freedom to speak your mind, assemble and protest nonviolently without being bridled by the government. It also protects the freedom of the media, as well as the right to worship and pray without interference. In other words, Americans should not be silenced by the government. To the founders, all of America was a free speech zone.

Despite the clear protections found in the First Amendment, the freedoms described therein are under constant assault. Increasingly, Americans are being persecuted for exercising their First Amendment rights and speaking out against government corruption. Activists are being arrested and charged for daring to film police officers engaged in harassment or abusive practices. Journalists are being prosecuted for reporting on whistleblowers. States are passing legislation to muzzle reporting on cruel and abusive corporate practices. Religious ministries are being fined for attempting to feed and house the homeless. Protesters are being tear-gassed, beaten, arrested and forced into “free speech zones.” And under the guise of “government speech,” the courts have reasoned that the government can discriminate freely against any First Amendment activity that takes place within a so-called government forum.

The Second Amendment was intended to guarantee “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Essentially, this amendment was intended to give the citizenry the means to resist tyrannical government. Yet while gun ownership has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as an individual citizen right, Americans remain powerless to defend themselves against red flag gun laws, militarized police, SWAT team raids, and government agencies armed to the teeth with military weapons better suited to the battlefield.

The Third Amendment reinforces the principle that civilian-elected officials are superior to the military by prohibiting the military from entering any citizen’s home without “the consent of the owner.” With the police increasingly training like the military, acting like the military, and posing as military forces—complete with heavily armed SWAT teams, military weapons, assault vehicles, etc.—it is clear that we now have what the founders feared most—a standing army on American soil.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits government agents from conducting surveillance on you or touching you or encroaching on your private property unless they have evidence that you’re up to something criminal. In other words, the Fourth Amendment ensures privacy and bodily integrity. Unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment has suffered the greatest damage in recent years and has been all but eviscerated by an unwarranted expansion of governmental police powers that include strip searches and even anal and vaginal searches of citizens, surveillance (corporate and otherwise), and intrusions justified in the name of fighting terrorism, as well as the outsourcing of otherwise illegal activities to private contractors.

The Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment work in tandem. These amendments supposedly ensure that you are innocent until proven guilty, and government authorities cannot deprive you of your life, your liberty or your property without the right to an attorney and a fair trial before a civilian judge. However, in the new suspect society in which we live, where surveillance is the norm, these fundamental principles have been upended. Certainly, if the government can arbitrarily freeze, seize or lay claim to your property (money, land or possessions) under government asset forfeiture schemes, you have no true rights.

The Seventh Amendment guarantees citizens the right to a jury trial. Yet when the populace has no idea of what’s in the Constitution—civic education has virtually disappeared from most school curriculums—that inevitably translates to an ignorant jury incapable of distinguishing justice and the law from their own preconceived notions and fears. However, as a growing number of citizens are coming to realize, the power of the jury to nullify the government’s actions—and thereby help balance the scales of justice—is not to be underestimated. Jury nullification reminds the government that “we the people” retain the power to ultimately determine what laws are just.

The Eighth Amendment is similar to the Sixth in that it is supposed to protect the rights of the accused and forbid the use of cruel and unusual punishment. However, the Supreme Court’s determination that what constitutes “cruel and unusual” should be dependent on the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” leaves us with little protection in the face of a society lacking in morals altogether.

The Ninth Amendment provides that other rights not enumerated in the Constitution are nonetheless retained by the people. Popular sovereignty—the belief that the power to govern flows upward from the people rather than downward from the rulers—is clearly evident in this amendment. However, it has since been turned on its head by a centralized federal government that sees itself as supreme and which continues to pass more and more laws that restrict our freedoms under the pretext that it has an “important government interest” in doing so.

As for the Tenth Amendment’s reminder that the people and the states retain every authority that is not otherwise mentioned in the Constitution, that assurance of a system of government in which power is divided among local, state and national entities has long since been rendered moot by the centralized Washington, DC, power elite—the president, Congress and the courts.

Thus, if there is any sense to be made from this recitation of freedoms lost, it is simply this: our individual freedoms have been eviscerated so that the government’s powers could be expanded.

It was no idle happenstance that the Constitution, which was adopted 236 years ago on Sept. 17, 1787, opens with these three powerful words: “We the people.” As the Preamble proclaims:

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America.

In other words, it’s our job to make the government play by the rules of the Constitution.

We are supposed to be the masters and they—the government and its agents—are the servants.

