With our First in The Nation Primary a few months away, inundated as we are with campaign events for, and emails from, various candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, this writer, initially a Ramaswamy supporter, thought it might be useful to examine some of the statements and positions taken by one of the so-called “leading” candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy.

Unfortunately, the result has been a laundry list of reasons NOT to vote for him, as follows:

It seems that he lacks any meaningful understanding of the Mideast- equating Israel with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman & Indonesia. He says that he wants to cut previously promised aid to Israel and make sure that the surrounding Arab countries (and Indonesia) are given the same level of US foreign aid. But he fails to recognize that Israel was promised the level of US aid it receives to induce it to give up to Egypt the Sinai Peninsula and its revenue-producing oil wells. And make no mistake, the Islamic and highly anti-Semitic regimes of Saudi Arabia (the country of origin of most of the 9-11 terrorists), Qatar, Oman, and Indonesia are not real friends of the US and should not be “equated” in any way with the only US true friend in the Mideast, the State of Israel.

Ramaswamy’s insipid attempt to walk back his policy statement on Israel’s aid in an interview was so weak as to be pitiful.

It is a mystery why he would, in essence, provide Communist China (our greatest adversary in the world today) with a timetable under which it could try to take over Taiwan without US interference. Some might call this an unforced error on his part. It is completely unnecessary and actually quite dangerous.

Why would a serious candidate, the youngest in the current field, turn his back on young voters aged 18 to 24 by proposing to raise the voting age to 25? There is no realistic chance that the voting age will be increased to 25. Again, a completely unforced error indicative of a lack of thought.

In the same vein, why would a serious candidate propose requiring the passage of a citizenship exam for younger voters in order to qualify to vote? While it might be a good idea for anyone to have to pass such an exam in order to be eligible to vote, it is not going to happen, whether for young people or anyone else. Another unforced error. And such an exam requirement might actually be unconstitutional, sort of like a poll tax.

 

The post My Laundry List of Reasons to NOT Vote for Vivek Ramaswamy appeared first on Granite Grok.

For any intelligent, clear-thinking US citizen, the very definition of an authoritarian society is along the lines of hell on Earth. In the history of the country, citizens have waged an incessant war to make certain that their children do not have to live in such a way— that the republic is kept.

Tens of thousands have migrated to the US to escape from the horrors of socialism.

This is not a partisan political statement. Whether or not you are one party in the USA or another does not change the reality of how a government functions. A republic is characterized by a parliamentary or legislative assembly governing affairs, as opposed to an autocratic or monarchial system where there is only one individual, a specific family, or a small group of oligarchs. The distinction to recognize is not by political affiliation but by knowledge and understanding of civics— regrettably, this field has been thrown under the bus. Present generations in many states lack an understanding of how to engage positively in society.

Hayek, in the early 1940s, wrote Road to Serfdom, a pivotal text in terms of economic and political understanding. In it, he argues that socialist systems inevitably gravitate towards increasingly totalitarian decisions unless the society is intentionally and directly steered back towards free market, democratic norms. Everything is subverted by the powers that be in their attempts to enrich themselves and maintain their power. These ideas are very relevant today.

Look no further than Deep Blue cities in the USA— these are places where one-party rule has been permitted to sustain for decades. Neither citizens nor the federal government have provided the necessary oversight to check a seemingly deliberate slide into a socialist hell. San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City have reached such a state of tyranny that basic necessities at CVS are kept under lock and key. This is no joke.

US citizens in these jurisdictions might argue it is necessary for this reason or that. It doesn’t matter what the reason is. The reality is as it is. This is no way to live. The drug epidemic in the rotting urban cores of these cities is similarly extreme. Needles litter the sidewalk, and intoxicated homeless vagrants stumble around in a zombified stupor. But who are the zombies— the addicts or the citizens who have allowed this reality to be manifested? The everyday citizens distracted by their screens and social circles must try very hard to remain ignorant of the increasing decay and rot.

The old adage of boiling frogs is terrifyingly accurate. The lived experience of US citizens has increasingly worsened, but at such a pace and in such a way that most Americans do not take action to stop it. They don’t see how bad it actually is and do not think of solutions. They are happy to think that there are no solutions at all. When turning off the fire is as simple as collectively organizing to revitalize municipal legislative bodies, taking the reigns of power away from the stupifying forces of the Democrat Party’s ideologues, citizens have largely balked in favor of attempting to carry on chasing dollars, swiping at their screens, or everything but engaging with their governments. The water is boiling and the frogs comment that it’s nice the place has been turned into a hot spring. They are unable to see, for whatever reason, the reality around them.

Socialists’ final grab for power before they are destroyed is always the lurch toward killing off all opposition. When it becomes apparent that they have lost public support and the people who are not in power turn against them, the answer is war— first attempts to conscript civilians into fighting in faraway battles where they are out of the way; then civil war to attempt to remove them from the picture entirely. The socialists lose because there are too few of them and enough of everyone else to ensure others endure to the next generation of leadership.

The workaround, again, is collective action. The caveat to remember is that these socialists are not simply a faction of US citizens. It is a global clique— a cabal— who have abused political angst to pull levers of power. The Comintern— the Communist International. A loosely affiliated group of similarly minded folks in New York, Geneva, Nairobi, Beijing, London, and a handful of other cities. It is, in many respects, forces outside the USA that are acting to install incompetent or intellectually subverted individuals in government positions.

That is why it is of paramount importance that in the USA, citizens work together to identify and restrict individuals associated with the modern Comintern. Those communists, as we can call them, do not have US citizens’ interests at heart. They only want to enrich themselves and their networks, typically at the expense of everyone else. They want to destroy everyone else’s prosperity so that they can prosper.

The modern Comintern represents a US national security threat. It must be exposed, and its members clearly shown for what they are on the public stage. There are better ways to manage progress so that everyone can prosper, not just that group of looters, warmongers, and robber barons.

 

The post A Call to Unmask the Modern Comintern appeared first on Granite Grok.

Not very long after the famous 10/13/21 executive council arrests, I was spending lots of time at the state house and met Clegg in person for the first time. I was in the dining room, and he walked in from the kitchen, wearing the orange lobbyist nametag.

I recognized him from his picture(s) before reading his nametag and greeted him. I was already angry at Wheeler.

Non-constituents of Wheeler might not know that the 2020 executive council primary was extremely contentious and perhaps used up more trees in daily junk mail than that of many high offices. Perhaps it was partly due to Wheeler having some kind of Kinko-like home office print shop business. (citation needed) Steve Negron’s campaign office was local, and while spending much volunteer time there preparing mailers, I asked him about that race and why it was the way it was. I remember his answer having to do with being two gun club guys who disagree with each other, but I never explored the matter further. I just wanted Pignatelli gone and preferably deported to her native NJ along with her influential lawyer husband. Wheeler won the primary, and it would be another year before the executive council would become a squatter in my mind.

Back to Clegg, my first conversation with him was a complaint against Wheeler, which he handled gracefully and stuck with gun stuff. I didn’t want to talk about gun stuff as the nuts and bolts of it were beyond my level of understanding. I wanted to talk about the arrests, the governor, the dirty money, and other related stuff. Nurse Terese, the most famous arrest victim, was with me the day we met, and it became a 3-way talk as soon as she exited the kitchen and joined us. Then I became a passive listener for the rest, and he gave her his card.

Many, many times following that day, I would run into him at the state house, usually in the kitchen and usually within the hour from its opening time. Oftentimes, he would already have a seat-mate at what I later named “Clegg’s Favorite Table,” the one closest to the kitchen entrance. Tammy, the senate clerk, and various others I had met for the first time while they were dining with him. A generous guy, Clegg sometimes paid for my Diet Coke when I was in the chow line behind him. I learned all kinds of stuff talking to him, and this message could get very long, so I will cherry-pick a few highlights.

