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

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

HT | WUWT

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Americans are constitutionally illiterate.

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

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

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

So what’s the solution?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyranny wouldn’t stand a chance.

 

John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute

ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

This was no rebel yell.

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

To call this argument flaccid overstates its potency.

Democrats regularly say “fight like hell.” Consider:

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

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

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

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

How idiotic do Democrats think Americans are?

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

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

This claim is flimsier than a Kleenex in a cyclone.

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

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

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor

 

Deroy Murdock | Daily Caller News Service

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline, and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The post Dems Abuse The 14th Amendment To Bar Trump From Ballots appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Democrat Party in the USA is traditionally a party that intentionally sits in opposition to the Republican Party, which represents a continuation of the ideologies that established the country in 1776.

US Democrat politicians are essentially trained to understand that the things they say are intended to create the conditions for national dialogue. They know that they are taking stances on many issues that are wrongheaded or ultimately anti-constitutional.

In many ways, due to this intentional contradictary approach to politics, the Democrat Party requires the backing of the US intelligence community. The stance the Democrats take on issues is intended to produce a section of the national population that is incredibly misinformed on all manner of current affairs. The purpose of this initiative, historically, has been to ensure that a national debate and a constant discourse must take place in order to make decisions. It is a fake production of a theatrical and forced discourse.

The foundations of this approach to governance were drawn from the 1800s when the Democrat Party was founded and created. For all intents and purposes, this ideological approach to governance is somewhat of a relic today of a bygone age. The societies of the 19th century were drastically different than today— nuclear weapons were not present, people did not carry their own individual supercomputers around in their pockets, the internet did not exist, and international travel was much more limited. There were many other critical differences.

Today, the US Democrat Party, for whatever reason, has been empowered by foreign-born and foreign-based forces. The Party has deep connections to China, Iran, Ukraine, and several other foreign governments that do not necessarily or realistically have the USA’s well-being as a core interest. In fact, many countries want to use the USA for some purpose or another— to drain its wealth, to serve as a bad guy for fearmongering authoritarian leaders, to be a stand-in military police force. The US Democrat Party is happy to sell and forfeit US sovereignty and its citizens’ wealth for their own benefit. They are ultimately individualist and will do anything for their own personal power and profit, including stealing from or killing.

The modern US Democrat Party frequently uses the phrase “good faith” to criticize people who do not treat them with a certain amount of respect. Yet, the Democrats have twisted the meaning of the English language to serve their purposes. They are not democrats (lowercase “d”) and do not support true democracy. They do not practice civility and have undermined the civil society. They have stripped civic education from public schools in areas of the country where they hold power. In the past five years especially, the Democrat Party has metastacized, spurned to total tyranny by COVID and the threat posed to their ideology by figures on the political right.

This Democrat Party is not one that should be followed or supported. The people in power in that party require removal by scalpel. They have become a disease on the USA, and mostly, their policies and existence as politicians pose a dangerous threat to the safety and well-being of US citizens. Their leadership has intentionally drained and squandered the wealth of US citizens, transferring it overseas to non-US citizens and to themselves and their families.

The Democrat Party requires a hard reset. Everything that its leaders say and do should be seen as the tantrums of a spoiled child, who needs to be sent to the bedroom for a timeout to reset and rest. There is no need to comply with a spoiled child. Or they can be likened to the death throes of a dying animal— their ideology is out-dated and wrongheaded. It is not something that people need to accept or agree with. In many ways, it comes from an ideological foundation that is intended to provide disagreeable ideas simply to generate discourse.

For a democratic society to function, such deliberate state-supported misinformation does not need to be created or spread. There are plenty of issues that are present on the planet today to consider in order to plan the direction of the US society, our society. There does not need to be a forced wrongheaded agenda violently shoved on the people. It is dishonest, immature, and uncivil.

Force the Democrat Party to reset. If the current leaders can’t do it themselves, the US citizens must assist. It is not a partisan issue. It is a matter of cultivating a healthy national political culture.

The post The Democrat Party Requires a Hard Reset appeared first on Granite Grok.

By the middle of 2022, it was already become apparent that the US military was having problems meeting recruitment goals. In August last year, The AP reported that the Army would have to cut force size, and an army spokesman admitted the Army was facing “‘unprecedented challenges’ in bringing in recruits.” This came even with new larger enlistment bonuses. The problem, however, wasn’t as acute for the Air Force, Navy, or Marine Corps.

Since then, things haven’t gotten any better for recruiters. Now, recruitment shortfalls have spread well beyond the Army.  The New York Post reported last week:

Much of the military will fall short of recruitment goals by as much as 25% this year …

The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard are all expected to fall short of their recruitment goals this year, they told The Post. …

A spokesperson for the Air Force said they will likely miss their goal of 26,877 new recruits by 10%. The Coast Guard said they will likely only fill 75% of the number of full-time, non-commissioned recruits they need.

And as of April, the Navy, which has over 300,000 active duty personnel, was behind by 6,000 new recruits this year, and the Army by 10,000 out of their 65,000 goal.

2023 is the first time the Air Force has missed its recruiting goals since 1999.

Apparently, potential recruits aren’t buying whatever it is the military is selling these days as reasons for signing away one’s freedom to federal bureaucrats for a period of years. After all, the military is the only job that one can’t quit at any time, so any intelligent person will think long and hard before signing up.

