Monday • May 5 • 2025
Vol.XVII • No.XIX
Manchester, N.H.
There are people (including readers of GraniteGrok) who claim that a school choice program that is funded by taxes is a ‘free market solution’ to the problem of educating children.
I find this odd. Whether you think school choice is a good idea or a bad one, as long as taxes are involved, it cannot sensibly be called a ‘free market solution.’
Why?
There are lots of possible ways of defining ‘free market.’ Here is Milton Friedman, for example:
The key insight of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is misleadingly simple: if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it.
So people will say: The exchange of school choice funds between a parent and a school or other provider of services is voluntary. That makes it a free market exchange, right?
Wrong. It leaves out a third party to the transaction: the taxpayers from whom the money was taken against their will. That is, it’s not a two-party transaction,
X purchases something from Y.
but rather a three-party transaction:
X purchases something from Y, using money taken (by the threat of force) from Z.
If all the parties aren’t participating voluntarily in the transaction, then it’s not a free market.
At least, that’s what I thought until recently. What I’ve realized, though, is that we’re seeing one of those redefinitions of terms that happen every so often and which turn things on their heads.
That is, the free in free market once referred to something like free will. It described the voluntary nature of an action. But now it refers to something like free lunch, where you don’t pay for something because someone else is paying for it.
Note that this makes robbery into a free market transaction. Suppose I take money from you through the threat of force, then give it to someone else in exchange for a meal. Or I give it to someone else, who then exchanges it for a meal. This is a pretty exact analogy to the free market transaction that we call ‘school choice.’
We’ve seen this kind of redefinition before, as when the word right ended up being used as a synonym for the word entitlement — which is actually the opposite of a right in that it requires rights to be violated in order to provide it.
For example, X’s ‘right’ to high-speed Internet or gender-affirming surgery requires violating Z’s right to property in order to pay for it.
It’s like using the word ‘customer’ when you really mean ‘beneficiary.’
There are good reasons to drop this line of argument entirely.
First, it’s misleading, which makes it hard to have sensible discussions about school choice. This is reason enough to avoid the use of the term.
But perhaps more importantly, when school choice fails to fix any of our actual problems — as all subsidies ultimately do — having spent years describing it as a ‘free market’ program will provide ammunition for people who want to argue that that free markets can’t work.
But if we want people to stop using free market to describe situations where one person is robbed in order to enable two other people to engage in commerce, we need to have a different term to describe those situations.
How about freebie market?
The post Freebie Markets appeared first on Granite Grok.
Nikki Haley is going to “stand up to China,” blah, blah, blah. It’s all bullish*t. The way to deal with China is to decouple the American economy from China. But Nikki has NO INTENTION of doing that … the GOP-donor class, her real constituency, makes far too much money from China. More telling perhaps is that Nikki never talks about standing up to the Communists in DC … who are much more of a threat to America, at this point, than the Communists in China.
“Reeducating” Trump-voters? Treating Trump-voters as domestic terrorists? THE DYSTOPIAN FUTURE IS HERE. But if you listen to the GOP-hacks whose living is grifting … the real threat is Matt Gaetz.
Hillary Clinton calls for Trump Supporters to be reeducated: "At some point maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members." pic.twitter.com/ao3foysSL4
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) October 6, 2023
The Newsweek piece on the FBI’s targeting of Trump supporters as terrorists confirms what has long been clear: The Global War on Terror has morphed into a Domestic War on Wrongthinkers.
It’s about Regime security, not national security. https://t.co/jRUFwGdS2F
— Benjamin Weingarten (@bhweingarten) October 6, 2023
The post The Police State Of America (Part __) … WrongThinkers Are TERRORISTS appeared first on Granite Grok.
On September 22, members of the Canadian Parliament provided a standing ovation for Yaroslav Hunka, a member of Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS during World War II.
The event surrounded a visit to Ottawa by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In their hysterical rush to praise all things anti-Russian in 2023, some of our social democratic elites in the West have taken to praising literal Third-Reich Nazis. Specifically, the Speaker of the House of Commons described Hunka as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service.”
Shortly after Canadian politicians showered praise on Hunka, some observers on social media began to point out Hunka’s Nazi past, and the matter became an embarrassment for Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau and for the Speaker, who resigned days later. Moreover, the affair has highlighted a longstanding pattern of tolerance for Ukrainian SS members demonstrated by the regimes in both the United Kingdom and Canada.
These reminders of Ukrainian collaboration with the Third Reich have provided another Nazi-themed black eye for the Ukrainian regime, which has already been accused—with good reason—of supporting neo-Nazi groups like the Azov Battalion, which has long employed Nazi symbols such as the wolfsangel, the swastika, and the black sun. Ukrainian nationalists like those in the Azov battalion have also sought to dismiss criticism of Ukraine-Nazi collaboration while portraying pro-Nazi Ukrainians as mere innocent anti-Russian freedom fighters. Yet, Hunka’s unit and other Ukrainian nationalist groups are notable for crimes inflicted against ethnic Poles and Jews, and reminders of such past crimes are likely to further raise tensions between the Polish and Ukrainian regimes. Warsaw and Kiev are presently denouncing each other over war funding and the importation of cheap Ukrainian grain into the EU.
Current allies of Ukraine, however, have likely noted the danger posed to the pro-Ukraine narrative by the Hunka fiasco. Thus it is not surprising to see headlines from Western media attempting to excuse Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. On Monday, for example, the European version of Politico published an article titled “Fighting against the USSR didn’t necessarily make you a Nazi.” The article is by committed Russophobe Keir Giles and makes the case that at least some Nazi soldiers weren’t really all that bad since they were fighting Russians.
One of Giles’s chief “arguments” is simply that “it’s complicated” and Ukrainian SS members have been judged unfairly. Meanwhile, Canada’s military history magazine Legion tells us to consider the “nuance of history” before casting aspersions on these Nazis. The CBC makes a similar claim that the Hunka situation “reveals a complicated past” and that Ukrainian Nazis were simply choosing what they perceived to be the lesser of two evils.
Legacy media journalists—many of whom spent the last three years denouncing any opposition to the establishment narrative as “racism” or “misinformation”—are now telling us that we must approach the nuances of Nazi volunteers with an open mind.
The Record of Ukraine’s Waffen-SS NazisAttempts to downplay the Nazi status of Hunka’s unit conveniently ignore a variety of facts that hardly add “nuance” to the situation. It is important to keep in mind, of course, that the Waffen-SS was not the Wehrmacht, the “regular army” of Germany. Rather, the Waffen-SS was the combat arm of the fanatical and ideological paramilitary group Schutzstaffel (SS) tasked with carrying out the Holocaust and the German regime’s many other efforts to murder enemies of the state. The SS was under the command of Heinrich Himmler, and the Gestapo answered to the SS.
The unit was known officially as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS or the “1st Galician” unit. German commanders often called it simply the “SS Galizien.” Hunka was a volunteer in this unit, as were many other Ukrainian nationalists. It was only in 1944, after the unit suffered devastating losses in battle, that the unit was rebuilt using conscripted soldiers. Indeed, thousands of Ukrainian nationalists volunteered for service with the Nazis, with 52,000 men enlisting. Among these, about 13,000 were inducted into the SS. Many other volunteers went on to serve in the German concentration camp system, especially at the Trawniki concentration camp. The camp served as a forced labor camp for Jews and others under the watchful eyes of Ukrainian “freedom fighters.” The camp also served as an SS training camp, mainly for Ukrainian recruits.
