Many Granite Staters have seen the recent report in the New Hampshire Journal regarding the investigation done by the Department of Education of the New Hampshire school teacher who took a student to have an abortion.

The teacher indicated that he or she called in sick to take the student because she did not have anyone “to support them.”  Parents who I have talked with are shocked, and they should be shocked. But should we be shocked, really? After all, despite repeated attempts to pass legislation to support parents, legislation has been blocked by Democrats and many in the education establishment.

In the past two years, legislation on parent’s rights has twice been defeated. This year my constitutional amendment that said “parents have a fundamental right and responsibility to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their minor children” did not get sufficient votes in the New Hampshire House to send it to the voters. We have one glimmer of hope, however.

We want to thank Rep. Glenn Cordelli for this Op-Ed. If you have an Op-Ed or LTE
you would like us to consider, please submit it to steve@GraniteGrok.com.

HB1312 has passed the House and Senate and is headed to the Governor, hopefully, for his signature. I worked on this bill with Representative Kristine Perez of Londonderry who ushered its passage through the legislature.

HB1312 will be just the first step in making sure that there will be no more incidents of teachers aiding children to get abortions. One part of the bill states:

“A school district may not adopt policies, procedures or student support forms that prohibit school district personnel from answering questions from a parent about his or her student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being, sexuality, or a change in related services or monitoring, or that encourage or have the effect of encouraging a student to withhold from a parent such information.”

In other words, if a parent asks, tell them the truth about what is going on with their child in school – no secrets from parents. But requiring parents to be told the truth is just the first step.

Rep. Perez and I have already discussed follow-up legislation (if re-elected) for next year that will provide criminal penalties for any teacher repeating this shameful act of taking a student for an abortion. But we need to go beyond just teachers. We will state that no adult can “traffic” an unemancipated minor child to get an abortion while concealing it from their parents.

This really is not an abortion issue. It is about trafficking children and usurping parent’s rights. This will be a priority for Rep. Perez and myself next year.

The post Teacher’s Taking Students to Get an Abortion Day and Other Parental Rights Issues appeared first on Granite Grok.

Sports is a very fickle part of our lives. I used to be a sports fanatic but certainly less so as I aged and realized how much valuable time sports can consume. I am not a fair-weather fan, only paying attention when the local teams win.

I tend to look for a deeper story in sports that has meaning far deeper than what we see in the highlights. One such situation draws daily attention, while another does not seem to get the attention it deserves.

Caitlin Clark has been a scoring phenom since she first threw a basketball through a hoop. As a collegiate player at Iowa, she scored more points than any other college male or female in history, and she drew record crowds to watch her that many games she played in needed to be moved to larger venues. There had been other big stories in women’s basketball, but none rose to the level of Clark’s. She became the first-round draft pick of the WNBA Indiana Fever. Caitlin has been the target of many physical attacks on the court by jealous opponents who fail to see what Clark is doing to elevate the league and players. Three elements of Clark may be the reason for these players lashing out. Clark is White, Straight, and Christian. It is truly a shame that people see these individual characteristics rather than Caitlin Clark, the person.

The other individual I find fascinating is Joe Mazzulla, the second-year coach of the 2024 NBA Champion Boston Celtics. Mazzulla was thrown into the fire last year when then-coach Ime Udoka was fired for a contract violation. Few people knew much about Mazzulla, and many called for him to be replaced when the Celtics did not bring home a championship. Fortunately, his boss, Brad Stevens, was not one of those people.

Stevens stuck with his coach and pulled off some incredible roster moves to put together the best team in the league from start to finish in 2024. As the season went on, and it was apparent we were witnessing something special, we began to look closer into this coach who seemed to relish his lack of notoriety. As the layers were peeled away, an extraordinary individual was unveiled, displaying a much deeper individual than a championship coach.

I started accumulating videos of Mazzulla in different situations, waiting for one to show a crack in this gem, and have yet to find one. People were asking him questions that might have caused someone to pause before responding, yet the coach had the perfect response each time. One reporter asked if Coach was impacted by members of the Royal Family sitting courtside for one of Boston’s games. His response was, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” which drew a chuckle. Still, he said he only recognized one royal family and was unfamiliar with any other from Great Britain.

In another instance, Coach was asked how he was handling the pressure of The Finals. He replied he met three young women under the age of 21 who had terminal cancer. He thought he was helping them with his visit, but he was impacted by these three women smiling and enjoying the moment as they were dying in bed. They taught the Coach the meaning of life.

Mazzulla does not look at himself as a basketball coach but as a man who goes to work to help others reach their potential. Some say that Brad Stevens is the MVP of the 2024 Celtics for putting a great team together, but it was Joe Mazzulla who took those players and their egos and made them a team with a goal. One of the mottos of the Celtics is, “It is different here.” That difference starts with a man who is a Christian and a husband before a championship coach. We are fortunate that Stevens saw enough in Joe Mazzulla to give this 35-year-old the reigns to the greatest NBA franchise. Mazzulla took those reins and gave Boston its 18th NBA Championship and the promise it would not be the last in the Joe Mazzulla era.

The post Coach Mazzulla, The Man appeared first on Granite Grok.

When you think about LEGO, you might remember it from your youth (or infantilized adulthood). And depending on when you discovered ELGO that could be limited to a handful of different colored bricks, massive Death Star-sized builds, or even that BIONICLE thing they did for a while. How about Drag Queens and Furries?

LEGO (apparently) went woke a while ago but I guess they’ve got more pride now. I’m just leaving this here for your consideration.

LEGO just released a LGBTQ+ Pride video with furries and drag queens marching: pic.twitter.com/ce1MBdxOpk

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 20, 2024

One enterprising Xer asked if LEGO would be promoting furries and drag queens worldwide or just in some select locations.

The post LEGO or Did They Mean LEGBTO? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Science is a problem for the Left when it is allowed to be science. Question the norms, challenge assumptions, and test every hypothesis. That should be the consensus, not the Scientism that undermines science to curry political favor.

