One of my favorite Dalrymple quotes is (paraphrased) that misery will always rise to meet the government subsidies created to alleviate it. And so it is with residential solar. The number of installs near my home has exploded, as has another interesting habit.

Related: Biden’s Green Future Makes Solar Panels More Dangerous to You and the Environment

We have had, for years, a handful of homes nearby with solar on them, several of which appeared to be bad decisions. Limited sun exposure or obstructions make them of minimal, if any, benefit. That’s not uncommon in a state like New Hampshire, which is in a neighborhood of 90% forested. We’ve got a lot of trees. Tract neighborhoods have fewer as do homes in cities – the few we have – but there are a lot of homes surrounded by oak, maple, and white pine, to name a few. They block the sun, and solar is already inefficient and unreliable in the Northeast, so the solution to that problem is simple. Remove the trees.

Oh, the irony.

We need solar because of CO2, but to have solar, we need to remove CO2 syncs so the solar companies get paid, the tree people get paid, and someone else pays for cut wood, not that we don’t have plenty of that already without the solar installs.

But it happens – the tree removal. I’ve seen “neighbors” clear their yard of trees for no apparent reason, only to (a few weeks or months later) find their roofs littered with a new solar installation. It’s not just existing solar installs but pre-installs.

It’s as if Solar companies, catalyzed by government meddling in the marketplace, are the Once-ler from The Lorax. Solar is the Thneed that everyone needs, and the only way to get that is to cut down the Trufula trees—Seussian prophecy, not at the hands of the irresponsible capitalist Once-ler but so-called environmentally conscious solar companies.

Related: Michael Moore’s Green Energy Documentary Admits “Solar and Wind are Not Going to Save Us”

It is not as awful a thing as clearing an acre or two for a solar farm or, absent that clearing, the devastation to everything else that was there when they dug up the land to install the footings and structure for the panels, which will keep the sun from reaching the ground. But it still strikes me as ridiculous and, at the same time, very much in keeping with the politics of the party pushing solar.

It’s like offshore wind saving the planet, but not for endangered whales or sea birds. But if government money is available, an industry or two will rise to ensure it gets spent on them, no matter what the other “costs.”

 

 

The post Is Residential Solar Bad for the Environment? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Don’t believe me?  Try this one on for size (reformatted, emphasis mine):

In a turn of events, Shannon revealed after 14 years of marriage, her husband met someone online who led him through a “medical transition.” Her husband also lost interest in partaking in certain activities with their children that he previously enjoyed doing. Furthermore, Shannon explained how gender ideology destroys the family unit. She shared:

“I think that gender is a lie. I don’t think that anybody can ever accomplish the goal of completely becoming the opposite sex. I believe it’s fraudulent therapy and fraudulent medicine. And it creates a lot of problems, not just the destruction of a family, which is serious enough. [But also] the erasure of fathers.”

Shannon added, “There’s this idea that runs through our society with this in other areas that adult fulfillment is more important than the family, more important than the marriage, more important than commitment. And that is why it’s harming families.”

Shannon also said her husband’s transition felt as hurtful as an “affair.”

She’s right, you know. Being one’s “authentic self” puts themselves FIRST above all other committments including one’s vow to their spouse and to their children. Doing what this “husband / father did” is a total rejection of what a husband and father is supposed to be – a Servant / Leader. While being the leader of a household (and yes, I believe in the traditional and Biblical ordering of a family, it means service to your wife FIRST and service to your children NEXT.  You’re supposed to be last.

This narcissist put himself FIRST and in doing so, willfully destroyed his wife, destroyed his children, and the family unit he had made a sacramental vow to protect. He was all happy-dappy to have “an affair” with himself.

How much more selfish could he have made himself.

Certainly, couldn’t get any more gullible, could he?

(H/T: IJR)

 

 

The post Notable Quote – Another Adjective for “Transgender” is Narcissistic appeared first on Granite Grok.

Electric vehicles cost more to insure. Minor accidents can result in damage that makes the vehicle unsafe or unrepairable. A parking lot fender bender could “total” your so-called green vehicle. But that’s not the only insurance cost driving up the price of EV ownership.

There have been multiple reports in recent years of freight ships catching fire.

 

Four hundred ninety-eight electric vehicles (EVs) and over 3,200 other vehicles, including 350 Mercedes Benzes, were bound for Egypt on the Fremantle Highway when one or more of the EVs caught fire, costing at least one seaman his life and injuring several others. Curiously, the Dutch coast guard had initially reported that only 25 of the vehicles were battery-electric models.

At last report, the Dutch coast guard admitted that it has been unable to put out the fire and that the ship has taken on water and is “listing” and on a trajectory toward a capsize. Should the ship sink, the total loss would also threaten the Frisian island of Ameland, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is home to over 10,000 aquatic and terrestrial species and located near one of the world’s most important migratory-bird habitats.

 

No worries. I’m sure all that front-end carbon to build all that and then all the emissions from burning plastic and electronics – including the rare earth metals and toxins (plus the ship), can be offset. Someone just needs to pay for a few indulgences. More than one someone, I suppose. That’s only one of several such fires. And if you recall, Havila Shipping, a self-proclaimed green Norweigen business, banned EVs from all its ships. The risk of EV fires was a threat to passengers, cargo, and crew—and, more likely than that, their insurance costs.

It has become the red-headed stepchild of the ocean freight industry, like child sexual assault in public schools. Everyone knows, but no one is supposed to talk about it, not outside the confines of the local community. Schools are trying to normalize it (grooming), but freight companies can’t do that. They either assume the risk and pay more to insure freight – which adds to the costs paid by consumers – or they refuse to ship them.

 

Just a year ago, the “Felicity Ace” sank as it was being towed from the site where 13 days earlier a fire had broken out on board. That ship, too, was transporting EVs and internal-combustion vehicles – including 15 Lamborghini Aventador LP 780-4 Ultimae supercars valued at half a million dollars apiece. Also lost were 1,117 Porches, 1,944 Audis, 561 Volkswagens, 189 Bentleys, and 70 other Lamborghinis.

And just a month ago, two firefighters died battling flames that broke out on another roll-on, roll-off (RORO) cargo ship docked at Port Newark in New Jersey. Firefighters arrived at the scene when just five to seven vehicles on the 10th floor of the ship were on fire, but the fire quickly spread to the 11th and 12th floors.

 

We’re talking about hundreds of millions in freight lost, plus the cost of the ship and the injury or death of crewmembers. It can’t be cheap or getting cheaper to cover the risk, which had me thinking along another vein. Having been Hazmat certified to ship lithium batteries in, with, or separate from electronic equipment, I’ve some small sense of the hurdles you must leap before you can ship or carry such material.

Cargo is no different. Every country has rules, plus the UN international rules. In the US, we have the UN and DOT, and no one seems to have resolved this recurring safety issue. The hoops one must jump to ship a tablet with a battery cannot be greater than massive EV batteries in assembled vehicles.

So what’s with the fires?

It’s a common question these days with Arson-induced wildfires in Australia, the US, and Canada—electrical fires in California in Maui. Deliberately set fires, all of which are impacting another green industry – carbon offsets. Companies and individuals “pay” third parties so they can emit like it’s 1979. These indulgences assuage their guilt, but as we’ve reported previously, are often scams.

 

The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.

 

According to tecent research published by The American Association For The Advancement Of Science (AAAS),

 

Thales West and colleagues evaluated 26 REDD+ projects in 6 countries worldwide and used synthetic control methods to estimate how much deforestation the projects prevented. West et al. found that most projects did not substantially reduce deforestation, and that the few that did reduced it much less than had been claimed. Furthermore, the authors show that a subset of 18 REDD+ projects have generated 62 million carbon-offset credits – 14.6 million of which have already been used by entities around the world to offset their carbon emissions. According to the study’s estimates, these projects have been used to offset nearly 3 times more carbon than their actual contributions to climate change mitigation.

 

When eco-terrorists or other actors set blazes or cause them, through inaction or inadequate action, to get out of control, they may have set fire to someone’s offset while releasing even more carbon and emissions into the biosphere. Just like peaceful protesters burning down black-owned businesses, the whole thing stinks like yesterday’s burneded up EVs.

 

 

The post Carbon Scams on Fire! appeared first on Granite Grok.