There are many reasons for the recruitment problem. The decline in mental and physical fitness is real, and many young people are disqualified from a military job even before applying. Many others are put off by what appears to be an overtly politicized and partisan military. Pentagon leaders appear to be doubling down on ideological crusades more and more. Even while it faces a recruiting crisis, the military still refuses to provide back pay to service members who were forced out for declining the experimental covid vaccines. Unquestioning compliance with vaccine mandates, of course, is a cause near and dear to the current administration. Then there are the “woke” crusades in which military brass use drag queens as Navy recruiters and create recruitment ads tailor-made for LGBT personnel. The military wants to let you know they’ll affirm your gender transition—unless, of course, that gets in way of conscription. (The Pentagon claims the “woke” issue isn’t having much effect on recruitment.)

But there are other more deep-seated problems as well. There is growing evidence that the American public no longer reveres the military as it once did. Moreover, it is more abundantly clear than ever that military service has nothing to do with defending the United States or its people. And then there is the often-seen “problem” of low unemployment and the fact the private sector is drawing the best workers away from military careers.

The Public Is Losing Faith in the Military

Compared to institutions like public education, public health, and Congress, the military remains quite popular. However, the historical trend in public views of the military is clearly downward. In 2021, “About 56 percent of Americans surveyed said they have ‘a great deal of trust and confidence’ in the military, down from 70 percent in 2018.” The trend hasn’t changed since 2018. According to a Gallup poll, people who say they have a “great deal/quite a lot” of confidence in the military fell from 69 percent in 2021 to 60 percent in 2023. The all-time low, accoriding to Gallup was in 1981 in the wake of the Vietnam War and Watergate.

The dwindling regard for the military is certainly not alien to young potential recruits, and talk of the recruiting crisis regularly features concerns about current young men and women being insufficiently “patriotic” or willing to “serve their country.”

This presents a real economic problem for recruiters. A potential recruit who regards military service as ideologically distasteful cannot be easily enticed with a few offers of recruiting bonuses or a GI Bill. After all, the military has long relied on convincing recruits they will gain psychic profits on top of whatever monetary pay they receive. To capitalize on this, recruiters will say things like “you’re serving your country” or “you’re fighting the bad guys” or “you’ll make your father proud.” But what if people stop believing that stuff? It’s going to take a lot of money to sweeten the deal for potential recruits who are smart enough or well-educated enough to have other options.

Moreover, it’s easy to see why many young people don’t find military service especially enticing. The US military lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, and hasn’t won a major war since 1945. More clever potential recruits are likely to notice that the US invasion of Iraq was no more morally justified than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Potential recruits with critical thinking skills might also notice the military is itching to turn American soldiers into fodder for Russian artillery. In previous ages, the usual regime propaganda might have worked to convince potential recruits that “we’re fighting the Russians in Ukraine so we don’t have to fight them in Kansas City.” It’s a variation on a common lie that warmongers tell Americans. But now, the military can’t even take for granted that conservatives—historically a key demographic for recruiters—will believe it anymore. Thanks to a shift in foreign policy views among conservative populists, many young men in middle America see a disconnect between the regime’s latest wars and actual defense of the “homeland.”

National Guard Troops Are Exploited by the Regime

This brings us to another problem recruiters face. Even those who doubt the regime’s latest imperial adventures oversea might nonetheless be convinced to join the National Guard. But even there, better-informed potential recruits are learning that the National Guard has degenerated into a reserve force for the regular military. The old “two weeks every summer” slogan about the National Guard has been exposed as a lie, and potential recruits seeking to “serve the community”  now know that they may end up fighting wars 10,000 miles from home. In 2021, National Public Radio reported on how the National guard exploits recruits. One Idaho National Guardsman described the new reality:

My entire life, the recruiting National Guard message has been one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer. And when we served, we used to say one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer, my ass. You know, when we went to Afghanistan, we were gone for 18 months…

NPR further noted:

There has been a lot going on that the National Guard has been brought in for—hurricanes, floods, protests, Iraq, Afghanistan. Last year, more than a third of the National Guard was on active duty. That’s the highest utilization we’ve seen since World War II, and some service members are getting fed up.

Once upon a time, National Guard forces could not legally serve overseas at all. This was why many young men in the 1960s managed to avoid a pointless death in Vietnam by signing up for the National Guard. Then, it was established they would not serve overseas without a declaration of war. Then the Pentagon and Congress decided it can do whatever it wants with National Guard members. A young many or women would have to be pretty desperate to sign up for that sort of treatment.

Unemployment Is Low

And that’s the thing. Workers right now aren’t desperate. The United States is currently in the middle of an employment bubble. Billions of dollars in new money created since 2020 has flooded the economy, driving up demand and producing countless malinvestments in the labor markets. Monetary inflation has driven increases in wages, and workers—for now—simply don’t need a military job. This relationship between low unemployment and low recruitment, of course, has been known for a long time. As a 2010 report from the Department of Defense noted:

Recruiting and retention are sensitive to the state of the economy. Studies indicate that a 10 percent decrease in the civilian unemployment rate will reduce high-quality enlisted recruiting by 2–4 percent. Retention also declines when unemployment decreases, but appears to be less sensitive to the state of the economy than recruiting. The recent economic downturn has improved recruiting and retention and has allowed the services to reduce use of enlistment and reenlistment bonuses. However, this improvement is expected to diminish as civilian economic conditions improve.

We’ll only know how truly severe the recruiting crisis is for the Pentagon once the unemployment rate starts to head up again. We likely won’t have to wait long. We can point to half a dozen economic indicators right now that point to a thoroughly slowing economy in the next year. As we see in the survey data, however, it is likely that views of military service have changed considerably in recent years. That means older relationships between joblessness and recruitment may no longer apply to the same extent. It may be that rising unemployment may not drive as many new recruits as may have been the case a decade ago. Recruiters may find that members of Gen Z are not enthusiastic about losing yet another war—regardless of the size of the enlistment bonus. We’ll find out soon enough.

