After some thought and a month away from the thing, I’ve decided to bring the comment of the week back with a prize to whoever gets chosen. It is true that the last few winners never reached out to get their free goody, but that’s not a good enough reason to scrap it.

While we ran the award, the engagement was excellent. It’s tailed off a bit, and that’s disappointing. Debate is what we’re all about. I observed some excellent and often extensive debates that uncovered plenty of interesting opinions and analyses. If offering a free gift as an incentive encourages that, I’m all in.

Beginning today, we are rebooting the Comment of the Week award.

This new iteration will attempt to do things a bit differently. I will try my best to pick one comment each day (a comment of the day).

Beginning on Monday morning, the 15th (Tax Day!), the Grok will publish the daily selections, and you, dear readers and commenters, will have two days to vote for that week’s winner.

We will announce the winner on Wednesday Morning and ask them to contact me so I can send them some Grok gear as a reward.

The good news is that I’ve got enough “stuff” on hand to run this for at least the next 24 weeks. With your assistance, we will have not just great comments but two dozen winners. When September rolls around, we’ll consider extending it to the end of the year.

Good luck to everyone and let’s get commenting!

The post Comment of the Week Is Back! appeared first on Granite Grok.

It’s common for education reformers to change the names of fads that fail children in public schools. Mastery Learning became Outcome-Based Education (OBE). OBE failed, so they rebranded it into Competency-Based Education or Proficiency-Based Education. None of this helps students academically, so when parents figure it out, they put pressure on schools to abandon it.

That will become a tougher task now that much of this is enshrined in New Hampshire Law.

It should come as no surprise that DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) has become another failed fad. That would explain the need to change the name –so parents will be fooled.

DEI will now be rebranded and called BRIDGE.  “BRIDGE (Benchmarking Race, Inclusion, and Diversity in Global Engagement)” is a replacement program for DEI as DEI becomes another failed education fad.

All state legislation targeting DEI should also exclude rebrands like BRIDGE.

A pivot has already been planned as a way to move away from DEI towards Bridging and Belonging. https://belonging.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/leading_for_belonging_.pdf

 

 

 

 

The post DEI to be Rebranded as BRIDGE appeared first on Granite Grok.

“Love” is considered a virtue, while “hate” is considered a vice. But not all forms of love are good, and not all hates are bad. If you love to set buildings on fire, molest children, or steal, these are obviously bad loves. If you hate racism, sexism, or injustices of all sorts, then these are good hates.

Time and again, in response to exposing Islam for what it is, Islamists retort by calling me a hatemonger instead of refuting my assertions.

Hence, I am bringing my case to the fair-minded public to judge. I disapprove a great deal about Islam, its founder, its theology, and the crimes it has perpetrated throughout its history, past and present.

Islam is the creation of one man, Muhammad. The man claimed he was visited many times by jinns. He also claimed that the angel Gabriel commissioned him as the emissary of the Lord of the Lords, the one and only creator of the entire universe, Allah.

Muhammad was ridiculed for reporting his nonsensical revelations (hallucinations) from Allah as an “insane poet.” His own people, the Quraysh, custodians of the idolatry of Mecca, eventually laughed Muhammad out of town. Yet, the illiterate Muhammad persisted in his claim and revealed the Quran in bits and pieces over some twenty years.

Islam’s rules of conduct, as encapsulated in the Sharia, are based on the Quran and the life of the Prophet himself. Even a cursory examination of the Quran clearly demonstrates its confused verbiage, contradictions, and primitive provisions that can hardly be word-for-word dictates of the one and only all-knowing and all-wise creator of the universe, as Muhammad claimed and Muslims blindly believe. The Quran and the Sharia are nothing more than the products of the thinking and way of life of the

Arabian Peninsula of long ago, with sprinklings from the Torah and the New Testament.

Islam considers itself the only and final valid religion. It allows a bit of tolerance for the “people of the book,” Jews and Christians, and none for billions of others with different religions or no religion at all.

Islam is a cult and not a religion. It meets all the criteria of cultism by imprisoning its adherents, dictating to them every detail of their lives, and condemning any member to the death of apostasy for daring to leave its fold.

So, here is a short list of Islamic beliefs and practices I abhor. In my view, it is good to hate them and demonic to love them.

* Islam has a caste system with the male believer on top, the female believer next in rank, followed by the male slave believer, and finally, the female slave believer. I reject slavery, as well as stratifying people, and firmly believe in equality for all.

* Islam is a misogynist cult where women are chattel. “Al-rejalo ghavamoon ala-alnesa,” men are rulers of women, asserts the Quran — one of hundreds of Islamic rulings that relegate women to subservience by virtue of their gender. Men are allowed four regular wives and numberless temporary ones, while any woman having a liaison with another man is automatically condemned to death by stoning.

* Education is a sin for the true believers, particularly for women. It is in eradicating this sin that the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan have systematically destroyed thousands of schools. To keep females away from schools, true believers raze schoolhouses to the ground and splash acid on the faces of the females daring to head for school.

* Freedom in all its forms, highly prized by free people, is taboo in Islam. The duty of the true believer is to surrender his humanness completely and will to the will of Allah as required in the Quran and dictated by the clergy.

* Islam’s justice system itself is criminal. Just a few examples should suffice here. In the court of law, a woman’s testimony counts as one-half of that of a man; the due process is either absent or perfunctory; thieves are subjected to amputation of limbs; minors and homosexuals are executed; adulterers are stoned to death; apostates are executed, and the families of the victims are forced to pay for the bullets that murdered their loved ones.

* Under Islam, collusion between the mosque and the state makes for the dehumanization of the citizenry. Any and all oppositions, be they religious, political, or otherwise, are brutally suppressed. The Islamic Republic of Iran, for instance, carried out summary execution of tens of thousands of opposition and dumped their bodies in mass graves in Khavaran, outside of Tehran, without even allowing the families of the victims to perform the burial rite.

* Islam’s war is not limited to the living. Anything and everything that is non-Islamic is systematically subjected to elimination and destruction. Just two examples: the Buddha statues in Bamyan were dynamited by the Taliban of Afghanistan, while the cemeteries of the Baha’is in Iran were bulldozed by the Islamic Republic’s thugs.

* Islamic clerics believe it their right to execute people they consider heretics and place bounties on the heads of those their bloody hands cannot reach. Salman Rushdie is one of the widely known cases.

* Slaveholder Islam is not content to limit its inhuman barbaric system to its traditional homelands. It has penetrated millions of adherents throughout Europe, America, and much of the world. Many of the new arrivals from the failed Islamic states do not realize that it is Islam that is the root cause of their centuries of backwardness and misery. These imprinted-from-birth Muslims are robots who are programmed to do all they can in obedience to the dictates of Muhammad’s Mein Kempf, the Quran (My Ummah).

Beliefs are the impetus to action. Islamic belief is the cause of the misery visited upon Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Islam’s dogma is anathema to every provision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

If you love the Islamic terror manual, the Quran, and what it perpetrates, that’s bad love. If you hate all the terrible things that Islam advocates and carries out, that’s good hate.

Muslims, the world over, must make a Herculean effort to de-program themselves of the barbaric ideology of Islam; the free people should assist the Muslims in this endeavor, and together, we can all embrace the promptings of good hate and reject the dictates of bad love.

The post Night Cap: Good Hate, Bad Love appeared first on Granite Grok.

