Tuesday • May 14 • 2024
Vol.XVI • No.XX
Manchester, N.H.
I picture Merrick Garland rousing from a restless sleep, donning his Obama slippers and a pilly white cotton robe, before scurrying to his lair. You can hear distant, muffled screaming as he walks, clinging bitterly to the remnants of the dream he’s just had.
Related: Gov. Michelle ‘Grab Your Guns’ Grisham Just Became the Best Gun “Salesman” in Albuquerque
A new way to disarm law-abiding citizens or, at least, make the exercise of Second Amendment rights more burdensome. That is, after all, what a Democrat attorney general is supposed to do.
Garland makes his way to his desk, where he quickly downs two fingers of scotch forgotten from earlier. His chair creaks when he sits, his hands illuminated by a pool of lamplight paw for a Pall Mall Mentholated cigarette, which he sticks to his chapped bottom lip.
A Sphynx cat listens to the scratching of a pencil on paper from a dark corner, its eyes reflecting the scant light from its gloomy perch.
Suddenly, a cackle echoes down the hall as lightning strikes and thunder booms. It’s Alive! Alive!
What’s alive? Merrick Garland is reimaging portions of the Gun Control Act that would require vast numbers of gun owners to pay the ATF for a firearms dealer’s license or face the consequences.
The new rule purports to narrow the term “personal collection,” which Congress did not limit, to “personal firearms that a person accumulates for study, comparison, exhibition, or for a hobby.” Somehow “self-defense” didn’t make the cut, although that’s a predominant reason to acquire firearms. …
The rule adds that the term “personal collection” “shall not include any firearm purchased for the purpose of resale or made with the predominant intent to earn a profit.” But collectors in general buy guns with the purpose of eventual resale when they locate and can afford guns of ever-higher quality and rarity, and they certainly intend to sell guns for more than they paid as the collection moves up the ladder. And any gun owner would hope that the value of his or her firearms will increase in value, even if only to be sold by the heirs at a profit. …
The new rule is calculated to require potentially hundreds of thousands of gun owners who occasionally buy and sell firearms to obtain dealer licenses from ATF.
The new rules would also expand the ATF’s power to seize firearms based on the presumption or potential intent. “A single firearm need not even be sold if the person expresses a willingness to sell firearms, even if the person has no firearms to sell. That’s not how Congress defined the terms.”
You post a picture of a firearm on social media, and guess what? ATF could decide you intended to sell it and introduce you to their 5 AM raid program (hide your dog).
ATF can supposedly seize and forfeit firearms based on “presumptions” it invented and is not limited to the grounds for forfeiture set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 924(d), which for many forfeitures requires a showing of intent “by clear and convincing evidence”—the opposite of a presumed violation.
Stephen Halbrook, writing at Reason.com, has a lot more background and foreground here, but the long and short of it is this. Merrick Garland, DoJ, and ATF, whose jobs are to enforce laws, not make them, are penning rules that create crimes they can then use to enrich the Government at the expense of your rights (property and self-defense).
These suggested rules have little chance of surviving even the thinnest scrutiny, but that’s not the point. The point is to try. To try everything, overwhelm the system, and build on whatever they can sneak by or learn from their failed attempt. They will take your hand. The Left wants to disarm law-abiding citizens and will do anything to accomplish that task, evening the shadow of Bruen.
Americans should respond to the news … by buying more guns.
HT | Reason
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President Donald Trump’s political tenure was marked by fervent support and vehement opposition. However, beneath the surface of political disagreements, it becomes evident that he exposed adversaries lurking within the government and media who now actively conspire to sideline him. These adversaries, threatened by Trump’s policies and America-first commitment, are tirelessly working to diminish his influence and thwart his legacy.
During and after the Trump administration, some individuals and groups could be labeled as “enemies within” of the President. They represented political opponents and potential threats to President Trump’s vision for America. Their actions included vocal criticism of the President’s decisions, alleged leaks of sensitive information to the media, and behind-the-scenes maneuvers aimed at obstructing or undermining his policy agenda.
President Trump pointed fingers at those he perceived as threats to his administration. Among these adversaries were the “deep state,” influential figures in the media, and Democrats in Congress. They formed part of a vast network determined to dismantle his America-first agenda.
The “deep state,” often synonymous with entrenched bureaucrats and officials, became a recurrent target of President Trump’s relentless pursuit of transparency and accountability. This shadowy network sought to undermine his authority, thwart his policy initiatives, and hinder his promise to prioritize American interests over global agreements and conventions.
His America-first approach, characterized by stricter immigration policies and tax reforms, faced unwavering opposition from lawmakers across the aisle. This resistance only reinforced the belief that enemies conspired to eliminate Trump’s influence on national policy.
During his presidency, Trump oversaw a remarkable economic boom, groundbreaking criminal justice reform, and staunch efforts to safeguard Second Amendment rights. His administration’s economic policies led to record-low unemployment rates and substantial stock market gains. Criminal justice reform, an issue that long languished on the sidelines, saw unprecedented progress under Trump, earning him bipartisan acclaim. His pledge to protect Second Amendment rights resonated deeply with millions of Americans.
A group of career bureaucrats and former Obama administration officials were accused of conspiring to undermine President Trump. The House Intelligence Committee’s release of declassified transcripts related to the Trump-Russia collusion investigation revealed a lack of concrete evidence to support the collusion claim. This raised questions about the credibility of the accusations and fueled suspicions that some members of the “Deep State cabal” had been saying one thing behind closed doors while making wild and often contradictory claims in public.
Trump’s enemies within the political landscape may be overlooking his resilience and ability to rally his supporters. The left-wing media’s anti-Trump fervor, rather than weakening him, has, in the eyes of his supporters, only served to make him stronger.
The left’s steadfast refusal to acknowledge any successes or achievements of the Trump administration underscores a bias that fuels the perception of a hostile media environment. Trump’s opponents are aware that he has the potential to stage a remarkable political resurgence, underscoring the enduring political influence of Donald Trump.
One of the most enduring legacies of President Trump’s time in office is his role in exposing an alarming level of rot and corruption within the American political system. He shed light on the extent to which ruling class elements were willing to undermine a president who challenged the established order. The relentless efforts to destroy him, differing standards in the courts, and the use of hatred as a proxy for destruction all exemplified the determination of some to protect their interests, even at the expense of democratic norms and institutions.
Even after leaving office, President Trump remains at the epicenter of an unrelenting battle. High-profile events like the Georgia subversion trial and ongoing disputes over the 2020 election results underscore the enduring impact of his presidency on American politics.
The Georgia subversion trial showcases the enduring legal challenges surrounding the 2020 election, serving as a testament to President Trump’s dedication to ensuring the integrity of the electoral process.
The looming threat of impeachment in Texas is a calculated move by political opponents who seek to undermine individuals like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the values and ideologies they represent. It’s seen as part of a broader pattern where individuals perceived as Trump loyalists are targeted for their commitment to conservative principles, traditional values, and support for the former President.