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is executive editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power and Market, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public policy and international relations from the University of Colorado. He was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Breaking Away: The Case of Secession, Radical Decentralization, and Smaller Polities and Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

Ryan McMaken | Mises Wire

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 Three Reasons Why Military Recruitment Is in Crisis appeared first on Granite Grok.

Is the bigger story in NM the emergency order on guns or the resistance to it? Would courts uphold public health emergency laws or at least leave them unchallenged, as they did with covid? Is there a federal crime prohibiting depriving citizens of rights under cover of law? Kamala smiling (laughing?) at the 9/11 memorial

The post The Conservatarian Exchange Podcast #171 appeared first on The Liberty Block.

You’ll have noticed the absence of something almost daily. Content from Skip. He is up to his eyeballs in family matters that have consumed nearly every waking moment and many a sleepless night. It is not, we suspect, forever, but it has dragged on much longer than he expected.

Hurdles he’d jumped with an eye on getting back to writing have been cleared, only to find more. He’s working on it as you may have noticed today.

In his absence, I have had to lean more heavily on third-party content shared from places like Mises Wire, the Daily Caller, The Rutherford and Ron Paul Institutes, and even our own Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy. We appreciate policies that allow us to share what is certainly top-shelf filler, but the Grok has long prided itself on original content—our take on the news and opinion of the day, not someone elses.

That continues to be the goal, and when possible, the daily menu will include op-eds and other local fare no one else has. But until Skip can get his feet under himself for more than five minutes, I’ll be adding the third-party stuff almost every day, along with a hat tip and thank you to our cast of volunteers: Groksters that provide regular news and opinions you can only get at GraniteGrok.com.

Looking forward

If you’ve not heard, my departure from my full-time job finally has a hard date. Sept. 29th is my last full day in the office. After that, I will begin relying on our donations and will be able to focus almost entirely on GraniteGrok and projects proposed or started but not finished.

On that point, we have someone looking into the best way to add the promised ad-free VIP version for subscribers and donors. The upgraded search feature is also actively under study. We already have the tools to add video content and podcasts, and I will be trying to get that back on track. In other words, there will be improving the experience and diversifying the content.

Vermont Grok has new content, if not every day, than several days a week, as we look for ways to grow the content and audience. We’ve also contemplated expanding into Maine – maybe next year.

We are also organizing a rather significant fundraising event at the Londonderry Fish and Game Club on October 28th (Save the Date!) to help keep it all moving in the right direction: live music, local and national speakers, a gun raffle (perhaps?), and more – details will follow as we finalize things.

So, we are not sitting on our hands or giving up publishing space. Any shift toward third-party content is temporary, and with any luck, Skip will be back on track in a week or two.

One more note. I’ve been summoned for jury duty at the beginning of October, so my full-time affections could be delayed depending on whether I actually get picked and when, for how long, and so on. Skip may have to heave-hoh in my partial absence, so I hope he’s ready for that.

Thanks so much for your patience, your financial support, and, as always, for reading GraniteGrok.

 

Reminder: If – at any time – you’d like to give or give more, start or increase a subscription, you can use the GiveSendGo campaign page (no fees) or donate through the website (PayPal). We also accept checks; you can email me for the address if this is your preferred method of support.

The post What’s All This Then? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The July military coup in the west African country of Niger has once again brought attention to the fact that the US government runs a global military empire that serves Washington’s special interests, and not the national interest.

Before the coup made news headlines, most Americans – including many serving in Congress – had no idea the US government maintains more than 1,000 troops stationed on several US bases in Niger. But it’s even worse than that. A recent report in The Intercept suggests the Pentagon repeatedly misled Congress about the extent and the cost of the US presence in Niger.

According to The Intercept, “in testimony before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in March, the chief of US Africa Command described Air Base 201 (in Niger) as ‘minimal’ and ‘low cost.’” In fact the US government has spent a quarter of a billion dollars on the base since construction began in 2016.

So when did Congress declare war so as to legalize US military operations in Niger? They didn’t. But as Kelley Vlahos writes in Responsible Statecraft, US troops have been “training” the military in Niger since 2013 and the US government has constructed a number of military bases to “fight terrorism” in the country and region.

Does that mean that the Pentagon is operating in Niger under the 2001 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) meant to track down those who attacked the US on 9/11? It’s a good question and thankfully one being asked by Sen. Rand Paul in a recent letter sent to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

Senator Paul first pointed out in the letter, “the Administration’s limitless interpretation of the 9/11 AUMF and frequent use of Title 10 authorities results in military operations abroad conducted with little Congressional oversight and even less public scrutiny.” Such actions “undermine our Constitution,” he writes as he asks, “in how many countries are US forces conducting operations authorized by the 2001 AUMF.”

Ironically – or maybe not – one of the coup leaders in NIger had been trained by the Pentagon at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. What is the US government training foreign military officers to do, exactly? Overthrow their own governments?

Whatever the case, it appears the coup government in Niger may be seeking a withdrawal of foreign military on its soil. Mass protests against French military presence has led the French government to begin talks with the coup government on withdrawal. There are rumors that the coup government may next request US troops to leave the country.