I learned about senate staffers, how their pay is decided, and other related minutia. 2 enemy camp minions, one of them being Ava Hawkes, had entered the kitchen and exchanged warm pleasantries with Clegg. When they were out of earshot, I said, “Wasn’t that one Sharon’s secretary last year?” He paid her much praise and gave me a summary of how she was lured away with higher pay(wouldn’t any worker want that?), followed by how such dynamics worked. This was one of many times I walked away from the state house, knowing more than when I had entered hours earlier. I always learned something new with each state house visit, usually from Clegg or gift shop, tour guide, and history guru Virginia.

Being a construction/building industry and OPLC expert that he was, we have had many discussions about related content and bills that were of particular interest to me. Having combed through the thousand LSRs that were not yet in complete bill number form, I was regularly pestering Senator Gray’s secretary for developing details and venting to Clegg. He was a wealth of knowledge and brought to my attention an important bill, sponsored by my own senator, that I had overlooked! He quickly gave me the committee hearing date and encouraged me to speak, which I did. Clegg was “the closer,” to use bullpen language, at that hearing.

And lastly, for the sake of keeping this from getting too long, I will add to what many signers of his obituary guest book have said. He always had something nice to say about everyone, including people that I despise! I will share a few examples because you can’t make this stuff up.

I complained about the mayor, how much he sucks, and how Laurie Ortolano has been treated, among other complaints. He replied, saying, “Donchess is actually a pleasant and friendly guy in a social venue when he’s not under attack,” to which I retorted that he’s not my friend and I didn’t vote for him.(even though he had no opponent in 2019)

I don’t remember if it was Twitley or RPK, but it was one of the looney lawyer Rebeccas in the Senate. She walked by while we were at his favorite table, and I made a snarky yet founded comment, and he replied with something nice to say about her. It was something like her being agreeable on something and, therefore, easy to work with. The message I received from Clegg was that he was happy to have found some common ground. I will concede that RPK introduced a budget amendment that I supported, which was not successful.

Another time, I was complaining about senior House swamp rat Jeff Goley. Clegg called him trustworthy and I asked how that adjective can be attached to a Democrat. His response was that he never had to follow up when Goley said he would do something or not do something; it was reliable, and therefore, the trust had been earned. I still couldn’t resist the urge to point out that he and D’Allesandro have taken turns over the years, um, decades, in sponsoring the “boat tax.”

And one last example is when Lucy Weber walked by in the kitchen. I said, “I wish Walpole would replace that annoying swamp rat ringleader.” Clegg said, “Believe it or not, she’s an amazingly kind woman,” to which I said that’s fine for her family and friends, but I’m more interested in her voting record, which I despise.

So, to summarize the “seeing ‘good’ in everyone” trait, Clegg was a master practitioner. Since I have only known him personally(meaning just talking to him at the state house and nothing beyond that) for less than two years, what I have to say is hardly qualified compared to the squadrons of people, both current or former elected officials, and private citizens alike, I wanted to share my thoughts with the Grok readership.

 

The post A Private Citizen’s View of the Late Mr. Clegg appeared first on Granite Grok.

Maine is a beautiful state, but as it leans increasingly left (politically) before long, “pretty” might be the only thing it has going. That, and they don’t appear to suffer from a lot of natural disasters (again, assuming increased Democrat control of government does not qualify).

 

According to an article I was reading in MaineBiz, it was recently revealed that the popular site ‘WalletHub’ had created a list from 1-50 of states in the USA that are the safest from natural disasters.

The information looked at things like tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and even earthquakes. And what they found is that Maine is actually a pretty safe place to be when avoiding a natural disaster. How safe, you might be asking? Well, Maine came in at the very bottom. Yup, number 50. Maine is THE safest place to be if you’re looking to not be un-alived by natural disasters. ..

 

Safe from climate chaos but not the progressive policy based upon it, needed or not. Recent legislatures have gone from pale to dark blue, followed by the usual cavalcade of Democrat-Party-Priority nonsense. Talk about Maine-caused disasters. Declining gun rights and parental rights, rising budgets and spending, an effort to socialize the energy sector, dancing with the EV devil, anti-religious liberty, and the rise of the Rainbow Guard.

They even harassed doctors over how they treat COVID patients.

But Maine is a pretty state.

And, since you’ll likely wonder,

 

When it comes to the rest of the New England states, they did pretty well on the list, too. Remember, this is a list where being number 1 (Mississippi) isn’t good, but being dead-last (Maine) totally is.

Connecticut came in at number 34, Massachusetts at 41, Rhode Island at 42, Vermont checked in at 43 and New Hampshire came in a couple spots below Maine at 48.

New Hampshire has clung bitterly to at least some semblance of its state motto, but it is a tenuous hold. If you read Ed Mosca, it’s all over but the funeral dirge. I’m a bit more optimistic, but he’s not wrong. Things are precarious, but hey, at least it’s pretty here, too, and we’re 48 out of 50 on the list of places that get the worst natural disasters.

Here’s to hoping we cling to a Republican Governor who vetoes the worst of the left’s totalitarian itches after Mr. Sununu retires from the post.

And yes, I have my doubts about the legislature, but 2024 is a presidential year, and it would be a welcome natural disaster for Demcorats if they paid a political price down-ticket for what Biden and Harris – and everyone pulling their strings – have done to America since 2020.

 

HT | WCYY

The post WalletHub Ranked Maine Dead Last for Climate Disasters – I Guess They Didn’t Consider the Rising Tide of Democrat Control appeared first on Granite Grok.

Editor: Given the current arc of Fall 2023 pandemic-response rhetoric, it seemed suitable to revisit this March 2022 article and report from The Rutherford Institute.

 

Coinciding with the two-year anniversary of the COVID-19 outbreak, The Rutherford Institute has issued an in-depth follow-up report on the impact of the nation’s response to the pandemic on civil liberties.

The 2022 report, “The Right to Be Let Alone: How to Safeguard Your Freedoms in the Face of the Government’s COVID-19 Power Grabs,” posits that the government’s response to the pandemic has become a massively intrusive, coercive and authoritarian assault on the right of individual sovereignty over one’s life, self and private property. As such, concludes John W. Whitehead, these COVID-19 mandates have become the new battleground in the government’s tug-of-war over bodily autonomy and individual sovereignty.

“Right now, COVID-19 vaccines are the magic ticket for gaining access to the “privileges” of communal life,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Having already conditioned the population to the idea that being part of society is a privilege and not a right, such access could easily be predicated on social credit scores, the worthiness of one’s political views, or the extent to which one is willing to comply with the government’s dictates, no matter what they might be.”

“The Right to Be Let Alone: How to Safeguard Your Freedoms in the Face of the Government’s COVID-19 Power Grabs” examines the far-reaching ramifications of how the pandemic has impacted the legal, moral and political debate over who gets to decide what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials. As the report warns, “This merely pushes us one step further down that road towards a total control society in which the government in collusion with Corporate America gets to decide who is ‘worthy’ of being allowed to take part in society.”

 

The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.

The post The Right to Be Let Alone: How to Safeguard Your Freedoms in the Face of the Government’s COVID-19 Power Grabs appeared first on Granite Grok.

The menses are blood and cellular debris from the uterus. Menstruation is the process of discharging that debris. You need one to have the other and a uterus for both. But according to Google, anyone can do it or have it (menstruation), which is silly, but that’s the world we live in now, right?

 

The answer comes from a page on TransHub, an Australian website dedicated to “all trans and gender diverse (TGD) people in [New South Wales], our loved ones, allies and health providers.” TransHub is an initiative of the Australian pro-LGBT “health” group ACON.

As still recognized by the National Library of Medicine, the menstrual cycle is a natural biological process unique to women, as part of the female body’s preparation for potential pregnancy (which is also unique to women). The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ online informational resources on menstruation are (for the moment, at least), still hosted with the HHS Office on Women’s Health.

 

“For the moment,” but does it matter? Google doesn’t present those sites near the top when queried. You have to hunt them down yourself, which implies you know the truth or are not interested in the lie. But how many people will do that, especially as you delve down into the younger ages? None, which is why Google does the dance it does. The reconfiguring of the collective consciousness. And while it makes no sense, the same brains that won’t dig deep are also spending obscene amounts of time on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

If you’d like to save the future, unplug those two. Then, turn off the TV news regardless of the device.