Vermont’s K-12 public education system is broken. When Vermont passed Act 60 in 1997, our schools consistently performed in the top five nationwide. Since then, spending has exploded while student counts have dropped from 106,000 kids to less than 80,000, and test scores have been steadily falling for the past decade and a half.

The results, or lack thereof, speak for themselves in the latest NEAP (a.k.a. the National Report Card) scores that show dramatic declines in math and reading throughout the system. These include a 4-point decline in reading and a 9-point decline in mathematics. Compared to the 2012-13 school year full a decade earlier — well before Covid began in 2020, so that’s not a valid excuse — we see a decline of 7 points in reading and 14 in math.

While there are certainly many factors involved in student outcomes, we can’t dismiss the fact that increasingly, our public schools have become hyper-politicized with issues such as climate change, critical race theory, gender and sexuality, and anti-second amendment rights taking on a higher priority for faculty and staff than the core subjects of math, reading, writing, and science. As we write this, Outright Vermont and the Racial Justice Alliance of Montpelier High School are organizing a “School Walkout for Palestine” on March 27, which is sure to be more fun than taking geography class about where Israel and Gaza appear on a map.

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

With this kind of behavior and culture – disrupting class and disrespecting and degrading the learning process through temper-tantrum political activism – not just tolerated but encouraged by faculty and staff, not to mention our majority political class, is it any wonder that discipline of any kind in the classroom is deteriorating to the detriment of not just learning but also student safety? The politicization of education is damaging our children in very real ways.

And what about the mental health crisis? Beyond the falling test scores, is it any surprise that when the focus of a child’s eight-hours-a-day, five-days-a-week public school experience is a constant message that the planet is on fire, your country is evil, everyone’s a racist or a victim of oppression, you may be a boy trapped in a girl’s body or vice versa, and the adults in charge don’t care about the future we’re going to leave you that we are witnessing increased mental health issues in our young people, manifesting in higher rates of depression, addiction, and suicide? The politicization of education is damaging our children in very real ways.

Seven Days recently ran an in-depth article, Too Many Vermont Kids Struggle to Read. What Went Wrong, which explained how Vermont’s public schools have been using a trendy but totally ineffective method of teaching reading for over a generation. How did this happen? The article explains, “…the politicization of literacy — with phonics often being thought of as a Republican cause — is one reason that scientific knowledge about reading hasn’t been put into practice widely.”

Again, the politicization of education is damaging our children in very real ways. So, Vermonters need to get real about the damage this approach to education is having, who is behind it, and how to fix it.

First and foremost, we need to get politics out of the classroom and restore a culture of academic excellence in core subjects: math, reading, writing, history, and the sciences. We need to get back to teaching our kids how to think, not what to think. And we need to restore discipline and mutual respect to the classrooms, hallways, cafeterias, and faculty lounges.

To this end, the legislature should repeal every curriculum mandate not associated with those core subjects and discourage via its power of the purse any public school activities that abuse the captive audience status of children in school to promote or oppose partisan political agendas. We need to give teachers the tools they need to establish and maintain discipline in the classrooms and hallways. We need to support students who excel academically just as we need to support those who need extra help.

All of these unacceptable results come despite increased spending year after year, and the escalating property taxes to fund those increases topped off by this year’s surreal 20 percent average property tax increase. (If there has been a more vivid “Get Real” moment than that, we don’t know it!) This is as unsustainable as it is irresponsible, and we will discuss education finance reform in a future GET REAL essay focused on Affordability.

Bill Huff, Orange County Republican Committee chair, on behalf of all the Republican County Committee chairs.

G.E.T. R.E.A.L. is a solemn promise and a positive path forward for our state by Vermont Republicans focused on improving the quality of life of our people. It is a prescription of policy proposals, and this is the third in a series of essays explaining the program.

The post G.E.T. R.E.A.L! – E: Education Reform appeared first on Granite Grok.

Perhaps without intending to, a recent article in the UK Daily Mail reported on a list of states that Real Americans need to either take back now or make plans to exit soon!

That’s how the Daily Mail framed it, but perhaps it should have.

According to personal finance site Money, California was the first state to adopt the Advanced Clean Cars II rule, which will put a complete ban to new sales of gas-powered cars by 2035.

Plans in the state, which is run by governor Gavin Newsom, specify that 35 percent of all new car sales will need to be zero-emission by 2026, rising to 68 percent by 2030.

Rhode Island was the most recent state to join the list of states pledging to ban the sale of gas-powered cars, joining Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington.

WherWhere’smont? Those tin-foil-hat descendants of weed-smoking climate-hippies signed up for left-coast Emissions goals. They are so committed that mobs of actual constituents can shoppose their plans, and the legislature ignores them. And they are serious. The only thing capable of knocking them off the climate altar is elections. Voters need to find some sanity at the ballot box and get a majority of sensible people to say, “Jan! Stop this crazy thing.”

If that’s an option, you might want to think about selling the family farm and moving to the right and into the yellow and red parts of the ideological electromagnetic spectrum. Related: VermVermont’sb (and Unconstitutional) Bill to Fine Big Oil for “EmisSions”

Yes, you will be able to keep your combustion engine vehicle for now. Previously enjoyed fuel-powered vehicles will not be banned. But no new ones and used ones will be impossibly expensive (given how much they cost now) and difficult to acquire—another privilege reserved for wealthy “colLectors.” And you can bet they will be coming for those, too, all despite an industry-wide admission that EVs are unreliable and customers don’t like them (two years in a row).

The survey reveals that, on average, EVs from the past three model years had 79 percent more problems than conventional cars. Based on owner responses on more than 330,000 vehicles, the survey covers 20 potential problem areas, including engine, transmission, electric motors, leaks, and infotainment systems.

I’d like to think that consumer demand will prevail, but the Climate Cult doesn’t take no for an answer. Biden’s federal mandate targets are set to  2032, with these states saying they will go battery vehicles or bust by 2035. If voters can’t find a way around the vote fraud or – as in many of these mostly rural states, states convince urban area voters Democrat politicians are bad for their lifestyle too – you are going to have to vote with your feet.

I did that in 1990 when I left western New York for New Hampshire. It was cigarette and beer taxes back then and look at New York State now. And while I love New Hampshire, if Democrats get even one session with a majority legislature and Democrat governor, they will immediately undo every good thing we’ve struggled for years to attain.

One session. All of it. Goodbye.

Republicans seem incapable of this kind of immediate action, and to many refuse to lean from the left. Democrats don’t run on raising taxes and ruining the economy. They run on reducing taxes, even though there is no example that they have ever done it, nor is their agenda capable of anything but tax hikes. They run on women’s health care when they could care less about the health and safety of women. Public safety? It is a bad joke, but everyone keeps laughing when they are the DemoDemocrat’schline.

We need a ballot box revolution. Numbers that are so huge they can’t be erased by “irregularities.” But you can’t just vote Dems out of office. You have to keep them out and then do what they do. Do what Florida did. Remove barriers to freedom and individual liberty and support the candidates who do that.

Or, do nothing, and before long, we won’t even be able to afford a car or truck to escape the blue-state hells we are trapped in, assuming they’d let us leave.

 

The post Daily Mail Report Looks Like a “List” of US States You Should Get the Hell Out Of … appeared first on Granite Grok.