The latter has complete control of the Left and its media allies, and it is embarrassing how ridiculous it has gotten. The climate business was bad enough, but COVID and the whole gender spectrum thing. It has polluted the culture, and people are afraid to challenge the cultural norms they are advancing.

Sen. John Kennedy is not afraid.

“The differences between biological males and biological females explode during puberty,” he began. “Girls, during puberty, develop 14% smaller hearts. Their lungs are 12% smaller… You cannot debate that. It’s just a biological fact. That helps boys take in oxygen and pump blood more efficiently than girls can. That gives boys a clear edge in endurance sports like swimming, for example, cycling, rowing…”

Girls’ lungs are 12% smaller than boys’ lungs. Their hearts are 14% smaller.

That gives boys a clear edge in endurance sports. pic.twitter.com/cGieBNHDpE

— John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) June 19, 2024

We are not afraid, nor are most of you, so we are in pretty good company. But we need more allies willing not just to speak out but to stand up to this dangerous trend. And if you need some words or inspiration, you’d be hard-pressed to do a better job than this. Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice is speaking at the Faith and Freedom Summit. Red Meat, my friends.

Moms for Liberty cofounder Tiffany Justice speaks at the Road to Majority @FaithandFreedom summit in Washington DC on June 22, 2024.

“We don’t have time to be angry, now is the time to mobilize!” pic.twitter.com/hIWeI3Pc4R

— Moms for Liberty (@Moms4Liberty) June 23, 2024

The post Night Cap: Men, Women, Sports, Schools, ABC’s Not LGBT’s, Etc. appeared first on Granite Grok.

Here’s a question: How much would you pay to know what it’s like to have Nikki Haley in your living room?

Sorry…clarification: How much would you pay to hear what it’s like to have Nikki Haley in your living room so you can be bestowed with second-hand knowledge?

Whatever dollar figure (assuming you would actually pay in dollars) popped into your mind, you may not have realized that someone who is running for office here in New Hampshire has already given an answer to that question and quantified it publicly. The dollar amount ranges from $25,000 to $40,000…and thanks to a video released by the Washington Speakers Bureau last November, we know the person of interest who gave that appraisal is a GOP candidate for the Second Congressional District, Vikram Mansharamani.

Much has been made over the past several years about how government has become dominated by a class of ladder-climbers, bureaucrats, and experts, whose hallmark (besides their glibness) seems to be their desire to push an agenda that always consolidates more power for themselves at the expense of the governed. It’s not your imagination; Washington, D.C., really is a city isolated from the rest of the country. Moreover, it’s a place and a culture dominated by people who can easily wield their credentials and leverage their networks to insulate themselves from the perspectives of the rest of the citizenry. I ought to know. I once lived there.

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

Soon after I arrived in the Beltway as a student at American University, it became obvious that there was a template of the kind of person the school wanted its students to emulate. That template included acclaimed authors like Francis Fukuyama, pundits like Fareed Zakaria, “foreign policy experts” like Ian Bremmer, and financial wizards like Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Wonky intellectualism and “global thinking” were prized over common sense everywhere and nearly always. When I hear Vikram Mansharamani talk about the interplay between “the U.S. economy, geopolitics, and the world economy,” it’s like hearing an old song for the first time in over ten years. You may not remember every single lyric, but the familiar chorus comes back to you fast.

Vikram seems like a nice guy, and he probably is. But he gives every indication of being the sort of candidate who wants to go to D.C. to move amongst the crowd of people he considers his intellectual and power-brokering peers. People in that mold make fine talking heads, lobbyists, law professors, diplomats, financial analysts, you name it. They don’t tend to make representatives who see their first duty as being to their constituents.

Which brings me back to the $25,000 to $40,000. To believe that the speaking fee justifies itself, you’d probably have to believe that every person who has insider access to everyone who makes a serious run for public office has obtained the secret to power for themselves. More importantly, to sell the secret to power – or as Vikram has referred to it, “how the sausage is made” – for a price tag, you’d probably have to believe that power is both an unalloyed positive and something that no one had figured out the secret to before. You might even be the sort of person who sees the ultimate things to chase in life as power and success.
I don’t know about you, but I suspect we have enough of those people in D.C. already.

The post The Price of Power and Success? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Everything Steve wrote a while ago about a revolution by conservatives is pretty much true. If the Left is in power, when someone shoots back against Antifa or BLM, they (the Left) would love to declare a national emergency and deploy federalized troops to crush resistance.

But if we can elect Donald Trump, there is a better than even chance that by declaring a national emergency, we would or could use the limited military against those internal terrorist groups, their supporters, and financiers. Also, we need to consider radical Islamists, and all those military-age illegal aliens would likely be a factor.

In the article comments, one writer rightly pointed out that in the first instance, with a democrat-controlled military, the resistance would use guerilla tactics, never engaging the police or military, only assassinations of leftist politicians, media, activists, and infrastructure. How long did the Irish Republican Army fight British rule? Ask yourself.

In the second instance, my hope, roles would be reversed, but we conservatives would have a far better chance of survival as many of us are legally armed and could immediately respond to terrorist threats on site.

Ideally, with a Trump administration, major incidents of violence could be avoided and criminal terrorist gangs arrested early on along with those funding them. But who knows?

The post On Any Impending Guerrilla War? appeared first on Granite Grok.

For those of us of “age,” we have watched as the Wall built of the “bricks of Societal Norms” has had every brick removed from it. At first, not much changed – Society still seemed to be the same as it was, and the decay was invisible.

Over time, however, I’ve watched how the nation’s secular religion made headway to the point where it is now like Islam – once it grew to a given point, it started to “throw its weight around.”

Filling a void.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, new data from Gallup shows that church attendance has dropped across all polled Christian groups. As the following chart shows, the biggest drop in attendance in the past 20 years has been amongst Catholics, which has fallen from 45 percent of U.S. adults self-identifying as Catholic saying that they go to religious services weekly or at least every week in 2000-2003, down to 33 percent saying the same in 2021-2023. This is a decrease of 12 percentage points. Catholics’ attendance is lower than their Protestant counterparts, which saw a drop of 4 percentage points in that time frame from 48 percent of worshippers to 44 percent.

