Late in the fall of 2023, the Supreme Court issued mandates that ordered the City of Nashua to follow the trial court’s order in two Right-to-Know (RTK) Petitions and produce emails stored on backup tape. The email records requested were for two months of specific records within Nashua’s assessing office.

Nashua lacks written policies for handling record requests and is uncooperative in reducing the burden. Until eighteen months ago, emails were provided without attachments, and requesters were only informed of email volume, not including attachments.

The City hired Attorney Russ Hilliard 18 months ago for Right to Know (RTK) legal challenges. At this time, the City decided to review each page, page number, redact as needed, and insert all attachments into records before providing them to requesters. Requesters were not informed of this new process. An email request with 1000 emails could have 20,000 pages of attachments. Citizens may not want staff to review voluminous attachments that are already public records. For instance, Nashua’s assessing office has a data disk with 3400 pages of numbers which is already a public record on their website.

The City began producing the Court ordered email records in December of 2023. The city was being evasive and uncooperative in specifying the number of pages of documents involved. The City began providing all the attachments, primarily public records, without communicating with the requester. Of course, the requester informed the City that she did not want the attachments.

The city informed her that they would continue to review, number, insert, and redact all those records regardless of her request not to receive the attachments. It turns out that this is causing a long delay in the delivery of the records. It appears the city will need about 15 months to deliver the records. However, the city is unwilling to provide a timeframe for completion. The City refuses to provide the attachment page volume even though they have this answer. This City operates with malicious compliance.

The requester reopened both lawsuits, filed a protective order, a contempt order and an RTK lawsuit. The hearing is on April 22, 2024 at Nashua Superior Court.

The City hypocritically advocates for the State to amend the RTK law to charge fees for voluminous requests while working to increase the volume of the documents by adding unwanted attachments thereby increasing fees to be charged to citizens. All this while complaining of burdensome citizens making unreasonable demands. In reality, the burden and inflated costs are created by hostile City leaders to discourage and delay documents. Nashua City leaders work tirelessly to marginalize citizens who do not echo their message.

A Win is never a Win in Nashua.

The post Nashua’s Malicious Email Game appeared first on Granite Grok.

Polling on the problem of too much free speech is a scary enough prospect as the Government that lies to us works to convince Americans that it not only has no obligation to protect their First Amendment rights but that citizens should rally to demand it take them.

According to a new poll from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a First Amendment organization, nearly a third of Americans, including similar numbers of Republicans and Democrats, say that the First Amendment goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees. More than half agreed that their local community should not allow a public speech that espouses a belief they find particularly offensive.

When I saw the headline, I thought one-third could be Democrats, but as the pull quote reveals, an equal number of Republicans make up that number. Would it be brash to suggest they should not be registered as Republicans? Certainly not “conservative, as this would run contrary to the notion of conserving the natural rights our Government allegedly exists to protect.

That’s what Conservative means, by the way. The uniparty has been working on all cylinders to dilute that notion and succeeding. Many think there is such a thing as hate speech. That misinformation and disinformation are things a government (even through proxies) should be allowed to manage.

Half of the respondents said that their community “definitely” or “probably” should not permit a public speech expressing the opinion they found most offensive. A whopping 69 percent said a local college should “definitely” or “probably” not allow a professor who holds such an opinion to teach there. Over a quarter of respondents said that someone who previously said the offensive opinion should be fired from their job.

It is a sad day and not just for speech. Too many people have been lulled into complacency. They have no idea why the Bill of Rights and Constitutions exists. Once you let the Government take something away, it will not give it back, nor will it stop until it has taken it all.

This needs to change, and while Independent media has made significant inroads in recent years, it is clear that more work needs to be done. As we like to remind you, liberty is more precious, rare, even than life, and tyranny never rests, so neither can we.

Here is the survey from FIRE.

The post The First Amendment is a Problem for at Least One Third of Americans appeared first on Granite Grok.

It was only a few years ago that Vermont lawmakers were bragging that thanks to them, Vermont had adopted the lowest acceptable threshold for PCBs (a potential carcinogen found in certain pre-1980s building materials) in schools – a level significantly lower than what the federal EPA deems safe (4000% lower!).

Levels significantly lower than what European governments deem to be safe. Some critics worried it was an impossible standard, but Vermont being Vermont, we had to be the lowest.