President Trump’s presidency exposed enemies within the government and media who now actively conspire to diminish his influence and impede his legacy. Regardless of one’s political affiliation, it is crucial to recognize the significance of such power struggles and their potential consequences for individuals and society as a whole.
While the fight continues, it is important to remember the substantial accomplishments of the Trump administration and the ongoing commitment to America-first policies, which remain a cornerstone of political discourse. President Trump’s legacy, whether lauded or criticized, undeniably left an indelible mark on the American political landscape, inspiring passionate support for the principles he championed.
The post Trump Exposed the Rot and Fraud of the Elites appeared first on Granite Grok.
I want everyone to take a look at this email from Citizens Alliance NH, a group I am not very familiar with, but I did respond to them as a rep candidate last year.
This message could easily get very long as I could refute the ratings of lots of reps, particularly many well known ones who have earned their reputations, good or bad. This group has red-starred a lot of good reps that I support. I’m sure you will see for yourself as you spot check a few.
I’m glad that the author of this report had enough common sense to red-star ALL the Nashua reps, particularly the Newmans and their ilk in Hollis. However, they gave green stars to some very unworthy RINOs! Ted Gorski voted YES on HB 1342 last year. He and former Rep Wuelper seem to like the idea of uncapping Nashua and voted with the enemy camp. Thank God Wuelper is no longer in office, but Gorski sadly isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. They’re the kind of people that Ward 4(home to the disgraced SM Laughton and no-show serial swamp rat David Cote) would vote for. Green stars were also given to several Belknap treasonist members of the famous “Lang Gang” of Gunstock. (see other GG articles)
And about Lang, let’s talk about how they reviewed the Senate. First and foremost, the WHOLE Senate deserves a reprimand for voting YES on Mass Health unanimously, and one should never forget that. At least my senator responded to my complaint with a defense argument about uncompensated care being a “hidden tax.” While I appreciate his honesty and decision to not ignore me, I still do NOT support that vote. And Tim Lang wrote some editorial about a “conservative vote for it.” (citation needed) 23 out of 24 senators got red-starred. While I agree that some Republicans have gone wayward, two examples being Denise voting YES on Twitley’s welfare school lunch and database surveillance and Sharon’s union sympathizing, I don’t think all of them necessarily deserve red stars. And Sharon makes up for that union sympathizing elsewhere, particularly in her support for SB 203. And the one and only yellow star (a mediocre rating)? You guessed, Senator Murphy. I happen to like Senator Murphy, but how did he do marginally better than his 23 peers? Was it just because he voted for pot? I’d like to know. Asking for ALL of NH.
Share your thoughts about this group and this survey report in the comments.
The post Is Your Lawmaker in Good Standing? appeared first on Granite Grok.
Bill Gates was a primary funder of the dumbed-down Common Core Standards and once said something about knowing if Common Core would work after a decade. Common Core was adopted by most states in 2010. We now have over a decade to see that this fad failed.
Gates now knows Common Core was a failure, but like many education reformers, they don’t learn from their mistakes. Even before COVID, the scores were in, and we could see Common Core / Next Generation Science was a failure.
Many of us tried to warn elected officials in New Hampshire that the standards were inferior. There was evidence of better quality standards and tests. That went ignored.
It’s possible the bribe, I mean the pay-off by the Feds, had something to do with that. A big payoff that came to states through the Race to the Top grants that offered a lot of money if officials adopted the dumbed-down national standards.
Those who did any kind of research could easily see that quality academic standards would serve our children the best. We had evidence that some states had already drafted quality academic standards, so why would they want to adopt the Common Core? HINT: $$$.
This battle in New Hampshire had organizations like Reaching Higher NH or Advancing New Hampshire Education, fighting to implement federal fads like Competency Based Education and Common Core. They even featured a letter sent to the State Board of Education by Former Sanborn Superintendent Brian Blake. Blake left Sanborn, worked in Hopkinton, and appears to be working in Massachusetts now. In Blake’s email to the State Board of Education, he praised the dumbed-down standards:
Dr. Brian J. Blake Superintendent of Schools SAU #17 bblake@sau17.orgDear Members of NH House Education Committee,
RE: Testimony in support of the Common Core and related issues.
I am writing this email to share my thoughts in support of the Common Core and issues related to it. As the Superintendent of Schools for the Sanborn Regional School District, I fully support the implementation of the Common Core and improved assessment practices.
The Common Core is not a new endeavor being forced upon school districts. We have been engaged in the implementation of the Common Core for the past 4 years. Given the extensive research behind the Core, the rigor of the Standards, and the need to produce students who are critical thinkers ready to tackle the challenges of the 21st century, adoption of the Core makes perfect sense. I am disheartened that the Core has been politicized to the degree it has. The Common Core is NOT a national curriculum. It contains the big ideas about what our students should know and be able to do. It does not dictate what to do or how to do it. Teachers and districts continue to have the flexibility at the local level.
In our District, we have not seen any increase in costs as a result of implementing the Common Core. Changes in educational materials aligned to the Core have been reviewed and purchased thru the normal curriculum review cycle that virtually every school district in the State follows. A “cross-walk” of the Common Core and the previous Grade Level Expectations (GLEs) shows the close alignment of our curriculum with the Core. In Sanborn, our curriculum is fully aligned to the Common Core and is being successfully implemented at this point.
Opponents of the Common Core report things like “there’s no study of Shakespeare in the Common Core”. That would be correct… The Core is NOT curriculum. There are numerous standards that apply to the study of Shakespeare, however. At Sanborn, high school students participated in a month long, intensive study of Shakespeare in the context of History, English/Language Arts, and Theater.
In terms of the Smarter Balanced Assessment, we look forward to the increased rigor of the assessment. Our teachers clearly see the value in this type of assessment versus the NECAP Assessments of the past. Opponents of the Common Core and related assessments tend to find fault with the difficulty of the assessments… Isn’t the idea that we have higher, more rigorous standards for our students? Another concern with the Smarter Balanced Assessment is technology capabilities of the Districts. In Sanborn, we have a long history of utilizing the NWEA assessments, which are computer-based assessments similar in style to the proposed Smarter Balanced Assessments. Sanborn welcomes the opportunity to participate in the Assessment program, as our students are well conditioned to this type of assessment.
To summarize, the Sanborn Regional School District has been engaged in the implementation of the Common Core for several years with great success. I am concerned that this has become such a politicized issue and encourage that the Education Committee find the bills that seek to delay, outlaw or weaken the continued development of common core based instruction and improved rigorous assessment Inexpedient to Legislate. These include: HB 1239, 1238, 1432, 1508 and others with similar intent).
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at bblake@sau17.org
603-642-3688
Has Blake admitted that this experiment has failed students across the country? Or is he hoping that no one realizes that he went out of this way to support the dumbing-down of New Hampshire Schools? Here’s how Sanborn is doing when it comes to proficiency in the core subjects:
That’s not exactly a stellar performance from a Superintendent who fought to keep the dumbed-down Common Core in New Hampshire’s public schools. 24% of the high school students are proficient in math!! At what point do you admit you were wrong? How many of Sanborn’s students were denied opportunities after graduating from these public schools?
