Kevin McCarthy is out as speaker, and people are, as they should, picking sides. Ray Cardello thinks Matt Gaetz is a petulant child without a plan. Ed Mosca is happy to see Republicans of the principle remove him for failing to do his job.

Republicans in at least one Facebook group where I lurk think dethroning McCarthy was a bad idea—party division. We are shooting ourselves in the foot. Question: if everyone agrees that Washington, DC, is broken, how do we think fixing it might look?

Did it look like the brief tenure of Speaker McCarthy?

While McCarthy was speaker, Joe, and the Democrats didn’t seem to have too much trouble advancing their agenda at a time when Kevin’s job – his only job – was to leverage significant concessions or bring Congress to a screeching halt. I don’t recall hearing any tires chirp.

Let’s turn that around. As the House ponders his replacement, can they be a disruptor? Someone who walks against the flow of politics as usual. A guy or gal who says no to open borders and uses the power of the body and the majority to cut purse strings to get the Executive Branch under control. Or will it be someone who must also agree to look the other way? A leader who, instead of returning the budget process to clean appropriations or bust, has to agree to support continuing resolutions and pork-filled omnibus bills to get Republican votes. Someone who agrees that 33 trillion isn’t too much debt, we can afford some more.

Kevin McCarthy might be a great guy and a passable member of Congress, but it took fifteen attempts before he managed enough votes to get the gavel. And only after multiple concessions to the freedom wing of the Caucus and the very thing that got him “fired” from the gig. One of those concessions was a rule allowing any member to call a vote to vacate. That’s not exactly a guy with a mandate. Any Republican pretending anything else has a poor memory.

Here’s another unpleasant truth. In the wake of his departure as speaker, only Republicans can fail to elect one of their own to the post. Democrats will reject anyone who is not an R, which is meaningless unless Republicans screw it up. Is the departure of McCarthy as Speaker an expression of distaste at the removal from leadership of a milquetoast insider, or are we afraid our Republicans will do worse?

I have a few years of experience as an observer of politics, including the ones where Kevin McCarthy was Speaker of the US House. He was no great find. He’s much closer to the Inside the Beltway party than flyover country Republicans, but he could have been more like the latter.

Twelve appropriations bills. All he needed to do was bring the budget process back into line by forcing votes on each of the individual appropriations bills, clean and neat. Democrats would have been the ones shutting down the government, and we’d be able to put a name to the department, its largesse, and who was affected. He opted for a continuing resolution which, like the omnibus bills of the past decade-plus, have helped drive waste, fraud, abuse, and deficits (plus interest) into the pockets of our grandchildren.

I’m not saying I didn’t like the guy. Given the choices at the time, he appeared to have potential, but as often happens, he hid his Georgetown flu or got a more severe case along the way. He’s not the first or the last, and such is our problem. Too few members of Congress keep the principles they claim to get elected when they get to DC – it is a rare, perhaps even precious, trait, and we need more of it.

And I get why you might think Matt Gaetz was a petulant child, but he did something of which most Republicans are incapable. He got Democrats to vote for change Republicans can believe in if Republicans can stop bitching about displacing a budding DC insider from leadership long enough to replace him with someone with a bit more backbone.

Republicans control the US House, but what exactly have they done with that? If you are unsure, compare McCarthy’s US House to any Democrat majority, no matter how slim. They act like they can’t lose and refuse to accept no for an answer. They use their power to advance as much of their agenda as they can and to block every other, regardless of which branch of government.

Was McCarthy finally moving in that direction? I saw no evidence of it. And I’m not saying the Republican majority will manage to do better, just that someone had to rip off the bandaid, or we’d keep doing worse. America is worse off under McCarthy as Speaker. Much worse.

Are you sure you want to defend that?

 

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About a month ago, I wrote a story about Slate Valley School Board member Curtis Hier’s battle with both the school officials he was elected to oversee and his fellow board members, who don’t seem to appreciate Hier’s desire to get to the bottom of some serious problems in the system that are negatively impacting students.

The main issue at the heart of Hier’s concerns (although there are several) is the physical and psychological abuse of students by faculty – primarily kids with special needs – and the alleged cover-up of these abuses.

From a news perspective, this would appear to be low-hanging fruit for the front pages of local and statewide reporting outlets. It has sympathetic victims our reporters usually like to cover (equity for special needs students), dramatic conflict between a whistleblower and an entrenched bureaucracy, and it explores a scandalous issue that is also a subject of statewide concern – the use of “restraint and seclusion” in our public schools.

This problem is so glaring and widespread that the state legislature introduced a bill in 2023 (H.409) banning the violent practices entirely and that Education Committee members promise will be a focal point of lawmaking in 2024. Since Hier brought attention to the issue, multiple local citizens with ties to the school have come forward with stories corroborating and/or expanding on Hier’s allegations.

Hier has filed a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request for redacted records regarding restraint and seclusion incidents. This was met with a threat to release Hier’s personal file from his days as a teacher. Hier started Slate Valley Transparency Legal Fund. There have been calls from the board for Hier to step down, and calls from the community for the superintendent, Brooke Olsen-Farrell, to step down….

So where is the Vermont press corps?

Looking back through the archives of our major statewide news outlets, there is no coverage of this story. Even coverage by the Rutland Herald, the paper of record for the Slate Valley District, has been anemic. (Just two rather vague articles, and largely disinterested in getting to the bottom of Hier’s accusations.) It’s not because Hier hasn’t reached out to them; he has. Is it because they just don’t cover specific local school board issues? This excuse would seem to apply to Seven Days and VPR (although VPR did have one recent story on the Green Mountain School Board’s allegedly racist “Chieftains” mascot controversy). WCAX covers Burlington and adjacent school board stories, but that’s about it, so they can plausibly say it’s just not in their wheelhouse.

However, VT Digger and WPTZ do love themselves a good local school board controversy from anywhere in the state! So long as, one must now assume, it fits a certain narrative. School boards battling over racist mascots is a favorite topic for these outlets, for sure. School board conflicts over transgender policies: check! But public school employees systemically abusing vulnerable students and administrators covering it up… apparently not so much.

