Monday • May 5 • 2025
Vol.XVII • No.XIX
Manchester, N.H.
Text from my remarks on Constitution Day
There are a couple of things we hear a lot today in political speeches, on the Sunday morning talk shows, and in letters to the editor in our local papers. One is that we are in danger of losing our democracy!… And another is that “authoritarianism” or some version of it — fascism is an equally popular term — is just around the corner.
I won’t say that either of these warnings isn’t a valid concern given that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, as Thomas Jefferson instructed us. But I will say, if you are worried about either or both of these predictions coming to fruition, the best thing you can do is understand, celebrate, embrace, and enforce the letter and the spirit of the most amazing, timeless, governing document in human history, the United States Constitution.
Now, about losing our democracy. The democratic republic we as a nation have and built over the last two and half-ish centuries – one that has done more to advance the causes human freedom, human rights, human prosperity than any other in the history of human civilization — is the result of fidelity to to our Constitution and the principles that make up its foundation – limited government, separation and decentralization of political powers, individual rights, and equality of all citizens before the law. Where and when we are in fact in danger of “losing our democracy,” it is because we are more and more straying from those principles set forth in our Declaration of Independence and abandoning the safeguards put in place to preserve them in our Constitution.
So, if you want to save “our democracy” – and by that I mean our unique and exceptional republic that Benjamin Franklin warned us we would need to work to keep. If we want to save these blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity, the best thing you can do is to protect and preserve our Constitution. Insist that its boundaries, checks and balances be enforced by the people we elect. They all swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. But it’s our job as citizens to make sure they live up to that oath. There’s a reason the document starts out with “We the people.” That’s where the buck starts, and that’s where the buck ultimately stops.
Now, about authoritarianism. If you’re really worried about the possibility of living under an increasingly authoritarian government, well, The US Constitution is probably the most anti-authoritarian document ever produced to govern a nation. Be grateful for it!
After all, what is authoritarianism? It is a system of government in which the government – not the individual citizens, the government – has the ultimate authority to make decisions about how we act and allocate resources. But look at Bill of Rights in our Constitution. It’s basically a very long and comprehensive list of everything the government does NOT have the authority to do.
The First Amendment could just as easily read, “Congress does not have the authority to make laws abridging freedom of speech or of the press.” Congress does not have the authority to make laws regarding how citizens worship, or with whom we chose to associate.
Our politicians do not have the authority to prohibit us from keeping and bearing arms.
They do not have the authority to invade the security of our persons, our homes, our papers without just cause. They do not have the authority to deprive us of life, liberty, or property without due process of law…. Or inflict upon us cruel and unusual punishments.
The list goes on. And even beyond the list the 9th Amendment might as well say, just to be safe, anything we left out here by accident, well, Congress doesn’t have the authority to do that either. And thanks to the 14thAmendment, these rules apply to our state lawmakers as well as federal.
So, if you are concerned that authoritarianism – or a government dictatorship or fascism… whatever you want to call it — is a looming threat to our democracy and way of life, the US Constitution is your shield and your sword. Pick it up and use it!
However, if you’re in favor of the government being the ultimate decider… of, say, what kind of car people can drive… how you’re allowed to heat your home in winter… what your kids learn in school… What speech is allowed to be published and distributed in public forums, and what speech should be punished… even down to what kind of bag you’re allowed to use at the grocery store and what kind of light bulbs you’re allowed to buy…. Well then, be careful, because you just might be the very authoritarian — or fascist or dictatorial — threat we’ve all been hearing so much about, and the US Constitution is not your friend. Because, I’ll say it again, the most anti-authoritarian governing document for a nation the world has ever seen is US Constitution – as it is written.
But what is the US Constitution but words on a page. So fragile, in fact, that it has to be kept in a special high tech container in the National Archives or else it would just turn to just dust and blow away in the wind.
That ink and parchment has no power of its own. The rights and principles that our constitution speaks to only exist to the extent that we as a people and a culture want and are willing to hold those values in our hearts, live those values in our lives, infuse those values into our communities, and teach these values to the next generation.
Clearly we need to do a better job of this. And doing that job is up to us. We the people.
So, I will end my thoughts today with a proposal. It’s not my own, and I don’t remember where I originally heard it, but I think it’s a good one. And it is this: When school children stand up first thing in the morning, look at our flag, and put their hands on their hearts – instead of the Pledge of Allegiance, let’s have them recite the Preamble to our Constitution.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish [our] Constitution for the United States of America.”
Because before we should ask anyone to pledge loyalty to a flag – what is a flag? — we need to do our job of teaching and explaining what they are really pledging loyalty to. The United States is unique in that we were founded upon an idea – that we are all created equal with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. What we are pledging allegiance to is those principles – not our government, regardless of what it does. Or politicians regardless of what they do. Or a particular political party or political leader – but those principles and that idea.
Our constitution is the mechanism through which we attempt to live up to that idea – “more perfectly.” We’ll never be perfect, as the document itself in its wisdom recognizes, but its promise is that we can be a more perfect nation today than we were yesterday, and more perfect nation tomorrow than we are today. That has been the true history – the observable path — of our nation from its birth to the present, and this is precisely because of our great Constitution, not in spite of it. It can be our future too if, as Ben Franklin challenged us, we can keep it.
The post To Be Anti-Fascist, Support Our Constitution appeared first on Granite Grok.
September 16, 2023: The Texas Senate brought down the gavel, resounding with the weight of history, as Attorney General Ken Paxton emerged unscathed from a sham impeachment trial. The conclusion of this protracted and contentious waste of legal time and exercise will not only reshape the political landscape of the Lone Star State but also send ripples down the spine of Paxton’s detractors.
Paxton, an uncompromising Republican and an ardent well-wisher of beloved Texans had found himself at the epicenter of a whirlwind of fabricated and false accusations. Fabrications of corruption and bribery followed by this sham of an impeachment that had threatened to erode the wishes of the people of Texas have finally hit the dustbin of history. Sixteen articles of impeachment were laid before him, a formidable arsenal of allegations ranging from dereliction of duty to disregarding official responsibility. Paxton’s fate rested in the hands of the Texas Senate, where the verdict required an arduous majority of 21 votes from a jury of 30 senators to convict on any of the weighty charges. As all allegations and claims of witnesses fell flat on their faces, this direction of this trial by fire was only a foregone conclusion.
This impeachment trial bore a profound historical significance. With its nearly two centuries of statehood, Texas had seen only two previous impeachment proceedings against public officials. The gravity of the situation and the partisan divisions it exacerbated underscored the magnitude of the decision facing the state’s elected representatives.
Central to the case were allegations that Paxton had systematically exploited the powers vested in his office to benefit a significant donor, Mr. Nate Paul. The accusations outlined a false narrative of Paxton having consistently abused his authority as the state’s top legal officer to advance the interests of a select few, most notably that of Mr. Paul. The charges painted a corroded picture of ethical transgressions and violations of the public trust. This narrative had no basis in reality yet had long fueled calls for Paxton’s removal from office.
