Tuesday • May 21 • 2024
Vol.XVI • No.XXI
Manchester, N.H.
I’m not one to put to much faith in early polls but this one is at least an eyebrow-raiser. RMG Research’s latest poll has this result:
How accurate this is will be argued back and forth but it does indicate Trump is by far the most popular Republican candidate, no question about it.
This is in spite of all the fake accusations and indictments that Leftist activist State Attorney Generals are throwing at him. Even if he is in a jail cell on Election Day 2024, he will be our candidate and I believe we can still reelect him President for another four years.
The post Believe It Or Not appeared first on Granite Grok.
China’s authoritarian gerontocracy has built a Doom Loop with Chinese characteristics, with over half the economy now crashing.
Chinese exports are now plunging at the fastest pace since the covid lockdowns: Exports fell 14.5% on the year, driven by a 21% drop in exports to Europe and a 23% drop to the US.
Meanwhile, imports to China are also falling — 12.4% on the year — as shrinking manufacturing buys fewer inputs and households buy less.
In short, foreigners aren’t buying, and the Chinese aren’t spending either.
This is all a problem for Chinese factories because they’re obscenely overbuilt thanks to cheap central bank money and government subsidies. To give a sense, the FT reported that Chinese automakers can produce 40 million cars a year, but the Chinese only buy 20 to 25 million. China’s now actually throttling new car production — denying production licenses. Even as the US is pouring hundreds of billions into production, that will soon be swept by cut-rate Chinese EV’s.
Manufacturing makes up over 27% of the Chinese economy and has contracted for four straight months now, bringing quarterly GDP growth nationwide to just 0.8%. The economy just officially entered deflation for the first time since the 2008 crisis.
Meanwhile, China’s comically indebted housing industry — also roughly one-quarter of the Chinese economy — is showing new distress, threatening the life savings of millions who could lose it all on empty apartment buildings. Just last week major homebuilder Country Garden, held up by China’s government as the poster-child of prudence and a model for the rest of the industry, missed two bond payments on their total $200 billion in debt, leading to a debt downgrade from the now ubiquitous Moody’s.
Considering this is all coming with youth employment at record highs — above 20% — it could signal political trouble.
Can China Reverse the Slide?
What’s driving the manufacturing pain is largely out of China’s control: Westerners not buying stuff. Korea’s exports also fell 17%, while 5 of 7 Asian countries contracted last month. Just about the only country buying is, ironically, Russia. Which, alas, is a tiny market: Mexico with nukes, as the saying goes.
China can’t do much about Americans and Europeans not buying — that’s our recessions talking, and it’s getting worse in both the US and Europe. Meaning more plunging exports and falling factory prices in China. Eventually, prices fall to the point that factories shutter, the overcapacity dries up, and prices can recover. Of course, at the expense of potentially millions of jobs and millions of freshly unemployed youth.
As for the property boom, it was driven by cheap money — buying an apartment was a no-lose proposition for millions of Chinese who plowed their life savings into empty cities that, apparently, cannot defy gravity forever.
Meaning the main solution — and China’s go-to whenever the economy slows — is to crank out more cheap money by cutting interest rates and handing tens of billions more to homebuilders.
The problem is that China is now swimming in debt — it has $50 trillion in non-financial debt, even higher than the US as a proportion of GDP. This raises fears of a Japan-style deleveraging, leading to potentially years of slow growth. Deflation, of course, makes those debts even bigger. This limits China’s easy options.
The Overhyped China StoryChina taking over the world has been the story of the decade.
In reality, President Xi’s decade-long rule has been terrible for the Chinese economy, replacing China’s free market miracle with regulatory crackdowns to hobble any political threats and channel capital to state-dominated industries. The upshot is growth under Xi has been about 5 to 6 percent — a far cry from the miracle days and pretty standard for a poor country.
Xi’s covid lockdowns have been monumentally destructive, his post-covid recovery has fizzled, and now China is running straight into a global recession. Xi is probably too careful to, say, invade Taiwan to soak up all those unemployed youth. But then, I thought that about Putin, too, and I was wrong.
As for the US and Europe, expect China’s manufacturing problems to flood us with cheap goods. Which is great for consumers and should take some of the edge off inflation short-term, at the expense of what’s left of American and European manufacturing.
Author: Peter St. Onge is a Mises Institute Associated Scholar and an Economic Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. For more content from Dr. St. Onge, subscribe to his newsletter where he writes about Austrian economics and cryptocurrency.Peter St. Onge | The Mises Wire
Originally published at PeterStOnge.com. The article has been edited for the Mises Wire.
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The post China Enters the Doom Loop appeared first on Granite Grok.
New Hampshire has a red-headed stepchild it is hiding in the basement. Since 2012 catastrophic sea level rise has fallen. That’s not news. Neither were power lines causing the Maui “wildfires.” Another climate “catastrophe that’s not newsworthy is Maui’s collapsing tide levels.
Since at least 2019 the tide gauge at Kahului, Hawaii, on the Islan od Maui, has shown a sharp downward trend.
If I were Time magazine or Newsweek or CNN, I’d have a beautiful graphic of how, historically, the tides are receding. I’m not them, nor o I need to beautify the decline, but I can isolate it from the image above to make the point with a big arrow for effect.
While the world watches Hawaii annex the burned areas for some new social engineering project still to be named, the surrounding ocean has abandoned the narrative.
In nearby Kawaihae, they are experiencing a similar decline.
Hilo and Honolulu have similar profiles, but everywhere you look, there’s a declining trend, not as pronounced or prolonged as New Hampshire’s, but enough that, if the approved narrative were receding seas, you’d not hear the end of it.
And isn’t that truly the point?
None of this has much to do with anything related to the climate, and that represents a significant threat to human liberty and prosperity.
The post Maui’s Other Catastrophic “Climate” Emergency – Sea Level Has Steadily Declined for the Past 4 Years appeared first on Granite Grok.
Hillary Clinton and her powerful media affiliates seem to have co-opted the title of my book, “The Weaponization of Loneliness,” for the purpose of repackaging their propagandistic narrative against Trump voters and freedom of speech.
In her recent conversation with Rachel Maddow, Clinton spoke of “the weaponization of loneliness” to vilify those who disagree with her, portraying them as villains responsible for the crisis of America’s polarization and loneliness epidemic. The springboard for that interview was Clinton’s recent 3500-word essay in the Atlantic, headlined “The Weaponization of Loneliness.”
Most of Clinton’s interview with Maddow was a giddy chit-chat over the latest rollout of indictments against President Trump. Clinton interjected the term “weaponization of loneliness” to blame her usual suspects of deliberately sowing all of the division and distrust America is experiencing. Her article is a cataloged enemies list that includes anyone skeptical of the handling of the 2020 elections and anyone who doesn’t blindly trust our institutions and government.
She also uses smears like “alt-right” and “conspiracy theorist.” As I’ve written, such polarizing name-calling has always been a staple of those who want to shut down conversation, isolate those who disagree and enforce compliance with increasingly bizarre demands. By relying so heavily on demonization rather than substantive analysis of America’s current crisis of isolation, Clinton herself is practicing the weaponization of loneliness on an amplified scale.
The Actual Thesis
“The Weaponization of Loneliness” represents my thesis which was decades in the making. The resulting book is a multi-faceted deep dive into the history, the science and the culture behind the phenomenon of social isolation as a political weapon. There is a process by which we go down that rabbit hole. It’s urgent for Americans to become conscious of that process, to become far more aware of how vulnerable we are to having our fears of ostracism exploited by bad actors. We are losing our freedom because of that fear.
Ponder how so many people are manipulated into joining dangerous cults. Also consider the phenomenon of Stockholm syndrome, whereby the isolated captive bonds with the captor out of a sense of dependency and despair.