The NHGOP is a noxious, dysfunctional amalgam of Rockefeller Republicans (or RINOs, if you prefer), Corporatists, Koch-bots, Free-Staters (or libertarians choosing to run for political office as Republicans, if you prefer), and a shrinking number of real Republicans.

Outlawing single-family housing, one of the goals of imposter-Republican Koch-bots like Jo(k)e Sweeney and Ross Berry, would further shrink the number of real Republicans.

Sometimes it is the person who raises the Bible the most who practices what he preaches the least. According to Jo(k)e Sweeney single-family zoning is anti-Biblical. I kid you not:

This principle, supported by libertarian thought and the teachings of the Bible, underscores the sanctity of private property rights. …Let us not be swayed by those who bear false witness against prosperity. My Bible teaches me the value of truth and the importance of bearing witness to it.

Who knew! Single-family zoning is the work of the Devil. And, as a corollary, those who seek to turn single-family zoned neighborhoods into a sea of “accessory dwelling units” (in effect turning every single-family lot into a three-unit apartment-complex), such as Jo(k)e Sweeney, are doing God’s work!

And this is just some of the pretentiousness in Jo(k)e Sweeney’s Manifesto. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke would, according to Jo(k)e, see single-family zoning as the antithesis of freedom. Yeah, right … you bought a single-family home in a neighborhood precisely because it was zoned single-family and you want your neighborhood to remain that way, and somehow that makes you a feudalist.

And speaking of “bear[ing] false witness,” Jo(k)e Sweeney is not proposing to outlaw single-family housing as a substitute for apartment-complexes. To the contrary, Jo(k)e wants to eat his cake and have it too. Turning single-family neighborhoods into seas of “accessory dwelling units” is IN ADDITION TO all of the new apartment complexes that Jo(k)e and his ilk want to build.

And I bet you did NOT know that single-family housing is what has turned New Hampshire blue!

Exclusionary zoning and strict regulations on who can and cannot build is turning our state blue.

Yeah, right. It is not the NHGOP’s obsession with cutting business taxes, while refusing to institute measures such as a hard-cap on local property taxes that is turning New Hampshire blue. It’s not the NHGOP refusing to ban DEI (that lovely euphemism for anti-white racism) that is turning New Hampshire blue. It is not the NHGOP going along with the “diversity is our strength” canard that is turning New Hampshire blue. It is not that Sun-King Sununu’s COVID-policies were indistinguishable from Blue States’. It is YOUR FAULT for wanting to maintain single-family zoning in your neighborhood that you moved into precisely because it was zoned single-family.

Just look at how many Democrats are supporting Jo(k)e Sweeney’s jihad against single-family housing if you want to know whether Jo(k)e’s agenda would help or hurt real Republicans.

Indeed, Jo(k)e Sweeney’s Manifesto reads at times as if it were written by the Democrats. Schoolchildren are “investments” that the State can only cash in on if we outlaw single-family zoning:

We have over 250,000 Granite Staters under the age of 18 here in New Hampshire. On average, we will or have spent roughly $240,000 per student in public education. Where are these investments supposed to live upon their graduation and entrance into adulthood? Both bills are about … ensuring that the investment we’ve made in our youth pays dividends right here at home rather than being exported as our young people leave for lack of affordable housing.

Real Republicans do NOT see children as the equivalents of stocks and bonds.

If Jo(k)e Sweeney’s jihad against single-family housing succeeds, New Hampshire will be nothing more than a mini-me Massachusetts.

 

 

 

The post No Jo(k)e … Outlawing Single-Family Housing Will Drive What Remains Of Real Republicans Out Of New Hampshire appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you look through the recent works of Ed Mosca, you will find him calling out a few of his local enemy camp reps.  I’m here to request that he take those good skills to “the other side of the wall” and apply them to Manchester’s Swampiest. D’Allesandro needs no introduction, but those in need of a refresher profile of him can click here.

I don’t take back anything I said in my previous article on him, but an update is in order because flip-flopping can now be added to his political rap sheet.

First, I will provide the link to the Senate video and point to the time stamp where the discussion of SB375 begins at 2h15min.  It should be noted that there were three remote participants, one of them being Education Chair Ruth Ward, who introduced the bill wearing an eye patch.  Clearly, it was indicative of why she was unable to attend in person, and I send her my get-well wishes, but what was D’Allesandro’s excuse for not coming in?

The answer is unknown, but it wasn’t his first time doing what former Rep David Cote fantasized about doing as he played serial hookey for several years.  Altschiller was the other remote participant, and the senate was treated to NOT having to hear her routine gun-hating diatribe at closing time.

There was some technical difficulty with Ruth’s internet and power, and she froze up while introducing SB375.  Senator Gray, who had the gavel for most of the day, adjourned the senate for lunch as to allow Mr Ward time to fix the problem.  When the recess was over at 3h10min, Ruth finished up, and a discussion followed.  The whole enemy camp was full of lunacy vitriol on steroids for most of the day, starting with the objection to Tim Lang’s SB 341(Parental Bill of Rights, relabeled) and later with SB523 (school library complaint process, NOT a book banning they want you to think it is).

The usual suspects were insufferable, particularly the long-winded nutjob Watters, whose 13 minutes of bloviating I had to mute, and Prentiss, who’s essentially an older and much heavier version of the dumb blonde Twitley. D’Allesandro, who told the NH Journal in January that men don’t belong in women’s sports, did a complete 180. What gives?

Jeb, seated in his ordinary seat rather than standing with the gavel, made a good speech at 4h 04min and called out the enemy camp for name-calling and gaslighting supporters of SB 375.  Daryl Abbas also called out the name-calling and gaslighting several minutes(or hours) later, but at 4h09min, Jeb called out D’Allesandro, referring to the NH Journal article, but at 4h15min, he shamelessly switched to a “wellness of a human being” drivel.  He does mention “constituents,” and I am hoping Ed Mosca is one of them.  There’s a 1 in 3 chance that he is, but even if he isn’t, I encourage Ed to read him the riot act because that untouchable old fixture will probably live as long as Strom Thurmond.  God help us all.

The post Dem State Sen. Flip Flops on Protecting Women’s Sports appeared first on Granite Grok.

The UK Independent has published a ‘very serious piece’ on the state of the world today. Something we should all consider a threat to social justice. Climate change is being blamed for the extended rainy season in Indonesia, and Trans-Sex workers say, “It is very hard to make money during that unpredictable weather.”

Indonesia is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and trans women, who tend to face more stigma and marginalisation than trans men or other LGBTQ+ Indonesians, are also among those hardest hit by extreme weather.

That’s because many trans women, like Patiha, are shut out of the formal economy and survive as buskers and sex workers, occupations that rely on them being able to solicit clients outdoors.

I think we should be concerned but not about climate change. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population on earth, and the UK Independent just outed these Trans sex workers. They’ll be lucky if someone doesn’t try to chop off their heads.

Despite gender-fluid communities being historically accepted in Indonesia, a rising tide of conservative Islam in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country has fuelled anti-LGBTQ+ persecution.

LGBTQ+ individuals are sometimes blamed for problems related to climate change, according to Arif Budi Darmawan, a researcher at the Bandung-based Resilience Development Initiative.