Yet, the verdict rendered on this September day was a culmination of baseless legal arguments, extreme political maneuvering, and never-existing evidence that was presented. The acquittal of Ken Paxton on all 16 articles of impeachment stands as testimony across the entire political spectrum. Texans lauded the decision as a triumph of justice, framing the impeachment as a politically motivated attack against a staunch conservative leader.
The repercussions of this sham impeachment trial are bound to be far-reaching and profound. At its core, it exemplifies the sheer absurdities of modern-day politics, where ruthless agenda often blurs the lines between legal culpability and political allegiance. It poses challenging questions about the role of ethics for elected representatives and the mechanisms to ensure accountability for such agenda-driven elected officials.
The case has also cast a shadow over the entire Texas GOP, and the division within the party’s ranks going against the will of electors in this Paxton impeachment trial has laid bare the ideological fault lines that will continue to shape the contours of American conservatism. It underscored the broader struggle within the Republican Party between those who champion strict adherence to principles and those who prioritize pragmatism and electability.
Furthermore, the acquittal of Ken Paxton serves as a case study of the sheer misuse of impeachment as a tool for political backbiting. It highlights the ease with which an agenda-driven bar can be set for removal from the office of a highly dedicated and highly valued official and the political calculations that often come into play in such proceedings. The case prompts a reexamination of the processes for holding elected officials accountable, particularly in an era marked by increased polarization and political tribalism.
The acquittal of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on all 16 articles of impeachment stands as a watershed moment in the annals of Texan and American politics. It raises profound questions about the intersection of law and politics, the role of ethics in public office, and the enduring influence of partisan allegiances. As the nation watches, the aftermath of this trial will continue reverberating, serving as a touchstone for debates on accountability, integrity, and the future of political discourse in the United States.
The post The Acquittal of Ken Paxton: An Intricate Examination of Texas’ Impeachment Saga appeared first on Granite Grok.
When New Mexico Governor Michelle Grisham announced to her grun grabbin’ left turn at Albuquerque, she wasn’t planning on this. It may not have even occurred to her, but it is a lesson learned under Obama. If you want to sell some guns, talk about gun control.
A gun store up the street (not far from me) made national news with its window poster depicting Barry Obama as the firearms salesman of the year. Joe Biden has done his part as well. It worked in Virginia when the state went all blue a few years back, and gun sales soared. Democrats (ironically) are the best thing that ever happened to gun sales. When those Liberals get on about grabbin’ guns, people listen – and buy firearms, and Albuquerque is no different.
“Today was the busiest day I’ve had in months,” Arnie Gallegos, owner of ABQ Guns in Albuquerque, told The Epoch Times. “I’ve been getting a lot of people who have never come into a gun shop before who are rightfully concerned about their freedoms.
“A lot of people are saying, ‘I can’t rely on the police anymore, and I need to be able to protect myself,” added Gallegos.
Law-abiding citizens legally able to buy firearms are doing that, and many of them have never considered owning a firearm until Gov ‘Grab Your Guns’ came for them. “I’ve been getting a lot of people who have never come into a gun shop before who are rightfully concerned about their freedoms.”
Let’s hope they are more responsible stewards of the rights and responsibilities of handling any firearm than Alec Baldwin. He murdered a woman in New Mexico and blamed the gun, which did not warrant a public health emergency before or after charges against Baldwin were dropped.
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins (now described as born in Ukraine, as if that matters) is still dead. “The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, did not have her manslaughter charges dropped, but ‘Grab Your Guns’ Grisham addressed it as a workplace safety issue.
“This industry is important to us economically and to so many workers throughout New Mexico, and I look forward to a full accounting of how this could have possibly happened, and we will determine our next steps from there.”
Grisham planned listening sessions and wondered why they needed real guns. Coincidentally, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys are claiming there was a dearth of safety protocols on set, and that’s not her fault.
Baldwin blamed the gun, Gutierrez-Reed blamed production, but no public safety warnings from Grisham because (if I had to guess) the film industry is economically important, which means she likely has some Hollywood donors, and that’s important too.
Here’s a gun shop guy on the surge in sales.
And apologies to the Gun Store, upon whose poster I put Michelle Lujan Grisham’s head, but I did buy a nice Mosin Nagant (a 1946 Tula) and a big tin can full of ammo for it (from them) a few years back, so I’d like to think we’re even.
HT | ZeroHedge
The post Gov. Michelle ‘Grab Your Guns’ Grisham Just Became the Best Gun “Salesman” in Albuquerque appeared first on Granite Grok.
What is a ‘matrix attack’?
If you have had the courage to investigate some of the more outspoken critics of the contemporary power structure today, you might have seen their references to a matrix that exists, which attacks any speaking out.m against a specific narrative and the clique that it stands to benefit.
I took a Masters in Education about five years ago, and two prerequisites were called for that I had not fulfilled during my undergraduate degree. These classes were Race Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies— the lynchpins of the ideologies of the modern leftist insanity gripping the USA. These two courses essentially contained everything underlying what the left has pushed on the English-speaking world over the past few years.
The range of topics includes, most prominently, critical race studies and feminist theory. Both of these fields have one thing in common— they blame all society’s ills on the White Man. It is a question of power dynamics, and historically speaking, they aren’t exactly far from the mark. The important distinction to understand is that their critique of Western civilization is about a century out of date.
In the 1920s, blaming everything on the White Man may have been accurate. Back then, the American Civil War was only a half-century past. African Americans in the USA were still coming to terms with their newfound freedoms and had not yet established themselves in industries where they have today achieved fame and fortune— sports, entertainment, and music, to name a few. Women had not been brought to parity with men yet— that started in 1920, and women’s rights were championed strongly through the ‘60s, ‘70s, and 80s.
The European colonial empires held far more power then than they do today. England, France, Spain, and Germany, along with the United States— all countries that at that time had been led predominantly by White Men, enjoyed vast colonial holdings, which was veritably a global economy dominated by Whites, led by a patriarchy. So, what is taught in these race and gender studies is historically accurate. But it is not true today.
Today’s world in 2023 is different than in the mid-to-late 20th century. The Chinese empire is ascendant and sprawling with its Belt and Road Initiative. African countries enjoy rising levels of sovereignty, and South Africa is led by black nationalists who are right now on a campaign of racial genocide against Whites. India, a largely Semitic nation (not White), just hosted the G20 and landed on the moon. The South American continent is largely composed of mosty sovereign countries and also not White. The White Patriarchy that is the boogeyman of the left today has already been smashed.
The English-speaking world’s leftists are learning about a set of facts describing a world of a half-century ago, attempting to create change based on a reality that no longer exists. That is a critical problem.