Parents Defending Education has a summary of the 1,040 School Districts in which School Boards have abused their Powers (Government has Powers, Individuals have Rights) in forcing their staff members, including teachers, to lie to Parents concerning the transgender/gender dysphoria of their children when asked (either tangentially or directly).

Here is the New Hampshire part of their list:

• Alton School District
• Barnstead School District
• Barrington School District
• Brentwood School District
• Claremont School District
• Dresden School District
• East Kingston School District
• Epping School District
• Errol Consolidated School District
• Exeter Region Cooperative
• Hanover School District
• Kensington School District
• Manchester School District
• Milford School District
• Monroe Consolidated Schools
• Newfields School District
• Pittsfield Schools
• Sanborn Regional School District
• Stratham School District
• School Administrative Unit 23
• Wakefield School District
• Windham School District

(Links to each school District are on the Parents Defending Education page)

I happily see that, after a two-and-a-half-year struggle, SAU73-Gilford School District is no longer listed in this, which shows that one person (with help!) can make a difference if courage and persistence are brought to the fore.

I also have a Right To Know outstanding to a school district in the Exeter Region Cooperative concerning this nasty issue.

Note that the Newfields School District is on this list – NH Governor Chris Sununu’s hometown. I suppose that he is just FINE with this, given that he gave the Left the Green Light when he signed the bill making gender identity a “protected class,” forcing normal Parents with normal children to start a years-long fight to protect them against the Trans-Authoritarians.

And even though NH State Rep Mike Bordes (R- Laconia) isn’t Transgender (that I know of), he certainly is a card-carrying member of the Trans-Authoritarian Club as he has avidly voted, with his RINO posse, against the Parent’s Bill of Rights this year and last (HB272) along with introducing (I think at the Democrat and teachers unions behest), amendments that gutted the bill.  I summarized his stance thusly:

Effectively, NH State Rep Mike Bordes is SCREAMING:

PARENTS – Your children belong to Government!!  SCREW YOU, PARENTS!

The above School Districts (the School Boards and their Superintendents) are fine and dandy in giving you all the Middle Finger.  THEY have your children – and you don’t.

So what ARE you going to do about them deliberately keeping secrets from you?

Let me finish this post with this from the Fordham Institute (reformatted):

…It is not possible to overstate the level of distrust, even contempt, reflected in the practice of excluding parents from discussions about their child’s gender preference, even deceiving them if students claim their parents are unsupportive.

Moreover, such policies, typically justified as protecting students from harm, are wholly unnecessary. Teachers are “mandated reporters” in every U.S. state. If they have reason to believe children are unsafe at home, they are required by law to alert local child protective services.

In no other conceivable instances is there any justification for excluding parents from profoundly life-altering decisions about their own children. If schools insist on inserting themselves between parents and their children, they do so not because they are compelled to, but because they choose to.

The Supreme Court has recognized for over a century, going back to Pierce v. Society of Sisters, that “the child is not the mere creature of the state.” Keeping a child’s gender switch a secret from parents as a “best practice” is the state saying, in effect, “Oh, yes he (or she) is.”

And now School Districts ARE ignoring what SCOTUS has made plain: these Districts DO believe that children should, first and foremost, always be considered to be the legal wards of the State.  Parents are not. This is “Childism” – the bastard offshoot of Critical Race Theory (“ALL Whites are Oppressors, ALL Minorities are Oppressed by them) that has inverted the loving relationship between Parents and their children:

ALL Parents Oppress their children, and School Districts must save them because, being unloved, they are now OUR Children

School Districts have decided that ALL Parents are the enemies of their children. And in how much contempt do teachers view Parents:

…It is not news that Americans’ trust in major institutions has been in freefall for some time. In the case of public education, it’s a two-way street. A December 2021 poll conducted for EdChoice showed that only about a third of teachers (36 percent) say they trust parents, a level below their confidence in their principals, union leaders, and the U.S. Department of Education. This level of institutional disregard creates ripe conditions for public school personnel to assume that their judgment is superior to a child’s parents. And that’s exactly what appears to be happening.

So, anytime a Parent steps into a school, 2/3rds of the teachers looking back at those Parents find them contemptible.

And you’re going to put up with this?

 

The post NH School Districts Giving Themselves the Power To Force Staff Members to Lie to Parents: Trans-Authoritarians appeared first on Granite Grok.

The leaders of China, Russia, India and Brazil met to discuss common interests with dozens of dignitaries in South Africa.  The meeting was a three-day summit seeking to cobble together currently unaligned powers who would counter Western influence worldwide.

Russian President Putin joined the conference virtually – there is an active warrant for his arrest by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.  As it turns out, South Africa is a member of the International Criminal Court. Prudence dictates Putin minimize his exposure, but 67 other countries participated. That amounts to about one-third of the nations on earth.

The gathering in Johannesburg is the 15th annual BRICS summit.

 

[Photos] Arrival of Heads of State
His Excellency President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China arrives at the OR Tambo International Airport in South Africa for the XV #BRICSSummit2023 #BRICSza pic.twitter.com/vrGWVNmfsg

— @SAgovnews (@SAgovnews) August 22, 2023

South African President Ramaphosa welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and a number of other leaders. Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East sent representatives.

 

The Russian Federation has just arrived#BRICSSummit2023 #BetterAfricaBetterWorld pic.twitter.com/OE1lT1o93a

— ATHI GELEBA (@AthiGeleba) August 22, 2023

 

Leaders are discussing expanding the organization’s membership with more than 40 countries wanting to join BRICS, including Ethiopia, Iran, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia.  This bears watching because of the size and the makeup of nations interested in not having trade disrupted by western sanctions.

There is animus about the harm done as a result of those sanctions. Many nations feel Western sanctions impinge their sovereignty and have a growing interest in forming a second international trade clearing system and a currency to rival the U.S. dollar.

The post More BRICS in the Wall appeared first on Granite Grok.

A nation’s leader just wanting his nation to stay neutral regarding a war undertaken against another nation by the United States government can set in motion a US government effort to boot that leader from office. A previously secret Pakistan government document disclosed in a Wednesday in-depth The Intercept article suggests that such a removal effort is just what the US government successfully accomplished in Pakistan in the early days of the Ukraine War.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had been steadfast in supporting keeping his country out of the Ukraine War, in which the United States and other nations have been using the Ukraine government and military as a proxy to fight against Russia. An indication of Khan’s approach to the matter is provided in this relating in The Intercept article of comments he made on March 6, 2022 — the day before the meeting between US and Pakistan officials detailed in the newly revealed Pakistan cable:

The day before the meeting, Khan addressed a rally and responded directly to European calls that Pakistan rally behind Ukraine. “Are we your slaves?” Khan thundered to the crowd. “What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and that we will do whatever you ask of us?” he asked. “We are friends of Russia, and we are also friends of the United States. We are friends of China and Europe. We are not part of any alliance.”

That type of foreign policy approach is as American as apple pie or George Washington. But, its expression by a foreign government leader to justify opting out of supporting US empire is sure to bring contemporary American uber-interventionists to rage.

The US interventionists got their way. The Intercept article relates:

One month after the meeting with U.S. officials documented in the leaked Pakistani government document, a no-confidence vote was held in Parliament, leading to Khan’s removal from power. The vote is believed to have been organized with the backing of Pakistan’s powerful military. Since that time, Khan and his supporters have been engaged in a struggle with the military and its civilian allies, whom Khan claims engineered his removal from power at the request of the U.S.

And Khan’s expressed policy of keeping his country free of Ukraine War involvement and international alliances has gone by the wayside in Pakistan foreign policy:

Pakistan’s foreign policy has changed significantly since Khan’s removal, with Pakistan tilting more clearly toward the U.S. and European side in the Ukraine conflict. Abandoning its posture of neutrality, Pakistan has now emerged as a supplier of arms to the Ukrainian military; images of Pakistan-produced shells and ammunition regularly turn up on battlefield footage. In an interview earlier this year, a European Union official confirmed Pakistani military backing to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign minister traveled to Pakistan this July in a visit widely presumed to be about military cooperation, but publicly described as focusing on trade, education, and environmental issues.

This realignment toward the U.S. has appeared to provide dividends to the Pakistani military. On August 3, a Pakistani newspaper reported that Parliament had approved the signing of a defense pact with the U.S. covering “joint exercises, operations, training, basing and equipment.” The agreement was intended to replace a previous 15-year deal between the two countries that expired in 2020.