Sanborn was called out by some of their high school graduates several years ago.
Is Sanborn Lying to Parents?
These administrators jump from district to district, and sometimes, leave a trail of failures in their path. You would think at some point, they’d be held accountable in some way.
Even the Brookings Institute acknowledged this failure: Why Common Core Failed
More than a decade after the 2010 release of Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics, no convincing evidence exists that the standards had a significant, positive impact on student achievement. Mar 18, 2021
Jason Zimba, one of the mathematicians who developed the Common Core math standards has to tutor his children in math because of the poor quality of math education his children are receiving with Common Core curriculum. Just think about all of the kids who are not receiving that kind of individualized instruction. How many are falling through the cracks?
The Man Behind Common Core Math
Today public schools in New Hampshire are saddled with this lousy curriculum for their children because of Superintendents like Brian Blake. His advocacy for the dumbed-down standards caused the Governor and the State Board of Ed to back off of improving the standards.
There were plenty of organizations that fought to keep the Common Core in New Hampshire. They are all responsible for this failure to improve our public schools. The Governor didn’t have enough drive to fight this fight for your kids. That’s why it’s important to make sure the next Governor puts your children, and your public schools FIRST.
The post Former NH Superintendent that Supported Dumbing Down of Our Public Schools appeared first on Granite Grok.
One of the most salient passages in the Qur’an is 2:106, which shows us the basis for the doctrine of abrogation:
“We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except when we bring forth one better than earlier or similar verse. Do you not know that Allah is over all things competent?”
Abrogation has an impact on the arguments about the true nature of Islam. At endless interfaith dialogues, the early tolerant verses are quoted to show the nature of Islam as being peaceful. When both verses are mentioned, and then abrogation is applied, we see that the later violent verses trump the earlier tolerant ones. Jihad abrogates tolerance. In general, the Medina Quran abrogates the Meccan Quran. Several verses of tolerance are abrogated by jihad against Christians.
But the earlier verse is still acceptable and in use. Abrogation does not negate the early verse. Indeed, the earlier “peaceful” verse that is abrogated is most apt to be used in public discourse.
This creates a logical problem since if two things contradict each other, at least one must be false. This is a fundamental element of Western unitary logic. In Quranic reason, two statements can contradict each other, and both are true. This is dualistic logic.
Simply put, Allah changes revelations as he pleases, and the latter revelations supersede the earlier ones. There are deviations among Muslim theologians regarding which verses have been abrogated and replaced, but the overall idea has been clear. When Muslims are weak and in a minority position, they should behave peacefully according to the Meccan passages (which reflect the early time when Muhammad was vulnerable and building his power base). When strong, they are obligated to wage war, according to the later Medina passages.
An alternative explanation is that the early verse is the first stage in a process, like a seed, and the later verse is the second stage, like a plant.
There is truth to this, but the process model does not consider that both truths are available simultaneously. Returning to the analogy, you don’t have the seed and the plant simultaneously. The verses contradict each other and are both true at the same time. Again, this is dualistic logic. The contradictions are usually explained by abrogation, the classical doctrine, but the principle of abrogation is limited to the Quran. Duality includes the particular case of abrogation and describes how the entire philosophy of the Quran and Sunna works. It is not just the Quran that is contradictory, but the Sunna.
Another dualistic aspect of Islam is its ethics. One of the chief features of Islam is the doctrine of the kefir (unbeliever). It treats them dreadfully and horribly. No one would ever want to be treated as a kefir is treated in the Trilogy. This leads us to the Golden Rule. There is no Golden Rule in Islam because of the division of humanity into believers and kefir. The Golden Rule is to treat all people as you would be treated. Since no one wants to be treated like a kefir, and the kefir is so central to Islamic doctrine, it proves that Islam has no Golden Rule. Islam has one set of rules for Muslims and another for kefirs. This is dualistic ethics.
Practicing ToleranceWe are told that it is only civil to respect or at least tolerate other peoples’ beliefs, even if you disagree with them — a live-and-let-live attitude. As a general principle, this position is admirable. Yet there are exceptions. A case in point is when people say consumers believe what they want. I disagree with letting Muslims believe what they want to think when they hold that I, as a non-Muslim, have no right to live. Or if I am to live, I must live a life subservient to Muslims. And wherever they are in power in the world, Muslims do everything they can to make non-believers’ lives dreadful and deadly.
I don’t tolerate these beliefs and practices, in the same vein as I reject fascism and all other exclusionary oppressive systems of belief.
As they say, tolerating evil is not tolerance; it is a crime.
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Science. Experimentation. Psychology. It’s all well regarded when it produces results that mimic the political Machine’s approved narrative. When it doesn’t, it is disinformation, misinformation, colonialism, lies, racism. So, what’s this then?
A video showing a child faced with a choice between cookies and a substantial monetary reward is being highlighted as an example of why children shouldn’t be allowed to choose their gender.
In the video going viral with over 25 million views, a child is asked to choose between two Oreo cookies, or $10,000 cash money.
This is why you don’t let children choose their gender pic.twitter.com/wBTlE7hkWq
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) September 15, 2023
The video was praised for effectively demonstrating how children generally lack sound judgment, therefore shouldn’t be allowed to decide their gender or agree to life-altering genital mutilating surgeries.
This video should also be praised for demonstrating how young children and Democrat voters have a lot in common.
The post “This is why you don’t let children choose their gender” appeared first on Granite Grok.
Text from my remarks on Constitution Day
There are a couple of things we hear a lot today in political speeches, on the Sunday morning talk shows, and in letters to the editor in our local papers. One is that we are in danger of losing our democracy!… And another is that “authoritarianism” or some version of it — fascism is an equally popular term — is just around the corner.
I won’t say that either of these warnings isn’t a valid concern given that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, as Thomas Jefferson instructed us. But I will say, if you are worried about either or both of these predictions coming to fruition, the best thing you can do is understand, celebrate, embrace, and enforce the letter and the spirit of the most amazing, timeless, governing document in human history, the United States Constitution.
Now, about losing our democracy. The democratic republic we as a nation have and built over the last two and half-ish centuries – one that has done more to advance the causes human freedom, human rights, human prosperity than any other in the history of human civilization — is the result of fidelity to to our Constitution and the principles that make up its foundation – limited government, separation and decentralization of political powers, individual rights, and equality of all citizens before the law. Where and when we are in fact in danger of “losing our democracy,” it is because we are more and more straying from those principles set forth in our Declaration of Independence and abandoning the safeguards put in place to preserve them in our Constitution.
So, if you want to save “our democracy” – and by that I mean our unique and exceptional republic that Benjamin Franklin warned us we would need to work to keep. If we want to save these blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity, the best thing you can do is to protect and preserve our Constitution. Insist that its boundaries, checks and balances be enforced by the people we elect. They all swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. But it’s our job as citizens to make sure they live up to that oath. There’s a reason the document starts out with “We the people.” That’s where the buck starts, and that’s where the buck ultimately stops.