How do such things happen? First, human beings have a primal terror of social rejection and a corresponding urge to conform to the demands of authority. Anybody who seeks power — whether a gaslighting partner, a toxic boss, a cult leader or a totalitarian dictator — can exploit this fear to achieve their goals.
There is a “machinery of loneliness” operating in our society that isolates us and destabilizes our relationships. The “machine’s” three main components are identity politics, political correctness and mob agitation.
Identity politics serves to erase us as unique individuals by assigning us group identities as either oppressor or victim. Political correctness induces us into self-censorship by threatening us with ostracism. Mobs can take different forms, but they enforce all of the above. Other components include propaganda, political censorship, the criminalization of comedy, snitch culture and much more. Demonizing labels (such as “bigot!” “anti-vaxxer!” “transphobe!”) along with political censorship play a huge role in stoking that terror.
The tyrant’s big prize in this game is to control the private sphere of life, our web of relationships of family, friends, faith and community. Tyrants have always targeted that sphere because that’s where people get their inner strength. It’s rich with knowledge, conversations, ideas and influences. If that sphere is captured, we become atomized, a condition leading to our demoralization and a loss of strength to resist tyranny.
These methods and goals are not new. As a student of totalitarian systems, I noticed how social isolation was critical to all tyrannical rule through modern history. A few examples are the Jacobin mobs of the French Revolution, the brutal war on private life in Soviet Russia, the Nazi’s brutal regime of identity politics (dubbed “racial hygiene”) and Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China whereby mobs of Red Guard youth inflicted violent struggle sessions on any perceived political enemy.
All of the above point to a process of the weaponization of loneliness. By contrast, Clinton uses the term simply to demonize her political opponents. If you disagree with her, you are “sowing dissension.”
Clinton often complains that people don’t trust the government enough. Seriously. But government policies over the past many decades have actually cultivated isolation by encouraging government dependency, contributing to family breakdown and undermining free speech and freedom of association, among other ills.
The COVID mandates literally enforced our isolation and deceived us into thinking it would only last a couple of weeks, not years. How can reasonable people trust a government that forces them to choose between an experimental injection or their livelihood? Or that brutally separates them from dying loved ones? Or that instructs them to snitch on their neighbors? Yet Clinton is allied with all such policies and demands trust.
All the tactics of the weaponization of loneliness are right there in Clinton’s Atlantic article and Maddow interview: the psychological projection, the use of a huge media monopoly to enforce a narrative, the constant deception and the claim that free speech should be suppressed under the guise of protecting us from “misinformation.”
How do people keep falling into these traps? And how do tyrants get away with it?
My answer is that human beings have not yet developed a conscious enough that’s aware of the process. We don’t appreciate how much our fear of ostracism dictates what we say, how we act and with whom we associate. Tyrants have always harnessed that fear to pit us against one another.
That’s what the weaponization of loneliness really means. If we don’t put checks on that process, we can’t sustain civil society or healthy communities. Instead, we get government-controlled pseudo “Hillary-villages” where our speech, our ideas, our families and our associations are regulated. If you read the surgeon general’s advisory that Clinton promotes in her Atlantic article, you can easily detect a blueprint for building them.
In sum, Hillary Clinton’s use of the title “The Weaponization of Loneliness” is beyond weird. It transcends academic theft because she has such a mammoth censorship-industrial complex at her disposal. This gives her and her base a good chance to drown out a thesis that I believe can really help Americans build the awareness they need to escape that trap. I can only conclude that the term has been hijacked because it builds awareness of how the propaganda we’re constantly fed is used for silencing, dividing and conquering.
Stella Morabito is the author of The Weaponization of Loneliness: How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer. She is a senior contributor to The Federalist where she has written extensively on the social fallout of propaganda and group think.
Stella Morabito | Daily Caller News Service
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
The post Hillary Clinton Just Gave Away The Left’s Playbook For Censorship And Oppression appeared first on Granite Grok.
The New England overnight has been cool in August, the nighttime sleeping temperatures at their optimum – which means cold enough to need blankets and very comfortable, in my opinion. Not exactly what you’d call a warming trend, but you could say the climate changed.
Related: It Was Not the Wettest July in NH History Nor the Hottest
And it does.
Around here, it changes in minutes, but it has always done that. Nothing new about it. But THIS is, maybe. August is not known for its cool nights, certainly not coming out of what was billed as the hottest month ever, everywhere, and forever. That was hogwash, but you would think global warming being what it is and CO2 accumulating the way they claim it does, there would be no end to the misery index.
No end, if you mean, lefties ranting every summer about how hot July gets.
Does anyone else detect a pattern? July is hot, and Democrats lie.
And July is an excellent month to spread lies because it is the hottest month of the year (around here) every year, and sleeping is critical to health, and hot nights mess with that. Tired and uncomfortable people might be inclined to go along with the narrative flow.
Wow, it’s hot. Yup, global warming. Don’t you mean climate change? Huh? Oh, yeah.
But August is not cooperating, and it’s been dreamy. But no one is writing headlines about how comfortable the weather in August has been for sleeping. Who the heck would click on that? How about Joe Biden spends a gazillion dollars because it was hot last month? Or, Maui burns, Brooklyn burns, Ukraine burns, I’m detecting another pattern.
Big headlines, but none of them are as big as the grant money available for folks willing and ready to declare consensus as the new gold standard in scientific theory. Excuse me for being a non-scientist, but if some group of people connected to or funded by the government can decide things, and declare that everyone (who matters) agrees, then there are no such things as theory, only mandates.
Dictates.
And isn’t that a bigger threat? “Scientists” that are willing to produce results their sugar daddy wants – especially when Daddy is the Federal government? It sets a standard for the culture that leads to politicians and a government that could justify almost anything, from killing the unborn to killing the poor or folks with mental illness to a public health protocol that kills people.
How about a media machine more interested in repeating that than finding the truth?
The post The Bigger Threat Than Climate Change appeared first on Granite Grok.
I want to remind folks what we are up against and comprehend the evil around us that HATES our LIBERTIES, FREEDOM, and the Constitutional Republic by calling it a DEMOCRACY, never using the word REPUBLIC.
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This evil includes Biden’s Build Back Better, now costing us more in medical, energy, groceries, housing, and of course, electric everything.
Natural gas and nuclear to them are unclean and unsafe, and the next loss is our LIBERTY to use wood-burning stoves and how many miles you can drive.
One thing about the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA, in case you didn’t notice) it has done the opposite of reducing inflation since it was instituted. The nay-sayers will call me a lair or blame Trump, but you cannot hide the truth forever, but maybe long enough to fool the people into voting incorrectly.
Then there’s this from Adolf Hitler. “The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people, as long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and any deprivation.”
Or how about Joseph Stalin? “Education is a weapon whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”
Vladimir Lenin said, “Destroy the family, you destroy the country.”
We are a Democratic Constitutional Republic (democratically elected legislators in a “Republic” making laws limited by the NH and US Constitution, Bill of Rights), not a Democracy (mob rule, NH and US Constitution, Bill of Rights meaningless, majority rule).
Parents, you have options for schooling, AND you may qualify for the Education Freedom Account (school choice) to help pay for it.
Voters, stop being deceived by the Democrats saying one thing and doing the opposite. Don’t forget the democrats voted against the family by voting down HB10 and SB272 Parental Rights bills to save the family.
The post Our Republic, Parents, and Education appeared first on Granite Grok.
If you need another reason why Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles “C.Q.” Brown is a #woke threat to the US military and national security (he is nominated to be the new head of the joint chiefs), we’ve got it.
Enter USAF Col. Benjamin Jonsson. He was nominated by *President Biden to be promoted to brigadier general. Col. Jonsson is white. And “woke.”