But that’s not all. This month, Khan was imprisoned in Pakistan and barred from holding office for the next five years.

Another win for USA.

 

Adam Dick | The Ron Paul Institue

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

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I came across a fascinating book review this week. The book is “The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes” by Nancy Pearcey.  It is loaded with insight, some of which you may have seen. The debunked point about Christian men being demeaning toward women comes from Pearcey’s research.

 

Pearcey then challenges one of the common stereotypes about conservative Christian men: that they are demeaning towards women and that their theology justifies mistreatment of women. Pearcey documents this claim’s frequency in pop culture and mainstream media, but then marshals extensive social science research to show that “evangelical Protestant men who attend church regularly are the least likely of any group to commit domestic violence.” It is nominally Christian men, those who claim Christianity as a label but rarely if ever attend church, who have the highest rates of divorce and domestic violence. All of this means that “any statistic that blends together both committed and nominal Christian men will be misleading” (37).

Pearcey then offers her perspective on why this divergence between nominal and committed Christian men emerges when it comes to metrics of family flourishing.

It seems that many nominal men hang around the fringes of the Christian world just enough to hear the language of headship and submission but not enough to learn the biblical meaning of those terms…. They cherry-pick verses from the Bible and read them through a grid of male superiority and entitlement that they have absorbed from the secular guy code for the “Real” Man. (37)

After laying this groundwork, Pearcey then goes on to trace the trajectory of masculinity through several centuries, starting roughly in the colonial era. But there is one shift that was particularly definitive in changing the role of men and the conception of home, work, and family that still has us reeling today, and continues to form much of our patterns of thinking and living.

I’m going to buy this book. The snippets on how the Industrial Revolution changed male and female roles are fascinating, as is an observation along similar lines about Darwinism (per the title of this post).

 

Darwinism’s Impact on Masculinity

Pearcey traces Darwinism’s impact on masculinity—how it became an excuse for sexual infidelity, aggressiveness, and survival of the fittest behavior in men, and how in more recent forms of evolutionary psychology, it painted men as needing to be tamed by women and marriage. Against Darwinian conceptions of masculinity, Pearcey argues, “men do not have to sacrifice their essential identity in order to marry and raise a family” (169).

 

Combined with the cultural change brought about by the Industrial Revolution,

 

For most of human history, life was structured much differently than what we presume as normal for industrial and post-industrial societies. For one, most adults—men or women—didn’t go to work in the way we conceive of it today. Economic productivity in prior times was much more connected to one’s home and family, and it ebbed and flowed naturally with the seasons. Mother and father spent more time with their children in the warp and woof of pre-industrial life, and their educational and economic ventures were joint projects. There was “an integration of life and labor,” Pearcey notes. “Husband and wife were engaged in a common enterprise (though not necessarily identical tasks). They worked side by side, suffering common defeats and rejoicing in common victories. A husband/father was the head of a small commonwealth—a semi-independent economic unit” (72).

Industrialization, however, drove a wedge between home and work, family and father. Pearcey laments, “because men were gone from home most of the day, they began losing out on dimensions of their personality that were no longer being fostered by deep relationships within the family” (92). Work increasingly became man’s domain, separate from women and children and, as such, a new set of self-interested and utilitarian principles came to dominate in the workplace.

 

The Review itself is loaded with insights worth further exploration I can only get by reading the book so I’ll add it to my queue and will share more as I find things I think worthy of your attention.

Or, you can read it and share yours with me, and I’ll share those with our readers. I’m good either way.

 

Note: We are not receiving any compensation from purchases of the book described in this article.

 

HT | Salvo Mag

The post How Charles Darwin (Probably) Destroyed the Traditional Family appeared first on Granite Grok.

Interesting.  I was actually scurrying around the NH Secretary of State site looking for something else (dang if I can remember now) when I thought this was what I wanted. It wasn’t but still kinda interesting. Look at the SECOND arrow and compare it to the June 16, 2021 numbers a 17% drop in total voters.  That’s a huge drop in what would have been perceived voters here in NH. And that set the stage for my second quick observation – a trend:

• Right after that, the registrations for three Parties (yes, I’m including Undeclared as a Party just because I can) were stagnant for February, May, and August of 2022.
• In May, 2023, a big surge in registration – Democrats up by 6,200 (+/-), Republican up by 14,500 (+/-), and Undeclared by 16,100. 
• Kinda strange, though, that the totals for each fell from May to August of 2023.

However, look at the between the Democrat and Republican registrations:

• At the purge, the difference was 10,000 (round numbers)
• Feb 2022, it was 1,000 more to the good for Democrats
• In May, the Republican registration erased that 1,000 gain
• In May, 2023, Republican registration almost erased the gap entirely coming to within 2,000.
• In August of 2023, the gap is less than 1,000 registered voters.

While the Undeclareds swelled to 348,ooo in May 2023 from Feb 2022, that also dropped to 344,000. However, Undeclareds still swamp the R or D numbers.

What are my quick takeaways?

• Registrations are never static (says Dr. Obvious)
• NH Voter registration has not “caught up” from the June 2021 total
• The upcoming election may be closer than before.

THE question, however, is amongst the NH Undeclareds, what is the current split of leaning D or R? That will determine if NH stays purple or more Blue.

Still, the election is months away and I’ll abuse the phrase “an eternity” because, well, it is in politics when perceptions can change literally overnight.

So, for “what it’s worth”…

The post Data Point – NH Electorate is Switching Parties appeared first on Granite Grok.

Despite years of Biden family and media disinformation, we are finally learning that President Joe Biden really did fire Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin for looking into state corruption involving the oil company Burisma and Hunter Biden — and ultimately Joe Biden himself.

As vice president, Biden, in his own words, bragged that he had threatened to cancel the deliverance of American foreign aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was dismissed.

So what is Congress to do now — un-impeach and exonerate an innocent impeached Donald Trump, and instead impeach a guilty Biden for essentially the same allegations?

After all, the Left redefined the impeachment bar in 2019 as leveraging foreign aid to Ukraine to benefit one’s political career.

And that is exactly what Joe Biden did to ensure his son could continue to raise millions for the Biden family with foreign governments, while being shielded from political consequences.

An impeached Trump also was accused of using the power of government to go after his likely 2020 presidential rival by suggesting that Joe Biden and his family were corrupt and should be investigated by Ukrainian officials for fraud and bribery.

Despite Joe Biden’s denials, Trump was right: there was plenty of evidence to link Ukrainian unwarranted payoffs going into Biden family coffers.

So, Trump in 2019 had good reasons to ensure that none of the Bidens were still burrowed deeply into the Ukrainian payoff machine.

In contrast, Biden had far less grounds to unleash the full powers of government against his probable 2024 rival, ex-president Trump.

 

 

Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is not charging Trump with bribery of the Biden sort. He does not allege that Trump gave special foreign policy preferences for those foreigners who paid his family for such services.

Instead, Smith argues that Trump unlawfully took out classified presidential papers — although Joe Biden did nearly the same.

Biden kept quiet about his vast removal of classified documents for over a decade. Not until Trump was being investigated did Biden suddenly notify the government of his illegal removals.

In contrast, a combative and boisterous Trump fought openly and constantly with federal archivists over which of his papers at his Mar-a-Lago estate were truly classified.

Prosecutorial leaks floated all sorts of unproven nefarious agendas that had prompted Trump’s disputes over his presidential papers.

But no one to this day has seriously asked why senator and then Vice President Biden secretly and weirdly removed and kept such sensitive material for years.

Recent reports allege that Hunter Biden may have been treated with kid gloves by prosecutors, partly because Hunter’s lawyers had threatened otherwise to call Joe Biden to the stand as a favorable witness.

Government prosecutors under pressure from the White House apparently balked at  the nightmare of a befuddled president of the United States testifying under oath about the supposed innocence of the very guilty Hunter Biden.

In truth, the former drug addict Hunter has played lots of such strange games with his own family.

In his laptop communications, Hunter whined that no one in the family appreciated his hard work at family grifting.

He sounded petulant that his father forced him to fork over half his income to the Joe and Jill Biden household.

At time of universal scrutiny of Hunter, the last thing any sane first son might do would be to hawk his own childish paintings at exorbitant prices to those wishing to buy influence with his father the president.

In effect, Hunter was almost daring the White House to stop his blatant grifting artistry.

