Saturday • January 11 • 2025
Vol.XVII • No.II
Manchester, N.H.
There are certain prerequisites to a functional democracy. Among these are limiting the vote to only legitimate voters, ensuring that the vote-count is legitimate, having an election-day as opposed to “early voting” for weeks prior to when the actual election is supposed to take place, and not allowing local election offices to be used as get-out-the-vote tools for the Party in power.
Equally important is that the voters get fully and fairly informed.
Stated somewhat differently, you can have voter ID, paper ballots, get rid of “early voting,” etc., etc., etc., and still not have a functional democracy if the government can censor the information available to voters (e.g., Hunter-laptop) and plant false information (e.g., Russia-bounties, the military are “suckers and losers”). America does NOT have a functional democracy because of government censorship.
Yes, it is a long listen. But if you don’t, then you are choosing to be uninformed and live in an alternative reality.
If you have not listened to this yet, you need to do it ASAP. Extremely important description of how our government is censoring speech in horrific fashion. You need to understand what they’re doing to fight it. https://t.co/i6nyt47ttU
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) February 17, 2024
damn. this is the clearest description i've ever heard of the events of the last ten years. Will the legacy media even try to debunk any of this? that's the dog not barking. https://t.co/wm8Kv56ffJ
— GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) February 17, 2024
As Attorney General I filed Missouri v Biden and it exposed a vast censorship enterprise between Big Government and Big Tech.
This is a must watch interview between @TuckerCarlson and @MikeBenzCyber on @TCNetwork re government censorship.
The right to Free Speech is… https://t.co/gTm8ufDMtu
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) February 17, 2024
The post American Elections Are NOT Democratic appeared first on Granite Grok.
You can’t have a proper tyranny without a vast network of informants ratting out friends and neighbors, but the Twitter files and interviews with folks like Mike Benz have put a hitch in the surveillance state’s steps. Encrypted chat apps are another problem, but the uniparty is nothing if not persistent.
Under the brand of “Civic Listening,” informant networks are now coming to the West. The concept has been embraced by the censorship industry’s network of nonprofits, research institutes and private companies that work to shut down disfavored political speech online. Spurred by concerns about the growth of private discussion groups on platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, the censorship industry has turned to the cultivation of snitches to gain access to U.S. citizens’ private conversations.
One of the organizations at the forefront of creating this snitch network is Meedan, a San Francisco based nonprofit. The organization has received one of the largest federal grants ever awarded for a censorship program: $5.7 million in taxpayer dollars was awarded to it by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for its work to tackle “hate, abuse, and misinformation with minority led partnerships.” Meedan also received a smaller ($144,850) grant from the government-funded Open Technology Fund for a “claims and memes database” to monitor “fact-checked claims and debunked visual misinformation from internet repressive countries.”
These groups operate in at least two spheres. The first is as a tip-line to which the snitch sends the offending content or commentary. The AI-powered engine then generates a response the snitch can share to counter the misinformation.
Another function of the Civic Listening propaganda project is prebunking “the censorship industry’s plan to brainwash the public at scale by feeding them weakened versions of disfavored narratives before they encounter the real thing, biasing them ahead of time.”
Funding so-called NGOs helps them get around the more direct action we saw revealed in the Twitter files with the combined result of chilling speech and making it more difficult for the average citizen to filter the noise they create.
It is devious and sinister, and you should be on the lookout for local evidence of it. That might require some folks to sign up and use these apps and tools to filter for responses that we can then look for in the digital universe. When you see them, we can say hey, that sounds exactly like the response coming from the government-funded censorship industrial complex.
Provide a screenshot, call them out, and maybe ban them from your Telegram, Messenger, Signal, or WhatsApp channel. Your call. We’re just here to let you know that this is out there, and I bet we’ll see it rear its head everywhere conversations are allowed, perhaps even in our comment section.
I do invite them to try. Our readers are not easily moved by watered-down arguments meant to pre-bunk or debunk. And they will bring receipts. But not every forum will be so well informed.
And please, let us know if you see any evidence of the pre-bunking apps especially applied locally.
One more. Trusted Messengers looks like another effort in the same vein. More on that here.
The post The New Civic Listening Corps is a Government Funded Society-Wide Network of Snitches appeared first on Granite Grok.
Maine is the “whitest” state in the country, but the demographics of The Pine Tree State have been changing significantly in the last thirty years. Legal and illegal immigration is driving this change, and the percentage of foreign-borns in Maine has increased by 20,000 in those three decades.
Asians account for 20% of the 56,000 immigrant residents. Unfortunately, not all those folks calling Maine home are here for the state’s beauty but more for the opportunities afforded by a Progressive environment and understaffed law enforcement. Many are fueling the growth of the illegal marijuana farming industry, which is threatening the safety of all Mainers.
There are close to 300 illegal Chinese-owned pot farms known in Central and Northern Maine. The rural regions of the state are conducive to these clandestine operations. The Local and State Police are ill-equipped to combat the scope of this problem, and the Federal officials of Maine have been asking for help from Merrick Garland, the DOJ, and DHS since last August. Their efforts, including the letter below, have gone unanswered.
The text of the letter sent by Senators Susan Collins and Angus King and Representatives Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden:
Dear Attorney General Garland:
We write to express our concerns about recent reports of a memo produced and circulated by Border Patrol officials regarding alleged illegal Chinese marijuana growing operations in the state of Maine.1 According to that memo, law enforcement in the state have identified 270 suspected properties that have been used as illegal Chinese growing operations, producing an estimated $4.37 billion in revenue. These illegal growing operations are detrimental to Maine businesses that comply with State laws, and we urge the Department of Justice (DOJ) to shut them down.
Maine state law permits marijuana use in certain circumstances, and the Maine Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP) provides oversight. OCP is responsible for licensing, compliance, and general oversight of both medical marijuana use and recreational use, and it consults with other state agencies—including the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry; the Department of Health and Human Services; the Department of Labor; and the Department of Public Safety—on rulemaking related to their areas of expertise.
These reports of illegal growing operations within the state are alarming, and we are writing to request additional information about what the DOJ is doing to address this situation. We request answers to the following questions:
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
It seems like an appropriate letter that will evoke a response from the Attorney General, and help will be heading northeast to save the day. But you would be wrong. The Attorney General has yet to respond to this letter or the next from 51 Federal officers. The AG seems unconcerned with the Chinese Cartel setting up business in Maine, the Dakotas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, or California. Can we assume, at this point, six months from the first letter, that because the illegal pot farming situation is connected to the CCP and Joe Biden is in the pocket of the Chinese, the Chinese have free reign in Maine or anywhere else they want to operate?
Nobody in China leaves without the CCP knowing their intent or destination. The 30,000 Chinese Nationals who have crossed our southern border illegally are here at the direction of the CCP. Setting up illegal pot farms, human and sex trafficking, and using American tax dollars to bankroll them is on the CCP. The results of what these people do is on Joe Biden. The President is either directing the DOJ to disregard the situation, or he is complicit. Joe Biden is selling out rural America, which is key to China’s takeover of America. Too simplistic? Then, give another hypothesis.