Col. Jonsson believes the “problem” with the Air Force is “white colonels” like himself—but not really him, just all the other white colonels.
After the death of Saintly George Floyd, Jonsson penned an article for Air Force Times “calling out” his fellow Caucasian USAF colonels.
“As white colonels, you and I are the biggest barriers to change if we do not personally address racial injustice in our Air Force,” Col. Jonsson began.
Jonsson is a product of General Brown’s Air Force and, like Brown, thinks there is too much whiteness and too many white people in the US Air Force. But is you call him out, he’s got the pat progressive response.
“Defensiveness is a predictable response by white people to any discussion of racial injustice,” Col. Justice Warrior continued. “White colonels are no exception. We are largely blind to institutional racism, and we take offense to any suggestion that our system advantaged us at the expense of others. …
“Start by developing a game plan, he preached. “A good primer is to read or listen to the short book, ‘White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism,’ by Robin DiAngelo. Dear white colonel, it is time to give a damn. Aim High.”
Which is a very strange thing to say about voluntary service. Maybe the Air Force is like Hockey. People of color would rather be somewhere else. It’s not the NHL’s fault if a person with brown skin prefers Soccer, Basketball, Baseball, or Football. Why can’t this also apply to states like New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont (more than just mostly white and cool or cold seven months out of twelve, or the Air Force?
Gotta be racism or some sort of supremacy or tunnel vision or something.
How about Obama-style white guilt as a vehicle for false morality? A problem manufactured by cultural Marxists for the same Marxists to “solve.” Translated, that means the systemic destruction of American institutions by progressives.
The goal isn’t diversity or equity, they are certainly not color-blind, so the only goal left is weakening the country, and a dysfunctional fighting force will get you there.
ReminderGeneral Charles “C.Q.” Brown’s Senate vote for confirmation as the new head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is in a few weeks. Should he succeed in the appointment, we can expect every branch to bend (or bend further) to his #woke agenda.
Contact your US Senator and ask them to vote against his nomination.
HT | PJ Media
The post The US Air Force is Broken appeared first on Granite Grok.
They’re flying so thick and fast it is amazing.
Take heart – there will be a Meme Overflow and a Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow too. Last week’s Overflow-Overflow.
Remember, ridicule and mockery are effective weapons:
Now, let the mockery and mayhem begin.
*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***
Just got called one last weekend! Cha-ching!
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Last-minute add, up top:
In full disclosure I was sent this by a Telegram contact; I do not know who is organizing this. But… presented for your information.
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A victory! Here’s another:
In UK – Oxford pressured to remove pride flags from churches (massresistance.org)
Remember, we have a crisis of trust:
A Crisis of Trust – Urban Scoop
Assuming there is an election in 2024 – on which, IMHO, I will lay odds less than 50-50 – I will still vote. But I have no hopes it will actually accomplish anything, and it will merely be my last-gasp attempt to assuage my conscience before when the avalanche really gets going.
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Judith Curry: How Climate “Science” Got Hijacked by Alarmists
The original article is gone, but here’s an archive link to a critique of the FIRST 97% stat that was bruited about:
In fact, the “97 percent” statistic was drawn from an even smaller subset: the 79 respondents who were both self-reported climate scientists and had “published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change.” These 77 scientists agreed that global temperatures had generally risen since 1800, and that human activity is a “significant contributing factor.”
77 out of 79 cherry-picked data points? Wow, that’s overwhelming. Not. And then there’s another such 97% stat, also ripped to shreds:
Cook’s 97% Scam Debunked | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com) (bolding added, link in original):
Jose Duarte, expert in Social Psychology, Scientific Validity, and Research Methods, has actually called the Cook paper “multiply fraudulent”, and, as far as I know, Cook has taken no action to challenge the claim. This, as much as anything else, shows just what a con trick the whole business was. How many scientists, after all, would accept being called fraudulent without taking action?
The 97% Cook Consensus – when will Environ Res Letters retract it? « JoNova (joannenova.com.au)
Remember, like Curry, I used to be a climate alarmist and changed my mind. For more, ongoing, on glo-bull climate change:
Watts Up With That? • The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change
Real Climate Science | “Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.” — Richard Feynman
Climate Change Dispatch – Climate Science And Environmental News
A whole series here:
Manhattan Contrarian
Is the Earth’s Climate History Largely a Fraud? | Power Line (powerlineblog.com)
So the Earth’s temperature “record” has been subjected to endless adjustments and alleged corrections by the very people who are trying to use that record to justify billions of dollars in payments to themselves. In any other context I know of, this is considered corrupt and perhaps felonious.
…
Observation trumps theory. What is extraordinary about our current situation is that the people who created the self-interested and politically-motivated models also control the temperature record, and they have been changing it to make their models, and their entitlement to billions in government grants, look better.This is, in my opinion, the greatest scandal in the history of science.
Just look at this graph – hopefully animation carries through – from here:
The right side goes up; the left side doesn’t change or even goes down a tad. Funny how “adjustments” work. And a great piece:
Why I’m a Global Warming Skeptic | Frontpage Mag
In line with the above image:
Another Climate Alarmist Lets It Slip: Why They Want To Scare You | Investor’s Business Daily (investors.com) (bolding added, link to archived version of relevant URL):
Klein’s statement is perfectly in line with Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, and in fact is almost an echo. Figueres acknowledged earlier this year that the environmental activists’ goal is not to spare the world an ecological disaster, but to destroy capitalism.
Closing out:
Happer, Lindzen: EPA Climate Regulations Based on a ‘Hoax’ | Principia Scientific Intl. (principia-scientific.com)
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PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA
Right on cue as the CDC starts calling for annual Covid Jabs…
New Covid variant BA.6 ‘likely’ present in US, experts warn as calls for masking return – Insider Paper
I wonder if Mayor Maskolini will renew his face diaper diktat. And it’s already starting:
Related to all this, above, at least to me… remember a post or three ago how I mentioned that I went diabetic last year?
So now, this:
Vaccines are causing most Type I diabetes (kirschsubstack.com)
But I don’t think that’s what did it for me, though there may have been vaccine damage over the years. Only He knows. But since these two papers came out about people who developed Type I diabetes after the Jab:
Jab and Type 1 Diabetes
Jab and Type 1 Diabetes 2
Plus news of shedding from the Covid Jabs for years, comes this tidbit about the possibility – I need proof, dammit! – of the mRNA itself transferring from “vaccinated” to others.
mRNA Vaccine Can Spread Through Physical Contact ADMITS Pfizer!
My wife got two initial shots and at least one more (that I know of). We’re in close contact living in the same house. Occasionally *cough* very close. Given the timing of my (very unusual for an adult my age) launch of Type 1 diabetes, along with my tinnitus (also a known Jab symptom), I am now searching to see about tests for spike production. In the meantime I’m taking action with nattokinase, bromelian, NAC, curcumin, dandelion root, and other things.
If, indeed, I did “acquire” the mRNA, well, I won’t say here.
Reprising, all my Covid-related cartoons here.
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I and many others have said that political correctness will kill people. And it has, here and elsewhere.
Very similar to this quote:
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
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From this article – interesting in its own right IMHO – comes this quote by Henry Kissinger:
Ukraine: An Expendable Country May Soon Run out of Expendables – American Thinker
To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal
Ukraine is finding this out. There’s a quote – trying to find it – but assuming I don’t some guy from southeast Asia, IIRC Cambodian, said his biggest mistake was trusting the United States. The Afghans learned this recently too.