We the American people—the citizenry—are supposed to be the arbiters and ultimate guardians of America’s welfare, defense, liberty, laws and prosperity.

Still, it’s hard to be a good citizen if you don’t know anything about your rights or how the government is supposed to operate.

As the National Review rightly asks, “How can Americans possibly make intelligent and informed political choices if they don’t understand the fundamental structure of their government? American citizens have the right to self-government, but it seems that we increasingly lack the capacity for it.”

Americans are constitutionally illiterate.

Most citizens have little, if any, knowledge about their basic rights. And our educational system does a poor job of teaching the basic freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Teachers and school administrators do not fare much better. A study conducted by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis found that one educator in five was unable to name any of the freedoms in the First Amendment.

Government leaders and politicians are also ill-informed. Although they take an oath to uphold, support and defend the Constitution against “enemies foreign and domestic,” their lack of education about our fundamental rights often causes them to be enemies of the Bill of Rights.

So what’s the solution?

Thomas Jefferson recognized that a citizenry educated on “their rights, interests, and duties”  is the only real assurance that freedom will survive.

From the President on down, anyone taking public office should have a working knowledge of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and should be held accountable for upholding their precepts. One way to ensure this would be to require government leaders to take a course on the Constitution and pass a thorough examination thereof before being allowed to take office.

Some critics are advocating that students pass the United States citizenship exam in order to graduate from high school. Others recommend that it must be a prerequisite for attending college. I’d go so far as to argue that students should have to pass the citizenship exam before graduating from grade school.

Here’s an idea to get educated and take a stand for freedom: anyone who signs up to become a member of The Rutherford Institute gets a wallet-sized Bill of Rights card and a Know Your Rights card. Use this card to teach your children the freedoms found in the Bill of Rights.

A healthy, representative government is hard work. It takes a citizenry that is informed about the issues, educated about how the government operates, and willing to do more than grouse and complain.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, “we the people” have the power to make and break the government.

The powers-that-be want us to remain divided over politics, hostile to those with whom we disagree politically, and intolerant of anyone or anything whose solutions to what ails this country differ from our own. They also want us to believe that our job as citizens begins and ends on Election Day.

Yet there are 330 million of us in this country. Imagine what we could accomplish if we actually worked together, presented a united front, and spoke with one voice.

Tyranny wouldn’t stand a chance.

 

John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute

ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

The post Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Many Ways Our Rights Have Been Usurped Since 9/11 appeared first on Granite Grok.

New Hampshire Democrats had a decade to pretend to be diverse, but they kept electing pasty white members to Congress, and the so-called party of “diversity” (theirs) took away their plumb primary. The DC machine keeps giving them extensions to solve an unsolvable problem.

 

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted unanimously at a meeting in Washington, DC, to give Granite State Democrats until2024 pres October 14 to submit a delegate selection plan that includes an approved primary date. Under DNC rules, states are not allowed to hold their nominating contests before March 5 unless they receive a waiver from the national party. The rules panel granted the extension after New Hampshire failed to submit a delegate selection plan by September 1 that included a primary date.

 

There’s not a lot they can do. State Law requires our Secretary of State to schedule the NH Primary 7 days before everyone else’s. Something he can’t do until other early states have etched theirs in stone. Not that it matters for Dems.

New Hampshire will be first, but the DNC calendar put South Carolina first (or so they say) because of the aforementioned diversity NH dems lack. The Palmetto state is more like the Democrat party, according to the DNC and Joe Biden, which is to say it is more electorally friendly in the primary to pasty white Joe despite voting Republican in every presidential election since 1964 except for a drunken one-night stand with a Peanut Farmer in 1976.

You can see why NH Dems might be bewildered. New Hampshire is purple, not red, but they keep choosing pasty-white candidates to Congress for whom they felt certain their constituents would pull a lever. Had they picked even one person of color in the 14 years since Obama beat that not-so-Maverick, John McCain, they probably could have kept their brass ring.

Republicans, in that same spread of time, nominated a string of blacks and Latinos, all of whom lost to pasty White Democrat Ann Kuster becasue, as every Democrat knows, when they talk about diversity, they don’t mean what they want you to think they mean. Kusters District is the bluer of our two, but the Congressional District, to Lefties obsessed with skin color, couldn’t find their way to vote for it while insisting on affirmative action everywhere else.

