I’ve decided to put into words a “cyber journal entry,” for lack of better phrasing. This comes less than 24 hours after holding a Trump sign outside a school in the suburbs. I will first mention my gratitude in having the freedom of speech that one has when not being a candidate or paid spokesperson for a candidate.

In more blunt terms, let’s call it freedom from old-school manners.

Trolling happens in the adult world, mostly online, but unsurprisingly, also in person, especially when it comes to Trump. I volunteered to do my part and put in some time holding his sign and joined some like-minded folks yesterday. A surly man approached me and asked why I support Trump. My rusty, knee-jerk reaction was to go into salesman mode as if I had just rang this stranger’s doorbell. When I randomly named a few of the common answers to his question, he went into full-blown high-on CNN Kool-Aid mode.

After a few volleys, I said, “I can see where this discussion is going, and I’m done talking to you.” When he claimed to be an undecided independent, which was possibly partially true or a total lie, I said, “It’s obvious that you’ve rehearsed all the scripted talking points to refute me, no matter what path we take.” Like a school bully, he said, “but so have you.” I replied, “but YOU were the one who approached me and initiated this talk.”

At this point, one of my peers, who happened to be a good subject matter expert in one of the commonly debated related topics, stepped in and took over. A few minutes later, he went into the building. A while after that, a couple approached our group, and they similarly initiated such talk. This time, I was a passive observer as they split up the discussion, kind of like doing man-to-man instead of zone defense. After a few minutes of that unpleasantness, I thought about my cold extremities and full bladder. I told the last unoccupied team member that I was leaving and didn’t want to interrupt either of the other two. This trend of brick-and-mortar trolling was definitely taking up too much space in my mind in the hours that followed. I thought of my mother and her “sticks and stones” lecture that is commonly given to small school children, so so was in the 70s. Then I thought about the whole modern “walk away” concept, which is difficult to implement in such a venue.

We want to thank Julie Smith for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
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At this point, it should be clarified that this article is not about the merits of voting for Trump or criticism of his critics. It’s about handling one particular variety of them. While there are many varieties of them, I’m not going to mince words. I’m talking about the plain old-ass hole variety. They clearly have no interest in polite discourse in bringing people together as evidenced in their modus operandi. They are just agitators wanting to troll. I thought about ways to shut them down, not silencing them but shutting down their dialogue with those uninterested in engagement with their drivel. The minefield to navigate is their switching of tactics to debating WHY you’re unwilling to have their conversation. They will, of course, insult you for that. Don’t dignify them by playing defense. I will refer you to a 4-minute Prager U parenting podcast.

When a kid asks their parents WHY they just barked a particular order, the parents are advised to say, “Because I said so.” That used to drive me nuts as a kid when my parents, mostly my mother, did that once I “poked the bear” too hard in my persistent pursuit to have my way. Don’t let the troll play armchair cross-examining lawyer with you. Say “I would prefer not to (have this conversation)” when approached with a “why do you support Trump” and smell ill intentions. Of course, this requires a bit of profiling and supposition, but such people are not going to just disappear. Implementing the philosophy of acceptance (that they’re here to stay) is necessary. It’s a good idea to have tools in your toolbox, and this is one of them.

I also recommend the 2001 movie Bartleby the Scrivener if you’re into that kind of humor.

So, all in all, I share these thoughts that might prove helpful to some but not necessarily to all. If you, dear reader, think this tactic might be useful, try it. But then again, maybe you “would prefer not to.”

The post Handling Trolls at the Polls appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you recall, I reported on an email exchange with an editor or researcher (or some such thing) from NewsGuard. They are a deep-state surveillance stooge for policing unapproved content. Put another way, the lower your rating, the less likely you are peddling the uniparty, globalist narrative

I am happy to report that, as expected, NewGuard gave GraniteGrok a 37.5 rating (100 being the best).

I won’t go into the details because all you need to know is that a well-funded tool of the speech police has branded us as unfavorable to their message control, and I look forward to fundraising off that, especially since the primary complaint appears to be that we, frequently publish false or egregiously misleading claims about US elections and COVID 19 vaccines.

That’s a very strange lede, given that what we’ve published about vaccines has turned out to be as true.

I can only assume that the other venues for information peddled as news – especially in New Hampshire – did better than we did, given that most of them have yet to report anything honest about the Vaccines even after the CDC, FDA, and other agencies have admitted to issues that are costing us points. But, I would like to thank NewsGuard for making my job easier. If they have rated local and regional media, we can look at those numbers and know where to dig deeper.

One of my projects this year is to expose them for failing to challenge the truth about the covid response, especially vaccines.

So, this is good for us, yes? It is. A self-proclaimed third party with suspect funding and ties to the government has decided we aren’t toeing establishment uni-party lies.

As for elections, the funny thing is that, as we just reported how, the state’s chief elections and law enforcement agencies have admitted, in writing, to evidence of gross negligence by election officials (in 2020 and 2022) whose failure to follow multiple election laws compromised integrity, and election results.

I’m not sure where else in the 75+ NewsGuard rating universe you are likely to find that, but if I had to guess, it’d be nowhere, which goes for the honest reporting about concerns over experimental injections that were given without full informed consent.

37.5

We’ll take it.

Some browsers will ask your permission to view this video from Facebook on NewsGuard.

The post NewsGuard Helps The ‘Grok Add to Its Independent Media Credentials appeared first on Granite Grok.

As promised in Monday Memes, I have an overflow. Yes there will be a Friday edition too.

Let the mayhem, mockery, and ridicule resume:

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, up until, perhaps, the mid to late 1800s in the US.  Still, point taken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reminds me of a Robin Williams line (IIRC him):  “I don’t mind if it’s my time to die.  What if it’s the pilot’s time to die”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The agency that regulates these products is also a part co-owner of these products and makes money through their sale?  Can we spell CONFLICT OF INTEREST?  Same for all the CDC / FDA people who get “royalties” from pharma – but then contribute to the approval process of those same products.

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the Post:

 

 

OOH, I know they want to keep Trump out.

OTOH, this is a very shrewd concept if they try this.  As a back-up plan if they can’t stop him.  And then we’re screeeewwwwwweeeeed.  The WH and both chambers?