Lately, it is VERY clear that despite preaching “inclusiveness,” it is antagonistic towards traditional religious beliefs, and anyone protesting against them becomes targeted.

We can now have all but naked and sexualized parades, Governmental blessing of the destruction and theft of private property, the sanctity of marriage is a shambles, the traditional nuclear family is seen as outmoded (and in fact, dissed for being “hetero-privileged”), and the idea of absolute right and wrong has been turned upside down and inside out (right, Van Jones?) to the point it is all but pointless. Gratitude, gratefulness, mercy – all attributes associated with Christianity are being left behind.

There are a lot of churches that have declining seats in the pews and no more so than the formerly “mainline” Protestant denominations. Why?

IMHO, they have decided BIGELY to join that secularization of religion. They have abandoned the Biblical teachings and purpose for the trappings of the current culture and assuaging themselves that they are staying culturally relevant – and refuse to admit that the idea that their main purpose was to save souls and then educate them. Instead, contra to the Bible’s teachings, they hang transgender flags over their doorways and accept any behavior willingly as “being accepting”.

Sure, you have to meet people where they are, but these churches, IMHO, have not only not led them to a path of righteousness but have jumped into bed with them.

And the conservative parishioners no longer attend labeling such behaviors by church leaders as heretical – Truth isn’t variable, it doesn’t change with “the times” – it is what is supposed to be preached and evangelized.

So if there is no spiritual beacons calling the lost in, what happens? Society becomes poorer as the “shared” morality gets splintered and relativistic.

And, unless another Revival begins, not only will churches continue towards their Doom Loop, but so will Society. G. K. Chesterton:

When a man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.

And he becomes his own god. And when that happens, ANYTHING is believable, including that one is god in and of themselves. Morality becomes singular in nature: “my lived experience” and “MY truth” is the relativism that will destroy Society. When one is their own god, Self is the uttermost attribute and of the uttermost importance.

And when billions adopt that outlook, what happens?

Colossians 2:1-5

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

15I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 17Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. 19As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 20Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 21To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. 22He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

(H/T: Zero Hedge)

The post The Decline of Christianity in the US appeared first on Granite Grok.

The people in charge of the summer Olympics (in Paris) are getting a charge out of an Olympic village with NO Air conditioners. They installed a series of cooling pipes under the floors, but the US Olympic Team, Germany, Australia, Italy, Canada, and Britain have their own ideas.

The Germans are probably just excited to be someplace with enough electricity to run an air conditioner, but according to the AP, AC is not very common in France or the EU.

According to the International Energy Agency, fewer than 1 in 10 households in Europe has air conditioning, and the numbers in Paris are lower than that. The study said that of the 1.6 billion AC units in use across the globe in 2016, more than half were in China (570 million) and the United States (375 million). The entire European Union had around 100 million.

China is the place to go for AC and Dirty coal. Good to know.

U.S. Olympic and Paralympic CEO Sarah Hirshland said Friday that while the U.S. team appreciates efforts aimed at sustainability, the federation would be supplying AC units for what is typically the largest contingent of athletes at the Summer Games.

“As you can imagine, this is a period of time in which consistency and predictability is critical for Team USA’s performance,” Hirshland said. “In our conversations with athletes, this was a very high priority and something that the athletes felt was a critical component in their performance capability.”

I wonder if anyone else will join the parade of Western nations telling the French to piss off with their paltry efforts at comfort?

And how amusing would it be if half or more of the competing nations decided to bring AC with them? Talk about increasing the carbon footprint, which brings up another point. Aren’t the Olympics, even without the BYO AC, just a massive waste of emissions we could probably do without?

I’ll let you decide, but if this helps, breaking (breakdancing) is now an official Olympic sport.

The post Paris CA (Climate Accord) Out the Window as Teams Bring AC (Air Conditioners) To Paris Olympics appeared first on Granite Grok.

The UN’s New York City Summit of Future, which will take place on Sept. 21st and 22nd, is meeting “to strengthen global governance for both present and future generations.” The ultimate goal of world government does not include our freedom or independence but rather the unlimited wealth and power of the UN, which promotes Chinese-style controls upon the state.

The purpose of this is to establish multi-lateral protocols that can be quickly activated throughout the globe to respond to “global shocks.” They want global decrees to automatically respond to a wide range of crises at the expense of national sovereignty. (Check out this planned Emergency Platform at: https://gojt.us/zn6i) Even though Biden will robotically wave it by with a kiss, remember, it must pass the Senate. These plans, if accepted, could make this July 4th the last day we celebrate independence.

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

Did you vote for such disloyalty to the U.S. Constitution that takes your tax dollars and spends them to act as a boomerang that targets your liberty? What can one person do? First, implore your Congressmen and Senators to support the Defund Act (H.R. 6645 & S. 3428). Then take advantage of this campaign season: ask incumbent congressmen and candidates to sign the UN Withdrawal pledge form. Get your copies at (https:got.us/iunwp).

President Ronald Reagan’s words point out our noble obligation: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in the United States where men were free.”

The post Is This the Last Year for the 4th of July? appeared first on Granite Grok.

With Independence Day almost here, proud Americans are gearing up to celebrate the birthday of the greatest nation in the world. There’ll be fireworks displays, parades, and family gatherings.

Many will take a moment to reflect on how it all started. Perhaps they’ll pause to think about our founding documents, the American Revolution, and the sacrifices made by those patriotic colonists who fought and died for our independence.

Independence Day is probably the most patriotic day of the year. But this is 2024, and not all Americans are proud.

Anti-American sentiment today runs the gamut from ambivalence to utter disdain. Many will join in the festivities without even knowing what they’re celebrating. Others, sadly enough, will sneer at the celebrations. Some believe that America is racist and xenophobic. Some condemn its capitalist system. Others see themselves as conditional patriots. They say they’re patriotic, but believe our country needs to be fundamentally transformed.

