Chip Roy’s Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (HR8281) does this crazy thing. It says what the federal law already says: Non-citizens cannot vote in US elections. They can’t. It’s illegal. But there’s no mechanism to ensure that. HR8281 says you must prove you are a citizen to register and vote. Provide proof. Neither of New Hampshire’s Dem House Critters voted for it.

They both voted no.

I get that Kuster has short-timers’ diseases and tends to represent only 30-40% of her constituency, but this seems like a no-brainer. It’s a simple way to ensure Americans believe you when you say you want and that we have secure elections with integrity, especially in a climate where there may be tens of millions of potential non-citizen ballot box stuffers shambling across the increasingly fruitless plain.

Letting anyone who wanders across the border to vote sends a different message. One, we must admit, the Democrats have defended in New Hampshire for decades. As a matter of state policy, if you happen to be here on election day, they want you to join in the fun (they must think means more votes for them). And that was the Dem party-line vote in HR8281, but the bill still passed with bipartisan support. Five Democrats voted yea, and every House Republican supported it. 198 Democrats voted no. They are okay with people who are not Americans deciding who represents you in Washington, DC. But I suppose that also makes sense. The priorities of felons (illegal entry is a felony) are not typically the same as those of law-abiding taxpayers and with the exception of Donald Trump (and that guy Sotomayor’s Fed bodyguard shot), Democrats like felons more than they do you or me.

Or, perhaps, this is part of an expanded commitment to access without proof of identity—the opposite of two-factor identification. Not only do we not need to know who you are (no ID), but there’s no need to prove that you are a citizen either. Can we expect this level of detail at the DNC convention in Chicago? Whoever says they are a delegate can vote for Joe’s replacement. That’d be fun to watch, but we know it won’t happen. You can’t get into the local state convention without ID, and they check to make sure you are a Democrat.

Two-factor authentication.

Picking representatives for Congress or a president (and every other race or measure on the ballot)?

Whatever.

 

The post Kuster and Pappas Protect Non-Citizen Voting “Rights” appeared first on Granite Grok.

Many people contacted the Executive Council to ask them to turn down a half million dollar grant that would be used to further support the Multi Tiered System of Support for Behavior in our public schools. The MTSS-B is a framework focused on a child’s behavior and mental health. Now that the MTSS-B has been implemented in New Hampshire Schools, we are discovering all kinds of problems.

This article in Granite Grok explains some of this here.

The Executive Councilors voted to support the grant. Here’s how they voted:
Cindy Warmington (YES)
Janet Stevens (YES)
Ted Gatsas (YES)

Dave Wheeler (NO)
Joe Kenney (NO)

The Commissioner did clarify that the $9k grant would cover MTSS-B, and the rest would be used for substance abuse. One would think this would be an easy vote. They could vote NO on this and then support another grant that would fund substance abuse measures in the schools. Unfortunately, the four councilors still voted for the grant.

Progressives who believe in a cradle-to-grave government system will be thrilled. This is all part of the CDC community school model they want in all public schools.

Dear Commissioner Edelblut,

After listening to the Executive Council meeting on July 10th and your statement on the MTSS-B framework, I wanted to follow up with you on some information you provided to the Council members. I appreciate that you were able to break down the amount of the grant that would be applied to MTSS-B and how the rest of the grant would be distributed.

The concerns that I have raised, along with teachers and other parents, center around the mental health aspect coming from how MTSS-B is being implemented in NH schools. In addition, we also know what Transformative SEL looks like because of how it is presented in SEL programs like Second Step. Transformative SEL will focus on racial injustice through the political ideology of anti-racism. This is a call to political activism through SEL in the classroom. We know that Second Step is used in Merrimack.

Since you cannot be in each school throughout the state, you would not be able to give a firsthand account of exactly how this program is being implemented. We can only go by what the SEL vendors share.

In addition, when districts like Merrimack tell parents that the teacher will be discussing anxiety with students, again, you are not in the classroom where this information will be provided. I’m attaching a file that teachers sent home to parents in Merrimack, where they would be discussing how to control anxiety. This could be why a young student then self-diagnosed herself with depression. She came home from school, claiming to her mother that she believed she was depressed. Those who know this child best would describe her as well-adjusted and happy. Planting seeds of anxiety or depression in a child is not a healthy way to promote good mental health. Providing expert mental health care to a child who is experiencing anxiety in a clinical setting, may be a more appropriate way to address anxiety in a child.

Two young NH boys were playing with swords in the lunchroom with their plastic knives. One accidentally scraped his friend, who then needed a bandaid. The boy who scraped his friend was then given a Psych evaluation against the wishes of his parents. A normal childhood interaction was enough for the school to perform a psych evaluation. I immediately referred the father to an attorney, but today, parents sign all kinds of consent forms at the beginning of the year without realizing that their child could be evaluated for doing what normal boys do.

Now that a psych evaluation has been conducted on a child in a public school, how exactly will that information be used against that child if he wants to become an officer in the military or apply for a job in law enforcement? No one seems to be considering the ramifications of this new experiment on children in public schools. If Medicaid is used to reimburse the district for these services, they must code the child. There is no code for normal.

You also mentioned that this sensitive personal information is FERPA-protected, but you didn’t mention to the Councilors that FERPA was gutted during the Obama administration. The changes now make personal student data available to a list of those who are considered “exceptions.” Prior to the gutting of FERPA, there were no exceptions, and parents would be required to consent before this personal information was shared. This is why privacy experts continue to call for closing the FERPA loophole. We are seeing all kinds of personal information shared without the knowledge or consent of the student or their parents.

Let’s be honest: FERPA doesn’t protect the personal information of students anymore. I think you should have at least explained that to the Councilors. Most parents are misled into thinking FERPA protects their child’s private information, but prior to that change to the law, Keene State wouldn’t have been able to access that personal mental health information on students in our schools.