Instead, the Bidens moved Hunter into the White House, apparently to keep him under closer watch.

Hunter is still out of control. He could take the family down with him unless President Biden continues to shield him from prosecution.

Ironically, the double standard used by Biden and the media to hound Trump has only raised new questions of fairness.

Why had the Biden family — with its far greater legal exposure — never faced such serial indictments?

A Republican House of Representatives had ended prior Democratic protection given to  the Bidens.

And the Ukraine war has again turned attention to the Biden-Burisma connection and Hunter’s shaking down of Ukrainian officials.

Finally, Joe Biden can no longer work a full day. He mutters. He stumbles. He serially lies.

He hijacks solemn occasions commemorating national tragedies by trying to one up the grieving with his own self-absorbed stories — most of them irrelevant and narcissistic half-truths.

If a cognitively and criminally challenged Biden cannot finish his term, we will finally learn the full story of 15 years of Biden family corruption.

The Bidens will lose the only impediment — Joe Biden’s political machinations — left in the way of an honest, full-blown felony investigation into what is likely the most corrupt presidential family in American history.

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won,” from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.

 

Victor Davis Hansen | Daily Caller News Service

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

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

The post The Biden Clan’s Con Is Coming To An End appeared first on Granite Grok.

Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), like the Catholic Church, are reaping millions of dollars to assist in the disbursement of illegals throughout the country. These payments are making these NGOs complicit in the most incredible human trafficking operation in United States history.

At the current pace, the Biden Administration and their partner NGOs will be responsible for the spread of 8 Million illegal immigrants from over 150 countries.

As always, there are two sides to every story. On the one side, we have NGOs that are doing a service to help these people, especially children, who have migrated to a new land and need genuine help getting acclimated. When the Border Patrol reaches capacity in a particular sector, they release processed migrants to NGOs to shelter, feed, and coordinate travel for migrants to their final destination. Catholic Charities USA, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and Church World Services are some of the more present NGOs on our Southern Border. These agencies are essential in doing the work our government cannot provide to ensure the safety of the illegals. On the flip side, these agencies are reaping billions of dollars, taxpayer dollars, to perform their services. These NGOs are not always altruistic or humanitarian. This cooperation between NGOs and the government is a big money game, and we taxpayers are their bank.

According to Forbes, the NGO Catholic Charities USA received $1.4 billion from government support compared with $1 billion in private donations. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service reported more than $93.1 million in U.S. government grants in its 2021 financial statement, making taxpayer-funded grants more than 80% of its total support.

And that number would only climb as the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service would receive $182.6 million in grants in the fiscal year of 2022 from the Department of Health and Human Services.
Another NGO, Church World Services, reported more than $20.5 million in grant funds in its 2022 financial report, making more than 40% of its assets coming from taxpayers.

As always, fraud, corruption, and poor planning are present in any interaction with our government. Two situations I have written about in the past are Lewiston, Maine, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Catholic charities placed thousands of Somalian refugees in these cities and changed the demographics of the towns forever. These people were placed, often without the consent of the local governments, and immediately placed burdens on city budgets. Housing, food, medical care, and clothing were now expenses for the state and city governments. Schools were inundated with non-English speaking students who were assimilated into public schools, creating an overcrowded situation and a drain on overall student performance.

As of 2021, there are about 1.5 million NGOs in operation in the United States, representing a wide variety of causes. Some NGOs focus on developmental projects, such as clean water, while others promote awareness of specific causes, such as gender equality. All receive a portion of their operating costs from taxpayer dollars, often with little oversight by our government to ensure these dollars are used as intended. There is also little control as to what percentage of our dollars is used for the stated purchase versus eaten up by the “administrative costs” of the NGO.

NGOs are essential in any humanitarian crisis in America. Our government is not capable of supplying all the needs presented by each situation, but unfortunately, our government is not capable of monitoring or policing these NGOs and there in lies the problem and the opportunity for people to dip into the funds for personal gain. That part of the process is where our government and politicians shine and why some politicians love to see these occurrences and NGOs go on and thrive forever. We just keep on paying.

The post NGOs Are Perpetuating The Border Chaos For Profit appeared first on Granite Grok.

Name change suggested by a Marine friend of mine.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

So, like last time, where are the boat parades for The Potato?  Any car parades going on yet?

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

They’re flying so thick and fast it is amazing.

Take heart – there will be a Meme Overflow and almost certainly a Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow.  Last week’s Overflow-Overflow.

Remember, ridicule and mockery are effective weapons:

1. Ridicule cannot easily be fought
2. Ridicule makes the enemy angry, and angry people make mistakes
3. For those in the “squishy middle” a Thought Splinter (and Part II and Part III and Part IV) can often be hidden inside humor.

Now, let the mockery and mayhem begin.

 

*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

This is why the media ignores Thomas Sowell and go for the Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc #shorts

 

 

Heaven forbid a black man speak clearly against the Left’s narrative.

 

 

FYI, The Exodus Movement seems to be comatose but #Jexit is active.  And I’ve just started to see #walkaway videos again.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taxes.  Inflation.  And the never-ending stream of “stuff” and “services” that we have been convinced we simply cannot live without.  Never mind offshoring of good-paying jobs.

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

No to Economic Slavery – by T.L. Davis (substack.com)

I don’t know the timeline to catastrophe, because I don’t know how well they can put lipstick on a pig or how long that lipstick will last, but with the accumulation of economic red flags swirling in the air, it only takes one of these fundamental collapses to set off the whole thing.

It Has To Crash – by T.L. Davis – T.L.’s Posts and Podcasts (substack.com)

Save up what you can.  Stock up what you can.  Learn what you can.  And build alliances as you can.

It’s coming.

Survival Sunday

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Covid and Medicine Related:

Florida Surgeon General: Do Not Cooperate With Mask Mandates · The Floridian (floridianpress.com)

More on masks:

Masks ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Are Face Masks Effective? The Evidence. (swprs.org)

The Face Mask Folly in Retrospect (swprs.org)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesse Watters Exposes Embarrassing COVID Stats That The Media Doesn’t Want You to Know About (vigilantnews.com)

Disturbing Trend: Maternal Death Rates Have Soared 50% in America Since Vaccine Rollout (vigilantnews.com)

CDC Now Refusing New COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports in Its V-Safe Program ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Yu et al. in 2008 (NATURE): Did Yu et al. show us in 2008 that NATURAL exposure immunity was bullet-proofed, robust, life-long, at least 100 years long? Yes! looking at antibodies derived from (substack.com)

Natural immunity rocks.  Which we knew.  Until they needed to sell Jabs.  That, actually, was one of the singular data points that made me suspicious – I did a report on Immunology in high school in biology.  Natural immunity was prominent in virtually every reference I looked at.  So for it to be so utterly dismissed – “Natural immunity doesn’t count and we have to wait for the vaccine” – was totally dissonant with everything I’d learned about it.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Firearms License Armageddon UK – Gun Grab 2023

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

On Vivek:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/vivek.mp4

 

I am fascinated by the near-identical wording he, and earlier Barackus, used.  And other things.  Clearly there’s a lot more about this guy than is evident on a surface skim.  More:

Matt Kim on X: “Should we trust Vivek? Lots of coincidences here… https://t.co/xVJqM3KisD” / X (twitter.com)

Don’t use my name, Vivek Ramaswamy tells World Economic Forum (nypost.com)

Just MHO, there’s something… off with this guy.  Again, MHO.  Among other things his meteoric rise – like Barackus.  Out of nowhere.

 

 

Barackus said that he was a “blank screen” onto which people projected their hopes and so on.  Once more, just MHO, but I get that sense here as well.

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

Separated from the above memes.  Open question.  What binding, if any, does the Nuremburg Code have on America?

Can anyone suggest a lawyer to ask?

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

There was a book I read in high school, The Pearl, in which a pearl diver finds an utterly magnificent large pearl.  Going to the various agents of pearl buyers, hoping to sell it to benefit and advance his family, he uniformly is told that such a pearl is actually grotesque, disfigured, etc., and thus not worth much – but they’ll “generously” take it off his hands for a pittance.  And it comes out, in the text, that all these different buyers are actually reps for one big monopoly that merely gives the illusion of competition.  (Of note that just came to mind – so is the doctor who “cares” for their infant son, but actually works for this cartel and poisons the kid as a way to gain leverage.  Sounds… familiar?)

So what can we make of these?