In 2021, Vermont lawmakers took things a step further by slipping language into that year’s budget bill mandating that every school in our state built before 1980 be tested for PCBs along with Vermont’s new regulatory guidelines. We were the first state in the nation to demand such a program. Vermont being Vermont, we also had to be first!

Heady stuff, saving the children and all. Makes for wonderful press conferences and a bullet point for your next round of campaign materials.

VPIRG boasted in its 2021 legislative wrap-up at the close of session, “This year, we supported further protections for Vermont’s children by backing new requirements in H.426 requiring schools to be tested for radon and PCBs. This will help to identify toxic threats and keep children safe.” Great!

According to the state website on toxic substances,

PCBs can cause serious health effects. The potential for health effects from PCBs, as with other chemicals, depends on how much, how often, and how long someone is exposed to them.

Numerous studies in both humans and animals have shown that exposure to PCBs can affect the nervous, immune, reproductive and endocrine systems. PCBs are also classified as human carcinogens. This means that exposure to PCBs can cause cancer in humans.

Additionally, the different health effects of PCBs may be interconnected. This means that if one system of the body is affected by PCBs, it may have significant effects on the other systems of the body, which can lead to many serious health problems.

But now, in the midst of a devastating property tax crisis brought about by a combination of a tax-and-spend-like-drunken-sailors ideology wrapped in general legislative incompetence, it looks like that mandatory PCB testing program is going to be put on hold. Not because the tests aren’t turning up PCBs but because they are. And fixing said problem is expensive. And potentially expensive on the property tax.

It’s one thing to stand on a soap box and proclaim your love for the children. It’s another to actually pay a price – political and financial — for doing it. So, faced with the prospect of the latter, our courageous legislators say never mind. What are a few carcinogens here and there? Kids are tough!

The ostensible logic behind a testing pause put forward by Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall), chair of the House Education Committee, is that because the state doesn’t have the money to fix the problems if found, there’s no point in looking for problems in the first place. Like with that Spinal Tap drummer who died in a bizarre gardening accident, the authorities in Montpelier have decided PCBs in our schools are crimes “best left unsolved.”

Thankfully, my own kids have aged out of the hot mess of Vermont government-run public education in all of its aspects has devolved into, but if I were still a parent of school-aged children and there was a possibility of a poisonous substance lingering throughout the building, I’m forced by law to send my little tykes to 180 days a year, I’D WANT TO KNOW!

In a recent interview with VT Digger, Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore estimated the cost of finishing the testing program would is between $30 million and $70 million over the next two years. That’s a lot of money, for sure. But it’s about the same amount allocated for the newly passed universal free meals program. It’s far less than the amount newly allocated to expand government-run pre-k. If PCBs are really the dire problem we were led to believe, wouldn’t it make more sense to prioritize ensuring classrooms are not a health hazard before shoveling more younger children into them? I guess not!

And if the resources aren’t available to fix the problem once detected – a legitimate reality – no parent should be forced to send their kid into that space. Ever. Other options should be made available. Immediately.

And this, I suspect, is why the Democrats in the legislature are now so hell-bent on a testing pause (they tried last year as well with H.486): The VTNEA does not want parents in a legal/moral position to demand other educational options.

If a school has to close because it’s unsafe (or for any other reason) and there are no other public options within the district, the families in that district get school choice. Not every community has an abandoned mall they can convert into a school as Burlington did when PCBs led to the demolition of their high school or the nearly quarter of a billion dollars to build a new one.  The teachers’ union, public school special interests, and their political bedfellows would, it appears, much rather see kids get cancer than allow an opening for expanded school choice to emerge.

Either that or the PCB issue was always just a phony baloney scare tactic used by politicians to virtue signal their “anything for the children” persona and to give their activist allies like VPIRG a lucrative opportunity to fundraise for a cause by spreading unnecessary panic. But, as with the Act 127 ‘equity’ pupil weighting debacle, it’s blown up in their faces.

The post So, It’s Okay to Poison the Children Now? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Members of the Apple cult who were hoping to one day drive their iteration of an Electric Vehicle will be disappointed. After dropping billions into an effort to one day compete with Tesla Motors, The Tech Giant has cut the plug-in cord.

Apple wanted to develop new battery technology that would dramatically cut the cost of electric vehicles and wanted to develop software that would make their cars fully self driving. …

The news comes after Apple said last month that it was pushing back its timetable for debuting its electric car from 2026 to 2028, which comes as the electric vehicle market has fallen off significantly in recent years due to a wide range of consumer concerns.