The post Bear Pond Conservative Chronicles: What Is The Connection Between The Border Crisis and Maine Pot appeared first on Granite Grok.
Every protagonist in Greek tragedy is expected to have some fatal or tragic flaw. A weakness that compels toward their demise. If the ATF ever had a higher purpose, its modern obsession with control over a constitutionally protected right, at least in the current court climate, could be their undoing.
Anti-2A wins have been few and far between, but the progressives are nothing if not persistent. As our new tagline states (or will when we complete the next site rebuild), Tyranny never rests, so neither shall we. And you can’t have a proper despotism while the people retain not just the right to self-defense but an ability to meet or even counter the State’s force advantage.
They will not rest until they have the guns.
With that mission statement in mind last year, ATF issued a complex and convoluted pistol brace rule in its latest effort to bureaucratize the Second Amendment into a maze that is impossible to navigate. The rule got a lot of attention on our pages but has since been stayed pending a handful of legal challenges over which ATF has not fared well. In a last-ditch effort to save their Rube-Golbergian masterpiece, ATF now insists that if you evade or ignore the rule, you are evading taxes (or something), and you can’t sue them for that.
My best guess is that they are convinced this will end up at the US Supreme Court, and Chief Justice Roberts will roll over on the tax issue the way he did with Obamacare. But it is a risky bet. If the courts are forced to decide the question of ATF’s capacity to generate revenue on an enumerated and protected natural right, the result could be the partial or total loss of that ability, which could have nationwide implications.
Liberal states have long used fees (taxes) to inhibit the exercise of the right to self-defense.
No one bringing lawsuits is challenging the National Firearms Act’s empowerment of ATF to collect these taxes, so that may be why ATF is throwing the Hail Mary. It is little more than an argument for the defense, so it seems unlikely to go much further than that, but it does appear that ATF has run out of excuses.
The post As Pistol Brace Rule Teeters on Doom, ATFs Defense Shifts To … You Can’t Sue Us … appeared first on Granite Grok.
An MS-13 gang member, a thug, and a known killer brutally raped Kayla Hamilton. How do we know he was a killer? All MS-13 members have to kill someone to be accepted into that criminal organization. Kayla fought with all her strength and ability but died anyway, just unable to resist the larger, stronger man.
Kayla’s mother, Tammy Nobles, has filed a 100 million dollar lawsuit against the Biden administration’s Dept. of Homeland Security and the Dept. of Health and Human Services for operational negligence, specifically for Mayorkas’ running of his department.
I urge those who care to watch Mrs. Noble’s testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee, while those who don’t care should be made to watch it. (That’s every pompous liberal Biden supporter.)
(A written copy of her testimony can be found here)
Tammy Nobles is not politically active, only a grieving, heartbroken mother seeking the justice of holding those responsible for allowing this vicious MS-13 brute into this country to account. She charges proper screening by DHS employees who would have seen his MS-13 gang-related tattoos, and a phone call to the El Salvador government could have confirmed his criminal standing and would have prevented Kayla’s horrific murder.
Do you reader and I have to suffer this kind of loss of a beloved child, wife, or mother before we call out Biden and all his supporters for the criminal supporters they are? In any reasoned examination of the facts, these people are aiding and abetting before the fact, after the fact, and in fact, the violent crime wave responsible for not only Kayla Hamilton’s death but hundreds of thousands of violent crimes being inflicted on law-abiding American citizens.
This horror is at the hands of leftist Democrats. Vote them all out.
The post Grieving, Heartbroken Mother Seeks Justice appeared first on Granite Grok.
Australia’s Parliament has finally passed a motion saying Assange should be returned to Australia. The vote was 86 Yes, 42 No. Andrew Wilkie, MP was the ringleader. Barnaby Joyce abstained from voting.
Apparently, the London Home Secretary will make the decision. Do you recall when the Home Secretary (Jack Straw) decided that Augusto Pinochet need not be sent to Spain, per extradition, as he was too old or infirm to cope?
Human Rights Watch wrote:“The House of Lords, in its second decision on March 24, 1999, ruled that the only crimes for which General Pinochet could be extradited were torture and conspiracy to torture after December 8, 1988, when the U.N. torture convention took effect in the U.K. Magistrate Bartle specifically ruled, however, that Pinochet’s conduct before 1988—which would include the creation of the secret police and the establishment of Operation Condor targeting Pinochet’s opponents abroad—could be examined by the Spanish courts in proving the existence of a conspiracy which continued after December 1988. This ruling is in line with the language of the House of Lords decision.”
In other words, Pinochet got off despite a court (House of Lords) saying it was legal to extradite him.
I entitled this article “Where Do I Stand,” meaning “What Does My Americanism Think Should Be Done?”
I enjoy mocking those who say the US would mistreat him. We have a great system of justice in the Great Republic. Really, it’s flawless — if there weren’t a bunch of criminals (e.g., Merrick Garland) running it.
We want to thank Mary Maxwell for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
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I suspect that all the lengthy delays in getting Assange to travel across the pond reflect a desire by the Powerful to NOT let him into the US, as his criminal charges would not hold up for a minute here.
The charges are for several counts of espionage and one count of messing with a computer. The original downloading of the classified documents was done by a Private in the army named Bradlee Manning, later Chelsea Manning. She was tried and convicted and served seven years (I think) in jail, but her sentence was then commuted by Obama.
There will be no way for a foreigner, namely Julian Assange, a citizen of Australia (born in Townsville!), to be found guilty of espionage. It would open up the whole subject of extra-territorial jurisdiction. God knows, the US government would not relish that. It would suggest that every country and its dog could bring charges against Americans.
(Help!)It would also bring Abu Ghraib into the forefront again. You may recall that the late US Sen Diane Feinstein “led” the Senate report on torture, taking 12 years to present the findings, which then got back-burner’d.
Back to Human Rights Watch again“The conspiracy charge goes to the heart of the case because it alleges that Pinochet used torture as a weapon of intimidation and political persecution. By allowing evidence of conduct that occurred before 1988, Bartle’s ruling clearly permits the Spanish prosecutors to prove that General Pinochet built a state apparatus that relied on torture and that he was fully aware that torture was practiced systematically.”
Wow. Can’t have that!On the subject of the US, or the cabal, wanting to keep Julian out of sight, recall that the cabal must have been behind the cooked-up sex charges against him in Sweden. Likely, the cabal also oversaw the hospitality of the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Stella Assange claims in the above interview that Mike Pompeo, a member of the Trump Cabinet, was planning to assassinate her husband. This, too, is quite a reason for the US to wish Julian would go back to Oz, so we don’t have to deal with the Mary Maxwells of this world making a federal case out of Pompeo’s sins.
Note to Readers, I have now been excommunicated by Disquis and all the other platforms, so I won’t be able to respond to criticisms of this post, but try anyway! Thanks.
The post Night Cap: Assange Is Up for Grabs in UK on 21 February 2024 appeared first on Granite Grok.
The fraud case against Donald Trump and the Trump Enterprise by the City of New York will be seen more as a made-for-TV drama than an exercise in American Jurisprudence. The Trump Family and company were found guilty and levied with damages totaling over $375 Million.