 

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

 

Palate cleansers:

 

—

—

 

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

 

Come back on Friday for more memes.  Same meme time.  Same meme channel.

 

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

 

The post Meme Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

As if the climate cult needed fuel for its wildfire narrative, Quebec lit up like a Christmas tree in June Last year. We showed satellite images of multiple fires starting almost simultaneously under a clear sky (so not lightning strikes). Not lighting. Not Climate change. Brian Paré.

Bri-Bri made the case online that the government set those fires, and given how Prime Minister ‘Troo-doh!’ is always looking for a climate axe to grind, why not? “[Paré] repeatedly posted conspiracy theories suggesting the fires had been set by the government in an attempt to coerce the public into believing in climate change.” But there are plenty of examples of climate cultists starting fires (or derailing trains) to create environmental catastrophes, not on the scale of minorities and hate hoaxes or consenting college girls crying rape the next day, but the scope of these less frequent events is typically greater.

“On May 31 at 8:30 pm, the town of Chapais issued a mandatory evacuation order due to the raging fires, in particular the fire at Lake Cavan as well as the airport fire, two fires that are included in the charges and were caused by the accused,” [Prosecutor Marie-Phillippe] Charron stated.

We reported on Canadian forest fires last summer. You couldn’t avoid it. The smoke had converted the airspace over US cities to match the gloomy dystopian reality on the ground (after decades of Democrat rule). A week into the alleged man-caused climate disaster, it was obvious men were involved more directly. “In the past months, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have arrested several arsonists who have been charged with lighting fires across several provinces, including Nova Scotia, Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta. The motive behind lighting the fires is unclear. One Albertan, John Cook, has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of arson after setting a string of wildfires in and around Cold Lake, a hamlet near Edmonton.”

Paré (Brian) pleaded guilty “to 13 counts of arson and one count of arson with disregard for human life at a courthouse in Chibougamau, Quebec on Monday. Two further charges of breaking and entering, and causing a public nuisance have been conditionally suspended.” That’s fourteen fires on him, to which he has copped. There may be more to which he has not.

Those wild fires were man-made but not the way the Climate fearmongers would prefer. Fires set by arsonists are a product of the culture, not the climate. Some people just want to see the woods burn.

 

The post Canadian Who Blamed Wildfires on the Government Pleads Guilty to 14 Counts of Arson appeared first on Granite Grok.

You guys do not make this easy. Another great week of comment content and the addition of a few new names I don’t recall seeing or seeing in a while. Thanks for reading and engaging not just the content but each other.

We did have some intrigue last week. I received emails challenging whether certain First Amendment exercises were unconscionable and, therefore, not protected speech. After review, the alleged offenses were deemed protected. That will piss someone off, no doubt, but I can’t help how you feel, and I won’t delete content or ban someone unless there is a clear incitement to violence or explicit threats against a person or group.

Trolls don’t get that consideration, for the record, nor does the inappropriate or excessive reliance on the use of “adult language.” No porn, obviously, with rare exceptions related to the current debate of age-appropriate material in schools and libraries. When possible, we will edit out the offense and not the speaker, but repeat offenses could get you the boot in part for wasting our time.

I was also asked about why someone got banned for something while others with perhaps an opposing opinion were not. I didn’t ban them so that one is still under investigation – I’m waiting on them for more details.

This isn’t rocket science—attack issues, not people.

And, as a side note, I have a lot of emails left to sort and several submitted op-eds to review. If you sent a piece, it is likley waiting for me to get to it.

Comment of the Week

Many a great remark we shared last week, and I am seeing longer and more involved debates on some posts, which is exactly what we want. I apologize for not being nearly as engaged as many of our authors, but I find myself overly busy, and since we missed our fundraising target for 24, I am pulling in other work to make up the difference. If you’d like to help us reach the goal this year, you know what to do.

I pulled at least two dozen great comments to review for last week, but as you all know, there can be only one.

Dan McGuire.

Ian (deliberately, I think) misses the point. This constitutional amendment is a direct attack on the incorrect Claremont supreme court decision from the 90’s. That decision said that “cherish” meant “pay for”. He is right that it never did, but that’s not what they said. This is the subtle way to kick them in the pants to changing that ruling, without having to reprint the constitution. Of course, it will never pass because so many D’s love dem an adequate education, but at least we can get the issue percolating again. The real bit I think you should consider is what was the 1784 meaning of “public schools”. Might it be the current British meaning of the phrase, i.e. what we now call private schools? [I will, of course, be using Ian’s point about “and” as part of the argument to reinterpret “cherish”. As inigo Montoya said, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” ]

There were plenty of other comments as good, but Dan’s unique take on this issue intrigued me. “The real bit I think you should consider is what was the 1784 meaning of “public schools.”

I’d not seen it or heard it (and maybe I missed it elsewhere), so thanks to Ian for inspiring Dan to write it – Ian, as always, has a lot of keen insights on this and other issues. And isn’t that what this is all about? Conversations that allow debate move the needle in our minds to a perspective we’d not yet considered.

I think it is. That’s what I want to build here and we’ve always had a great foundation to rise from.

Congrats to Dan, and since we’re halfway through this week, I need to start looking for the next winner.

 

The post Last Weeks Comment of the Week (And a Clarification about Comment Rules) appeared first on Granite Grok.

In a remarkable segment of the FOX News coverage of the New Hampshire Primary, Charles Payne went off on Democrat pundit Jessica Tarloff on the divisiveness of Joe Biden and the Democrat message. Payne is a brilliant business and political analyst and is a Black man.

On Tuesday night, in an emotional moment, Payne set Tarloff straight on the difference between Trump taking on individuals like DeSantis and Haley and the President of the United States denigrating half of the country by calling them MAGAs in a derogatory manner. MAGA is an acronym coined by Donald Trump to denote his Make America Great Again movement. Biden has taken the term MAGA and twisted it to describe the demonic, Nazi-like, radical, white supremacist followers of Donald Trump who are anti-American and a danger to Democracy.

As a man who grew up knowing the racism Charles Payne experienced as a black child in New York, he dispelled the notion that Trump is a racist and minimized his personality that takes on opponents with terse terms versus Biden labeling half the country as disgusting human beings. His claim is the vitriol that Biden spews is far more damaging to the country. I could not agree more and have written about it often.