What no one ever seems to say is Apple, despite its braintrust, easy access to China, and billions of dollars, couldn’t make it work. There was no path to a more affordable battery pack technology. They also didn’t say why, at least not in the reporting I found: inflation and the price hikes created by false demand.

Government policy has driven the development and manufacture of Electric Vehicles for which the general public has no use, even if they could afford one. The recent glut of inventory and an almost institutional retreat by car makers is back in the driver’s seat, with Apple not being alone in wasting billions. Domestic EV makers have reported similar losses from making EVs. Unions have expressed anger at the changing dynamic EVs bring to autoworkers who have lost jobs, pay, and opportunity. It’s gotten so bad that one government, Joe Biden’s, has decided the impending and inescapable planetary doom that precipitated their EV demands can wait until after the next election.

The New York Times reported earlier this month that the Biden administration was preparing to ease its push to force EVs onto American consumers as consumer demand for the vehicles remains low, dealerships have expressed serious concerns, and automakers have had to cut production and revamp production of gas vehicles.

The report said the move was a “concession to automakers and labor unions” from the administration, as it was forcing “limits on tailpipe emissions” to force Americans to switch from gas-powered cars to more expensive electric vehicles

It might be a useful bit of political art to remind voters that we were told we couldn’t wait until we could and that should you fall for this sleight of hand and vote for Democrats despite their crimes against common sense and the economy, they put the screws to you the minute they get back into office.

Their preferred priorities are a dead end that is voting them trillions.

The post No iCar In Your Future – Apple Cuts Plug-In Cord After Wasting Billions on Titan EV Project appeared first on Granite Grok.

There are many things a local, state, and federal government can do for its people, from ensuring clean, drinkable water and road maintenance to police and fire protection to border security. But there are some elements of life that the government should avoid, and Portland, Maine, is considering crossing the line on two of them. The city of Portland is considering a Universal Basic Income (UBI) for all residents and an ordinance to increase the minimum wage in the city to $20 per hour. Both are terrible ideas that will harm local businesses and stifle the work ethic of an already stagnant workforce.

The problem with these suggestions begins with the premise. The Portland, Maine City Council’s Housing and Economic Development Committee is modeling its 2024 Plan on the implementations of Portland, Oregon. Portland, Oregon, is one of the most progressive cities in the country, and its policies are so toxic that there is an active movement for the more conservative eastern region of the state to secede from Oregon and join neighboring Idaho. This effort to secede includes portions of Northern California that do not align with the more progressive Southern California.

The Portland, Maine Council points to a pilot program of the Quality Housing Coalition that gave a UBI of $1,000 a month to a group of 20 mothers for one year. The site outlines the program, which started in 2023 but does not detail its results. The program includes training for those receiving the benefit, but not whether this is designed to be a bridge program or a renewable subsidy.

Setting up a UBI program, which was initially the idea of Democrat Presidential candidate Andrew Yang, is rife with potential opportunities for fraud and, as stated earlier, inhibits a person’s need to work. Though $1,000 a month is not a living wage, it might keep someone out of the full-time workforce at a time when workers are needed in every sector of the economy.

The minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage for a family, but that is what Democrats are trying to create. Recently, a California Senate seat candidate suggested a statewide minimum wage of $50, which would be a yearly total of $104,000. The thinking is that this is needed to support a small family in California. Can you imagine the cost of a Happy Meal or a pizza if the person making it was paid $50/hour? Wages should be set by the free market and not by the government. Arbitrarily setting a high minimum rate to give the appearance you are working for the people is destroying small businesses, which actually are helping people.

This trend toward a Socialist government, which involves itself in every aspect of life, has to be shut down. Pro-government must be replaced with pro-people and pro-business. We must get Americans back to work instead of their mailbox to get their paycheck. Since COVID, the new jobs created nationally have been filled predominantly by non-American-born workers. This trend is contradictory to what the government is attempting to control. The immigrants are filling the jobs at lower wages than Americans. At the same time, the government wants to regulate minimum wages. It is a vicious cycle that the government should pull out of.

One more quick example of a government idea gone wrong is the plan by Brunswick to house illegal aliens relocating to Maine. Maine allocated nearly $3.5 million to provide apartments in five new buildings in Brunswick to 60 illegal immigrant families. This amount breaks down to $58,333 per family that is in our country illegally. There are over 200 homeless veterans living in shelters or on the streets of Maine. Most efforts to eradicate veteran homelessness are donation-based. It appears our priorities are very messed up.