As for the Galizien unit, it has been implicated in several specific war crimes, especially the massacre at Huta Pieniacka, where approximately 700-1,200 ethnic Poles and Jews were killed. A 2003 investigation by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance into the massacre concluded that “the crime was committed by the 4th battalion of the 14th division” (i.e., the Galizien division.) In 2005, the Institute of History at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences agreed with a Ukrainian nationalist who, at the time, declared that “Ukrainian SS-men wiped out the entire village.”
But this is not surprising as the Galizien unit worked closely with notoriously brutal Waffen-SS units. As Per Anders Rudling noted in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies:
The Waffen-SS Galizien worked alongside one of the most brutal counter-insurgency units of Nazi Germany, the dreaded SS-Sonderbattalion Dirlewanger, a unit which included rapists, murderers, and the criminally insane, which carried out brutal anti-partisan activities in Belarus and Poland, and the no less brutal suppression of the Warsaw uprising in 1944. Waffen -SS Galizien and Dirlewanger transferred officers between their units.
The idea that the Galizien unit had no interest or complicity in killing anyone other than Russians is dubious at best. After all, anti-Polish sentiment was common among Ukrainian nationalists at the time, as western Ukraine had long been a conquered territory under the rule of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Second World War, the far-right Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) engaged in numerous massacres of Poles designed to prevent them from asserting sovereignty over western Ukraine at the end of the war. Ukrainian nationalists had long clashed with the Polish state in western Ukraine, often in and around the Polish city of Lwów—now Lviv in western Ukraine—which was heavily Ukrainian in the interwar years of the Second Polish Republic. Anti-semitism was common in Western Ukraine as evidenced by the energetic participation of local ethnic Ukrainians in the 1941 Lwów pogroms.
The SS Galizien unit came into being in this milieu of anti-Polish nationalism. Yet, virtually no article on Ukrainian nationalism in the corporate media since 2022 mentions Poland’s conquests in what is modern-day Ukraine or the anti-Polish reprisals that followed.
Members of the Galizien, including Yaroslav Hunka, also took an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, which read:
I swear before God this holy oath, that in the battle against Bolshevism, I will give absolute obedience to the commander in chief of the German Armed Forces Adolf Hitler, and as a brave soldier I will always be prepared to lay down my life for this oath.”
Lest anyone think these Ukrainian nationalists thus limited themselves to strictly combatting Bolshevism, we must keep in mind that Waffen-SS troops hardly granted their victims fair trials before executions and massacres were carried out. Rather, Jews were often regarded as communist collaborators in general and treated accordingly. Ethnic Poles who proved inconvenient to “anti-Bolshevik” activities were killed in large numbers.
Contrary to the now-preferred myth that the Galizien unit was just a bunch of misunderstood good guys, Rudling concludes, “There is no overt indication that the unit in any way was dedicated to Ukrainian statehood, let alone independence. The volunteers committed themselves to a German victory, the New European Order, and to Adolf Hitler personally.”
However, even if Hunka’s unit had not been involved in war crimes, it is remarkable that the Canadian parliament would give a standing ovation to a man who, for all intents and purposes, fought against Canada and its allies in the Second World War. As British historian Mark Felton sarcastically put it in a recent video:
Now if any Canadian members of Parliament are watching, this next bit might be rather difficult to understand, but the Red Army, commonly referred to as “the Russians,” were our allies in World War II while the Ukrainian SS was fighting for somebody called Adolf Hitler who, according to Wikipedia, wasn’t very nice.
Nowadays, we’re supposed to applaud anyone and everyone who kills a Russian. But during the Second World War, the US regime under Franklin Roosevelt wholeheartedly embraced the Soviet regime as an ally. Roosevelt was personally fond of Josef Stalin, calling him “Uncle Joe.” The Americans and other Western Allies coordinated efforts with the Soviets in the fight to encircle and crush the Third Reich. Moreover, it was the Red Army that did most of the heavy lifting in the land war in Europe. As the Red Army pressed further toward eastern Germany, this forced the Germans to send ever larger numbers of its best recruits to the meat grinder on the eastern front. Had this not been the case, it is likely D-Day in Normandy would have been futile for the Allies, or at the very least an Allied bloodbath far worse than that which actually occurred. As historian Ralph Raico has pointed out, many of the German troops at Normandy were young boys and old men. The best troops were dealing with the Soviets in the east.
Yet, the Canadian Parliament applauds a man who was helping the Germans fight off the Red Army, which, in effect, allowed the German army to kill more Americans, Brits, French, and Canadians.
When Western Socialists Defended NazisThe global establishment’s sudden discovery of the “good” Nazis has its precedent. Let it not be forgotten that in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany courted the Soviet Union as an ally, culminating in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (the “Nazi-Soviet Pact”) of 1939. As a result, communists in the West praised and defended Hitler and the Third Reich while blaming the war solely on British and French imperialists. Then in 1941, after the German invasion of the USSR, communists in Britain and the UK turned on a dime and suddenly decided that Nazis were the bad guys again.
The Left is apparently back to defending Nazis. Now that anti-Russian hysteria is supposed to be the guiding principle of “global democracy,” we’re told that we are to applaud former Waffen-SS soldiers for fighting against the Allies.
It’s quite an interesting turn of events, but given the current realities of relentless regime gaslighting and propaganda, it’s not terribly surprising.
Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is executive editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power and Market, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public policy and international relations from the University of Colorado. He was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Breaking Away: The Case of Secession, Radical Decentralization, and Smaller Polities and Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.
Ryan McMaken| Mises Wire
Mises Wire We heartily encourage reprints and shares of Mises Wire articles. If you wish to reproduce an article in your blog, magazine, radio show, newspaper column, classroom material, textbook, discussion group, website, or any other venue, please do so. The original publication source must be included in an appropriate place.The post The Left Is Now Telling Us (Ukrainian) Nazis Aren’t So Bad After All appeared first on Granite Grok.
I reported here that Lauren Doukas made a PUBLIC statement before the Goffstown School Board on September 11th (39:00) where she mentioned she worked as a paraprofessional at an elementary school in Manchester.
In her statement, she mentioned that in the school where she works, kindergarten students were learning about transgender pronouns and different families and structures.
At the next Goffstown school board meeting on October 4th, several weeks after the September 11th meeting, Doukas followed up with additional comments you can listen to here. (1:55:40)
Doukas claimed that she was targeted after the September 11th meeting through an OpEd, and that it included untruths and disinformation. However, I included the video from the September 11th meeting so everyone could listen to what she said during public comments. (39:00)
I reported that she was a resident of Goffstown who brought up her professional role as a paraprofessional at the school where she worked in Manchester. She then went on to inform everyone at the September PUBLIC school board meeting that the kindergarten students were learning about pronouns, and about different families and structures. Based on her presentation, she appeared to be quite proud of what they were teaching to young children.
Is she under the impression that when you attend a PUBLIC school board meeting, where you make a PUBLIC statement, that this information will not be shared? Doukas made a public statement that we can all respect. However, one can respect her opinion, and offer a difference of opinion, too. Teaching kindergarten children about transgender pronouns or different sexual lifestyles, may not be what all parents believe is appropriate for their children.
Other residents who attended the September Goffstown School Board meeting cited state law RSA 186:11 -IX-c when directing the administration to remove the bulletin board. Parents have the right to opt their children out of controversial materials, and state law also requires notification. You can hear one resident cite those state laws at (35:00). Goffstown appeared to be violating state law by not giving parents notice, which would allow parents to opt out of this kind of material.
