The Manchester Free Press

Friday • January 30 • 2026

Vol.XVIII • No.V

Manchester, N.H.

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News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
Updated: 14 min 17 sec ago

The World Needs a Star

Wed, 2024-01-31 11:00 +0000

Why Elon Musk allowed Walter Isaacson 2 years of unfettered access and to write a biography that Musk did not in any way change is a mystery. It could be that Steve Jobs did the same and Musk felt a need to share his story similarly, but it does not matter.

His personal life, thought process, work strategies, accomplishments, and flaws were laid bare.

Born into an extremely dysfunctional family and brought up in a violent South African environment Musk learned from an early age to work hard and fight to achieve success. Gifted with a genius aptitude in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math {STEM}, he made his way to college in Canada, transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated with an engineering degree. Musk existed on a different intellectual plane and his interpersonal skills can be summed up as he did not care what others thought and suffered no fools. Society would ordinarily crush such an obnoxious person, but Musk brought to the table unique skills. Skills that a capitalist society could leverage and make investors rich. The unifying theme throughout Musk’s biography is that Musk is a shining star, a renaissance man with a vision to preserve humanity from destructive forces. But what sets Musk apart is the way he turns his visions into reality. He gets venture capitalists to see the potential profits and they put up the funds needed to get the companies off the ground. Musk then drives worker productivity and delivers on-time product success.

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

All of Musk’s visions involve creating STEM products. Engineers design the products, and workers build them. “Musk’s Rules” for success are quite simple. Discover what part of the product assembly was taking too long or costing too much and find a way to make it go faster and cost less. Challenge every regulation, and if it does not make sense, ignore it. Make the engineers who designed the product work near the production site so they could see the design flaws that made assembly difficult or costly, and then correct the flaws. But what made Elon Musk unique is in difficult times, he would walk the assembly line, day and night, interacting with all problem areas, giving advice, and demanding engineers and workers alike be more efficient, innovative, cost-effective, and most importantly, take risks. If 10% of the risks did not fail, Musk decreed the employees were not risking enough. Musk made few friends and terminated workers who did not meet expectations, and not surprisingly, employee burnout was substantial. But as opposed to the cost-plus contracts the government routinely awarded to other private companies, contracts the companies never completed on time and for which they always came back for more funding, Musk delivered on time and within budget. SpaceX is an excellent example of Musk’s modus operandi. Musk felt there was a high probability humans would destroy themselves and that for humanity to survive, other planets must be colonized. Musk recognized that America’s space program was in tatters and to realize his vision of interplanetary colonization, the space program needed to be revitalized. He raised investor capital with the vision that if a private company could cost-effectively launch rockets into orbit, satellite placement could be monetized by capturing lucrative government and private contracts. He implemented “Musk’s Rules” and personally oversaw the work. SpaceX succeeded in creating a cost-effective reusable rocket that could be launched into orbit, and SpaceX became profitable. Musk’s creation launched thousands of satellites that, when linked together, formed the satellite-based internet connection “Star Link.” During its Ukrainian invasion, Russia was able to jam all earth-based internet connections, and without Musk allowing Ukraine to use Star Link, Putin would have overrun Ukraine. SpaceX continues to try and develop a massive rocket capable of leaving orbit and propelling humans to Mars. While Elon Musk has been overseeing multiple other ventures, six prototypes have failed. The Space X story highlights Musk at his best, but it also demonstrates his inherent weakness. The truth is colonizing Mars in Musk’s relatively short time frame is not going to happen. Even if SpaceX can produce a rocket capable of reaching Mars, the technology and infrastructure required to mount a colonization effort does not exist. Until spaceships can achieve a velocity approaching the speed of light or a breakthrough occurs that allows time and space to be warped, the present nine-month one-way trip to Mars would be self-limiting. Not to mention the harsh atmosphere’s lack of oxygen and the planet’s lack of usable water. If there were easily harvested profitable Mars assets, investors might be interested, but this is not the case. SpaceX demonstrates by the sheer force of his vision, engineering innovation, “Musk rules,” and refusal to accept defeat, Elon Musk can produce a marketable futuristic product. But until the rest of the universe’s infrastructure catches up to Musk’s new product, his vision hits a dead end. As with his rockets, the same can be said about his electric cars. A Tesla is a wonderful technological achievement, but present-day electric grid infrastructure and electricity production cannot support America’s transition to all-electric vehicles, and charging stations are not readily available. Middle and lower-class Americans cannot afford the expensive electric cars or the price of installing home charging stations. The massive amounts of electricity needed will have to be derived from fossil fuels, and thus defeat the purpose of electric cars. Both SpaceX and Tesla are examples of putting the proverbial cart before the horse. This does not mean the companies founded by Musk will be in financial trouble. Both SpaceX and Tesla have morphed away from Musk’s initial vision. SpaceX is more of a vehicle for access to space, and Tesla is moving towards high-end driverless electric cars and artificial intelligence. With Musk distracted by X {formerly Twitter}, these successful companies may decide they no longer need or want Elon Musk’s” Rules”. Musk has moved into the public square and labeled the progressive agenda as a “woke mind virus” triggering civilizational suicide and he has told the biological truth about there being only two sexes. By liberating Twitter from its woke masters, Musk has plunged a knife into the progressive elites’ plans to control and censor free speech. But in doing so, he has made very powerful enemies. Enemies who never cared about Musk’s lofty visions and only tolerated Elon Musk’s unsophisticated rudeness because he previously served their purpose. Enemies who know how to bring the force of government against him. Enemies that can manipulate the media to harm both him and his family. If Elon Musk’s simmering star is not to be extinguished by the coming global elite onslaught, he needs to prioritize his vision to save humanity. Most importantly, Musk has to keep X and free speech alive. Because spreading the truth on a platform that reaches billions and leveraging every bit of his formidable abilities will fuel Musk’s star, morphing Musk into a white-hot weapon. A weapon perfectly suited to incinerate the “woke mind virus” and thwart those who would enslave us all.