The post Bear Pond Conservative Chronicles: Two Bad Decisions By Portland Leaders appeared first on Granite Grok.

Rumor has it that mindless Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech will include a new deflection from his complicity in the shitshow that is the American economy. The guy who swore to end fossil fuels (no matter what…it would do to the economy) appears ready to blame greed for what ails us.

And I must admit, I agree, but not in the intended context of Joe’s handlers.

No one has taken advantage of their position to spend other people’s money like Joe Biden. Since he took office, the Government has pig-piled trillions in new debt onto the backs of children and grandchildren who didn’t have a vote and have yet to earn a dime. Add in the debt service on that profligate spending, and the notion that Joe can come up with a better example of corporate malfeasance than what he and his Government have done seems unlikely.

Taking advantage of your position to misuse trillions of other people’s dollars to pursue your self-interests is about as greedy a thing as I can imagine.

Only the Government can abuse people that way and get away with it. The Bidenistas also think they can get political traction with another trial balloon phrase – shrink-inflation.

On Friday, Politico reported that Team Biden is strongly considering making snack-food shrinkflation — “fewer chips in the bag,” as Joe said — the magnificent centerpiece of Joe Biden’s belated State of The Union speech on March 7th. I realize that idea sounds more like an SNL sketch than a real plan. It’s literally unbelievable that the leader of the free world would target smaller processed food packages as America’s primary problem.

The problem with this approach is not that the bag has fewer chips, but why? Government debt-driven spending sprees incorrectly counted as GDP make this record-setting act of generational theft look good on paper while devaluing every dollar, making everything exponentially more expensive. If the chip makers want to make any money to stay in business in this environment, they either take a few chips out of the bag or start charging a lot more.

Maybe Joe could talk about the academic shrinkflation of public schools. The schools themselves swell with staff and bloating budgets, but there is less education than ever. And it’s not just schools; every aspect of Government takes more, costs more, makes things cost more, costs even more thanks to inflation, and gives less.

Shrinkflation is what you did to the dollar, Joe. You shrank its value. We’re lucky there are chips or a bag to put them in.

And Joe’s Democrat replacement will be able to pretend whatever Joe did was none of their doing, but Joe is still operating on the assumption he is running for re-election. That is not true, though I doubt anyone has told him. His name is on the Democrat primary ballot, but it is little more than a placeholder, much like those signs progressive protesters had with a blank space to write the name of whoever Trump nominated to the Supreme Court. Gorsuch? How do you spell that – Hey, hand me the Sharipe. Until they break the news about Joe 2.0, why not keep using Joe as a trial balloon alongside whatever bit of progressive wordsmithing the DC Dungeoun narrative mills can concoct? Something might stick. After all, they want to keep the election in November close enough so that when they steal it, it doesn’t look as obvious as it did in 2020.

Sure, they got away with that one, and yes – they’d love a full-blown civil war, curfews, and a reason to roll out all those BearCats Obama sold to your local PD when he was President, but it would be easier if they could steal it to protect their political greed.

Greed is precisely the problem, and Joe blaming it on anyone but himself and the Government is more of a Democrat projection.

The post Night Cap: Shrink-Flating Biden’s ‘Greed-Flation’ appeared first on Granite Grok.

This is an assertion of a history of racketeering and Ponzi Schemes relating to the attorneys and non-profits involved in the YDC cases. Attorney General John Formella sought $100 million of public funds to pay for claims against the State for victims of YDC abuse. David Vicinanzo states that he was one of the lead attorneys to seek it.

According to 169- C 3:
VII. “Child placing agency” means the department, Catholic Charities of New Hampshire, Child and Family Services of New Hampshire, or any successor organization.

David Vicinanzo and Nixon Peabody have served as legal counsel to the Diocese of Manchester, which covers Catholic Children’s Services and Catholic Charities.

Gordon MacDonald, New Hampshire’s Supreme Court Chief Justice, was also employed by Nixon Peabody and was also counsel for the Diocese of Manchester.

Together, David Vicinanzo and Gordon MacDonald handled hundreds of cases involving alleged child abuse for the Diocese.
Francis Talbot was a longtime chaplain at the YDC. He was accused of sexual abuse at the Diocese and convicted. He was not charged with sexual abuse at the YDC. I believe that David Vicinanzo and/or Gordon MacDonald or their colleagues at Nixon Peabody would have been involved in his case in 2002.