VT Digger routinely covers stories about local school board controversies involving members, school staff, and/or concerned parents. Just within the timeframe that the Hier events have been active, Digger dug into such headlines as, Community members urge Middlebury school district to improve its response to racism (September 27, 2023), “Alburgh School Board moves to distance itself from Grand Isle Supervisory Union (August 30, 2023), Facing no-confidence vote, South Burlington school board chair steps down (August 17, 2023), Parents say a Strafford art teacher lost her job under cloudy circumstances. They want her back. (August 16, 2023), South Burlington school board will hold vote on chair’s ouster (August 11, 2023), How did an anti-trans activist book an event at a Vergennes public school? (June 16, 2023), Brattleboro Union High School retires ‘Colonel’ moniker, replaces with ‘Bear’ mascot (June 14, 2023), At Peoples Academy, allegations of ‘systemic’ racist bullying (June 12, 2023), Orange Southwest reaches settlement in locker room lawsuit (June 2, 2023).

On September 8th Digger ran, “Independent investigation finds multiple abuse allegations at Kurn Hattin ‘supported by evidence,’” so they apparently don’t have an aversion to discussing the abuse of special needs students. But Kurn Hattin is a therapeutic independent school, not a public school, and herein, I suspect, lies the rub!

Vermont’s Left-wing media routinely puts its thumb on the scale to advance the woke agenda of the public school monopoly and its political interests. Right now, those interests include absorbing birth to five-year-old childcare into the public school system (at massive taxpayer expense) and shutting down Vermont’s independent schools and the tuitioning system that supports them so as to corral those kids and that money for themselves as well. And they feel the need to do this now while the Democrats’ supermajority, which is totally in bed with the teachers’ union, is in place and can override Governor Scott’s vetoes.

Obviously, a broad, public conversation focused on violence and psychological trauma being inflicted upon young children by public school officials and gotten away with due to lack of transparency, and competent oversight isn’t one that recommends placing toddlers into that environment to be either witnesses to or victims of these practices.

As for the independent school/tuitioning issue, the main argument that public school lobbyists have put forward to justify shutting down tuitioning is that independent schools don’t serve students with special needs, whereas public schools must and do. And public schools are transparent and accountable, whereas independent schools aren’t. Neither accusation is true about independent schools. But what Hier is trying to expose provides evidence for the exact opposite case: that public schools aren’t transparent and accountable, they aren’t actually serving special needs kids, and, in fact, beyond mere neglect, may be actively causing them serious harm.

So, says our press, nothing to see here. Move along.

The Curtis Hier story exposes two stories behind the story. 1) The public school system is not performing as it should, especially for our most vulnerable students. And 2) Our reporters and editors at our most widely read/viewed news outlets are more concerned with protecting a politically powerful special interest than they are about informing the public about serious issues taking place in the most expensive sector of state spending – Pre-K-12 education. Our ignorance is their bliss.

 

Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics, including three years of service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free-market think tank. He is also a regular contributor to VermontGrok.

 

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Thomas Sowell is Brilliant, but that quality is not new to the man. In today’s clip, we jump into the way back machine to watch a younger Dr. Sowell lay out the inconvenient truths about how blacks are being kept down in America.

This clip is only a minute long but worth the wait, as Sowell delivers the kill shot at the end of the clip. A truth from decades ago that he has revisited many times that is as or more true today.

Modern welfare programs keep blacks in America down.

 

Dependence was seen as the key to holding the slaves down. It’s ironic that same principle comes up in the welfare state a hundred years later.
pic.twitter.com/FsTsnaigaG

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) October 3, 2023

 

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Thank you, Matt Gaetz, for exposing Kevin McCathy’s House-GOP as controlled opposition. Not a single impeachment … the military-industrial complex’s War in Ukraine continues to get funded … the DOJ’s war against Donald Trump continues to get funded … and we end up with a “continuing resolution” because, as Gaetz exposed, that’s where McCarthy wanted to end up. Gaetz was one of eight Republicans who said that enough was enough and refused to go along to get along. Nancy Mace was another:

Today I voted for the Motion to Vacate and remove the Speaker.

This isn’t about left vs right.

This isn’t about ideology.

This is about trust and keeping your word.

This is about making Congress do it’s job.
(1/7)

— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) October 3, 2023

No budget, no separate spending bills until it was too late, a CR which takes spending power out of the hands of the people and puts all the power into the hands of a select few. There has also been no action on many issues we care about and were promised.
(3/7)

— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) October 3, 2023

I came here to take difficult votes and do the right thing, regardless of the pressure and regardless of the threats (bc there’s been plenty of both). Today I’m voting against 95 percent of my party in the hopes of fixing how Congress operates.
(5/7)

— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) October 3, 2023

I’ll work with anyone willing to do that and look forward to voting for a Speaker who shares this vision for changing Congress and getting us back on a path to delivering results for the people.#IndpendentVoice

(7/7)

— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) October 3, 2023

Doesn’t sound all that “petulant” to me. Actually, sounds rather principled.

 

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Greenland, NH – Conservative CEO and U.S. Army Reserves veteran Hollie Noveletsky announced that she is running for Congress in New Hampshire’s First Congressional District against Congressman Chris Pappas.

Army Reserves Veteran, Nurse Practitioner, and CEO Willing To Work On Solutions To Help New Hampshire

“When I look at Washington, I see a city run by Joe Biden and Chris Pappas, who bask in inaction and empty promises, while middle-class families in New Hampshire are stuck with inflation, higher energy costs, the rising cost of healthcare, and chaos at our southern border,” said Hollie Noveletsky, the CEO of Novel Iron Works.

“For me, the choice was clear: I could either complain and do nothing or use my experiences as a veteran, a nurse, and CEO to offer conservative, America First solutions that will help New Hampshire. Washington has enough career politicians; we need a veteran and CEO willing to work on economic solutions that will help our families and fix the illegal immigration crisis, and that’s why I’m running for Congress.”

Please Submit Group communications or Press Releases to editor@granitegrok.com.
Submission is not a guarantee of publication – Publication is not an endorsement.

Noveletsky is the CEO of Novel Iron Works, which has created nearly 100 jobs across New Hampshire. She served in the U.S. Army Reserves for ten years as a nurse practitioner. Additionally, she volunteered in Sierra Leone, working with victims of the Blood Diamond Wars, in amputee camps, and victims of the sex trade, and assisted victims of Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, the Oklahoma tornadoes, and the Maine ice storms.