What started as a campaign pledge by a bitter and vindictive Democrat lawyer to get herself elected as the Attorney General of New York became one of the many cases designed to prevent former President Donald Trump from a successful campaign to regain the White House. Stopping the MAGA movement is the primary mission of the Democrats, but the destruction of Trump, his family, his company, and his legacy is the icing on the cake.
During her campaign, Letitia James said nothing about what she would do to clean up the crime-ridden city of New York or make the state of New York safer for its residents. The only focus of her campaign was to prosecute and destroy Donald Trump. This personal mission may have had no bearing on her election, as being a Democrat virtually guaranteed her victory. Still, it was a clear message to Trump and Republicans that the Democrat Machine is prepared to attack you at every opportunity.
This case was not litigated in a jury trial, and Judge Arthur F. Engoron was the Judge and Jury. At the beginning of the trial, he went on the record that Trump was guilty, and the only question to be determined was how significant to make the penalty. He unreasonably ruled the courtroom, and this case will probably be overturned on the Judge’s performance. Letitia James, though the Attorney General for the entire state of New York, apparently has little to do as she was present for every minute of the trial and had daily comments for the press. This case was her moment in the spotlight, and she abused that time.
According to most legal and Constitutional experts, this case was brought against Trump with little basis in law. There is no fraud crime if no harmed party or money is lost. None of the many banks that did business with the Trumps claimed damages. This case is purely political theater. It was to destroy Donald Trump and the company that had become synonymous with The Big Apple.
Before Trump came down the Golden Escalator in 2015, every celebrity, businessperson, and politician wanted to be seen with Trump. He was a fixture on TV for over a decade, and being on The Apprentice was a ticket to stardom. Declaring as a Republican presidential candidate and winning made Trump a pariah with the Democrats and the influential people of New York City and the country. He became Enemy #1 for the Liberal/Socialist movement. The New York Billionaire had become the People’s President and pledged to Make America Great Again. These qualities are like fingernails on a chalkboard for Democrats, and they will do anything to keep him out of the White House in 2024.
James and Engoran exposed the Democrats and their monetary penalty, and forbidding Trump and his sons from operating in New York for years will send New York businesses heading for Florida, Texas, and Tennessee. They set out to crush Trump but put another nail in the coffin of what used to be the greatest city on the planet. This fiasco lends fuel to the question of the goal of Democrats as they systematically destroy America. If the destruction of our Republic is their mission, they are on target.
The post Letitia James Is The Face Of The Weaponized Government appeared first on Granite Grok.
Northwood has a School board member named Gary Caron. He is very active on social media, where he spends a lot of time hating Trump and just about everyone else to whom he objects. His content is vile, rude, racist, bigoted, bitter, and angry, and yes, we’re sharing some of that: Content Warning
There is a school board meeting this Wednesday, the 21st, to talk about what you are about to read from Northwood School Board Member Gary Caron.
One more time: content warning.
Gary is, of course, entitled to be as offensive as he likes, but you are likewise allowed to find it offensive, and this may or may not be the sort of free speech you’d expect from an elected official. It’s certainly not something we’d tolerate from a straight Republican.
We know Gary would not, so we appreciate the honest expression of a well-known double-standard and the easy and free blog material.
Whether or not this sort of expression is unsuitable for a member of the Northwood School Board is up to the citizens of Northwood and Gary’s fellow board members.
And no, this is not all of the offensive material, but it is more than enough to start a conversation, and the town of Northwood is about to have one.
Editors note: the images above are exactly what we’ve been asking citizens to collect on their local elected officials—those who pretend to put people before politics and then can’t help but be themselves online. Not nearly enough of us make time to do it, and we lose seats and elections because the truth is out there, but there isn’t enough bandwidth for us to get it and build a case when elections roll around.
We need your help every day, every year, and every election cycle. We also can’t do any of this without your support.
Thank You!
The post Local School Board Member Busted for Racist, Graphic, Offensive Social Media Posts appeared first on Granite Grok.
Politicians like to paint pictures that move the electorate in a direction favorable to them. Nikki Haley has been pitching the idea that Trump was Trump when he was Trump, but America has moved on, and he’s not the right person for this time.
It’s a decent way of framing it, but it’s not working, so the campaign has added a new twist. Or, perhaps Nikki has talked herself into another corner. At the very least, this is one of the daftest, dense, mentally-ill-informed observations in recent memory. Haley has said that the next president will be female and that it will be either her or Kamala Harris.
I’m not thinking about who I’m going to support in an election. But, you’ve already said it. We are going to have a female president of the United States. It will either be me or it will be Kamala Harris. And if Donald Trump is the nominee for the Republican Party, he will not win. Every poll shows that he will not win, and we will have President Kamala Harris. I’m not going to allow that to happen. I’m not stopping. I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to do this for the long haul, and we’re going to finish it.
Harris is obviously the monster under the bed that even Democrats fear. She is a colossal trainwreck of a candidate who has no chance of being Biden’s replacement when they swap him out at or after the convention. Anyone with even a scintilla or political acumen paying even the tiniest bit of attention knows this. Democrats hate her. She will not be back in any capacity. And they fear Joe dropping dead or becoming incapacitated before November, leaving them with Kamala.
As bad as Joe has been for their November fortunes, Harris likely leads to a down-ticket wipeout.
If Haley knows this, there’s no threat in her remarks, and if she doesn’t, she is too daft to hold the office she claims one or the other of them is destined to fill.
Maybe someone should ask His Excellency (Gov. Sununu) if he agrees. Is it going to be Haley or Kamala? Sununu must be tuned into the campaign strategy, and it seems unlikely this reference appeared out of the blue unless Haley has begun to show signs of campaign wear and tear and she’s grasping at paper straws.
Nikki Haley: “We are going to have a female President of the United States. It will either be me, or it will be Kamala Harris.” pic.twitter.com/aeI8CEGquA
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 18, 2024
The featured image, by the way, is a random screen grab from the ABC News interview. Given how Haley made no effort to do a better job at being informed (or honest), I felt no urge to do a better job screen-grabbing her face for this post.
The post Nikki Haley Says the Next President “Will Either Be Me or It Will Be Kamala Harris” appeared first on Granite Grok.
For a long time now, the political leaders in this country have been trying to create a paradigm shift by removing the power from the people to make decisions and placing it nearly exclusively into their own hands. These are abuses of power that have for too long gone unchallenged by an apathetic and resigned citizenry.
The time to act is now, and what better place to start than here in New Hampshire, one of the birthplaces of American liberty.
There is a current example of this forced transfer of power from the governed to the governing right here in our own state. It involves our fundamental right to have our vote counted and to determine how that vote gets counted. Everything that happens in government is derived, either directly or indirectly, from a vote. Destroy its integrity, and all else crumbles. Right now, in Concord, we are on the verge of permanently turning over the control of counting our votes from accountable humans to unaccountable machines.
Dating back to the 2020 election in what became a national news story, New Hampshire voters and candidates running for office have expressed concerns and sought redress over the errors and inconsistencies evident in machine-generated vote counting. Windham, New Hampshire, became the first and only municipality to obtain approval for an audit to be done of their locale’s machine-tabulated results. They were fought every step of the way in their efforts to have a simple thorough analysis of the vote performed, forcing them to eventually obtain special legislative approval just to be allowed to have the audit.