But aside from this uncharacteristic emotional outburst, Charles is a numbers guy, and the results of the 2024 NH Primary are a numerologist’s playground. New Hampshire has a unique voter demographic where the largest block of registered voters identify as Independent. There are roughly 303,000 Democrats, 299,000 Republicans, and 400,000 Unafiliated or Independents registered to vote in the Granite State. NH allows Independents to vote in the Primary on the Party ballot of choice and then change their affiliation back to Independent after voting. It makes predicting elections very difficult in New Hampshire as you need to identify the trend of 400,000 voters that can go either way. The Independents played a significant role in Tuesday’s results.

I covered in a previous article why Joe Biden did not appear on the Democrat ballot, and he won the Democrat race on the wings of a successful write-in campaign, though the Democrat vote count was suppressed. There were over 300,000 Republican votes cast and only 96,000 Democrat votes. There was evidence of many Independents casting their vote for Nikki Haley, but their vote was more Anti-Trump than Pro-Haley. This Independent movement accounted for the closer-than-expected margin of victory for Trump. Many polls had Trump up by 20-30 percent over Haley, and the actual margin was closer to 12%.

This anomaly makes it difficult to analyze the results of New Hampshire to predict future primary election results in upcoming states like South Carolina and Nevada. The Southern NH counties, which tend to be more Liberal, were within the 10-15% range for Trump, and Haley actually won the Western Strafford county. The Northern Coos county, which tends to be more traditionally Conservative, gave Trump a 30% margin.

The write-in victory for Biden and the Independent votes for Trump shows the power of the Democrat machine. The Republicans will not only have to beat Biden at the ballot box in November but simultaneously fight off the Leftist ground game. It will be a battle for Trump and the Republicans to win, but the stakes require our best effort.

 

The post NH Shows Power Of The Democrat Machine appeared first on Granite Grok.

The New Hampshire primary has come and gone – well, not quite gone. I’m sure we’ll have a few messes in Aisle 5, but the counting is about as over as it’s going to be, and we have results we’re meant to accept as legitimate.

Donald Trump won with over 50% of the vote. That was what everyone was predicting. Haley, however, managed 43%, which was higher than expected (results are not final).

 

DONALD TRUMP Republican RACE NOT CALLED	163,700	54.55%
NIKKI HALEY Republican	129,646	43.20%
RON DESANTIS Republican	2,046	0.68%
CHRIS CHRISTIE Republican	1,270	0.42%
TOTAL WRITE-INS Republican	1,061	0.35%
VIVEK RAMASWAMY Republican	687	0.23%
MIKE PENCE Republican	353	0.12%
RYAN BINKLEY Republican	265	0.09%
MARY MAXWELL Republican	243	0.08%

 

On the other side, nearly half of NH Democrats did not support the write-in Biden campaign. And yes, the 14% of unprocessed write-ins could be ‘Cease Fire.‘

 

JOE BIDEN (WRITE-IN) Democrat RACE NOT CALLED	54,570	51.50%
DEAN PHILLIPS Democrat	20,976	19.80%
UNPROCESSED WRITE-IN Democrat	14,967	14.13%
OTHER WRITE-INS Democrat	6,583	6.21%
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON Democrat	5,016	4.73%
DEREK NADEAU Democrat	1,180	1.11%
VERMIN SUPREME Democrat	639	0.60%
JOHN VAIL Democrat	506	0.48%
DONALD PICARD Democrat	272	0.26%
PAPERBOY PRINCE Democrat	220	0.21%
MARK GREENSTEIN Democrat	202	0.19%

We will be providing more analysis of this as the week progresses, including balancing these results against the guests we spoke to on Radio Row. For now, the quick take is this. Trump’s train is still rolling. Haley looked better here, getting more of the anyone but Trump vote but she’s not likely to find similar success as we move down the primary calendar.

As for Biden, he skipped New Hampshire, created problems for his supporters here, and nearly 50% of them took Dean Phillip’s advice (I think it was Dean). Biden wrote you off, so why would you write him in? Incumbents typically get 80%. Biden barely broke 505.

The post New Hampshire Primary Election Results – Trump Wins with 55% of the Vote, Dems Diss Biden! appeared first on Granite Grok.

A number of bills proposed by legislators in New Hampshire this session may be worrisome for supporters of free speech. Three bills relate to posting things online that any person may find objectionable. 

Eleven Democrats from the New Hampshire House and Senate sponsored House Bill 1500. 

The bill would add very broad new crimes to the state’s ‘Forgery and Fraudulent Practices’ statutes. According to the bill’s own text:

The post These Bills Would Ban Memes, Posts, & Videos appeared first on The Liberty Block.

The crew gets into a heated argument right from the get go; Trump’s victory in Iowa; Is Iowa ever predictive? Was the low turnout a sign of low enthusiasm? Does the press want Trump as the Republican nominee? How will the National Guard v. Feds faceoff end in Texas? Government of NJ fighting against NYC congestion pricing; California governor saying he will ignore SCOTUS on Bruen/guns; DEI affecting airline safety?

The post The Conservatarian Exchange Podcast #189 appeared first on The Liberty Block.

Harrowing predictions of national political division for 2024 have heightened as polls show Joe Biden’s approval ratings plummet. Haters of Donald Trump are froth-mouthed over his clear and growing lead, notwithstanding a pull-out-all-ethical-stops legal and propaganda campaign by Democrats to discredit him and even knock him out of the race.

Neither of the traditional parties will accept their Democrat or Republican adversary as POTUS.

Into that breach strides the increasingly influential third-horse option: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

His natural base begins with disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporters. It is very possible that Bernie Sanders would have defeated Donald Trump in the 2016 election had he not been cheated by the Democrat leadership of the nomination for president in lieu of Hillary Clinton.

Many erstwhile Sanders supporters then shifted to Donald Trump, swinging the election away from the presumed Clinton dynastic succession.

RFK, Jr. has been even more bluntly snubbed than Bernie Sanders by the Democrat establishment.

Unlike the Bern, though, RFK, Jr. has not laid down and played possum – he has mounted a viable, steadily expanding third-candidate challenge.