We want to thank Claire Best for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
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Rule 1.7 requires Attorneys to reveal if a conflict of interest exists. I do not believe that David Vicinanzo or Gordon MacDonald have revealed this with regard to the YDC cases and their representation of the Diocese of Manchester, which included Catholic Charities and priests who had been accused of sex abuse, such as Francis Talbot – a Chaplin at YDC.

I believe there should be an investigation into quid pro quo arrangements when it comes to David Vicinanzo, who also claims that he provides “pro bono” legal counsel to the NHCADSV to whom his ex-business partner Gordon MacDonald referred plaintiffs of YDC abuse after he’d dismissed the initial case for “victim negligence.” David Vicinanzo and Nixon Peabody then joined Russ Rilee in the claims against YDC. It would be logical to assume that his client, the NHCADSV, introduced him.

It would be logical to assume that between he and his client, it was arranged for Timothy McLaughlin at Shaheen & Gordon to threaten me with a defamation suit to withdraw statements I had made about the NHCADSV and Amanda Grady Sexton being involved, with other public officials and attorneys, in a “kids for cash” type scheme.  The NHCADSV has stated that they brought on Brian Harlow, a victim of Diocese of Manchester abuse, on the 10th anniversary of the Diocese investigation/Spotlight to increase their business. Brian Harlow came from non-profit SNAP. The Executive Directors of SNAP resigned after a whistleblower highlighted a kick back scheme with attorneys.

David Vicinanzo gave political donations to Ovide Lamontagne, Kelly Ayotte, John Sununu, Chris Sununu, John Stephen inter alia:

From Wikipedia:
As an attorney for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester, Lamontagne negotiated the 2003 settlement of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s investigation into the child sex abuse scandal that spared the diocese from being criminally charged. In all, in the period of 2002–03, the diocese agreed to a $15.5 million settlement involving 176 claims of sex abuse.[5][6]

The May 2003 settlement of 61 abuse claims for $6.5 million handled by Lamontagne as counsel for the Manchester Diocese prevented the diocese from being criminally prosecuted. In December 2002, the diocese had admitted that its failure to protect children from sexual abuse may have been a violation of criminal law, becoming the first diocese in the United States to do so. Under threat of indictment by the New Hampshire Attorney General, Bishop John McCormack signed an agreement acknowledging that the Attorney General office possessed evidence sufficient to win convictions as part of the settlement.[7]

Lamontagne claimed that McCormack and other prominent church members wanted a speedy settlement and, in an example of behaving “pastorally” rather than as a litigant, instructed their attorneys to take a moderate stance and eschew hardline legal tactics. Lamontagne said of the diocese’s legal strategy, “That is not typical in terms of client requests.”[8]

John Stephen introduced the no-bid contract for Maximus Inc. for Medicaid in 2004. Maximus is contracted with Catholic Charities, and Kathleen Kerr, who was legal counsel for the NH DHHS/DCYF for 12 years, joined Maximus Inc. and is on the board. Maximus is contracted with the DCYF and YDC.

The YDC is named after John Sununu, to whom David Vicinanzo also gave generously.

Gordon MacDonald dismissed David Meehan et al.’s claims against the State for child abuse at the YDC for “victim negligence”. He then referred plaintiffs to the NHCADSV, who are David Vicinanzo’s clients. Then joined Russ Rilee and convinced Gordon MacDonald’s successor, John Formella, to get approval for $100 million. Nixon Peabody is seeking 40% of each claim they make. The NHCADSV I believe are also to receive a portion of each settlement as they did in Rapuano & Does v Dartmouth filed by Chuck Douglas and Steven J Kelly Esq who also filed several suits against St Paul’s School while David Vicinanzo represented members of St Paul’s Faculty.

David Vicinanzo praised Judge Richard McNamara’s decision to keep the Grand Jury Criminal Investigation Report private. His client who had petitioned for it – the NHCADSV – got a contract with the school out of it.

David Vicinanzo also represented Phillips Exeter Academy when the DCYF admitted to deleting files of sex abuse at the school. His client, the NHCADSV, got a contract out of it.