Now, about authoritarianism. If you’re really worried about the possibility of living under an increasingly authoritarian government, well, The US Constitution is probably the most anti-authoritarian document ever produced to govern a nation. Be grateful for it!
After all, what is authoritarianism? It is a system of government in which the government – not the individual citizens, the government – has the ultimate authority to make decisions about how we act and allocate resources. But look at Bill of Rights in our Constitution. It’s basically a very long and comprehensive list of everything the government does NOT have the authority to do.
The First Amendment could just as easily read, “Congress does not have the authority to make laws abridging freedom of speech or of the press.” Congress does not have the authority to make laws regarding how citizens worship, or with whom we chose to associate.
Our politicians do not have the authority to prohibit us from keeping and bearing arms.
They do not have the authority to invade the security of our persons, our homes, our papers without just cause. They do not have the authority to deprive us of life, liberty, or property without due process of law…. Or inflict upon us cruel and unusual punishments.
The list goes on. And even beyond the list the 9th Amendment might as well say, just to be safe, anything we left out here by accident, well, Congress doesn’t have the authority to do that either. And thanks to the 14thAmendment, these rules apply to our state lawmakers as well as federal.
So, if you are concerned that authoritarianism – or a government dictatorship or fascism… whatever you want to call it — is a looming threat to our democracy and way of life, the US Constitution is your shield and your sword. Pick it up and use it!
However, if you’re in favor of the government being the ultimate decider… of, say, what kind of car people can drive… how you’re allowed to heat your home in winter… what your kids learn in school… What speech is allowed to be published and distributed in public forums, and what speech should be punished… even down to what kind of bag you’re allowed to use at the grocery store and what kind of light bulbs you’re allowed to buy…. Well then, be careful, because you just might be the very authoritarian — or fascist or dictatorial — threat we’ve all been hearing so much about, and the US Constitution is not your friend. Because, I’ll say it again, the most anti-authoritarian governing document for a nation the world has ever seen is US Constitution – as it is written.
But what is the US Constitution but words on a page. So fragile, in fact, that it has to be kept in a special high tech container in the National Archives or else it would just turn to just dust and blow away in the wind.
That ink and parchment has no power of its own. The rights and principles that our constitution speaks to only exist to the extent that we as a people and a culture want and are willing to hold those values in our hearts, live those values in our lives, infuse those values into our communities, and teach these values to the next generation.
Clearly we need to do a better job of this. And doing that job is up to us. We the people.
So, I will end my thoughts today with a proposal. It’s not my own, and I don’t remember where I originally heard it, but I think it’s a good one. And it is this: When school children stand up first thing in the morning, look at our flag, and put their hands on their hearts – instead of the Pledge of Allegiance, let’s have them recite the Preamble to our Constitution.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish [our] Constitution for the United States of America.”
Because before we should ask anyone to pledge loyalty to a flag – what is a flag? — we need to do our job of teaching and explaining what they are really pledging loyalty to. The United States is unique in that we were founded upon an idea – that we are all created equal with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. What we are pledging allegiance to is those principles – not our government, regardless of what it does. Or politicians regardless of what they do. Or a particular political party or political leader – but those principles and that idea.
Our constitution is the mechanism through which we attempt to live up to that idea – “more perfectly.” We’ll never be perfect, as the document itself in its wisdom recognizes, but its promise is that we can be a more perfect nation today than we were yesterday, and more perfect nation tomorrow than we are today. That has been the true history – the observable path — of our nation from its birth to the present, and this is precisely because of our great Constitution, not in spite of it. It can be our future too if, as Ben Franklin challenged us, we can keep it.
The post To Be Anti-Fascist, Support Our Constitution appeared first on Granite Grok.
September 16, 2023: The Texas Senate brought down the gavel, resounding with the weight of history, as Attorney General Ken Paxton emerged unscathed from a sham impeachment trial. The conclusion of this protracted and contentious waste of legal time and exercise will not only reshape the political landscape of the Lone Star State but also send ripples down the spine of Paxton’s detractors.
Paxton, an uncompromising Republican and an ardent well-wisher of beloved Texans had found himself at the epicenter of a whirlwind of fabricated and false accusations. Fabrications of corruption and bribery followed by this sham of an impeachment that had threatened to erode the wishes of the people of Texas have finally hit the dustbin of history. Sixteen articles of impeachment were laid before him, a formidable arsenal of allegations ranging from dereliction of duty to disregarding official responsibility. Paxton’s fate rested in the hands of the Texas Senate, where the verdict required an arduous majority of 21 votes from a jury of 30 senators to convict on any of the weighty charges. As all allegations and claims of witnesses fell flat on their faces, this direction of this trial by fire was only a foregone conclusion.
This impeachment trial bore a profound historical significance. With its nearly two centuries of statehood, Texas had seen only two previous impeachment proceedings against public officials. The gravity of the situation and the partisan divisions it exacerbated underscored the magnitude of the decision facing the state’s elected representatives.
Central to the case were allegations that Paxton had systematically exploited the powers vested in his office to benefit a significant donor, Mr. Nate Paul. The accusations outlined a false narrative of Paxton having consistently abused his authority as the state’s top legal officer to advance the interests of a select few, most notably that of Mr. Paul. The charges painted a corroded picture of ethical transgressions and violations of the public trust. This narrative had no basis in reality yet had long fueled calls for Paxton’s removal from office.
Yet, the verdict rendered on this September day was a culmination of baseless legal arguments, extreme political maneuvering, and never-existing evidence that was presented. The acquittal of Ken Paxton on all 16 articles of impeachment stands as testimony across the entire political spectrum. Texans lauded the decision as a triumph of justice, framing the impeachment as a politically motivated attack against a staunch conservative leader.
The repercussions of this sham impeachment trial are bound to be far-reaching and profound. At its core, it exemplifies the sheer absurdities of modern-day politics, where ruthless agenda often blurs the lines between legal culpability and political allegiance. It poses challenging questions about the role of ethics for elected representatives and the mechanisms to ensure accountability for such agenda-driven elected officials.
The case has also cast a shadow over the entire Texas GOP, and the division within the party’s ranks going against the will of electors in this Paxton impeachment trial has laid bare the ideological fault lines that will continue to shape the contours of American conservatism. It underscored the broader struggle within the Republican Party between those who champion strict adherence to principles and those who prioritize pragmatism and electability.
Furthermore, the acquittal of Ken Paxton serves as a case study of the sheer misuse of impeachment as a tool for political backbiting. It highlights the ease with which an agenda-driven bar can be set for removal from the office of a highly dedicated and highly valued official and the political calculations that often come into play in such proceedings. The case prompts a reexamination of the processes for holding elected officials accountable, particularly in an era marked by increased polarization and political tribalism.