In the second presentation (1:55:40) before the Goffstown School Board, Doukas attempts to clarify her presentation to the board as if the information I reported on was somehow distorted. Once again, all people have to do is go to the Sept. 11 Goffstown school board meeting (39:00) to hear exactly what she presented. Mills Fall Charter School lists Doukas as a paraprofessional on their website. All of this information is factual and public.
At the September Goffstown School Board meeting, Doukas stated in her PUBLIC comment, “I speak to you as a paraprofessional in an elementary Manchester school.” Doukas stated her name at the beginning of the school board meeting as everyone must do. She very clearly stated she was speaking in her role as a paraprofessional at an elementary Manchester school. Public meetings are recorded which is why I included the link so readers could hear the testimony directly from the person speaking. Nothing was distorted as it was originally reported.
Doukas then publicized that the Mill Falls Charter School had taken complaints against her from the Department of Education. At the board meeting in September, she could hear the other residents reference state laws that govern schools when presenting the kind of content posted on the bulletin board. Knowing that this kind of controversial content must be presented to parents to review so they can opt their children out, Doukas chose to make a public statement that her school in Manchester (Mill Falls) was providing similar content to kindergarten students. Instead of boasting about all of this, administrators at Mills Fall would have been better served if Doukas came back to them to discuss the possibility of Mill Falls violating state statutes too.
Where is the tolerance?
Everyone knows that gender and sexual identity, as it is presented to children in a public school, will be a controversial topic. That is why the law is in place. To show respect to parents who have a different viewpoint. Some parents may share the same viewpoint on sexuality, but maybe they want the topic introduced when their child is more mature. There are many different reasons for making sure parents are informed, and have the ability to opt their children out of this content.
Doukas never mentioned anything about respecting different viewpoints parents may have when it comes to these topics. She made it clear that parents better get used to it. That’s not how public education works. Public schools are subjected to regulations per state statute. No one gets to push a sexual narrative on children in New Hampshire. Parents must be informed, and then parents have the right to opt their child out of that content.
Doukas called this a targeted attack on a large group of people, and she now feels the Goffstown School Board is in the crosshairs. She appears to be ignoring the laws that are in place that require action by district personnel. No one presenting to the board can push their narrative on students. She does not speak for all in the LGBTQ community, either. Parents of LGBTQ students may also wish to be informed on what their children will be learning in school. This law respects all parents. Parents get to decide what is appropriate for their children.
With the mass exodus we are seeing in public education, these kinds of laws show respect for the parents and students. Families are less likely to remove their child from public school if their viewpoint is respected.
There was no targeted attack on anyone. Doukas shared information at a PUBLIC school board meeting that the Charter School she worked in may be violating state law. In addition, her statement to the Goffstown school board appeared to support Goffstown’s violating state law because she supports the political and sexual narrative presented on the bulletin board.
Why not raise your four children the way you want, and show some respect for parents who want to raise their children the way they want to? That’s mutual respect between people who have different viewpoints.
To unify this community, this would be a good time to find some common ground. That can be done by following the law, and focusing on academics. Instead of pushing any political narrative on children, simply teach them to be kind and show others dignity and respect. This is something all parents can support.
Parents have reported that Doukas has herself targeted conservative elected local and state officials online for years. Maybe this is a good time for her to reevaluate how she has treated people with different viewpoints, and then model the behavior she expects from others.
The post Transgender Pronouns for Kindergarten Students Part 2 appeared first on Granite Grok.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has had an interesting couple of years. They demeaned a licensed, safe, and effective drug so they could issue emergency authorization for one that was not.
Ivermectin had to be destroyed, or at least knee-capped, or the magic voodoo juice would have never come out of warp speed and into the arms of hundreds of millions of Americans, where it did not stay. They put the rule-making in the hands of drug makers while Pfederal regulators acted as employees of pharmaceutical companies with a generous bonus plan. The approval process was reduced to the level of a show trial.
The public Health ramifications have been immeasurably bad, and it could be decades before the bill comes completely due, but none of that has dissuaded the “regulators” from continuing along the path they set.
You’ll have heard of Novavax. It’s the other, other, other COVID-19 Vaccine. Approved for emergency use in an attempt to get the vaccine-hesitant (people who didn’t want to risk a heart condition or death) to lift their sleeves and take one for the team. Novovax was not the hit they hoped for, but it was still available, but not “legally” after the public health emergency ended.
Related: We Know Why The Public Health Industrial Complex Had to Discredit Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin
No emergency, no emergency use authorizations, but why let that stop you? After all, considering to whom you owe your allegiance, Big Pharma, the lack of an emergency is an emergency.
[Tuesday], amidst the frenzy over the removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, the Food and Drug Administration amended the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Novavax COVID-19 “vaccine” despite the Public Health Emergency officially ending almost five months earlier on May 11, 2023, according to the CDC. So how is the FDA seemingly able to approve an Emergency Use Authorization when, according to the CDC, there is no longer an emergency?
The sky isn’t falling, which is a “sky is falling” event. It isn’t falling, but it could, so we need to frame the state of fear in a new and meaningful way. Think car insurance ads. Flo, Jake, or the Emu in the Aviators. That’s what the FDA needs—a spokesperson. Maybe they can borrow Mayhem. He’s funny in a chaotic lifestyle-changing sort of way—the perfect pitchman. Put this crap in your arm as insurance. And when you need us, we won’t be there. We may even try to hide you, undermine your care, or deny your concerns.
But what do you call them?
Jab?
Our COVID vaccine mascot needs a name.
Karen?
Let me know what you think. And you’ve got time. The fearmongering isn’t working as well, but they are still trying as evidenced by the hijinks at the FDA. The lack of an emergency is the emergency. Code Red. DefCon 1. Watch for a readiness alert on your phones.
Nobody is afraid, and that’s the problem.
HT | Gateway Pundit
The post When The Lack of an Emergency is The Emergency appeared first on Granite Grok.
Before we figured out how to replace whale oil with cheaper, more efficient petroleum, we killed a lot of whales throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in order to light our homes and lubricate our industries, driving most species to the brink of extinction.
And just like that, we’re back to killing whales to light our homes.
And now that we are choosing to move away from petroleum to so-called “renewables,” it looks like we’re back to killing whales for our energy. Not directly this time, but indirectly, which is perhaps even more tragic.
A new documentary, Thrown to the Wind, details how the underwater sound pollution and increased boat traffic related to the construction of off shore wind turbines is contributing to a massive spike in whale deaths off the coast of New England, New York, and New Jersey. Longer term, the filmmakers worry that there is a danger that the wave effect created by the spinning blades will kill off plankton, the primary food source for the whales, including humpback and the endangered North Atlantic right whale, of which there are only a little more than three hundred left on the planet.
The high-decibel sonar mapping that is currently taking place can disorient the whales causing mothers and calves to separate. Young calves can’t survive long without access to their mother’s milk. In addition to the stress separation causes the animals, the confusion and panic is in some cases driving the whales to wander into boat traffic or poorer feeding grounds.