When Catholic Medical Center was forced to pay $3.8 million for a kickback scheme revealed by a whistleblower, Chuck Douglas stepped in to represent the whistleblower.  Catholic Medical Center falls under Catholic Charities as well, and former Monsignor Edward Arsenault (who pled guilty to defrauding the Diocese of Manchester, CMC, and a dead priest’s estate) had been responsible for increasing the business for Catholic Charities and CMC. That means that he was responsible for increasing business for Nixon Peabody and Divine Millimet and John Stephen, who’d introduced Maximus and had a consulting company that is down the block from Nixon Peabody. David Vicinanzo had made political contributions to Ovide LaMontagne of Divine Millimet and to John Stephen.

Nixon Peabody has been involved in a couple of National Ponzi Schemes. At least one of them using public funds. The law firm was founded in 1999. David Vicinanzo and Gordon MacDonald joined. The Diocese cases quickly ensued. James F McLaughlin was the police officer. Edward Arsenault was the “compliance” officer, personally arranging 250 settlements according to his bio, and Chuck Douglas was filing many of the claims.

Chuck Douglas was New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice when John Sununu was Governor. Chuck Douglas allegedly ordered a teenage girl back to YDC after the State had paid for her to have an abortion. In Chuck Douglas’ divorce proceedings from Caroline Douglas, she accused him of financial fraud and spoke of the “club” of attorneys and judges. They are the same club today as they were in 1999. And they are protecting James F McLaughlin, attorneys, non-profits, and AGs who have all benefitted from the Diocese cases, the St. Paul’s School cases, and the Phillips Exeter Academy cases.

Not one of these is asking for a Grand Jury Investigation into the YDC. The DOJ funds UNH for research and policy regarding child sex abuse. The centers have been operating in one form or another since 1978. The DOJ has funded the New Hampshire Justice system for the prosecution of youths. The NHCADSV endorsed former juvenile prosecutor Paul Havorsen to become DA for Merrimack County. He had sent children to YDC, where they were abused.  Forty years after the UNH center was formed, the Office of Child Advocate came into existence.

In a few months, it published a report on the extreme abuse of children at YDC. UNH never did this. Is it because the YDC is a sexual and mental abuse research center? Is it because the abuse of children at facilities that fall under Catholic Charities or the DCYF can have their data taken and become studies for UNH, whose chair is Alex Walker, who is also Chair of the Catholic Medical Center and represented the Diocese of Manchester with Ovide LaMontagne?

How can you assure the public that Nixon Peabody’s representation of the YDC cases, St Paul’s School faculty, Phillips Exeter Academy, and the Diocese of Manchester were not Ponzi schemes benefitting attorneys and non-profits in a small club that included Chuck Douglas, the NHCADSV, the AGs office, Edward Arsenault, James F McLaughlin, and DCYF?

Should the public be the first ones to foot the bill for the $100 million in claims of sex abuse or the people in the club above who have profiteered?  These attorneys have dozens of companies, properties, and shell companies. Two of Nixon Peabody’s partners are on the board of directors for Primary Bank, which is the bank for Children’s Advocacy Centers. The bank’s directors are also heavily involved in Catholic charity-related businesses.

Please investigate Ponzi schemes before the public is defrauded. The FRM Ponzi scheme under Kelly Ayotte’s tenure as AG involved the Banking Department and other public offices. The AG’s office has withheld information on the cover-ups of YDC abuse. I understand that victims are unable to access their medical records from the doctors they were sent to see while at YDC. These doctors were affiliated with the Catholic Medical Center/Charities.

There must be a clear and transparent investigation before the public is further defrauded. The money came to New Hampshire for child services. It was used for everything but the protection of children.  AG Gordon MacDonald dismissed Anna Carrigan v New Hampshire. What is going on?

The views and opinions expressed by contributors are those of the author and may not reflect the opinion or position of  Grok Media, GraniteGrok.com, its authors, advertisers, donors, or sponsors.

The post Conflicts of Interest, Public Corruption, the YDC and DCYF appeared first on Granite Grok.

Hillsdale College, located in Hillsdale, Michigan, is the premier bastion of classical freedom-loving American no-compromise higher education.
It offers free, noncredit online courses by its faculty. These online versions are based upon those in the College’s undergraduate core curriculum, which all Hillsdale students must complete prior to graduation.

In addition to lectures, these online courses feature readings, study guides, quizzes, and discussion groups. There is also an opportunity to receive certificates of completion for each course.

For more information on, and to sign up for, the free online courses, go to www.hillsdale.edu and click on the Online Courses” tab at the top of the home page.