The acquittal of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on all 16 articles of impeachment stands as a watershed moment in the annals of Texan and American politics. It raises profound questions about the intersection of law and politics, the role of ethics in public office, and the enduring influence of partisan allegiances. As the nation watches, the aftermath of this trial will continue reverberating, serving as a touchstone for debates on accountability, integrity, and the future of political discourse in the United States.
The post The Acquittal of Ken Paxton: An Intricate Examination of Texas’ Impeachment Saga appeared first on Granite Grok.
When New Mexico Governor Michelle Grisham announced to her grun grabbin’ left turn at Albuquerque, she wasn’t planning on this. It may not have even occurred to her, but it is a lesson learned under Obama. If you want to sell some guns, talk about gun control.
A gun store up the street (not far from me) made national news with its window poster depicting Barry Obama as the firearms salesman of the year. Joe Biden has done his part as well. It worked in Virginia when the state went all blue a few years back, and gun sales soared. Democrats (ironically) are the best thing that ever happened to gun sales. When those Liberals get on about grabbin’ guns, people listen – and buy firearms, and Albuquerque is no different.
“Today was the busiest day I’ve had in months,” Arnie Gallegos, owner of ABQ Guns in Albuquerque, told The Epoch Times. “I’ve been getting a lot of people who have never come into a gun shop before who are rightfully concerned about their freedoms.
“A lot of people are saying, ‘I can’t rely on the police anymore, and I need to be able to protect myself,” added Gallegos.
Law-abiding citizens legally able to buy firearms are doing that, and many of them have never considered owning a firearm until Gov ‘Grab Your Guns’ came for them. “I’ve been getting a lot of people who have never come into a gun shop before who are rightfully concerned about their freedoms.”
Let’s hope they are more responsible stewards of the rights and responsibilities of handling any firearm than Alec Baldwin. He murdered a woman in New Mexico and blamed the gun, which did not warrant a public health emergency before or after charges against Baldwin were dropped.
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins (now described as born in Ukraine, as if that matters) is still dead. “The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, did not have her manslaughter charges dropped, but ‘Grab Your Guns’ Grisham addressed it as a workplace safety issue.
“This industry is important to us economically and to so many workers throughout New Mexico, and I look forward to a full accounting of how this could have possibly happened, and we will determine our next steps from there.”
Grisham planned listening sessions and wondered why they needed real guns. Coincidentally, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys are claiming there was a dearth of safety protocols on set, and that’s not her fault.
Baldwin blamed the gun, Gutierrez-Reed blamed production, but no public safety warnings from Grisham because (if I had to guess) the film industry is economically important, which means she likely has some Hollywood donors, and that’s important too.
Here’s a gun shop guy on the surge in sales.
And apologies to the Gun Store, upon whose poster I put Michelle Lujan Grisham’s head, but I did buy a nice Mosin Nagant (a 1946 Tula) and a big tin can full of ammo for it (from them) a few years back, so I’d like to think we’re even.
HT | ZeroHedge
The post Gov. Michelle ‘Grab Your Guns’ Grisham Just Became the Best Gun “Salesman” in Albuquerque appeared first on Granite Grok.
What is a ‘matrix attack’?
If you have had the courage to investigate some of the more outspoken critics of the contemporary power structure today, you might have seen their references to a matrix that exists, which attacks any speaking out.m against a specific narrative and the clique that it stands to benefit.
I took a Masters in Education about five years ago, and two prerequisites were called for that I had not fulfilled during my undergraduate degree. These classes were Race Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies— the lynchpins of the ideologies of the modern leftist insanity gripping the USA. These two courses essentially contained everything underlying what the left has pushed on the English-speaking world over the past few years.
The range of topics includes, most prominently, critical race studies and feminist theory. Both of these fields have one thing in common— they blame all society’s ills on the White Man. It is a question of power dynamics, and historically speaking, they aren’t exactly far from the mark. The important distinction to understand is that their critique of Western civilization is about a century out of date.
In the 1920s, blaming everything on the White Man may have been accurate. Back then, the American Civil War was only a half-century past. African Americans in the USA were still coming to terms with their newfound freedoms and had not yet established themselves in industries where they have today achieved fame and fortune— sports, entertainment, and music, to name a few. Women had not been brought to parity with men yet— that started in 1920, and women’s rights were championed strongly through the ‘60s, ‘70s, and 80s.
The European colonial empires held far more power then than they do today. England, France, Spain, and Germany, along with the United States— all countries that at that time had been led predominantly by White Men, enjoyed vast colonial holdings, which was veritably a global economy dominated by Whites, led by a patriarchy. So, what is taught in these race and gender studies is historically accurate. But it is not true today.
Today’s world in 2023 is different than in the mid-to-late 20th century. The Chinese empire is ascendant and sprawling with its Belt and Road Initiative. African countries enjoy rising levels of sovereignty, and South Africa is led by black nationalists who are right now on a campaign of racial genocide against Whites. India, a largely Semitic nation (not White), just hosted the G20 and landed on the moon. The South American continent is largely composed of mosty sovereign countries and also not White. The White Patriarchy that is the boogeyman of the left today has already been smashed.
The English-speaking world’s leftists are learning about a set of facts describing a world of a half-century ago, attempting to create change based on a reality that no longer exists. That is a critical problem.
Yet, the Deep State structures of the English-speaking world, best characterized by consideration of the Nine Eyes intelligence network, are also mired in this outdated race-based geopolitical understanding. That intelligence network connects the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and several other leading Western countries. It is the backbone of the movement that caused the “Build Back Better” disaster, orchestrating the puppetry of the Biden junta. It is the WEF/UN power axis that relies on mouthpieces like the Council of Foreign Relations, Open Society Foundations, and the NGO web surrounding them. This is an English-speaking web infected by this outdated belief that the White Man is bad, and they are pushing this paradigm on the planet with no self-reflection whatsoever and no ability to awaken to the present moment.
This group is what some leading geopolitical commentators— Alex Jones, Andrew Tate, Russell Brand, and others— have dubbed “The Matrix.” Because of these peoples’ outspoken criticism of the power structure, something that has historically been a rallying cry of the left (“Speak Truth to Power!”), they have been viciously targeted by smear campaigns of all sorts. Allegations of sexual assault, cancellation by online trolls and bots, total gaslighting (being accused of the things their accusers are actually doing).
This is combined with advanced 5th and 6th generation warfare waged against these individuals. Techniques in this style include formenting social media campaigns, interrupting mobile and internet communications technology, disrupting power services, and other offensive signals intelligence warfare tactics. This includes using directed energy weapons, specifically directed soundwaves, at the individuals. If you look on top of buildings in many urban environments, you will find both large speakers and surveillance cameras. This allows organizations with the proper technology to see and influence urban environments.
If you walk through an urban environment outfitted with this (what I will refer to as) 6th gen or 6G technology— the cameras, speakers, and more— you essentially are on a grid. If you have seen the recent film iteration of Tron with Jeff Bridges, you’ll get the picture. On the grid, you can be tracked and influenced by this 6G tech web. It is online and accessible by the Nine Eyes group (and possibly other groups) in large cities like New York, London, and Hong Kong. They use this to target prominent individual decision-makers and influence or manipulate crowds.