When he announced his presidential candidacy, RFK, Jr. emphatically declared that he identified as a Democrat.  Despite the vaunted Kennedy name and decades of RFK, Jr.’s aggressive environmental litigation against chemical pollution, the mainstream media and DNC shunned him because of his willingness to question COVID vaccines and the wisdom of lockdowns during the pandemic.

Rather than fall on his sword for Joe Biden’s ascension a la Bernie redux, RFK, Jr. then tirelessly toured the alternative media world, reaching millions of American ears through Joe Rogan, Russell Brand, Bari Weiss, Jordan Peterson, and others.

Kennedy’s approval ratings have grown.  This has revealed the toxic bias of many media outlets to Americans intrigued by Kennedy’s willingness to speak truth to power.  Kennedy directly fingers Big Pharma and government health agencies for their COVID-19 pandemic actions, alleging mRNA vaccines were unsafe for children and insufficiently tested, that alternative therapies were unreasonably discouraged and that the disease was exploited to expand government powers.  His recent book is titled “The Wuhan Cover-Up and the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race.”

RFK. Jr. has vigorously challenged the national media, and that is giving some Americans hope.  His Kennedy name is a political phoenix from the nation’s 1960s ashes which appeals to some. Yet plenty of Kennedy family members in the Democrat establishment disavow him, which kills the ‘dynasty’ vulnerability.  He is growing in popularity with younger voters disenchanted with established two-party perfidy.  And he is attractive to people who hate Trump but can’t stomach Biden, and vice versa.

When Ross Perot famously challenged the two-party establishment as an independent candidate in the 1992 presidential election, he ominously warned the nation of the “giant sucking sound” of lost American jobs if the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted.  Perot was right about job losses, but the nation was distrustful of third-party dark horses, and the candidates (George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton) did not deliver the vitriol of the 2024 Trump-Biden battle.

Now, the political climate may be warming for an odd underdog.

Though many observers predicted that RFK, Jr.’s run as an independent would throttle Joe Biden’s election run, and it has, Kennedy’s popularity has also drawn from votes that would otherwise be cast for Trump.  The Los Angeles Times, in a story dated January 8, projects that 16% of voters from the Democrat side would move from Biden to RFK, Jr, while 11% of Republicans would move to Kennedy from Trump. Kennedy’s frank depiction of globalist corporations seeking to dominate the world through control of currency, food, and health is a message that resonates even with some conservatives.

Democrats who refused to contemplate Bernie Sanders in 2016 likely threw Hillary to the historical dustbin and propelled Donald Trump into the White House.  With monkey-wrench RFK, Jr. robustly running as a third-party candidate, will Democrats repeat the 2016 election blunder and back Biden over Kennedy, undermining the Camelot candidate and resurrecting The Donald?  That risk has escalated dramatically since Kennedy announced his independent challenge.

The stakes for an American election have arguably never been higher than in 2024.  RFK, Jr. is roiling the political landscape as he speaks truth to power.  Not since Ross Perot has an independent candidate garnered as much electoral support.  A January 10 Quinnipiac poll puts Kennedy at 11% of the vote in a five-way 2024 match-up: already enough to swing the election result.

RFK, Jr. is the only candidate whose positive favorability ratings have outweighed his negatives.  Bobby, Jr. is an unheard-of animal: a Democrat favorably viewed by most Republicans. This makes him a force to reckon with – not ignore – in 2024.

The Democrat party is prepared to lose the election with Biden rather than win with Kennedy. However, Republicans, too, must now be wary of the implications of a three-way race for Donald Trump.

John Klar is an Attorney, farmer, and author. Mostly farmer… And Regular Contributor to GraniteGrok and VermontGrok.

The post Night Cap: Kennedy’s ‘Giant Sucking Sound’ Threatens Biden appeared first on Granite Grok.

It looks like business as usual at the polls in New Hampshire, by which I mean we’ve got strange things happening. This story comes to us form the People’s Republic of Hopkinton.

 

I went to bring up my ballot and asked to put it in hand count, but despite a sign that said hand count, the slot was shut and unavailable. The clerk said, oh, just put it in here. We’re going to be counting them later. I said this is bizarre. I have never voted this way; this slot is supposed to be open and available. She says don’t worry.

My son came up a few minutes later, and she tried the same thing; however, this time, there was another person next to her, and she told my son to hold on. She got out a key to open the door access, and he put it in.

I said this isn’t legal; that slot can’t be blocked, and you made me put mine in the machine; the town clerk said oh, I didn’t know.

You could tell she was lying and getting nervous. The town clerk has a purple shirt on in the picture above; if you zoom in, the plastic tub alongside the machine is for people to put their ‘ballot pens’ in.

It’s so close to the machine that you would almost miss seeing the sign that says paper ballot. Also, why do they have ballot pens? 

One more story from the Primary day election, from Merrimack. Two residents registered as Democrats were at the table to check in to vote. They wanted to take Republican ballots even though they were registered as Democrats. The clerk would not allow it and directed them to the Same-day registration table to “register” their complaint.  I am told they were very unhappy – they clearly intended to meddle in the Republican primary but did not know they needed to change their party registration back in October to do that.

We don’t know what happened there, but Haley advocates will take votes from anyone so feel free to decide who to blame for that.

And send us your election day stories. We’ll try to get them published. We don’t need to use your name, but we do need to confirm who you are.

 

The post Town Clerk Ballot Hijinks in Hopkinton, New Hampshire appeared first on Granite Grok.

I am sorry to learn that Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the presidential race today. He was one of the few governors to eschew the vax mandates. The New Hampshire presidential primary is only 40 hours away. The Dem candidates include Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips, but not Biden, as he refused to participate. The only two big Repub candidates remaining are Trump and Nikki Haley.

(I, too, am on that ballot but am only mentioning the big names. Us little guys have no possible chance of getting many votes, thanks to the expense of publicity.)

Nikki has spent many millions and yet has another ten months to campaign! I have received 32 of her large postcard mailouts. They don’t say much except that she will “stand up to China” (fancy that!), and old people should not hold office. She is a lass of 51 summers.

I do not support Trump. I don’t think he’s got what it takes. However, I disapprove of Congress’s second attempt to impeach him just before he left office in January 2021. I don’t believe any of the nonsense about an insurrection. Surely, the Jan 6 affair was staged.