The results of that audit? The machines were, in fact, miscounting ballots. Various citizens’ groups formed for the purpose of challenging the use of voting machines across the state, all of those efforts trying to work within established, codified, and recognized New Hampshire state and local law. At every turn their efforts met resistance not from ordinary voters, but from elected and appointed government officials who did not want to alter the status quo; a status quo that had been found to be deficient when it came to counting votes.
The efforts of concerned activist citizens to give regular everyday citizens the right to decide through plebiscite whether or not votes should be counted by hand (reliable and verifiable) versus machine (erratic and open to manipulation) have met with almost inexplicable and certainly inexcusable challenges over the past three years.
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On February 15, that opposition to the expression of the will of the people launched perhaps its most egregious, and certainly its most irresponsible and even unconstitutional, attack on our liberty with the rushed passage of HB 154 (a grotesque mutation of what started as a 2023 public health ordinance bill in the House, from the Municipal and County Government Committee as a majority vote of OTP (ought to pass) on February 27, 2023, passed the House on March 9, 2023. This bill, if signed into law by the Governor, will codify voting machines permanently into law and will wipe out their “trial basis” status granted under RSA 656:40 back in 2019, without the citizens’ vote. The removal of the temporary status permitted has created waves of concerned citizens to take action to address the many valid and proven concerns related to machine vote tabulation.
If legislation were an asteroid, this would be called a global movement killer.
Let me be crystal clear about what has just happened:
House Bill 154 (originally a public health ordinance bill which would allow only a Select Board to pass public health ordinances at an annual or special meeting), that was presented to and passed the legislative body on March 9, 2023, then crossed over to the Senate and had a public hearing on October 31, 2023. It then was approved by the Senate on December 23, 2023, has suddenly been completely changed and became an Election Bill with an effective (backdate) of February 1. This change is updating RSA:656:40 to eliminate the language “on a trial basis” and then giving the politicians, not the citizen voters, the right to rescind the use of electronic ballot-counting machines.
If you follow this link, HB154 shows up in the October 19 publication of the Senate hearing calendar:
It is worth noting that the legislator behind the sponsoring of this legislation, Juliet Harvey-Bolia(Belknap-3), is also employed in the digital voting industry by Democracy Live. As comedian George Carlin famously said, “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it!”
There are laws, there are procedural rules, and then there are simple matters of fair play that indicate that what happened in Concord on Thursday past is just plain wrong, no matter your point of view. A 1984 NH Supreme Court case, Norton v. Patton, provides a fairly solid set of limitations on what are called “retrospective laws”; those that take effect prior to the law’s passage. The Supreme Court had good ground upon which to stand in regard to condemning retrospective laws, considering that they are all but prohibited in our State Constitution!
[Art.] 23. [Retrospective Laws Prohibited.] Retrospective laws are highly injurious, oppressive, and unjust. No such laws, therefore, should be made, either for the decision of civil causes, or the punishment of offenses.
Only the word “should” provides them the wiggle room in which they can ignore intent and hang by their legislating fingernails on a technicality.
We also know that our U.S. Constitution prohibits ex post facto criminal laws. Clearly, the “spirit of the law” at all levels is to not vaporize the hard work of honest citizens that has been undertaken legally and within the rules over a period of several years by passing time-traveling legislation. Yet, by selecting the effective date of February 1st for this legislation passed on the 15th, the House has done just that.
Earlier this month, in the wake of more machine irregularities in the January primary, citizen groups, acting in good faith, had been circulating and submitting petitions, utilizing the provision of warrant articles, to 25 various municipalities that would compel votes on voting machine removal. Those petitions faced a statutory deadline of February 6thfor submission (a side note: some municipalities were so offended at the idea of their citizens taking action that they decided to surreptitiously close their offices on the 6th, thereby advancing the due date for petitions by a full day). This new legislation invalidates hundreds upon hundreds of hours of volunteer efforts.
As if the ignoring of precedent in this case by the House isn’t bad enough, they have also egregiously violated their own generally accepted “rules of the road” with their action. Mason’s Manual(dating to 1935) is the recommended procedural “rulebook” for state legislatures and has been accepted by New Hampshire for decades. In that manual’s chapter 2, section 7, paragraph 1, it states: “The constitutions stand on a higher plane than statute and, as a rule, are mandatory.” It has been demonstrated above that the Constitution should invalidate the retrospective feature of this Bill. That, however, is not the only procedural problem the House has.
Section 112 of Mason’s Manual states that neither the House nor the Senate are to “legislate, debate, or discuss a matter awaiting adjudication before a judicial tribunal.” There is a current case regarding this exact voting machine issue in the NH Supreme Court awaiting a ruling, Dan Richard v. Sununu et. al., In New Hampshire today, our elected officials cite their own rules as the Devils might cite Scripture, and, like the Devil, their purposes are clear: To replace the will of the people to govern with their own self-will to rule.
To make matters worse, our Secretary of State, David Scanlon, the man in the office charged with ensuring election integrity, has fought efforts of citizens trying to have a say every step of the way. He began his opposition when citizens made their first attempt, through the use of warrant articles, to have the matter of machine vote counting placed before various municipalities’ voters back in 2022. He did so by misinforming every NH town clerk that the hundreds of qualified citizen signatures submitted to those clerks were invalid because they were submitted electronically. Scanlon then created the Special Committee on Voter Confidence (Dec. 2022), which resulted in 14 key recommendations being made but not implemented (save for one: rolling out a new version of the same fallible vote counting machines, supplied by essentially the same company Dominion).
Scanlon has also expressed his support for making the vote counting machines a permanent fixture in New Hampshire elections.
For anyone who mistakenly thinks that vote counting machines and their attendant problems are the stuff of long-disproven conspiracy theories, I assure you they are not. The only conspiracy around this issue isn’t a theory. It is a fact, one that had our legislators pass a Bill while we weren’t looking. Don’t take my word. Look at the results of what came from the Windham audit. It was determined that up to 28 percent of ballots were misread or rejected due to either folds in the ballots or the machine not properly reading the coloring-in of the voter’s choice.
The much-maligned company Dominion, the focus of so many 2020 election assertions of impropriety, has, through acquisition, taken control of New Hampshire voting machines. Our Premier brand of election machines, originally owned by highly-respected Diebold, was purchased by Dominion in 2019. While local company LHS Associates might be involved in managing election systems, the actual software is owned by Dominion.
Is this something we want? Is this something you want? Would you like to have a chance to vote on it?
Well, I’m sorry to tell you that your right to vote on how you vote is about to be taken from you with the stroke of a governor’s pen.
You might want to believe your rights are being protected by those who have taken an oath to do so. But if you are reading this over your morning coffee or from your phone at work, and you have made it this far, you might be starting to wonder if that’s really true. If you are still reading this, it means you like to be informed and perhaps even LIKE TO THINK that your thoughts as a citizen matter. Your vote is your most fundamental expression of your public thoughts. Sadly, I must inform you that your vote may or may not have counted in the past elections, and the power of your vote as an NH citizen has most certainly been compromised going forward by this latest move to ensure your vote cannot be hand-counted if it is questioned.