We should pre-empt their possible request by withdrawing all US troops immediately from Niger (and the rest of Africa) and closing all military bases. The claim that the US government is fighting terrorism in the area is doubtful. After all, in both Libya and in Syria the US government backed terrorist groups against governments it sought to overthrow. President Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan famously wrote to his then-boss Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012 that, “in Syria, al-Qaeda is on our side.”

Congress must step up and exercise its oversight authority to end the counter-productive US military presence in Africa. Our military empire is bankrupting us and turning the rest of the world against us.

 

Ron Paul | Ron Paul Institute

Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

The post Why Are We in Niger? appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you ever wanted to witness the real-time evolution of a traditional faith system from one of meaning and purpose to a pointless Sunday Garden Party, the Church of England has your ticket.

 

The biggest news story to come out of the church’s gathering was that some within the Church of England are calling for 2000-year-old references to God as He, Him or Father to be banished, instead using gender-neutral or female alternatives.

Leaders at the synod took written questions from those attending. One question came from the Reverend Joanna Stobart, an Anglican minister, who wanted to know what steps were being taken to offer alternatives to God with male pronouns. Specifically, she hoped “to develop more inclusive language in our authorized liturgy.”

The Bishop of Lichfield, Michael Ipgrave, serving as Vice Chair of the church’s Liturgical Commission provided a reply that excited those seeking the change. “We have been exploring the use of gendered language in relation to God for several years in collaboration with the Faith and Order Commission. After some dialogue between the two commissions in this area, a new joint project on gendered language will begin this spring.”

 

In America, they call it the Episcopal church, with which I’m somewhat familiar. My uncle was an Episcopalian Bishop, and until his passing twenty-plus years ago, we’d get the odd bit of inside baseball. But most of the migration away from traditional church doctrine has occurred since then, so I’m more of an outside observer – which is not a bad thing. Much of what I write is from outside whatever institution is the object of my bleary eye. You come here to read my thoughts about this or that, and I have a few about the Synod, which has already been pointed out here.

 

The story of Jesus Christ may be the best known and certainly the most read of any man to have ever set foot on planet earth. Christians believe Jesus was born to the ever-virgin Mary, sometimes referred to as “the mother of God.” She conceived Jesus through a miracle, thanks to the Holy Spirit. While some doubters have questioned her virgin status, virtually nowhere in history has there been any credible debate that Mary was Jesus’ mother. At no point has there been a serious discussion that Mary herself was God.

With those two points undisputed, it seems illogical that Christians could take to referring to God as She or Her. If one believes Jesus was the son of God and that Mary was His mother, and that she wasn’t God, simple logic tells us God can’t be referred to as She.

Far more importantly, though, are the words of Jesus himself. He spoke frequently about his Father in Heaven. He gave us the Lord’s Prayer, which begins with the words “Our Father.” He was not ambiguous.

 

There is, of course, no limit to the ways in which they/them can massage anything to fit into whatever shaped hole needs filling, but doesn’t that defeat the purpose? Judeo-Christian doctrine is filled with stories about every sort of person/people wandering off the morality plantation only to have bad things happen to them. It’s almost as if someone accurately observed human behavior and came up with a way to explain how not to suffer quite so much as a result. With a slight bit of prompting, almost anyone can manage to live productive, meaningful lives during which we prepare the future generation for similar success, unburdened by the absolute inevitability of death.

The rest of it might be window dressing, and while the carpet doesn’t have to match the drapes, at some point, you’ll have wandered so far away from the foundation that there’s hardly any point to any of it. With nothing upon which to stand, what little there was that made sense ceases to function as anything other than an increasingly lousy reason to get up early on Sunday morning.

And I think that’s exactly what the Secular Humanists infiltrators have been after all these years. And maybe you’d rather side with them, but modern totalitarian societies make it a point to ensure that the only higher power you recognize is the state, and while some people and some faiths have had a spotty record when it comes to morality, rights, and humanity, the depots are still batting zero, and we’ve no reason to believe that will ever change.

The Church of England is headed in the wrong direction, and I think everyone knows it.

 

For the first time in a census of England and Wales, less than half of the population (46.2%, 27.5 million people) described themselves as “Christian”, a 13.1 percentage point decrease from 59.3% (33.3 million) in 2011; despite this decrease, “Christian” remained the most common response to the religion question.

 

Membership in The Church of England is in a demographic spiral and being woke by pretending that more inclusive language will help is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

.

The post The Church of England Looks for Ways to Escape the Burdens of Christianity appeared first on Granite Grok.

Yeah, not a fan at all. If you are in or familiar with the Lakes Region, this car was parked in the Shaw’s parking lot across from Lowe’s in Gilford/Laconia. I had driven over from Lowe’s to pick up a couple of items and found this selfish Flatlander believing they could inconvenience people with their Bright, New, Shiny Subaru Forester with Massachusetts plate 187-D30.

 

(click to embiggen)

 

Parked right in the middle of two parking spots, as you see above. I’m not even sure I could have gotten it more dead-center if I was really trying hard:

 

 

(click to embiggen)

 

Entitlement, for sure. You backwoods, rednecked, toothless NH denizens, behold my magnificence….

I have to admit – if we hadn’t had to get home to take the Grandson off the bus, I would have parked right behind them. TMEW wasn’t amused at the idea, but I sure was.

After all, an opportunity to take a nap at Mr/Mrs/Miss Entitlement’s expense of time. And to let them know that’s why many of us “from around here” don’t like those that are “from away”.

 

The post Cloud and Sun – Great and Calming. On the Other Hand: Entitled Massachusetts Driver. MA Plate 187-D30 appeared first on Granite Grok.