The result is a conundrum NH Dems can’t resolve. The DNC has told them they “have one more month to submit a 2024 primary plan that complies with the national party’s rules,” and they can’t. The DNC knows this, so it has effectively dispensed another yard of rope with which New Hampshire’s Democrats can rhetorically (or electorally) hang themselves on their race-pimping, diversity-peddling petard if you like.

They failed or refused to walk the talk, and their reward is a prolonging of the torture.

Kathy Sullivan, who has been around the Dem State Party Block a time or two, is riling up the locals for a write-in campaign. They think that no matter what, the Democrats who aren’t registering temporarily as independents to f**k with the Republican primary need to stand up for their president. Yes, he is yours, and you can have him. But they are kidding themselves. And I’m not saying don’t waste the time, effort, and money, but this is the DNC, and it is Joe Biden. Fixing the primary is baked in before the Klan bake even happens.

As Rob Roper observed weeks ago, this is all for show. No one wants Biden to win the nomination, especially Democrats, but to get the guy they want, Biden has to win so they can pretend he’s too ill, daft, or brain-dead to run and replace him with someone like that Communist Ken Doll Gavin Newsom. They’ll helicopter him in at the last minute, running to ensure Joe’s legacy. It’ll be a great story that will help cover whatever massive fraud is required to win, considering what Joe’s legacy has done to America. So you lose a few delegates to a convention from a primary that doesn’t matter.

So what? Just step up to the microphone, look the DNC square in its lazy eye, and f**k all. Admit that if you’d nominated brown people, your racist voters wouldn’t have elected them; let the DNC extinguish your torch and get off the damn island.

 

 

The post DNC Gives NH Dems Another Yard of Rope to Rhetorically Hang Themselves appeared first on Granite Grok.

By Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism: The Walls Are Closing In on Joe Biden In a key bit of synchronicity, two events took place in close succession that show that the Biden plan to run for 2024 is on the ropes.... Tom Bowler

It was bad enough that President Bidendisrespected the victims and First Responders of 9/11 by breaking the tradition of attending one of the memorial services at the attack sites. Beyond his scheduling misstep, he stood in Alaska in the shadow of Air Force One and lied to the military personnel gathered to hear from their commander-in-chief.

He started what should have been a very somber address with a joke with one of the assembled politicians. He then lied about his whereabouts on the day after 9/11. Documentation and video prove that Joe Biden spent the entire Wednesday, September 12, in the Senate Chambers. The whole country went into a travel lockdown, and he could not have traveled to Ground Zero had he wanted to.

Even his staff cannot walk back this lie that he spent much time expounding on. They contend that Joe got the timing wrong, but that does not work. Joe Biden is a pathological liar, but where is his team when his presentations are prepared? He was reading from a teleprompter, which means his team fed Joe his talking points. His staff is complicit in his continuous charade. Using lies for dramatic emphasis is a deplorable tactic for a speaker. It is inexcusable for the President of the United States, and Biden does it often. He has done it often with his relationship with AMTRAK staff whose families say were dead at the time Joe is referring to. The most disgusting lie is when Joe tells Gold Star families he understands their pain because he felt the same when his son Beau was killed in Iraq. He describes how he felt when Beau’s flag-draped coffin returned to America. It NEVER happened. I would scream that line if I could with the keyboard. Beau died of cancer in a hospital in America, surrounded by his family. It is unfortunate but far different than dying on a battlefield in a foreign land.

Telling this lie to 13 mothers watching their children’s bodies come home to them in wooden boxes is heartless, disrespectful, and insulting, for the truth is known by all. The history of Biden’s lies goes back decades. Joe Biden had to withdraw from two Presidential elections before 2020 when he was embarrassed after he got caught plagiarizing speeches. These humbling experiences were not enough to keep him from being Obama’s VP for eight years and President for four. He has been lying about his knowledge of his son, Hunter’s, business dealings that led to payments to the Bidens via 20 LLC shadow accounts. Now that Biden is the target of a fiscal deep-dive by Congress, he may have to admit the truth and apologize to America for lying about it for three years.

Maybe the press will have to finally acknowledge a story of corruption about the former Vice-President and now President is real. It is alarming that there is very little attention to a memo sent from the White House to media outlets demanding a moderation of reporting on the Impeachment Inquiry. This action further proves a Biden attack on the First Amendment and Freedom of the Press. Joe Biden is a corrupt President who has no regard for the Constitution or the Rule of Law.