Yet, the Deep State structures of the English-speaking world, best characterized by consideration of the Nine Eyes intelligence network, are also mired in this outdated race-based geopolitical understanding. That intelligence network connects the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and several other leading Western countries. It is the backbone of the movement that caused the “Build Back Better” disaster, orchestrating the puppetry of the Biden junta. It is the WEF/UN power axis that relies on mouthpieces like the Council of Foreign Relations, Open Society Foundations, and the NGO web surrounding them. This is an English-speaking web infected by this outdated belief that the White Man is bad, and they are pushing this paradigm on the planet with no self-reflection whatsoever and no ability to awaken to the present moment.
This group is what some leading geopolitical commentators— Alex Jones, Andrew Tate, Russell Brand, and others— have dubbed “The Matrix.” Because of these peoples’ outspoken criticism of the power structure, something that has historically been a rallying cry of the left (“Speak Truth to Power!”), they have been viciously targeted by smear campaigns of all sorts. Allegations of sexual assault, cancellation by online trolls and bots, total gaslighting (being accused of the things their accusers are actually doing).
This is combined with advanced 5th and 6th generation warfare waged against these individuals. Techniques in this style include formenting social media campaigns, interrupting mobile and internet communications technology, disrupting power services, and other offensive signals intelligence warfare tactics. This includes using directed energy weapons, specifically directed soundwaves, at the individuals. If you look on top of buildings in many urban environments, you will find both large speakers and surveillance cameras. This allows organizations with the proper technology to see and influence urban environments.
If you walk through an urban environment outfitted with this (what I will refer to as) 6th gen or 6G technology— the cameras, speakers, and more— you essentially are on a grid. If you have seen the recent film iteration of Tron with Jeff Bridges, you’ll get the picture. On the grid, you can be tracked and influenced by this 6G tech web. It is online and accessible by the Nine Eyes group (and possibly other groups) in large cities like New York, London, and Hong Kong. They use this to target prominent individual decision-makers and influence or manipulate crowds.
They have also increasingly resorted to open lawfare— creating and maintaining junk legal accusations meanwhile waging similar intelligence warfare on the actors involved in the legal proceedings. This is a very sophisticated and complex production that taps a wide 6G network, affecting many people. It requires major news media complicity, but those actors perform this almost naturally.
The most striking aspect of these matrix attacks is the labeling of targets as far right, fringe, alternative, or radical. How can leftists in the Deep State establishment champion speaking truth to power while attacking the people who do it? It is a backward and self-defeating mentality and almost an insanity. It is a devilish twisting of meaning linguistically. When they label Alex Jones as far right, for example, they are saying that he is very correct on many points. Yet the common understanding is that he is on the way opposite end of the political spectrum from what is considered to be acceptable.
The far right, as it is labeled by the political establishment left, is basically everyone they don’t like. This is a combination of radically violent terrorists like suicide bomber fundamentalist Islam jihadists, actual Nazis practicing modern iterations of genocidal eugenics and violently oppressing their political opponents, and well-intentioned truthseekers and freedom-fighting commentators like Jones, Tate, and Brand.
We need to collectively be intelligent and perceiving enough to see the difference between those posing a real danger to civil society and those who are actually doing a most vital function of exposing a perspective on the present reality that the greediest, most corrupted establishment actors for some reason or another do not want people to see.
Precisely, it is foolhardy to allow the Deep State leftists to define the language we use to discuss the present political landscape. Jones, Tate, Brand, and their peers are not far right, radical, or violent. So what are they?
They are strong-willed, principled, courageous truthseekers. They are valiant, freedom-loving people who want only to live in a society where the government is honest and where the states reflect their constitution. If contemporary political actors were not so twistedly corrupt, these people would be speaking in a much different tone.
Speaking truth to power is the keystone of the open society, the civil society. That is why it is protected by the First Amendment in the US Constitution and why we must hold in check any who are outspoken or act in violence against it.
This is how to defeat the matrix attack. Do not let their targets stand alone.
As a caveat in closing, everyone says stupid things sometimes, and nobody is always correct about everything. We all have our own individual perspectives.
The post What Is a Matrix Attack and How To Stop It appeared first on Granite Grok.
What do you call one million fewer Pfederal employees? Better yet, how about cutting 75% of Pfederal public employees? I’m sure you’ll agree with Harris Rigby from Not the Bee when he says, “It’s a good start.”
Rigby is responding to recent remarks by Vivek Ramaswamy, who might just be throwing you-know-what at the wall to see what sticks with Republican primary voters. It might also be in response to Trump announcing last week that he’d make it a priority to end the US Department of Education and send all that money back to states and towns. The Left will cry and whine, but these are the same people demanding more money for teachers and students. Guess what? The entire Department of Education Budget could actually do some good if we spent it someplace else.
This is true of much of what the government does with the dollars it steals or prints (stealing it from someone who has not yet been born). So Ramaswamy is onto something, and he knows the base loves the idea. He’s not draining the swamp he’s plowing it under.
If someone works for you & you can’t fire them, they don’t work for you. You work for them. I refuse to be a puppet in the White House who plays that game: if I can’t work for the federal government as President for more than 8 years, neither will any of the federal bureaucrats… pic.twitter.com/i4qs9jwAlj
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) September 13, 2023
Populist rhetoric?
Sure, he can’t do this without getting through what will likely be a contentious Congress that relies on that bureaucratic wall of separation between them and their constituents to preserve their incumbency. If the bureaucracy isn’t available to make and enforce rules, Congress will have to do that, and they don’t want to take the heat for the policies they pass.
He was never going to win DC, so that’s not a problem. This is: Ramaswamy is 60 points behind Trump in Michigan, 43 back in South Carolina, 42 points back in Iowa, and 49 points back nationally (plus or minus 5). He’s in the top 5 in most polls, but he hasn’t been able to get past his initial rise from nothing to 5%, give or take.
If he’s running for a shot at VP or an inside-the-beltway gig, promising to fire 75% of the people with whom you may have to work might make for a contentious work environment.
Bold.
There is, of course, the question of whether he’s serious, which you are welcome to debate at your leisure.
The post What Do You Call One Million Fewer Federal Employees? appeared first on Granite Grok.
Many people who testified at the Sept 14 meeting of the state Board of Education against using the PragerU Cash Course as a Learn Everywhere option argued that it would provide a camel’s nose under the tent to conservative ideas that will indoctrinate students.
There are so many problems with this point of view.
First, many families in New Hampshire have conservative values. So why keep these ideas out of public schools? The opponents, mostly teachers and former teachers, are afraid that students might be exposed to ideas that don’t agree with their views. But they think it’s okay to have their politically “progressive” views in the classroom.
Second, they don’t realize that they themselves are indoctrinated to believe in public schools. Yes, “believe.” Make no mistake — they treat public schools as a religion. In this particular case, they didn’t evaluate the merits of the PragerU course; they decided from the start that the conservative head of the organization would only be interested in indoctrinating students to his “evil” way of thinking.
If they would instead put their energy into evaluating what’s being taught in the public schools and the associated dismal performance of students, something might actually improve. Instead, they’re willing to accept a terribly low level of achievement in public schools. All while holding private schools, school choice programs, and anything outside of public schools to a standard much higher than anything public schools could dream of reaching.