 

 

 

Two staggeringly important issues – wedge issues that clearly demark the Right from the Left… unraised at the debate.  Hmmmm.

 

 

 

 

Must See … Jesse Kelly Destroys Faux News And GOP Pretenders For Going Along To Get Along (“Climate Change”) – Granite Grok

 

 

As I keep saying, the priority of everyone in the GOP – with only a couple of exceptions – seems to be to stay in office or position, feather their nests, and get invited to the “beautiful people” cocktail parties.  And the hell with the country.

 

 

GOP Begs for Donations after President Trump’s 4th Arrest After They Said NOTHING to Defend Him | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

The Return of The Masquerade

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not the only one who’s pointed out the phrase “You cannot win, Darth.  If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine”.  My belief is this: if they can’t stop him, they’ll kill him.

 

 

 

 

I’m educated, both formally and informally.  But one of the things that I’ve noted is the tendency of highly educated people to become locked on what they know and, thus, lack the humility – a virtue – to concede they might be wrong.  My late father had a short essay, which he framed and I treasure, about the necessity to be willing to change one’s mind and say “I used to believe…”

 

 

 

Why can’t New Hampshire?

 

 

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

The Rutherford Institute :: Police Twice Arrest the Wrong Man and Hold Him in Jail for Three Days Before Verifying His Identity |

What floors me is that the courts have ruled that his rights were not violated.  Appealed, same ruling.

The police and the courts are, increasingly, not your friends.

Multiple witnesses are saying that the police blocked people from escape in Maui and let them burn. (bitchute.com)

Related:

How My Views on Government Have Changed ⋆ Brownstone Institute

I had a head start on distrusting government because of Waco and Ruby Ridge.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

IT HAPPENED!!! (Western Leaders Left SCRAMBLING!)

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Pick of the post:

 

 

Or “for the greater good”.

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/for-the-common-good.mp4

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Miscellaneous Topics & links:

 

Note: This separating out is costing me a lot of time.  Have to rethink this format change.

 

The Coming Global Tyranny (Broad)

Mapped: Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest and HSBC branches shutting down within days | Personal Finance | Finance | Express.co.uk

Strongest sign yet Australia headed toward totally cashless society (9news.com.au)

—

Biden’s alcohol czar warns Americans could soon be told to limit themselves to just two beers per WEEK under strict new booze guidelines | [your]NEWS (yournews.com)

 

There is no detail of your life they don’t want to manage.

 

 

Heat stress could threaten health of one billion cows – Insider Paper

MHO?  They put this out there to mask the coming “mysterious cow death” epidemic.

—

They’re coming for your guns – American Thinker

Prospect Park News – PROSPECT PARK ALLIANCE, NYC DOT + NYC PARKS RELEASE PARK DRIVE SAFETY STUDY : NYC Parks (nycgovparks.org)

Working on 15 minute districts already.

Bill Gates: People Who Resist ‘mRNA Tsunami’ Will Be Excluded From Society – The People’s Voice (thepeoplesvoice.tv)

 

 

=+=+=

Climate Change

 

 

Reminds me of this, about the world being the warmest it’s ever been, from here (link and underlining in original; bolding added):

One person I know, whose specialization is metrology, told me that the prior year was the “warmest year on record.”  But when I turned around to ask what I thought was a logical follow-up question, i.e., “OK, by how much was it warmer”? they did not know.  Not only did they not know, but that question had – by their own admission – never occurred to them to ask.

Huh?  A person whose job it is to measure things and understand differences doesn’t even think to ask??  And when I pointed out that the temperature difference was something like 0.1 Celsius, thus well within any error bars, there wasn’t a follow-up of “Where can I go to learn more”?

The Biden Admin Is Going After Another Common Household Item in the Name of Climate Change (townhall.com)

Button up Your Overcoat – American Thinker

Shock Retraction of Climate Science Paper Showing No Climate Emergency Draws Comparisons with Climategate Scandal – The Daily Sceptic

 

=+=+=

Economy

Why Do Some Countries Stay Poor? | CDN (conservativedailynews.com)

Lessons of history.

 

 

=+=+=

Culture Wars

 

 

 

 

Maryland court rules parents do not have a “fundamental right” to opt their children out of classroom instruction on the LGBT religion | Not the Bee

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Monday Music:

 

Jerusalem of Gold – Yerushalayim shel Zahav -Ofra Haza- with English Lyrics

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

—

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

And don’t forget… come back Wednesday for another edition.  Same Meme Time.  Same Meme channel.

The post Memestream News: Monday Edition appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Machine is revving up its flumongering again with warnings about “rapidly” mutating variants that put vaccinated and unvaccinated alike at risk for “serious disease,” maybe, kind of – so we’d better assume the worst. How about no, get lost, f**k off. How about that?

It feels good to type it and to say it, but absent pushback at the local, county, and state levels, it is little more than posturing. Yeah, I told them! Did you see how I did that? Yes, thanks, so why is everyone wearing masks?

It hasn’t happened yet, not around here, but the totalitarian itch will beg to be scratched by those inclined to abuse power, so who are they, and is there hope of convincing them to let it be? That’s not a random thought; it is homework – yours. You know your town better or know people who do. Getting in front of this is the best way to put it all behind us, and it is safe to say that none of our state-level elected leaders will stand up for your medical freedom without encouragement.

We don’t have a Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD. He is Florida’s Surgeon General, and he is setting the table for the Sunshine State when it comes to your personal rights and medical freedom.

 

What do you call re-imposing mask policies that have been proven ineffective or restarting lockdowns that are known to cause harm?

You don’t call it sanity.

These terrible policies only work with your cooperation. How about refusing to participate…

— Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD (@FLSurgeonGen) August 24, 2023

 

Let us know what’s up in your town, city, or state, especially in New Hampshire.

I can tell you that NH DHHS does not have anything new popping up on the rising chatter over masks and boosters or flu vaccines. Not yet. Neither have we heard anything from the top pushing back or making clear, as has Dr. Ladapo, that anyone even mulling the idea of forcing kids or employees back into masks is a bad idea.

My sense, based on past antics, is that Chris ‘Local control when it suits me’ Sununu will pretend to be hands-off, which means it is all on you. Get your research ducks in a row (we have a few links here and there). Be prepared, brief, polite, and to the point if the mask menace begins creeping into local social media groups or your town weekly.

The single most important issue here may seem like how useless masks are in most circumstances, but it is actually about bodily choice. Consent. The right to choose to wear or not wear something over your face. If you think it helps, have at it, but leave me out of it.

…

The post Florida Once Again Leads on Medical Freedom and Where is New Hampshire? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Concord, NH – Chris Ager, Chairman of the NHGOP, released the following statement following concerns of Trump’s ballot access in the State of New Hampshire:

“Efforts to deny New Hampshire Republican Primary voters a full slate of options are antithetical to our Live Free or Die spirit. The New Hampshire State Republican Party will fight all efforts to eliminate candidates from our Primary ballot.

I have confidence in our Secretary of State and Attorney General to make the right decisions. Let voters decide the nominee, not a weaponized federal justice system using tortured logic. “

 

Editor: For more background from the Grok, look here and here.

Reformatted for this medium

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, August 28, 2023

CONTACT: Jimmy Thompson jimmy@nhrsc.com (603) 769-1609

The post Breaking: NHGOP Chair Says Let New Hampshire Voters Pick the Republican Nominee appeared first on Granite Grok.

Some reaction to a post by the GOP candidate in the Rockingham-1 State Rep special election: Outside Money and Influence in the Rockingham District. 1 State Representative Special Election.  The post begins with the candidate describing his surprise (perhaps dismay) at seeing a television ad for his opponent.

Tip of the hat to the Democrats. They are in it to win it. They may be my enemies (because as Communists, they see/treat me as the enemy, and if you see/treat me as the enemy … then you are my enemy), but I can respect their commitment to winning.

The candidate then takes issue with the ad because:

What I find concerning about this ad, and it should also concern the voters of Northwood and Nottingham, is this. Nowhere in this ad does Hal say that he wants to represent the people of District 1 at the State House in Concord. Hal’s implication is that he will represent a political agenda in the State House rather than the people of our great community of District 1. I am committed to representing the principles and values of the fine people of our community. I will be YOUR voice at the State House in Concord.