It’s not enough. The public schools are captured by the same insanity that tells us, “Having a period is not a feminine thing, and people of all genders menstruate, including non-binary people, agender people and even plenty of men! Menstruation doesn’t change anything about your gender, it’s just a thing that some bodies do.”

They’ve taken a topic generally considered private – unsuitable for most public conversations – and tied it into the notion that your sexual identity is the most important thing about you. A thing you can adjust like “volume” on an audio device, which is an apt comparison. The further from normal they go, the louder and more obnoxious they get.

And it’s a dead end becasue age will deprive you of whatever reality you create for yourself, just like it will menstruation, which ends after menopause.

Do we have to wait forty years before Google claims men (or anyone) can go through menopause (even though they can’t), or is it something we have to embrace today (but won’t)?

How far do you have to search to find the story about the man who had genital mutilation surgery and is in so much pain he wants to kill himself (but Canada won’t let him)? A sad tale that tells us how transplanting a uterus into a man will likely end. The surgeons and hospital get buckets of money, and the guy who needed therapy, not surgery, will need both if the procedure didn’t kill them.

And I’m not saying you can’t pretend if that’s what works for you or your friend group, but if you were not born a woman, haven’t you appropriated more than their mannerisms, dress, and culture? Aren’t there consequences to be paid to the angry secular gods?

If you don’t want to wait, might I suggest discussing how men can menstruate to a woman while they are menstruating and see how it goes?

 

 

HT | LifesiteNews

The post Google is Trying to Put the ‘Men’ In Menstruate. appeared first on Granite Grok.

When the first Republican primary debate ended people knew things were never going to be the same again. The exact time it happened cannot be pinpointed but the onstage career politicians had figured it out. Something dynamic had happened.

We want to thank Jim Betti for this Op-Ed. If you have an Op-Ed or LTE
you would like us to consider, please submit it to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.

With his fresh energy and youth, Vivek Ramaswamy announced his presence to the political world, and people liked what they saw. Sensing that not taking Ramaswamy’s candidacy seriously was a huge mistake, the Republican establishment candidates lashed out.

Emboldened by his 2015 takedown of Sen. Rubio, former Governor Christie tried to use his New Jersey crassness to take out the newcomer, but Vivek was no scripted Senator from Florida, and he easily parried the ill-conceived onslaught. Leaving Christie looking small {no easy feat} and irrelevant.

Former Governor Haley gave it her best shot at arguing for the endless funding of the Ukraine war. Failing to mention why massive funds {arguably enough money to solve America’s healthcare crisis and border crisis} have been spent {borrowed against our grandchildren’s future} without America’s vital interests ever being defined.

Instead of proposing answers to America’s many Biden-induced problems former Vice President Pence attacked Ramaswamy as a rank amateur.  Pence came off as just another Republican Bush-like candidate, and folks could sense if elected Pence did not have what it takes to rein in the lawless progressive and the deep state bad actors.

The smartest of the establishment politicians was Governor Ron DeSantis. He knew enough to stay out of the fray, get his well-rehearsed talking points said, and was the only establishment candidate to leave the debate in a better position than he arrived.

Donald Trump has approximately 50% of the Republican primary vote and Ramaswamy around 8-10%. If anything happened to Donald Trump his support would overwhelmingly transition to Ramaswamy and Vivek would become the odds-on favorite to be the Republican Presidential nominee. Vivek Ramaswamy already has captured the respect of the MAGA voters, but he also has the capacity to broaden the Republican tent; energizing a new generation of conservative youth and win over the middle-class suburbanites who have abandoned the Republican party. And if Vivek is the nominee, he just might deliver the landslide victory needed to right America’s floundering ship. The Deep State, Republican/Democrat power grabbers along with a corrupt media would lose a lot of their influence.

Imagine a brilliant Raegan-like president with traditional values and youthful ideas, powered by the energy and the knowledge to make them happen. America would finally turn the page on the baby boomer generation and the transition 2025 White House would be reminiscent of John F. Kennedy’s Camelot.

It is said you can tell when you are over the target because the antiaircraft flak gets intense.

Since the debate, the knives have come out. The WSJ editors have figured out that Vivek Ramaswamy is not going to be their protégé and have penned multiple negative editorials. Liz Peek, George Will, and the usual suspects, all piled on. As if on cue Trump antagonist Karl Rove joined the establishment chorus. The mainstream media has sensed their biggest nightmare, that Vivek Ramaswamy is a baggage-free young version of Donald Trump, and they too are in attack mode.

Vivek Ramaswamy is just getting started. The 10 Commandments of Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign are resonating. 1. God is real, 2. There are only two genders, 3. Human prosperity requires fossil fuels, 4. Reverse racism is racism, 5. An open is no border, 6. Parents determine the education of their children, 7. The nuclear family is the greatest form of government ever known to man, 8. Capitalism lifts people from poverty, 9. There are three branches of government, not four, (the deep state and media), 10. The United States Constitution is the greatest guarantee of freedom in history.

Vivek absorbs information/experiences, learns from them, and assimilates the data. He will get stronger as the primary season moves on and become sharpened to a fine edge.

Soon he will need to contrast himself with Donald Trump. Although President Trump’s term was the most successful {think results not personality} since Ronald Reagan there were several issues that he failed to resolve {every other modern President has also failed}. Our national debt is destroying our grandchildren’s future and President Trump was a big spender {Biden is much worse}. Healthcare expenditures are out of control and Trump failed to repeal and replace Obamacare. If Vivek Ramaswamy steps up to these issues, the country will follow, and he could overtake Trump. He is the candidate with the brains, energy, and courage to take on these issues, succeed where all the others failed, and give future generations desperately needed hope.

Donald Trump’s presidency had many similarities to the Old Testament’s Moses. Trump’s 2016 election was only a bit less of a miracle than Moses parting the Red Sea and Trump did lead the American people back toward greatness. Moses made a few mistakes and God determined he would see the promised land, but not enter it. Perhaps a flawed Donald Trump is destined for the same fate.

If Vivek Ramaswamy plays his cards right, he can take the baton from Donald J. Trump and use his “Ten Commandments” as a guide to unite the nation and lead America back into the promised land of prosperity. A land of common decency, structured under the United States Constitution, with equal justice for all.

America so desperately needs real leadership and Vivek Ramaswamy checks all the boxes!

The post Vivek Ramaswamy Vaults the Polls to National Prominence appeared first on Granite Grok.

They say Bill Gates isn’t into beer, but he is a big fan of social engineering, viruses, farmland, lab-based meat, burying trees, and being a billionaire—oh, and “updates.” So the question of the day is, what inspired a nearly 100 million investment in Bud Light beleaguered Anheuser Busch?

 

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust purchased 1.7 million shares of Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, worth around $95 million, according to a recent regulatory filing and TipRanks. Reports indicate that Mr. Gates purchased the shares in August, or months after a boycott was initiated against Bud Light after it decided to engage in a promotional campaign with a transgender activist.

 

The stock has been up and down and is about ten dollars lower per share today than when Dylan Mulvaney’s “endorsement” began tanking the brand. Ten bucks more times 1.7 million shares are still couch cushion money to Gates, but even Bill’s couches need more “loose change.” The problem, however, is that the late March peak was a peak, not the rolling average price of the stock. Today, it is at 56+/-, but a year ago, it was at 44+/-. It hasn’t managed to get anywhere near its pre-pandemic peak in 2019 of just over 100.00 per share, and the recovery climb -what of it there was – was interrupted when Mulvaney’s face canned the brand.

Is interest from the Gate Foundation good or bad for Bud? The Street has a cheeky bit about the buy titled, “Bud Light has a new celebrity fan it might not want.”

 

Anheuser-Busch (BUD) has a new supporter, and the beer producer, which has been trying to run away from politics, might not be thrilled at who it is.

Microsoft (MSFT) founder Bill Gates has become a villain to the right-wing community, which mistrusts his global charity efforts. He was accused of all sorts of villainy when it came to covid vaccines including using them as a way to implant tracking chips in people’s bodies.  …

A spokeperson for Cascade Asset Management, which manages the investments of Gate’s foundation, sent TheStreet a statement on the purchase after this article was originally published.