By the time they’re in high school, students should be capable of reading different points of view and deciding whether they make sense on their own merits. That’s called critical thinking.
The cure for indoctrination is literacy. If students can actually read and judge an idea on its own merits, then we don’t have to worry about exposing students to ideas we don’t agree with.
If you’ve ever wondered why schools aren’t able to teach kids to read, maybe it’s intentional. Maybe the people running the schools don’t want students to learn to read because that would undermine their longer-term goal of indoctrination.
The post Why Johnny Shouldn’t Read appeared first on Granite Grok.
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has become the popular blonde in both tech and cultural circles. It is writing papers for students, and could write blogs for websites, white papers, technical reports, just about anything, but should it?
A lot of the same people who think AI is the bee’s knees, the fox’s socks, or the cat’s pajamas (and aren’t worried about it turning into a conscious silicon life force like Sky Net) also lean toward those misnamed as environmentally conscious. They talk about anthropogenic warming and reducing carbon footprints. But those things can’t coexist – AI and lowering carbon footprints.
Artificial Intelligence requires a lot of power, which produces a lot of heat.
According to the US Energy Information Agency, a typical home consumes about 11 Mwh per year. So that one training session consumes about the same power as a thousand homes do in a year. Chat GPT requires continuous updating, because it will only be of value if it routinely and often scrapes the web for all the latest updates.
And then there are the actual users, the millions of oddball requests for enlightenment that the machine must endure every day. Running ChatGPT for a typical day requires about 1 GWh, which is about the same daily consumption as 33,000 homes. There is no reason to think that load will shrink, quite the opposite in fact.
Forget all the bad things individuals or governments could do with AI (or the good), which are as numerous as the human imagination and its weaknesses. If you are even remotely inclined to believe anything about decarbonization and Net Zero, then AI is a problem. It isn’t going to get less wasteful, and the current energy transition plan can’t even handle a fraction of our current needs.
Consider what Tesla is up to: The pioneering auto firm is building its own AI supercomputer called Dozo. Sounds like a pet but wow, what an appetite. Dozo went into action a few weeks ago, using 10,000 Nvidia H100 CPUs. Each of those can consume 700 watts, so over a day that pile o’ CPUs in Dozo’s tummy will consume, fully cranked, 168 Mwh per day, or enough power for about 5,500 homes for a day.
As those with the means (and likely every university research department with a desire for a private or specialized one of their own) create more AI systems and the competition “heats up” to have the better, faster thing, the power demands will rise exponentially and in parallel to the decline in the reliable resource necessary to power them.
What’s the plan?
You need 3.125 million solar panels (or 333 utility-scale wind turbines) to produce the 1 Gigawat ChatGPT is using every day, and that’s with limited adoption. Where do we put them, and then what about powering everything else?
The obvious solution is, once again, nuclear, but that’s not even on the table.
So, what’s the plan?
HT | WUWT (Great piece with a lot more about AI)
The post The Massive Energy Demands of A.I. are Bad for the Planet appeared first on Granite Grok.
In the past decade, the growth of the Internet and social media has brought with it a dramatic uptick in populist sentiment. Legacy institutions have declared war against populism, referring to its claims as “misinformation” or “disinformation” and calling on the government or government-adjacent actors (herein referred to as “the censors”) to clamp down on such claims as they spread across the Internet like wildfire. The censors rarely decline these opportunities to silence criticism, justifying the censorship as a matter of “national security.”
More than other Western nations, the United States champions freedom of speech. But it has frequently failed in its aspirations, beginning in 1798 with the Alien and Sedition Acts. There are countless examples since then of the US failing to adhere to its core value system, too many to recount in one brief article.
The Internet Lets Claims Spread Like WildfireBeginning with the Arab Spring in 2010, the extent to which social media could foster grassroots campaigns against perceived tyranny or injustice became increasingly apparent. Martin Gurri, a former CIA analyst, has commented on such phenomena at length in his book, The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millenium.
The nation-state correctly perceives in revolutions a threat to its existing foundations and deploys various methods to crush dissent. Western nations do not typically deploy the military against the masses or declare martial law. The US has taken a different but directionally similar approach, whereby law enforcement and intelligence agencies form cozy partnerships with private actors, such as social media platforms, financial institutions, and other digital intermediaries.
After the Great Recession, populist movements, like Occupy Wall Street on the Left and the Tea Party movement on the Right, garnered dramatic support across Western nations. As with most populist movements, a significant number of the activists embraced ideas branded as “conspiracy theories” by the established order. Rather than examining these allegations, the established order preferred to label the entire movement “crazy” or “conspiratorial.”
Since the movements began, there has been a significant convergence of Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party thought leaders. It is no coincidence that, despite their different politial affiliations, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and Michael Shellenberger often sound like Tucker Carlson, Dan Bongino, and Donald Trump when it comes to criticizing the government and legacy institutions. Each of these men has been personally targeted by the censorship industrial complex.
The Twitter Files Expose the Censorship RacketOn March 9, 2023, Michael Shellenberger delivered his testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which he titled “The Censorship Industrial Complex.” In sixty-eight pages, Michael Shellenberger outlines how “Americans taxpayers are unwittingly financing the growth and power of a censorship-industrial complex run by America’s scientific and technological elite.” He also discusses how the Twitter Files documents “have revealed a large and growing network of government agencies, academic institutions, and nongovernmental organizations that are actively censoring Americans citizens, often without their knowledge.”
In his testimony, Shellenberger aptly describes the censorship industrial complex as “a network of ideologically-aligned government, NGO, and academic institutions that discovered over the last few years the power of censorship to protect their own interests against the volatility and risks of the democratic process.” This contention strongly rebuts the ridiculous claim made by corporate media outlets that censorship is often necessary to “protect our democracy.” For legacy institutions, an apparent devotion to democracy is often little more than a cover for kleptocracy, something Fred Siegel touches on in The Revolt against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class.
On August 7, 2023, Michael Shellenberger’s Substack exposed the censorship racket between Facebook executives and the White House. The authors note that “newly released internal emails show that Facebook executives felt pressure to comply with White House demands in order to resolve a European Union ban on the social media company’s ability to transfer the data of European users to its servers in the United States.” In the past few years, the European Union has taken a heavy-handed regulatory approach toward US-based social media platforms. These platforms relied on the US to advocate for them during the negotiation of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. Without a clear, negotiated framework, these firms would feel significant financial pressure. As the authors of the Substack article note, “The series of events suggests a quid pro quo. Facebook would bow to White House requests for censorship in exchange for its help with the European Union.”
In the past decade, the censorship industrial complex has gained considerable momentum and institutional support. Elite support for censorship is so entrenched that the Harvard Kennedy School published a commentary in September 2022 titled, “Mis- and disinformation studies are too big to fail.” While Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has dimmed opportunities for the censorship industrial complex, there is still much to be done. In February 2021, an article in Time described a “shadow campaign” that manipulated the 2020 election in the legacy institutions’ preferred direction. If activists are to dismantle the censorship industrial complex, they must do more than expose the machinery—they must win elections.