This makes no sense to me. There are no shared “principles and values” among the voters. From reviewing the election results in 2022 for this district, approximately half are on the Right and half are on the Left. The Right and the Left in today’s America do not have common principles and values. That means the candidate CANNOT be everyone’s voice … that is impossible.

The Left have their principles and values. The Right has a totally different set of principles and values. What the GOP candidate is calling “a political agenda” … to quote the ad, “reproductive choice – climate change – and education” … are the values and principles of the Left. The Democrat candidate is through this ad, and I am sure by many other means, working to turn out voters who share his “political agenda.” I sure hope the GOP candidate is doing the same for his voters.

I hope he has asked the State Party apparatus and the GOP “leaders” in the House when his television ad will start running. And if the answer is NEVER, then I hope he will share that in his next post to Granite Grok.

The candidate goes on to complain that:

Yes – I am pro-life, and “reproductive choice” is not on the ballot. There is already a law on the books concerning abortion.

This is SO WRONG. Abortion is always on the ballot because Roe v. Wade was overturned. That means the political branches are in charge of setting abortion policy. If the candidate supports the current law … abortion-on-demand (or if you prefer access to abortion) through the first six months … then he better be telling the voters just that as opposed to it’s “not on the ballot.” Given that New Hampshire voters are among the most permissive on abortion, simply refusing to talk about it is NOT a winning strategy.

One final bit of unsolicited advice. It concerns this:

Are outsiders trying to influence our district’s election? Well, if you are a resident of Northwood, you may have received political postcards from New Jersey and Georgia. One of the fundamental principles of an election is that the people of that district get to choose a local resident to represent them. For too long, outsiders have been trying to impact and sway our district’s election. It is time we all stand up – get out and vote – and elect a representative of and for the people.

I love the passion and the substance. But everyone who reads Granite Grok, who can vote for you, is already going to vote for you. Turn that into a mailer or, better yet, that television ad that House GOP leadership should be running for you.

 

The post Rockingham-1 Special Election: Democrats In It To Win It … Is The NHGOP? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The machine is working overtime to get the weak-minded wound up about the new strains of COVID when the genuine concern is recent mutations of the COVID narrative. Things are getting McCarthyesqe out there; COVID could lurk almost anywhere, waiting to take advantage of you, vaccinated or not.

 

CDC Reports New SARS CoV-2 Sublineage BA.2.86 Variant Found In US Wastewater pic.twitter.com/9DcWEiP3rS

— The Triune Times (@TriuneTimes) August 26, 2023

I can think of many things in wastewater over whose presence I’ve no concern, including COVID. But I confess to being a bit skeptical about the finding. It is too general. I’m also suspicious about the ability of the virus to survive in the medium enough to be detectable. Oh, and the CDC is a politicized cabal of lying little bitches.

There’s that.

 

Wastewater Detection: A U.S. wastewater sample that was collected as part of routine monitoring in the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) has preliminarily indicated the presence of the BA.2.86 variant. Scientists are investigating this sample and will continue to closely monitor wastewater for further or more widespread evidence of BA.2.86. NWSS is one of multiple monitoring systems CDC uses to detect variants within the United States, and is meant to be used with other COVID-19 public health data to better understand COVID-19’s spread. Learn more about wastewater monitoring in the United States.

 

Preliminary. Scientists are investigating.

Sure.

And the response to the identification of BA.2.86 in wastewater? Get vaccinated. I stubbed my toe – get vaccinated. Look, it’s a day that ends in ‘Y’. Get vaccinated.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had plenty of “vaccinations,” just none for which I have no use, like the mRNA immunity killing COVID juice, and not just because of the risk of myocarditis, especially if you are older. Who wouldn’t want heart complications, right? I react poorly to flu vaccines, as in – it’s the only time I ever get the flu. Given that all the “guidance” is concerned with preventing that, my best course of action is to avoid the so-called cure.

I still got COVID. It was a three-day affair followed by a sudden breakup (I started seeing Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine on the side). COVID still wanted me, but I was done with the relationship, and we’ve not seen each other since, despite her changing her name several times to try and fool me (same old whose, new dress, if you know what I mean).

My “friends” at the FDA, the CDC, DHHS, DNC, ABC, CBS, NBC, and MSNBC still think I need to consider getting jabbed, but that’s a hard no. Not because I’m against vaccines, but because I promised early on to wait for the human test trials to be completed (the science), and those didn’t go well. Billions of test subjects and all sorts of things went sideways. I have side effects from my statin, but we have an understanding. It would be insensitive of me to introduce exponential complications from an injection that has proven more effective at helping you get COVID than not.

And I’m not a doctor, and this isn’t medical advice, but don’t swim in wastewater, especially when it is doing business as science from the CDC or news from the media.

 

 

The post Beware: COVID-19 is Lurking Behind the Commies Hiding in Your Bushes (and Your Sewage) appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Left can celebrate the day, but they will live to dread it. The indictment of Donald Trump and 18 of his lawyers and staff is a shot across the bow by a corrupt Democrat political machine that cannot rely on the mechanisms they built to manipulate the 2024 election.

They need to punish and eliminate the opposition just like regimes do in Third World Countries. Fani Willis is a farce, a tool for the Left, a facilitator for the Bidens, and a narcissist seizing an opportunity she can parlay into future career goals. Like the other Liberal DAs who have been a part of this initiative, Bragg and Jack Smith are also using the Trump indictments as shining accomplishments of their careers and stepping stones to bigger and better appointments. It is a sad turning point in our history and a tarnish on the most crucial job in America and possibly the world, The Presidency.

Trump is the first President to be indicted, let alone four times, and there may be more to come. The stature and respect for the office, if not the man, has been ruined forever. The other thing the Democrats have done is to open the door for future actions. I cannot see Republicans being so bold as to attack, and possibly jail, a political foe and possible opposing candidate. But the precedent has been set. How will Joe Biden look in his mug shot in 2025? This scheme is election-altering and interference. The Left will not admit that, and the media, which is supposed to protect us from the Government, is complicit and on board with the plan. MSNBC, CNN, and all Liberal news and opinion outlets are acting in unison to condemn the former President and anyone who still supports him. It is disheartening watching any of the Left-leaning stations, but especially MSNBC. They are reveling in the situation that Trump finds himself in. It is like a bunch of kids on Christmas morning. They do not even try to hide their joy. It is a pathetic display for people who claim to be journalists.

Watching the number of people exuberant in the booking of a former president was unsettling. Even if they disagree with Trump politically or even like the man, there should be a modicum of respect for the office. To be acting in their fashion is to affirm the disdain they have for this country and the Constitution. They want this man stripped of all rights and privileges of a former President before he is tried in a court of law. As an American, he is entitled to be considered innocent until proven otherwise. These people are so excited about Trump’s mug shot that the Constitution is irrelevant.

They mocked his photo, his motorcade, and his security detail. They mocked everything about the man. But with their constraint of the man, they may have unleashed a movement. They have so angered the core of this country with their arrogance and disregard for the rule of law that they may have secured the Presidency for the man they scorn. So their moment of satisfaction may lead to the moment of them on their knees screaming into the air as the networks declare the winner and 47th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. That is what we Americans call justice, and it feels great.

The post Turn The Anger Of The Mug Shot Into Victory appeared first on Granite Grok.

Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in the mid-to-late 19th century, foretelling the coming revolution of the working class over the bourgeoisie— the capital elite. In the 20th century, the critical theory of the times was feminism, the rise of women and their championing of their own rights in the workplace, in professional life, and in public life.

Both Marxism and feminism have played their course successfully attaining what were the initial goals of their movements, the overthrow of the capitalist elite after the industrial revolution that occurred in most countries largely during what we call today World War One and Two. The civil rights movement granted women the right to vote, and lots of them into positions of corporate and government power all over the world. In the 21st century, we now see a new critical theory emerge the theory— that of the woke.

Wokism began as a sort of enlightenment movement, a counterculture fomenting out of socioeconomic disparities across Western cultures. In this sense, it stems from the failure of the Marxists to succeed in the USA and EU. The Western capital elites have pressed their economic advantages, refusing to give ground or allow governments to properly tax their hordes, squeezing society out of every last penny in order to fulfill their own selfish, greedy desires for full control and autonomy, fulfilling their own sovereignty under the maximum of Gordon Gekko: “Greed is good.”