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Regarding that image above, see the quote I used here (bolding added):
IN 1974, FORMER ALGERIAN PRESIDENT HOUARI BOUMEDIENE SAID IN A SPEECH AT THE UN:
“ONE DAY MILLIONS OF MEN WILL LEAVE THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE TO GO TO THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE. AND THEY WILL NOT GO THERE AS FRIENDS. BECAUSE THEY WILL GO THERE TO CONQUER IT WITH THEIR SONS. THE WOMBS OF OUR WOMEN WILL GIVE THE VICTORY.”
Millstones are expensive and will be needed after the collapse. 3-4 cinder blocks ganged together should work as well.
I ask Biden supporters who deny there was any election fraud “So, what’s the innocent explanation for this”? “It’s been explained”. “So what’s the explanation”. They can’t answer. Because they have none that they can articulate, which is interesting to me – but more telling is the fact that the great glowing screen has decreed it’s been explained, so they just believe it has.
Aside: I see so many of my own fellow Jews absolutely continuing to cleave to the Democrats and supporting Biden, regardless of the evidence of the growing Jew hate on the Left… I see them cleaving to their Tikkun Olam fetish, misusing the idea of doing good as a rationalization for their liberalism… and I can’t help but have this image that – for the vast majority of American, indeed, global Jewry – we have abandoned Hashem en masse, instead having adopted Wokeness / “Social Justice” as the new golden calf.
Please see this quote from a Rabbi on American Jews (link in the original):
As Jonathan Neumann puts it in his excellent book To Heal the World?, American Jews have been led to believe that “the purpose of the Jews in the world is to campaign for higher taxes, sexual permissiveness, reduced military spending, illegal immigration, opposition to fracking, the banishment of religion from the public square and every other liberal cause under the sun — all in the name of God”.
It’s not Jewish, just, or even very social, constituting a mish-mash of Marxism, moral relativism and paganism.
So three-quarters of American Jews have contracted a kind of religious auto-immune disease, which has caused them to junk the stuff that will protect their spiritual health while eagerly embracing the stuff that will destroy it.
Golden Calf, indeed.
I can easily see how burning an actual rainbow flag would be charged as “hate speech” – even as those doing so routinely burn Old Glory. I wonder what reaction I’d get if I burned a UN flag (or a WHO or WEF banner) publicly. Hmmm…
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Adversity toughens manhood, and the characteristic of the good or the great man is not that he has been exempt from the evils of life, but that he has surmounted them.
— Patrick Henry
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Covid, The Jab, and Broadly Related:
‘Scientists demand Britons wear face masks as new Covid variant BA.X spreads’; what a load of specious drivel, garbage, they all know, SAGE, CDC, NIH, FDA, Health Canada, PHAC that masks are JUNK, (substack.com)
Ex-medical chief Jonathan Van-Tam takes job with Covid vaccine giant Moderna (msn.com)
Kiszel et al. (Hungary scientists) have shown us again a MAJOR catastrophe with the mRNA technology gene based COVID injections, the IgG4 ‘class-switch’ IMMUNE Tolerance with repeated mRNA shots (substack.com)
As I understand it, IgG4 antibodies tell the immune system “Hey, this guy’s cool”. Not a good thing about an actual infectious agent.
All-cause mortality started trending upwards with vax rollout, not Covid, report finds (rebekahbarnett.com.au)
The Unforgivable Ivermectin Swindle – by Quoth the Raven (substack.com)
[INTERVIEW] Awakening From A Dystopian Nightmare -Drs. Pierre Kory & Jessica Rose – Bright Light News
Some Pfizer Vaccines Were Contaminated — What Does That Mean for Millions Who Got the Jab? • Children’s Health Defense (childrenshealthdefense.org)
Say, anyone remember that the WEF bigwigs had unJabbed pilots? I found this:
Former Airline Pilot Says Elites Are Actively Searching for Unvaccinated Aviators to Crew Their Planes – But Would Any Accept the Offer? (westernjournal.com)
Now what’s interesting is that the above is surrounded by a veritable swarm of “fact-checked” articles saying it’s not so. Which, in my book, gives it more credibility. As Bismark said, never believe something until it’s been officially denied.
Remembering Three Young Cyclists From a Single Belgian Team Who Were Suddenly Afflicted With Severe Heart Problems Shortly After Receiving the Covid Vaccine – The Daily Sceptic
100% of ‘Died Suddenly’ Autopsy Cases Causally Connected to the COVID Vaccine, According to Review (vigilantnews.com)
So he uses his position to help Murderna make buckets of cash, then he gets a sweet job with them. MHO is that he could probably play video games all day and he’d still be a positive ROI.
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Ham-Handed Surgeons
Bill warned us about this:
PJTV: Five Alarm Fire
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The Coming Tyranny
Caption that was with the image:
ULEZ cameras going up directly outside peoples houses in a cul-de-sac. These people will have to pay 12 quid to get off their own driveway. Madness… The UN’s Plan To Control Us ALL!! This Report is INSANE!!
Some other good stuff on the channel too.
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Pick of the post:
For sheer deliciousness, on multiple levels.
Look, I get that someone’s BBQ in another yard can be obnoxious. But living in modern society requires some level of flexibility and living in a close-in neighborhood some forgiveness and tolerance. It’s not like they were doing it in her yard, it’s not like they were delivering dishes full of the stuff to her door, and it’s not like they were holding a barbecue deliberately to piss her off… but she complained. And not just complained… sued.
FA – FO.
IMHO she deserves every burnt-flesh molecule that crosses here olfactory nerves.
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Monday Musical Memory:
Europe – The Final Countdown (Official Video)
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Palate Cleansers:
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The post MONDAY MEMES appeared first on Granite Grok.
Ten years ago, I took part in a series of debates on school choice opposite Paul Cillo of the Public Assets Institute and Bill Mathis of the National Education Policy Center and the Vermont State Board of Education. I was for school choice; they were opposed.
At the time, Mathis used the then-latest and second installment of the Stanford CREDO (Center for Research on Education Outcomes) study on charter schools, which he called “the gold standard,” to argue school choice options led to statistically insignificant differences in student outcomes, and so we should not adopt them.
I countered that what CREDO II (2013) showed is that independent charter schools do at least as good a job as their public school counterparts but for significantly less money. If nothing else, better ROI for taxpayers! But even then, there was something else. Though the 2013 study did show negligible differences in outcomes overall, it also showed that certain subsets of students – Black, Hispanic, low-income, and English language learners – performed better in charter schools than their peers in public schools.
Addressing such learning gaps long experienced by these categories of students in Vermont was, at the time, a primary problem we needed to focus on solving. (Unfortunately, it still is, though we have added more problems to the list.) Expanding school choice options would have been a solution benefiting these children without harming others.
But now that the 2023 CREDO III study is out, I can’t help but wonder if Bill Mathis is still touting it as “the gold standard” because ten years later, it shows conclusively that access to educational opportunities outside the traditional public schools (TPS) absolutely, undeniably lead to overall better student outcomes – especially for those afore-mentioned groups that have been traditionally underserved by the public school system.
Here are some highlights from the 160-page report:
The majority of charter schools provide better year-to-year outcomes for students compared to their traditional public-school options. Most of these schools perform better to such a degree that the difference is statistically significant. The results stand up to deeper investigation. Charter schools produce superior student gains despite enrolling a more challenging student population than their adjacent TPS. They move Black and Hispanic students and students in poverty ahead in their learning faster than if they enrolled in their local TPS. They are more successful than the local public school alternatives across most grade spans and community settings. These results show that charter schools use their flexibility to be responsive to the local needs of their communities. (p.13)
Moreover, the longer a student remained in a charter school, the better that student’s outcomes become. And, like the students, the longer a charter school exists the more it adapts and improves to provide better educational opportunities.