“As Chief Investment Officer of Cascade Asset Management Company, Michael Larson oversees the investment decisions for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. Bill Gates did not purchase shares of Anheuser-Busch InBev nor did he participate in the investment decision of the Trust. Cascade, which manages the assets of the Trust, sees value in BUD at recent prices,” he shared.

 

So it wasn’t Bill? Well, guess what? It wasn’t BUD either. Most of Anheuser Busch had no idea (allegedly) about the move to use Mulvaney to broaden Bud Light’s brand, which we now know meant kill it. And no one knew the Foundation was going to buy in with the close to 100 million investment, but is his name (or his Foundation’s name) going to push more people away?

No one who thinks what Bill Gates does matters will start drinking Bud or Bud Light. At the same time, how many Bud (family) drinkers will be put off by Bill’s new association? Aren’t they likely to be the same people who bailed on Bud ‘cuz Mulvaney?

The Gates move could inspire other investors to drop a dime or two on the stock, which might bring it back a bit, but absent rising real-world sales (and value), it would be an empty gesture and a bad investment. Not that Bill (sorry, his Foundation) couldn’t dump the shares in another gesture called profit-taking if the price bumps a bit. They could use the extra dough to fund more of those lab-leaked variants we wrote about yesterday.

 

 

The post Is Bud Light About to Have A Bill Gates Moment? appeared first on Granite Grok.

A big part of what has turned America into a creeping Police State is the acquiescence/participation of the “private sector.” Here we have a “private company” complying with … rather than challenging … a subpoena. Now all the System needs to do is find an Obama/Biden judge and whatever you thought was safe and secure belongs to the System … NOT TO YOU. You will own nothing, and be happy.

And the Regime continues to engage in political persecutions of Trump-voters, which the NH-NeverTrump LOSERS myopically and self-servingly claim is part of a conspiracy to make Trump the GOP nominee. NO, LOSERS, it’s an undeniable sign that America is a creeping Police State:

Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison for "seditious conspiracy." He wasn't even in D.C. on "jAnUaRy SiXtH."

For context, the average prison length for

• rape: <14 yrs
• human trafficking: <10 ½ yrs
• child trafficking: 16 yrs
• murder: 17½ yrs

— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) September 6, 2023

The post You Are Living In A Police State … Part (Who Knows At This Point) appeared first on Granite Grok.

I must, unfortunately, take a moment away from drafting important legislation (which will be objectively beneficial to my constituents) to address an incident of information warfare attempting to find a chink in my armor.

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

At the very least, this will be useful in helping you to understand how these operations work. This happens to be a very good example to use, as it was such an inept attempt.

Anyone who follows my political career or writing knows that I’m controversial – not merely for the sake of controversy, but because the good, correct paths we must forge through this madness have been rendered “controversial” by extremist leveraging of the Overton Window that has now normalized truly radical leftist ideology. The rampant indoctrination, sterilization, and mutilation of minors are about as good of an example as I can reckon on the spot.

That said, I’ve experienced surprisingly few (but very non-zero) attempts at public cancellation and struggle sessions. Perhaps this is because the opposition knows their ideology is indefensible when dealt with using correct terminology, and the moral authority clarity of language confers. So, here, we will see a burgeoning attempt to “cancel” me based on entirely magically, alchemically constructed fiction.

There is a significant corruption scandal plaguing the ranks of the NH House regarding allegations of fraud. None of it has anything to do with me, of course, and I do, as a Representative, have some responsibility to hold accountable violations of the public trust within our ranks. But none of that has anything to do with what you’re about to read.

You see, the way the leftist political warfare machine operates is along mass-line narratives. A corruption scandal provides a good opportunity to weaponize a mass line along such a narrative and attempt to cleverly direct such a weapon at anyone considered a useful target. I am, in fact, a useful target. I am an effective opponent to the leftist machine – as well as their GOPe allies – in my strategies, legislation, and my own political warfare on behalf of the good people I represent.

So, despite there being no link between myself and any real or contrived corruption scandal, there is an attempt to make me a target of it. This begins with complicit media reaching out for “comment.” In this particular case, a self-described “columnist” for the Conway Daily Sun, Quddus Snyder. Several days ago, this gentleman reached out with the following message:

“Hello Michael, my name is Quddus Z. Snyder of Eaton. I am a columnist for the Sun and in a forthcoming column I intend to call for Rep. Sanborn’s full resignation from the House. Will you go on the record as supporting a call for her resignation? Cheers, Q”

Now, I absolutely hate empty politician speak, and I genuinely dislike saying “no comment” unless I legitimately have no comment to offer. I think my constituents deserve better. To that end, less than 30 minutes after receiving the above inquiry, I replied to Mr. Snyder the following:

“I have not yet had time to review the circumstances and hear arguments for or against – my understanding is the parties have publicly expressed innocence. The nature of the allegations are certainly alarming. If they are, in fact, true then it would seem appropriate to resign or face action in the House.

Best,
Mike Belcher”

You will note that I answered the only question posed fully – I offered my belief that such a crime would be cause for resignation or even expulsion from the House should it prove true. I also suggested that I do not yet know the truth of the matter – we certainly do not live in a time in which all allegations can be simply assumed true.

There is no better answer to the question posed than one of the sort I gave. It would be irresponsible of me as a lawmaker to simply assume guilt or innocence without having any relevant and specific background knowledge. But none of that matters. The point of the question wasn’t a good faith attempt to inform my constituency of my thoughts – it was a setup to begin the enforcement of a mass-line narrative (a technique developed by Mao Zedong). Despite my answer being delivered within 30 minutes of the question – 4:56 pm and 4:27 pm, respectively – I received no further inquiries or responses until 8:20 am the next morning, as below:

“I reckon the people deserve to know whether you find it acceptable that (a) Rep. Sanborn has regulatory oversight power over her husband’s casino, and (b) whether you believe it is acceptable to fraudulently procure government loans and use taxpayer dollars to buy Porsches and Ferraris? Your silence on these questions has been noted and on behalf of your constituents, you’ll be invited to answer.”

Well, that’s quite the response. Here, I was accused of refusing to answer two questions the “columnist” never actually asked me. It is further implied that I am complicit in some sort of fraud and that he somehow has special knowledge of the guilt or innocence of the parties involved (none of which are me). Despite my holistic and measured response being given in a timely manner, he notes my “silence” and appears to threaten to hold me to account to “answer” on behalf of my “constituents.” What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is the makings of a hit piece.

So, the obvious question turns to, “Who is Quddus Z. Snyder?” A quick search yields numerous academic papers published, all appearing to center on something he calls “Liberal systemic theory,” which appears to be a method of analyzing geopolitics through the lens of neo-Marxist (neo-Kantian, more specifically) “socialization” at the state level. According to the website I browsed, he achieved no citations of his collected academic publications. He did, however, rate a 3.1 on RateMyProfessor.com, where he was described as “hippy-ish,” and the general sentiment was that of an easy professor to pass with a high grade.

Moving on, however, it gets quite interesting.

The Concord Monitor and Conway Daily Sun report an incident of internet infamy wherein Mr. Snyder lewdly bared his backside towards Republicans in 2020. Further reports of Mr. Snyder seeking to supplant the American flag with the Pride flag on Independence Day, all the while shaming his local private citizens as a “columnist” with the Sun for flying their own flags on their private property, that he doesn’t agree with should give some idea of his ideological leanings.

The final tell should be the fact that he wrote at least one column in 2022 expressly supporting Democrats – specifically, my opposition – while borderline slandering the Republicans in the race. So, who is Mr. Snyder? He’s an ex-academic of little-to-no note and a sloppy, small-time Progressive political warfare operator who bit off more than he can chew this time.

There is nothing I could find on the Conway Daily Sun website acknowledging its severely tilted, Progressive bent and activism. There’s little more damaging to this State or this nation than the capture of media institutions by neo-Marxists parading as “unbiased” and “neutral.” The fact that a left-wing zealot with a recent history of public lewd behavior towards his political opposition is employed as a “columnist” for our local “press” is a disgrace to the profession and a disservice to the public. My constituents deserve better than Mr. Snyder’s drivel masquerading as “fact.”