But what, you ask, does this have to do with us in Vermont way up here in the mountains and so far from the seashore? Vermont’s Global Warming Solutions Act and resulting Climate Action Plan are forcing us to electrify all sectors of our economy including home heating and transportation with so-called “clean” energy – that is if you consider a bunch of seventy-ton rotting corpses on the beach “clean”. To meet these goals, we need a lot more “renewable” electricity than anybody currently produces. And to that end, Vermont lawmakers were counting on importing a big chunk of that offshore wind electricity when it comes online. So, Vermont’s motto is “kill the whales to save the planet!”
But there is some good news for the whales of late, though it’s not an awakening of compassion for endangered species in the hearts of our so-called environmentalists. It just turns out that offshore wind power sucks.
According to an NBC Boston story on October 3, “With legal deadlines looming on the path to more clean energy, Massachusetts has now lost three-quarters of the offshore wind capacity once in its pipeline after regulators on Friday allowed another developer to back out of contracts for a major installation.” Developers of offshore wind in New Jersey and Maryland are running into similar issues. Across the Pond, the British government apparently got zero bids to build their latest round of offshore wind projects.
The reason for these companies backing out is costs. Planting these massive turbines in the middle of the ocean is a lot more expensive than anyone dared think. A big part of that expense is the inflationary policies of the Biden Administration, which led the developers to declare these projects are “no longer financially viable,” at the price they originally agreed to.
Whales aren’t the only beneficiaries of the dropped offshore wind contracts. Electric rate payers will enjoy a windfall (I think there’s a pun in there somewhere). In breaking their contracts, “SouthCoast Wind [developer] will pay $32.4 million to Eversource [electricity supplier], $27.3 million to National Grid and $591,000 to Unitil under the termination agreements, and the utilities plan to credit payments to ratepayers through contract adjustments.”
This relief may be short term, as the projects will now go out to bid again – but this time at even higher costs to ratepayers/taxpayers. If these wind factories do eventually get built and go online, the cost of the electricity they produce will be astronomical. Looking at the trends, “In June, the International Energy Agency reported that the cost of large-scale solar and wind power jumped by about 20% last year…. LevelTen Energy recently found that the agreed price on power purchase agreements for wind and solar projects more than doubled between 2020 and the second quarter of 2023.” (Robert Bryce, 10/4/23)
All this points to the coming train wreck our lawmakers are setting us up for – shortages of electricity supply because the kind of generation they are willing to allow can’t be built, and sky-high prices because the kind of generation they are willing to allow is crazy expensive (and will be scarce, driving up costs even more).
The lessons here are that wind power is not environmentally friendly, and it is not cost effective. And even if it were, its intermittent, weather-dependent generation isn’t particularly practical. It’s certainly not worth risking the extinction of several species to produce.
Hopefully the continued failure of offshore wind projects is enough to save the whales from the self-proclaimed environmentalists. But I still worry for the five species of endangered bats we have here in Vermont helping to organically control the insect population and pollenate our landscape. It will be harder to keep our politicians from killing them off with ridgeline wind towers in our own back yard. It’s definitely a bizarre way to “save the planet.”
Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics, including three years of service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free-market think tank. He is also a regular contributor to VermontGrok.
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If you were wondering what might happen in the wake of Kevin McCarthy’s departure from the House Speakership, here’s something trivial and amusing to start your day. The Speaker pro tempore has booted Nancy Pelosi from her “extra” office.
“Please vacate the space tomorrow, the room will be re-keyed,” an email sent to Pelosi’s office viewed by Politico stated. The email added that the room will be used “for speaker office use.”
Pelosi is currently using a hideaway office, which only a handful of members receive. Given that she is speaker emerita, McCarthy allowed Pelosi to occupy the space. McHenry, who is a McCarthy ally, is clearly less keen on it.
Tomorrow was last Wednesday, but Pelosi isn’t out yet.
“Sadly, because I am in California to mourn the loss of and pay tribute to my dear friend Dianne Feinstein, I am unable to retrieve my belongings at this time,” said Pelosi, who missed Tuesday’s vote in which McCarthy was ousted.
Wait, it gets better.
She slammed the move, calling it “a sharp departure from tradition.”
Isn’t the entire Democrat agenda a departure from tradition?
The post On Day One: Acting US House Speaker Kicks Nancy Pelosi Out of Special ‘Second Office’ appeared first on Granite Grok.
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Planned Parenthood has such a positive ring. It sounds like an incredible organization for women and families that supports the place of Parenthood in the American culture. You could not be more wrong.
You would be equally incorrect if you thought reproductive rights had anything to do with helping women through their pregnancy and the birth of their child.
Planned Parenthood is a deadly destructive organization that prides itself on supporting abortion rights and providing abortion and pregnancy prevention services. Created initially as a network of inner-city abortion clinics aimed at controlling the growing Black population, Planned Parenthood is now recognized as the go-to spot in city or suburb alike to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
Along the way, they have become politically active, supporting Pro-Choice candidates and causes with our money. Planned Parenthood receives money directly through Medicaid reimbursements and Health and Human Services grants. They are double-dipping as they work tirelessly to shrink our population through birth control and abortion, helped by $50 Million in taxpayer dollars annually.
If being complicit in killing over 300,000 unwanted fetuses a year is not bad enough, Planned Parenthood has found a new income stream tragically dangerous to young women nationally. Planned Parenthood now offers hormone treatments and counseling to young people who want to transition their gender.
These are statements from the Planned Parenthood Website:
Planned Parenthood is now a one-stop resource for counseling, treatment regimens, and approvals for life-altering surgery. Planned Parenthood is not new to this industry. They have offered “transgender care” since at least 2017. However, it’s notable that since the ruling on Roe V. Wade, they have expanded their offerings as the services become more popular, particularly amongst young people, and the income from Abortion services declined.
Not just a source for treatment for patients over 18, in several states, including California, Oregon, and Washington, minors as young as 12 or 13 can receive “mental health treatment,” including “gender identity affirmation,” without parental consent or disclosing information to parents.
Sadly, Planned Parenthood began receiving federal funds in the 70s when Republican Richard Nixon started it. Like any other program in Washington, the money flow becomes perpetual once funded. Planned Parenthood has never been anything but a political money-making machine. The problem for me is I do not want to see a dime of my tax dollars funding abortion or gender transitioning. That perpetual funding needs to stop. This would be a great organization to break tradition and lose Government funds.
The post Stop Financing It Or At Least Rename It appeared first on Granite Grok.
Thirty-four New Hampshire Republican State Reps. have endorsed me in the NHCD2 race. Please check out who they are. They are great people, and I am very grateful for their trust at this early stage while my campaign is kicking into higher gear.
Please Submit Group communications or Press Releases to editor@granitegrok.com.
Submission is not a guarantee of publication – Publication is not an endorsement.
I would like to invite you to join us for my campaign kickoff event on Oct. 13 Friday, from 4 pm to 7 pm at Hackleboro Orchard, 61 Orchard Rd, Canterbury, NH. Please come to meet my father, younger brother, and sister-in-law as they visit me in NH. Enjoy some home-style Chinese Spring Rolls and other good food that they will be helping to make.
By the way, if you want to know where my fighting spirit comes from, please read this op-ed I published two years ago about my father: My Hero: A Father’s Day Tribute – Union Leader.
A $50 donation per person is suggested for this first fundraiser. The event flyer is attached here below. Please let me know if you can make it – RSVP to my team lead: Matt@lilytangwilliams.com.
If you can donate now, please do so to help me out because my quarterly filing is coming up at the end of this month. Every dollar you contribute helps my campaign show strong grassroots support from the people. I can’t be stopped from telling my story of the American Dream and defending it with all of my energy.