Milk. You can get it from lactating mammals, but PETA would like you to believe that the cow-assaulting farmers aligned with the American Dairy-Industrial Complex are perpetuating a White supremacist milk culture. People who drink cows’ Milk are … systemic racists.

Are they, really? Or are the Almond ‘Milk’ people paying PETA to make up crap like this? I wouldn’t put it past them. The (cows’) Milk is racist narrative has been brewing for years, during which (coincidentally?) Almond Milk – which is actually creamy nut juice – has increased its market share among people who want Milk without the Milk (or the racism?) in the way Democrats want America without freedom.

They want it more than they can say.

I don’t drink much of either, and there is room for discussion about the Dairy Industrial Complex or the Almond Industrial Complex using this or that to secure its cartel, but we’re not here to discuss that, are we? The question is whether Milk is racist or, to be more specific – per the lactating mammals at PETA, cows’ Milk.

 

This can’t be real. Please tell me this isn’t real. pic.twitter.com/lm623VEgxB

— Libby Emmons (@libbyemmons) September 8, 2023

If it ever concerned you, it shouldn’t, the answer is no. It is not a symbol of anything white or supremacist, and a few seconds of research proves that point. Brown people milked first!

Domesticated “Cows” (Aurochs) and their Milk have been a part of human diets and cultures dating back to 8000 BC. That means, among people of all races, though not likely consumed as a liquid until about 6000 to 4000 BC when someone figured out how to process gut-wrenching dairy (raw Milk) into yogurt and cheese. That appears to have happened somewhere around 4000 BC.

 

According to scientists, the ability to digest milk was slowly gained some time between 5000-4000 B.C.E. by the spread of a genetic mutation called lactase persistance that allowed post-weaned humans to continue to digest milk. If that date is correct, it may pre-date the rise of other major dairying civilizations in the Near East, India, and North Africa.

 

Also,

 

People with the mutated gene would have had a better chance at survival and producing children with the same ability.  Soon, 80% of early dairying cultures in the Middle East and Europe carried this gene.  Dairying became a cultural and dietary mainstay.

 

In other words, Milk from the ancestors of our (for lack of a better term) European dairy cow was consumed in many forms by Sumerians (Archaeological evidence shows that the Ancient Sumerians drank cow’s Milk and also made cow’s Milk into cheeses and butters.), Egyptians (the cow was a goddess in her own right, named Hathor, who guarded the fertility of the land.“),  The Vedics (who ruled Northern India from about 1750 BCE to about 500 BCE, relied heavily upon the cow and the dairy products that it provided), and others, none of whom were “white” like Milk.

If people of color have been drinking and using cows’ Milk for longer than the “white man,” this, at best, suggests cultural appropriation, if anything. And if we’re talking about the Americas, you can start by blaming the Spanish.

 

“The first cattle to arrive in the New World landed in Vera Cruz, Mexico, in 1525. Soon afterword, some made their way across the Rio Grande to proliferate in the wild. They became known as ‘Texas Cattle.’ Soon after, some of the [Spanish] settlers transported cattle to South America from the Canary Islands and Europe. More followed, and cattle multiplied rapidly throughout New Spain, numbering in the thousands within a few years.”

 

I’m still unclear why descendants of European Colonialists from Spain get an exception. The Spaniards erased the local Mesoamerican and South American culture, murdered the indigenous population, and replaced their language, and their descendants are victims of paler Europeans.

So, Cows’ Milk is racist and white supremacist even though brown people broke the seal on that whole business long before northern Europeans brought cows to North America, and the term white fragility was invented by people who probably drink nut juice.

Feel free to celebrate that reality by drinking… a beer that was thought to have been first crafted in Mesopotamia about 4 – 5,000 years ago.

 

The post Got White Supremacy? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The opening article of this series, published in the September 9 edition of the Eagle Times and in Granite Grok, examined test results from the Croydon Village School in light of comments made by its principal, Nicole Lackie, who also shared her belief that schools do not know how to teach reading.

The conventional wisdom says that the pandemic shutdowns affected student performance in public schools. In Croydon, this proved not to be the case. Now, we take an in-depth look at what happened to student achievement at the state level before and after the pandemic shutdowns on the New Hampshire Student Assessment System (NHSAS) and the National Assessment of Educational Progress test.

The NHSAS

The New Hampshire Student Assessment System (NHSAS) is administered yearly to students attending traditional public and charter schools in grades 3 through 8. The SAT is administered to NH students in grade 11; it’s free, and it’s required, whether you are college-bound or not.

Despite RSA 193-H:2 requiring public schools to have “all pupils at the proficient level or above on the statewide assessment,” no school in New Hampshire has achieved this result or even come close. One might ask what purpose is served by these tests or this statute, but that is not the purpose of this review.

The New Hampshire Department of Education (NHEd) has a record of statewide assessment data since it started using the NHSAS in 2016. Tests were not administered in 2020 because of the pandemic shutdowns.

In what follows, we use the phrase “the score” to refer to “the percentage of students performing at or above the most basic level of proficiency” on any given test.

Summary of NHSAS Scores Since 2016

The NHSAS Reading chart below shows the percentage of students scoring proficient or above in reading on the state standardized tests in grades 3-8 and 11 from 2016 through 2022.

 

 

Reading scores have been dropping linearly since 2016, when nearly 40%, 4 out of 10 students, performed below grade level.

In 2022, the number of students scoring proficient had fallen to about 50%. There is no evidence of an extra drop in reading performance because of the shutdown. In other words, reading scores seem to be just where they would have been anyway, had the shutdown never happened. But let’s break that down more by looking at student performance in each grade.