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As citizen activists, our cause to this point has been simple: We want to give the people of New Hampshire the right to choose how their vote is counted. If there is any basic issue in a free society that should be subject to a popular vote it is the very idea of how we are to vote! There has been nothing that has been fringe or radical about our movement, but New Hampshire voters need to wake up and realize that there is something quite radical in the response of our elected and appointed leaders. They are committing a sort of reverse revolution-standing Thomas Paine’s Common Sense on its head by displaying a lack of such sense.
Paine wrote a pamphlet that triggered a revolution, one that led to the forcible overthrow of a tyrant. We needn’t use that kind of force for a revolution here in New Hampshire. All we need to do is wake up, stand up, speak up, and act using the tools available to us as citizens that Paine’s revolution ultimately placed into our hands. We have been derelict, and our political leaders have exploited that dereliction. Sloth as an individual is a personal sin. Sloth as a citizen is ruinous to all.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a nearly IDENTICAL Constitution to NH. The Founders intended for the votes to be hand counted, as acknowledged by the legislature in neighboring Massachusetts. They crafted a Constitutional Amendment Concurrent Resolution (CACR) outlining the use of electronic voting equipment that went onto ballots for the people who voted for a Constitutional Amendment. That is what needs to happen in NH. Don’t let them steal your self-governance.
It’s time to write a letter, send an email, make a phone call, join a protest, do something! HB 154 is not constitutional. A motion has been made to reconsider the vote to Concur with the Senate amendment for Thursday, February 22. I implore you to put your coffee down, and immediately email, call, and post on social platforms demanding your Reps vote YES to reconsider, then NO on the Concur motion and then YES on the motion to send to a Committee of Conference. We are not too late to try to preserve what’s left of our liberty. Paine wrote, “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.” Our cause today is returning to a hand count of ballots. Every legal vote should count. Every legal vote MUST count!
The post One Thing You Can’t Count On: Your NH Vote Being Counted appeared first on Granite Grok.
This Wednesday, the Executive Council will vote on the nomination of Andrew Livernois to the State Superior Court. Sorry for the short notice. We just heard about it today. Before anyone says yes, perhaps they should consider this.
In the midst of the Gunstock kerfuffle, the County Attorney (Livernois) advised members of the County Delegation regarding the calling of an emergency meeting to address open seats on the Gunstock Area Commission. To quote Skip – it was his length article filled with emails and letters and commentary – his impression of the nominee’s response is that “EVERYTHING in the Law is a “grey area” (so go do what you want). And now the Delegation is getting sued over it.”
I don’t assume to know the details of the law or the Gunstock situation, but the result of that advice was that the Delegation got sued for not following the law.
That might seem like a minor oversight with room for misinterpretation of the advice, but Skip isn’t short on emails, letters, or details, so you can be the judge before anyone makes Livernois a judge.
I’m not saying this is disqualifying, but it might not be the only thing that went sideways while he was a County Attorney.
The nomination will be decided by the EC on Wednesday, first thing.
The post Lawyer Whose Advice Probably Got a County Commission Sued is a Sununu Nominee for Superior Court appeared first on Granite Grok.
Gender warriors like to tell us that if we don’t transition children at the first sign that they might be “in the wrong body” – and they are the judge, jury and chief executive of what the signs are (as opposed to parents) – they will be more likely to try and kill themselves. That’s a lie.
“There are no long-term studies demonstrating benefits nor studies evaluating risks associated with the medical and surgical interventions provided to these adolescents. There is no long-term evidence that mental health concerns are decreased or alleviated after ‘gender affirming therapy.’”
The one study the groomers do quote [University of Washington-Seattle], doesn’t tell us what they claim. A “subsequent reexamination of that study’s data found “slightly higher levels of depression but significantly and substantively meaningful differences in anxiety and self-worth, and with results favoring [children without gender confusion], even when the [gender-confused] children had high levels of parental support for their gender transitioning.”
“Both before and after ‘gender affirming therapy’ (GAT), adolescents who have gender-identity incongruence are at higher risk for psychopathology than their peers who identify with their biological sex,” reads the abstract of the review published this month by the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds). “There are no long-term studies demonstrating benefits nor studies evaluating risks associated with the medical and surgical interventions provided to these adolescents. There is no long-term evidence that mental health concerns are decreased or alleviated after ‘gender affirming therapy.’”
Part of the problem is that there are no stidies “comparing outcomes between those using and not using puberty blockers, so they stated ‘it is unknown whether people with gender dysphoria who use puberty blockers experience more improvement in gender dysphoria, depression, anxiety, and quality of life than those with gender dysphoria who do not use them. There is very low certainty about the effects of puberty blockers on suicidal ideation.’”
According to the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, which encompassed more than 11,000 children between the ages of nine and 10, gender-confused children “were more likely to experience depression (2.53 OR), anxiety (2.70 OR), conduct problems (3.13 OR), and suicidality (5.79 OR),” even that young. A follow-up with twice as many children who were one year older found “significant relationships” between “mental health symptoms and gender diversity for all dimensions assessed.”
And,
“When transgender-identifying adolescents who were using gender-affirming [sic] pharmaceuticals (963) were evaluated separately, their use of mental health care services did not change but their use of psychotropic medications did increase.”
The evidence increasingly suggests that other issues like ASD, trauma, or sexual abuse trigger gender dysphoria. Convincing children who lack the capacity to grasp the consequences of irreversible hormone or surgical interventions to undergo transition doesn’t address the root mental health issue. It, in fact, makes matters worse and likely increases distress and the likelihood of self-harm.
In other words, the idea that we need to trans kids for their mental health is, at best, a lie and, at worst, just evil.
The post Researchers: No Proof Transitioning a Kid Reduces Suicide, Probably Makes it Worse appeared first on Granite Grok.
Another Monday arrives. Gag me.
Take heart – there will be both a Wednesday and Friday Edition. Last week’s Friday Edition.
Remember, ridicule and mockery are effective weapons:
Now, let the mockery and mayhem begin.
*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***
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My I stopped believing in the goodness of government moments were the combination of WACO and RUBY RIDGE. And the aftermath where nothing happened to anyone.
OK… but how is that actually working out for the town?
And with what spare money?
James Woods going in for the kill. Epic!
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PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA
How soon before the current requests to help house migrants here in the US (*cough Massachusetts cough*) becomes a demand?
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Excellent point. Had tofurkey once. Would rather starve.
I wonder if there could be a connection between the above and the below. Hmmm…
Turnabout is fair play. You’ve been trying to destroy Israel since its founding. But then… while we’re discussing the UN, let’s take that down too.
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Links (some from me, some from my Jarhead friend):
Links blew up. Sorry. Next time.
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Pick of the post:
Islam is an aggressive, supremacist religion.
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Palate Cleansers:
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Come back Wednesday for another edition. Same Meme Time. Same Meme channel.
Please do consider buying me a coffee.
Buy Me a Coffee
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The post MONDAY MEMES appeared first on Granite Grok.