And as I have said many times, a president phoning a state official (in this case, Georgia’s Sec’y of State Brad Raffensperger) to ask him to “find” some missing votes is perfectly legal. If they were missing, they need to be found. Anyway, a president has no authority to force the matter.

Now for a re-look at the 2019 Impeachment. Note: the only other two presidents who got impeached were Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. They and Trump were “acquitted’ by a close margin in the Senate. Nixon resigned in 1974 before any articles of impeachment were filed. (Note: Clinton did far, far worse things than the ones stated in his Articles of Impeachment.)

Today, I went to Google to check on the 2021 “second impeachment of Trump.” Mine eyes lingered on the page that directed us to the first impeachment, so I decided to go there instead. Holy smoke! What a scene. Congress is blaming a president for obstructing such things as subpoenas related to the investigation of himself. Is this deja vu or what?

We want to thank Mary Maxwell for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
You can review our ‘Op-Ed Guidelines‘ on the FAQ Page.

Westminster Comes A-calling

In case anyone has lost track of the action, let me give a crude rundown. Since 1990, or earlier, our Congress has been stealthily westminsterized. That is, it is like the British system at Westminster, broken into two parties, where all party members vote predictably — according to what the boss of the party (e.g., Pelosi or Pelosi’s hidden boss) wants.

When I lived in Australia, which officially has a Westminster system, I got used to such an intellectually impoverished set-up.

There are two terrible consequences of a Party parliament. One, the individual rep or senator is freed from the burden of having to think. He/she just says, “Yes, Sir.” Two, each group emphasizes its difference from the other group, then this gets emotional and hence irrational, and juvenile.

In America, Media helps by labeling the states as Red or Blue. And if you are a Red member of Congress, you’d hate to be caught agreeing, on any subject, with the Blues. Childish but true. In fact, if the Blues came up with a good idea, you would block it just so the public would not congratulate the Blues for having provided the nation with something good. Oh, mia patria!

So when the first Articles to Impeach Trump came along, persons such as myself took the process to be “the usual.” I did not bother to read them. I heard that they were about Russiagate — that our president had allowed a foreign nation to influence our election (something we do left, right, and center worldwide). It was pitched as an earnest move by Dems to hit Trump simply because he is Republican.

But now I see that the Articles also say that The Executive obstructed The Legislature. This is just the sort of turf war that the Founding Fathers wanted all three branches to engage in. The Constitution’s balance of power depends on it.

I am Red, and I hereby confess my guilt that I fully downgraded anything in those Blue impeachment Articles because they were Blue. Granted, I was also influenced by information on the Internet that Russiagate was false and did not happen.

Today, I do not even know if Russiagate happened. I doubt that such a thing deserves the suffix “gate.” I seem to recall Jeff Sessions or another Trump cabinet member being grilled as to whether a Russian diplomat was in the room. Diplomats can be in our rooms! Oh please, do we have to be so led by the nose?

Now for That First Impeachment of President Trump

I will now display the two articles of the First impeachment, dated 2019. I have abridged the text about 50%, but only to reduce lengthy formal phrases. Never did I change anything.

Lest you think I am doing this to be anti-Trump (I already am anti-Trump), wait till you see the denouement. The things that the Blues are accusing a Red of are just like what the Reds today should be accusing Blue Biden of — obstruction of Congress.

Go, Red Reps! And Blue reps! Get that criminal Biden, and his former NIH man Fauci, and his in-a-trance Mayorkas and Garland, off the field. Don’t waste another minute! Help! Help!

I urge all citizens to toss their colors off for a while and get back to what the Constitution says, and see how our presidents do not give a damn. But the Congresspersons are just as bad. They can only see Red/Blue competition. (I give Marjorie Taylor Greene credit. No doubt there are a few others– of both parties!! — who should get a medal for trying.)

Here it is. You can see it in full at congress.gov. It is House Resolution 755 from the first session of our One Hundred Sixteenth Congress: Articles of Impeachment Against Donald John Trump. December 18, 2019

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, RESOLUTION.

Resolved That Donald John Trump, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:

Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America against Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

ARTICLE I: ABUSE OF POWER

… In his conduct of the office of President of the United States—and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to… the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution…, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed—Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency, in that: [he] solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election.
[This] included soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent [Obama’s VP, Joe Biden], and influence the 2020 United States Presidential election to his advantage.

President Trump also sought to pressure the Government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official United States Government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations. [He did this] … for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit. In so doing, [he] … undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process. He thus ignored and injured the interests of the Nation.

President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct through the following means:

(1) President Trump—acting both directly and through his agents within and outside the United States Government—corruptly solicited the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into …
(B) a discredited theory promoted by Russia alleging that Ukraine—rather than Russia—interfered in the 2016 United States
(2) With the same corrupt motives, President Trump—acting both directly and through his agents within and outside the United States Government—conditioned two official acts on the public announcements that he had requested— (A) the release of $391 million of United States taxpayer funds that Congress had appropriated on a bipartisan basis for the purpose of providing vital military and security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression and which President Trump had ordered suspended; …

ARTICLE II: OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS
… The House of Representatives has engaged in an impeachment inquiry focused on President Trump’s corrupt solicitation of the Government of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 United States Presidential election.

As part of this impeachment inquiry, the Committees undertaking the investigation served subpoenas seeking documents and testimony deemed vital to the inquiry from various Executive Branch agencies and offices, and current and former officials.

In response, without lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas. [Outrageous, no?]

President Trump thus interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the “sole Power of Impeachment” vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives.

President Trump abused the powers of his high office through the following means:
(1) Directing the White House to defy a lawful subpoena by withholding the production of documents sought therein by the Committees.
(2) Directing other Executive Branch agencies and offices to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of documents and records from the Committees—in response to which the Department of State, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense refused to produce a single document or record.
(3) Directing current and former Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with the Committees—in response to which nine Administration officials defied subpoenas for testimony, namely John Michael “Mick” Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.

… This abuse of office served to cover up the President’s own repeated misconduct and to seize and control the power of impeachment—and thus to nullify a vital constitutional safeguard vested solely in the House of Representatives.

