Tuesday • December 30 • 2025
Vol.XVIII • No.I
Manchester, N.H.
National Parents Organization and New Hampshire Families recently received the results of independent polling concerning the attitudes of those in New Hampshire about shared parenting. The results show overwhelming support for a legal presumption of equal shared parenting when parents are living apart.
Recent polling by Researchscape in New Hampshire adds to a body of similar research done in more than two dozen states now, including Alabama in 2023; Iowa, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Virginia in 2022; and New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in 2021. In every state in which polling has been done, the support for a legal presumption of equal shared parenting when parents separate is stunningly strong. (See sharedparenting.org/shared-parenting-polling for details.)
So, what does the New Hampshire public think about shared parenting?
Decades of scientific research align with these public attitudes. More than forty years of empirical research provide near-uniform support for the conclusion that, when parents are living apart, the more time children spend with each of their parents, the better outcomes for children. Children fare better on all metrics of child well-being when parents share equally in raising them—even when the parents are not in agreement about engaging in shared parenting.
Under current New Hampshire law, in the absence of parental agreement, one parent is designated the custodial parent, and the other parent is relegated to an every-other-weekend visitor in the child’s life. This pits the parents against one another and contributes to the parental conflict that we know is harmful for children.
Assuring parents, and especially the children, that parental separation will not, in the typical case, degrade or destroy the relationship the children have with both parents will help to reduce the conflict that arises when parents separate. This is important because it is the ongoing conflict and extended litigation, together with the loss of a full relationship with one parent, that is far more harmful to children than the fact that the parents are living apart.
New Hampshire children and families pray their rights and best interests will prevail over the special interests that oppose shared parenting and that New Hampshire Legislators will VOTE GREEN ON HB185 on Wednesday, January 3, 2024.
The post New Hampshire Overwhelmingly Supports Shared Parenting appeared first on Granite Grok.
New Hampshire’s Largest paper, our paper of record, may not have had a lot of choices for a citizen of the year, or there may have been hundreds. But rather than pick a citizen, it picked a politician. Chris Sununu.
I am not implying that elected officials are not citizens, but shouldn’t an institution like the one left behind by the Loeb’s – the founders of that daily, make some effort to find someone outside the political sphere to recognize?
I’m not familiar with the criteria, but I’d be inclined to find a different sort of public servant. A police officer, EMT, firefighter, nurse, plumber, electrician, or other ordinary schmo who did something exceptional or persisted in a thankless task to benefit others.
Yes, you could call being elected thankless, but that’s in the job description. No matter what you do, at minimum, a third to perhaps two-thirds of citizens will not like it. That’s what his excellency gets paid to put up with. But this is a guy who let too many opportunities to choose liberty pass, and not just in 2023.
He has managed to sit atop an unusual time in 21st century New Hampshire. A Republican Governor with successive Republican majorities in the Executive Council and Legislature. With his signature, he has allowed tax cuts and the elimination of taxes to become law. But he has done too little to ensure election integrity. He endorsed Nikki Haley for President after Haley said she’d force private social media companies to make the names of every contributor public, which must include whistleblowers who could not otherwise speak.
Parents will be scratching their heads. Sununu was not their biggest ally and, in previous years, was quite the contrary. While Sununu supported school choice, he has compromised women’s safe spaces and left room for third-party associations to advance unconstitutional policies like JBABA, which encourages compelled speech. And done nothing in this year or any other of which I am aware to fight that injustice.
He has allowed his DoJ, without public comment, to chase cases that suggest a deeper commitment to interfering with free speech and support for more government control of speech.
Sununu chose the Biden administration’s election interference tactics over a former Republican president who was well within his legal right to possess classified documents and those he’d declassified. If it was a political hit on a guy he’d sworn to oppose, not much seems out of bounds.
Illegal border incursions from Canada went on for too long before Governor Sununu lifted a finger to do anything about it.