We’ll start with students who were in kindergarten in 2018 and see how they performed through 2023. This group was in 2nd grade during the 2020 shutdown. They started testing in 2021 as 3rd graders, where 44% of them were proficient in reading. In 2023, their 5th grade scores showed that 54% were proficient. These numbers seem to disprove the prevailing narrative.

 

 

Similar to the 2018 kindergarten chart, each group of bars in the Reading Group Progression chart (below) shows how the different sets of students performed in the 6-year period from 2018 to 2023.

 

 

Those same kindergarten students are shown in the first set of bars on the left. Students who were in 1st, 2nd or 3rd grade in 2018 all showed about the same levels of proficiency throughout their testing. Around half the students are reading at grade level.

Those who were in grades 4 and 5 in 2018 showed some decline after the shutdown. These two groups of students seem to be the hardest hit by the pandemic shutdown when they were in 6th and 7th grades, respectively. Even so, about 50% of students across the board read below grade level and always have.

It seems that the pandemic has distracted us from the larger problem: that half our students have been reading below grade level for a long time.

Since one score could be questionable, let’s see how a national test measures New Hampshire student performance.

NAEP: The Nation’s Report Card

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, pronounced “nape”) is called “The Nation’s Report Card.” Since 1969, NAEP has been designed and used by the education establishment to let everyone know how well the United States is educating its children. They report results for each state for grades 4 and 8.

According to this test, New Hampshire is near the top of the United States.

NAEP scores in New Hampshire tell a different story than the NHSAS and SAT scores. The NAEP Reading chart shows that scores for grade 4 had been rising (ever so slightly) since 1998 until they dropped in 2017, which was well before the shutdown. The grade 8 scores also started dropping after 2017.

 

 

What the data shows is that even when scores were at their highest, fewer than half of NH students have been reading at grade level since at least 1998.

Again, we should clearly state that all the NAEP scores are low. They show that even at their high in 2015, only 45% of New Hampshire grade 8 students and only 46% of students in grade 4 were proficient in reading.

Conclusion

The narrative that the COVID pandemic shutdowns made things worse academically for public schools is not supported by New Hampshire’s data. Reading scores were decreasing before the pandemic started.

More than half of the kids in public schools are performing below grade level in reading. This has been the case despite regular changes to pedagogy, curriculum, technology, funding, and other efforts to improve schools.

Perhaps other approaches should be considered, for example: Organizing students into groups at the same academic levels, using technology to help students learn at their own level and at their own pace, or only allowing students to attend school when they are developmentally ready to read.

Next, we will look at how Vermont’s students may have been affected by the pandemic shutdown, according to its state assessments and the NAEP test.

This article originally appeared in the Eagle Times on September 12, 2023. It has been slightly edited.

 

The post Did the Pandemic Shutdown Affect Student Performance in NH? Part 2 of 8 appeared first on Granite Grok.

The progressives with liberal privilege don’t live in inner cities, so when they defunded the police, the elites didn’t see how it made Black Lives worse. Open borders were the same—no contact with the misery until border Governors started bussing them to Liberal cities.

That chaos is exacerbated by the Pfederal effort to relocate border crossers all over the US. Now, states like Massachusetts have declared states of emergency over some illegal aliens in their midst, equal to a fraction of what crosses into Texas border towns every few days.

Whiners.

The solution to this growing problem is not to close the border or even fill the prisons (they are breaking the law) but to put the border jumpers up in motels and hotels at taxpayer expense (which led this Hotelier to bail on properties in NYC). Chicago, Boston, New York, you name it, and they’ve got a human trafficking problem. Too many humans are trafficked into their laps instead of being returned to their native lands.

And sure, maybe 1% of them have a legitimate claim to political asylum, but we are not obligated to accept anyone under any circumstance. We could be like every other control and control immigration, but instead, Chicago has blocked off at least one section of the airport and set up a Bidenville, where the illegals congregate and sleep.

 

O’Hare airport in Chicago has been turned into a shelter for illegals

The area is blocked by a black curtain and staff is refusing to let journalists in
pic.twitter.com/9DPxpB7g15

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 9, 2023

 

And the housing arrangements are legit. The Chicago Sun-Times has a piece in which  then adds,

 

After a long trek to Chicago from Venezuela and other South and Central American countries, hundreds of migrants have landed at O’Hare Airport in recent weeks to find overcrowded, unsanitary and unpleasant conditions.

Among the complaints in the airport shelter: poor quality food like instant ramen; lack of access to health care, showers and laundry; inadequate bedding; and no support for placing children in schools.

The migrants arrive at O’Hare after being flown from Texas and other states.

 

The Sun-Times claims these are temporary arrangements, but “The problems at O’Hare follow a doubling of the number of incoming migrants to Chicago seeking more long-term shelter. As of Thursday, that figure was 2,089. At the airport, the number was 411, up from just 31 at the beginning of August. That population is almost four times the capacity limit initially set by the city.”

Security is a concern, so what is the next housing solution, the wide walkways in shopping malls? Will they set up shops to sell wares or panhandle for change? Or can they shoplift with impunity until all the stores leave and the entire mall becomes a slum city within a city, as if this is better for everyone involved?

And while we’d like to think that these incursions into liberal air space might have some electoral implications, there’s no evidence. Chicago only has 2,089 they know about. That’s .0077% of the local population. Before the Dems pandemic, over 80 million people used O’Hare annually. A few hundred foreigners behind a curtain are not exactly an emergency.