In all of this, President Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore, President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

Commentary

Oh, yes, that last bit reminds me that an aim of the Blues was to prevent Red Trump from holding office in the future. This isn’t the same as the later effort (Second Impeachment) to lower the 14th Amendment boom on him. But it is worth mentioning — per two states’ rulings to keep TRUMP OFF THE BALLOT.
The 14th Amendment says that a rebel (insurrectionist, whatever) must not again become an officer of the US — unless Congress okays it. That’s enough and plenty to guide the judge to say that Trump should be allowed to be on all 50 ballots. Were the appeals judge to say No, Congress would never arrive at its power, clearly stated in the 14th Amendment, to lift the restriction on the rebel.

So even if Trump has been a rebel on Jan 6 (and I say he was no rebel), the judge should not permit any such nonsense as ballot-blockage.

I don’t want to be there if a judge rules otherwise.

Please. Everybody, don’t let your colors guide your thoughts on the Constitution. There is nothing in the parchment to support the idea of colors anyway. We do NOT have a Westminster parliament. We have “We the People” advising our reps and senators.

–Mary Maxwell hopes you will visit her campaign website at www.ConstitutionAndTruth.com

The post So What Was in Those Impeachment Articles against Trump Way Back in 2019? appeared first on Granite Grok.

With three days of all-day broadcasting and the prep to make sure that all happened without too many hiccups, I did not have time to choose a commenter of the week for last week. Yet. I will.

We will announce that on Wednesday and reach out to them for an address to which we will ship a Grok Goodie.

Thanks for your patience.

As for all the broadcasting, that will get sliced up and shared here in the coming days, though, admittedly, Post-Primary, so some of it might not be as fresh, but it will provide contrast to the actual results.

That could not be helped.

 

The post Comment of the Week (for Last Week) Will be Named Wednesday appeared first on Granite Grok.

President Joe Biden does not appear on the 2024 New Hampshire Presidential Primary ballot. As you drive the backroads of New Hampshire, you see yard signs urging Democrats to write in Joe Biden on Tuesday’s ballot.

This effort seems like a futile move to push the President to a victory in a state that he has abandoned, dissed, belittled, and showed disregard for the Constitution of the country and New Hampshire. Biden is not on the ballot for many reasons, but none are valid.

You need to review history for Biden’s primary reason. In 2020, Biden had horrific showings in the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary. His third attempt at the White House was dead until Representative Jim Clyburn (D-SC) came to his friend’s rescue. With South Carolina next on the Primary schedule, Clyburn pulled out all the stops to manufacture a win for Biden, who then rolled over the Democrat field to win the nomination. Jim Clyburn and South Carolina were the kingmakers in 2020.

Biden had the DNC move South Carolina ahead of New Hampshire in the 2024 schedule to reward Clyburn and South Carolina, stripping the First in the Nation label from the Granite State. The problem is that NH stipulates in its state Constitution that it must be the first primary election, regardless of any other state’s actions. NH responded to the DNC and scheduled the NH Primary a week before the SC election. This move caused Biden to get vindictive. He first refused to file paperwork to be on the NH ballot, and then he had the DNC designate there would be no delegates from NH at the Democrat Convention. Spiteful Biden made NH irrelevant in choosing the Democrat candidate for President for the 2024 election. With Biden’s actions, why should anyone waste a write-in vote for this man?

The polls show Biden with a significant lead in New Hampshire, but that is because he has derailed the primary process. He would not acknowledge any of his Democrat challengers, Kennedy or Williamson, by debating them and, on several occasions, denied requests from Kennedy for security assistance. Biden is working hard to stay out of the public eye for the entire election cycle. He does not want anyone to see the aging man in charge or hear his disjointed message. His only chance of winning reelection is to stay in his basement, as he did in 2020.

While Biden hides from Americans, he has two primary surrogates who will campaign for him and a willing media to assist him in any way possible. The First Lady, Jill Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris have begun hitting the media trail. Jill Biden did a softball session with Mika Brzezinski of Morning Joe on MSNBC. This poor showing was a rehearsed session that should have been paid for by the Biden Campaign. Kamala visited the set of The View for a love fest. There was not a single hard-hitting question in either, and that is what we can expect for 2024.

The results from New Hampshire will not be surprising, but the effects of what Biden did to the state needs to be reported. Let’s see how the networks tell the story on Tuesday night.

 

The post Biden Ignoring NH Speaks Volumes appeared first on Granite Grok.

According to CBC News in Canada, Aaron Trachtenberg is a resident in internal medicine at the University of Calgary. He has concluded that Medically Assisted Dying (MAiD) could save the Canadian Health Care System up to 136 million dollars.

I assume that’s annual savings, not that it matters to the soulless bean counters.

“In a resource-limited health care system, anytime we roll out a large intervention there has to be a certain amount of planning and preparation and cost has to be a part of that discussion,” Trachtenberg said, adding the provinces’ differing plans could impact the cost structure of implementation.

“It’s just the reality of working in a system of finite resources.”

The report estimated that about one to four per cent of Canadians will die using physician-assisted death. Of those, 50 per cent will be between the ages of 60 and 80.

This is a very public admission to a point I’ve made repeatedly. In any government-controlled system, the illusion of empathy ultimately boils down to a balance sheet. That might sound familiar, and it should. Socialists demanding things like government-run medicine always say it about private corporations. They leave out that private corporations don’t typically have law-making authority and police powers. On the other hand, the government has both with the added benefit of believing there is no power greater to check potential abuse.

Related: Read More about Medically Assisted Dying and the Slippery Slope

To be trite, a government with the power to give has the power to take it away. Governments run by these sorts of people -who are attracted to the role of the way pedophiles seek jobs with access to children – inevitably put the interest of the state ahead of its people. From Welfare to pensions to food aid to housing aid, the promise of a master indebted up to their gills cannot be trusted. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not a new idea, but robbing Peter’s great-grandkids to pay Paul tomorrow is not sustainable.

Costs will need to be cut. Conversations about end-of-life care will result in the state counseling expensive patients to shuffle off their mortal balance sheet.

The researchers used numbers from the Netherlands and Belgium, where medically assisted death is legal, combined with Canadian spending data from Ontario. Trachtenberg stressed that means the work is theoretical and needs to be readdressed when Canada starts collecting large scale data at home.