I’ll now return to drafting legislation attempting to prevent this disastrous Biden regime from conscripting our young men (or women) to service to fight in an incipient hot war with Russia, to empower our Sheriffs to protect our citizens from the overreaches of the FBI and DOJ, fixing education by removing circular and subjective pseudoscience, and much more.

When they come for you, don’t back down – expose them.

 

 

The post When They Come for You, Don’t Back Down – Expose Them appeared first on Granite Grok.

When Congress comes back from recess, it will talk about money.  DC is going to take up funding the federal government before the October 1st deadline.  Let’s be clear: there is no spending fight that’s going to happen.  Both sides want as much spending as they think will play well on the campaign trail.

What we are going to watch is an open display of the policy-setting priorities of the Parties.  Congress has delegated the power of the purse to the executive branch agencies for all but “discretionary spending”.

Understand what you are looking at.  The Biden administration is pushing a radical Leftist, unsustainable economic agenda.  It is dropping America’s borders.  It is weaponizing federal agencies and departments to go after YOU both literally and from a policy perspective.

Part of the American dream is the promise of economic opportunity.  The American economy is made possible by the broad assurance that economic freedom will be protected.  If you work and save, you will eventually come to be able to afford to purchase a home, choose what car you want to drive, and build some savings; you may acquire security for a rainy day.

Make no mistake about it; “Bidenomics” is that rainy day. It’s washing away the American dream for far too many Americans with the intention that it will never return.  Since Biden came to power, his regressive economic agenda has delivered decline and failure, not the economic “relief” it campaigned on.

America was sold a bill of goods.  Think about it.  Wages are stagnant, costs are up, and economic uncertainty is high. We know the federal government has money for Ukraine, but is it taking care of American states?  The economy is just not good right now.

Federal spending is out of control.  It has accelerated post the 2020 election.  What is called the “covid era” spending was excessive and wasteful.  Much of it should be repealed and rescinded.

This spending created inflationary pressure which is eating away at fixed incomes, and punishing the 61% of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck.  This is an intentional erosion of the American dream.  Do you want the American dream for your family, children, and grandchildren?

Conservatives understand we must get inflation under control.  The first thing this requires is that we control spending.  Current spending levels are excessive spending levels.

It does not matter who started the overspending.  It matters little why they did it.  We know pumping money into the economy has devalued the dollar.  This must be first stopped and then reversed.  Our nation depends on it.

That is why Congress must cut spending to fiscal year 2019 levels.  Congress must do this to rein in the size and scope of Government.  This discussion about spending priorities needs to be seen in the context of the D.C. failures.

It’s ignorant for Congress to expect Americans to support more spending for failing programs.  There are real issues remaining unaddressed.  The border is open; it is under the control of Mexican cartels. If you are going to tax Americans, the Americans you tax deserve a solution to national security in exchange for their tax dollars.

Since January 2020, over 7 million illegal migrants have crossed our nation’s borders from over 160 countries. That’s over 2 million per year.  In the last month families illegally crossing the border reached an all-time high.  The issue is; we are losing control of the rate of influx.  It is showing in our cities.

There was a recent story of a human smuggler with ties to ISIS being caught smuggling Uzbeks into the United States. The smuggler was arrested.  Those he snuck in have not been located.  It is unclear how many have entered the country illegally.

It is only logical to expect there are many, not just one of these human smuggling operations.  Our border has collapsed.  The result is needless national security risks.  Disease, drugs, and terror are just places to start in listing the concerns our open border creates.

Conservatives must insist the Left’s infiltration and weaponization of federal departments/agencies come to an end.   Biden’s DOD has circumvented Congress.  It is illegally starting to use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions for service members.  They are providing the travel and lodging necessary to acquire one.

Recent reporting indicates a quarter of active-duty service members suffer from food insecurity. We can afford abortions but only at the expense of food?

A reason for this is the lack of sufficient pay to cover necessary expenses.  Instead of paying people of our military a living wage to defend our freedoms, Biden priority is terminating the lives of future Americans in the womb.  Budgets are about priority setting.

No federal spending plan should be passed unless and until border security provisions are included.  No federal spending plan should be passed unless and until the situation with abortion and military pay is resolved.  No federal spending plan should be passed unless and until we eliminate the deficit and begin to pay down our debt.

These things can only be done by limiting the size and scope of the federal government which requires cessation of weaponization of our government agencies against the citizenry.   Wake up America.  It is slipping away to the totalitarian Left.

The post What Is Congress Doing on the Budget? appeared first on Granite Grok.

It’s the deposits. Bankers never used to worry about the money customers left in their banks. When deposited, the money was lent out while depositors could come and get their money anytime if it was a demand deposit.

Thus, the depositor and the borrower had the use of the same money at the same time. Murray Rothbard called it fraud.

Now it’s 2023 and Scott Hildenbrand, the chief balance sheet strategist at Piper Sandler, tells Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast,

And so if you had told me, Joe, or Tracy five years ago, you had me on here and you said, “There’s a bank and all they’re going to do is buy treasuries and all of their deposits are in checking accounts. And by the way, they’re going to fail,” I would’ve laughed at both of you. I wouldn’t have come back. I would have been like, “You all are crazy.”

Rothbard wasn’t so crazy after all.

Hildenbrand was on Odd Lots to explain how tough things are for small community banks. Jamie Dimon’s JPMorgan has all sorts of revenue streams, but the community bank has to take deposits, lend them out, and live on the difference in interest rates. Silicon Valley Bank was “not like the WAMU days or not It’s a Wonderful Life. It was three hours and $42 billion. That’s what happened.”

Hildenbrand made a point that’s never mentioned: banks don’t make money lending; banks make money because “they don’t pay at market rates on the deposit side.” Banks don’t typically pay anything on checking account deposits. That is where banks earn their spread. It didn’t matter because it used to be that bank customers were very loyal. Bankers could count on that checking account money staying in place. Not so much anymore. Money moves fast for two reasons according to Hildenbrand: technology and demographics.

Back in the day customers were very loyal but had very little trust. Today, “there’s a ton of trust. They’ll move money around on phones. They don’t even know the name of the bank they’re banking at,” Hildenbrand said. “They’ll move it so quickly. But there’s very little loyalty. And therein lies the difference in why we’re struggling with how to determine how to manage and hedge a balance sheet from a deposit perspective.”

Bankers didn’t realize the effects on deposits of technology, social media, and demographic changes from a liquidity perspective in a higher rate environment. A decade or two ago a community bank had almost half of its deposits in CDs. And, as Hildebrand says, “That gave banks time.” Now bankers won’t get that kind of time due to demographics.

Hildebrand interviews lots of young people for Piper Sandler who come to New York to learn about community banking. As smart as these young people are, he quipped, “I always have a question they can’t answer. Do you know what a CD is? And they’ve never heard of it, whether it was banking or music.” A certificate of deposit (CD) is a savings product that earns interest on a lump sum for a fixed period of time. The money must remain untouched for the entirety of their term or penalties or lost interest may apply. As an incentive for lost liquidity, CDs usually have higher interest rates than savings accounts.

Nowadays, “people want CD rates with money market flexibility and operational flexibility,” Hildebrand told Alloway and Weisenthal. “We have no contractual liabilities on most bank balance sheets anymore.”

Since the spring spate of regional bank failures, only one bank has failed—the $139 million Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, Kansas. But more failures and consolidations are coming. Hildebrand said half the banks in the country are trading at less than book value (assets-liabilities/shares). That means investors don’t trust the loan and investment values on bank balance sheets. He believes from the four thousand banks the United States has now, the number of banks will shrink to two hundred over the next ten to fifteen years.

Rothbard wrote in Making Economic Sense, “The banking system, in short, is a house of cards.” The house of fraud will have fewer cards going forward.