Keene State BHII accessed personally identifiable mental health information from school counselors as an “exception.”
But what I have a hard time reconciling is how they managed to do this without IRB approval. FERPA allows this personally identifiable information to be shared with “researchers” but IRB is needed when conducting research on children. What we are seeing unfold in our schools is disturbing, and needs to be addressed honestly.

We have schools that are struggling to teach kids to read by 3rd grade, and now they are tasked with providing mental health services. We are seeing unethical practices that violate a student’s right to privacy, guaranteed in the New Hampshire Constitution. This needs to be resolved. If you continue this program in our schools, parents need to be confident that their child’s personal information on behavior or their mental health isn’t shared with anyone without the knowledge or consent of parents. The only exceptions should be those identified by mental health ethicists who make exceptions when a child is in danger to themselves or others.

During the Zoom meeting, the NH LEAs discussed sharing this information among the staff to work as a team. Once again, they have no right to access this sensitive data without the consent of parents, yet here they are talking about how the school’s team should be able to access this private information.

Where specifically are the protections for students in our schools? FERPA is no longer adequate. While I believe those involved would like to provide mental health services to children, the implementation shows us that schools are not set up to do this in a lawful and ethical way.

How much money is being spent on MTSS-B Coordinators while children sit in our local hospitals for sometimes up to a week, waiting for a bed to open at the one mental health facility for children in our state? This program is not only fiscally irresponsible, it’s fraught with numerous problems.

 

—
Ann Marie Banfield
TRUST REQUIRES TRANSPARENCY

Newsletters (2)

The post Executive Council Funds Unethical Mental Health Practices in NH’s Public Schools appeared first on Granite Grok.

An electoral reckoning is due, but so is an electrical one. The two are intertwined. A radical movement led primarily by the progressive left insists Americans must spend more to have less. We must electrify everything, they say. We must build enormous Easter Island-like shrines and monuments to appease the sun and wind gods (as it turns out) for nothing.

Not nothing, I suppose. These investments in the so-called energy transition are crippling the American economy, harming the poor and middle class, growing the anchor of our unproductive democracy, and dividing people over yet another issue that, in real terms, is of no consequence. And even if it were (of consequence), their chosen course is, as usual, exactly the opposite of the one needed (assuming any of their lies were even true).

One of the many dirty secrets is that you can’t build monuments without fossil fuels. The other is that Countries like India and China are building coal-powered infrastructure faster than you can say “global warming.” 

The need for energy in India is so dire, the Modi government just leaned on the power companies to get their act together. Instead of adding the usual 1 – 2 gigawatts of new coal power, which they have for a lot of the last decade, last year they ordered enough gear to build 10 gigawatts. And this year Modi wants them to aim for 31 gigawatts. Which is about the same capacity as the entire coal generation of the Australian National Grid (and our gas plants too).

Somewhat miraculously, they are talking of building them “in the next 5 or 6 years”: India ‘Asks Utilities to Order $33bn in Gear to Lift Coal Output.’

India, like China, Africa, and many parts of Asia, is modernizing. They see an opportunity to no longer be poor. But you need energy for that, and cheap energy is best. It frees up resources to power growth and modernization—things like indoor plumbing, flush toilets, comfortable living, food security, improved quality of life, health care, and longevity. Basic comforts the moderns in the West despise – at least for others. You don’t see them turning in their Suburaus for rickshaws or their walled villas for dirt-floored hovels in overcrowded shantytowns. Job one for them is taking your comforts away and replacing them with uncertainty and fear.

And that’s not even working.

Globally, we spent almost $2 trillion in 2023 to try to force an energy transition. Over the past decade, solar and wind energy use has soared to record levels. But that hasn’t reduced fossil-fuel use, which increased even more over the same period.

I recently explored this in more detail on Substack.

From 2004 to 2022, for example, 4.1 trillion was spent (just on) on wind and solar. What did we get for that (feel free to tack on the added cost of the electricity it generates)? Wind and solar account for 5% of total generation. In the same span of years, energy from hydrocarbons grew 3.4 times faster.

There is no green transition unless, by green, you mean wealth, prosperity, technology, productivity, and influence from the West to the East. The energy transition shifts power (real and political) out of the hands of nations like America and into the hands of India, the Chinese, Russia, and Africa. And it is not a clean transition. Lifting these nations from second or third to first world will produce “emissions” the likes of which this world has never seen.

You’d be right to ask why these activists are trying to squeeze Americans into releasing fewer emissions and not over there demanding they stop working so hard to destroy the globe. America hs vast energy resources it could use (and would use) more cleanly) to lead an air-quality revolution it could share with the balance of the world – creating real jobs and wealth here and abroad in the process.

They are going to burn coal, oil, and gas. You can’t stop them. They are going to be further industrialized. They aren’t worried about air pollution. It’s a problem for the day after they’ve got enough energy and resources to tackle it.

Ignore whether their ideology or culture becomes a bigger threat to global peace and stability (which, in the case of China, seems likely). Just focus on energy, emissions, and Thr greens stated goals for the planet.

Does it make more sense for America to tap its affordable resources to create jobs and wealth for Americans by building technologies that allow the world to have cleaner, more affordable fossil fuel energy (at a fraction of the cost), or should we keep dumping trillions into “green projects” whose components are built by other nations burning coal that will never be capable of meeting basic residential and business needs (forget heavy manufacturing and transportation)?

Even if you believe the planet is in danger and that all of their prognostications are true, nothing about what modern American progressives have done or proposed begins to address the problem, and in most cases, it just makes matters worse.

 

The post Green “Energy Transition” Spent Two Trillion in 2023 and … Fossil Fuel Use Rises appeared first on Granite Grok.