 

 

Reminder: Content about candidates or by candidates is not an endorsement by GraniteGrok.com or its authors.

 

 

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Great job, Matt Gaetz. You threw a temper tantrum and have no plan for your next move. When everything favors the GOP, you pulled the fire alarm and made it personal.

We have a President wearing Depends in the White House, a totally inept Vice President that nobody wants, a GOP front-runner who will spend more time in court than the campaign trail for the next year, and Matt Gaetz decided it was a good idea to throw a grenade into the GOP led House.

Kevin McCarthy had a no-win situation when he became Speaker of the House in a tumultuous battle in January. He performed above expectations for most with a slim five-vote majority but not well enough for Matt Gaetz. Gaetz has had McCarthy in his sights since McCarthy first held the Gavel, and today, he got his wish and got McCarthy expelled from the Speaker’s office. The third person in line for the Oval Office is out because a young punk from Florida flexed his muscles and got his wish.

Excellent work, Matt, but being young and stupid, you forgot to think the process through. Who is your successor? Who now holds the Gavel in Matt Gaetz’s House of Representatives? Don’t ask Matt. He does not have a clue, but the crap show we will witness over the next few weeks to find a new Speaker is all on Matt. Did I say, great job, Matt? I think so.

Matt Gaetz has a very short memory. He forgets he was almost outed from the House on charges of sexual improprieties. The GOP stuck with Matt when tossing him aside would have been easy. His way of thanking his fellow Republican Congressmen is to throw their party into major disarray. When the Republicans should be uniting and concentrating on defeating the Democrats in 2024, we are beating each other, and the Democrats are laughing at us.

Kevin McCarthy has been kicked to the curb. He worked tirelessly to keep a GOP House divided into five fractions. His job was compared to a Mafia Don, keeping the five families aligned. It was not the Republicans against the Democrats. It was the five caucuses fighting for relevance and McCarthy pulling the strings to try and keep it all together. Nobody could have succeeded under those conditions. McCarthy did his best, but in the end, one of the families prevailed, and Kevin was dead on the side of the road.

The Speaker selects his successor as one of his first acts in office. The list is kept secret and only revealed in the case of a situation like today. When McCarthy made his selections, he chose GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry, a top McCarthy ally, to serve as interim Speaker. The House will now need to elect a new speaker. According to sources, the House GOP will have a conference meeting Tuesday night, although the election is not expected to happen on Tuesday.

It isn’t easy to be objective today. I am angry, frustrated, and disillusioned as I have never been. My hope, as this country is spiraling down the drain, was that the GOP could get their act together, win this election in 2024, and turn the lousy decisions of Joe Biden around. I do not feel too good about any of that tonight.

 

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A State Rep. who is supposed to represent Milford recently made some political noise by switching political affiliation from Democrat to Undeclared. But this State Rep … according to her X (Twitter) does NOT consider America “her country,” DESPITE being a citizen.

Rather, she considers El Salvador “her country:”

 

 

Do her constituents know that Rep. Perez does NOT consider them her countrymen? More importantly, do her constituents know how hard-left Perez is, that she’s a Communist? Maybe all we hear about New Hampshire having the most informed, engaged voters is just another BIG LIE. OR maybe a majority of voters in New Hampshire … at least in Milford, want Communism?

 

 

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And throw in ANYONE that believes in “open borders” as well?

What is being done is what we already saw in Britain: “We don’t like the current electorate (because we keep losing), so let’s import a new one.” The Labour Party did exactly that and soon started winning more.

Now that the Democrat/Marxist/One Worlders minions running the Biden Administration (what, you REALLY believe that Biden is in charge?  Hahahahahaha!) have flung open the doors and decimated our borders, this is exactly what is happening – Seen at Powerline.

Without the mass deportation of tens of millions, including their children, covering over a decade of illegal entry since DACA, the US population and electorate is going to be defined by recent arrival illegal aliens in your lifetime. pic.twitter.com/Lord75zeCY

— ib (@Indian_Bronson) September 27, 2023

Our nation is being changed right in front of us.

Now, I have no problem with immigration. When we have the CORRECT philosophy behind it (people who WANT to embrace our founding ideas, who want to work hard, who desire to assimilate while still bringing the best parts of their culture to share with us), it works. But that’s not what is happening. With the Marxism of “multiculturalism” that denies OUR uniquely American culture and wishes to stamp it out, what will happen with these millions of illegal alien invaders (mostly young men of military age and bringing crime as well as diseases we had previously stamped out like TB, leprosy just to name two) and nothing comparable to Traditional American mores into our heartland?

More importantly, of all those babies, WHOSE culture will they embrace? Historically, newcomers wanted to be Americans. With multiculturalism, they keep their native culture, and with the Left denigrating our own, WHY would they even begin to become Americans?

Remember that I used to write about the Cloward-Priven Socialist political stunt that almost bankrupted New York City? That was the scheme created by husband and wife sociologists who hated our way of life and especially hated capitalism, whose premise was to use the current laws against “The Establishment” by overwhelming the welfare system by insisting that NYC strictly follow those laws and spend what they demand. It was Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals (RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules) writ large.

They almost succeeded.

Now, seeing those results, the minions that control Biden AND hate America have rolled this out nationally.  It’s goal is simple and we already see its results: the southern border states ARE overwhelmed and running out of resources – they are having to be dependent of the Federal Government.

My, my – the Feds created the problem with the aim of getting rid of the vestiges of the important principle of Federalism. How convenient!

However, the Red States did the right thing by sending the invading horde to the “sanctuary” cities and States. Martha’s Vineyard was the first virtue-signaling bastion to fail badly. I now find it highly amusing that NYC is now having to spend billions to take care of Biden’s illegals – once again, getting Cloward-Piven’d.

Will this be one ignition source for the turnaround for America?

After all, just with this decision by Biden’s minions, with no lawful deliberation or action by Congress, this is a dictator’s decision.  How long will we let this go on?

 

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California Governor Gavin Newsom, tasked with filling the US Senate seat vacated by Dianne Feinstein after her passing, has snubbed his state’s massive illegal immigrant population. He did choose a “non-resident,” just not one from California.