They use patriotism as nothing more than a tool to manipulate the masses, to push an agenda. They’ve used it to justify tax increases, telling us, “It’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.” During the Covid-19 pandemic, they told us that getting vaccinated was “the most patriotic thing you can do.”

But patriotism has nothing to do with taxes or vaccinations. It’s something that seems to elude too many American citizens today. It’s simply a love of country. It means putting America first. It’s supposed to serve as a common bond uniting all citizens. And it’s one reason we’re so deeply divided.

People often forget that even during the American Revolution, not all the colonists supported the patriots and their efforts to break free from an increasingly oppressive government. Many, often for selfish reasons, remained loyal to the British Crown, and even took up arms against the patriots.

It’s a simple fact that America would not exist today, were it not for those visionaries who fought so hard and sacrificed so much to create our constitutional republic. After more than 200 years, the vast majority of Americans still treasure the rights guaranteed by our Constitution, and recognize that document as the supreme law of the land.

But in recent years, some politicians have come to believe that our Constitution is outdated, that the country has outgrown the values and ideals it represents. Consumed with the power entrusted to them, those politicians have forgotten that they all took a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution. They’ve forgotten its first three words: “We the people.” So they issue unilateral decrees and edicts that do nothing for the American people, but only benefit themselves and their allies. Untethered to the documents that created America and guided our country throughout its history, they create only havoc.

Havoc at our border, havoc in our streets, havoc in our schools, havoc on the world stage.

They also create 21st Century versions of patriots and loyalists.

Patriots have defended our Constitution throughout our history. They love our country and bear allegiance to the founding principles enshrined in that document. They only want greatness for America. Yet critics call them – those proud constitutionalists – a “threat to democracy.”

On the other side are the loyalists, deep state bureaucrats and misguided citizens willing to close their eyes to all the havoc and pledge their allegiance to a government that brazenly defies all constitutional restraints, a government that’s become increasingly oppressive and corrupt. With blind loyalty, they stand by that government and embrace whatever radical new agenda it introduces. Even if it includes things that would have horrified them just a few short years ago. Even if it leads to the disintegration of our republic. That is the folly of mindless loyalty to unprincipled politicians.

Two and a half centuries ago, Ben Franklin and the Founding Fathers created a new government. Asked to define it, Franklin said it’s “a republic,” but added these cautionary words: “If you can keep it.”

We should consider his warning this July 4th as we celebrate the birth of our nation. We should remember that there are internal and external forces that hate America. They give rise to a pervasive, ominous feeling that our constitutional republic is in serious jeopardy.

In this election, the platforms of the Republican and Democrat parties have been overshadowed. The real struggle will be between patriots – constitutionalists with an abiding love of country – and loyalists, faithful to the politicians who want to destroy it.

The post Patriots and Loyalists of the 21st Century appeared first on Granite Grok.

Air travel has declined since COVID, and I can’t help but think this is just another progressive Rube-Goldbergian plan to get people to stop traveling. You make it too expensive or too much trouble or too expensive or inaccessible, or even dangerous.

They tried to jab all the pilots, Boeing went #woke, and planes broke. The Airlines have beenfalling in line on diversity quotas, so the Air Line Pilots Association International has decided that certain words are no longer appropriate for their members (while, ironically, the word ‘member’ is not prohibited).

“While the word ‘cockpit’ dates back to the 1900s, it has been and may be used in a derogatory way to exclude women in the piloting profession,” the guide explained, according to Breitbart. “Many women have heard a variation of ‘It is called a cockpit for a reason’ by a male pilot, suggesting that women do not belong in the piloting profession. The intent behind the use of the word is important. … While the word ‘cockpit’ dates back to the 1900s, it has been and may be used in a derogatory way to exclude women in the piloting profession. … Many women have heard a variation of ‘It is called a cockpit for a reason’ by a male pilot, suggesting that women do not belong in the piloting profession. The intent behind the use of the word is important.”

The word Cock, or (Old English) Cocc has a long history of referring to things male (and not in its current derogatory context), so I suppose there is room for consideration, especially if tradition or history is of no consequence but what the hell is this.

The APLA also dislikes using the terms “mother” and “father” because those “may inadvertently ignore different family structures,” such as “caregivers, same-sex parents, stepparents, families with adopted members, and more,” Breitbart noted.

I’ve known my fair share of biological men who were “mothers,” so I’m not inclined to agree. It is certainly not necessary for a pilots association to weigh in on the matter generally or amongst its “members.” People should feel free to call whatever it is whatever they like, and if they ask nicely, friends and family might be inclined to comply with the way people adopt someone’s preferred nickname out of courtesy.

And while corporations or incorporations bending to the cultural winds seems like a sensible thing to do, recent history has shown us that this trend is wholly incompatible with free speech and expression to the point of Obnoxious Orwellian principle. Those who do not speak outside the approved argot are the prevue or petty despots and aspiring tyrants. And pilots ought to be thinking about flying planes and the safety of passengers, not whether they are permitted to use the word cockpit to describe their office space.

After all, given that the criteria for hiring the people who build and maintain their aircraft are more focused on demographics than aptitude paying attention is more important than ever. We wouldn’t want Boeing or the ground crew accused of discrimination because its diverse hires caused a plane to crash that killed the diversity pilot who was trying to fly it from the thing up front where they operate the aircraft.

The post Boeing Went Woke and Planes Broke. Pilots Association Joins Them (Sort Of) appeared first on Granite Grok.

Louisiana has a new law that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public classroom. In a recent post, the question is asked (and answered).

Hasn’t the US Supreme Court already ruled that this kind of thing is blatantly unconstitutional?

Of course, it has.

This might be more than a tad ironic because that very post bemoans that Supreme Court justices have strayed from the original understanding of various constitutional provisions. (It is unclear (to me) if the author believes the Constitution, properly interpreted, prohibits the Louisiana law.)