Mitch Nemeth | Mises Wire
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Tomorrow, September 19th, is the crucial state rep special election.
If you or your friends or family live in Northwood or Nottingham, remind them to go and vote tomorrow!
Jim Guzofski, a selectman, turned in an almost perfect survey. Let’s make sure we elect the fighters we need to protect our rights!
Polling locations:
Nottingham Town Hall
139 Stage Rd, Nottingham, NH 03290
Northwood Town Hall
818 1st New Hampshire Turnpike
Northwood, NH 03261
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The United States refused to accept Soviet missiles in Cuba, and was ready to fight World War III (which nearly happened, and which the CIA wanted) in response. But Russia should have no say in the matter if the United States provides Ukraine with missiles that can reach hundreds of miles into Russia? Senator Tom Cotton is a LUNATIC … see tweet below.
What’s next if the long-range missiles like every other weapons-system we have already provided fails to win the proxy-war? Do we provide Ukraine nuclear weapons in the name of “saving lives”? What happens if Russia commits some or all of the more than quarter-million being held in reserve in response to this escalation? Intervention by NATO?
This is madness. Either Cotton and his UniParty ilk accept that they have failed and Ukraine is not going to be a puppet-State for Blackrock, Chase, etc., etc., etc., and make peace … or we are going to end up in a hot war with Russia.
I wrote to President Biden with my colleagues and urged him to provide Ukraine with the missiles its military needs to win. Not doing so will only prolong the war and cost lives. pic.twitter.com/MBhG2H7Oa7
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) September 16, 2023
The post Senator Tom Cotton … A Lunatic Willing To Risk World War III appeared first on Granite Grok.
The Competitiveness Coalition, in coordination with The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, found in a poll of 800 likely Republican primary voters, released Sept. 5, that these voters want the federal government to focus on inflation, the cost of living, and the economy, and not get distracted by attacking American tech companies.
On New Hampshire-specific issues, the poll shows huge support among Republican primary voters for ending the Interest & Dividends Tax, and little support for raising electricity costs to fight climate change.
The key findings of the poll include:
“It’s clear that Republican voters in the First In The Nation state oppose the misguided Biden antitrust agenda and believe it will exacerbate the challenges of Bidenomics,” said Scott Brown, a New Hampshire resident, former U.S. Senator and Ambassador and chair of the Competitiveness Coalition. “The candidates competing in the Granite State would be wise to take heed and advocate for policies that will bring economic relief rather than additional pain. We have far too much regulation on our innovators already, and breaking up successful American success stories to the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party is the exact wrong approach.”
Andrew Cline, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, added that the poll reinforces that New Hampshire voters are looking for basic good governance, not more government activism. “The message from Republican primary voters in New Hampshire is simple. They’d prefer to restrain the federal government, not American businesses,” Cline said.
Additionally, the poll, which was conducted after the first Republican presidential debate, shows Donald Trump with a significant lead on the Republican presidential primary ballot. The former President currently garners 47% on the primary ballot, giving him a more than 30-point lead over his closest challengers (Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, both at 10%). Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy both sit at 8%, with no other candidate receiving more than 5% of the vote.
On behalf of the Competitiveness Coalition and The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, NMB Research conducted a statewide survey of N=800 likely Republican presidential primary voters in New Hampshire. The survey was conducted August 25-31, 2023, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46%. All surveys were conducted by live interviewers, with 78% of interviews conducted with cell phone respondents (N=623) and 22% of interviews conducted with landline respondents (N=177).
Launched in April 2022, the Competitiveness Coalition is a first-of-its-kind group educating the public and advocating for policies that put consumers first while fostering innovation and attracting new investment. For more information, please visit competitivenesscoalition.com. Members of the press can contact the coalition at press@competitivenesscoalition.com. The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy is New Hampshire’s free-market think tank.
Andrew Cline | Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy
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Democratic politicians and the liberal media made the first day of school all about welcoming migrant children. That’s sheer propaganda. Parents deserve the truth. The migrant surge is a disaster for their kids.
The surge will worsen our education system’s twin failures: plunging math and reading scores and the failure to ensure newly arriving kids learn English so they can succeed, too.
Kimberly Carchipulla, who came from Ecuador and has been living at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan with her son, brought him to school on Thursday and said through a translator, “What I want for him is a future.”
That’s what all parents want. But when migrant children are added to the class, the rest of the kids get less of their teacher’s attention. A teacher will have to focus on the needy newcomers who speak no English and may not have been to school before. For the rest, it could be a year of lost opportunities.
Public school students’ reading and math scores have been falling for decades, hitting a new low this year, according to National Assessment of Educational Progress tests. One reason is the soaring number of non-English-speaking students, up from only 9% of public school students in 1980 to nearly 25% now. (RELATED: BETSY MCCAUGHEY: Democrats Are Trashing The Constitution Just To Get Trump)
Until the 1960s, children arriving in this country were put in public schools without interpreters and bilingual teachers. Children were taught in one language — English. No confusion. The current approach is a disaster for migrants and for the rest of the kids in class with them. The data don’t lie.
Now, typically, a bilingual teacher and teaching assistants try to teach — math, science, art, any subject — in two or more languages, speaking English at times but also answering questions in Spanish and other languages. It’s chaos. Everyone learns less.
Jean Skorapa, superintendent for a rural school district in Maine, says the 67 migrant children enrolling in her district “are a tremendous, tremendous benefit”: “They make our community diverse and more well-rounded.” All true. But that’s happy talk.
What about the impact on learning? Geralde Gabeau, executive director of the Immigrant Family Services Institute in Massachusetts, explains that migrant children will be placed “in a first-grade class with other students who already know their ABCs, who already know how to read, so those children are going to suffer.”
New York City has disastrously low reading scores. The influx of non-English-speaking students makes the challenge greater.
European countries are also grappling with waves of migrants. IZA, a European think tank, reports that “a high share of immigrant children in schools leads to lower test scores of native children.” Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development researchers report similar findings.
It’s not about race or ethnicity. It’s about too many languages spoken in the classroom.
Politicians would rather pander than address it. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont says, “From the bottom of my heart, I want to make sure this is the most welcoming state in the country.” Yet state education statistics show that the more “high-needs” kids in the class, including non-English-speaking students, the lower the reading and math scores for the others.
The current system is lose-lose, hurting migrant kids as well. They’re given too many opportunities not to learn English. Lamont, for example, is expanding translation services for parents and interpreters for students. That’s misguided. Families need to be prodded to learn English, not linger in a language ghetto.
Some school districts in New York State are experimenting with temporarily schooling newcomers separately, offering them months of intensive language preparation to succeed as English-speaking students. Good idea.
But the United Nations insists children have a “right” to be educated in their native language. Nonsense. It dooms them to low-paying jobs. (RELATED: STEPHANIE HOLDEN SMITH: It’s Time To Get America’s Largest Teachers Union Out Of Politics)
The vast majority of non-English-speaking students — 97%, according to one report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform — lack English proficiency when they graduate from U.S. high schools. That’s the definition of failure.