They have also increasingly resorted to open lawfare— creating and maintaining junk legal accusations meanwhile waging similar intelligence warfare on the actors involved in the legal proceedings. This is a very sophisticated and complex production that taps a wide 6G network, affecting many people. It requires major news media complicity, but those actors perform this almost naturally.
The most striking aspect of these matrix attacks is the labeling of targets as far right, fringe, alternative, or radical. How can leftists in the Deep State establishment champion speaking truth to power while attacking the people who do it? It is a backward and self-defeating mentality and almost an insanity. It is a devilish twisting of meaning linguistically. When they label Alex Jones as far right, for example, they are saying that he is very correct on many points. Yet the common understanding is that he is on the way opposite end of the political spectrum from what is considered to be acceptable.
The far right, as it is labeled by the political establishment left, is basically everyone they don’t like. This is a combination of radically violent terrorists like suicide bomber fundamentalist Islam jihadists, actual Nazis practicing modern iterations of genocidal eugenics and violently oppressing their political opponents, and well-intentioned truthseekers and freedom-fighting commentators like Jones, Tate, and Brand.
We need to collectively be intelligent and perceiving enough to see the difference between those posing a real danger to civil society and those who are actually doing a most vital function of exposing a perspective on the present reality that the greediest, most corrupted establishment actors for some reason or another do not want people to see.
Precisely, it is foolhardy to allow the Deep State leftists to define the language we use to discuss the present political landscape. Jones, Tate, Brand, and their peers are not far right, radical, or violent. So what are they?
They are strong-willed, principled, courageous truthseekers. They are valiant, freedom-loving people who want only to live in a society where the government is honest and where the states reflect their constitution. If contemporary political actors were not so twistedly corrupt, these people would be speaking in a much different tone.
Speaking truth to power is the keystone of the open society, the civil society. That is why it is protected by the First Amendment in the US Constitution and why we must hold in check any who are outspoken or act in violence against it.
This is how to defeat the matrix attack. Do not let their targets stand alone.
As a caveat in closing, everyone says stupid things sometimes, and nobody is always correct about everything. We all have our own individual perspectives.
The post What Is a Matrix Attack and How To Stop It appeared first on Granite Grok.
What do you call one million fewer Pfederal employees? Better yet, how about cutting 75% of Pfederal public employees? I’m sure you’ll agree with Harris Rigby from Not the Bee when he says, “It’s a good start.”
Rigby is responding to recent remarks by Vivek Ramaswamy, who might just be throwing you-know-what at the wall to see what sticks with Republican primary voters. It might also be in response to Trump announcing last week that he’d make it a priority to end the US Department of Education and send all that money back to states and towns. The Left will cry and whine, but these are the same people demanding more money for teachers and students. Guess what? The entire Department of Education Budget could actually do some good if we spent it someplace else.
This is true of much of what the government does with the dollars it steals or prints (stealing it from someone who has not yet been born). So Ramaswamy is onto something, and he knows the base loves the idea. He’s not draining the swamp he’s plowing it under.
If someone works for you & you can’t fire them, they don’t work for you. You work for them. I refuse to be a puppet in the White House who plays that game: if I can’t work for the federal government as President for more than 8 years, neither will any of the federal bureaucrats… pic.twitter.com/i4qs9jwAlj
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) September 13, 2023
Populist rhetoric?
Sure, he can’t do this without getting through what will likely be a contentious Congress that relies on that bureaucratic wall of separation between them and their constituents to preserve their incumbency. If the bureaucracy isn’t available to make and enforce rules, Congress will have to do that, and they don’t want to take the heat for the policies they pass.
He was never going to win DC, so that’s not a problem. This is: Ramaswamy is 60 points behind Trump in Michigan, 43 back in South Carolina, 42 points back in Iowa, and 49 points back nationally (plus or minus 5). He’s in the top 5 in most polls, but he hasn’t been able to get past his initial rise from nothing to 5%, give or take.
If he’s running for a shot at VP or an inside-the-beltway gig, promising to fire 75% of the people with whom you may have to work might make for a contentious work environment.
Bold.
There is, of course, the question of whether he’s serious, which you are welcome to debate at your leisure.
The post What Do You Call One Million Fewer Federal Employees? appeared first on Granite Grok.
Many people who testified at the Sept 14 meeting of the state Board of Education against using the PragerU Cash Course as a Learn Everywhere option argued that it would provide a camel’s nose under the tent to conservative ideas that will indoctrinate students.
There are so many problems with this point of view.
First, many families in New Hampshire have conservative values. So why keep these ideas out of public schools? The opponents, mostly teachers and former teachers, are afraid that students might be exposed to ideas that don’t agree with their views. But they think it’s okay to have their politically “progressive” views in the classroom.
Second, they don’t realize that they themselves are indoctrinated to believe in public schools. Yes, “believe.” Make no mistake — they treat public schools as a religion. In this particular case, they didn’t evaluate the merits of the PragerU course; they decided from the start that the conservative head of the organization would only be interested in indoctrinating students to his “evil” way of thinking.
If they would instead put their energy into evaluating what’s being taught in the public schools and the associated dismal performance of students, something might actually improve. Instead, they’re willing to accept a terribly low level of achievement in public schools. All while holding private schools, school choice programs, and anything outside of public schools to a standard much higher than anything public schools could dream of reaching.
By the time they’re in high school, students should be capable of reading different points of view and deciding whether they make sense on their own merits. That’s called critical thinking.
The cure for indoctrination is literacy. If students can actually read and judge an idea on its own merits, then we don’t have to worry about exposing students to ideas we don’t agree with.
If you’ve ever wondered why schools aren’t able to teach kids to read, maybe it’s intentional. Maybe the people running the schools don’t want students to learn to read because that would undermine their longer-term goal of indoctrination.
The post Why Johnny Shouldn’t Read appeared first on Granite Grok.
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has become the popular blonde in both tech and cultural circles. It is writing papers for students, and could write blogs for websites, white papers, technical reports, just about anything, but should it?
A lot of the same people who think AI is the bee’s knees, the fox’s socks, or the cat’s pajamas (and aren’t worried about it turning into a conscious silicon life force like Sky Net) also lean toward those misnamed as environmentally conscious. They talk about anthropogenic warming and reducing carbon footprints. But those things can’t coexist – AI and lowering carbon footprints.
Artificial Intelligence requires a lot of power, which produces a lot of heat.
According to the US Energy Information Agency, a typical home consumes about 11 Mwh per year. So that one training session consumes about the same power as a thousand homes do in a year. Chat GPT requires continuous updating, because it will only be of value if it routinely and often scrapes the web for all the latest updates.
And then there are the actual users, the millions of oddball requests for enlightenment that the machine must endure every day. Running ChatGPT for a typical day requires about 1 GWh, which is about the same daily consumption as 33,000 homes. There is no reason to think that load will shrink, quite the opposite in fact.