The Bill of Rights, which contains the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause, was originally understood to apply ONLY to the Federal government. It was originally understood to allow States to promote religion and, indeed, to favor one religion over other religions. The Establishment Clause was not applied by the Supreme Court to States until 1947, via a judicially invented doctrine called “incorporation.”

The post Louisiana, The Ten Commandments And The Constitution appeared first on Granite Grok.

At long last, the SCOTUS has published their decision in U.S. v. Rahimi. The case arose from a conviction of a Texas man named Zackey Rahimi, who was found guilty of violating a federal law. Specifically, Rahimi violated 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which prohibits the possession of firearms by anyone who is the subject of a domestic violence restraining order. Interestingly, the restraining orders are issued by state courts, while the law in question is federal.

The post Alu’s Breakdown of the U.S. v. Rahimi Supreme Court Decision appeared first on The Liberty Block.

The weather (extreme heat in some places and snow in others) and climate change; pending SCOTUS cases including Biden v Missouri re: censorship by social media, Trump’s immunity, Chevron case re: interpretation of statutes by the rule makers in the administrative state/non-delegation issue, the decision on mifepristone, which was decided on issues of standing; why does SCOTUS wait until the end of the term to release decisions? Should we rule out lawfare against truly crooked politicians? Alito suggesting congress could write a bump stock ban into the law; should the government have the power to ban masks? Should citizens have the right to protest anonymously? Will there ever be comeuppance against Fauci? Pfizer? How to circumvent the immunity given Pfizer?

The post The Conservatarian Exchange Podcast #211 appeared first on The Liberty Block.

In January 2024, there was a meeting of the New Hampshire House State-Federal Relations and Veteran Affairs committee. The committee heard two separate bills on secession.

The first one, CACR 20, would be a constitutional amendment that would see the people of NH vote to amend the constitution to say that if the federal government’s national debt reaches $40 trillion, New Hampshire shall peacefully secede from the union.
The second one, HB1130 would form a commission to study everything we would need to know about secession, such as economic impact.

This is video of the full public hearing for both bills and the people’s testimonies.

On Wednesday morning, NHexit.US announced that local liberty activists in New Hampshire have hired a chartered airplane pilot to fly a pro-independence banner over the three largest cities in the state. Over the past few years, the calls for serious discussions on peaceful separation of New Hampshire from DC and the union have grown dramatically. New Hampshire is already home to the most influential liberty movement in the world.

Notable events since 2021 include:

• legislation to place an independence referendum on the ballot which was sponsored by nine lawmakers in the New Hampshire House
• a poll by SurveyUSA finding that almost 100% of NH residents strongly resent the federal government and 29% are ready to secede immediately
• increasing demands by lawmakers and the centrist governor telling the DC tyrants to back off 
• An abundance of pro-independence sentiment, including flags for the Granite Republic, hats, T-shirts, books, articles, and podcasts, and even a national anthem

This Saturday, an airplane banner could be added to that list. The tentative plan is for the banner to fly over Nashua, Manchester, and Concord. If you look up while in one of these cities, you just might be able to snap a photo or record a video of the banner. We encourage our readers to post their photos to social media with the tags #NHexit, #secession, and #NHpolitics. 

Additionally, the question of secession will be asked by another highly reputable pollster. The University of New Hampshire is currently conducting a political survey that includes multiple questions related to New Hampshire independence. The results could be published within days or a few weeks. 

The post Secession Airplane Banner Flying Over Merrimack Valley Saturday appeared first on Foundation for New Hampshire Independence.

A recent poll conducted by SurveyUSA on behalf of the Foundation for New Hampshire Independence (FNHI) shows that while the peaceful separation of New Hampshire from the federal government has low support among politicians, it has significant support among registered voters.

According to an overwhelming number of respondents, the people of the United States are getting more and more divided over important issues like LGBT rights, guns, abortion, election integrity, race relations, involvement in foreign wars, climate change, immigration, and so on (91%).  Nearly as many fear that if this trend continues, it will lead to increases in political violence (89%).

Large majorities of respondents agreed that the federal government doesn’t have their best interests in mind (67%); that it violates their rights more than it protects those rights (65%); that it produces laws, regulations, and court rulings that are incompatible with New Hampshire’s culture of freedom (63%); and that its financial decisions and economic regulations hurt our livelihoods, and could lead to inflation and bankruptcy (77%).

In short, 63% of respondents feel that their state can be trusted more than the federal government.

One possible way forward would be for New Hampshire to begin ignoring federal laws and regulations regarding matters reserved to the States by the 10th Amendment. Fewer than half of respondents believe that the federal government should be able to force New Hampshire to follow federal mandates and laws regarding cannabis (27%), medicine (37%), public health (42%), education (41%), welfare (42%, firearms (42%), businesses (38%), and abortion (33%).

This approach, also referred to as ‘nullification’ is common, currently being utilized by dozens of states, and is consistent with the recent enactment of New Hampshire HB 1178, ‘prohibiting the state from enforcing any federal statute, regulation, or Presidential Executive Order that restricts or regulates the right of the people to keep and bear arms’. 

However, a more comprehensive way forward would be for New Hampshire to reclaim its sovereignty, peacefully separating from the federal government to govern itself as an independent country, an idea that was supported by 29% of respondents and 52% of Republicans. Only 58% of respondents do not support immediate and full secession from the federal government today. More than 2/5 of respondents agreed that the state should be able to do this without securing permission from the federal government (43%). And only 3% of respondents would support the use of military force by the federal government to interfere with such a separation.

Again, while politicians declined to put the question to the people, more than 2/5 of respondents support the idea of placing independence on the ballot (42%) while only 47% currently oppose it.