The savings might be theoretical, but the power to coerce people to die – especially under the beady eyes of depopulationglobalists – is not. The state will find more reasons to use pressure and take citizens off the map, and they won’t lose a moment’s sleep about doing that.

The post Slippery Meet Slope: Medically Assisted Suicide Could Save Millions in Health Care Costs appeared first on Granite Grok.

What the heck is happening in Maine? The Pine Tree State, Vacationland, has become a Progressive Wasteland. This state is not your Mother and Father’s Maine, where kids used to take time off from school to pick potatoes.

This beautiful state, with its rugged rocky coast, tranquil lakes, and majestic mountains, is being tarnished by its cities filled with homeless shelters and pot shops. Maine is also a complex state, with the Conservative residents of the rural countryside being dominated by the densely populated Liberal cities. This dichotomy is not a situation that is going to age well, and the Progressives are working hard to pass as many Leftist laws as possible before the Right rises and returns sanity to the largest New England state.

This trend can be seen starting in 2016 when marijuana was legalized for recreational use. This decision led to an industry that now ranks only behind Lumber and Lobsters in Maine. Some say it may have started earlier when the Catholic Church brought many Somali refugees to Lewiston and changed the demographics of the region forever. That scenario is now repeating in Portland with busloads of illegals who crossed the Rio Grande becoming the newest residents of Maine. The passing of the most liberal abortion law in the country this past summer and the invasion of the Chinese Cartel setting up illegal pot factories continue to make Maine unrecognizable. However, the Progressives are not satisfied, and this week, they are working on a bill that may make Maine a magnet for a new group of residents. Abortion stirred many emotions and piqued the anger of the true Conservative Mainers, but this new bill may bring those emotions to a boiling point.

Progressive legislators introduced a proposed bill this week that would not only make Maine a sanctuary state for young people who wish to be transgender but will allow the state to remove a minor child from their parents if those guardians are standing between their child and treatment to facilitate their transgender wishes. This bill is so bizarre for traditional Mainers who believe in God, two genders, the family unit, and the belief that the government has no place interfering with the family.

A Maine judiciary committee is moving to create a ‘safe-haven’ for teens seeking sex changes and protection from their parents, but critics have slammed the bill as ‘state-sanctioned kidnapping.’

The ‘Act to Safeguard Gender-Affirming Health Care’ would enable certain out-of-state teens to access hormone blockers or surgery without their parent’s consent, regardless of their own state’s laws.

If passed, LD 1735 would enable certain teens from states that have banned child gender-affirming care- such as Kentucky or Mississippi – to come to Maine, with or without their family, and access treatment.

The bill, brought by Rep. Laurie Osher (D-Orono) in April, would prevent Maine law enforcement from helping out-of-state authorities arrest or extradite patients, parents, or healthcare professionals. Maine would also be able to take ‘temporary emergency jurisdiction’ over minors from other states if they had been brought to Maine to receive sex change treatments. Osher is one of the leaders of the women’s, LGBTQ, and Jewish caucuses in Maine. She was reportedly asked to introduce the bill by advocacy group LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and instructed staffers to model the bill on similar legislation in California.

Maine is not California, and this Progressive movement can not be allowed to sink its roots deep into the Maine soil.

The post BEAR Pond Conservative Chronicles: Lobsters, Pot, And Trans appeared first on Granite Grok.

RSA 654:34, which governs how voters may change party registration, makes a bizarre distinction. In one section (I), it says that if you decide to change from one party to another party on the day of a primary, you can’t vote in the primary of your new party.

But in the very next section (II), it says that if you decide to change from having no party to being in a party, you can vote in the primary of your new party.

Say what?  Whether you’re registered as a Democrat, or you’re registered as undeclared, in either case you have told the state, under penalty of perjury, that you are not a Republican.

So in both cases, to let you vote in the Republican primary makes a mockery of the whole idea of a party primary.

Would you be happy if a million Chinese nationals showed up on the first Tuesday in November, voted for who they thought should be our president, and then went back home?

That’s pretty much how GOP members feel when a couple hundred thousand non-Republicans show up on primary day to vote for who they think should be the party’s nominee.

But to make a distinction between cases I and II is like something out of Alice in Wonderland:

Before today, Tweedledum was not a Republican in a different way than Tweedledee was not a Republican, so Tweedledum can have a ballot, but Tweedledee can’t.  Or maybe it’s’ the other way around.

Suppose Tweedledum and Tweedledee both show up at their local polling place registered as undeclared.   Tweedledum switches to being a Republican for the day, and is handed a ballot.  Tweedledee switches to being a Democrat for the day… but changes his mind, and switches again to being a Republican for the day.  So he doesn’t get a ballot.

Is this not insane?  It reminds me of nothing so much as the ATF ruling that if you have an AR-15 with a pistol brace, it’s a pistol, but once you put the brace against your shoulder, it becomes a short-barreled rifle, even if no one else sees it.

As it is currently written, RSA 654:34 encourages people to pretend that they are not affiliated with a party, not because it expresses their independence but because it enables their capacity for interference in the affairs of either party.

If we want to discourage that kind of interference, we should let only registered party members vote in the primaries of their parties.

On the other hand, if we want to encourage it, then we should just let everyone (including people who aren’t registered to vote at all) vote in all the primaries at all the locations.  Ballots for everyone, everywhere!

But to jumble things up this way is just one more reason why anyone with sense must eventually agree with Mr. Bumble that ‘the law is an ass, an idiot’ and stop paying attention to it entirely — whether regarding primaries or anything else.

Which is to say, you can’t enact stupid laws without making the law itself seem stupid.  So we should stop doing that.

The post Primaries: My ‘not’ is better than your ‘not’ appeared first on Granite Grok.

Outside of the Granite State, where undeclared voters don’t necessarily pick the Republican Party nominee, the news about Nikki isn’t very pleasant for Nikki.

Yesterday, a Boston Globe poll called it Trump 52/ Haley 35 in New Hampshire. That’s not enough, but let’s say this is where the primary shakes out next Tuesday. What does the rest of America look like?

In another poll reporting Friday, nationally, Harvard/Harris has Trump/Haley 71/9. Morning Consult’s poll has Trump/Haley at 73/14. Messenger/HarrisX (Thursday) 72/13. DeSantis is ahead of Haley in the National Harvard Harris by one point and down two from her in the Morning Consult poll. They are statistically tied in America’s eyes.