 

The post The World Needs a Star appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

We The Dying Should Decide, Not The Government

Wed, 2024-01-31 09:00 +0000

Contrary to several detractors, our “Live Free; Die Free” act (House Bill 1283) does not “legalize physician-assisted suicide”: it, in effect, simply removes a current law that prevents the dying from buying medicine that they want.

If the dying further chooses, it would be the dying – and no one else – who would self-administer that medicine. It is more accurately thought of as “Right to Buy” – but only for the almost dead, and only if we just can’t stand the pain any longer.

The state currently cruelly prevents us who are suffering horrible deaths from obtaining medicine that could help us die peacefully, in our sleep, quietly, and (my personal preference) amongst friends & family. Instead, the state, righteously wielding its violence of law, forces us to continue to be tortured by our disease, to stretch out our pain, indignity, desperation, and loneliness for days or weeks, even though the end for which we may be long past ready is inevitable.

Oh, its apologists will offer to us (with a whisper and a wink) “other ways” to end our misery – ways that are less successful, less peaceful, more scary, and/or more painful. You see the state graciously countenances us, the desperately dying, to starve ourselves to death, or to refuse water until we dehydrate to death, or (the most commonly suggested alternative) to “accidentally clean” our guns. The state’s benevolence certainly accepts our suffering and our screams. (“But not too loudly, dear! After all, there are other patients on this floor.”) Or it will tolerate drug-comas to quiet our cries (until we wake up, panicked, pressing our call button).

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

What would we do without its compassionate over-lording? Surely, we, the dying, are too feeble-minded, too unaware of the disease consuming our bodies! Should we not be thankful to be so selflessly served by such wise and courageous white knights?!

You see, the righteously ruling ultimately don’t see us, the dying, as equal to them. During the last days of our lives, when we are most vulnerable, they steal our bodies from us, patronizing us that they know better than we (who are actually suffering inside those very same disease-wracked bodies). They even have the audacity to argue that this hard-hearted violation of our most basic self-ownership is not evil but an actual kindness to us!

But here’s their error: granite staters are no one’s slaves, not even when we’re dying.

Even we, the dying, have the right of self-ownership. You see, no matter how much busy-bodies busy their bodies, our bodies never magically become theirs. The state has no right to torture us – not for sadistic ritual or political posturing. The decision over my body, especially at my life’s end, is mine, not theirs. (And over your body? At your life’s end? It’s yours, and still not theirs.)