 

 

Douglas French | Mises Wire

Douglas French is President Emeritus of the Mises Institute, author of Early Speculative Bubbles & Increases in the Money Supply, and author of Walk Away: The Rise and Fall of the Home-Ownership Myth. He received his master’s degree in economics from UNLV, studying under both Professor Murray Rothbard and Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Mises Wire We heartily encourage reprints and shares of Mises Wire articles. If you wish to reproduce an article in your blog, magazine, radio show, newspaper column, classroom material, textbook, discussion group, website, or any other venue, please do so. The original publication source must be included in an appropriate place.

The post Is the US Banking System a House of Cards Waiting to Topple? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Fox News headline reads, “New Hampshire Democrats defy Biden, DNC ultimatum to ditch first-in-nation primary: ’embarrassing situation.” What it should say is, “NH Dems watch from the sidelines as Republicans leave them no other option.”

That’s the real-world meat and potatoes of the article. The DNC blessed Biden’s primary Calendar, but no one in the Granite State has any control over that, so they are on board with ignoring their political matters – even though it will cost them half of their delegates to the convention.

What, you may ask, does accepting that fate sound like?

 

“Granite Staters appreciate and respect the responsibility of the over 100-year tradition of the First in the Nation New Hampshire primary. They understand New Hampshire has a special place in the history of American politics and their place in it. We look forward to continuing that tradition here next year and in the years to come,” longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley said this summer.

 

This from the party that fixed not one but two primary seasons to ensure Bernie Sanders wasn’t the nominee, and perhaps every other before it, for all we know. I mean, other than putting on a show, is there truly any point?

To their credit, NH Dems were vocal in opposition to Biden’s proposed changes, mostly becasue it abrogates any relevance they might have politically, but it’s their own damn fault.

 

 

As I also noted here,

 

Instead of building an inclusive and diverse bench to elevate candidates of color, [NH Dems] went all white all day and night. At the same time, those “racist” Republicans were nominating people of color almost every cycle, while Democrats were defending pasty white incumbents even when polling suggested it was time for a change on the Democrat side.

Dems accused Republicans of white guilt when they nominated not-so-white candidates, but we don’t have that. They do, and they still couldn’t bring themselves to walk the talk. They chose power and politics over rhetoric which, ironically, has been our position with regard to their white guilt narrative all along.

 

But it’s not just New Hampshire that is telling Biden and the DNC to stuff it.

 

South Carolina Democrats are on board, but Palmetto State Republicans will hold their primary later in February. Nevada Democrats are game, but the Silver State’s GOP — after an unsuccessful legal push to opt out of a Feb. 6 primary — is aiming to hold a Republican presidential caucus two days later. And Georgia’s Republican secretary of state this spring set the state’s primary date for May 12 of next year, rebuffing the DNC.

Iowa, which was left out of the DNC’s early voting states calendar, is still looking for ways to remain the leadoff contest without violating party rules.

 

 

It’s almost as if these places think this is a Republic, and they can do whatever they damn well please? Oh, look, it is!

As for the NH Dems, it’s cute how they are acting like stalwart defenders of New Hampshire’s over one-hundred-year tradition, but it is only becasue they have no choice. Nothing irks a progressive more than tradition and history, and riding them of it – all of it – is at the top of every bucket list next to getting rid of us.

 

The post New Hampshire Dems – We Won’t Be Following the DNC Primary Schedule ‘cuz Reasons … appeared first on Granite Grok.

This is my testimony to the Nashua Public Library Trustees’ September meeting.

After the June Trustees’ meeting, I went to the children’s room to see what was on display, and I found the book “Grandad’s Pride” featured prominently for Pride month.

Related: The Nashua Library is Not Welcoming to Religious Families

I checked it out, and when I got home, I was horrified to find that this picture book, which is targeted to kids aged 3 to 6, has an overtly sexual image of a partially naked man in leather bondage gear. The image portrays a man wearing a leather codpiece molded tightly around his crotch, along with garters running down his thighs, thigh-high boots, and a dog collar. Bondage gear is worn by people who practice BDSM sexual fetishes. BDSM means bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism.

I can’t imagine what could be more inappropriate to be in a book for small children or what the author or publisher was thinking by putting this image in the book and why the children’s librarian selected this book for the collection and then put it on display for small, impressionable children to look at. It’s really, really inappropriate and sick.

This is especially concerning since former state rep Stacie Laughton was recently charged with soliciting and distributing pornographic images of local toddlers, and the authorities are investigating whether he had sexual contact with those toddlers. Children need to be protected from sexual deviants and not exposed to them in innocent-looking picture books in the children’s room.

 

The post Book Promoted by Nashua Library to Small Kids Features Bondage Gear appeared first on Granite Grok.

Some new research from two Japanese scientists has discovered, or at least posits (using science), “That the Omicron variants are formed by a completely new mechanism that cannot be explained by previous biology.” What they mean is that they do not appear to have occurred naturally.

 

To determine the order of mutations leading to the formation of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants, we compared the sequences of 129 Omicron BA.1-related, 141 BA.1.1-related, and 122 BA.2-related isolates, and attempted to clarify the evolutionary processes of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants, including the order of mutations leading to their formation and the occurrence of homologous recombination. As a result, we concluded that the formation of a part of Omicron isolates BA.1, BA.1.1, and BA.2 was not the product of genome evolution, as is commonly observed in nature, ..

 

So, the data (The Science!) suggests that those COVID-19 variants that keep hiking to the top of media headline mountain whenever the Public Health Industrial Complex needs them appear lab-generated, just like the original.

Mark Styen has  more pull quotes and his top-shelf snarky insight here, and I don’t want to detract from the science he’s already explored, but (as a quick aside) the phrase from which I can’t seem to achieve escape velocity is “a completely new mechanism that cannot be explained by previous biology.”

You mean like transwomen. A mental projection of self – you decide if or how unhealthy – that can’t be explained by previous biology because biology has nothing to do with it. No amount of hormone treatments or surgery will alter the underlying genetic truth. If you were born a man, you’d die one, no matter how many times you replace the carpet or the drapes. That’s the science. But politically driven culture (with apologies to Mr. Breitbart, may he rest in peace) is forcing biology, much like it has geology, climate, and others, to ignore the truth.

That, I suspect, is what the Japanese scientists cited by Mr. Steyn (neither of whom are transwomen) have done. While they claim that the data shows them that the variants could not have occurred naturally, (“The fact that most of these mutations occurred without synonymous mutations (Fig. 2) suggests that none of these mutations arose as a result of trial-and-error random mutations in nature,”) they feel it necessary to ask, “is there any reason to artificially create these mutants, which are unlikely to have occurred naturally, given the current SARS-CoV-2 epidemic?”

Is there? Any reason?

If you ask the transwoman party, the answer could be upcoming elections, flagging booster uptake, creeping liberty, the depopulation agenda, or becasue they can. And yes, they can. It is widely accepted that the original SARS-CoV2-WIV was created in Wuhan and escaped or was released deliberately. So why is it unlikely that the same process was not applied to variants that appear to rise in prevalence when needed most?

Becasue,

 

It is inimical to virus research to consider that artificially synthesized viruses were deliberately spread throughout the world… Furthermore, we do not conclude that these viruses were artificially synthesized and distributed based on malicious intent.

 

For what other purpose were they synthesized? Better yet, why or how do these artificially synthesized variants of the killer COVID virus (created for non-malicious purposes) keep escaping from the lab?

Good questions.  Mark Steyn has an even better one.

 

As I mentioned the other day, when this thing got going, my initial assumption was that, as with SARS, the Chinese were lying to the world. It then became plain that, in fact, the Americans – Fauci and the public-health bureaucracy – were lying to the world, about taxpayer-funded “gain-of-function” research offshored via a CIA front to Wuhan. Among the more curious details in the new Japanese paper is this:

The following results presented in this study may support the hypothesis that the Omicron variants may have been artificially synthesized rather than naturally occurring:

1) the presence of Omicron variant-associated isolates with one mutation site being Wuhan-type;

2) the almost complete absence of synonymous mutations in the S protein in these isolates;

3) the Omicron variant, which should have been first reported to WHO from South Africa on November 24, 2021, was already endemic in Puerto Rico in 2020, and that there were isolates that were recombinants between Omicron strains BA1 and BA2. [EMPHASIS ADDED]

How about that? Puerto Rico is a territory not of Japan but of the United States. Yet it takes a couple of guys in Osaka and Kyoto to reveal that the Omicron was endemic on American turf over a year before its official release date? Is it really credible that Fauci & Co didn’t know that? And, if not, do they know where it came from?