I can only assume that he could not find an English speaking black lesbian among the horde of California’s undocumented “workers” who can’t find work as if unemployment is a job Americans won’t do.

 

Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler, whose only qualifications appear to be working on Kamala Harris’ failed 2020 presidential campaign while being a “black lesbian.” Naturally, the California governor is touting the latter. …

 

FEC filings from EMILY’s List record Laphonza Butler’s residence as Silver Springs, Maryland as recently as 31 days ago. https://t.co/FjZkJ9Ugf0 pic.twitter.com/2FzA8MVqfU

— Rob Pyers (@rpyers) October 2, 2023

 

They’ve cleaned all that residency business up almost overnight, so no worries. Laphonza Butler, who is likely still registered to vote and has been paying taxes in (and from) Maryland, was doing so by mistake. Nothing about her history there is relevant to the appointment, and any thought or word to the contrary is white heterosexual fragility expressed as racism and bigotry.

Besides, does it matter which donkey they plug into that seat? None of them will vote for Californians; they will vote for the Inside the Beltway Party.

And who doesn’t want to see someone who fundraised for Kamala for president in action? As stupid and unqualified as Harris continues to be, the person who raised money to get her elected to the Oval Office has got to be worse.

Did the same donors help get a quick close on a property in California, which we all know does not define residency. Homeowners in states all over the place vote in New Hampshire every election cycle. They feel like they live here long enough to vote and then leave. Laphonza Butler can feel like she lives in California and cast votes as if she cares a wit about the people she has been chosen to represent.

C’mon, man, she’s a black lesbian. The US Senate needed one of those, and now it has one. And she’s not over seventy!

Of course, we don’t have any illegal “migrants” in the US Senate either. Not yet. But there’s still time.

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The following is an open letter to Frank Edelblut, Commissioner of Education, and Drew Cline, Chairman of the Board of Education, regarding a document that is making the rounds offering the public a chance to comment on proposed changes to the Ed Rules that govern public schools in New Hampshire.

Dear Commissioner Edelblut and Chairman Cline,

I’ve been reading — or trying to read — the 139-page document that is currently out for public review, which identifies proposed changes to the rules promulgated by the state Department of Education.

I believe that the goal of the document is to improve the performance of students in public schools.  However, the form, structure, and content of the document more or less guarantee that this goal will not be met. 

The first major problem with the document is its length:  It’s 139 pages.  There is a well-known technique in civil lawsuits for foiling the normal discovery process by providing so many documents that the ones that will be useful to the opposing side will probably never be found.  That seems to be what’s happening here.  There are so many changes — and so many rules that might be changed — that there’s no way to know which ones are important and which ones are trivial without plowing through the whole thing, which almost no one will have the time, motivation, or stamina to do.

The second major problem with the document is its level of detail. It is common knowledge among software engineers that every time you try to fix a bug in a system, you end up creating at least two more.  The same is true in statutes and regulations.  The solution isn’t to keep patching things but to go back to the original design, the architecture, so that fewer bugs can arise in the first place. The solution is to reduce the need for particular complications by reducing overall complexity.

In the case of public schools, the underlying source of complexity is that the system is time-based instead of results-based. In any other industry, the goal would be to get students to the finish line as quickly as possible for as little money as possible.  (Of course, this would require knowing where the finish line is, something that requires a shared agreement among students, parents, schools, and taxpayers about where it is. As far as I’ve been able to tell, no such agreement exists, and no steps have been taken toward reaching one.)

But in the industry of education — or more precisely, the industry of schooling — kids are kept in school for an arbitrary number of years, whether they want to be there or not, and whether they need to be there or not. Once they are there, it becomes necessary to find something for them to do, some way to fill their time and some way to keep them pacified. 

If this were to change — if there were a clear and adequate definition of an adequate education that focused on the desired end state rather than on particular paths to reach it — then many of the problems that the document seeks to address would simply not exist, and the document itself could be reduced to perhaps five to ten pages, and written in clear English rather than in legalese. 

Note that in technical fields, a ‘standard’ says what needs to happen, not how it needs to happen.  If you’re supposed to produce USB cables, there are some behaviors that the cables have to exhibit and some tests that they have to pass in order to meet the standard.  How you set up your factory, what manufacturing processes you use to make the cables, and how long you take to make them are your business. 

Imagine a USB standard that says:  The people making your cables have to spend a certain number of hours in training, and your factory has to run for a certain number of hours per day, a certain number of days per year.   And we’ll certify whatever you produce as a USB cable.

That’s the kind of standard we have now for graduating from the public school system, as embodied by documents like this one.

A reasonable standard for graduation would say:  This is what we mean by an adequately educated student.  Here are the tests he can pass, the skills he can demonstrate, and the kinds of problems he can solve. 

A reasonable standard would be precise.  It wouldn’t include pseudo-competencies like ‘Use digital tools to develop cognitive proficiency in literacy, numeracy, problem-solving, decision making, and spatial/visual literacy.’ 

A reasonable standard would be consistent.  If a certain kind of thinking or problem-solving ability is necessary, it would be spelled out, and every student would need to be able to demonstrate it in order to graduate.

If every graduate needs to be able to do things like ‘appreciate art,’ or ‘use technology,’ or whatever, then have tests that let students demonstrate those things and make everyone pass those tests. 

To the extent that the state has a job here — and the written state constitution, as opposed to the oral one, suggests that it does not — that job is to say what product is acceptable, not what process must be followed to produce it.  Micro-management guarantees macro-failure, which is what we have now.  Focusing on process creates the situation that allows (and, to some extent, even encourages) administrators and teachers to ignore (and in some cases, undermine) the product. 

I suspect that both of you are familiar with the book The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt, but if you aren’t, I would ask you to read it since it perfectly captures the situation in which our public school system finds itself and suggests a way to deal with that situation.  Briefly, Goldratt points out that when running any kind of enterprise, every possible action that might be taken needs to be evaluated, not in terms of what invented internal benchmarks it might meet, but in terms of the primary goal of the enterprise.  In the case of a business, that goal is to make money. In the case of a public school system, that goal is to produce educated citizens.

Finally, unlike a manufacturing standard, an educational standard needs to be centered on two fundamental concepts:  priority and autonomy.