Sununu is always quick to take federal money, insisting there are no strings or federal demands attached when nothing comes out of DC without conditions. A commitment to growing fiscal dependency on the Feds, which is a crime against state sovereignty.
There are more, and by all means, please fill them in below as comments because I’m stopping here.
Mr. Sununu has done some good things in each of his terms, in every year in office as Governor, but he could have done better in 2023. More than a few opportunities to side with liberty passed him by either because he blocked them or failed to use his office to rally legislators in support.
Nobody is perfect, and we cannot let perfect be the enemy of the good, but naming a politician as Citizen of the Year is a cop-out and wholly inappropriate for a media organization whose role should be to find elected officials from any party, in any office, at the bottom of any or every such list. Your job is to hold them accountable, not put another accolade on their mantle.
As for The ‘Grok, we don’t name a citizen of the year, and by all means, offer suggestions in comments if you have them, but if I had to choose one off the top of my head for 2023, I’d go with Danial Richard.
But that’s just me.
The post Union Leader Names Chris Sununu NH Citizen of The Year – We Respectfully Disagree appeared first on Granite Grok.
There are three main takeaways from 2023. Higher education, especially among the Ivy Leagues and other “elite” colleges, continues to be revealed for what it has become: a bloated, tenured-protected, and indoctrinating mess.
Three Ivy League college presidents recently went before Congress and gave arrogant and evasive answers to simple questions. It reminded me of the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Ketanji Brown Jackson when she could not define a woman or man.
Colleges have morphed from institutes for learning into indoctrination camps designed to propagate leftist race and gender ideology. The worst extremes of the left have now become the norm at colleges, which are out of touch, expensive and arrogant. They used to be places that searched for the truth; now they create false narratives.
Colleges are so paralyzed by race that they cannot fire the plagiarizing president of Harvard, Dr. Claudine Gay. So far, 40 cases of plagiarism have suddenly been discovered after she angered Jewish people, something any educated person with common sense knows not to do. President Gay, who is black, implies the assertions are racial. She says she plans to address all this in her upcoming “I Have a Dream” speech on the National Mall in D.C.
Having coddled students for so long, businesses are no longer buying the colleges’ product: students. I am glad I got my degree in gender studies in the 80s, back when there were only two of them. I cannot image how confusing that degree would be now.
Colleges have become so PC and humorless that their choosing to become antisemitic should worry us. I would not bring Mel Brooks’ comedy “The Producers” to any Ivy League campus for fear the audience would not laugh at the “Springtime for Hitler” song, but instead join in.
Secondly, it was good to see America and candidates (mostly Republicans like Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis) push back on the idea of Washington getting us into another war of choice. Biden and the Beltway permanent political class love war now. And to keep us funding his honey hole ATM, Ukraine, Biden pandered to students by pretending he could wipe out their student loans.
The loans that college students signed up for to get degrees are worthless, like the course/major called “Taylor Swift Studies.” Getting out of college is much like breaking up with Taylor Swift; in a year or so you will be paying a severe price.
Biden did say that any young person killed in his pending World War III will have his or her government student loans forgiven.
Lastly, women and men taking advantage of the #MeToo movement have been dealt a blow. Kevin Spacey, Johnny Depp and others with the guts to challenge old claims have won their cases. Being hit on or flirted with have morphed into sexual harassment and assault allegations. Kevin Spacey’s first accuser, a massage therapist who said Spacey groped him, died suddenly after filing suit. This made me think the Clintons are now franchising.
In testimony, a witness said Kevin Spacey “would not hurt a fly.” (I guess as long as it is not open.) It’s clear: If Kevin Spacey, Chris Rock or Russell Brand were not rich celebs, these cases would not have been filed. Had the #MeToo movement gone unchecked and allowed to go any further, I was going to sue for harassment. If my lawyer asked who I wanted to sue, I would’ve said, “Anyone who will settle.”
When the #MeToo movement took the fun out of being a Democrat in elected office, the left backed off. They certainly have kept the Epstein Island guest list under wraps. It is still the only secret in D.C.