ABOUT HILLSDALE COLLEGE

Hillsdale College was founded in 1844 by men and women who proclaimed themselves “grateful to God for the inestimable blessings resulting from the prevalence of civil and religious liberty and intelligent piety in the land,” and who believed that “the diffusion of sound learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings.”
Hillsdale was the first American college to prohibit in its charter any discrimination based on race, sex, or national origin. Associated with the anti-slavery movement from its earliest days, it attracted to its campus anti­ slavery leaders such as Frederick Douglass and Edward Everett, who preceded Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. Several of the College’s leading men were instrumental in founding the new Republican party up the road in Jackson, Michigan, in 1854. And Hillsdale sent a larger percentage of its students to fight for the Union in the Civil War than any other American college or university except West Point. Two of those Hillsdale veterans helped carry Lincoln’s casket to the slain president’s final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.
Hillsdale’s modern rise to national prominence began in the 1970s, when the federal government attempted to impose a host of regulations on the College-including racial quota requirements that violated Hillsdale’s principled policy of nondiscrimination. When the Supreme Court upheld these regulations in the 1980s on the basis that Hillsdale students received federally funded grants and loans, the College decided to refuse even this indirect form of federal aid, replacing all federal student aid with privately funded grants, loans, and scholarships.

Hillsdale’s Board of Trustees pledged first that the College would continue its long­ standing policy of nondiscrimination, and second that it would not accept any encroachments on its independence. It is a pledge that has been renewed several times in subsequent years and stands to date.

Today an independent, coeducational, residential liberal arts college with a student body of some 1,460 undergraduates, the College continues to carry out its original mission. With a core curriculum that comprises about one-half of courses a student needs to graduate, Hillsdale maintains its strong fidelity to the liberal arts.

In its outreach, too, the College teaches those same ideas that advance “civil and religious liberty.” Its many programs include the Center for Constructive Alternatives, one of the largest college lecture series in America; the Hoogland Center for Teacher Excellence, which holds seminars for high school teachers of civics and history; the National Leadership Seminars; the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship, in Washington, D.C.; and Imprimis, a monthly newsletter that reaches over 4 million people. Opened in the fall of 2012, the Hillsdale College Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship offers an M.A. and a Ph.D. in politics.

For more information about Hillsdale College, and to obtain a free subscription to the Imprimis monthly, please visit www.hillsdale.edu

The post Hillsdale College- Free online Learning & More appeared first on Granite Grok.

Though this article is designed for the Ward 2 voter/reader, Alderman Dowd’s chairmanship is ultimately a citywide product.  Alderman Wilshire was given the gavel by the body of 15.  That’s nine wards with one alderman apiece plus six members elected at large. Keep in mind that there was an opportunity to remove some of those 6 in addition to the mayor.

Prior to the November 2023 election, I learned that Dowd was not held in high esteem by his condo community.  As his opponent, I gave that neighborhood some extra attention while out canvassing, then wrote this article about some condo association dirty laundry I learned more about while talking to well-engaged members of that community.

I was bent on removing that old fixture and fueled by my anger against his Mask Madness and big spending modus operandi; the latter being a big part of the resulting “Property Tax Tyranny.”

Last night’s meeting offered much to observe and take note of.  It’s almost 2 hours long, but I encourage you to watch the public comments that are in the very beginning.

You could call it “3 WATCHdog Night” because the first 8 minutes were comments by three local women who almost don’t need any introduction: Laura Colquhoun, who recently wrote this article; Laurie Ortolano, who also speaks a 2nd time during a separate public comment at 1:41:35 to 1:44:35, and does hold her own as a Grokster, and Paula Johnson, who was recently ousted in a school recount and is planning to appeal recent litigation against the City that did not go favorably.

They tore it up!  Good job, ladies.

I’ll give you the brief Jim Rice NESN desk summary.  It became obvious that Alderman Dowd, as chair, knew about the ESSER funds shortfall BEFORE the election, and some of his ilk just started learning how bad only lately.  For a detailed, play-by-play review of last night’s clown show, stay tuned in beyond the 9th minute when Alderman Sullivan asks questions.  One very nasty member of The Swamp, who has been exceptionally hostile to Laurie Ortolano in the past, started questioning Dowd also though as a way of pretending to want accountability to his constituents.  What a phony!

Watching the enemy camp eat its own is very gratifying, though only fleeting, but I will finish with this montage here because elections really do have consequences.

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