I see via NoScript that GraniteGrok is still on Disqus; otherwise, I would have entered your competition for the weekly prize. Refer to my Grok column of last 21-Apr, in support of legalization and against a new industry created by a government that intends to administer legalization and fight all mishaps.
Dr. Ebner writes “As a parent” and “As a physician”–credentials that imply that merely replying as a functioning mind and a lover of liberty will open criticism on one’s fitness to debate.
As always, the “public” is not a body and does not have a “health.” The collective does have statistics–and people can and do try to manage us by the numbers, with uniformly disastrous effects.
Ebner’s second paragraph, on trends over a generation, implies that the desire for recreational mood alteration has not changed but only the choice of tools.
Of course, marijuana has been bred to increase the THC; that is called “satisfying the customer,” and is irrelevant because you can get nearly pure THC if you want it, as Ebner notes.
Very much of “addiction” is a pleasurable habit that the doctor would like you to abandon, as the doctor’s fees, ratings, and self-worth come from minimizing morbidity and maximizing longevity, not the overall pleasure of the customer’s life.
We have known for decades that nicotine withdrawal causes irritating effects caused by the drug itself. This was not true for THC; perhaps it is in higher doses. But irritability, for example, might be caused by not being allowed to experience the pleasurable high at will.
What is “distressing to [Ebner] as a physician” is irrelevant. That the customer live his life as he sees fit should be paramount. Primum non nocere.
Association (with mental illness) is not causation. It would of course be healthier not to take frequent recourse to mind alteration. But it’s what the customer wants.
Finally, we get to the hoary monster, “opioid epidemic.” There is no epidemic since there is no contagion. Your reefer does not infect me unless I will it. Is this guy really a doctor?
Yes, “there is no safe way to introduce something that is unsafe.” But more basic, there is no safety on planet Earth. We cannot achieve prevention, and we cannot even know how close we have gotten without comparison to an alternate reality. Letting government tout safety is not only letting it dictate our values but writing it a blank check.
What a surprise to find out at the end that Dr. Ebner is on some Committee with a cute acronym and has a Study for us to read.
The post Dr. Ebner and Reefer Madness appeared first on Granite Grok.
A few of our past winners have been surprised to learn that the recognition is not just honorary. They get free stuff. So, here’s a reminder to the commenters, of which we have many: You can win free Grok stuff.
I have also listened to you about considering the average commenters’ ability to compete with our author’s comments and some other concerns. For example, it’s not much of an incentive if Ian Underwood wins every week, even though he consistently delivers top-notch remarks that stretch the debate into new territory.
An effort is made to spread the recognition and the free stuff.
This Week’s WinnerWe got into the weeds this week, or more specifically, weed. Marijuana was one of several contentious ‘hot’ topics that drew a lot of debate, which is why we post these things. It’s not always about what I or any of our authors think; it is about leveraging ideas to grow engagement. You can send me op-eds even if they differ from my public position or anyone else’s here, in print or comment. Submission is no guarantee of publication but as a reminder,
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.
We do have a rebuttal to Dr. Ebner’s piece on marijuana posting this morning, so look for that.
Everyone had great comments, but NHnative Ian, Ken, Pun Salad, bj030644, gramps, Tombstone Gabby, Kat, Still Standing, Jim Gill, and AllyforFreedom got a much closer look this week.
And the winner is:
Think I’ve said this 100x, but nevertheless, I’ll say it again: Before Corona, I never thought I could home school, now I love it! I always wanted to homeschool, because deep down inside, I knew public school was failing my older son – he went through 7th grade in public school in MA. Once they took learning virtual and I saw how terrible the entire thing was, I knew I could serve him better.
I was also, and still am to this day, super offended and upset by the masking, social distancing, the plexiglass and stickers like cattle corralling! It was a straight-up prison camp. I would never allow my sons to be abused in that way and made to believe they have to bow down and go along with lies and a backward society. Homeschooling has allowed me to shelter my two sons from the madness out there while also nurturing and fueling their own personal growth, talents, likes, etc.
They have both flourished so much!
It’s amazing the change in our family and day to day world now in 2024. My oldest will be self-declaring graduation next year, and my younger is in 4th grade.. never having been exposed to public school, except six months of kindergarten in 2019/2020. We learn in such different ways now, but it’s better than ever.
Homeschooling lets you make every learning point natural, you can set any time of schedule and change it up whenever you feel like it. I cannot rant enough about how important centering the learning around the student NOT around a predetermined curriculum that is outdated and nowadays, literally anti-human! Having white sons in the world today… well, I’m sure most people here, reading this type of stuff can understand the level of unjust hate and discrimination they would have to face on a day-to-day basis.
It is lightly edited here for readability but has excellent points and a fantastic story. AllyforFreedom, if you would be so kind as to reach out to me at steve@granitegrok.com, I can get a shipping address from you.
And if you are interested, Jim Gill came in a close second with,
Every Republican candidate running for office, should ask their constituents if they would like to hear the story of how books too obscene for the legislature were found appropriate for NH’s school children?
He’s right, so let’s help make that happen.
The post Another Week, Another Comment of the Week Winner appeared first on Granite Grok.
What is it about white liberal women that makes them lie about their ethnicity to rob progressive victim-class members of jobs, opportunities, and accolades? It’s always white liberal women, like Lizard Warren.
The University of Wisconsin’s Kay LeClaire, Dartmouth’s Susan Taffe Reed, Arab-Latina Queer Feminist activist Raquel Evita Saraswati, and who can forget Rachel Dolezal (white, black, and American Indian).
We also reported on Heather Rae, an Award-winning producer who served on the Academy of Motion Pictures’ Indigenous Alliance, previously headed up the Sundance Institute’s Native American program.
That’s not all of them, but it is a parade of post-Warren proggy white chicks busted for fake ethnic claims and credentials, ascending in the predictably progressive spaces. It also doesn’t say much for the Liberal gate-keepers eager to pad their resumes with a diversity hire, which might also explain all the plagiarism in Universities and lack of scientific or intellectual rigor just about everywhere else.
But none of them has fallen on harder times than Rachel Dolezal. The former Spokane NAACP president had to resign after her parents outed her with pics of a freckly, blonde, very white teenager. Since Rachel has been unemployable, later changing her name and moving to Arizona, where her habit of bad decision-making has followed.
Race faker Rachel Dolezal has been fired from her job teaching at an elementary school in Arizona after it was discovered she is now working as a OnlyFans model.
Dolezal, who changed her name to Nkechi Diallo, has been listed under payroll records at Sunrise Drive Elementary School as an after school instructor.
She’s not listed there anymore. They let her go, and no, the aging Dolezal, aka Nkechi Diallo, should not rely on her home-porn platform for a sustainable lifestyle unless it is poverty. Reporting suggests she doesn’t make much (about 1020.00 a month).
If I might make a suggestion.
With a name like Nkechi Diallo, you could probably go down to the southern border and catch a bus to just about anywhere, get free hotel accommodation, and a subsistence lifestyle, plus the 1220.00 a month.
Millions have tried it, and they don’t even speak the language.
The post Remember Rachel Dolezal? Her OnlyFans Page Just got Her Fired from a Grade School in Arizona appeared first on Granite Grok.