Opportunists used the #MeToo trend to shake down the rich and famous for purported sexual encounters from decades ago. When egregious crimes like rape, sexual assault and pedophilia go unpunished because people use the heightened #MeToo attention to threaten criminal charges in order to enhance their civil suit shakedowns, we are all worse off. It’s gotten where it is a career risk being social with co-workers.
In short, not a single Founding Father or president would have survived this #MeToo movement. Not a single male Republican Supreme Court nominee has since 2016 has not been attacked by an old allegation. Rest assured, if Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullet had not gotten JFK in 1963, the #MeToo movement in 2018 would have killed him at the ripe old age of 101.
A libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, Ron does commentary on radio and TV. He can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.
Ron Hart | Daily Caller
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As GraniteGrok rolls into its 17th year at the helm of New Hampshire politics, we wish you and yours a Happy New Year. We hope you have some fond memories of the old year and great plans for the one ahead, regardless of how the political wind blows.
We will, of course, work to provide some direction and try to punch a few holes in our political opponent’s bilge barge. Changes are planned, but some things never change. We’re still your ‘Grok, so plenty of hyperbolic bomb-throwing will ensue.
Site updates are planned for Q1—a slightly different look. The ad-free VIP feature will build out from that—changing commenting systems. and new ways to sort content that addresses our expanded audience. The MicroGroks will be there, but you’ll be able to sift from any page by NH, New England, the Nation, and the World.
We’ll also be adding MaineGrok.
That Mobile App I’ve always wanted is lingering in the wings – and yes, I still want that, and I want it in 2024.
We are still hoping for a few generous sponsors willing to support independent media annually. ‘Grok can grow, but we need funding, and the consensus is no one wants more ads, including me. Ideally, we raise enough from subscribers, donors, and sponsors to make the Ad-Free VIP portion not just Ad-Free but premium content-only and the regular site Ad-Free. We need donors to do that, and it’s on the list.
Better search is still on the update bullet list, as is a dedicated Op-ed page that works a bit better than the way we do it now.
Given the new silo content sorting scheme, we’ll be moving toward – with a few exceptions – limiting MicroGrok content to articles about those towns or regions. No more general dumping of statewide, regional, national, or global content on those pages. They are useless as locals if the content isn’t local. And yes, I need to recruit more or newer creators willing to provide that focus for all of them.
Volunteers?
We need them for Nashua, Manchester, Hollis, Windham, Cheshire County (MonadnockGrok), Rockingham-Strafford County (SeacoastGrok), Belknap and Carrol (Cty Lakes Region), North Country (Coos – no site until we find writers), as well as Derry Londonderry (no site yet), Concord (No site yet) and perhaps the River Valley (Belknap and Sullivan Cty. no site yet).
It may make more sense to do Greater Nashua, Greater Manchester, and GreaterConcord -regional pages. This would roll Derry/Londonderry into Manchester and Hollis into Nashua – and no, I’m not married to that idea yet.
VermontGrok needs more contributors, as will the newly minted but not yet live MaineGrok – both states deserve our attention as they have significant policy impacts on New Hampshire. What happens there, they want here.
The budget to run all of this will be more than we failed to raise in 2023, so anyone who is good at fundraising and will work on commission should contact me. I know – in an election year, good luck, Steve – but that’s what we need, so we’ll try to get there from here.
We’ve made a few strategic content-sharing arrangements so ‘Grok can help local independent media grow its audience while we grow ours.
It seems like a lot, but it all comes down to this. There are outlets repeating the news and those who will do more than challenge that status quo. We are the latter and can do more, but we’ll need more help and, yes – more financial support. I’m not linking to it here. The donate link is at the top of every page (GiveSendGo has no fees if you care). But there are plenty of ways to contribute that don’t include money. Content, contacts, content, relationships, and did I mention content?
The world is out to shut independent media down. We see that as no less of a challenge and intend to rise to meet it. We hope you can do more than just come along for the ride, but if your contribution is reading and sharing, we’re more than just happy to have you. We love our readers, even the ones who don’t always love us.