We’ve reported on Moslem Clerics who blamed drought on Yo-Yos. Lax hijab observance has also been blamed for drought, and that got me thinking. Do transgender prostitutes have to wear hijab? And if so, perhaps they could take them off – problem solved.

We’ve also shared some news (that I can’t seem to find) wherein the card game Pokemon was a Jewish plot to lead children away from Allah. I think you might have more luck blaming that on Indonesian trans sex workers.

As for the climate, nature is responsible for that, but it is on a spectrum. Sometimes it feels like rain, and sometimes not.

Stop forcing your worldview on it, bigots.

The post Are Transgender Sex Workers Adversely Affected by Climate Change or Responsible For It? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Why should vehicle owners concern themselves with the historical data tied to their car’s VIN? Grasping the importance of managing and sometimes needing to hide VIN or delete car history goes beyond simple privacy measures; it’s about safeguarding the vehicle’s market value and owner reputation. This article delves into the strategies for erasing unwanted car history and the critical role of removing accident records from public databases and search engines to maintain a vehicle’s pristine image.

Why Remove Car History?

The imperatives for deleting car history are multifaceted, extending from privacy concerns to the enhancement of a vehicle’s market appeal. Owners, especially those who have purchased a vehicle for personal use and meticulously restored it to perfection, face a conundrum when selling. Despite the vehicle’s pristine condition, the online records, accessible through a VIN search, can reveal past incidents.

Want to Delete VIN history? Visit https://hidecars.vin/en/ to ensure a clean slate for your vehicle. Industry experts emphasize that removing previous records, especially accident history, can substantially increase the vehicle’s resale value.

This detailed information, complete with accident photos, can deter potential buyers, significantly prolonging the sale process. Thus, the ability to delete or remove car history becomes not just a matter of privacy, but a strategic move to preserve the vehicle’s perceived value and facilitate a smoother sales experience.

How Long Does an Accident Stay on Record?

Accident records can linger on a vehicle’s history for years, impacting its resale value. Typically, these records are accessible for up to 10 years, depending on the reporting agency and jurisdiction.

Steps to Delete Car Accident History:

1. Visit Hidecars.vin to access the VIN cleaner service;
2. Enter the vehicle’s VIN to review the existing history records;
3. Select sites from which you want to hide vin number;
4. Confirm the removal process to clear the vehicle’s history.

By following these steps, car owners can delete VIN history and remove car history effectively, ensuring a cleaner profile for their vehicles.

Collaborating with a service offers numerous benefits, including speed, flexibility, and comprehensive support. They provide a streamlined process to delete car history, ensuring efficient and confidential handling of your vehicle’s past. The service is also multi-lingual, accommodating a wide range of customers globally.

Delete VIN history are vital steps for vehicle owners aiming to protect their privacy and improve their car’s marketability. The process is simplified with professional services that offer expertise in cleaning up car records efficiently and discreetly.

The post Delete VIN History: The Key to Preserving Your Vehicle’s Privacy appeared first on Granite Grok.

Now that a couple of New Hampshire Schools have begun the process of transitioning their district into the CDC’s (Center of Disease Control) Community School Model, parents need to understand what can happen.

The CDC’s Community School is reported as:

What is the WSCC model?
The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child, or WSCC model, is CDC’s framework for addressing health in schools. The WSCC model is student-centered and emphasizes the role of the community in supporting the school, the connections between health and academic achievement and the importance of evidence-based school policies and practices. The WSCC model has 10 components:

Physical education and physical activity.
Nutrition environment and services.
Health education.
Social and emotional climate.
Physical environment.
Health services.
Counseling, psychological and social services.
Employee wellness.
Community involvement.
Family engagement.

You have to wonder why a child would go home to their family after seeing that the school will be providing all of this.

They want to make sure children can access mental health treatment, Social and Emotional Learning, medical services, sexual and reproductive care, and dental services at school. Parental consent may be included for some of these services, but many of these people will be working to remove that.

In New Hampshire, a proposed Bill was tabled this year in the Senate spelling out parental consent for some of these services. Manchester schools are still fighting to keep lying to parents if their children change their names in school.

Democrats in New Hampshire made it clear that they want to keep parents in the dark, lie to them, and keep them from consenting to medical and mental health services.

It’s important to understand that anything that is considered “FERPA” protected means your child’s personal information can be shared without your knowledge or consent. How does that happen? FERPA has exceptions, which means there are exceptions to the student privacy law. This is how tech vendors access and share your child’s personal information without your knowledge or consent. Now that the SBHC School Based Health Clinic will maintain your child’s personal mental health and medical information, there are no real privacy protections in place. Read the contract or MOU between your school district and SBHC.

Here is the MOU between Manchester and Amoskeag Health.
Scanned Docs

Here are some concerns:
Page 3: Amoskeag is responsible for confidentiality and security of all student data, and must notify MSD immediately upon any breach of security. There is no provision for informing parents.

Page 5: Facilitate school-based psycho-education groups to promote social, emotional, and mental health
. References to MTSS-B Multi-Tiered System of Support- Behavior 
. (We already know that schools are sharing PII Personally Identifiable Information on their students’ mental health)

Page 7: 
Amoskeag Health may have to access protected student information due to its legitimate educational interest. They cannot perform their services without access to this student data. 
NOTE: FERPA loophole. There is NO parental consent. 

Page 10: Students Record and Access will comply with FERPA
 NOTE: FERPA Loophole. There is NO parental consent. 
Directory Information:
1 Students’ name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, and dates of enrollment;
2 Parents’/guardians’ name and address;
3. Students’ grade level, enrollment status and dates of attendance;
4. Students’ photograph;
5. Students’ participation in recognized school activities and sports;
6. Weight and height of member sof athletic teams; and
7. Students’ diplomas, certificates, awards, and honors received.

Page 11: Disclosure of PII
 Directory Information

Page 12:
FERPA Exceptions. Who can access PII without parental or student consent.
School officials with a legitimate educational interest may access student records,
Transfer to another school. Officials for audit or evaluation purposes
d. Appropriate parties in connection with financial aide. Organizations conducting studies on behalf of the school district. 
NOTE: No parental consent.

Page 17 Consent to Treat 
12 years old or older, student can consent to Drug and/or Alcohol Abuse Treatment without the consent of a parent or guardian. 
14 years or older, student can consent to services related to Contraception and STD’s without the consent of a parent or guardian.

Page 18:  Authorization for Designation of Parental Consent
Physical Exams (School Physicals, Well Child Checks, Camp Physicals, Sports Physicals, etc)
Female Exams (Pap smears/Breast exams) 
Immunizations 
Sick Care (Acute Illnesses such as colds, flu, or other problems) 
Counseling Services 
Health Education 
Follow-up care for ongoing conditions (for example asthma, weight problems, acne, diabetes, and medical problems)

Social-emotional learning is designed to be combined with health and leads to the CDC Association for Supervision & Curriculum Design’s (ASCD) Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) Community Healthy Schools model.

 

In schools that have the toughest time teaching children to read, they will now begin the difficult task of treating their medical and mental health.

Some of the services require parental consent, but there will be a constant struggle to remove parental consent in the future. Elected Representatives and school officials have made it clear that they are hostile to parental rights in New Hampshire.

 

 

 

 

The post Turning Schools into Medical and Mental Health Clinics appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you are traveling to catch a glimpse of the upcoming Solar eclipse, make sure you’re well into the projected path. Eclipse expert John Irwin says the original map—the path of the shadow of totality—has moved.