Whether we, the dying, decide to buy the medicine or not (most of us will not), whether we, the dying, decide to ingest our purchased medicine or not (at least 15% of us will not), is not the human rights issue at the center of House Bill 1283.

Its central human rights issue is: “Who decides for this human being’s body right here?” Is it the person trapped inside that anguished body, or is it some outside master? May I – now that I am dying for sure – buy something I desperately need? Or does that pitiless master own my body more than I do, remote-controlling my suffering from his bureaucracy?

In New Hampshire, the freest state in the world, we should be free to not only live free, but also to die free, not on our knees begging a master for relief.

 

Dennis Pratt lives in Dover with his wife Carol of 43 years, and their two dogs. He is head of “Die Free,” a liberty-based group for recognizing end-of-life sovereignty, and has worked for the last two years with the grass-roots organization NH Options on House Bill 1283. He has written over 1800 essays on libertarian ethics and is the Chair of the Judicial Committee for the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. Sure, he’s sparring with cancer, but don’t think that makes him a wuss.

The post We The Dying Should Decide, Not The Government appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

No Constitutional Right to Abortion in NH

Wed, 2024-01-31 03:00 +0000

On Thursday, February 1st, the Democrats in the New Hampshire House of Representatives will be attempting to put a right to abortion in the New Hampshire Constitution (CACR23), and we must stop them. We cannot make the destruction of children and women a right in the New Hampshire Constitution.

Predatory abortion clinics intentionally disguise themselves as “healthcare centers,” when in truth they do not offer healthcare, they only sell coercion, lies and trauma. Their counseling consists of an abortion sales pitch where the “clump of cells” inside you must be removed before it turns into a baby because they say you’re not ready to become a Mom.

After the initial sales pitch and pressure, the next steps move quickly, like a whirlwind. You soon find yourself in a procedure room with your legs in stirrups, and then you quickly find out that you were lied to because you feel your child being violently removed from your womb. The people surrounding you at that very moment are all accomplices in the lies that led up to the death of your child. Terror and grief grasp you so hard that you are numb and in shock. They throw you a bag of saltines and a dixie cup of juice and sit you in a waiting room with all the other broken women to wait to make sure you’re not hemorrhaging. After a little while, you are shown the door, and that is the last you hear from them. They are done with you, but your nightmare has just begun.

The abortion clinic didn’t offer me healthcare, help, real counseling, or the truth. They coerced me, took my money, ripped my child from my womb, and then left me broken with a lifetime filled with trauma and grief.

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

A few years later, and in a different relationship, I became pregnant again and went to an ob/gyn for care. They did routine genetic testing, which came back positive for Down’s Syndrome. The Dr. assured me the result was accurate and then proceeded to pressure me to terminate the pregnancy because “raising a special needs child would be difficult.” We refused to terminate the pregnancy because we knew our child would be perfect and loved regardless of any challenges that may come with her.

Months later, my daughter was born a healthy and perfect 10 pounds 9 ounces. She did not have Down’s Syndrome or any other challenge. We were blessed. Later, I found out that several friends and relatives also had the same experience I did with a positive result for a genetic abnormality, and they too were pressured to terminate the pregnancy, and they too refused and had children who were born without the predicted abnormality.

I looked into these genetic tests and found that they have false positive results over 80% of the time. These same genetic tests are still being used today and still have over 80% false positive results. Why is this????

Millions of babies have been killed, and millions of Moms have been traumatized due to the lies, coercion, and deceit of the predatory abortion industry, whose tentacles are far-reaching into our healthcare system.

My story is common, but you don’t hear it often because broken women don’t speak up and tell their stories. It took me 30 years and a lot of counseling to be able to tell mine.

I’ll never know my first child or who he would have been, or what he would have done. My second child grew up to be a strong, bright, and independent woman who became one of the youngest women to serve in the New Hampshire State Legislature, and while she was there, she fought against predatory abortion before she even knew she had lost a sibling to abortion.

Please call, email, and text your New Hampshire State Representatives and tell them to say NO to CACR23 on February 1st.

The post No Constitutional Right to Abortion in NH appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

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