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Balancing the budget is like getting to heaven—most folks know what to do to get there. It’s just that they don’t want to do it. That’s probably unfair to the faithfully upright who actually walk the walk, but the analogy is a perfect fit for Washington politicians who put the federal budget over the family budget.
Over the last few years, we have been witness to the greatest fiscal blowout in our nation’s history, much of it due to an orgy of ‘emergency’ pandemic relief spending. When we accumulated large amounts of debt during WWII, we cut the budget and paid off the war bonds in a peacetime recovery.
Today, the spending is virtually baked-in.
The administration’s post-COVID 2024 budget of $6.9 trillion includes everything from Ukraine funding to student debt forgiveness to the expansion of Medicaid and Obamacare, covering 700,000 undocumented ‘dreamers.’ (RELATED: REP. ANDY BIGGS: Congress Can’t Continue The Budget Insanity. We’re Standing Against A Continuing Resolution)
Its record deficit, however, isn’t for lack of revenue. Federal receipts are now $5 trillion dollars annually, up from $3.3 trillion just five years ago. Put another way, had spending stayed even close to what it was when I served on the House Budget Committee in 2018, we’d have a massive surplus.
As it stands, Biden’s deficit this year (including the taxpayer bailout of student debt) is approaching $2 trillion. At $33 trillion, our gross national debt is quickly outpacing our ability to service it. Interest payments on government borrowing are up 30% and heading towards a trillion dollars per year as ten-year treasury rates shoot upward.
Fitch has downgraded U.S. credit ratings.
Predictably, the very same people who had no trouble shutting down the entire economy are the ones hyperventilating about a temporary, non-essential (many federal employees are still working remotely) government shutdown that leaves entitlements untouched.
It’s a broken budget process that leaves us with these all-or-nothing propositions—either keep bankrupting the country and our children or shut down part of the government.
It happens every fall.
Naturally, it plays right into the big spender’s strategy as they load as many ornaments as they can on the Christmas Tree until it has something everyone likes—and everyone will vote for. These are called omnibus bills, the usual result of the failure to pass the 12 annual appropriations bills.
But ‘regular order’ is no panacea either. The reason the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) has held up ‘separate single-subject’ spending bills (that they say they want) is that out-of-control appropriators continue to run amok over authorizing committees and toothless budget resolutions.
Big spenders in control of a uniparty demanding an “open-ended commitment” to Ukraine are just as responsible for ‘shutting down’ the government as the hardliners getting the blame. It is they who want a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep Biden-era levels of discretionary spending totaling $1.6 trillion on autopilot for 2024.
Yet, HFC holdouts from safe Red districts have deluded themselves into thinking fiscal restraint is plausible even within their own party under a Mitch McConnell Senate and a Don Bacon ‘Problem Solvers’ Caucus—let alone a Biden White House.
Perhaps because they know a ‘shutdown’ won’t hurt them like it will the rest of the Republican caucus in tougher districts when the media start blaming it for a ‘shutdown’ that only an endless series of CRs can prevent.
That’s the hand Speaker Kevin McCarthy was dealt when he negotiated this year’s debt ceiling bill. The Fiscal Responsibility Act reduced baseline spending by $2.1 trillion over six years and, more importantly, reinstated sequester-lite cuts over the next two should Congress fail to pass the 12 appropriations bills by the end of January.
That’s exactly what Republicans should let happen because sequesters work.
Recall the 2011 Budget Control Act forced automatic cuts in discretionary spending should it exceed the limits set forth in the agreement, absent a broader deficit reduction package. The trillion dollar ‘sequester’ came about as deficits approached a whopping 10% of GDP following the Bush-Obama-era of reckless ‘stimulus’ spending.
The results were as predictable as they were astounding. Real spending declined, deficits shrank, and the economy grew under a modicum of fiscal restraint that was still “one of the rare success stories for smaller government in living memory.”
Do I have to tell you what came next?
Both sides of the aisle quickly got together and passed deals that broke the caps while pretending to extend sequestration in name only. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 was one such scheme to bust discretionary spending limits for FY2018 and FY2019.
I voted against it.
But, as I detail in Party Animal, the Truth About President Trump, Power Politics & the Partisan Press:
A gleeful Sen. Schumer celebrated throwing out the “pointless and arbitrary sequester caps to the ash heaps of history” in the 2018 Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA). Oh, and the BBA also increased spending by $400 billion over the next two years. Soon, Schumer & Co. were demanding a massive, $130 billion hike in social spending as the price for ‘plussing-up’ the Department of Defense.
Of course, the only thing “pointless and arbitrary” about the spending caps is that they could be suspended so easily. And both parties and all their factions are to blame. (RELATED: PAUL MUELLER: Uncle Sam Has A Credit Card Problem)
Democrats are simply willing to forsake the country for vote buying. And GOP budget hawks are no match for the party’s defense hawks—including HFC holdouts Matt Gaetz and Chip Roy, who voted for a budget-busting $826 billion Pentagon bill.
For reference, when I was in Congress just a few years ago, the DOD was allocated $547 billion under BCA-enforced levels.
The Fiscal Responsibility Act was never going to tame a woke Pentagon budget that Schumer so easily leveraged for more social spending. But it did reestablish some restraint in non-defense discretionary outlays. Unfortunately, the $246 billion in automatic spending cuts for FY2024 and FY2025 fall on just a small fraction of a gargantuan federal budget.
We know what we need to see the Pearly Gates of debt reduction—a real budget sequester that’s free from bipartisan exemptions and includes mandatory spending, the DOD, and the rest of the federal Leviathan.
Don’t hold your breath.
Former Congressman Jason Lewis is the author of “Party Animal, The Truth About President Trump, Power Politics and the Partisan Press.” He also writes at jasonlewis.substack.com.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack page, which can be viewed here.
Jason Lewis | Daily Caller News Service
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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The post There’s Only One Way To Tame The Runaway Federal Debt appeared first on Granite Grok.
The Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire (RFFNH) is paying Manchester Democrat Rep Alissandra Murray a salary to serve in the New Hampshire House, but she’s not, Rep Murry (D- RFFNH)?
And we’ve no clue where the money truly comes from – RFFNH has no filed 990s I can find, nor do we know how much they are paying Murray. Shouldn’t that be public information?
I’m going to assume it’s dark money, laundered downstream to a state-level franchise of some national special interest that has yet to file its own paperwork or has, and it hasn’t filtered through the system to become publicly available.
We don’t know.
And to be precise (as vodka), there is nothing wrong with downstreaming money to yet another so-called non-profit special interest. It’s all legal. The issue here is whether a State House Democrat can accept a salary from a lobbyist for the sole purpose of being able to (afford to) serve in the legislature (and vote the way they ask).
She is on the payroll. Is that a problem?
The easiest way to answer the question is to say, “Would it be a problem if she were a Republican?” The answer to that is most certainly yes. Would it be a problem if she never disclosed it (which she has not)? The answer is yes. Will the legislature do anything about that? Probably not, though they could try to convince her to admit it and clarify that she should disclose it. But if you have spent any time here, you’ll know that getting the House Ethics Committee to rein people in is hit or miss and mostly miss, but I have a suggestion.
I think she should be made to wear one of those big bright Lobbyist stickers (and maybe not just her) whenever she’s in Concord doing the RFFNH’s business under the cover of Rep from Manchester. I also think it should be required that she indicate on all campaign materials that she is only running becasue a third party is paying her so she can represent … Them.