Related: Mayor Lightfoot Saves Illegals From Chicago Gun Violence By Shipping Them off to the Suburbs

What is an emergency is that Nancy Pelosi is running for Congress again on San Francisco values. That place is a disease-infested dumpster fire. You could shoot episodes for a spin-off series from The Walking Dead with little set prep or makeup. And Pelois has almost no chance of losing despite decades of enriching herself and donors. At the same time, the people who elect her watch their city spiral into a physical and cultural disaster.

It is a problem that is well documented in San Fran and dozens of other Dem Run cesspools that in no way deter places (like, say, Vermont) from embracing the same failed policies (like open borders) as if they’ll do it better, but they can’t. There is no other end. So, you are either in on the scam and milking the populace dry for political power and financial gain, or you are a brain-dead, water-carrying stooge with the intellectual agility of a small soap dish for supporting it.

A homeless festering Gutamalan could defecate on your Dolce & Gabbana Floral Stretch Stiletto Booties, and you’d be like, “We need more government to do something about this”

The only place we could use some government is along the border, where they’ve abdicated their responsibility to keep America safe. But it’s not just that. The Pfeds don’t want the states or the people to secure the border. Their goal is to break the system, and whether urban Democrats realize it or not, their DC Democrat masters will break them first with a bit of help from border state governors, ensuring they get a taste of the policies they embrace.

 

 

 

The post Chicago is ‘Storing’ Illegal Aliens Like ‘Souvenirs’ at the Airport appeared first on Granite Grok.

SMILE, everyone, SMILE!  Wonderment and reflection – it can do a body (and mind) good:

 

 

(Click to embiggen)

 

It was taken from the Gilford Middle School parking lot up towards the Belknap Mountain range. Just a quick smartphone snap but it pleased me and put a smile on my face. It would have been nice not to have the building so large, but I thought the rays emanating from the clouds, tipped with sunshine, just caught a part of me.

It was a welcome relief to see.

 

The post Palate Cleanser – Sometimes, Ya Gotta Look Up at the Sky and Smile appeared first on Granite Grok.

Did you realize one country is the home to 9 of the ten most deadly cities in the world?  it is also home to 11 of the 15 most violent cities in the world. It has been the most deadly country in the world for the last six consecutive years.  Which country is this?

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

The answer is Mexico.

A Mexican organization, The Citizen’s Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice (CCPSCJ), compiled the data laying out the murder capitals of the world.  Mexico is the country with which we share our open southern border.

The list of most dangerous Mexican cities in order of most murders per capita to least includes Colima, Zamora, Ciudad Obregon, Zacatecas, Tijuana, Celaya, Uruapan, Ciudad Juárez, Acapulco, Irapuato and Cuernavaca and two of these highly dangerous cities, Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, are located just across the US-Mexico border.

Mexico is now America’s top trade partner, taking the top spot from China owing to its location, the USMCA trade agreement, and Chinese manipulation of USMCA.

America is moving its economic supply chain to a country that is the most deadly and violent in the world.  How smart is that?  And how smart is it when we consider more US companies are moving out of China and going to Mexico?

And how is it companies are moving out of China to relocate to the very dangerous region of the South China Sea, like Vietnam? Is that really out of Chinese influence and control?

This is not acting based on thoughtful analysis and consideration.

It’s not smart. It jeopardizes America’s security.  There’s no real meaty analysis being offered here, just some common sense and something to consider.  How did we get here?  Why is what we are doing making sense?  What questions does it raise in your mind?

The post America Is Shifting Its Economic Supply Chain to a Country That Is the Most Deadly and Violent in the World appeared first on Granite Grok.

The consolidation of smaller farms into sprawling industrial food-rearing facilities has been witnessed by a largely unaware or uncaring society. Americans rallied to save the bald eagle and the spotted owl but have mustered little more than a platitudinal Farm Aid concert to reverse the decimation of the nation’s food-producing backbone. However, failing to save local farms is similar to ignoring honeybee die-offs: Humans can live without owls but not bees and the healthful foods they pollinate.

Current Farm-Bashing

Media reports sow ideas of insects for dinner, soy-burgers replacing beef, and the elimination of traditional agriculture in favor of space-age “solutions” to the supposed climate crisis caused by agriculture. Similar promises of transforming the post-World War II food supply for the Green Revolution used technology, genetic engineering, ubiquitous chemical applications to the land, and cutthroat marketing to eviscerate traditional farming, reduce food quality, and destroy the nation’s soil and water.

The circular marketing that offers humanity the same poison twice is classic doublespeak: Technology and corporate consolidation created cheap, toxic food that is killing the ecosystem as well as the children suffering from diabetes, obesity, and cancer at ever-higher rates. The solution — per Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, John Kerry, and other globalist stooges for corporate hegemony — is to eliminate all farming by human hand and compel humanity to dine on patented synthetic creations churned from humongous factories.

The Allure of Cheap Food

Americans have been understandably dazzled by cheap food and promises of endless bounty. With an average household food budget of 9% of income — until recent inflationary pressures — the nation’s food is cheaper than any people’s in history. The selection of products from around the world and newfangled food creations, often flavored with chemicals lab-designed to stimulate taste buds or appetite, are additional temptations nurturing complacency about straw-hat farmers losing their intergenerational lands.

Now most of that acreage is gone forever. Commercial development and suburban creep have irrevocably absorbed huge swaths of former fertile farmland. Small farmsteads dropped first, but the greater impact on consumers has been the lesser-known demise of the medium-sized ones.