Now put your phone away and enjoy whatever New Year’s Eve thing is your thing. And if you are reading this on New Year’s Day or later, welcome to 2024. Let’s kick some ass.
The post Happy New Year! – Now, Let’s Take 2024 by the (You Know What) And Kick It (You Know Where) appeared first on Granite Grok.
If you take out and read the United States Constitution.
Or the New Hampshire Constitution.
Or the Declaration of Independence.
Or the federalist papers.
or Tom Paine’s work “common sense.”
You would not find “equity” (as used in DEI).
George Washington never advocated it.
Abraham Lincoln never mentioned it.
Nobody died at Gettysburg to promote it.
Now, to be sure, the thought changes if you talk about “equality,” not equity.
Equality is a common theme in our laws, our social norms, and in our history. To confuse the two is to confuse two views of civilization.
Equality means that the INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS of each citizen are treated equally by the Government. Equality is an intimate part of a system of Government that elevates the individual to the highest status and sees Government as existing to promote, protect, and defend the rights of the individual citizen. As a part of a system of individual rights, “equality” operates to protect those rights by forbidding Government from promoting one man’s or woman’s rights preferentially over another’s. My first amendment right to free speech is no better nor worse than my neighbor. I am entitled to the same due process as a citizen born across town or across the country. The key is “my” rights: equality is a part of making “my” rights prosper along with everyone else’s rights.
Equity” means that citizens belong to one of two classes: the oppressed or the oppressor. “Equity” assumes that all of society- on all levels (whether spiritual, historical, legal, or educational) – is explained by these two classes. “Equity” declares that individual rights are really just an illusion imposed by the oppressor class to marginalize the oppressed. “Equity ” declares the role of Government (control belongs to a central Government, not local towns or cities) is to take control of society to un-oppress the oppressed and subdue the oppressors. CRT adds to this “equity,” the notion that the oppressors are white and the oppressed are not white.
For more than 250 years, we have been living in a world of individual rights and liberties, a world that treats citizens equally. Individuals may have seen themselves as oppressed, but the Government operated according to a constitution that valued and respected the individual. During all that time- 250 years- a lot of highly educated and freedom loving Judges, legislators, and citizens looked at and interpreted and enforced our Constitution through a filter of freedom, liberty, and individual rights. Not a one of them over 250 years-read “Equity” into the State of New Hampshire’s Constitution.
Kind of created a powerful log jam for the “equity” crowd: how do we replace the “liberty” and
“individual” freedoms Constitution with the value and norms of the “Equity” Constitution?
First step: Let Massachusetts tell us what is in our own Constitution!
Case 1: CLAREMONT SCHOOL DISTRICT V GOVERNOR OF NEW HAMPSHIRE 138 N H 183(1993)
Five “property poor” (as in the average home value for these folks is substantially less than in, say, Hollis) School districts plus one student and one taxpayer in each of these five districts sued the state, claiming that the State was not “spreading educational opportunities EQUITABLY among “its”( i e the entire student body of the state) students.
These plaintiffs argued that the State, as opposed to local school districts, had the duty to provide, on an equitable basis, the same education to each student in the State. A student in a property-poor district is denied “equitable” treatment if a student in a property rich district receives more money.
In other words, the plaintiffs argued basic principles of “Equity” and argued that the New Hampshire Constitution mandated such equity.
This infusion of “equity” was required, they claimed, due to the provision of part II, section 83(1774) of the Constitution, which reads:
“ART. 83: (ENCOURAGEMENT OF LITERATURE)Knowledge and learning, generally diffused through a community, being essential to the preservation of a free Government…it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates…to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all the seminaries and public schools, to encourage private and public institutions, rewards and immunities for the promotion of agriculture,arts, sciences, commerce, trade, manufacturers…: to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and economy, honesty and punctuality, sincerity, sobriety, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people.”