The legislators and other lobbyists and the people she claims to represent would know.
If they are all good with it, then as you were. If not? Maybe nothing. We’ll have to wait and see.
HT | NH Journal
The post Should Rep Murray Have to Wear a Lobbyist Badge Everytime She Sets Foot in the State House? appeared first on Granite Grok.
Institutions and the “Elites” within shattered the trust of ordinary citizens when, instead of staying with the Servant/Leader model in which they were subservient to the people, they decided to abrogate that relationship.
Emphasis mine (reformatted).
Overall, a clear pattern emerges: a marked and fairly widespread decline of public confidence in science since the pandemic. While, historically, Americans’ confidence in science has remained high relative to confidence in other institutions, this gap now appears to be narrowing.
The pandemic surely played a role, especially controversial policies such as school closures and masking young children. There’s little doubt the conduct of scientific, political and media elites contributed as well — from policy mistakes like the botched rollout of diagnostic tests to mixed and misleading messaging on masking to the dishonesty of politicians who failed to follow their own rules to efforts within government, the media and the scientific community to suppress dissent.
The English sociologist Anthony Giddens once observed that modern societies are uniquely dependent on trust, particularly trust in what he termed “abstract systems.” Members of smaller traditional societies are embedded in face-to-face relationships with neighbors, friends and family members. By contrast, we are dependent on a vast array of interconnected social institutions, especially expert institutions, which involve “faceless commitments” to those we do not (and usually cannot) know personally.
It is characteristic of these abstract systems that we cannot opt out, at least not entirely. Sustaining trust in them therefore becomes a basic requirement for the functioning of modern societies. Essential to this process is what Mr. Giddens calls “access points”: interactions between lay citizens and individual members (or representatives) of abstract systems; think of experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci or even your family physician.
Such interactions provide opportunities for experts vested with authority not only to exemplify the requisite skills but also to exhibit the character traits — rectitude, professionalism, disinterestedness — needed to generate and sustain the trust of those lay individuals who depend on them. If your doctors lie to you or put their financial interests ahead of yours, you will probably stop trusting them. If their behavior appears egregious enough, it might shake your confidence in the entire medical establishment. Access points are where trust is established and sustained or broken and lost; they are vulnerabilities in abstract systems.
The Covid-19 crisis simultaneously laid bare our dependence on abstract systems and shook many Americans’ confidence in them. From this point of view, expert institutions lost the public’s trust not only because of unpopular policies but also because prominent representatives of these institutions either were or were perceived as being self-interested rather than disinterested, politically motivated rather than dispassionate.
Instead of serving, they demanded. Instead of “being of service,” they expected to be served. Instead of “obeying” normal social norms, they decided they could create new ones and expect the rest of us, on command, to hew to them.
They believed themselves to be indispensable to “the unwashed masses.” They, and whatever “mission” they had and followed, believed that we didn’t matter. Do as we tell you to, peon!
These same people act astonished at how little we really care about what they do and what they think. They failed to read poll after poll on how we perceived them. They failed to think “Er, wrong move? Wrong way? Too condescending?”
And in the world of politics, too maniacal about what they can get away with?
We SAW what they did in the past. We SEE what they are doing now. Unlike what they believe about our “incapabilities,” we can extrapolate what they want to do with us in the future. WEF: “You will own nothing and be happy about it.” The Democrat Party: “Have less, do less, be less.” And the Republicans, “What, you’re surprised we won’t fight for what YOU think is important – But please still send us money and your votes.”
These institutions have gained power at our expense. Our lack of trust has not reached its deepest depth, but when it does, there will be a reckoning they will never see coming.
Certainly, the now-former Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, thought he’d survive this skirmish of the disaffected. “So what if I made promises to get your votes – you’ll never hold me responsible!”
Like him or not, Gaetz made it clear that it is up to us to hold those who should be accountable ACCOUNTABLE. Decisions have consequences, but we haven’t laid into delivering those consequences for FAR too long.
We need to start NOW – and there are LOTS of targets to choose from. Go ahead, pick even a small one and both how fun it can be and the results that stem from it afterward. It may be HARD, and it may be FRUSTRATING – and require lots of patience and persistence and a sense of “Pest Mode,” but trust me, you will have a sense of accomplishment almost unobtainable by any other fashion.
HT | Instapundit
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In January, the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, at its annual meeting, passed a resolution by majority vote to close the Republican primary. Only registered Republicans would be able to pick their nominees. So why, then, is it not closed?
The pat answer, the one you’ll get from leadership, is that the wording in the resolution violated state law, but after reading an exchange between an inquisitive voter and the New Hampshire Secretary of State, that answer is, at best misleading, and, at worst, a bald-faced lie. While ‘The Party” claims that a resolution is non-binding and that a By-Law change is required, the secretary of State – unless I misunderstand the plain language he uses – need only receive a letter from the party Chairman (in writing) to close the primary.
10/4/2023
Hi xxxxxxx,
By statute the party chair is to notify the Secretary of State in writing if there is a change regarding which voters can participate in a party primary. I have not received any written communication in that regard.
[AND, in a follow up response, to question by the same curious voter regarding the deadline for notification]
…a political party can notify me in writing up until close of business next Tuesday.
Dave
By “next Tuesday,” Secretary of State Scanlan means October tenth.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the State does not appear to care what the mechanism of rule change is, only that the Party tells him in writing what it requires by October tenth, end of day.
So, does the language conflict with state statute? Before the response above, the curious voter asked for the Statute, which SoS Scanlan promptly provided.
Voting Procedure
Section 659:14
659:14 Special Provisions for State and Presidential Primary Elections. –
I. A person desiring to vote at a state or presidential primary election shall, at the time of announcing the person’s name, also announce the name of the party to which the person belongs or whether the person is registered as an undeclared voter. If the person’s party membership has been registered before, the person shall be given only the ballot of the party with which the person is registered, unless the person desires to vote the ballot of a party not having official existence at the time the person’s party membership was previously registered, in which case the person may vote the ballot of such a party in the state primary election immediately following the political organization’s official existence as a party, and not in any subsequent state primary election. A person may also vote the ballot of such a party in the presidential primary election only if the presidential primary election precedes the state primary election to be held in that same year. If the rules of a party permit a person who is registered as an undeclared voter to vote in the party’s primary, any person desiring to vote in that party’s primary shall also announce the name of that party at the time of announcing the person’s name. No person shall be permitted to vote in any more than one party primary during any primary election.
II. The secretary of State shall include on the voter instruction cards required by RSA 658:28 whether a party rule has been adopted which permits a person who is registered as an undeclared voter to vote in the party’s primary. The party chairman shall notify the secretary of State in writing prior to the filing period for state offices whether the party has adopted such a rule. This rule shall not be changed or rescinded by a party until the results of the primary have been announced, and any change or rescission shall be mailed to the secretary of State by the party chairman.
As you can see, nothing there appears to conflict with anything other than the lack of notification by the Party to the Secretary of State, as observed in the response from the curious voter.
Thank you for providing me the RSA relative to party primary rules. I am not finding anything where the resolution that was voted on and passed by the state committee members present at the January meeting violates any provision of that RSA. Are you able to help me understand the rationale here?
You have already read the Secretary of State’s response. “…the party chair is to notify the Secretary of State in writing if there is a change regarding which voters can participate in a party primary. I have not received any written communication in that regard.”
Why has that not then happened?