By priority, I just mean that some things are more fundamental than others and must be dealt with first. If you’re in a course on American history, but your reading skills are below proficiency, then you should be working on reading instead of listening to someone explain history to you.  If you’re not rock solid on your arithmetic skills, you certainly shouldn’t be taking algebra… but you also shouldn’t be taking courses in, say, fashion merchandising.

By independence, I just mean that the single most important thing that you should be learning is how to direct your own learning, how to become your own teacher so that you can learn whatever you want to later on. Nothing else even approaches this in importance.

Any educational standard that isn’t just a wish list must require students to develop foundational skills first and then require them to leverage those skills to learn to teach themselves. By the time a student is ready to graduate, his teachers should be acting mostly in an advisory role.

To put that a different way: No matter how much a student knows at a given moment if he’s still depending on his teachers to learn new material, then he’s not ready to graduate.

The third major problem with the document is, in fact, its complete lack of any priority among its requirements. It’s like a building code that goes into detail about how to choose the finishes on bathroom fixtures while ignoring how to tell if the foundation is solid. 

Two egregious and illustrative examples of this are requiring schools to ‘teach financial literacy’ and ‘teach digital literacy.’  It’s worth asking how these affect the teaching of actual literacy. 

First, when you require that schools ‘teach x,’ you’re implicitly saying that it’s okay if the kids can’t read about x on their own because you’ll provide a teacher to do that reading for them and provide oral explanations.   

Education professionals call this meeting students where they are, but psychologists would call it enabling illiteracy.  If you ever find yourself wondering how, in a district like Newport, 90 percent of kids can graduate while only about 10 percent of them can read, this is how.

Second, there is an old saying that if you chase two rabbits, you won’t catch either of them. By requiring so much content to be taught while not actually requiring any of it to be learned — and by establishing no priorities — you’re providing school administrators and teachers with a built-in excuse to ignore fundamentals in favor of incidentals.  If ‘learning about the Holocaust’ and ‘developing an awareness of and involvement with the natural world’ are on the same level of importance as learning to read, you can guess how that’s going to work out. 

If you really have an opportunity to overhaul the Ed Rules, I implore you: Please use that opportunity to create rules that (1) focus on product rather than process, (2) are results-based rather than time-based, (3) prioritize goals, (4) recognize that producing autonomous learners is the goal of the enterprise, and (5) eliminate everything that can’t be tied directly to the achievement of that goal.

In closing, I would ask that when creating those rules, you consider two crucial questions that almost never get serious consideration in discussions about education: First, if a kid wants to learn something, who can stop him? (And how much money do we need to spend to support that?)  Second, if a kid doesn’t want to learn something, who can make him? (And how much money do we waste by trying?)   

I would also ask that you consider these questions in the context of the world of 2023, where high-quality, low-cost pedagogy is literally falling from the sky, 24 hours a day, seven days a week — a world where a student in a school classroom has access to fewer resources, of lower quality, and vastly higher cost, than the ones available to him everywhere else. 

Thank you for your consideration,

Ian Underwood
Croydon, NH

This letter was originally published at Bare Minimum Books.

The post Education: Some Rules for Changing the Rules appeared first on Granite Grok.

Another shameless plug for our upcoming fundraiser/event on October 28th at the Londonderry Fish and Game Club Pavillion. Nice facility. Plenty of room. And here we are, trying to make political events great again. So, if you can attend, please purchase your tickets so we can plan the food!

There will not be any ticket sales “at the door.”

We can fit 400 people. We’d love to have that many, but whatever the number, we’d like to have an idea of what to expect so we can make sure we have food, and drink enough for everyone.

The ticket price includes food and a beverage if you want it.

Orders will be placed the week before the event, and we will have everything and everyone ready for Saturday, the 28th. Music, food (still looking for a comedian we think is funny), and our lineup of speakers.

You can pass the time playing cornhole while you listen, or whatever else we can think to make this more than just your average everyday event during presidential primary season. There will be lots of “vendors,” groups with tables, and plenty of like-minded people with whom to chat.

And we’ve added a speaker (it’s a secret) and may add one or two more, though we will not have any candidates speaking. It’s not that sort of event.

We’re not banning them. You are welcome to buy a ticket and come and hang out and chat and listen, but no one running for office is slated to speak.

That has to be a relief, considering the season. An event with speakers, but none of them is running for anything.

We hope to see you there!

 

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I have explained why I refuse to refer to Alexandria Ocasio Cortez by her preferred AOC. Cortez has never done anything to earn a moniker like JFK, FDR, or LBJ. As a matter of fact, Cortez has done nothing of note in her tenure in Congress. She has yet to have a bill passed that she authored since her first day in Washington in 2019.

She and her fellow Squad members, Pressley, Omar, and Tlaib, have been more disruptive than productive since they came on the scene. For some reason, Cortez attracts camera coverage, but when she does, she does nothing to elevate her stature. Cortez usually tries to make a point only to make a fool of herself.

Such was the case this week when she tried to show the difference between Democrats and Republicans on the subject of Immigration. Every argument she used to prove her point was not only off the mark but factually incorrect.

Cortez accused Republicans of having no plan on Immigration, and the Democrats have the plan and answers to all the immigrant problems.

Her Claims:

• Democrats want to issue work permits to nearly 500,000 illegal migrants.
  • First, the migrants are here illegally and should be deported, but next, why are the Democrats keying on only Venezuelan migrants?
• Democrats support women and children crossing the Border, and Republicans have no compassion for either group
  • The cameras do not lie. The stream of illegals crossing the Rio Grande into Texas is primarily military-aged individuals and very few family units. As for her claim about women and children, not only is this flow of people unsafe for women who are raped at will, over 300,000 unattended children have crossed the Border, but the Biden Administration has “Misplaced” 85,000. These children have no known address or sponsor, and many are thought to now be involved in illegal work farms or are in the sex trade. This facet of the plan is what the Democrats call humane.
• Democrats claim they are concerned with the conditions and welfare of the origin countries where these migrants originated.
  • The truth is these migrants are traced to over 150 countries worldwide. Taking in large numbers of adolescents and young men is stripping these poverty-ridden countries’ present and future workforce.
• Democrats believe the Border is closed and secure
  • Nearly each day in September saw a record number of illegals crossing into Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Some days they have exceeded 10,000 migrants entering America.