History is filled with proposals that seemed at first to be politically impossible, but after serious discussion and evolving circumstances, proved to be politically inevitable. To take just one example, shall-issue laws for concealed carry licenses, once viewed as extreme, are now the law in nearly every state. As the results of this poll show, peaceful separation already has more support now than shall-issue laws had in 1990. Today, not only is shall-issue the norm, but 25 states allow their residents to carry concealed guns without even requiring a permit. If New Hampshire independence follows a similar path, it may only be a few short years away from broad adoption. 

The survey also found strong support for independence and extreme discontent with DC politicians among all 8 states polled. In Texas, 90% of Republicans recently endorsed putting secession on the ballot, officially placing the position in their platform. California progressives have a strong independence movement of their own, and surveys show that around half of Californians support or are open to independence from the union. Progressives in Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington also support independence. States like South Carolina, Florida, and many other states have new independence movements that are rapidly growing, as well. 

The post New Hampshire Survey Shows Disdain For DC, Support For Independence appeared first on Foundation for New Hampshire Independence.

Over the past few weeks, a group of pro-freedom activists in New Hampshire has been holding informal meetings to brainstorm how to best promote independence in the next legislative session. Predictably, progressive authoritarians have already begun to attack the concepts of independence and liberty. A few conservatives cling to hope that they can fix DC and all 50 states, convince all Democrats to embrace conservative liberty values, and ‘save America’. 

I have written dozens of articles, published three books, and produced hundreds of videos making the case for a national divorce from the authoritarians. Here are just 100 reasons why every New Hampshire citizen who supports freedom should support a bill and a ballot referendum on independence from DC. 