Being woke entailed being enlightened to a set of principles or set of ideas, but it was not true Enlightenment in the Buddhist or Dharmic sense. Condensed or in a spiritual sense, wokism has nothing to do with universal ideas or maxims. It does not seek to relieve suffering or ground itself in compassion. Wokism relies solely on sociocultural factors, mainly race and identity. By stirring up passions and politicizing identity, wokism seeks to achieve societal change.

In some ways, wokism is the rule of the minority. It’s a relatively small group that feels disenfranchised and disconnected from society at large, ignored by the majority. In reality, this disconnect is mainly of their own doing and in their own minds. They build their own social networks, their own local cultures, and they refuse to connect to larger social structures that define regional or national societies. They do not go into the halls of power at their local state, Congress, or municipal City Council to challenge authority or make their voices heard. Instead, they operate in back alleyways and on the fringes. At least, this was the case up until the 2010s

It was at that point that they began to make organized efforts to achieve positions of power all around the USA. They didn’t do this through cooperation and collaboration. They didn’t do this by attempting to win the vote in democratic ways. They did this largely through social pressures, illegal electioneering, cultural devices like canceling their opponents, and, in some cases, violent kinetic hostility. This is not a movement that is meant to sustain, uphold, or reinforce a democratic society. Like Marxism, it exists on revolution and then spectacularly fails.

Why do the woke continue to exist? They are financed. They are financed by large corporate interests who have largely been educated through a system that reinforces a set of values underpinning woke ideology. These are mostly all based on power and how power is wielded. The woke, obsessed with power, blame all societal problems on racial animus, specifically white supremacy. Interestingly enough, many of the woke are themselves black supremacists. So, in some ways, this is a very racial ideology stemming from racial hatred. The woke main aim is to deconstruct the society and re-create a new society, but they have not actually clearly defined what that new society is, only that they will be in control of it.

Among all of their criticisms, the wokists have never truly defined their proposed alternative model of governance: socioeconomic, structuring, social interaction, or economic interaction. The result is that as they come into positions of power, they do whatever they like, and they typically have no education other than this academically derived understanding of race, power, and identity — based on theories that essentially constitute a mix of feminist and Marxist class, gender and race-based hatred. They lock the skills and connections necessary to prosperously govern a country. In all instances where wokists have come to power, their movement has been hijacked or led to such high levels of incompetence that they find themselves administering and governing a society that crumbles.

Wokism is a naturally and inherently destructive movement. It’s a movement largely akin to a screaming toddler who wants something very badly or wants to express an emotion but is unable to clearly put it into words. And if the thing they want so badly is ever achieved, it only goes on to scream about the next thing. There are no real skills that can be offered other than a continuing line of tantrums, emotional outbursts, and nonsensical wailings— chiefly expressions of hatred and discontent aimed at targets along lines of racialized and sexualized hatred.

In the United States today, the woke have taken the presidency and erected as a puppet to protect themselves from criticism, an old senile octogenarian who, as a career politician, could help them to understand the levers of governance but who is inherently limited by his own stigmatisms, personality, and character. They lack the maturity to substantiate meaningful dialogue in the civil society that could nurture progress or lay the foundations for any sort of prosperity, instead screaming nonsense and taking what they want. Anyone who opposes the wokists is silenced or ostracized. In this way, wokeism, when it takes power and holds positions of power, metastasizes into an authoritarian, oppressive force. Still lacking maturity and wisdom, the woke flail about protecting and enriching themselves, with no real awareness as to the wider impacts and ramifications of their actions. No real long-term strategic objectives, lacking even the ability to clearly define a policy framework. Instead, everything is simply a reaction or done on a whim.

For the wokists, the longing to destroy patriarchal, white society is really their only agenda other than self-preservation and self-enrichment. This longing based on race, sex, and gender hatred is largely a product of a misunderstanding of the nature of history and a refusal to work with the tools of the present to move forward in a peaceful and collaborative way. They have constructed for themselves a scarecrow out of sexist and racist ill will.

Discontent with what they see as a patriarchal power structure globally, they oppress and destroy what white men do from every angle. They are the ultimate Misandrists. Even as women have come to parity with men in many fields, the woke continue in their crusade without really understanding where they, themselves, actually sit in the course of events— lacking all self-awareness and presence of mind. They do not understand the present but act only on their own stigmatized understandings of historical events, projecting these ideas onto others despite their inaccuracy or scientific falsehood.

Discontent with what they see as a racial, white-constructed power system, globally, they oppress whites and seek to destroy them. The woke do not see power structures constructed by other racial groups, and they do not consider the racial or socioeconomic structures of other countries. They are oblivious to the reality that some countries are homogenously black, semite, or Han. In fact, they only look at the country where they live in and the society they live in. These countries are largely in the European and North American political sphere. The woke are overwhelmingly obsessed with creating their own interpretations of historical events, which are often so highly mischaracterized and disconnected from real events that following any thread of logic becomes impossible. Their understanding of history is convoluted and fundamentally born out of sexist and racist animus.

Wokism has largely been hijacked. What was once a fringe movement in the United States that spread slowly to Western Europe has now been financed by globalist corporatist elites and governments seeking the destruction of the USA. It is being promoted and supported by countries who have it in their interest to see the United States and the European Union destroyed, checked, and brought to their knees. Many capitalists have simply used the movement to generate profit and growth for their own companies, while some Marxists and socialists have bought in for the revolutionary fervor and cashed out by stealing and misappropriating collecting funds. What was initially intended to be used for social good has been captured and steered by movements attempting to achieve the goal of depopulating the planet— the transhumanists. 

Ultimately, wokism is an ideology of deception. They claim to be enlightened. They are only enlightened to their own hatred along the lines of politicized identity. Lacking awareness of the nature of universal forces or the present state of the human condition. With no interest for self-development and hardly an ounce of compassion for anyone— not even themselves, the woke exist on lies that they tell to themselves and that they spread to others in order to deflect from the true nature of their nebulous, destructive ideology.

 

The post Wokism: The Latest Critical Theory appeared first on Granite Grok.

I’ve been doing some day trips that land me in or near Portsmouth, New Hampshire’s mecca for poorly thought-out anti-plastic policy. From ‘shopping bags‘ to paperboard containers, their war on plastic is relentless, even when those replacements are worse for the environment.

We’ve debunked the ocean plastic myth, and even drinking straws declared a scourge based on land and sea, with the appropriate response from progressive posers. Since then, paper straws have continued to make their way into restaurants and the mouths of their patrons without much pushback. I’ve seen my fair share around Portsmouth, and I always have the same thought. How can this engineered paper tube use less energy or emit less carbon? The answer is it can’t. What’s worse, research out of Europe, following up on research in the US, suggests a majority of them could leach (drumroll) forever chemicals into people using them.

We’ve jumped past choice and virtue signaling to potential harm, but not much about being environmentally conscious – as peddled by progressives – does anything but make matters worse (by their own standards).

Energy

According to Strawlific.com, ” Each paper straw made requires about 96 kilojoules of energy and emits 4.1 grams of carbon pollutants. However, these numbers mean nothing without something to compare them to.” …

Each plastic straw produced will need around 39 kilojoules of energy and output 1.5 grams of carbon emissions. You read that right, paper straws produce almost three times the amount of carbon dioxide. (In past posts, we’ve shared sources ((2020)) that say it is more like 5.4 times as much.)

 

Get Green Now.com says,

 

For one, many people believe that paper products are less resource-intensive to manufacture than plastic straws. After all, paper is biodegradable and comes from trees, which is a renewable resource.

Unfortunately, that is simply not the case! In fact, paper products in general require more energy and resources to manufacture than plastic products (Source). This may seem counter-intuitive, but it’s actually true!

 

Both sites, by the by, insist plastic is worse based on anecdotal, unverified or debunked narratives common to the anti-oil Left so they are not anti-straw, and neither is the New Atlas. They published a piece on 8/24/2023 titled “Paper straws not so eco-friendly, 90% contain toxic “forever chemicals.” The culprit appears to be PFOA and PFAS, which have been labeled as forever chemicals but absent any actual evidence. It is assumed they are by the same sort of people who ponder anti-plastic policies in places like Portsmouth.

 

The majority of brands tested (69%) contained PFAS, with 18 different PFAS detected in total. Paper straws were most likely to contain PFAS, with the chemicals detected in 90% of the brands tested, albeit in highly variable concentrations. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a compound linked to high cholesterol, a reduced immune response, thyroid disease and increased kidney and testicular cancer, was most frequently detected. PFOA has been banned globally since 2020. Also detected were trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (TFMS), ultra-short-chain PFAS that are highly water-soluble and so might leach out of straws into drinks.