Cortez knows she is lying just as she did when she staged the photo-op at the Border years ago, crying at the sight of caged families. She, like all Democrats, will not go to the Border now because if they do, the Media will follow, and then they will need to report on the real story. Democrats know they are destroying this country with the seven to ten million unvetted immigrants that will enter during Biden’s first term. That destruction is their plan. God knows it is working.

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People who know better have complained that Donald Trump is avoiding the debates for [insert reason here]. I say they know better becasue most of them do. If you have a 30-50+ point lead, a debate is the last thing you need. Just ask Chris Sununu.

Related: Sununu, Who Would Not Debate Republican Challengers in 2020 or 2022, Criticizes Trump for Dodging a Debate

If you’ve already forgotten who Chris Sununu is, he’s the guy making a cameo in at the end of the latest PAC-funded Chris Christie commercials circulating the Granite State. He is also the governor of New Hampshire (for another year (when he steps aside). And an almost-ran 2024 presidential candidate who’d have never made it onto that pig pile of a debate stage Trump has avoided.

Sununu has vowed to work to trim the field (at least he started with himself), so someone has a better shot at being the not-Trump candidate. He was also the guy who said this after Trump skipped the first Debate.

 

“I honestly think he’s gonna regret it, I really do. You can’t say I’m going to lead the free world and not be willing to get up and talk to those who are going to challenge you and want the job. You can’t really do that. It’s not fair to the system. It’s not doing respect to the voters and your base,” Sununu said.

 

Everyone present at the second Debate, except perhaps Doug Burgham, declared themselves the winner, and compared to Biden, they are all a better choice, which you have to admit, with a few exceptions, isn’t saying a lot, but polling suggests it was someone else. Donald Trump.

 

“63% of potential Republican primary voters support Donald Trump for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, up from 58% in our survey released Monday ahead of the latest primary debate,” Morning Consult said in its survey released on Sept. 29.

In comparison, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, seen as Mr. Trump’s biggest rival, saw his support dip from 15 percent to 12 percent after the second debate, though the Florida governor is still in second place.

Some will say that Republican Primary voters are as dumb as Republican politicians. Trump can’t win. The Left will rally and bring independents, and America will Die. DIE, I tell you! They love this crappy economy more than the possibility of the prosperity Trump brought. I’m not saying they are wrong. Trump is polarizing but names one systemic thing the Republican party did to effectively push back on a narrative almost entirely concocted by Democrats and their media homonculi.

Even as president, Trump couldn’t count on members of his party, many of whom chose the machine over putting a crowbar in the works.

When you leave Trump alone, he does Trump. When you push him, he pushes back, another thing for which Republicans are not known. At GraniteGrok, we push back all the time, no matter what side you claim, and plenty of Republicans have gotten petulant about it. They oppose us for opposing acts that contradict the party platform and the constitution (state or federal).

Boo Hoo.

And so we are clear, I am still waiting for Trump to apologize for his accumulated debt. He must say more about getting the covid wool pulled over his eyes. The bad staffing choices in the White House. That vaccine nightmare. But Chris Christie is lying when he says Trump didn’t get anything done. He got plenty done, and all of it was good. And despite his popularity with the Republican base, those who know better can’t find time to share that list. We have, as have others. It’s an impressive thing. I include it because Trump is polling at 63%, not in every poll, but he’s got a yuge lead.

I’d be happy with a Ron DeSantis. I’d hold my nose and vote for Nikki Haley. Tim ‘Ukraine or Bust’ Scott is leaps and bounds better than the current regime. We’ve got a few months to go; anything is possible but highly improbable. And Trump’s not the problem; Democrats are – as is their stranglehold on messaging (the media) and elections, and their hands are still wrapped around that neck.

If we can’t fix “Trump” or fix primary voters, Trump’s the guy we’ll have, and we’re not giving up on America. What’s your plan?

 

 

 

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Compliance is a complex concern for many business owners. No matter which industry you operate in, there will be regulations and laws you need to follow. Failure to adhere to these guidelines doesn’t just put you at risk of legal action and fines, it can also destroy your brand’s reputation. Unfortunately, preserving compliance isn’t always as simple as it seems. Companies need to implement comprehensive measures to ensure they’re living up to expectations. To make matters worse, as technology and the world around us evolves, regulations are growing more confusing. Fortunately, there are ways you can improve your chances of success and protect your company from unnecessary risks. Here’s how you can enhance your compliance strategy in a few simple steps.

Know Which Frameworks Apply to You

Compliance is a broad term, which covers a wide range of laws and regulations, as well as organizational governance and security requirements. Different types of guidelines are designed by industry and federal groups for different kinds of businesses. If your company deals with transactions, you’ll need to be compliant with PCI regulations. Companies in the healthcare industry need to understand HIPAA restrictions, and businesses managing consumer data in Europe need to be familiar with GDPR. A comprehensive risk analysis can help you to understand where threats exist in your business, and what kind of regulatory guidelines you’ll need to follow. You can also speak to compliance experts in your industry for additional guidance.

Perform Regular Audits

Maintaining high levels of compliance requires a comprehensive approach to collecting data and insights throughout your business. Regularly monitoring your accounts, documents, and data can help to ensure your business remains fully compliant. It can also ensure you can take quick action to rectify any problems that might emerge over time. Regular audits will also ensure you have plenty of data to give the authorities if they decide to check on your business. Some companies are even required to conduct reviews on an annual basis, which includes a complete audit of all their internal systems. Staying up to date with your information could save you time and effort in the long term and reduce your risk of having to deal with expensive fines.

Implement Data Protection Strategies

While there’s more to comprehensive compliance than simply protecting business data, most frameworks will require companies to have a strategy in place for preserving the information they collect. As digital transformation continues to take place on a massive scale, it’s crucial to ensure you’re implementing strategies that keep your business and consumers secure. At the very least, you’ll need to ensure your information, documents, and digital files are safely encrypted on an end-to-end basis. You may also need to think about your access controls for specific documents and tools. Implementing specific permissions for different users in your workforce can reduce your threat landscape by making sensitive information less accessible.

Some businesses even invest in comprehensive security strategies, such as using multi-factor authentication for all online software and logins.