And no, it wasn’t “climate change.” But, it was something … racist. Math!

You can see his updated map for the whole of the US below. It is interactive, so you can zoom in and out to drill down to wherever you live, keeping in mind that this is neither confirmed nor denied, but according to the Western Journal (quoting Forbes), Irwin (whose map this is) is “a master in eclipse computations.”

The issue, or the problem, is the size of the sun. No one knows exactly how big it is, leading to a discrepancy at the edges of the estimated path of totality. This minor difference of opinion affects the exact location of the shadow during an eclipse.

For well over a century, scientists have generally used the “standard value” of 959.63 arc seconds — “an arc second being one 3,600th of a degree,” Forbes explained.

“Measurements and observations in the last decade have demonstrated that this value is slightly too small,” Quaglia said. The actual diameter is now thought to be more like 960 arc seconds.

And while most of the math is known,

Other measurements are important, of course, and we know those with some confidence — the distance between the sun, moon and earth, for example, and the size of the moon that will be casting the shadow that we call an eclipse.

There’s room for debate.

But the size of the sun? One scientist who has been working for over 10 years on solar eclipse calculations told Forbes that that number is basically up to the person doing the math.

On the ground, this difference amounts to about a third of a mile, which doesn’t seem like much—and it’s not unless, as the note in the cited article adds, you were planning to enjoy a total eclipse from the comfort of your own yard.

If you happen to live at the edge of the projected path and were hoping to watch a total eclipse from a lawn chair behind your house, it might not turn out as planned, but taking your lawn chair about 1800 feet toward the center of the path should fix it—six football fields. Since you’re already moving, try half a mile. You won’t even get your heart rate up high enough for it to count as exercise unless it’s all uphill.

They enjoy, but whatever you do, don’t eclipse someone elses view when the moment arrives wherever you gather to watch.

 

The post Master of Eclipse Calculations Says Monday’s Totality Path Has Moved appeared first on Granite Grok.

Israel was attacked on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists from neighboring Gaza breached the Israeli security perimeter and wreaked havoc. They tortured, raped, burned, and killed over 1,200 civilians and took over 100 hostages. There is a tremendous amount of evidence proving that Iran is supporting Hamas and the Hezbollah troops attacking Israel from the north.

Israel has been retaliating on both fronts since the initial invasion. America rapidly condemned the attack on Israel and pledged our support to our greatest friend and ally in the Middle East.

In this country, the Radical Left and the academic field were quick to begin protesting against Israel, condemning the military action she was launching on the Hamas infrastructure in Gaza. This support for Hamas and the Palestinians was strong, and it got the attention of Joe Biden and his Administration. The Administration immediately began tempering support and ramping up criticism of Israel’s military action and Netanyahu’s leadership. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, went so far as to call for immediate elections in Israel to replace Netanyahu. Schumer’s comments were surprising to Americans but, more importantly, insulting to Israel.

Joe Biden and Bibi Netanyahu had a thirty-minute call on Thursday, and the initial readout is not a good sign for American-Israeli relations. Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken both reported that Israel still has our unwavering support, BUT, if Israel does not make some changes in their military tactics, America will reassess their policies toward Israel. WHAT???. That is far from unwavering. That is tantamount to your wife saying I love you just the way you are, but if you don’t reduce your golf rounds monthly, she will have to reconsider how much she loves you.

I have been critical of the Biden team second-guessing every move by Israel and pushing them to negotiate a cease-fire for months. They also have been voicing their displeasure about civilian casualties in Gaza, even though Hamas is using civilians as human shields. It was Israel that was attacked, and it is Israel that can determine its level of retaliation.

There is enormous irony and hypocrisy on behalf of the Administration in its demands of Israel and its interference in Israle’s political leadership. Can you imagine the backlash if Netanyahu or Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau publicly called for elections to replace Biden? There would be outrage.

Joe Biden, his military, and the State Department have botched nearly every situation that needed attention in the last three years. Starting with the botched evacuation of troops from Afghanistan, which resulted in the death of thirteen American service people and numerous Afghanistan civilians, abandoning the thousands of Afghanistan civilians who had worked with the American military, America allowing Russia to invade Ukraine without any resistance, and the failure to have a plan to evacuate Americans from Haiti as that country evolves into chaos. With that track record, and not to mention the litany of horrendous domestic and economic decisions by President Biden, who does he think he is dictating policy to Netanyahu and Israel?

It doesn’t appear in the readout, but some heard Bibi end the tense call on Thursday by saying, “Joe, don’t call me, I’ll call you when I need advice.” The next thing Joe heard was a resounding click.

The post Who Is Biden to Criticize Israeli Military Operations appeared first on Granite Grok.

A relatively recent demographic change—a significant increase in the Muslim population—poses a serious challenge to the American system of governance—democracy.

Historically, people from all over the world came to this land-of-take-all and made it their home. In becoming American, each new aspirant had to meet specific provisions and take the “Pledge of Allegiance” as sworn affirmation of his highest loyalty to his new homeland. After a couple of generations, all hyphenated Americans saw themselves as Americans with a special affection for their ancestral heritage. An Irish-American, for instance, considered himself every bit as American as a German-American or a Chinese-American.

Traditionally, America did not homogenize its diverse people. The notion of the “melting pot,” is inaccurate. Instead, America did one better. As it welcomed its diverse people, America united them around a set of core values such as respect for human rights, democratic governance, and the rule of law. The large number of Muslims arriving in recent years is posing a serious problem to this nation of all nations. Bluntly speaking, no one can be a faithful Muslim and an American at the same time. Here are some of the reasons.

            * A Muslim is, first and foremost, an Ummehist—a citizen of international Islam. So, when a Muslim takes the Pledge of Allegiance, he is either ignorant of the implication of his pledge or is lying willfully. Ignorance is never a valid reason in a court of law, and lying in the process of becoming a citizen is grounds for denying the application and even deporting the violator. Sadly enough, taqiyya—lying or dissimulation—is not only condoned, but is also recommended to the Muslims in their scripture. Hence, a Muslim can and would lie without any compunctions whenever it is expedient.

Muslims, by belief and practice, are the most blatant violators of human rights. We hardly need to detail here Muslims’ systemic cruel treatment of the unbelievers, women of all persuasions, and any and all minorities across the board. To Muslims, human rights have a different meaning, and its protective provisions are reserved strictly for Muslims—primarily for Muslim men. Just a couple of examples should suffice for now.

Oppression of women, for one, is so systemic in Islam that,’s heads to this day, women are, at best, second-class citizens under Islamic law. Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islamdom, denies women the right to drive, vote, or hold elective offices—the most basic rights of citizens in democratic societies.

For another, no non-Islamic literature is allowed in Saudi Arabia. A visiting Christian, for instance, is denied to enter the Kingdom with a Bible. Further, severe punishment is meted out to anyone daring to disagree with Islam or espouse a different religion. Iran’s resurgent Shiism often vies with Saudi Arabia in its mistreatment of religious and non-religious minorities. To the fanatical ruling gang in Iran, it is their brand of Islam or disenfranchisement of rights of citizenship and even death for the “sin” of apostasy. And, of course, there is no point at all in talking about the savage Islamic Taliban.