When the Plaintiffs asserted that this provision of the Constitution MANDATED the State to take control of the education system and specifically the funding of each student on an equitable basis, the Honorable Judge Manias basically said, “HUH?”
“New Hampshire’s Encouragement of Literature Clause contains no language regarding equity, uniformity, or even adequacy of education. Thus, the New Hampshire Constitution imposed no qualitative standard of education which must be met. Likewise, the New Hampshire constitution imposes no quantifiable financial duty regarding education; there is no mention of funding or even providing or maintaining education. The only duty set forth is the amorphous duty to “…to cherish public schools and…to encourage private and public institutions.” The language is hortatory and not mandatory.”
It would seem that Judge Manias was spot on. How could anyone read the Encouragement of Literature clause any differently? The plain language is the plain language. Right? Right?
Nope.
In Claremont v Governor, the Supreme Court essentially said that to read the clear, unambiguous words in this clause so as to support our mandate that the State take over the school system, we must ignore the plain meaning and ask,” What did the people at the time mean by those words? “
Ok, fair enough -let’s do that. What did the folks in 1774 in New Hampshire mean when they wrote this article into the Constitution in 1774?
To find out, should we not look to the people in New Hampshire in 1774?
Nope.
We must look to the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1993.
Why?
Because for a big part of New Hampshire’s history, up until 1680-nearly 100 years prior to the writing of the words we are trying to interpret – we were a part of Massachusetts. Therefore, a Massachusetts Supreme Court decision in 1993 provides mandatory guides for us to know what our citizens thought in 1774.
I hate to be repetitive, but HUH? WHAT? I am not making this up. It is what the New Hampshire Supreme Court said. Pull it up on Google and read it yourself.)
In Mcduffy v Secretary,415 Mass 545, the Mass Supreme Court (which, of course, is made up of justices who knew the citizens of New Hampshire back in 1774 because, after all, the idea is to interpret the subject clauses according to what the people at the time understood them to mean(sarcasm!)) ruled:
The phrase “duty…to cherish…the public schools encompass the duty (on the state) to provide an education to the people of the state.”
The New Hampshire Supreme Court held that because the 1993 Massachusetts court made this pronouncement, that the duty was now established in New Hampshire: Schools and school financing are the duty of the State.
OBJECTION, YOUR HONORS. For 250 years, the people’s legislators, judges, and citizens interpreted the subject phrase as Judge Manias did. Would that not be a better way to determine what the original authors meant?
What about 250 years when the good judges, legislators, and citizens of New Hampshire thought differently- thought like Judge Manias?
Nope.
The deal with this “problem,” the New Hampshire Supreme Court again turned for guidance to the Massachusetts case of Mcduffy:
Without any thoughtful basis, the Mcduffy court simply dismissed any idea that the founding fathers and mothers meant to place control of education into local hands by saying
“That local control and fiscal support has been placed in greater or lesser measure through our history on local governments does not dilute the validity of the conclusion that the duty to support public schools lies with the state.”
(Again HUH? What? Give me a reason. Saying what you feel or want is not a reason.)
In a nutshell, Judge Manias ruled that the plain meaning of the New Hampshire Constitution has no language of “equity” has no language saying that the State has the duty to run the schools. Moreover, 250 years of local school control, with local funding, say clearly that for 250 years, New Hampshire Judges, legislators and good citizens agreed with Judge Manias’ interpretation.
But… Massachusetts disagrees and because we were a part of Massachusetts until 1680, whatever they say goes. They say the state has the duty to provide for, control, and finance the school system by applying principles of EQUITY(DEI).
So, let’s ignore the language of the Constitution; let’s ignore 250 years of New Hampshire folks’ interpretation of the Constitution. And let’s apply Massachusetts law of 1993 to hold that the State of New Hampshire is under a constitutional level duty to take over the Education system, take control from the local school boards and citizens, and apply principles of equity to school financing.