Use the Right Technology

Technology can make a huge difference to your compliance strategy. There are many kinds of software and tools that can assist with different regulations. You can leverage tools to help you monitor data compliance in the contact center, ensuring personal information is automatically redacted from call recordings. If you’re a government company running a fleet in California, you’ll need to be familiar with the state’s smog check rules, and you’ll need to leverage the right tools to ensure you can conduct tests quickly and efficiently. There are telematics systems available that can reduce the time and effort it takes to conduct smog checks, helping to boost both compliance and efficiency at the same time. Some tools can even help you to monitor your compliance with security, safety, and environmental regulations in real-time, with customizable alerts and notifications.

Mastering Compliance in the Modern World

Compliance is a complex topic, and it’s something many businesses struggle to manage effectively. Unfortunately, compliance isn’t something companies can think about once and then ignore. Just as you need to stay on top of your finances you need to stay on top of compliance related tasks as well. As regulations and guidelines continue to evolve, and your business processes change, you’ll need to ensure you’re updating your strategies regularly. The steps above can help you to implement a plan for compliance that protects your business from fines, reputational damage, and even legal action.

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The world of conspiracy theorists is fraught with nervous energy emanating from shadowy corners of the information war frontier. Of course, globalists are real, and of course, they want a New World Order, and of course, they’re conspiring to accomplish it – because they’ve admitted to all of it.  In fact, they even brag about it at their semi-public meetings or in the pages of their very public best-selling books.

However, the United States government is still beholden to its citizens it would propagandize if we let them.  Thanks to the Smith-Mundt Act we told them no.  Yet rumors of that act being repealed by Barack Obama began to circulate not long after he signed an amendment to it, which is not the same as repealing it.  The reality is he loosened restrictions, allowing American citizens to listen to state-sponsored media outlets the U.S. uses to propagandize others around the world.  Ostensibly, this is a good thing because it allows ordinary Americans, including conspiracy theorists, to listen closely to what our government messaging is around the world.  We pay for it. After all, we should get to see the final product.  So that’s one for Obama for those keeping score.

However, those holding the reins of power in our country can still propagandize us in a variety of ways, and in fact, they have if you listen to M.I.T. professor of linguistics Noam Chomsky.  Chomsky exposed the American media for conspiring with the military-industrial complex to “manufacture consent” back in the 1980s.  Both his book and documentary film of the same name go to great lengths to show how this is done.  Chomsky, a card-carrying socialist, is practiced at studying modern media and literature for the use of certain types of trends in language.  In this case, he noted the selective use of certain media outlets to create “manufactured consent” of public opinion for the purpose of justifying military intervention into the tiny Pacific island nation of East Timor.  Without going into detail, suffice to say the media painted a narrative whereby the East Timorese people were facing a hostile threat, which the United States, fancying itself the global bodyguard of the weak, would have to respond to on moral grounds.

The truth, as it played out, was more like the pre-text to our intervening in Iraq and Afghanistan.  American interest is a broad term, often meaning financial and controlling interests in American industry.  Rather than simply support the East Timorese people, we decided to reward ourselves by sticking around and helping ourselves to some of their natural resources.  This, of course, offended Chomsky as it was the bourgeois Americans using our military hegemony to take advantage of the simple working-class natives of East Timor.  The rest is history.

Chomsky was keen to notice and tell us what was happening, however.  Though I disagree with his politics, I completely agree with his perspicacity regarding American propaganda.  The Smith-Mundt Act began in 1948 as a response to the propaganda efforts discovered in Nazi Germany and the Soviet bloc countries where propagandizing citizens was commonplace.  At its core is respect for our First Amendment right to not have an establishment of government control over speech or the press.  The spirit of the act is mostly that, though, honored in the ether more than reality.

The reality takes an understanding of what constitutes propaganda.  What are the tactics and techniques used? The answer: constant and pervasive messaging designed to shape the way one thinks or perceives reality, often through the use of manipulation and fear.

The Church Committee of 1975-76 showed us the C.I.A. had, in fact, been paying journalists to essentially propagandize U.S. citizens by placing articles with narratives given to them by the agency.  Otherwise known as Operation Mockingbird, this was and is a violation of the agency’s charter and precisely what Chomsky was revealing in his expose.  The budget used by the agency for this was in the tens of millions of dollars.  Ostensibly, we are told their motives were good – to defend American values and interests.  Is that still true?

For those who recognize propaganda in real-time, the two-year COVID crisis was a prime example of a massive campaign utilizing virtually all of the techniques associated with the mind control techniques.

Pervasive?  Every news channel and online site ran non-stop COVID messaging.  The messaging was essentially the same across the board.

Constant?  We were inundated with COVID warnings and trackers on nearly every platform as well.  Remember the death toll tracker?  The maps of viral outbreaks?  The omniscience of Tony Fauci and other government warriors who were fighting the deadly virus on our behalf?  Of course, you do.

Lionizing and demonizing?  It’s as simple as recalling the vaxx vs. anti-vaxxed binary.  Those in the government-approved vax camp needed to be wary of the anti-vaxxers.  Anti-vaxxers were even dehumanized, openly and without shame, by dozens of so-called professional journalists, pundits, and government officials.  Fauci, Cuomo and Whitmer were heroes, and you could be too if you were willing to save Grandma by getting vaxxed.  Trump, Desantis, and Noem were unhinged and reckless troglodytes who mistook freedom for a license to kill via non-compliance.  You were told to skip funerals and family gatherings to avoid such reprobates.  Were it 1940s Germany the anti-vaxxers could easily have been Jews.

Fear tactics?  Aside from those already mentioned, there was the threat of job loss, social ostracism, and death lurking mere inches beneath your neighbor’s masked or unmasked face.  Propagandists know fear is essential to manipulating the mind to react in irrational ways to otherwise rational situations.  Love your neighbor became fear your neighbor, especially if they were acting in a disapproved manner.

Gaslighting? This is the manipulative art of denying one’s reality.  Consider Then we had the ubiquitous misinformation/disinformation narrative where Nobel Prize-winning medicines like Ivermectin and medical prize-winning doctors who stepped outside of the approved government-medical establishment narrative were no longer prize-winning unless it was a booby prize for failure to capitulate.  Rather than a world-beating virus medicine, Ivermectin was now a horse de-wormer paste for crazy people.  World-renowned cardiologist and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough was in league with mRNA vaccine pioneer Dr. Robert Malone, both of whom had the audacity to use their educations to question the preferred protocol.  Shut up and do as you are told, whackos.