The research also eviscerates the false argument that independent charter schools either actively “cherry pick” or passively benefit from the self-selecting of more talented or better prepared students. As noted by CREDO, if the cherry-picking theory were correct, the students switching to charter schools would start out at a higher level of achievement than their TPS peers. “In multiple analyses, we do not see significant evidence of an undue advantage to charter schools. In fact, we find the opposite is true: charter schools enroll students who are disproportionately lower achieving than the students in their former TPS (p. 26).”
As for Black, Hispanic, low-income, and English language learners:
Perhaps the most revealing finding of our study is that more than 1,000 schools have eliminated learning disparities for their students and moved their achievement ahead of their respective state’s average performance. We refer to these schools as “gap-busting” charter schools. They provide strong empirical proof that high-quality, high-equality education is possible anywhere. (p.12)
This should be inspiring stuff!
But these gold-standard findings come at a time when the Democrats and Progressives in the Vermont legislature are going all out to eliminate such choice-based opportunities for our kids where they exist, rather than strengthen and expand them. Multiple bills this past session were introduced to curb or eliminate funding for Vermont’s tuitioning system, which allows families in districts with no public school to choose the best public or independent school that meets their child’s needs with money following the child.
Although Vermont doesn’t have charter schools, our approved independent schools perform a similar function. They are independently operated but receive public funding on a per-student basis. Like charter schools, they are more flexible in their abilities to define their mission, adopt and adapt curriculum, and hire and fire teachers. And because their students can withdraw – along with their money – if the school fails to perform, they are far more accountable to the customer for their results.
This combination of flexibility to adapt paired with incentives to perform is the dynamic behind the quick, vast improvement CREDO found in charter school outcomes over just the past decade. It is the dynamic we should be – needs to be — building more into our publicly funded education system.
Why? Because over this same past decade, Vermont’s traditional public schools have seen the opposite results: a steady decline in student outcomes with persistent and worsening learning gaps for low-income and minority students. Behavioral problems and mental health issues are on the rise, as is the cost of the system as a whole. The system isn’t broken. The system doesn’t work at least for a lot of students who deserve better.
So, the results are in. Giving students a variety of mission-driven options to meet their educational needs provides better outcomes and greater equity for less money. Are there more improvements that need to be made? Always! But, as the research shows, those improvements will come faster outside the traditional public school model. All we need now is a majority of state representatives and senators willing to put children and taxpayers before the special interests desperately trying to hold onto their lucrative status as a state-run monopoly.
Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics including three years service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free market think tank
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After waves of racially charged protests and riots (2020), Democrats across the country issued calls to “defund the police.” They had political positions in many cities, allowing them control of budgets.
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In several cities like Chicago, New York, Portland, and Washington, D.C., among others (many others) Democrat “leaders” caved to demands from leftist activists. They cut police funding in their jurisdictions. The predictable happened.
Crime rose to out-of-control levels in these Democratic-run cities. Things have gotten so bad that Democratic leaders want to “send in the troops” to assist their overstretched, demoralized police forces.
Crime has continued to rise to the point of being out of control in many jurisdictions. These Democrat-operated cities are becoming unsafe. Things are so bad as a result of the action of Democratic “leaders” that those currently in charge want “troops” sent to their jurisdictions. They expect the rest of us who do not live there to pay for sending in troops to assist their overstretched, demoralized police forces.
They created the problem and they want us to solve it for them.
In the nation’s capital, Council member White called on the National Guard to stop the surging violence. He says the Southeast neighborhood he represents has become a “war zone” plagued by frequent gunfire and rising homicides.
In Chicago, crime is up 36% compared with last year; Illinois state representative Ford says sending in the National Guard “should not be off the table.” And in California, Gov. Newsom deployed the National Guard to San Francisco in April to help address fentanyl trafficking in the city, which has become a haven for criminals.
Nationwide, Democrats are bad at stopping crime.
They are good at calling for prepositioning federal troops throughout the country, so is crime the excuse?
Do we want direct federal control of our cities with armed troops? What is the posse comitatus act?
The Posse Comitatus Act bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement except when expressly authorized by law. This 143-year-old law embodies an American tradition that sees military interference in civilian affairs as a threat to both democracy and personal liberty.
Sure, Democrats’ first emotion is to empathize with the victims, but they have carried their caring for the victim to the extreme. They are caring for the anti-social individuals in their jurisdictions to the detriment of the law-abiding citizens.
The result is most people who vote for Democrats do not feel safe in their own neighborhoods. Yet, those people could vote for different leadership… When will they?
Democrats are beginning to admit crime is a legitimate problem, but the question is, will they admit they enable the people who commit the crime they admit is a problem?
They are still denouncing their critics as racist, while some insist everything is fine. On its face, this suggests the situation on the ground is bad. It also suggests the situation will deteriorate more because there must be sufficient fear, pain, and death to motivate change.
We know antagonizing police officers, cutting their funding, reducing their numbers, attacking them personally, and tying their hands is an ineffective way to stop crime. But we do not need troops in our cities. We need good citizens to take back political control in their jurisdiction.
We need common sense to return to a society with law and order.
This is hard work that needs to be done locally. It costs society less, and those costs must be borne by those getting the improvements in their living conditions. The community will not improve unless and until it is willing to do the work to make it happen.
Just think about it.
The post Democrats Support Crime in Their Cities and Whine for “Help” from the Rest of Us appeared first on Granite Grok.
The PERP Act, sorry, I mean PREP, established immunity for the Public Health Industrial Complex from responsibility for treating COVID-19—a sort of secular ‘papal’ dispensation for sins to be committed. A man suing in Michigan has been granted an exception.
In a groundbreaking decision, a Michigan judge ruled on Aug. 8 that a drug manufacturer and hospital are not protected by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act in the case of a man who experienced two strokes and a leg amputation after receiving the COVID-19 medication remdesivir that was contaminated with glass particles.
Willful misconduct is not protected by PERP (sorry, PREP), which ought to cast a wide net given how much the FDA, CDC, and others knew about risks associated with the alleged “treatments” and protocols (as evidenced in documents pried from their greedy hands). But that remains to be seen.
As for Dan Nowacki, his family’s fight has just begun, and the “misconduct” is more a matter of negligence and poor quality control.
According to the complaint (pdf) obtained by The Epoch Times, Mr. Nowacki, on Nov. 10, 2021, was admitted to St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea Hospital and diagnosed with COVID-19. During his stay, he received five doses of remdesivir. At least two doses belonged to contaminated lots.
Days later, Mr. Nowacki experienced his first massive stroke. On Nov. 24 Mr. Nowacki was released to a skilled nursing facility and began developing hematomas and swelling on his hands, face, and arms. He was readmitted to Henry Ford Hospital where his “symptoms remained a mystery to physicians.”
Mr. Nowacki experienced a second stroke on Dec. 16 that left him bedridden and in need of permanent round-the-clock care for the rest of his life.
The tragedy and loss can’t be measured, but if they win, a Jury must work that out. I’m wondering whether, in the course of the case, anyone will even bother to point out that Remdesivir doesn’t even work on COVID-19 and may make it worse.
WHO has issued a conditional recommendation against the use of remdesivir in hospitalized patients, regardless of disease severity, as there is currently no evidence that remdesivir improves survival and other outcomes in these patients.
The WHOs down in Whoville didn’t get the gumption to make this admission until late 2022, but the evidence started piling up when it got the green light in May 2020. But it was so damn expensive that no one could bring themselves to stop the money train.
People died.
No one can sue for that, it seems, but Glass particles may have been present in as many as 55,000 doses recalled by the manufacturer (Gilead). What remains to be seen is whether a court or a jury will view accidental contamination as willful misconduct, assuming some other judge, upon appeal, doesn’t decide that Dan Nowacki does not have standing to sue.