Last week, mothers gathered outside Park Avenue Elementary School in Port Chester, New York, to pick up their kids. Few spoke English. Some mothers had attended the same school decades earlier. Yet they can’t speak English. Tragic.
Tell the pols to stop romanticizing this lose-lose disaster and start fixing it.
This is America.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
Betsy McCaughey | Daily Caller News Service
COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline, and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
The post The Migrant Surge Is Coming To The Classroom appeared first on Granite Grok.
They’re flying so thick and fast it is amazing.
Take heart – there will be both a Wednesday and Friday Meme Post. Last week’s Friday Edition.
Remember, ridicule and mockery are effective weapons:
Note: This is a pure-meme post. I’m weighing a return to some kind of link post, but I’ve got to balance that with my time. I had thought that my interspersing thoughts and links amongst the memes would be a good compromise, but apparently, it was not an appreciated format.
Now, let the mockery and mayhem begin.
*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***
>>>>>=====<<<<<
Pick of the post:
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Palate Cleansers:
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Come back Wednesday for another edition. Same Meme Time. Same Meme channel.
The post MONDAY MEMES appeared first on Granite Grok.
Given what we now know about the alleged “cure” for COVID, can we call the 1.8 Billion tax dollars the US Government spent pimping their vaccines overseas material support of global terrorism? That seems like a reasonable charge to me.
According to a report released on Thursday by USAID, the U.S. government spent $1.8 billion on promoting global COVID vaccination, and partnered with 120 different countries to donate 688 million COVID vaccination doses after launching “Global Vax” in December 2021. …
Prior to launching the Global Vax program in December 2021, the U.S. had already sent millions of doses of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines to South Africa and Niger.
Aren’t South Africa and Niger in the midst of violent political turmoil? Niger had a military coup and could kick the US military out of the country, and South Africa has amped up terrorizing its citizens (mostly white ones) since covid. Coincidence? Probably, but it makes for amusing speculation. And you have to guess that at some point, some overseas nation will sue our Pfederal government or Pfizer’s marketing department (doing business as the US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, NIAID, and the FDA) for fraud, negligence, and perhaps even murder.
Not everyone is on the take from Big Pharma, and most of the nations of the world could use a few billion in a court settlement even if Pfizer and the Pfeds don’t have to admit guilt. That is, after all, one of the Left’s favorite backdoor money-laundering schemes. The right nation at the right time could decide to milk US taxpayers, and the political left ruining America will be like, have a few billion dollars. No, it’s okay. The people we’ll be taxing to pay for this haven’t been born yet. They can’t complain. And sorry for the misunderstanding. When we said effective, we didn’t say how.
It is safe to say that it is effective at making recipients more susceptible to flu if it doesn’t kill you. Do you need any boosters, the bivalent, or the new thing we’ve just decided is safe and effective after we said so?
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Here we go again. Another big corporation … Dove, which is owned by an even bigger corporation, Unilever, which is a foreign corporation … is ramming WOKE down our throats. Specifically, Dove has hired an obese BLM-grifter to push “FAT LIBERATION.” From the CDC:
Not stated is that actual COVID deaths primarily occurred in two populations … the very elderly and the obese.
Of course, Dove (Unilever) is ALSO promoting BLM and it’s anti-White racism by using an obese BLM-grifter as the face of “fat liberation.” Worth saying again: DOVE (Unilever) IS PROMOTING ANTI-WHITE RACISM by using a BLM-grifter as the face of “fat liberation.”
Some background on the obese BLM-grifter:
Dove hit by growing BOYCOTT for hiring BLM activist Zyahna Bryant who ruined white student Morgan Bettinger's life #BoycottDove https://t.co/kaOfBAdS0B
— Melissa Tate (@TheRightMelissa) September 15, 2023
Many people have now begun boycotting Dove after the soap brand hired a Black Lives Matter activist notorious for destroying a white student's life over a remark she later admitted she may have 'misheard.' and never actually made. Zyahna Bryant is the new face of Dove. pic.twitter.com/9meKqzglnx
— Niall Boylan (@Niall_Boylan) September 15, 2023
#BoycottDove Trends After Brand Hires Anti-White Racist To Be 'Fat Acceptance Ambassador'https://t.co/vlxDeBH8sh
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) September 15, 2023
The post Dove Hires BLM-Grifter To Promote “Fat Liberation” appeared first on Granite Grok.
New York City is full of Demcorats. Millions of them. The city is also swelling from the influx of illegal border crossers doing business as ‘migrants,’ their word, not mine. The cost of that preferred policy has come home to roost with the progressive chickens, and the stress fractures are evident everywhere.
Mayor Adams has been losing his s!!t on a regular basis. Local job creators are jumping ship. And now, some of the more socialist socialists in New York are proposing an additional wealth tax to pay the freight on the border jumpers.
The New York Post reported the news Saturday and quoted state Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn), who said:
We should increase taxes because it’s economically just policy to offset all costs for our state to function. I’d say that even if our city and state hadn’t seen an increase in migrants seeking asylum, this moment makes it all the more important for the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes.
Meanwhile, state Sen. Jabari Brisport (D-Brooklyn) said, “We’re still organizing to tax the rich through the same revenue-raising bills we’ve been fighting for for years.”
But taxation is theft, and everyone getting taxed knows it, so the results, were this a workable solution, are predictable. If the state or NYC tries to milk the remaining investment class members to offset the burdens of bad border policy, more of them will join the many who have already fled.
New York has been bleeding wealth for years, but the pandemic created a new reality. People with the means could still do their thing from someplace else, and do. This created the housing crunch/booms in lots of places where you don’t typically find urban Leties. Rural America.
The two obvious problems are that these well-heeled migrants embrace the beauty, safety, and splendor of non-city living only to demand and vote for politicians who wrecked the place they had to leave. The other is that those of limited means are trapped and left holding a bag that still comes with an exponentially increasing price tag they cannot afford. But this is not an insurmountable problem for those who remain.
Stop electing Democrats. Just stop. Not long after (at least a few years), you may discover that people of means will want to live where you live, invest, create jobs, enjoy the declining crime rate, a better quality of life, and something approaching prosperity on an urban footprint.
You will have to suffer the indignity of having more money in you pocket and your rights and freedoms returned to you, but if you think you can handle that, the rewards are worth the risk.
The post How About a New Tax to Pay for All These New Illegals Alienating Urban City Dwellers appeared first on Granite Grok.
Take a break from worrying about the absurd presidential election choice that looms over us between two geriatric candidates — Joe Biden, who proposes to finish term two at 86, and Donald Trump, who would leave office at 82. We need to envision a contest that makes more sense.
I commend to you the Gavin Newsom vs. Ron DeSantis ballot. It is the election template we need in 2024 to determine the fate of the republic. Newsom/DeSantis presents us with unobstructed, stark ideological and political alternatives. What could be a better test case to determine the type of leadership Americans really want?