Much is made of the term “family farm,” but the label is illusory. Massive properties of hundreds of thousands of acres may still be “family-owned,” just as Cargill, Ford, BMW, and Walmart can be described that way. The USDA also counts all agrarian enterprises selling more than $1,000 in goods annually in its census data as “family farms” that, in GNP terms, contribute little. What counts is balanced operations, both economically and environmentally: Middle-sized farms serve that vital balance.

The Demise of Mid-Sized Farms

Much as wealth disparity has split the nation and withered the middle class, consolidation enabled by heavy subsidies and favorable regulation has erased America’s middle-sized farms. USDA reported:

“[T]he USDA said U.S. agriculture is increasingly divided into two groups: a large number of small farms that produce a small part of the nation’s food, fiber, and livestock, and a small number — fewer than 80,000 — of big operations that generate two-thirds of farm production. The number of medium-sized farms is shrinking … The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said the 2017 census showed that agricultural consolidation is driving medium-sized family farms out of business and concentrating wealth among large operators.

Subsidies for corn, wheat, soy, and other crops favor large-scale operators at the expense of lesser producers. These subsidies do not much impact farmers markets or roadside stands, which also avoid most of the costly and burdensome labor, environmental, and agriculture regulations that are easily borne by large enterprises but undermine the profitability of smaller operators.

Another creeping destroyer has been tax inflation. As land prices have increased, real estate taxes in many states have become stifling for farm entrepreneurs unless protected by land use or other relief programs. A backyard gardener is likely paying taxes already on a residential parcel with a garden, so any small income from farm sales is essentially earned free of any increment in real estate taxes. Large tracts generally carry a lower per-acre real estate tax burden; medium-sized farms thus bear the greatest tax burden relative to income, as their lands will likely be valued at current residential development value rather than raw agricultural land. These pressures especially undermine mid-sized operations close to affluent cities or suburban regions.

The result of these combined pressures has been an inexorable loss of human farmers, as food is reared in chemical-soaked plains or concrete feed lots, processed in multi-storied smoke-stacked labyrinths, and packaged for institutionalized distribution and eventual human consumption. The same forces that destroyed the local farm now label cows as threats while constructing massive polluting factories to supply synthetic, patented meat products and insect patties to schoolchildren, shaping their tastebuds for the future.

The “family farm” label is unimportant: Essential is whether food is local and produced at a sensible scale for the climate, geography, and soil types of a region. Consolidating all domestic agriculture into an industrial factory-farm system is a step away from human health and liberty and devastating for the environment. Should Americans awaken from their near-comatose consumption long enough to view their plight, they would understand that the death of smaller farms represents their own demise. No farms, no food — or at least no natural, unpatented food.

 

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

The post The Extinction of Mid-Size American Farms Hurts You appeared first on Granite Grok.

As over 100 liberty activists gathered for my sentencing hearing at federal court, two brave activists challenged the unconstitutional recording ban at the federal courthouse. One is Frank “Footloose” Staples, a longtime freedom advocate who is not afraid to throw himself into the gears of the evil system. The other is NH State Representative Jason Gerhard, who spent a dozen years in federal prison for standing with tax freedom advocates Ed and Elaine Brown. When he was released a couple of years ago, he jumped right back into activism.

While there are ridiculous recording restrictions in existence at New Hampshire state courthouses, the feds are even worse. In NH state courts, one can easily record in a courtroom, but security goons will threaten people who try to record in the other areas of state courthouses. Federal courts however, completely ban all recording devices, nationwide. The ban, “Rule 53“, has been in place since 1946 and has never been successfully overturned. Recording devices are also prohibited by NH Federal District Court “local rules” 83.8.

Will Footloose and Rep Gerhard have success by openly violating the ban, giving them standing to argue their case in court? We’re about to find out, as both were arrested Monday morning while recording at the security checkpoint. Both were cuffed and then issued tickets for violating 102-74.385, a misdemeanor. That code states:

Persons in and on property must at all times comply with official signs of a prohibitory, regulatory or directory nature and with the lawful direction of Federal police officers and other authorized individuals.

Footloose argues that the court is a “public forum”, as stated on its own signage in the lobby, so any order by the police to leave is not a “lawful order”. Gerhard is standing on the constitutionally protected right to a free press. Here’s the video of their arrests:

For more, follow “Absolute Defiance” on YouTube and Gerhard for New Hampshire on Rumble. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.

How about the survival of humanity as a good enough reason to impeach Biden? The Biden-Regime’s latest – long-range missiles to the corrupt, oligarch Zelensky. See thread below from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.. I disagree, however, with RFK when he says that the problem is that Russia will retaliate. Putin will act preemptively to prevent the Biden-Regime … through its bloodthirsty surrogate Zelensky … from showering death and destruction on the Russian people – because Putin, unlike the America-hating Socialists running the Biden-Regime, actually loves his country.

And that’s what the Biden-Regime and its lunatic warmonger cheerleaders are counting on. The Regime, and probably most of the GOP “leaders”, will then label Russia’s defensive measures “aggression” against the United States, which the Regime believes will cause the country to rally around “War-President” Biden and reelect him (an outcome that the GOP “leaders” would prefer over Trump because he would end their precious forever-wars). These people are willing to risk World War III to maintain power. These people are SICK and TWISTED.

2022: President Biden “not prepared to provide” long-range missiles to Ukraine, given the “key goal” of avoiding “the road towards a third world war.”

2023: Biden administration preparing to send long-range missiles to Ukraine.

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) September 12, 2023

The post Biden-Regime Willing To Instigate World War III To Maintain Power … Long-Range Missiles To Zelensky appeared first on Granite Grok.