 

Nothing to see here. More conspiracy theories from a pair of Japanese domestic terrorists. Medical misinformation. Just move along.

No, I don’t think we will.

 

The post New Research: Omicron Variants Appear to be Lab-Made Pathogens Too! appeared first on Granite Grok.

Wasting money on electric buses when what we need is school bus drivers.

Vermont has a school bus driver shortage. We have for years. Google “Vermont School Bus Driver Shortage” (as I did for this story), and the number of news hits you get is astounding. I was looking for “a” story I recently read and came across around thirty, spanning half a decade.

It’s a real problem. In one case down in Bennington, the public schools actually had to close for a period of time because they couldn’t get the kids from their homes to their buildings. (This is something the anti-school choice people say is an issue when parents choose independent schools, but the independent schools never seem to have this problem. Hmmm. Another story for another time….)

At the other end of the state, Essex/Westford kids have to spend over an hour and a half on the bus each way to school because there aren’t enough drivers to cover all the routes, which then must be combined into longer routes.

According to WCAX, “At one point, we had five rolling cancellations a day that were going through our system and just creates havoc on family schedules and all the way across the board,” said Brian Donahue, the chief operating officer of the Essex Westford School District…. Kids were not coming to school, and their parents and family were reporting, ‘Without a bus, my kid cannot get there.’”

Three hours a day sitting on a bus? To get to and from a school that’s less than ten miles from your house? This can’t be a healthy situation for young bodies or young minds.

So, when Vermont received over $18 million in a legal fraud settlement with Volkswagen, our erstwhile policymakers used a big chunk of that money to retain existing drivers and to attract and train new bus drivers to solve this real problem affecting children and families in a practical way.

BWAHAHAHAHA! Gotcha, didn’t I! No, of course, they didn’t. They blew the money on a pilot program to replace our existing diesel school buses with electric buses – for which we still don’t have enough drivers. Who cares about “the children” when you can pretend to be “saving the planet”?

Never mind that these electric busses don’t work particularly well in cold weather and in hilly terrain – or, in other words, Vermont during the nine months of the year school is in session – and occasionally just burst into flames. According to a report by VEIC, electric buses generally cost more than double the cost of a normal diesel bus, $330,000 to $350,000, as opposed to $125,000 to $150,000. In addition, the electric buses require between $15,000 and $30,000 in new charging infrastructure costs.

So, let’s just say if we simply bought new diesel buses – or kept the diesel buses we already have, assuming they don’t really need replacing — instead of buying new electric buses, the school district would have somewhere between an extra couple/few hundred grand – per bus – to spend on… I don’t know, training and hiring more bus drivers.

To be fair, policymakers aren’t entirely neglecting the bus driver issue. WCAX reports, “As of an April school board meeting, South Burlington will now pay around $23 an hour. According to the district website, Essex Westford School District pays around $20 an hour.” Seriously? This is what the salary was INCREASED to? What was it before, a crust of bread and a bowl of gruel at the end of the day? And you wonder why nobody wants this friggin’ job?!

Driving a vehicle that big is skilled labor under any circumstances. Doing it on Vermont roads while being simultaneously responsible for not a bunch of chickens but our most precious children – who, bless them, are probably more loud, unruly, and likely to do something stupid than a truckload of chickens – deserves a certain measure of hazard pay. Just for a little comparison, UPS full-time drivers recently won a contract raising their pay and benefits package from $145,000 per year to $170,000 for delivering bubble-wrapped toothbrushes in boxes big enough to hold a mini-fridge. Albeit, school bus drivers are not required to carry each kid from the bus stop to their doorstep, and UPS drivers don’t generally have the hours between 9 AM and 2 PM off.

Still, this is just another example of if you want practical solutions to real problems and a decent return on investment for our tax dollars, we need to usher in a new crop of political decision-makers in Vermont. The alternative is to be continuously thrown under the electric bus.

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

The post Another Example of Climate Hysteria Leading to Dumb, Misguided Policy appeared first on Granite Grok.

As promised in the last Memestream News: Monday Edition, I have an overflow. My meme cup runneth over.  And 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 ***

 

 

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

 

NO time today to do a full post – separated and commentary too – so just a massive meme dump.  Work, and dealing with the “honey do” list.  Ugh.  Hopefully I can catch up so that by Friday I’ll have a “normal” post.

 

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

 

By someone named “WhiteTroll”

Vaxxer, Vaxxer, so obsessed, Wore your mask and took your tests.

Still got Covid, every strain, Spike proteins inside your brain…

Short of breath at twenty four, “Dr. Fauci, give me more!”

Proteins tangle and misfold, Myocarditis taking hold…

Swollen heart at twenty five, “Thank Moderna I’m alive!”

But there’s no cure for the micro-clot, Getting worse with every shot…

Heart attack at twenty six, Prayed to Pfizer for a fix.

Vaxxer, Vaxxer, death is lurking, Doctor says, “That means it’s working.”…

Died of SADS at twenty seven, All good Vaxxers go to heaven.

Obituary headline noted: “Anti-Vaxxer Dies of Covid

His family are quite upset, but they are alive , at least as yet.

And they say its for the better.

Without the vax, he would be deader.

 

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

 

 

 

 

I still vote for decapitation followed by heads on pikes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Need to verify that he has that same tat on the neck.  Sorry, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of people in Israel are waking up.  While I like Bibi on defense, his subservience – and continued “oral servicing” – of Pfizer is a deal-breaker for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the GOP bigwigs still see them as honorable people?

 

 

 

 

I’m assuming that’s a male on the left?

 

 

No no no.  After SHTF we’ll need those.  Gang 4-5 cinderblocks together; that will work too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the post:

 

 

Remember, for so many, they viewed this as a Rite of Passage into having meaning and significance in their lives.  This is one of the big reasons why they’ll never give up their allegiance to The Jab.  You must – MUST – understand the psychology of their commitment.

 

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

 

Collected links with commentary, very mildly organized:

 

None this post.  As I said, I lack time.

 

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

 

Palate cleansers:

 

—

—

 

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

 

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

I recently posted Edelblut’s Decision Not To Run For Governor Reflects The Reality Of Blue Hampshire … which makes the, in my opinion, undeniable and unremarkable observation that New Hampshire has become and will remain for some time a BLUE STATE. Unsurprisingly, one of the commentators suggested that there is an immediate, easy fix … we just stop out-of-State college students from voting in New Hampshire! If you look at the numbers from 2022 … the Communists Democrats’ margins of victory show that the problem is exponentially bigger than just out-of-State college students voting in New Hampshire. It will take … realistically … decades to fix the actual problem.

The actual problem is that the Communists Democrats control all the major institutions in New Hampshire. For example, our public education system is controlled by Communists Democrat bureaucrats whose mission is to indoctrinate Cultural-Socialism. Guess how these kids are going to vote once they reach voting age?

If you want to understand the real problem, follow Christopher Rufo on X. And read his new book. From the Federalist’s review:

… after their street violence didn’t inspire the large-scale revolution among America’s lower class they expected in the 1960s and ’70s, American communists chose another strategy: working into American centers of cultural influence, especially education and media. The Marxists switched from economic class warfare to cultural warfare. …

… 79 percent of school districts with more than 100,000 students have hired a ‘chief diversity officer’ and implemented university-style ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ programming,” …

… Every Fortune 100 company has adopted DEI practices as well, making at least lip service to Marxist religions an essentially inescapable requirement for academic and professional advancement in the United States. …

How successful has the takeover of our institutions been? Well … the “leaders” of the NHGOP … SUCH AS SUN-KING CHRIS SUNUNU … wholeheartedly embrace DEI.

The NHGOP leaders will also tell you the fix for public schools is school choice. It’s not. Most students will continue to be educated in the public schools AND many private schools are WOKE. The only solution is taking back control of the public education system (and our other institutions). But that will take years, and the results won’t be seen for decades, … and conservatives are obviously NOT as patient as Communists Democrats.