Forget all the bad things individuals or governments could do with AI (or the good), which are as numerous as the human imagination and its weaknesses. If you are even remotely inclined to believe anything about decarbonization and Net Zero, then AI is a problem. It isn’t going to get less wasteful, and the current energy transition plan can’t even handle a fraction of our current needs.
Consider what Tesla is up to: The pioneering auto firm is building its own AI supercomputer called Dozo. Sounds like a pet but wow, what an appetite. Dozo went into action a few weeks ago, using 10,000 Nvidia H100 CPUs. Each of those can consume 700 watts, so over a day that pile o’ CPUs in Dozo’s tummy will consume, fully cranked, 168 Mwh per day, or enough power for about 5,500 homes for a day.
As those with the means (and likely every university research department with a desire for a private or specialized one of their own) create more AI systems and the competition “heats up” to have the better, faster thing, the power demands will rise exponentially and in parallel to the decline in the reliable resource necessary to power them.
What’s the plan?
You need 3.125 million solar panels (or 333 utility-scale wind turbines) to produce the 1 Gigawat ChatGPT is using every day, and that’s with limited adoption. Where do we put them, and then what about powering everything else?
The obvious solution is, once again, nuclear, but that’s not even on the table.
So, what’s the plan?
HT | WUWT (Great piece with a lot more about AI)
The post The Massive Energy Demands of A.I. are Bad for the Planet appeared first on Granite Grok.
In the past decade, the growth of the Internet and social media has brought with it a dramatic uptick in populist sentiment. Legacy institutions have declared war against populism, referring to its claims as “misinformation” or “disinformation” and calling on the government or government-adjacent actors (herein referred to as “the censors”) to clamp down on such claims as they spread across the Internet like wildfire. The censors rarely decline these opportunities to silence criticism, justifying the censorship as a matter of “national security.”
More than other Western nations, the United States champions freedom of speech. But it has frequently failed in its aspirations, beginning in 1798 with the Alien and Sedition Acts. There are countless examples since then of the US failing to adhere to its core value system, too many to recount in one brief article.
The Internet Lets Claims Spread Like WildfireBeginning with the Arab Spring in 2010, the extent to which social media could foster grassroots campaigns against perceived tyranny or injustice became increasingly apparent. Martin Gurri, a former CIA analyst, has commented on such phenomena at length in his book, The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millenium.
The nation-state correctly perceives in revolutions a threat to its existing foundations and deploys various methods to crush dissent. Western nations do not typically deploy the military against the masses or declare martial law. The US has taken a different but directionally similar approach, whereby law enforcement and intelligence agencies form cozy partnerships with private actors, such as social media platforms, financial institutions, and other digital intermediaries.
After the Great Recession, populist movements, like Occupy Wall Street on the Left and the Tea Party movement on the Right, garnered dramatic support across Western nations. As with most populist movements, a significant number of the activists embraced ideas branded as “conspiracy theories” by the established order. Rather than examining these allegations, the established order preferred to label the entire movement “crazy” or “conspiratorial.”
Since the movements began, there has been a significant convergence of Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party thought leaders. It is no coincidence that, despite their different politial affiliations, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and Michael Shellenberger often sound like Tucker Carlson, Dan Bongino, and Donald Trump when it comes to criticizing the government and legacy institutions. Each of these men has been personally targeted by the censorship industrial complex.
The Twitter Files Expose the Censorship RacketOn March 9, 2023, Michael Shellenberger delivered his testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which he titled “The Censorship Industrial Complex.” In sixty-eight pages, Michael Shellenberger outlines how “Americans taxpayers are unwittingly financing the growth and power of a censorship-industrial complex run by America’s scientific and technological elite.” He also discusses how the Twitter Files documents “have revealed a large and growing network of government agencies, academic institutions, and nongovernmental organizations that are actively censoring Americans citizens, often without their knowledge.”
In his testimony, Shellenberger aptly describes the censorship industrial complex as “a network of ideologically-aligned government, NGO, and academic institutions that discovered over the last few years the power of censorship to protect their own interests against the volatility and risks of the democratic process.” This contention strongly rebuts the ridiculous claim made by corporate media outlets that censorship is often necessary to “protect our democracy.” For legacy institutions, an apparent devotion to democracy is often little more than a cover for kleptocracy, something Fred Siegel touches on in The Revolt against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class.
On August 7, 2023, Michael Shellenberger’s Substack exposed the censorship racket between Facebook executives and the White House. The authors note that “newly released internal emails show that Facebook executives felt pressure to comply with White House demands in order to resolve a European Union ban on the social media company’s ability to transfer the data of European users to its servers in the United States.” In the past few years, the European Union has taken a heavy-handed regulatory approach toward US-based social media platforms. These platforms relied on the US to advocate for them during the negotiation of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. Without a clear, negotiated framework, these firms would feel significant financial pressure. As the authors of the Substack article note, “The series of events suggests a quid pro quo. Facebook would bow to White House requests for censorship in exchange for its help with the European Union.”
In the past decade, the censorship industrial complex has gained considerable momentum and institutional support. Elite support for censorship is so entrenched that the Harvard Kennedy School published a commentary in September 2022 titled, “Mis- and disinformation studies are too big to fail.” While Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has dimmed opportunities for the censorship industrial complex, there is still much to be done. In February 2021, an article in Time described a “shadow campaign” that manipulated the 2020 election in the legacy institutions’ preferred direction. If activists are to dismantle the censorship industrial complex, they must do more than expose the machinery—they must win elections.
Mitch Nemeth | Mises Wire
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 The Censorship Industrial Complex Exposes the Kleptocracy’s True Intentions appeared first on Granite Grok.
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Tomorrow, September 19th, is the crucial state rep special election.
If you or your friends or family live in Northwood or Nottingham, remind them to go and vote tomorrow!
Jim Guzofski, a selectman, turned in an almost perfect survey. Let’s make sure we elect the fighters we need to protect our rights!
Polling locations:
Nottingham Town Hall
139 Stage Rd, Nottingham, NH 03290
Northwood Town Hall
818 1st New Hampshire Turnpike
Northwood, NH 03261
The post State House Special Election TOMORROW appeared first on Granite Grok.
The United States refused to accept Soviet missiles in Cuba, and was ready to fight World War III (which nearly happened, and which the CIA wanted) in response. But Russia should have no say in the matter if the United States provides Ukraine with missiles that can reach hundreds of miles into Russia? Senator Tom Cotton is a LUNATIC … see tweet below.
What’s next if the long-range missiles like every other weapons-system we have already provided fails to win the proxy-war? Do we provide Ukraine nuclear weapons in the name of “saving lives”? What happens if Russia commits some or all of the more than quarter-million being held in reserve in response to this escalation? Intervention by NATO?
This is madness. Either Cotton and his UniParty ilk accept that they have failed and Ukraine is not going to be a puppet-State for Blackrock, Chase, etc., etc., etc., and make peace … or we are going to end up in a hot war with Russia.