1. Without the federal income tax, we’d each save around $25,000/year right off the bat.
2. The IRS is corrupt, tyrannical, and about to grow by 80,000 employees and billions of dollars. Years ago, they were caught targeting conservatives. Now, they are surely much more polarized and hateful against us. I could live without them.
3. The ATF is extremely anti-gun. They have been one of the biggest reasons that federal gun control laws have grown increasingly strict. The ATF passes laws and bypasses Congress. Once the murderous criminal, Dave Chipman is confirmed as the new ATF director, things will get much worse. I could live without the ATF. Once we divorce DC by declaring independence from the union, the ATF will no longer have jurisdiction over us. 
4. The CDC is out of control, and the agency will only ever grow more tyrannical. This was before corona-fascism made the CDC into the most harmful agency to liberty of all 400 illegal executive agencies. By the way, did you know that the CDC took legal ownership over every rental property in the united states?
5. I don’t trust Joe Biden to run my life or to do anything that could impact me. I have around 28 trillion reasons for distrusting that corrupt, evil, demented sociopath. 
6. I don’t trust Congress to run my life. They have proven time and again that they support authoritarian socialism. Even with majorities in the House and the Senate and even with Trump in the White House, Congress did nearly nothing to expand liberty. But they did pass many laws that violated my natural rights. 
7. The federal government benefits from terribly untrustworthy elections, such as the one in 2020. Once HR1 passes into law, all elections in the united states will be required to abide by the same insane rules that caused us all to doubt the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
8. Once HR51 passes into law, DC will be a state, complete with two more hardcore socialist Senators. The Democrats will control the Senate forever.
9. If you aren’t a big fan of sobriety checkpoints, you’ll be happy to learn that they are federally funded. Once we divorce the feds, it’s unlikely that any local police dept. will spend the money on the checkpoints. 
10. If you aren’t a big fan of immigration checkpoints, you’ll be happy to learn that they are federally funded and/or conducted. Once we divorce the feds, it’s unlikely that any local police dept. will spend the money on the checkpoints. 
11.  Local cops only use tanks, drones, BEARcats, and other aggressive military gear against us because the feds give them those toys. Once we cut ties with DC, our local cops will return to their proper role as peace officers instead of acting as soldiers against us.
12. One of the reasons that Dictator Sununu locked us down and derailed our economy involved pressure and money from DC encouraging him to do so. 
13. If you don’t like being forced to pay for the DC politicians to wage futile endless wars in dozens of countries all over the world while veterans, women, and babies in our own communities starve on the streets, it means you want to separate from DC. 
14. If you are ready to give up on the war on drugs and stop sending cops to homes to punish people for consuming a plant, separating from DC is the first step you must take. DC politicians STILL consider cannabis a schedule one top-tier dangerous substance that is 100% illegal to possess. 
15. Do you love it when cops steal your property (car, house, money, guns, etc.) without convicting you of a crime? Well, federal law allows law enforcement to seize any property that could be involved in a past, present, or even future crime. And the feds have ‘extended’ that authority to state and local cops. Once we sever ties with DC, cops in NH lose the power of civil asset forfeiture.
16. If you ever wondered why bad cops almost never receive any punishment, you should know that ‘qualified immunity’ is a federal doctrine. Without DC, local cops become much more accountable to their neighbors.
17. The millions of federal regulations cost businesses over 2 trillion dollars each year in lost productivity. Once we divorce DC, our businesses will truly be able to unleash their creativity, making New Hampshire more prosperous than we could ever imagine.
18. Who should decide whether NH accepts illegal aliens or Afghan refugees? Biden and Pelosi or our governor and legislature?
19. Are you tired of being ruled by nine lawyers in long black robes who live in DC and have the power of Gods? If five out of the nine rule a certain way, that becomes the law for all 330,000,000 people in the united states.  
20. The federal reserve and DC politicians have overseen a decline in 99% of the US dollar’s purchasing power over the past century.
21. DC politicians have run up a debt of 28 trillion dollars and counting. And they claim that you and I are responsible for it. 
22. Nearly every politician has ambitions and eventually wishes to be sent to DC. This affects nearly every decision they make. Once DC is no longer in their minds, they will focus on what is most important: you.
23. Federal law enforcement (including the FBI) have shown themselves to be thoroughly corrupt. Even conservative commentators like Dan Bongino have called for their abolition. A few months ago, the FBI and other federal cops came to New Hampshire and violently kidnapped six of my friends. They are charging them with crimes that could result in them spending the remainder of their lives in federal prison. Their excuse? That my friends committed some victimless crimes by using and selling cryptocurrency. Once we leave DC, that will never happen again. 
24. Want a suppressor so that you can save your hearing? They are only illegal because the feds prohibit them. Without the feds, NH would be totally free, and you could put a suppressor on your SBR without any worries. 
25. Are you worried about increasingly strict EPA restrictions on vehicles, houses, and everything else? Once we divorce DC, they will have no jurisdiction over us.
26. Are you sick of random federal judges issuing injunctions that overrule actual laws passed by Congress or state legislatures? An independent NH would not have to worry one bit about federal judges.
27. The DC politicians are destroying the once-mighty American military. Their current secretary of defense and commander-in-chief continually insist that the #1 priority for their military is pleasing LGBT individuals. An independent New Hampshire could have a military with a top priority of defending us against hostile militaries. As it should be.
28. Have you accumulated a respectable net worth? Soon, the federal government will tax your net worth each year in addition to all of the other taxes. 
29. The US Congress literally does not represent you or me.
30. The federal government hates you. Especially if you are white. 
31. Multiple federal court rulings have declared that the first amendment does not protect any speech that is insulting, especially towards a government agent. 
32. Right now, even policies that you think are set by state lawmakers are really controlled by the feds via extortion. 
33. If the thought of Pelosi’s Capitol Police Force growing worries you …. You might support NH independence from DC. 
34. If you would rather have your highway taxes spent on highways … You might be a NHexiter.
35. Do you think that Facebook and Twitter are too powerful and too damaging to liberty? Federal law grants them effective immunity from lawsuits while also granting them the power to manipulate content. They get to act as both a publisher and a platform, whichever suits them at the moment. 
36. If you support sound, free-market money like gold and silver (and crypto) ….You already support NHexit. It’s only a matter of time before the feds ban them.
37. If you are afraid that Donald Trump might become President again …. You just might be a NHexiter.
38. If you are afraid that Kamala Harris might become President…. You just might be a NHexiter.
39. If you think that Title IX is a major reason that free speech and due process in colleges were destroyed, you support NHexit.
40. If you believe that boys should not have a free pass to the girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers, you support NH independence. 
41. If you can’t count the billions of federal laws….you might support independence.
42. The FDA hurts and kills patients by stifling innovation and preventing people from using medications until the FDA spends decades of time and billions of dollars approving them.
43. Cutting ties with DC would immediately and drastically cut prices and improve the availability of drugs like epinephrine, insulin, loperamide, and many others. 
44. DC politicians use the federal department of education to brainwash your children to hate freedom. Once we are independent, that goes away.
45. The federal government believes that showing online ads to specific cohorts is a crime.
46. If you are not comfortable with the REAL ID becoming a dystopian federal identification card, you might be an NHexit supporter.  
47. Support in Congress for a magazine ban is getting very close to a majority. In a few years, your magazines will be federally illegal. 
48. Once HR127 passes Congress, every firearm will be effectively illegal. Hope you’re ready to turn in your guns to the feds! You are a patriot and not a criminal, so you’d never violate federal law, right? 
49. It is very likely that Congress (or federal regulators) ban armor plates for all civilians very soon. Hope you’re ready to turn in your plates!
50. Even the best ‘conservatives’ in DC are working with Bloomberg to take away your guns.
51. Technically speaking…the federal government should not exist anymore. 
52. Federal judges have ruled that police have no legal obligation to protect you. 
53. The federal government thinks it can take your property by force, as long as it plans to use the property for anything that could benefit the government, including giving your property to companies like Pfizer. Without DC, states and localities have no power of eminent domain (AKA theft of property).
54. Federal politicians from Biden to McConnell and everyone in between consistently sell us out to oligarchs like Putin and Xi to enrich themselves. 
55. We can’t take power back from Congress, even with a Convention of States.