 

The US Study that inspired the European one can be found here: ‘The last straw: Characterization of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in commercially available plant-based drinking straws.’ It’s about as exciting a read as your average court opinion, but if PFAS and PFOS keep you up at night (I sleep like a drunk Irishman even when sober), you might want to carry your own straws with you.

 

To be safe, the researchers suggest people start using stainless steel straws, or ditch straws altogether.

“The presence of PFAS in paper and bamboo straws shows they are not necessarily biodegradable,” Groffen said. “We did not detect any PFAS in stainless steel straws, so I would advise consumers to use this type of straw – or just avoid using straws at all.”

 

I had to rely on older data for the energy burden of stainless steel straws but they also had numbers for glass as well as th number of uses required to abate the carbon cost.

 

[A] single stainless steel straw is responsible for using 2420 kJ of energy, releasing 217 grams of carbon dioxide, and costs $3.00. A single glass straw is responsible for using 1105 kJ of energy, releasing 65.2 grams of carbon dioxide emissions, and costs $0.32. … A single bamboo straw is responsible for 754 kJ of energy, releasing 38.8 grams of carbon dioxide emissions, and costs $1.29. In order to abate the embedded energy and carbon dioxide emissions incorporated in a stainless steel straw, glass straw, and bamboo straw, the stainless steel straw must be reused 102 times (energy) and 149 times (carbon dioxide), the glass straw must be reused 45 times to make up for both embedded energy and carbon dioxide, and the bamboo straw must be reused 32 times (energy) and 27 times (carbon dioxide), rather than purchase and dispose of a plastic straw.

 

The linked resource has different factors for paper and plastic that show paper as less energy dependent, but that may be the result of the early versions that sucked, as in you couldn’t. Paper straws are much more robust in 2023 than in 2018, making them functional beyond a sip or two, which I suspect explains the higher energy and carbon cited above. All of which leads to a common conclusion when dealing with the knee-jerk left. Plastic straws aren’t that bad and never were, and while switching should be a matter of choice, paper might be the wrong choice, and depending on where you go, you might not get to decide.

 

 

The post Paper Straws Require More Energy and Carbon Emissions to Make Than Plastic and … appeared first on Granite Grok.

Whether you love Donald Trump and are daily festooned with MAGA paraphernalia or despise everything about him, if you reflect on Trump’s trials, you may have a real whiskey, tango, foxtrot moment.

The problem isn’t the indictments and whether they are bogus and political or sound and prudent. The lawyers and the courts will duke it out, and someday we’ll know, or at least we’ll have the best answer the system can produce. No, the issue is Trump’s bail.

According to “How Courts Work,” posted on the ABA website September 9, 2019:

Bail is the amount of money defendants must post to be released from custody until their trial. Bail is not a fine. It is not supposed to be used as punishment. The purpose of bail is simply to ensure that defendants will appear for trial and all pretrial hearings for which they must be present.

That probably comports well with what you thought – the purpose of Trump’s bail is to ensure he doesn’t skip town. In the Fulton County case, his bail was set at $200,000. (RELATED: JOHN STOSSEL: Are We Really Stuck With Trump And Biden?)

Perhaps the Fulton County court is unaware Donald Trump is running for President of the United States, is dominating his Republican competition, and often leads his likely opponent in the general election, Joe Biden. Skip town, Donald? Biden should be so lucky.

Or maybe the Fulton Country court is unaware Donald Trump may be the most recognized man on the planet. There may be an igloo in Antarctica he could hide in, but that’s about it.

Is the court aware Trump is surrounded by a large team of Secret Service agents? Slip away unnoticed? I think not.

Finally, surely the court must have noticed Trump thinks he’s innocent of all charges and will bring enormous legal talent to bear to prove it. You don’t bolt if you truly believe you’re going to win.

 

 

So, what’s the point of requiring a man to post bail when he has a metaphysically measured 0.00% chance of skipping town? To try to embarrass Trump further. But the real effect is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the prosecutor, country District Attorney Fani Willis, is far more interested in the politics and the fame than she is the law.

If Trump were willing (I heard this notion so it’s not original with me), then he should change his mind and tear up the bail agreement. Show up, be arrested, and then be taken to jail. The Secret Service would immediately invoke their federal authority and force the county to empty out the jail to ensure the former President’s safety. Then watch the thousands, then tens of thousands, then more and more come to the jail to protest. Even MSNBC would be forced to cover it. (RELATED: ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Trump’s Georgia Prosecutor Isn’t Being Truthful)

Or, more likely, watch the Court and Willis squeak like little mice and say, never mind, Mr. Trump. See you in a few weeks. There would be plenty of embarrassment, but not for Trump.

This is in no way a defense of Donald Trump. It is yet another indictment of our justice system run amok in political mud. And it is a call to American jurists to remember that the rule of law only prevails when lady justice holds the scales, blindfold securely in place. If the jurists who know best won’t police the system, then those who know far less will, and then we really will want a blindfold.

JD Foster is the former chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget and former chief economist and senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He now resides in relative freedom in the hills of Idaho.

 

JD Foster | Daily Caller News Service

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

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

The post This Proves That Trump’s Prosecutors Are Playing Politics, And It Has Nothing To Do With His Charges appeared first on Granite Grok.

Folks who have dug in on the idea that Lahahia was leveled as part of a Directed Energy Weapon test or attack will see this as misdirection, but so will the Climate Cult Global Warming wildfire crowd. Maui County has sued The Hawaiian Electric Company for negligence.

Related: Maui “Wildfire” Likely Caused by Hawaii Electric/Downed Powerlines

 

The lawsuit said the destruction could have been avoided and that the utility had a duty “to properly maintain and repair the electric transmission lines, and other equipment including utility poles associated with their transmission of electricity, and to keep vegetation properly trimmed and maintained so as to prevent contact with overhead power lines and other electric equipment.”

The utility knew that high winds “would topple power poles, knock down power lines, and ignite vegetation,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants also knew that if their overhead electrical equipment ignited a fire, it would spread at a critically rapid rate.”

 

Maui isn’t suing Mother Nature or the makers of SUVs, or even Big Oil, so the sustained winds of the Climate Alarmists just took a hit, not that they much care. News of the lawsuit is getting reported, but not with the hyperbolic 24/7 hysteria afforded the climate-implicated complications before it. Imagery that will stay with people while the more pedestrian explanation scrolls off the home page or the Kyron into the archive.

That’s not to say there is no room here for Climate Zealots to claim new victories. The lawsuit alleges negligence on the part of HEC. They knew about the drought, the invasive, dry grass, and the high winds from Hurricane Dora a few hundred miles south of the Islands.

It is a hat trick of symptoms already peddled as a byproduct of man’s influence on the climate. It is the not-so-invisible hand of the climate economy. Weather equals fevered panic equals money laundering. More of that strategic chaos, not to be confused with actual man-made ills in places like Chicago, where crime is up exponentially thanks to the Democrat-made war on policing, law, and order.

But it is the same.

No alarms sounded, no water in the hydrants, and the government “knew about the drought, the invasive, dry grass, and the high winds from Hurricane Dora a few hundred miles south of the Islands.”

Maui County should be suing itself, but that would be silly, and there’s no money in it. The California Camp Fire was a raging climate catastrophe until the government realized how much money it could make suing the electric company it failed to regulate and supervise in the interest of public safety in a state that overregulates everything.

California forest policy also had plenty to do with the tinderbox that resulted in 85 deaths, but PG&E got the blame instead of bureaucrats, politicians, and policy.

And while Hawaiian Electric is “very disappointed that Maui County chose this litigious path while the investigation is still unfolding,” I think they know they are over a barrel. Progressive policy lends itself to disasters in the making, and someone has to take the blame when they lead to the strategic chaos not just baked in but necessary for those failed politicians and regulators to seize more power.

Lahania is a tragedy for many reasons, but the most important one is that the government is as much or more to blame as anyone, and that’s the last thing anyone involved will try to fix.

 

 

The post Maui Sues Hawaiian Electric for Negligence Leading to Lahaina Fire When it Should Probably Sue Itself appeared first on Granite Grok.