I wrote to President Biden with my colleagues and urged him to provide Ukraine with the missiles its military needs to win. Not doing so will only prolong the war and cost lives. pic.twitter.com/MBhG2H7Oa7
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) September 16, 2023
The post Senator Tom Cotton … A Lunatic Willing To Risk World War III appeared first on Granite Grok.
The Competitiveness Coalition, in coordination with The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, found in a poll of 800 likely Republican primary voters, released Sept. 5, that these voters want the federal government to focus on inflation, the cost of living, and the economy, and not get distracted by attacking American tech companies.
On New Hampshire-specific issues, the poll shows huge support among Republican primary voters for ending the Interest & Dividends Tax, and little support for raising electricity costs to fight climate change.
The key findings of the poll include:
“It’s clear that Republican voters in the First In The Nation state oppose the misguided Biden antitrust agenda and believe it will exacerbate the challenges of Bidenomics,” said Scott Brown, a New Hampshire resident, former U.S. Senator and Ambassador and chair of the Competitiveness Coalition. “The candidates competing in the Granite State would be wise to take heed and advocate for policies that will bring economic relief rather than additional pain. We have far too much regulation on our innovators already, and breaking up successful American success stories to the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party is the exact wrong approach.”
Andrew Cline, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, added that the poll reinforces that New Hampshire voters are looking for basic good governance, not more government activism. “The message from Republican primary voters in New Hampshire is simple. They’d prefer to restrain the federal government, not American businesses,” Cline said.
Additionally, the poll, which was conducted after the first Republican presidential debate, shows Donald Trump with a significant lead on the Republican presidential primary ballot. The former President currently garners 47% on the primary ballot, giving him a more than 30-point lead over his closest challengers (Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, both at 10%). Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy both sit at 8%, with no other candidate receiving more than 5% of the vote.
On behalf of the Competitiveness Coalition and The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, NMB Research conducted a statewide survey of N=800 likely Republican presidential primary voters in New Hampshire. The survey was conducted August 25-31, 2023, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46%. All surveys were conducted by live interviewers, with 78% of interviews conducted with cell phone respondents (N=623) and 22% of interviews conducted with landline respondents (N=177).
Launched in April 2022, the Competitiveness Coalition is a first-of-its-kind group educating the public and advocating for policies that put consumers first while fostering innovation and attracting new investment. For more information, please visit competitivenesscoalition.com. Members of the press can contact the coalition at press@competitivenesscoalition.com. The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy is New Hampshire’s free-market think tank.
Andrew Cline | Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy
The post Republican Primary Voters in NH Want To Restrain the Federal Government, Not American Businesses … appeared first on Granite Grok.
Democratic politicians and the liberal media made the first day of school all about welcoming migrant children. That’s sheer propaganda. Parents deserve the truth. The migrant surge is a disaster for their kids.
The surge will worsen our education system’s twin failures: plunging math and reading scores and the failure to ensure newly arriving kids learn English so they can succeed, too.
Kimberly Carchipulla, who came from Ecuador and has been living at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan with her son, brought him to school on Thursday and said through a translator, “What I want for him is a future.”
That’s what all parents want. But when migrant children are added to the class, the rest of the kids get less of their teacher’s attention. A teacher will have to focus on the needy newcomers who speak no English and may not have been to school before. For the rest, it could be a year of lost opportunities.
Public school students’ reading and math scores have been falling for decades, hitting a new low this year, according to National Assessment of Educational Progress tests. One reason is the soaring number of non-English-speaking students, up from only 9% of public school students in 1980 to nearly 25% now. (RELATED: BETSY MCCAUGHEY: Democrats Are Trashing The Constitution Just To Get Trump)
Until the 1960s, children arriving in this country were put in public schools without interpreters and bilingual teachers. Children were taught in one language — English. No confusion. The current approach is a disaster for migrants and for the rest of the kids in class with them. The data don’t lie.
Now, typically, a bilingual teacher and teaching assistants try to teach — math, science, art, any subject — in two or more languages, speaking English at times but also answering questions in Spanish and other languages. It’s chaos. Everyone learns less.
Jean Skorapa, superintendent for a rural school district in Maine, says the 67 migrant children enrolling in her district “are a tremendous, tremendous benefit”: “They make our community diverse and more well-rounded.” All true. But that’s happy talk.
What about the impact on learning? Geralde Gabeau, executive director of the Immigrant Family Services Institute in Massachusetts, explains that migrant children will be placed “in a first-grade class with other students who already know their ABCs, who already know how to read, so those children are going to suffer.”
New York City has disastrously low reading scores. The influx of non-English-speaking students makes the challenge greater.
European countries are also grappling with waves of migrants. IZA, a European think tank, reports that “a high share of immigrant children in schools leads to lower test scores of native children.” Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development researchers report similar findings.
It’s not about race or ethnicity. It’s about too many languages spoken in the classroom.
Politicians would rather pander than address it. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont says, “From the bottom of my heart, I want to make sure this is the most welcoming state in the country.” Yet state education statistics show that the more “high-needs” kids in the class, including non-English-speaking students, the lower the reading and math scores for the others.
The current system is lose-lose, hurting migrant kids as well. They’re given too many opportunities not to learn English. Lamont, for example, is expanding translation services for parents and interpreters for students. That’s misguided. Families need to be prodded to learn English, not linger in a language ghetto.
Some school districts in New York State are experimenting with temporarily schooling newcomers separately, offering them months of intensive language preparation to succeed as English-speaking students. Good idea.
But the United Nations insists children have a “right” to be educated in their native language. Nonsense. It dooms them to low-paying jobs. (RELATED: STEPHANIE HOLDEN SMITH: It’s Time To Get America’s Largest Teachers Union Out Of Politics)
The vast majority of non-English-speaking students — 97%, according to one report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform — lack English proficiency when they graduate from U.S. high schools. That’s the definition of failure.
Last week, mothers gathered outside Park Avenue Elementary School in Port Chester, New York, to pick up their kids. Few spoke English. Some mothers had attended the same school decades earlier. Yet they can’t speak English. Tragic.
Tell the pols to stop romanticizing this lose-lose disaster and start fixing it.
This is America.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
Betsy McCaughey | Daily Caller News Service
COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM
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They’re flying so thick and fast it is amazing.
Take heart – there will be both a Wednesday and Friday Meme Post. Last week’s Friday Edition.
Remember, ridicule and mockery are effective weapons:
Note: This is a pure-meme post. I’m weighing a return to some kind of link post, but I’ve got to balance that with my time. I had thought that my interspersing thoughts and links amongst the memes would be a good compromise, but apparently, it was not an appreciated format.
Now, let the mockery and mayhem begin.
*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***
>>>>>=====<<<<<
Pick of the post:
>>>>>=====<<<<<
Palate Cleansers:
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>>>>>=====<<<<<
Come back Wednesday for another edition. Same Meme Time. Same Meme channel.
The post MONDAY MEMES appeared first on Granite Grok.