Biden’s propensity to disregard the truth has permeated his entire staff, and Wednesday’s poor excuse for a Press Briefing is all the proof you need. KJP was joined by John Kirby and Jared Bernstein, the chair of the United States Council of Economic Advisers. The three of them distorted the truth on the Impeachment Inquiry, Iran prisoner purchase for $6 Billion, and the August inflation numbers respectively. Bernstein is one of the architects of Bidenomics yet, like KJP, read every answer to questions asked. This was a terrible display of Biden Administration incompetence, but at this point, should we expect anything more?

The post He Looked Into The Gates Of Hell, And Lied appeared first on Granite Grok.

As if the four previous prosecutorial cow pies that surround Donald J. Trump were not fetid enough, the U.S. Supreme Court soon will step into efforts to bar him from state ballots.

Assorted Trumpophobes are abusing the Constitution to deny Americans the right to vote for or against DJT for president. Specifically, Section Three of the 14th Amendment disqualifies from high office certain individuals who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [U.S. Constitution], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

This legal theory might make sense if Trump had been imprisoned for insurrection or rebellion. It might hold water, if he had been convicted of insurrection or rebellion.

This boomlet even might boast a thimble full of steam, if the Justice Department, a state attorney general, or some county prosecutor had indicted him for insurrection or rebellion. Unfortunately for Trump haters, this never happened. (RELATED: DEROY MURDOCK: Fulton County DA’s Anti-Trump ‘Smoking Gun’ Is A Toy Pistol)

In a bizarre and totally unprecedented action, Democrats waited until after Trump departed the White House to try him for “incitement of insurrection.” His second impeachment trial resembled an employer firing an employee after he left the company.

The House’s “incitement” accusation already was one step short of insurrection, akin to telling someone to torch a house rather than personally lobbing a Molotov cocktail onto its front porch.

Regardless, 43 U.S. senators found Trump not guilty, while 57 disagreed – 10 shy of conviction. So, the Senate acquitted Trump of insurrection.

Moreover, the 14th Amendment’s 1868 insurrection language is tied to the Civil War. It was designed to keep Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and other Confederates out of Congress and the White House. Trump’s detractors cannot escape these facts: He never served the Confederacy and was born 81 years after the North defeated the South in 1865.

Trump’s persecutors also refuse to acknowledge what he told supporters at a January 6, 2021 rally: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

 

 

This was no rebel yell.

Trump’s foes retort that he told protesters, “Fight like hell.” Alleged translation: “Smash into the U.S. Capitol, hijack the Electoral College, and make me President for Life.”

To call this argument flaccid overstates its potency.

Democrats regularly say “fight like hell.” Consider:

• On June 25, 2020, Joe Biden promised American families that he would “fight like hell to make sure they get the healthcare they need.”
• “We will file lawsuits, pass legislation in the House & fight like hell,” against alleged GOP voter suppression, impeachment manager Congressman Ted Lieu (D – California) declared via Twitter on June 9, 2020.
• Impeachment manager Congressman Eric Swalwell (D – California) told CNN’s then-anchor Don Lemon on March 18, 2019: “I’ll fight like hell to make sure we see this report” by Robert Mueller on Russiagate.

Trump’s lawyers turned the Democrats’ “fight like hell” argument into a pants-wetting laughing stock by showing at his Senate trial a nearly 10-minute long video of top Democrats using “fighting words.” President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and a parade of Democrat senators and House members say, “fight,” “fight back,” “fight on,” and — yes — “fight like hell” at least (by my count) 281 separate times.

“Fight like hell” is routine political rhetoric. This cliché is as innocent as “Remember to vote” and “God Bless America.”

If Trump really wanted an insurrection, he would not have authorized 10,000 National Guard troops to patrol Washington, D.C. on January 6. Trump’s enemies want Americans to believe that he ordered unarmed insurrectionists to storm the Capitol after he greenlighted 10,000 GIs with automatic rifles to crush their rebellion.

How idiotic do Democrats think Americans are?

Alas, the U.S. House’s then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D – California) and Mayor Muriel Bowser (D – Washington, D.C.) rebuffed the protection that Trump approved.

Trump offered to encircle the Capitol with troops. Pelosi and Bowser stopped him. And now Trump’s tormentors blame him for insurrection?

This claim is flimsier than a Kleenex in a cyclone.

Democrat liars relentlessly call themselves democracy’s stalwart defenders. If so, why not simply run against Donald J. Trump? Why bar him from ballots rather than let voters choose the Democrats’ vision or his?

Democrats, more evil than ever, understand that fascism is easier than democracy.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor

 

Deroy Murdock | Daily Caller News Service

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