HT | Epoch Times
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Today was a big win for every Nashua resident, and it also vindicated Laurie Ortolano as the Supreme Court ruled in the Ortolano case against the City of Nashua with a 5-0 win.
The Supreme Court stated:
Part I, Article 8 of the New Hampshire Constitution provides that:
“the public’s right of access to governmental proceedings and records shall not be unreasonably restricted.”
The Right-to-Know Law states that “ [e]very citizen … has the right to inspect all governmental records … except as otherwise prohibited by statute or RSA 91-A:5.” … The purpose of the Right-to-Know Law is to ensure both the greatest possible public access to the actions, discussions and records of all public bodies, and their accountability to the people. Although the statute does not provide for unrestricted access to public records, [the New Hampshire Supreme Court] resolve[s] questions regarding the Right-to-Know Law with a view to providing the utmost information in order to best effectuate these statutory and constitutional objectives. As a result, [it] broadly construe[s] provisions favoring disclosure and interpret[s] the exemptions restrictively. The party seeking nondisclosure has the burden of proof.
Ortolano v. Nashua, No. 2022-0237 (August 18, 2023 Opinion) (internal citations omitted).
This win hopefully will show the City of Nashua that residents are concerned and want to know how their government is being run. But more importantly, it states that residents have the right to inspect all governmental records.
Three cheers for Laurie Ortolano!!
The decision:
Laura Colquhoun on Laurie Ortolano win – Supreme Court Order on 2022-0257 Back up tape emailsThe post Laurie Ortolano Wins in State Supreme Court 5-0 vs City of Nashua appeared first on Granite Grok.
See tweet below from the editor of the Babylon Bee. The GOP-elites think GOP-voters are simpletons and/or cultists and that MAGA is a cult of personality. So wrong. While there are some cultists …. “he’s playing six-dimensional chess” … the vast majority of the GOP-voters supporting Trump know that he is human, imperfect, flawed. BUT YET THEY SUPPORT HIM. The question the GOP-elites should be asking is … WHY?
The tweet below posits an answer. Here is mine … BECAUSE THEY KNOW THE OTHER GOP CANDIDATES ARE GASLIGHTING THEM (in blunter terms … are full of sh*t). Christie, Haley, Pence, Scott, etc. are NOT going to secure the Southern border because the donor-class, the GOP-elites want an open border. Nor are they going to “stand up to China” because the donor-class, the GOP-elites make lots of money from America investment in China. Nor are they going to end the Ukraine-gravy-train because … again … the donor-class, GOP-elites makes lots of money from that gravy train.
GOP-voters gave the GOP the House in 2022. What have they accomplished? NOTHING. GOP-voters gave the GOP total control of the federal government in 2016. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell refused to fund a border wall and instead were complicit in “investigating” Russia-collusion in order to get rid of Trump or at least block/slow his agenda. GOP-voters gave the GOP the House in 2010 believing that the House would block Obamacare. Instead, GOP members of the House and Senate who actually tried to deliver on that promise were attacked by GOP “leadership” who kept telling the GOP-voters that they needed the Senate … and then the Senate wasn’t enough either they needed the the Presidency too. And then, as noted previously, when they got it all in 2016 … they REFUSED to repeal Obamacare.
And to add insult to injury under “Republican” Governor Sun-King Sununu, the NHGOP wrote Obamacare into State law.
To cut to the chase, GOP-voters are soundly rejecting the non-Trump GOP candidates because the Establishment-wing, Swamp-wing, whatever-you-want-to-call-it wing of the GOP has shown itself TIME AND TIME AGAIN to be FULL OF SH*T.
MAGA isn’t a cult of personality—many who voted for Trump find him personally distasteful. You don’t throw a hand grenade into the deep state, the media, and the corrupt regime because you’re in love with the hand grenade. You throw it because you want your target destroyed.
— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) August 11, 2023
The post What The GOP-Elites Do Not (And Likely Never Will) Understand About GOP-Voters appeared first on Granite Grok.
George Orwells’ future projections on government from his book 1984 are collectively summed up in his quote, “Imagine a boot stamping on the human face forever.”
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Unless H.R. 79, the “WHO Withdrawal Act,” becomes law, the WHO’s healthcare controls may soon resemble those “stomping boots.” I urge the reader to diligently research H.R. 79, introduced by Andy Biggs (R. AZ), with now 50 co-sponsors. Not only will it preserve personal healthcare freedom, but it will also stop many other sovereignty-destroying problems from the UN, the parent organization of WHO.
WHO has partnered with the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, to implement around the world the EU’s digital health passports called WHO’s Global Digital Health Certification Network,” bringing tyrannical biomedical security to control people globally. Our best defense to stop this new Pandemic Treaty from unconstitutionally licensing future presidential edicts is citizen action to demand the Senate consider and defeat the treaty’s dangerous amendments to International Health Regulations that eliminate personal healthcare decisions.
As Tom Paine so eloquently said: “ These are times that try men’s souls.” “Let us not be sunshine patriots and summer soldiers” failing to stop WHO’s attack on personal healthcare. Americans inherently have been blessed with the Constitution that protects the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—blessings of liberty other nations do not have to give away to socialism. The WHO’s totalitarian moves essentially only target American freedom in healthcare. Americans who think it cannot happen here are blinded from 20th-century reality: the price in deaths that total over a hundred million victims of Marxist tyranny murdering their own people.
Every American who values their liberty should consider the future potential of a world ruled by the global megalomaniacs above WHO: George Soros, Klaus Schwab, and Bill and Melinda Gates, all teammates seeking a New World Order fully supported by the Biden White House. If a lack of citizen response continues to go with this evil flow, then we will all suffer the consequences of a Digital Health ID, a foretaste of which we experienced with the vaccine passport to enter public spaces.
Jefferson did not challenge a world monopolized by despotic rulers with his Declaration of Independence that grew into the Bill of Rights so the Biden Administration could give our God-given personal rights of healthcare away to globalist power!
Patriots, it’s time for action. Gain valuable ammunition in this “war for liberty” at https://gojt.us/28es to view The UN Deep State Plan For World Government.
Also, go to https://gojt.us/6n2 to view “UN WHO Coming In For The Kill with Health Schemes.” Share this alarming news with family and friends. Email your Senators and Representatives in both the state and the Federal government and demand they support H.R. 79. This knowledge promoting withdrawal from WHO holds the power of truth. It will take your courage to help save your “pursuit of happiness that only good healthcare insures.
The post Stomping Boots From Who appeared first on Granite Grok.
The FDA continues to insist that it never intended to give the impression that doctors could not prescribe Ivermectin for COVID-19, that pharmacists could not fill those, or that it wasn’t made for people, probably because they were sued.
Related: Irony Alert: The FDA Issues a Warning about Misinformation on the Internet
They were just misunderstood “kids,” taken out of context.
Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA, had said during recent oral arguments in a legal case that the FDA “explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID.”
It reminds me of Ray Buckley and the New Hampshire State Democrat Party. They’ve been sued for defamation, and while that’s a tough hill to climb (proving it was malice aforethought), the NH Dems did about as good of a job as you could to show they knew better and did it anyway or should have.
The FDA is in a similar boat, and part of its problem is that the media went wide with its “for animals horse-dewormer narrative,” and they never said stop. Don’t.
Ms. Honold said the FDA’s statements “don’t prohibit doctors from prescribing ivermectin to treat COVID or for any other purpose.” She said the agency advised people to consult their health care providers and that they could take medicine if the provider prescribed it.
But there was no equally massive response to correct the record. No new tweet saying exactly that. They let it be the truth.
Africa and India were showing excellent results with Ivermectin during the Pandemic but the FDA never even managed to notice or update the record.