There is more.
The original sponsor of the change, Karen Testerman, just sent a letter to NHGOP Chairman Chris Ager, seeking to address these contradictions.
As you know, at the 2023 annual meeting of the NHGOP held on January 28, 2023, the attached resolution closing the primaries to all but registered Republicans was formally adopted by the body consisting of the required quorum of members of the NHGOP state committee.
As you must also know, there is absolutely no distinction between a “Resolution” and a “By-Law” provision contained in the governing documents of the NHGOP.
Thus, it was your duty under the provisions of NH RSA 669:14-II to give written notice to the NH Secretary of State of the adoption of this resolution, but it is understood that you have not done so.
Additionally, the Bylaw Committee contacted me via phone stating that the amendment submitted should be a resolution. Further they requested that I withdraw the bylaw amendment. Now in your correspondence with others you are stating that this resolution should be a bylaw. I am confused as to which process is correct.
Further, it is my understanding that there has not been any “rule” adopted by the NHGOP that would permit “a person who is registered as an undeclared voter to vote in the party’s primary” as described in RSA 669:14-II.
Thus, this is a formal demand that you comply with your duties a chairman of the NHGOP and send formal written notice to the NH Secretary of State of the adoption of the attached resolution by which the party primaries of the NHGOP must be closed and reaffirm that the NHGOP has never adopted any rule that would permit a person who is registered as an undeclared voter to vote in the party’s primary.
Very truly yours,
If there is no legal issue in the Secretary of State’s mind, what are we waiting for?
The deadline for submitting the change in writing fast approaches, and the only thing that appears to be standing between New Hampshire Republicans and a closed primary – for which its state committee voted – is a brief written message, making it so.
What, exactly, is the problem?
The post The Republican State Committee Voted to Close the NH Republican Primary, So Why Isn’t It Closed? appeared first on Granite Grok.
California Gov Gavin “Hair Gel” Newsom (with that winsome smile and those You can trust me, I’m not like the others” eyes) just did this after the passing of Dianne “I’d take all the guns if I had the votes” Feinstein.
I am still trying to get back into a blogging rhythm, so my apologies if things are not “smooth” just yet; please bear with me.
When Gavin Newsom chose Laphonza Butler to replace the Diane Feinstein as Senator for California he may have selected less as a person than a set of intersecting categories.”
Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Childism, Eco-Socialism, Socialism, Communism, and Marxism (which encompasses ALL of the previous categories). They truly believe that you are only a Group – not an Individual. You are only as good as your Group and your Group is only as good as the current jumbling of all of the other competing Groups on the Progressive political Totem Pole.
Think I’m kidding?
Ask white, middle-aged gays who used to be at the top of the totem pole (right, Ray Buckley, head of the NH Democrat Party?) about the latest manifestation of the sub-sub-sub-species of Transgender micro-groupettes.
Related: Gov Nuisance Chooses ‘Non-Resident’ to Fill Empty US Senate Seat … Snubs Millions of Illegals!
Did Newsom pick someone of a high level of Merit? Is she known for outstanding service to others of all ages? Does she at least live in the State that she is supposed to represent?
Right race, right sexual orientation, a unionista, a baby killer. Check, check, check, and check. Oh, living in California upon appointment? Oopsies – Maryland. What, California didn’t have enough or the “right” people to check those boxes? Heh – Newsome really believes that Californians are the best, right (snicker)?
Checking the boxes means completing the required Venn diagram density – and Laphonza Butler checked them all. Well, almost – can she self-fund? Doesn’t matter, I guess. Want to find out more about her – The Atlantic (a VERY progressive site) has more details.
OK, she has merit. But would a white older guy with the same credentials have been tapped?
Really, you have to ask me that question?
Oh, as an aside, the picture of her is from her US Senate Page: https://www.butler.senate.gov/:
…appointed as a Democrat to the United States Senate on October 1, 2023, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Dianne Feinstein; took the oath of office on October 3, 2023
That was rather quick, wasn’t it?
HT | Instapundit
The post The “End Point” of DIE Meets Critical Race Theory in Progressive Politics appeared first on Granite Grok.
It is NOT hyperbole to say that our government is corrupt … perhaps irremediably corrupt. And that goes for the State government in New Hampshire, too. For example, Sun-King Sununu made one of his minions the Insurance Commissioner despite that minion having no qualifications for the job.
And that goes for the local government, as well. Who voted to have “diversity” directors, officers, etc., running public schools?
But just keep shouting “New Hampshire Advantage,” the “Constitution is the solution,” blah, blah, blah …
This is GREAT…. Whoever did it.
pic.twitter.com/rBlPY8k9Ae
— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) October 5, 2023
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To all those who are sending in memes, thank you! Keep them coming please, as it helps me gather weaponry to fight the Left. Please do share this post, and if you share an individual meme, consider mentioning you saw it on the Grok!
Speaking of, from this week, Monday Edition and Wednesday Edition.
*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***
>>>>>=====<<<<<
Which is why they cannot take everything away from you. Because then you have nothing to lose – and are very likely to go looking for the people that took it.
That famous Truman quote comes to mind…
I remember this and the utter panic that ensued. Funny how the actual truth never got much play.
What a coincidence.
Men going to war travel alone. Men fleeing war bring their families. Remember this quote (embedded in my essay here):
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.”
Hijra – conquest by migration and demographics – is a real thing.
You searched for hijra – Political Islam
And please understand that I’m not advocating or recommending anything here. But people like the above need to remember the (adapted) adage that no matter how powerful the financier, a 400 yard “attitude adjustment” will seriously cramp his style. See my note about people who have had everything taken from them.
It was not just the inconvenient fact of the pore sizes that I encountered on my journey into skepticism. It was the rapid pivot from “Wear a mask to protect yourself” to “Wear a mask to protect others”. I.e., empathy got weaponized. something that made me very suspicious. Same for The Jab. It was all about “Protect grandma”.
Excellent find / observation.
Oh please please please please please. I certainly would read his obituary with great pleasure (channeling the Mark Twain quote).
I’ve seen pictures and videos of people discussing the essentially-completely redacted contracts. From multiple countries.
This is a very uncomfortable truth, I think.
Think that through.
>>>>>=====<<<<<
Pick of the Post:
I keep seeing tyranny / one world government being predicted with varying forms of “Whether you want it or not”. My reply:
On the plus side, that hair would make a nice ID point through a scope. See my comment, above, about 400 yard attitude adjustments.
Again, let me be 100% clear. I am not advocating such. I don’t want to see such actions happening. But at some point men (and women) who just wanted to be left alone will be left with little option:
>>>>>=====<<<<<
Palate Cleansers:
—
—
>>>>>=====<<<<<
And don’t forget… come back Monday for another edition. Same Meme Time. Same Meme channel.
The post Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.
The ACLU just did something extraordinary. In an eye toward overturning laws in Kentucky and Tennessee that prohibited gender drugs or surgery for children, they grabbed the LGBT narrative by its meaningless genitals and twisted.
But the Court didn’t scream the way they expected.
You can wander the “ruling” weeds here if that’s your thing, and more is divulged here, but I’d like to focus on two critical points that cut the hairy legs out from under the noise machine of the transgender agenda.
The gender spectrum is not just a spectrum. It is a moving target. Chapter and verse profess to us that anyone can be anywhere on that spectrum at any time. Gender is not fixed. This argument undermines the previous cornerstone of gender hijinks: I was born that way. The latter confirms that sex parts matter – you are, after all, born that way, while the former affirms that everything else is in your head space – a mental health issue.