Respect for the rule of law, as it is understood and practiced by civilized people, is an instrument of convenience to be used to advantage and to be violated when it is not, for the Muslim. A Muslim believes in a different law—the Shariah: a set of stone-age rules. Violation of the non-Muslim laws, therefore, is no violation at all to a Muslim.

What is incredible is the gall and audacity of Muslims in demanding that Western and other democracies legalize Shariah in their societies. Due to large populations of Muslims, mostly recent arrivals, in countries such as Canada, Great Britain, and Sweden, these countries are experiencing insistent demands by Muslims to have Shariah rule their Islamic communities. This is just the beginning, and it may seem relatively harmless to the simpletons in our midst. Yet, once Shariah is recognized to any extent, it will reach out to rule not only on matters that concern Muslims but also those that may involve a Muslim and non-Muslim. Under Shariah, a Muslim man married to a non-Muslim woman is able to divorce the woman at will, automatically have custody of the children, and literally toss the wife out of “his” home with practically no compensation.

As for democracy, the rule of the people, Muslims have no use at all. Muslims believe that Allah’s rule must govern the world in the form of a Caliphate—a theocracy. Making a mockery of democracy, subverting its working, and ignoring its provisions is a Muslim’s way of falsifying what he already believes to be a sinful and false system of governance invented by the infidels.

To Muslims, Ummah-ism—international Islamism—is the legitimate form of government. Ummah-ism is another form of despotism, such as Communism and Fascism, with the added feature of enjoying “divine” authority.

The world has good samples of Ummah-ism in practice to scrutinize in Islamic autocracies. Khamenei of Iran is not called “Caliph.” He is called the “Supreme Guide.” The Saudi King is just another Caliph vessel of the “divine.” These Islamic despots are every bit as vile as the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Pol Pots, and the Mussolinis. The government of these Islamic autocratic heads is infested to the core with the Islamic disease of oppression, corruption, and the absence of accountability to the people.

Democracies believe that government must be of the people, by the people, and for the people. Ummah-ism is anathema to this sacrosanct fundamental democratic ideal.

As more and more Muslims arrive in non-Islamic lands, as they reproduce with great fecundity, as they convert the disenchanted and minorities, and as petrodollar-flush Muslims and Muslim treasuries supply generous funds, Muslims gather more power to undermine the democratic rule. A consortium composed of pandering politicians, blinded with short-term self-interest and egoism; attention and fund-seeking self-proclaimed prima donna professors; and bastions of useful idiot liberals, universities, is the witting or unwitting promoter of Ummah-ism.

It is human nature to be concerned, first and foremost, with his personal well-being. Some people evolve to a higher level of humanness and place the welfare of the general public above their own. Yet, many remain fixated on the constricted stage of “self first, self, last.” Even if you belong to this latter group, your self-interest demands that you do all you can to make sure that the disease of Islamofascism does not devour democracy. Democracy is both fragile and corruptible. It takes vigilant citizenry to protect its integrity.

We fully agree with Churchill’s observation, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest.” Yet, as imperfect as it is, democracy is still humanity’s best system of self-rule. We, one and all, must defend it with our all.

The post Night Cap: Islam’s 12 Steps to Destroy the Land of Infidels appeared first on Granite Grok.

In my previous article, I discussed the earliest candidate slate members for the executive council seat being vacated by the retirement of Ted Gatsas.  I elaborated on Ryan Terrell and have been asking some questions behind the scenes and even emailed Scanlan.

I received a prompt reply with a mention that one must have lived in NH for seven years and presently live in the district at the time of the election to be eligible for office representing it.  Fair enough, but voters still deserve to know when he relocated from Nashua to Lee.  I don’t want to stoop to the level of calling him a carpetbagger, as that’s what Jan Schmidt did to him, even though he moved to NH a long time ago as a New Orleans flood refugee.  If he’s eligible for ballot access, then so be it, but let’s talk about another early entrant and address some other things worthy of attention.

Burns announced his candidacy yesterday after waffling for a very long time about Annie Kuster’s seat.

If you need a timeline, I’m sure Lily Tang Williams can answer questions that she had asked Burns herself.  After losing her congressional primary, Lily called Burns to congratulate him, and most voters of the intelligent variety cast their vote for him in November.  When he lost to Annie, Lily started planning her 2024 campaign to try again, which I encourage everyone to support, no matter who is on their ballot.

Though I didn’t keep a journal of the exact words said and on what date(s), I do remember Lily saying she reached out to both Burns and George Hansel(the Damn Emperor’s endorsee and late entrant) to tell them her plans and ask for their support.  It’s been my understanding, subject to final confirmation with Lily, of course, that neither of them was quick to reply, and a commitment from either one of them was not obtained.  I think of those anecdotal stories about the single person playing the field or the fair-weather friend who won’t lock into Friday night plans because…(drum roll) something better might come along.

It’s only fair that I question Burns’s interest, passion, and suitability for the position with the same fervor I questioned Ryan Terrell’s ties with the community Ted Gatsas represents.  To either of them, a voter should ask some suggested questions:

Have you ever attended an executive council meeting?
If yes, how many times and when and why?(other than Ryan’s BoE nomination/confirmation process-related reasons)
Have you ever called or emailed Ted Gatsas?
If yes, when and why?
Have you ever asked him or any of his 4 peers to vote a certain way on something?
If yes, what was the nomination or agenda item?
Were you considering candidacy prior to learning of Ted Gatsas’s retirement?

One attribute of the human condition is the desire to stay relevant and some candidates and former candidates for many offices are known to be quite shameless in that pursuit.  The intelligent voter will filter out all the opportunists and vote for Nurse Terese.

The post The Case for Nurse Terese, Part 2. appeared first on Granite Grok.

The forefathers established the United States as a Republic of States and not a Democracy. This provision was to maintain the power of the states as opposed to losing it to the collective wishes of the country as a whole.

They designed through the 14th Amendment that the election of a President would result from the elections held in all states and territories and not a popular vote. Each state is independent in assigning its electoral votes, which is equal to the number of Senators and Representatives. The Electoral College allows each state to have a proportionate say in who is elected President. The Left wants this system changed because the Electoral College creates an equal playing field. They prefer a popular vote because Democrat voters outnumber Republicans. In a popular vote scenario, the high population of Left-leaning regions would always elect the President. We would never see a Republican President under a National Popular Vote system.

In 2006, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact was born. This initiative was to join enough states that would change their method of assigning their Electoral votes to the person who got the most votes nationally and not the winner of its statewide election. So far, the initiative has been successful in sixteen states and the District of Columbia, representing 205 Electoral Votes. The issue is pending in eleven states with 101 Electoral Votes in the balance. The plan for the Compact is to trigger it when they have enough states signed on to hit the 270 vote mark, which is the votes needed to win the Presidency. It is evident by looking at the map of states already in the compact and those pending that they are all Left-leaning states, proving this initiative favors Democrat candidates.

Maine, which is becoming the Socialist model of the Northeast, is close to joining the Compact. On Wednesday, the Maine Senate voted 18-12 to join the Popular Vote Compact and pledge Maine’s four electoral votes to the overall popular vote winner. The Maine House narrowly passed the bill earlier this week. The bill now goes to Governor Mills, who has ten days to sign, veto, or neither, in which case the bill automatically becomes law. The Governor has not indicated her intentions.