This ruling was cataclysmic by every definition of the word. It represented a sea change of 250 years in how New Hampshire ran its schools. You may not realize how cataclysmic because, for the last thirty years, a lot of good folks in positions of power did not (my opinion) embrace the holding and fought it.
But the wealth, power, and persistence of the woke folks and the weakness of the non-woke means that what began thirty years ago is finally about to visit its full destructive force on the good parents, students, teachers, and taxpayers of this great State. Our system of local control will soon be replaced by a system of centralized control in Concord. An Equity-based tax system will take from the “oppressor” School districts and give to the “oppressed. ”
To understand more of what is happening, I invite your attention to part 2 of this article.
Simply put, there have been eight subsequent Supreme Court rulings – all chipping away at the traditional school system – replacing it with a system based upon EQUITY. Those 8 cases are now joined by two rather dramatic Superior court decisions coming out of Rockingham Superior Court. The full impact of this effort to fundamentally re structure the school system by filtering the New Hampshire Constitution through the eyes of DEI/Equity is now about to be felt. My opinion: we are about to see results -felt for the first time really in 2024-from these rulings that will fundamentally alter not only the school system (i.e., gut local control and local funding) but will fundamentally infuse the State with the EQUITY world view. Certainly, if the Courts are willing to do what they are doing to the school system, then what system is safe from the EQUITY rule?
Part 2 will explore Claremont II( Claremont v Governor 142 N H462(1997)), wherein the Court declared the system for funding education was unconstitutional because it was not based upon Equity.
The post Are the State Courts Trying To Transfer Control of School Districts to Central Command in Concord? appeared first on Granite Grok.
The year 2023 had so much potential. The usual suspects were screaming the hottest hotness ever. All that global boiling. The dry grass out west from a year with record snowfalls. Drought narratives meet climate narratives to spark a flame that rages (like wildfire) nationwide, but 2023 saw the lowest burn average in 25 years.
The news has been quite good this year with respect to the total number of acres burned on US soil due to wildfire activity. In fact, the total acreage burned this year is under 3 million (through 12/18) which is far below the 10-year average of nearly 7 million from 2013-2022 and the lowest since 1998.
One of the main contributing factors to the down year in overall US wildfire activity is the fact that it has been a mild year in California with the number of burned acres under 390,000 (as of 12/18). This value is down about 75% from the 5-year average of about 1.6 million acres burned in the Golden State (data source). The relatively mild year of 2023 follows another relatively mild year in 2022; however, the two years before that (2020, 2021) were some of the worst on record.
WUWT Also included a screen grab of the official government data, available here.
That’s not the only bad news for Captain Planet and the Climate Cult Profiteers. Overall, 2023, while sold with a hyperbolic fury as proof the world would end if we didn’t revert to stone tools and eating insects, was, in fact – boring. Nothing unexpected or exceptional if you are more interested in climate science than political science.
WUWT did a deep dive here, which was summed up like this.
We are all well aware of the narrative that the weather is quickly getting worse. Unfortunately, data does not agree.1
The weather — and certainly the impacts — of the past 12 months in the United States was actually pretty typical, even benign, in historical context.2
I’ll leave you with one more bit of data that is not at all interesting or exciting. NOAA’s USCRN Surface Temperature anomaly data for the US.
Boring. There is no evidence of a change in temperature trend, which means no boiling or roasting or hottest hotness. It’s just weather, and when you pile all that weather in a row, there’s nothing to see.
Sorry, one more “one more.” Tony Heller checked the Arctic Sea Ice Extent on Christmas Eve. It’s at its highest in Greta Thunberg’s lifetime.
Arctic sea ice has declined over the long term, but I read somewhere that the NAMO is expected to flip again soon, leading to expanding sea ice. None of which will stop the hyperbolic fury. The grift depends on it.
So, here’s to more news about wildfires, boiling, and sea ice news in 2024!
The post They Said “Global Warming” Will Affect Wildfires – 2023 Had Fewest Acres Burned This Century appeared first on Granite Grok.