In defending the right of parents to mutilate children or give them dangerous drugs that could kill them, the ACLU insisted that Transgender status is immutable, like skin color. The Court said, wait just one damn minute.
Citations removed.
To establish a new classification, plaintiffs must show that transgender individuals “exhibit obvious, immutable, or distinguishing characteristics that define them as a discrete group.” It is difficult to see, at least at this stage of the case, how transgender identity fits that description. Unlike existing suspect classes, transgender identity is not “definitively ascertainable at the moment of birth.” It is not necessarily immutable, as the stories of “detransitioners” indicate and as plaintiffs do not dispute. Instead of defining a “discrete group,” “transgender” can describe “a huge variety of gender identities and expressions.”
11/ The ACLU also attempted to argue that transgender status is “immutable,” like being born with a certain skin color. But the Sixth Circuit observed that the meaning of “transgender” status is constantly changing. Every day there’s a new gender. pic.twitter.com/IY8lS3SZKq
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 29, 2023
The only thing special about it is how it cannot be classified as immutable.
The second of those things I wanted to point out related to parental rights. You may have heard. Parents don’t have any. Ask a school board, Teacher’s Union Boss, one of their dues-paying flunkies, or the United States Attorney General. Efforts to define rights are hills to die on for Gender Cultists and their abettors in the Democrat party. Thou shalt not legislate parental rights.
The ACUL, in arguing against the laws in Tennessee and Kentucky passed to protect children from their parents – the same thing the Gender cult says we need – insisted the opposite.
[T]he Sixth Circuit wasn’t done. They also ripped apart the familiar argument that parents should be allowed to do whatever they want with their kids,” he said. “As the Sixth Circuit pointed out, that’s completely illogical. You have to look specifically at what parents are doing to their children. Being a parent doesn’t give you the right to mutilate your child.”
The ACLU and the Gender Cult want you to believe that parents have no rights unless you mean mutilating children. Not just any mutilation. A very specific, politically driven one. There is no right to have fingers removed, or perhaps an ear, but breasts or penis? As for drugs, no parent may encourage the prescribing or use of drugs ill-suited to children, but hormone blockers, which are unapproved and have dangerous side effects, including death, should be protected.
To say yes to either argument would be to legalize Munchausen Syndrome by proxy, which, as I observed back in 2019, meant that,
That these parents got the added benefit of defending their child from the discrimination they’d never have faced were it not for the parent. It’s like a Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy double-tap. You not only created a condition in your child to feed off them like a psychological lamprey, but you get the added bonus of ranting about how unfair the world is to the child re-gendered.
A US Circuit court has determined that the ACLU’s arguments are contradictory and, in doing so, undermined a cornerstone of the gender cults foundation, not that they could ever have one. I mean, what is a cornerstone anyway? And what if it doesn’t want to identify as a stone or a corner?
Jeesh.
HT | Daily Wire
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Why was the thought “like bringing a Michelin star level 10-course tasting meal to a 6-year-old” rolling through my head when I saw this?
(click to embiggen)
Given the national fiasco that was the 2022 “Red Tide to a Red Eyedropper”mid-terms, (and – I’ll be kinder than I should here, “less than stellar” NHGOP midterm performance and in every special election since) WHY would I think that the electorate is going to vote how they speak?
Look at those results since Biden took office. As Powerline says, “It finds that Democrats’ standing with voters has declined significantly since 2020, while Republicans have gained.” For each column, left to right:
But polling, even while favorable here, doesn’t get people to the polls. Only GREAT Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts do. For years, I have asked the Republican organization here to do just that – REALLY organize for a long time using lots of strategies and nailing down every grunt-level activity perfectly.
Yeah, a prophet in my own mind.
The table is being set, not by the Republicans but by the Democrats trying to rip the tablecloth out from underneath us all but calling it goodness. People are seeing that it’s not, and given that the Dems are continuing their headlong rush, who knows?
As in these other stories, like, “Democrats increasingly embrace censorship from the government and Big Tech: Poll.”
Their decades-long rush through our institutions and denigrating the precepts of the Constitution and the Rights it is supposed to protect are coming to fruition.
HT | Powerline
The post Can the “Snatch-Defeat-From-Victory Party” Keep From Screwing This Up? appeared first on Granite Grok.
The internet applauded when the citizens of Chicago, or whoever stuffs the ballot boxes in that corrupt city, kicked incumbent mayor Lori Lightfoot to the political curb. Her replacement, however, hasn’t received much in the way of applause since taking office.
He inherited a vast criminal enterprise in a city plagued by crime. Small businesses always had difficulty prospering, but since the Summer of Love, those who were not burned out are leaving or have just gone out of business. They can’t afford to operate thanks to the aforementioned crime exacerbated by Inflation, employment issues, regulation, and did I mention crime?
Those are old problems, systemic – as the Left likes to say. This is Chicago, and these are not things another Democrat mayor will address in any meaningful way. Their predecessors broke the system for the benefit of a few and left a lot of people behind. But now they’ve got another problem. It is new to freshman Mayor Brandon Johnson but pre-exists his reign.
Thousands of illegal aliens have blown into the Windy City since the elevation of Stumblin’ Joe and Fumblin’ Kamala. The same Democrats who helped them, and Chicago’s Brandon, into positions of power have discovered that thing about being a sanctuary city they don’t like. The illegal aliens. They are invading their city like a horde of zombies seeking sanctuary.
Both were fooled. Chicago Democrats didn’t want these zombies and lacked the brains to feed them.
I honestly have no idea if the invaders are aware of the irony or if they even care, but the Democrat zombies who voted for this are confused. Their virtue signal has been scrambled by the smell wafting from the stench of the huddled masses (with iPhones, wearing Adidas) yearning to be freeloaders. We didn’t ask for this, they shout. And don’t these politicians work for us?
WATCH: Enraged Deep-blue Chicago residents TAKE OVER City Forum HECKLING Democrat mayor for trying to set up colony of illegal migrants in middle of city:
“YOU WORK FOR US!”
pic.twitter.com/dc0zdgWMib
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 4, 2023
It is amusing to watch Democrats yelling at Democrats over the impact of Democrat policy not long before the Democrat Presidential Convention arrives in Chicago to anoint the next ‘Brandon.’ But are disgruntled voters of Chicago capable of grasping how they got here from there? Do they understand the change they need?
I don’t think they are clever enough to work it out.
My state borders Massachusetts. It is full of corrupt Dems who set fire to the cradle of liberty before stomping on its ashes and tossing them into a deep hole. They call it a commonwealth, but the only thing they have in common is generational ignorance. They vote Democrat because that’s what their parents and grandparents did. Their neighbors, co-workers, random crooks, and near-do-wells pull the lever for the D-Team like brainless zombies. And like Chicago, they need a twelve-step program.
They need to admit that they have a political addiction, which has made their lives unmanageable. That there is a power greater than the government and the Democrat Party. That they need to take a fearless moral inventory of the Democrat Party’s failures. In the case of Chicago, that greater power is the people in the Constitutional Republic they have for generations been working to undermine.
And that is what is so amusing. These Democrats are working for you, and this is what that looks like. If it is a different outcome you seek, only you can make that possible, but you’ll have to stop electing Democrats, and I don’t think you know how.
The post Chicago Has a Zombie Problem appeared first on Granite Grok.