Jailing your political opponents is bad. Killing your political opponents is bad. Pretending that only Putin does these things … and Zelensky and the Biden regime do not is also bad.
Especially when you are pretending on the very day that a regime-“judge” trying to bankrupt Donald Trump (and his family) in order to prevent Trump from being elected President (for probably the third time) is somehow not a variation on the theme of jailing and killing your political opponents.
Especially when you are pretending on the very day that the corruption and incompetence of a regime-“prosecutor” is … for the second day in a row … is being exposed. And what is also being exposed … through his nonfeasance … is the complicity of NeverTrump Governor Brian Kemp.
Especially when you have spent YEARS pretending that the J6 prisoners are somehow NOT political prisoners and that a Trump supporter can get a fair trial in the District of Columbia, and you also conveniently ignore the different … TOTALLY different … treatment given BLM/Antifa versus the J6 protesters.
And especially when you have pretended that the Regime going after parents who oppose DEI and CRT at school board meetings is normal and that the Regime’s persecution of pro-life demonstrators is also normal.
And especially when you know that the lawfare being waged on Trump is just a continuation of the election-rigging and election interference that we saw in 2020, but you pretend it’s not.
So enough with the Navalny outrage.
The post Enough With The Navalny Outrage appeared first on Granite Grok.
For Swiss watchmakers preoccupied with growth, China is the relationship they cannot afford to ignore. As travel restrictions and duty-free limits limited outbound tourism, Chinese shoppers turned to domestic luxury shopping and boosted in-store sales.
Brands that prioritize digital adaptation and offer a seamless online shopping experience have an edge in this new landscape. But navigating China’s complex digital environment is not without challenges.
China’s Economic ResilienceAfter a sluggish start in 2021, luxury watch sales rebounded this year, according to data from market research firm Bain. The personal luxury goods sector, which encompasses fine jewelry and watches, recorded double-digit growth for the first three quarters of 2022, and is expected to reach a new record in sales this year. This is partly due to pent-up demand from Chinese consumers, who account for about a fifth of global luxury spend.
Luxury goods companies have adapted to economic uncertainty and volatility over the past few years, including investing in new production facilities closer to consumers to reduce logistics costs. In addition, the industry has a larger consumer base with a concentration of top customers who are less sensitive to recessions. It has also honed customer-centricity and a multi-touchpoint ecosystem.
The rebound in luxury spending by Chinese consumers is helping to drive global luxury markets, but the world’s largest economy has its own domestic challenges. In the wake of President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on “excessive” spending by high-profile individuals, Jefferies analysts Daniel Cereda and David Parker warn that Beijing risks destabilizing markets. But they point out that luxury purchases by China’s middle class are likely to remain resilient, especially if the severing of wealth-related connections between the government and business is limited.
China’s state campaign against luxury gift giving curbed growth in the country’s luxury market, which sank 0.9% in 2014, after averaging a 21.5% annual rate for the three years preceding it. Even prestigious luxury brands like Hermes, which sells the popular Birkin handbag that can cost up to $500,000, saw its China numbers decline that year.
But the slowdown was short-lived and luxury market recovery accelerated in 2016 as the country’s middle class gained financial confidence and became more comfortable with purchasing luxury goods. In addition, millennials and Gen Z — who are more likely to make purchases through digital channels than their older counterparts — continue to fuel luxury market growth. These trends are likely to persist. Nevertheless, the industry’s profitability remains below pre-Covid levels due to price increases and continued investment in digital and omnichannel platforms.
China’s Digital TransformationFor many luxury brands, China is more than a single market. It is the biggest and most important market in the world, one with a growing middle class, a sophisticated aptitude for digital engagement and a powerful role in shaping global trends. This makes it a formidable and challenging market for those who can get it right, but also one that offers greater rewards than anywhere else in the world to those who do.
Despite the recent slowdown, our observers all agree that the long-term outlook is very promising for China. Unlike other emerging markets, it has a much larger population of high- and middle-income consumers. Those consumers will be spending more in the future, not less, as their incomes rise. And they are increasingly willing to spend on high-end luxury products that can be seen and felt in-store as well as online.
While some analysts are cautioning against overstating the size of the Chinese luxury market, it’s worth remembering that it’s huge and still growing rapidly. In 2021, China’s market was estimated to be more than 520 billion RMB (about US$878 million). That’s roughly the same as Italy’s total luxury goods market and nearly half that of Switzerland.
In the short term, however, the economic woes of China have put a dent in demand for luxury watches. This is reflected in trade data from the Federation of Swiss Watch Industry (FHS) and results from publicly listed watchmaking conglomerates such as Richemont.
As China’s economy recovers, demand for luxury goods is expected to return. But the question remains how quickly that will happen, and what effect it will have on the global luxury watch industry.
The Covid-19 lockdown has pushed luxury brands to push their digital boundaries in order to be more engaging with Chinese consumers. This will help them mitigate the impact of potential future lockdowns, and also to weather any slowdowns in China’s economy.
At CEIBS, we are seeing more requests from the China or Asia Pacific HQs of luxury brands to set up training sessions that will showcase their digitalization experiences to their main HQs in North America and Europe. This shows that these HQs are listening and interested in the challenges that their Chinese colleagues are facing. They want to understand the digitalization journey in China and how it can support their overall strategy for growth.
China’s Social Media CultureDespite China’s comparatively low average income, its consumers hold strong aspirations for luxury products. A key factor contributing to this is the country’s powerful “common prosperity” campaign, a cultural concept rooted in Mao and socialism. According to scholars such as Chris McNally, the “common prosperity” theme has evolved into a political strategy that discourages ostentatious displays of wealth and encourages consumer loyalty.
However, the Chinese luxury market is a complex environment for both domestic and foreign brands. It is critical that marketers understand the country’s culture and nuances when creating marketing campaigns. A misstep could lead to severe consequences for the brand’s reputation and sales.
As a result, it is essential that marketers focus on localizing their marketing campaigns and embracing the social media culture of the country. In doing so, they will be able to leverage the power of Chinese celebrities to increase brand awareness. In addition, they will be able to capitalize on the Chinese consumer’s growing preference for casual fashionable watches that reflect their own style and personality.
Furthermore, Chinese consumers are highly sensitive to brand reputation and storytelling. Hence, it is important for luxury brands to establish engaging official accounts on Weibo and WeChat to communicate their stories to the target audience.
For many international luxury brands, China has become a crucial market for their future growth. Moreover, the country’s recent loosening of strict pandemic control measures has opened up new possibilities for marketing and promotion in the luxury industry.
However, the country’s complexities and rapid change pose significant challenges for luxury brands entering the Chinese market. For example, city- or province-wide lockdowns can disrupt supply chains and slow factory production. Additionally, the government’s ongoing attempts to tame celebrity culture can undermine the credibility of certain marketing campaigns.
In order to succeed in China, luxury watchmakers must be aware of these complexities and keep up with the changing consumer behavior of the country. In doing so, they can ensure their future success in the lucrative Chinese market. Otherwise, they risk being left behind by their competitors in the country’s fast-growing luxury segment.