The result – at least in the US – was the full-court press to suppress a safe, well-tolerated medicine with nearly one hundred more studies proving it works better on COVID-19, before or during an infection, than anything anyone tried to mandate.
The FDA still has not approved it for use for COVID. The best it can do is claim it never said doctors couldn’t prescribe it off-label, which, again, they could have shouted from purple mountains majesty but couldn’t be bothered. Why?
Follow the Money.The FDA and its watchdogs appear to have been bought, bribed, or coerced to hide the truth and sell the lie.
They had to stifle ivermectin, or the cash for Jabs laundromat would never open.
The people tasked with protecting us from profiteering without regard to safety and efficacy profited from something that was neither safe nor effective while suppressing medications that were both.
Quoth The Raven has a brief historical rundown on their Substack, most of which you’ve read from us on these pages or from others who’ve had the same thoughts or reported the same issues. It wasn’t that hard to find the truth or see the truth.
The suppression of that truth was Sinister. Ivermectin may be a wonder drug that could also be good at helping Cancer patients, another multi-gazillion dollar industry that wants nothing to do with cheap medications that could shut down another Medical Industrial Complex ATM.
Mercedes and summer homes don’t just buy themselves.
The post A Necessary and Quick Reminder about The Sinister FDA appeared first on Granite Grok.
In all the media and regime frenzy over the Janaury 6 riots and the Pentagon Leaker in recent months, it is interesting to examine the contrast between how the regime treats “crimes” against its own interests and real crime committed against ordinary private citizens.
Witness, for example, how the Biden administration and corporate media have treated the January 6 riot as if it were some kind of military coup, demanding that draconian sentences be handed down even to small-time vandals and trespassers. Regime paranoia has led the Justice Department to ask for a 30-year sentence for Enrique Tarrio, a man who was convicted of the non-crime of “seditious conspiracy” even though he wasn’t even in Washington on January 6. In recent months, Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman,” received a sentence of three-and-a-half years, even though prosecutors admit he did nothing violent. Riley Williams was given three years for simply trespassing in Nancy Pelosi’s office. Members of the Capitol Police force have been lionized in the media as great protectors of “sacred” government buildings, and any threat to the property or persons of Washington politicians has been equated with an assault on “democracy.”
Yet, had these supposed insurrectionists inflicted these same actions against an ordinary private individual, there’s a good chance the perpetrators would not even be arrested, let alone given years of prison time. Consider, for example, the mobs that ransack private businesses in American cities, stealing tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise while police and prosecutors consider it all to be low priority. Violent crime and property crime surge in many areas of the United States, with violent crime rising 30 percent in New York City in 2022. Unsolved murders in the US are at a record high. Meanwhile, progressives and social democrats are looking for ways to reduce criminal penalties against violent criminals. Police departments often devote only tiny portions of their budgets to homicide investigations, and if your property is stolen, odds are good you can forget about ever seeing it again.
The situation is quite different when it comes to protecting the state, its agents, and its property from any threat. During urban riots, such as those which occurred in Ferguson, Missouri and Minneapolis, Minnesota, the police went to great lengths to protect themselves and government property. If you were just a private shopkeeper or ordinary citizen, however, you were on your own. At the Uvalde School shooting in 2022, hundreds of law enforcement officers from all levels of government chose to protect themselves rather than the children who were being murdered inside. When Uvalde parents demanded the police act, the police attacked the parents.
We find similar phenomena at the federal level. There are, of course, special federal laws against violence perpetrated against federal employees. Ordinary taxpayers receive no such consideration. Note how federal agencies move to arm themselves to the teeth while also seeking to disarm the private-sector. Federal agents will spare no expense finding someone who put his feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, but it’s another matter entirely when we’re talking about serious violent crime against regular people. Federal agents, of course, allowed 9/11 to occur right under their noses, they refused to investigate known rapist Larry Nasser, and shrugged off reports about the man who would end up slaughtering children at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Contrast this with how long the federal government has been conniving to get revenge on Julian Assange for merely telling the truth about US war crimes.
Naturally, law enforcement officers rarely face any sanctions for their failures to bother themselves with private property, life, or limb. The federal courts have made it clear that law enforcement officers are not obligated to actually protect the public. In other words, the taxpayers must always pay taxes to hold up their end of the imagined “social contract” or face fines and imprisonment. But the other side of that “contract,” the state, has no legal obligation to make good on its end. This, of course, is not how real contracts work.
The state’s fastidious devotion to protecting itself, compared to its casual concern for the safety of mere taxpayers, illustrates an important principle of state behavior. In his essay The Anatomy of the State, Murray Rothbard notes
We may test the hypothesis that the State is largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects by asking: which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely—those against private citizens or those against itself? The gravest crimes in the State’s lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment, for example, treason, desertion of a soldier to the enemy, failure to register for the draft, subversion and subversive conspiracy, assassination of rulers and such economic crimes against the State as counterfeiting its money or evasion of its income tax. Or compare the degree of zeal devoted to pursuing the man who assaults a policeman, with the attention that the State pays to the assault of an ordinary citizen. Yet, curiously, the State’s openly assigned priority to its own defense against the public strikes few people as inconsistent with its presumed raison d’etre.
This double standard has been repeatedly on display in recent years as the regime has increasingly been consumed with paranoia over threats to itself—propagandistically termed “threats to democracy”—while attention given to real crime against private citizens is apparently not a priority at all.
Ryan McMaken | Mises Wire
Author: 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. 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 State Protects Itself While Crime against Ordinary People Surges appeared first on Granite Grok.
So I’m sure you know Faux News is holding the first GOP debate on August 23d, a scant four days from when I am typing this. But did you know a dark-money group is planning to use the Faux debate to prop up support among GOP voters … which is plummeting … for Blackrock/State Street/etc.’s war against Russia? Oh … it’s true; it’s true:
We will also examine this question:
Who gave Bill Kristol $2 million for a new fraudulent "Republicans for Ukraine" group designed to run ads during the Fox GOP debate to convince Republicans to cease turning against Biden's war policies in Ukraine? https://t.co/h1DqDqMf4J
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 18, 2023
The linked WaPo article is breathtaking in its bias and shameless promotion of the globalists’ war on Russia … which is being waged because Russia refuses to conform to the New World Order. For example, it quotes some “conservative” Republican bloviating about today’s Russia somehow being more of a threat than the Communist Soviet Union:
“They’re being attacked by what I view to be probably a machine that’s worse than the Soviet empire,” Graff said. “I’m just really disappointed with members of the Republican Party who are taking what, to me, is such a shortsighted view and a very politically aimed position.”
Well … perhaps to a faux Republian globalist like Graff a country that rejects globalism and embraces Orthodox Christianity is “worse than the Soviet empire.” The majority of GOP voters, however, do NOT see it that way. Rather, they see it for what it is … another money-grab by the military-industrial complex and more power and profits for the globalists.
And you can count on the Faux “debate” also promoting the globalists’ proxy-war against Russia. Expect “questions” like: “Are we doing enough to support Ukraine” … “Are you concerned about fatigue among GOP voters for supporting Ukraine” … blah, blah, blah. Totally “fair and balanced” … ha, ha ha.
The post The Faux News “Debate” … Get Ready For Yet More Gaslighting Of Ukraine a/k/a The Globalists War Against Russia appeared first on Granite Grok.
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are the nations making up the BRICS block, and they are actively working to develop a new payment system. Their goal is to end reliance on the United States dollar for clearing international trade?
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Do you know what that will mean for you?
The new payment system of the BRICS block uses local currencies for international transactions and mutual settlement among the organization’s members. At this point the group is probably not ready to form a new BRICS currency to challenge the U.S. dollar. But they are working on it.