56. The DC politicians incentivize single motherhood and discourage employment. 
57. If you don’t believe that global warming is the biggest threat to our lives, you should not be in the same union as DC, the federal government, and the other states. 
58. If you don’t appreciate being spied on by the NSA and other creepy DC agents and politicians, you should consider divorcing them. 
59. If you don’t want to support the Taliban by providing them with money and military weapons and helicopters, you should leave the union and stop paying federal taxes. 
60. The federal government considers people guilty until proven innocent – the opposite of how it was supposed to be. Peaceful protesters have been receiving punishments in prison for months despite never being convicted. If you support due process, you support NHexit.
61. The federal TSA regularly violates our natural rights, despite literally missing 95% of actual threats. 
62. DC politicians maintain a horrifically managed ‘no-fly list’, which mistakenly puts many people (including babies) onto the list, preventing them from flying. It’s also nearly impossible to get off of the list. 
63. Conservatives from Candace Owens to Matt Walsh have spoken in support of state independence from DC. 
64. Federal government leaders believe that if you don’t wear all the masks they recommend and if you don’t get all of the vaccines they recommend, you are just like the Taliban suicide bombers. 
65. DC politicians prohibit beneficial pipelines that would have been amazing for our national security and economy while simultaneously supporting pipelines for nations that are hostile to us. 
66. Who is arming the violent Mexican drug cartels? Federal agents from DC!
67. The federal government has kidnapped innocent Japanese people and put them in concentration camps. New Hampshire has never done that. And they couldn’t ever do that. Because we all have lots of guns. 
68. The US government banned firearms and ammunition from Russia. New Hampshire would never do that.
69. The US government puts many kids in cages at the border. New Hampshire would handle immigration in a much more sensible and humane way. 
70. Things will literally never change for the better. Even with Trump in the White House and Republicans controlling Congress and the SCOTUS, freedom only diminished and tyranny continued to grow.
71. New Hampshire citizens are the hardest workers and earn the most money, which is demonstrated by our continent-leading median household income. We don’t need DC politicians to be wealthy.
72. New Hampshire is the freest state. Nearly all of our issues are caused by federal laws. Once we are independent, we will be almost 100% free to live as we please!
73. New Hampshire is the safest state. We don’t need DC or other states bringing violence to our peaceful paradise. 
74. Half of the people in the united states believe that Biden was legitimately elected and that Republicans are all traitors, while the other half believes that Biden lost the election and progressives are traitors. How could one country be united if its people hate each other so much? 
75. The DC politicians now feel so entitled to infinite power that they essentially ban medications that could help treat COVID, such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. 
76. DC politicians are so arrogant that they no longer feel the need to pass legislation in Congress; they now use executive orders to pass new laws, including the most recent one forcing all private companies in the united states with over 100 employees to vaccinate their employees or test them for COVID weekly. This will affect 80 million employees. If you don’t want DC sociopaths coming between you and your employer (or you and your doctor), you support independence. 
77. When conservative states began having success treating COVID with monoclonal antibodies Biden and DC politicians began to BLOCK the life-saving treatments from getting to pro-freedom anti-Biden states like Alabama and Florida, potentially causing people to die.
78. DC politicians have made it clear that they will continue to prioritize foreign nationals and illegal immigrants over American citizens like you and me.
79. On the other hand, DC politicians have made it very clear that Cuban immigrants are not welcome here (because they tend to vote for freedom and against communism). 
80. The Biden IRS is now going to monitor every bank account with over $600 in it so that they can tax all people who make any money in any way. Those who receive more than $600 in PayPal transactions in a year will also be subject to taxation, according to experts. Peaceful separation solves this IRS issue because the IRS would no longer have any jurisdiction over us. 
81. When NH adopted federal food laws, it made selling mushrooms illegal, among many other prohibitions. Now, the only way to make it legal for anyone in NH to sell mushrooms is to create more regulation requiring ‘licenses’, which is somewhat counterproductive. The only other way to make mushrooms legal in NH would be to sever ties with DC. 
82. Dictator Biden nominated an actual Soviet communist to be the comptroller of the currency. If you don’t want your country’s financial system to be run by an avowed communist, you support separation from DC.  
83. On 10/8/21, the preliminary deal on a GLOBAL tax on businesses was officially agreed to. A total of 136 countries have signed onto the measure, guaranteeing that they will work together to stomp out businesses seeking to evade taxes by implementing at least a 15% tax on them, no matter where they come from. Once New Hampshire becomes a self-governing state, its low (or absent) tax on business could attract so much business to the state that it could cause the biggest economic boom in world history. 
84. Dictator Biden’s OSHA implemented a vaccine mandate for nearly every worker in the united states. It is extremely unlikely that an individual could beat this in federal courts or via federal legislation. Separating from the union is actually the more practical way to nullify this mandate. 
85. A federal law to require all new cars to have passive drunk-driving monitoring technology is about to go into effect, making all cars in the united states more expensive and much more intrusive. The law does not specify, but the new technology may be tantamount to perpetual breathalyzers and/or eye monitoring in every car. 
86. The medical system and all medical institutions in the united states are becoming increasingly racist towards whites, and it all starts with DC politicians. 
87. The Supreme Court is composed of 9 judges. The SCOTUS is perhaps the most powerful entity in the united states now. These nine judges are either evil or mentally retarded. They certainly do not believe in freedom. Is that who you want to be ruled by?
88. The US House of Representatives passed legislation that would take over control of elections, taking the power that always resided with the states and granting it to DC politicians. Among the many measures in the legislative package was a law that prohibited any election in the united states from requiring ID in order to vote. New Hampshire citizens who would like to retain their voter ID law must either support secession or give up voter ID forever once this federal law passes. 
89. DC politicians just passed a law mandating that all vehicles made after 2026 be equipped with perpetual monitoring systems to detect ‘impaired driving’. The vehicles must also have ‘kill switches’ that allow cops to turn them off at any moment. If you don’t like this policy, secession is the only solution. 
90. In the summer of 2022, federal government will begin to require facial recognition/uploading pictures of your face in order to access tax/ documents on the IRS website.
91. The President announced that the next US Supreme Court Judge he nominates will be a black woman. Upon joining the court, she will likely hear a massively important case involving ‘affirmative action’.
92. DC politicians are literally stealing our organs. In 2021, a policy change at UNOS essentially caused nearly all organs from donors in New Hampshire to be sent to NYC, CT, and MA, harming New Hampshire’s patients who desperately need organs to live. DC is viciously fighting NH legislation that would allow Granite Staters to state their preference that their neighbors be granted priority over foreigners if they pass away with viable organs. 
93. The brilliant experts in DC are using $30,000,000 in taxpayer funds to give out drug paraphernalia, including crack pipes, to drug users. The statement from the DC politicians specifically mentioned that they are being distributed primarily to minorities and that they are to be used for illegal drugs. 
94. Our Lords in DC believe that they must force New Hampshire to build more housing projects so that our state could look more like the Bronx.  
95. Our brilliant Lords in DC are destroying our savings and devaluing our salaries by printing so much money that annual inflation is now at a frightening 9.1% annual rate.
96. DC politicians have been forcing you and me to pay for dangerous bioweapons labs in Ukraine for years. 
97. Your federal tax dollars are being used to pay Tik Tok influencers to create and promote propaganda approved by Dictator Biden. If you don’t want to be forced to fund such endeavors, you may want to consider secession. 
98. If you don’t enjoy paying $6 billion for the annual NIAID budget doled out by Anthony Fauci to fund foreign bioweapons labs and development and approval of ludicrously expensive patented pharmaceuticals and suppress use of cheap off-patent drug, you should consider supporting a vote of NH residents to leave the union.
99. The federal government violates free speech in numerous ways. Leaving their jurisdiction solves these issues and restores freedom of speech, expression, press, association, and worship. 
100. The federal government is increasingly racist. Most recently, Dictator Biden nominated a black woman to be a judge on the highest court because of her gender and skin color. Ironically, she will likely soon be ruling on an affirmative action case. 

The post Top 100 Reasons New Hampshire Should Be Independent appeared first on Foundation for New Hampshire Independence.