The matchup removes the negatives of the dominant personas, along with the age/cognition issue and the swampy fog of legal dramas, derangement syndrome, family corruption, pending verdicts, etc. Election 2024 becomes simplistic in a way we need now: Blue/Red, East/West, Left/Right, Progressive/Conservative . . . in a word, binary.
Such a contest, once resolved, would tell us everything we need to know about whatever shared desires we have for the future of the U.S. This new ballot disrupts. It could excise some of the rancor and hysteria of partisanship. It can bring us to a referendum on — remember this word? — governing.
Two states, two track recordsTo begin with, we are talking about two governors of large, influential states: California (the country’s most populous with 39 million people) and Florida (3rd most populous with 22.2 million). Both were first elected in 2018 and easily reelected in 2022. These parallel track records can help us decide which candidate is best qualified to govern all 50 states. What a novel thought! (Bonus Question: What did Joe Biden ever accomplish in 36 years in the Senate?)
These two states represent 18.3 percent of the U.S. population between them. A candidate’s leadership style in a regional crisis like a hurricane or raging wildfires actually becomes germane to the electoral conversation. You can’t just show up two weeks later and shake a few hands.
With our proposed matchup, we have ample evidence to consider. Their records are unabashedly out there. Both have long wanted a place on the national stage. Neither can be accused of a soft touch.
DeSantis can explain to the left why his forays into education policy (e.g., eliminating Critical Race Theory) and his war on “woke” politics (e.g. challenging environmental, social and governance policies) make sense for all of America.
Newsom can answer for his state’s tax burden and the condition of its cities (he was twice elected mayor of San Francisco, after all). He can then explain why hostility to business has motivated California corporations — like Tesla, Chevron and Charles Schwab — to migrate to red states.
They can enlighten us on their disparate approaches to COVID mandates. DeSantis boasts that he saved livelihoods from job-killing lockdowns and vaccine mandates. Newsom quickly signed COVID-19 executive orders, mandating first-in-the-nation school masking and staff vaccinations. Seems there’s a difference here.
The two can square off on their radically different policy stances on a topic like immigration. Newsom, from his first day, proudly pronounced California “a sanctuary for all who seek it.” This has unfolded not only for immigrants but for abortion migrants and parents of transgender-identifying youth. DeSantis, on the other hand, flew migrants to the blue northern enclave of Martha’s Vineyard, an approach derided by Dems as a “political stunt”.
The tale of the tape
There are other intriguing possibilities in this title bout. Their résumés actually tell us something about how they lead. Just a sec … how many times was Joe Biden elected senator? Oh yeah, seven. Every six years from 1972 to 2008. We recall that he represented Delaware, population one million (only 5 states are smaller in population).
Neither is old. Newsom will be 58 on election day, DeSantis, 46. Fair enough. We needn’t fear them falling asleep at the podium. Their wives bring strategic advantages. Casey DeSantis is a former news anchor; Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a Hollywood actress.
They are family men. DeSantis has three children under the age of eight. Newsom has four, presumably photogenic, offspring. After all he is in California. A first family in the White House with little kids sounds good … no more lurking Hunter with his gangster friends and no more cocaine in the vestibule. Big plus for America!
Both can get ready for a general election quickly. In California, 7.7 million people voted for Newsom in 2022, netting him 61.9 percent of the vote. He survived a 2021 recall by 23 points. He was lieutenant governor for eight years. He comes with giant name recognition in a blue state with a vast pool of big donors. DeSantis is already running, so he has a small advantage. He has name recognition, an organization and early money.
Newsom can instantly eclipse Kamala Harris, who never faced strong Republican opposition until 2020 as Biden’s running mate. Her election to the Senate in 2016 lacked a Republican challenger. The two top Democrat candidates faced off. She was well connected, so she won. You may recall that she is not good at garnering support in primaries.
There are some divergences, each of which brings strong appeal to either candidate’s base. For example, DeSantis was a Navy man and spent time in Afghanistan. He served as a reserve officer until 2019. On the West Coast, Newsom was in business founding wineries and retail outlets. He entered local politics in San Francisco, then was mayor of the city for seven years.
DeSantis is a Yaley and Harvard Law grad, which he claims only made him more conservative. Newsom has a B.S. in political science from Santa Clara University. Both played college baseball. (Newsom, pitcher; DeSantis, outfield and big hitter). The metaphor is intriguing.
DeSantis served in Congress three terms before running for governor. There, he signed a 2013 “No Climate Tax Pledge.” Newsom has banned sales of gasoline-powered vehicles in his state by 2035.
Consider a new ballot
There you have some highlights of the new options in a realigned political universe. There’s talk of a debate. Could be fun! Incidentally, 1876 was the only time in U.S. history that two sitting governors squared off for the presidency. That election – Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio vs. Samuel J. Tilden of New York – produced an electoral deadlock that was ultimately decided in the Senate, igniting fireworks rivaling Bush v. Gore in 2000.
If Biden/Trump repeats, it will be all about them. With these governor replacements, we can have a real debate about how we want to be governed—California-style or Florida-style.
Their politics are not significantly different from those of the current party frontrunners. (Newsom said recently: “I’m all in for President Biden”). But they are different people and can bring a refreshing change of discourse — a conversation about the future.
Bill Porter, a freelance writer, is a former business developer and proposal writer for the IT industry.
Bill Porter | Daily Caller News Service
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline, and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
The post Why Newsom Versus DeSantis Is The 2024 Matchup We Need appeared first on Granite Grok.
Fear has a name in the Democratic Party, and that name is Cornel West.
The former Harvard professor is one of the nation’s most prominent progressive intellectuals, and he’s seeking the Green Party nomination for president.
If he gets it, polls say West will take enough votes from Joe Biden to hand the White House to the GOP.
West notched only 2% in a Wall Street Journal poll late last month, but that was still enough to tip a three-way contest, giving Donald Trump a one-point lead in a race between him, West, and Biden.
Two Emerson polls showed the same: West spoils the election for Biden.
Democrats get a sick sense of deja vu from this. (RELATED: LARRY ELDER: The Establishment Doesn’t Want Me On The Debate Stage. Here’s Why)
It’s a replay of what they think happened in 2000 when another renowned progressive, Ralph Nader, was the Green nominee and cost Al Gore victory in November.
Although Nader received fewer than 3 million votes — just 2.74% of ballots cast nationwide — the 97,488 he got in Florida was far more than the 537-vote margin by which Gore ultimately lost the state and with it the presidency.
Biden’s winning margins in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin in 2020 were all well below 2%.
Despite its name, the Democratic Party is not altogether comfortable with democracy.
Its leaders fear giving voters more choices, even though Republicans also lose votes to third-party contenders, notably Libertarians.
If the Democrats are more at risk from defections next year — despite the odds that Republicans will renominate Trump — that’s a damning verdict on Biden’s party from one of its core constituencies.