We have known this was coming for a long while. The Saudis ended the petrodollar; for cause, and there are still challenges standing in the way of the BRICS nations immediately becoming independent of U.S. currency, but they are motivated and determined.
And it matters.
The BRICS nations comprise 40% of the world population and 26% of the global economy. Soon they will be able to use their new currency to trade with partner nations. They will still have to use the dollar to trade with the Western world, but the BRICS nations have over one-third of the world’s GDP, a total population of around 3 billion people, and a strong desire for more nations to join this evolving multipolar financial framework.
Forty-four nations have already expressed interest in joining BRICShe,r and there are 22 formal applications already in place from places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Argentina, Egypt, and the UAE.
Vladimir Putin confirmed rumors of a new currency the BRICS nations intend to begin working to create as an “international reserve currency.”
China has called on members to support its Belt Road Initiative and Global Development Initiative, an effort to topple the U.S. dollar. As part of its anti-U.S. activism.
The South African finance minister told Reuters the New Development Bank (NDB) set up by the BRICS needs to increase its local currency fundraising and lending.
China is the NDB’s most successful local currency market, issuing 13 billion Yuan ($1.8 billion) across three “panda bonds” last year, with more than half of its lending in Yuan.
But?
Last year the U.S. dollar was again dominant, as compared to only 4.5% for the Chinese Yuan, but change is in the wind. Western progressives have overplayed their economic strength. Their constant bullying and overuse of economic sanctions have motivated the coming competition.
The post What If the U.S. Dollar Isn’t the Dominant World Reserve Currency? appeared first on Granite Grok.
When people talk about Joe Biden’s ability or suitability to be President for another term, the focus is always on his age. There is always a debate about how old is too old for someone to sit in the Oval Office, but that is not necessarily a fair debate. Age is a number and does not tell the whole story. You can take two men or women born on the same day but have entirely different physical and cognitive levels. You must look at a broad spectrum of qualities to determine when someone cannot assume responsibility or do the job. In the case of Joe Biden, he is an example of an old 80-year-old with advanced stages of the aging process, both physically and mentally. But age is masking the more significant reasons that Joe Biden should not be President of the United States. Competence, Vision for the Country, Decision Making Ability, and Quality of Character are the characteristics of Joe Biden that Americans should be concerned with and which Democrats and the media are sheltering us from. That has to change, as the future of America hinges on the results of the 2024 Presidential Election.
I must preface my comments by confessing I do not believe Joe Biden is performing the duties of President. I do not profess to know who is pulling Biden’s strings, but he is clearly not in control of his faculties to make decisions. Joe Biden is the face of a more significant force, and he and his family are complicit in this effort to finish the job of transforming the country started by Barack Obama. The Bidens are performing their roles for the monetary gain their cooperation enables. It is a sad and dangerous situation with catastrophic possibilities for the country. Thirty-five to forty percent of Americans have no comprehension of the damage Joe Biden and his administration have done and its impact on our future. The ramifications are staggering, and our task is to illuminate the situation for those in the dark.
The Economy
Bidenomics is a farce and does not work for America. The out-of-control spending on programs like the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Act has put us into an inflationary period that harms every American, specifically low and middle-income families. Inflation is a false number that does not include the critical areas that impact all Americans, like energy and food. These two areas have the most significant impact on our spending ability and disproportionately affect lower-income people. Gas prices are rising quickly, and our options are limited now that we are again dependent on OPEC.
The Green Biden
Cars, air conditioners, washers/dryers, gas stoves, and any other appliance Biden can think of is a target for extinction as we know them. Americans are not ready for these expensive and inefficient alternatives in our lives. Biden now admits his Inflation Reduction Act was poorly named and is more accurately a green energy plan. He lied to America, but then we should have seen that coming. If America were ready to buy into the Climate Change crisis, the Government would not have to mandate or force these changes on us.
Biden Vision
Biden sees America as a more Progressive Socialistic country with Government making the decisions for us. America does not share this vision, so why do these Democrat politicians who do get re-elected.? Again, it goes to the ignorance of the American electorate.
Decision Making Ability
Look no further than the debacle in Afghanistan, his destruction of our Borders, ignoring Fentanyl and the American drug addiction epidemic, and the plight of the homeless to see the impacts of poor Biden decisions. He is on the wrong side of most issues that affect all Americans.
Quality of the Individual
Biden is a corrupt manipulator. He has managed to stay under the radar for fifty years and convince America that he has their best interest in mind. Joe does not. He has the Biden coffers in focus. He is using the arms of the Government against his challengers and adversaries. He is a proponent of our Education system indoctrinating our children and severing family ties to better control the youth.
Look past his age, and there is little that makes Joe Biden a good choice for President. Now we just have to convince Americans that our options are better. A tall task but one we must undertake.
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Recently, a Canadian professor, Katja Thieme, proclaimed, “Let. Little. Children. See. Penises. And. Vulvas. Of. Various. Ages. And. Sizes. In. A. Casual. Normalized. Totally. Safe. Way.” Professor Thieme proposes a simplistic form of exposure therapy to teach children about sexual themes, which is at best misguided and, at its worst, laying the foundation for children to be abused. Children in their early developmental stage are still learning to cope with the world around them and gradually try to make sense of their individual experiences. Early exposure to nudity can distort conceptions around sexuality, but more importantly intimacy. As a society, it is our duty to protect children and their psychological and social well-being.
There are certain topics that can potentially harm children. For example, ratings for television and movies are age restrictive. One of the main facets of an MA-17 movie rating is nudity. Even Hollywood agrees that young kids do not benefit from being exposed to nudity and sexual content, so why should we normalize such content to our children in day-to-day life? Children under 17 are not outright banned; they are allowed to see these films if accompanied by their parents. The responsibility to determine what children should be exposed to is on the parents, and parents have the right to make decisions for their children. However, parents who are comfortable with exposing their children to nudity and sexual material do not have a right to compel other parents to also expose their children.
Furthermore, with respect to childhood development, the introduction of sexual content, especially lacking proper context, can lead to cognitive distortions about body image, sexuality, and relationships. In my elementary school, when we first began puberty classes, they separated the boys and the girls. This was not an act of discrimination, but rather an effective way to only teach the children what they need to know. Young boys do not need to be educated on how to use pads and tampons or on how frequently females get their period and what getting a period means about your body. Additionally, exposure to sexual content in the presence of the opposite sex creates a discomforting environment where those potentially judging you sexually are present when you learn about sexual aspects of your own body. There are clear differences between young girls and young boys, and to this day I do not know what the boys were told, but I know it was specific to the male experience, something that will never be my reality.
Professor Thieme’s ideals also reflect a confused reality where adults and children are the same, a parallel to the misplaced view that men and women are interchangeable. Suggesting young girls should be exposed to naked males is traumatic. Puberty for young girls is a challenging and unique experience. We should empower them to learn about their changing bodies, not make them feel ashamed and vulnerable by exposing them to naked males. When you first start changing in public spaces, the first instinct is to cover up. This fear can prevent young girls from taking part in regular activities and impact social interactions. I know this firsthand from years of undressing in a locker room. It took me years to feel comfortable even to undress around other girls and to become comfortable with my body changes post-puberty.
Societal rules are in place to protect children from unsuitable content. This isn’t about sheltering, it is about preserving their innocence and ensuring that they develop into emotionally stable and socially mature adults. We must protect and guard the well-being of the next generation. Our responsibility is to ensure that children are exposed to content that nurtures rather than damages their growth.
Paula Scanlan | Daily Caller News ServicePaula Scanlan is a spokeswoman and advisor for Independent Women’s Forum (iwf.org) and a former swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a teammate of Lia Thomas.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.
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