 

 

 

The post Not Possible To Fix The Problem (Blue Hampshire) … If You Don’t Understand (Or Refuse To Accept) The Cause Of The Problem appeared first on Granite Grok.

Contributor John Klar on 2-Sep lamented that the agricultural sector is “in decline” if measured by manpower. As is the manufacturing sector, though in both cases, output is up. America is producing more with less — that is what we do — and, all other things being the same, that is the only way that real pay rises.

Compare India, which maintains a caste of farmers, each working their own one acre of land and, if they’re lucky, having an arrangement to rent someone else’s tractor at key times of the year or have large enough families to rely on manual labor.

“Larger farms on ever-pricier land” implies that ag consolidation is pushing up the price of farmland. Of course, the real culprits are the depreciation of the dollar (which means some pricier things aren’t pricier at all, notably gasoline, still way under 2 silver dimes per gallon) and galloping land-use regulation.

Yes, the manufacturers of industrial farm equipment, including unmanned tractors, make extravagant claims that are sometimes false. But in a voluntary economy, they eventually have to deliver. And every farm still has a human owner who, under capitalism, has an incentive to preserve the value of the land rather than let machinery prevent it from growing future crops.

Mr. Klar’s fundamental complaint is social, that we are drifting away from a “community” that esteems its farmers, “to a time when a man is no longer valued for his labor.” Baloney. Surely there was a craft behind the skilled making of buggy whips, and the watchmaker with his eyepiece was especially prized, but break open a watch or a computer now and gaze at the etches that no human could have drawn. Here too, we are better off.

And will be, provided we resist various people’s laments that strangers don’t seem to share my values, and resist responding with coercion. Surely Mr. Klar does not support the drafting of youngsters to be farmhands — no matter how many lessons in simple living they would learn. But what he does advocate for are “regulatory, tax, and fiscal benefits” (subsidies!) to support the small farm — that is, that we do for the farm what we have already done for the electric vehicle: Coercively make prices wrong, to induce people to make decisions that don’t benefit them, as though they shared our values.

It is nonsense that “dependency on foreign…foods…threatens… international competitiveness.” Access to foreign goods, especially where foreigners can produce more cheaply than Americans (repeal wage-and-hour laws, including the remaining Obama-care mandate!) is how we remain competitive — combining the best values the world can provide into American products. Government impeding commerce is how we ruin this process — even before farmers start spending their time flocking to Concord and DC to beg for favors rather than cultivating their land and studying the market for their products.

And yes, farmland speculator Bill Gates does not care about either farming or our values; he is sneaking around to impose his own values on us. But the billions he made enriching our lives with software that made us more productive, belongs to him, and not only if he spends it in ways that please us.

We will be best off under liberty. Eliminate government obstacles to land ownership. Eliminate obstacles to modernization and consolidation, leaving it to the farmer to decide what suits him. Eliminate “Marketing Orders” and other federal policies that tell the farmer what and how much to grow, so he can spend his time studying the market and deciding how to please the customer. Eliminate the Department of Agriculture, ignoring arguments, including this one, that we first must prove we “care” about the farmer.

* * * * *

Now, nearby, Ian Underwood suggests that we adopt a collective goal for government schools of achieving 95% literacy. He’s absolutely right that clearly stated goals, like JFK’s moon-shot goal, are essential to focus large groups of people. What he omits is that America stopped worrying about a huge waste of money only when JFK was shot to death.

Mr. Underwood describes the government schools as “one of the largest enterprises in New Hampshire” that lacks a single mission statement. But the schools are in fact a gunpoint monopoly (you have alternatives but only if you pay for both, even with Education Savings Accounts), staffed by employees with tenure and a national, Marxist labor union resistant to innovation and willing to cripple students to support a political narrative about a chest cold that didn’t threaten them.

Yes, sure, let’s mandate that the schools teach, and honestly measure how well they do it. The only problem is that we are not the majority at School Town Meeting — and if we briefly find we are, the Moderator recesses the meeting while those who receive, benefit from, or massage the loot get on their phones and bring out reinforcements.

We are faced with competing mandates that schools drive COVID infections to zero, encourage cross-dressing and recruit kids for sodomy, teach a corrosive view of American history when they aren’t advocating that we ignore it altogether, harass and assault prom-goers if they seem to come from conservative families, and throw athletes off sports teams for privately questioning orthodoxy.

Yes, the state constitution says education is “essential to the preservation of a free government”. So are shoes, which enable us to walk to the polls; neither means the government ought to be the sole or dominant provider; nor that, failing this, education or shoes would not exist at all. Part 2, Article 83 of our constitution of 1783, which Mr. Underwood quotes, is full of such platitudes, which have been corrupted by a mischievous judiciary; above all, the one for future legislators “to cherish the interest of…schools” — to have specific values, no matter what their voters prefer — which supposedly dictates equal funding in every town.

But what if we had a Republican legislature? Alas, no. Instead, we now have Donor and Recipient towns which, if they do anything other than goose campaign contributions, direct the money of strangers toward districts that our best measurements show are failing. Rather than cut through centralized mandates, we have simply added healthier mandates. Cursive writing and multiplication tables?

This is the bureaucratic and legal environment we are dealing with, and Mr. Underwood has not shown how his appeal for the schools to do a simple job well will prevail against all the other “stakeholders,” including some who don’t want the job done at all. What we need to do is undercut the bureaucracy, starting by striking at least the first half of 2:83. After 4 years, repair the 2019 vandalism to the SB-2 procedure, so the decision to take power away from Town Meeting no longer needs the approval of Town Meeting. Let us underfund the government schools until dozens of attractive and competitive alternatives emerge. Those that achieve 95% literacy will thrive — if that is what the customers want.

* * * * *

Whether farming or schooling, we don’t especially need a clear call for gunpoint agencies to “act like a business” and deliver against specific values that we are to embrace as a collective. We would do better to rediscover the benefits of individual liberty.

The post Two Grok Articles: Make Mine Liberty (a Commentary/Riposte) appeared first on Granite Grok.

Notch another win for Marxist state-run health care and its inherent depopulation agenda. Doctors in the UK have decided to unplug a 19-year-old girl from medical support equipment even though she is considered legally competent, self-aware, and doesn’t want to die.

Related: Slippery Meet Slope: Woman Asks for Help with Suicidal Ideation, Her ‘Therapist’ Recommends Euthanasia

 

[The woman, known only as] ST is suffering from a rare genetic mitochondrial disease that is progressively degenerative. The case has similarities to that of Charlie Gard, an infant who was removed from life support at the insistence of doctors despite objections from the parents. The Gard family was seeking to take Charlie to the United States for experimental treatment.

ST has been in the ICU for the past year, requiring a ventilator and a feeding tube. She also requires regular dialysis due to chronic kidney damage from her disease. She wants to be allowed to travel to Canada for an experimental treatment but the doctors oppose the plan and say that she is not accepting the realities of her terminal illness. They say that she is “actively dying” without any hope of resuming life outside of intensive care.

 

Her desire to live under any circumstance is unrealistic, so her State-employed doctors, buttressed by state-employed judges, have decided it is in her best interests to die. “Medically” assisted suicide without your consent. Why? “The judge found that she is mentally incapable of making decisions for herself because “she does not believe the information she has been given by her doctors.”

The confluence of the medical misinformation narrative and socialized medicine.

Therapists had deemed her mentally competent and capable of expressing herself. Still, becasue that was based on opinions outside the UK’s approved medical industrial complex narrative, they don’t matter. And neither does she.

The bottom of the slippery slope is closer than you think.

While ST had a rare disorder, we must assume that mentally competent individuals will increasingly be “peacefully” executed by the state, against their will (for their own good), in the name of compassion and the bottom line – be it financial or political – becasue the state can no longer afford to have you breathing.

 

 

Read More Slippery Meet Slope Articles here.

 

The post Slippery Meet Slope: When the State Decides That it is in Your Best Interest to Die appeared first on Granite Grok.