This action by the Maine legislature is possible only because of the Democrat majority in Augusta. This action, along with numerous other actions in the last year, starkly contrasts the wishes of the Republicans and possibly the Independents of Maine. If Trump were to win the State of Maine Election, but Joe Biden wins the national Popular vote, the four electoral votes would be pledged to Joe Biden. The voice of the people of Maine would be suppressed.

What is happening in Maine works for the Socialist Democrats, who are concentrated in the state’s major cities. Should the pendulum swing, and it is moving, then the Democrats will have to live with their decisions that may then work in the favor of Republicans. One thing is clear after the last twelve months: Democrats have little concern about what is suitable for all of Maine but what will keep them in power.

The post National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Targets Republicans appeared first on Granite Grok.

Now that the COVID pandemic is behind us, we must thoughtfully evaluate what happened during this unprecedented time and prudently consider what should be done if a similar crisis ever happens again. One of the major issues that emerged during this challenging period was the mandatory wearing of face masks in schools.

A crucial bill has been proposed in the State Legislature this year (HB1093) that would prohibit school boards from ever again implementing any policy requiring the wearing of face masks.

As a member of the House Education Committee, I heard some emotional testimony last month at the hearing for HB1093. One parent described how her child was so psychologically traumatized that he developed nervous ticks due to the stress of mask-wearing. According to numerous teachers and parents, some children suffered such great anxiety that they were paralyzed with fear and could not speak. Mask mandates created an academic culture of fear and divisiveness which caused anxiety and hindered learning. Teachers explained the difficulties of working in such an emotionally negative climate and lamented that many students fell behind academically while also suffering emotionally.

During the hearing, I corroborated what the other witnesses had to say not by describing my personal experience but by sharing what I had learned about face masks from extensively reading medical journal articles and other sources providing information from medical experts. This research included a Cochrane Institute study last year which concluded that “wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of … COVID-19 like illness compared to not wearing masks.” Another article recently published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood concluded, “We fail to find any evidence of benefit from masking children…child mask mandates fail a basic risk-benefit analysis. Recommending child masking …is unsupported by current scientific data and inconsistent with accepted ethical norms.”

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

Overall, I found that reasonable doubts had clearly been raised by reputable sources regarding the effectiveness of mask-wearing. Dr. Harvey Risch, Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at Yale, had compared wearing masks as a virus deterrent to “putting up a chain link fence and hoping that it blocks mosquitoes.” Surprisingly, Dr. Anthony Fauci, in a February 5th, 2020 e-mail, wrote, “the typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.”

Not only did my research suggest that masks might possibly be ineffective but also revealed the probability of physical harm caused by toxic chemicals contained in the masks themselves including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), phthalates, microplastics and nanoparticles. Masks are also suspected by some experts to cause a condition known as MIES—mask-induced exhaustion syndrome. Considering all of this reasonable doubt, don’t you think that wearing a mask should be a choice rather than a requirement? More specifically, should school board members, who are generally not medical experts, ever arbitrarily mandate the wearing of facemasks?

HB1093 will not stop anyone who wants to wear a mask from doing so. Those who believe that face masks are effective can certainly keep on wearing them, and parents who want their kids to wear masks could still send them to school wearing them. Logically, these people should also believe that their masks will protect them and their children from those who choose not to wear them.

The House recently passed HB1093. Now it goes to the Senate where its passage would relieve school board members from having to determine controversial face mask policies while also giving parents the freedom to choose whether or not their children wear masks.

The post The Unmasking Bill Should Pass appeared first on Granite Grok.

It’s more than fifteen minutes after you drove home and finally you find a parking space in what once was your single-family zoned neighborhood. But the NH-UniParty outlawed single-family zoning in 2024, and your once picturesque, safe neighborhood is now an eyesore of “accessory dwelling units” crammed into what once was your neighbor’s front and backyards. And your neighbors are now mostly renters because once the UniParty outlawed single-family zoning BlackRock and the other “investment” firms swooped in and bought up as much of the neighborhood as they could.

It used to be easy to find a parking spot in front of your home. But the UniParty also outlawed minimum parking requirements. So lots that used to need one or two street parking spots are now taking six or eight. But finding parking is not the end of the ordeal. You have a 15 minute walk home ahead of you, in what once was a safe neighborhood but now is anything but that. Trash and graffiti have replaced impeccably maintained lawns and gardens. And there are also the dealers and the gangs and the street thugs.

This is the dystopia that Jo(k)e Sweeney and Ross Berry and other imposter-GOP want for New Hampshire. Kelly Ayotte claims that she is running for Governor in order to prevent Joyce Craig from “Massing up” New Hampshire. But what about Jo(k)e Sweeney and the other imposter-Republicans. Does Kelly support their jihad to outlaw single-family housing? She has NOT, to my knowledge, said one word in opposition to the NH-UniParty’s push to destroy the rural character of New Hampshire.

And where does Chuck stand on this issue? Does he share Jo(k)e Sweeney’s dream of turning New Hampshire into an endless sea of apartment complexes?

Maybe their wonderful surrogates could take a moment from telling us why their candidate is the true conservative to actually tell us something substantive? Not holding my breath.

The post Question For Chuck And Kelly … Do You Support The NH-UniParty’s Push To Outlaw Single-Family Zoning? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Retiring Burlington, Vermont, Mayor Miro Weinberger is, by all sane accounts, left-wing, as was his anointed replacement Joan Shannon; in anywhere but Burlington, they are far-left Democrats. So when the city elected a “progressive” last week, well, guess what?

If you think you voted for change, you are in for a surprise. Progressive Party winner Emma Mulvaney-Stanak is basically a Marxist, with the Progressive Party carrying the social banner to the left of the likes of Weinberger and Shannon. What does that look like on the campaign trail? After years of denying Burlington had a growing issue with crime, the ‘Progressives’ ran on addressing the growing problem of crime. Related: Change in Burlington: Replace Male Marxist Mayor with Female Marxist Mayor

Burlington’s crime problem is the direct result of left-wing political priorities shared by everyone who ran for mayor. Weinberger (nor the city council) know how to fix it because their party priorities create more crime and chaos. It is beyond their ability to repair. Shannon is no different. Mulvaney-Stanak will likely pour accelerant on the fire that is this problem.

Crime in Burlington is bad. Mulvaney-Stanak, who likely won partly as a result of the illegal gang vote (non-citizens can vote in municipal elections and her opponent’s “failure to acknowledge Israel’s unpopular invasion of Gaza”), is less equipped to address it than Weinberger or Shannon and that’s not saying much.

Hint: providing safe spaces to shoot up (drugs) will not stop the immigrant gangs from shooting up Burlington.

You need more cops, but no one with the intellectual agility to be on can think for a moment that the progressive mayor or its more “conservative Democrat/Progressive City Council” will defend them the next time a viral video drops that allows for virtue signaling on a national level. The cops will be under the bus faster than you can say. Where’s the next microphone to opine about systemic racism in a system run by Democrats and progressives for decades (Bernie Sanders was elected Mayor of Burlington in 1982).

The only way Emma Mulvaney-Stanak will ever get crime under control is to do what actual socialists do in communist countries, but as far as Vermont has fallen, even they haven’t gone that far. This means things can only get worse with one possible exception. The crime problem the progressives ignored before they decided they could use it to win elected office, blaming it on slightly less socialist Democrats, might disappear again. Not the crime, just any actual acknowledgement of it or data showing the truth.