China’s Luxury Market RevivalWhile China has been a pillar of support for the luxury industry, it is no longer providing the same level of growth as before. A recent slowdown in China has caused many major luxury goods manufacturers to rethink their strategy and reassess their business plans. The luxury watch sector has also been affected by the weakening Chinese economy and escalating tensions between China and the United States.
However, there are several factors that have contributed to the recent revival in the luxury sector. Economic resilience has been a key driver, especially as high-net-worth individuals found that there were fewer opportunities to shop abroad. This is in addition to the fact that Chinese consumers tend to prioritize local products when making purchase decisions, which is a significant advantage for domestic luxury brands. Meanwhile, digital transformation has played a crucial role, particularly for high-end shoppers that have invested in WeChat and Alibaba platforms as a way to facilitate online purchases.
The recovery in the luxury sector has been fueled by strong growth in fashion, jewelry, leather goods and beauty. Additionally, luxury consumers are repurchasing and replenishing luxury items, while shopping for discounted prices through resale platforms and NFTs. These trends present new opportunities for luxury manufacturers to capture the attention of young consumers who are embracing a more modern lifestyle.
This generation of wealthy Chinese consumers are redefining their notions of luxury, shifting from traditional fine watches to more fashionable styles that fit with their individualized aesthetic and exemplify their social status. Moreover, discerning luxury consumers demand products that align with their ethos and values while meeting their emotional and functional needs. This has given rise to the rise of “soft luxury” and “momentary luxuries” for high-end brands in China.
Amid the resurgence in luxury sales, best-in-class luxury-goods companies have been able to increase product prices and manage cost inflation. They have also been able to reduce expenses through creative pricing strategies and collaborations, which has helped protect gross, operating and net margins. Consequently, they are poised to outperform their Western counterparts in 2023.
The post The Role of China in Luxury Watch Growth appeared first on Granite Grok.
On November 5, 2020, Mr. Cummings, Administrator Director for the City of Nashua, signed a contract with the Consultant Services Commercial LLC in reference to the Performing Arts Center construction. Mr. Cummings was representing the City of Nashua and would be the only person from the City of Nashua to receive updated information on the progress of the construction of the Performing Arts Center and costs with three other Mascoma Bank employees.
Mr. Cummings actually got a promotion from Economic Development Manager to Administrator Director during this time of non-compliance of a contract. Could it be because he hid the construction costs from Nashua taxpayers so well?
The contract stated that the consultant shall deliver all reports prepared hereunder via-email to Mr. Cummings. However, it now comes out that Mr. Cummings never received these reports and never requested them from the consultant even though Mr. Cummings knew that the Performing Arts Center cost would go up to over $30 million dollars. It appears that the city has no contract compliance policies on its books, and therefore, it is no big deal that Mr. Cummings did not follow up on this contract.
Mr. Cummings careless attitude shows that he is unfit for the job that the Nashua taxpayers are paying him for. The Nashua taxpayers are paying Mr. Cummings $153,000 per year for a job that he is not qualified to handle. Maybe Mayor Donchess needs to get a person who actually will do the job for the Nashua taxpayers. Nashua taxpayers deserve better. I, therefore, request that Mayor Donchess fire Mr. Cummings and get someone who actually cares about Nashua and is qualified to do the job for Nashua residents.
I would also request that Mayor Donchess get copies of the Consultant Services Commercial LLC material pertaining to the Performing Arts Center that was forwarded to Mascoma Bank. The Nashua taxpayers took out $21 million dollars in bonds and also guaranteed another $9.5 million dollar loan with Mascoma Bank for a total of $30.5 million dollars for the construction of the Performing Arts Center, and Nashua taxpayers have the right to see this information even though Mr. Cummings feels that taxpayers do not need to see this information.
Nashua taxpayers need someone who is looking out for taxpayers and actually doing the job that they are hired to do. Nashua residents should be able to hold city employees accountable for their actions and/or inactions.
The post Night Cap: No One is Looking Out for the Nashua Taxpayers appeared first on Granite Grok.
A woman who says she was banned from the local social media website Front Porch Forum is voicing her concerns over alleged censorship and political bias.
It has been reported that the site took more than a third of a million dollars in public funds last summer, which calls into question FPF’s categorizing itself as a private media company as it pertains to free speech laws.
The woman is Wendy Wilton, she is no stranger to Vermont politics. A Republican, she served on the State Senate from 2005 to 2006, she was the GOP candidate for Vermont Treasurer in 2012, and she had been treasurer of the City of Rutland for several terms. She has numerous commentaries posted online.
In an email to VDC, she said when she tries to log in to FPF now it tells her, “You are attempting to log into a deactivated FPF account.” She wrote, “I assume I have been banned from FPF as a result of my submission.”
Her submission was itself a critique of FPF’s policies concerning what gets posted vs. what gets denied. She sent a copy to VDC.
“Most people I know in political circles are well aware of Front Porch Forum’s censorship double standard,” she wrote. “I have experienced it first-hand. Users are fully aware of how the moderation seems to work: It’s OK to demean people who lean center-right, even if they don’t post on the forum, but not OK to challenge those who express extremely liberal views.”
She continued that attempts to reason with the management have been fruitless.
“And don’t try to appeal your right to speak your mind and encourage your opinion to be published. Challenge too hard and they kick you out. Sorta like the way Twitter used to work, and Facebook still does to some degree.”
She cited a VDC story about the apparent censorship of a faith-oriented event while supporting a pro-Hamas rally as “the ultimate expression of FPF censorship.”
She questions how much user support the site will continue to garner if it keeps up these policies.
She wrote, “I also noticed that FPF is seeking donations to support its operation, yet the faith group above was willing to pay for advertising space. After the pro-Hamas rallies on college campuses, high-end donors are having second thoughts about funding their alma mater in news stories this week. I wonder how many FPF donors will continue to do so with censorship in place that favors opinions so far from the mainstream?”
She concludes, “Maybe the folks at FPF are happy as a far-left echo chamber and a garage sale marketplace, rather than a balanced community outlet to truly serve the public good. If so, perhaps FPF should change its name to something more truthful.”
Company took public money
Though officially a private company, FPF did take $361,500 in public funds via Federal Disaster Relief Funds. TechJamVt.com reported in September of last year “The Vermont Council on Rural Development has directed $300,000 in federal disaster relief funds from the Economic Development Administration to help upgrade Front Porch Forum’s capabilities.”
In a later report by Seven Days, the amount received was reported as $361,500.
According to CarnegieLibrary.org’s explanation of how 1st Amendment free speech laws work, it states that only a truly private company can refuse or censor content based on personal beliefs.
“The First Amendment only protects your speech from government censorship. It applies to federal, state, and local government actors. This is a broad category that includes not only lawmakers and elected officials but also public schools and universities, courts, and police officers. It does not include private citizens, businesses, and organizations. This means … A private media company can refuse to publish or broadcast opinions it disagrees with.”
We want to thank The Vermont Daily Chronicle for being a partner and supporter of Independent Media. You can support us here, or if you prefer to donate by check, email steve@granitegrok com for details.
The post Government-Supported Front Porch Forum Accused of More Censorship appeared first on Granite Grok.