Christie’s departure has not added to her “base,” while Vivek’s has added to Trump’s. The Never Nikki crowd has to be thrilled, but that’s not the only bad news for Nimarata née Randhawa Haley. On Friday, Republican US Senator Tim Scott (a former presidential aspirant) endorsed Donald Trump. Lindsey Graham already had, as has the current Republican governor of her home state, Henrey McMaster. (Trump is polling 52/22 against Haley in SC, so it’s not just state-wide elected Republicans).

And Sununu isn’t as popular here as he used to be, which happens when you act like a Democrat often enough that even Independents begin to wonder if they prefer the real thing.

Speaking of which, New Hampshire’s Governor, Chris Sununu, who is promoting Haley like his life depends on it, has won election four times, and not once did either of our US Senators endorse him. Neither Jeanne Shaheen nor Maggie Hassan has offered their support to Chris Sununnu. Maybe they’d like to endorse Haley, as some of their deep-pocketed Democrat donors likely have.

One more point. Haley began downplaying her own New Hampshire surge narrative on Friday. “I said we want to be stronger in New Hampshire — we’re going to do that,” Haley told reporters during a gaggle. “We don’t know what stronger is until the numbers come in.”

The Haley wave refined. As in, I’ve seen the national polls, and I should wave goodbye, but I’ve got all this Left-Wing and Uniparty Military Industrial Complex cash, and I can’t even give it to Trump.

“I don’t ever talk about coming up short or winning if you notice that. I’ve done neither one and I’m not going to until Election Day. That’s the only poll that matters,” Haley said.

And that motivates your supporters how, exactly?

Americans are hungry for a disruptor and whatever comes with it. You’ve been running as the anti-disruptor, and that’s not enough. Democrats don’t play nice or fair, use friendly language, or even act civil, even after claiming they are that very thing. This is a bare-knuckles street fight for freedom. The primary is meant to pick someone with thick skin and an elevated intolerance for bullshit. Our government doesn’t trust us, hates us, suppresses our natural rights, and even the GOP has failed to address systemic irregularities in election integrity.

In other words, maybe none of this matters, but then it does. You can win so hard that cheating can’t stop it, which Trump appears to be doing in the Republican primary. The sort of support a candidate will need to get past whatever the Left is planning for November. And that candidate is not Nikki Haley.

 

The post No Worries Nikki – NH’s US Senators Didn’t Endorse “Their” Governor Either appeared first on Granite Grok.

Apparently, a man in St. Paul, Minnesota, was playing basketball in the gym of his local school on Family Night when his gun ‘went off,’ shooting him in the leg. As those of you who have been following the adventures of Alec Baldwin know, a gun doesn’t just ‘go off’.  Someone has to pull the trigger.

It is being reported that the man was ‘carrying the handgun on his body’, but ‘not in a holster’.  I’m having trouble imagining how that worked unless it was (1) loose in a pocket or (2) tucked into his waistband, Mexican Carry style.  Neither of those seems compatible with being on a basketball court.

In either case, I’m reminded of something that I read once in an article by Roy Huntington, the former editor of American Handgunner.  In his many years as a police officer, Huntington never saw a bad guy carrying a gun in a holster.

I’ve always seen that as a handy rule of thumb.  And I guess that remains true if we expand the word ‘bad’ to include stupid as well as criminal.

Public Service Announcement:  If you want to carry a handgun, please carry it in a holster that covers the trigger.  Incidents like this one make us all look bad.  The rights you save may be your own.  Or, more importantly, mine.

The post Is That a Gun in Your Pocket, or…? appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Windham election debacles of 2020 (and 2022), you can search this site for the Windham election or follow this link and jump to 5 hours and 7 minutes. The Granite State has election integrity issues documented by the AG that have yet to be resolved, and one of them is alive and well for the NH Primary.

Note: the ballot pictured in the featured image above is from Windham – November 2022 election

Tom Murray and Ken Eyering explain the ongoing problems, the documentation in hand, and the blatant violations of NH election law – with a state-appointed monitor observing and no one held to account. As we note in the segment, starting at about 5 hours and 7 minutes, this is going on all over the state.

Tom is in the studio; Ken is on the phone – some browsers will block this video (Facebook) and may require permission to show it on the page).

 

 

I share that, to share this. It’s 2024, and one of the problems uncovered in 2020 was shadow votes created by folded ballots where the crease ran through an oval, which the matching read as a false vote.

According to a source, this problem continues to go unaddressed. “There are 14 towns with candidate Trump on the folds on the absentee ballots! His name appears in the slot position 15.”

Alexandria Bridgewater Concord Ward 1 Dunbarton Lebanon Ward 3 Lyme Lyndenborough Nashua Ward 6 Plaistow Rochester Ward 6 Springfield Sugar Hill Wakefield Weare

That source also claims that “They are also pulling the guards off the scanner feeders because of jamming issues. The election manual was updated making it a requirement to do a fold test. The town of Rye requested to do a fold test, and the Secretary of State’s attorney, Bud Fitch, declared it was not necessary.”

Given the state’s history of ignoring systemic election integrity issues, this is likely very reliable reporting, but we did not have time to confirm it.

Is it going to make much difference? No. With an estimated 330,000 Republican ballots being pulled and cast tomorrow – a record, by the way, for an NH primary – the number of absentee ballots won’t dent that but this should have been resolved. It should not happen. Every voter deserves to have their vote counted correctly, even for that stooge Haley.

Overvotes or double votes will fubar the process and the results and that’s unacceptable.

In other words, voters still can’t trust NH election results.

There’s no excuse for it after a costly forensic audit in Windham uncovered issues that we know are duplicated in towns all over the state. But if we were to focus only on the absentee ballot problem, it makes sense to tighten those rules regardless. Only those who are out of town or physically unable to get to a polling station on election day should be permitted to submit an absentee ballot, but then why should we expect anyone to enforce that election law either?

Don’t scoff. Watch the segment I noted in the Video above and then read this again.

 

The post Absentee Ballots Folding on the Bubbles Again – More Shadow Votes in Another NH Election? appeared first on Granite Grok.