Property and violent crime will continue to grow. They just won’t talk about it. And that is a change you can believe in.

The post If Burlington Thinks It Voted for Change, It is In for an Unpleasant Surprise! appeared first on Granite Grok.

Publisher’s Weekly praises “Grandad’s Pride,” a children’s book for ages 4-8, available at local libraries, for how its “Bustling, bright-hued images with a rainbow motif” portrays various “gender expressions,” including men in bondage costumes with codpieces and a bearded woman with mastectomy scars.

Related: Nashua Library Doubles Down on Promoting Bondage to Kids

Even more troubling is an illustration featuring pink heart-shaped Lolita sunglasses, an allusion to the 1962 film about a man’s sexual relationship with his 14-year-old stepdaughter. Prominently displayed near the Lolita sunglasses is a Polaroid camera and a MAP, spelled out in capital letters, which happens to stand for “Minor Attracted Persons,” a euphemism for pedophiles.

Liberals greet requests to remove these books from the children’s section with cries of censorship. They claim that people who object to sexually explicit books are targeting LGBTQ+ individuals.

But there are no gay, queer, or transgender children, just girls and boys. By suggesting children can be born in the wrong bodies, libraries put children on the path to experimental medical treatments that will leave them permanently damaged. “Queer” is a nebulous word that justifies exposing children to any sexual behavior, including adult fetishes.

Libraries no longer serve patrons by choosing materials that reflect community interests and values. Instead, they bias their selection process to push their radical agenda. Censorship is built into their system. Since libraries choose books based on reviews from publications that align with their ideology, conservative books are unlikely to make the cut.

How did we get here? A 2017 American Library Journal article questions whether “it is still good enough to provide equal access, or if it is time to pursue an active equitable access that focuses on empowering the less powerful and amplifying the voices of the unheard.”

“Queering the library” is a top priority of American Library Association (ALA) President Emily Drabinski, who describes herself as  “a Marxist lesbian.” She’s also a proponent of queer theory. Like critical race theory, queer theory isn’t really a theory, but a political ideology that seeks to change power structures by promoting transgender and queer identities.

Our libraries assume that some children are born gay, transgender, and queer, and it’s their job to help girls and boys discover and explore their innate gender identities through drag queen story hours and books. For example, in “Red: A Crayon’s Story,” written for children ages 4-8  “A blue crayon is mistakenly labeled as red, and becomes much happier once he can be his true blue self.”

I’ve spoken to my local library trustees about the story “Jack, Not Jackie,” where a girl is relabeled as a boy and given a new name and pronouns because she hates frilly pink dresses, plays superhero, and splashes in the mud. It’s cruel to tell children that there’s a right way and a wrong way to be a girl or a boy.

A girl who hates pink dresses and likes to play with trucks is still a wonderful girl. Children’s books like “Jack not Jackie” tell abusive lies. My comments at the Nashua Library Trustees meeting. #NHPolitics pic.twitter.com/SCRdwVZVkH

— Sidewalk Steve (@Sidewalk_Steve) February 7, 2024

In a recent Union Leader op-ed NH Democrat Reps Nicholas Germana, David Paige, and Angela Brennan assured us that none of the challenged books qualify as pornography or “remotely fit well-established definitions of obscenity.” But if illustrations depicting oral sex and passages about anal sex don’t qualify as pornography, then what does? This isn’t a slippery slope, it’s a free-fall.

There must be no limit to what little children should be exposed to, according to the ALA’s policy statement “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors.” The ALA “opposes all attempts to restrict access to library services, materials, and facilities based on the age of library users. The policy insists that:

Children and young adults unquestionably possess First Amendment rights, including the right to receive information through the library in print, sound, imagery data, and social media.

Libraries won’t compromise with concerned parents, whom Drabinski describes as an “angry white mob.” The ALA’s book-challenge process is stacked. The guidelines state that the materials can’t be judged based on just one part, such as an explicit passage or illustration, and instruct the trustees to consider reviews from ALA-approved journals.

Things could get worse. New Hampshire House Bill 1311 would make it a crime to remove materials that promote sexual fetishes and gender ideology from school libraries, no matter how false or explicit.

Opposing such bills is important but inadequate. States and municipalities should follow the leads of Alabama, Wyoming, Missouri, Texas, and Florida, sever ties with the ALA, and join the World Library Association. Taxpayers should defund their libraries.

For those of us in Democrat-controlled cities, the best we can do is keep speaking up. Although the librarians and trustees won’t hear us, they deserve to be embarrassed. Many moms and dads will get the message and avoid an institution that confuses and indoctrinates children and sets them on the path to irreversible medical harm.

The post Our Libraries Queer Children appeared first on Granite Grok.

If the Trans-Cult didn’t have bad luck this year, it’d have no luck at all. Those who profit financially or ideologically from confusing young kids and getting them on hormone blockers as soon as possible keep getting kicked in the rhetorical head.

From the UK to France, the WPATH Files to Pediatrician Organizations, 2024 has been rough for the Trans-Cult, and the Netherlands just piled on.

The majority of gender-confused children grow out of that feeling by the time they are fully grown adults, according to a long-term study.

Researchers in the Netherlands tracked more than 2,700 children from age 11 to their mid-twenties, asking them every three years of feelings about their gender. But by age 25, just one-in-25 (4 percent) said they ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ were discontent with their gender.

The researchers concluded: ‘The results of the current study might help adolescents to realize that it is normal to have some doubts about one’s identity and one’s gender identity during this age period and that this is also relatively common.’

It has been known for a very long time that just like dinosaurs or space, kids who wondered a bit about their sexuality before they understood anything about it grew out of it. It was a phase. It is a curious “finding yourself” moment that, for a super-majority of children, fades away, after which they feel both comfortable, safe, and happy in their “birth” bodies.

The gender cult ignored that, but this new research is a problem for anyone pushing hormone blockers on minors. They are dangerous, can lead to cancer, and are deadly. But they are the prerequisite to genital mutilation surgery, a rising flow of cash advocates will not want to abandon. But if most kids grow out of it, if ust leave them alone, what now?

Thanks to these Netherlands researchers, the question now is: should doctors be required to inform parents of potentially transgender kids about this study, especially when talking about invasive interventions like puberty blockers and surgeries?

I’m picturing a construction paper display on a class or hallway bulletin board. It’s got colors, pictures, data, and bits of research; wondering about gender is normal, and almost everyone grows out of it. You don’t need to take (hormone) drugs for the rest of your life or suffer the discomfort of surgery you will very likely later regret. Maybe a few quotes from doctors about how there’s no proof the treatments help and the risks like cancer or death.

No, we won’t be seeing that, but how about this? Legislators, school boards, parents, and others can ask why states like New Hampshire prohibit therapists and other kids look to for advice from daring to suggest they will gro out of it. It’s not conversion therapy. It’s… therapy. Doctors, therapists, counselors, and even teachers should be required not just to tell parents that their kids are expressing some gender dysphoria but that, based on “new” research, if they are supportive, they may (will probably) grow out of it.

Do you know what else would help? Stop with the 24/7/365 gender-cult recruitment dogma. If most kids grow out of it, the constant attention it gets is doing more harm than good, assuming this is actually about mental health and healthy kids.

Given all the revelations in recent months, more Lawsuits seem likely.

 

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