That constituency backed Bernie Sanders in 2016 and made him the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 2020, until Biden resurrected his candidacy with a win in South Carolina that he owed to crucial support from Black leaders.
The Biden and Clinton campaigns both used race against Sanders, insinuating his focus on class was insufficiently anti-racist.
That won’t work against Cornel West; his appeal to progressives is also largely economic, but West is Black.
He’s an outspoken Christian socialist, just as Sanders was proud to call himself a democratic socialist.
Establishment Democrats can’t say they weren’t warned for decades that the left was dissatisfied with the likes of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Occupy Wall Street protests in the middle of the Obama years sent the signal loud and clear. So did the Bernie insurgencies within the party and the Nader challenge from outside.
Republicans faced a similar problem with their ideological base, which was more populist and socially conservative than the GOP elite.
Having ignored insurgencies by Pat Buchanan in the 1990s and the surprisingly strong primary showings by candidates like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum — who adopted populist messages in 2008 and 2012 — the Republican establishment succumbed to Trump in 2016 and now watches in helpless dismay as he marches to next year’s nomination.
Yet as traumatic as the Trump experience has been for Republicans, it’s also been clarifying; today the party recognizes that it must be populist, whether or not that means being wholly Trumpian.
The Democrats are in a worse position; they haven’t been able to resolve their class conflicts, and identity politics only papers over the cracks.
The result is a self-conflicted party, radical in its support for transgender ideology and always tempted to demonize and defund police, yet at the same time too timid to satisfy, or even placate, the hard economic left.
Just how fragile Biden’s coalition is can be seen from the fact that West isn’t the only threat to its unity; another comes from the opposite direction.
As terrified as Democrats are of what West represents, they also fear a third-party or independent challenge from the center.
That might come from the “No Labels” movement, which has recently held discussions with Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Trump critic, about plans for November 2024.
Why wouldn’t a Republican like Cassidy running against the Republican nominee (assuming that’s Trump) do more damage to the Republican ticket than to Biden?
Because the GOP has greater unity at the popular level, despite the rift between its old elite and Trump.
Democrats, on the other hand, have a unified elite and a fragmented electorate.
Even Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have rushed to defend Biden against the peril posed by West.
But West speaks for progressives by the hundreds of thousands or millions when he says the Democrats are “beyond redemption.” (RELATED: MICHAEL COZZI: The Party Of ‘Inclusivity’ Is Excluding RFK Jr.)
Negative partisanship, voting against the party you dislike more, is a mighty force in presidential elections. Yet it isn’t all-powerful.
If Biden can’t give even the traditional left a reason to vote for him, and not simply against Trump, when he loses next year, the fault will be all his own — not Cornel West’s.
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com
Daniel McCarthy | Daily Caller News Service
COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline, and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
The post This Third Party Candidate Is Good News For The GOP appeared first on Granite Grok.
As presented in earlier installments, student performance in reading all over the United States, including New Hampshire and Vermont, has been poor for decades, with over half of students reading below grade level.
In this article, we look at how the Killington Elementary School (KES) in Vermont handled the COVID shutdowns and how it teaches reading.
Mary Guggenberger has been KES principal for eight years. KES is a Pre-K-6 school that has 118 students, including 23 in Pre-K. Like many village schools, it has one class per grade and varying numbers of students in each class. Last year, there were eight students in 2nd grade and 21 students in 3rd grade.
According to Principal Guggenberger, student academic achievement at KES has gone up and down over the last eight years. She said that the pandemic was challenging, though student reading scores were pretty stable. In fact, the school’s overall performance on the state SBAC reading test in 2021 (64% were proficient) was much better than its 2017 scores (48% were proficient). The 2022 scores were not available on the VT Agency of Education website. The agency did not respond to our request for that data.
Despite rising test scores, Principal Guggenberger felt that the pandemic had a significant impact on individual student achievement. She said that students currently in grades 4-6 have gaps because grades K-3 are so essential to reading. She said that, according to the science of reading, after 3rd grade, it’s harder to master reading.
The “science of reading” is based on decades of research about how students become proficient in reading and writing and why some of them have difficulty. Using brain scans and eye-tracking technology, researchers found that good readers process virtually every letter in every word as they read. Some children catch on quickly. Some, however, need to be taught how to do it. Learning to read is not as natural as learning to talk.
To learn about the science of reading, Guggenberger, and KES’s teachers went through intensive LETRS training last year — Language Essentials for Teaching Reading and Spelling. LETRS helps teachers understand the science of reading in order to help them teach better. For example, a systematic reading program for kids every day is imperative to develop proficient readers, stated Guggenberger. She said that the LETRS training has been amazing and eye-opening.
Like many schools in the Eagle Times circulation area, KES has been using the Fountas & Pinnell “cueing” curriculum. KES started using it eight years ago. According to Guggenberger, the research KES did during their LETRS training showed them that F&P left too much room for guessing what words were, including making predictions based on pictures and not sounding them out.
The idea behind Cueing Theory is that it’s easier for children to learn to read if they start with whole stories and whole sentences instead of trying to read individual words. Teachers cover up words in a story and tell students to look at the picture, look at the first letter, and think of a word that makes sense. The theory says that by practicing this approach, children can figure out how to read on their own. Reading Recovery and Lucy Caulkins are some other programs that use Cueing Theory.
Research indicates that this isn’t how good readers learn to read but, rather, how poor readers try to compensate for not being able to read. The science of reading research is summarized in an engaging podcast series called “Sold a Story,” produced by Emily Hanford, an investigative education journalist at American Public Media.
KES piloted different programs last year and is now moving forward with a curriculum called EL Education. They also use FUNdations for grades K-3, which follows the science of reading. The school will use Hegarty’s Decodable Readers as an intervention to replace the F&P leveled readers.
For benchmark assessments, which KES uses three times a year, it will use DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) and Forefront (for math) to gauge skills in grades K-2, which can also be used for older students if warranted, and STAR for grades 3-6 for reading and math. They also use PAST (Phonological Awareness Screening Test) and PNOA (Primary Number and Operations Assessment) to delve deeper.
Principal Guggenberger says that after KES improves its reading instruction, they will look into changing its approach to math. They’ve been using Investigations for 20 years and have supplemented it with Bridges Interventions recently. But she said that maybe simply teaching reading well will make a difference.
KES is already seeing improvement in reading, and Guggenberger is hopeful that state test scores will go up this coming year. She said that they’re always looking at data to determine the best way they can meet student needs and figure out how to get all teachers on board to support each other. “The new curriculum is a big change for us, on top of coming off COVID. I’m excited,” she said.
This story is part of a series where we show how the pandemic shutdowns in Vermont and New Hampshire affected student performance on state and national standardized tests. Prior installments in this series were published in the Eagle Times on September 9, 12, and 14.
Next, we’ll take a look at test scores and reading instruction at Washington Elementary School in Washington, NH.
The post How the Shutdown Affected Student Performance: Killington VT Improved (part 4 of 8) appeared first on Granite Grok.