The powers that be in government have studied the propagandists and know the history of government control tactics.  They have the benefit of hundreds if not thousands of years of research from around the world and the brain trust of specialized groups who feed them data on what works.  This is settled science.

We should all “follow the science” when it’s the result of the actual scientific process.  What is that again?  Science is: The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.  It is also subject to the scrutiny and skepticism of qualified practitioners of science for the purpose of arriving at laws and other scientifically accepted claims that are falsifiable and/or can be reproduced via the same mechanisms anywhere around the world.

Propagandists also have their techniques down to a science.

In this case, I suggest you don’t follow the science when the science is legalized propaganda.

 

The post Your Government Is Propagandizing You…Legally? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Under the phrase ‘Kamala Harris is Dumb,’ someone on X has shared a compilation from America’s alleged ‘Vice’ President. Kamala Harris. Joe Biden’s special envoy to word salads.  The woman gifted with the ability to speak at length and say nothing.

Her contribution is, in fact, capable of detracting from everything else said in a room. She makes a crowd of people dumber than when they arrived. So please use caution when listening to the following “presentation.”

Tree plus minutes of a sound Kamala makes when someone yanks her pull string.

 

Kamala Harris is dumb… pic.twitter.com/vSlTqUc8tP

— Gunther Eagleman (@GuntherEagleman) October 1, 2023

 

I think America would like to realize what can be, unburdened by what has been, as in, goodbye Biden administration and word-salad Kamala. Roll back all their nonsense. And try to get America back on its feet.

The post One of the “Sounds” Kamala Makes When You Yank Her Pull-String appeared first on Granite Grok.

The narrative from the Regime-media and both Parties goes like this … a small group of Republican “extremists” refuse to fund the government because ____ (fill in whatever nefarious reason you like: they hate the government; they hate Speaker McCarthy; they’re irrational; blah, blah, blah); these “extremists” are the children in the room and the politicians who want to keep the spending machine chugging along are the adults in the room. And it is all a LIE.

Matt Gaetz’s interview on CNN should be an eye-opener. I already posted about it: Must See Matt Gaetz … The actual adults in the room are the supposed “extremists” who refuse to fund government via “continuing resolution” or “omnibus” because “continuing resolution,” “omnibus” etc. are how the UniParty continues to spend far, far more … $2 trillion annually … than it takes in, without accountability. I HAD NO CHOICE; THE ALTERNATIVE WAS TO SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT.

But, as Gaetz exposes, the UniParty manufactures shutdown crises. The UniParty refuses to follow a normal appropriations process, which would expose what the innumerable alphabet-soup of government agencies are spending precisely because they do NOT want that exposure. It is NOT a Republican vs. Democrat thing … it’s the system versus the rest of us.

The post Everything The System Tells You About Government “Shutdowns” Is A Lie appeared first on Granite Grok.

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, confusion surrounded many medical issues related to a scary, novel disease. Travel restraints, quarantines, mortality rates, treatment modalities, and a vortex of complex issues confronted an anxious American public told ubiquitous masks were a necessary prophylactic pending the arrival of a vaunted new vaccine to rescue humanity.

Children were force-masked in schools. Unmasked citizens were shamed in retail stores, legislators called for criminal sanctions for the noncompliant, and claims that masking caused harm or was ineffective were viciously attacked as misinformation. A recent South Korean study reported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), however, concluded that masking can indeed cause harm, especially for children.

In “Measuring the quantity of harmful volatile organic compounds inhaled through masks,” NIH posited what many concerned parents had wondered about in 2020:

“If harmful chemicals are released from these masks, there may be harmful effects on human health. In this study, the concentration of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from some commonly used masks was assessed qualitatively and quantitatively under diverse conditions … As masks are worn close to the face, temperature may increase beyond the ambient temperature due to body heat. … When the temperature of the mask rises, the types and concentrations of the VOCs emitted from the mask can rise with it.”

Free Speech to Question Masks

Any drywaller or mason knows that the masks worn to prevent viral spread are insufficient to block visible particulate matter such as drywall dust or masonry cement, creating a false sense of security that would cause even greater disease spread. Yet government spokesmen and the medical community insisted that face diapers would block viruses that are infinitesimal in size compared to dust, and the drywallers, and masons, and other folk who knew better were not permitted alternative opinions on Facebook, YouTube, and other social media. Sensible voices claimed masks could cause respiratory or other illnesses, increase carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide levels, or inhibit herd immunity and natural immune system development in children. Their voices too were silenced: Their simple scientific observations were verboten.

The recent study is remarkable not because it challenges official nonsense scientifically (like real science!) but in that it breaks from the political tyranny that Fauci & Co inflicted on Americans. Is the NIH uncaptured by the cultish fear ladled out so copiously by Joe Biden and others? How did the federal government’s lock-stepping lies get challenged by another agency – didn’t NIH get the memo? Likely, it was impossible to simply ignore the South Korean study that should have been undertaken in America.

Seeking Credible Science

The US government has seen its credibility fall like the biblical Tower of Babel. The more “real science” intrudes into unscientific political narratives, the more government agencies will lose credibility. This extends to bunk science about climate change, gender identity and hormone blockers for children, and even statistical abuses in critical race “theory” that labels all white people as criminals and all black people as victims. These and more display grotesque departures from traditional scientific and statistical inquiry to foster a hideous cult of hate and falsehood.

The NIH presents a credible study openly affirming what private citizens and physicians were banned, or even attacked, for suggesting two years ago:

“Now that masks are all but required, the harmful chemicals that can be released from them must be evaluated. … This study demonstrated that disposable masks (KF94) released higher concentrations of TVOCs in comparison to cotton masks … It is clear that particular attention must be paid to the VOCs associated with the use of KF94 masks their effects on human health. Based on our findings, we suggest that prior to wearing a KF94 mask, each product should be opened and not worn for at least 30 min, thereby reducing TVOC concentrations to levels that will not impair human health.”

How comforting – let the chemical-infused masks air out a tad before wrapping your toddler’s face. Yet the Korean study “found that disposable masks, including medical-grade N95 masks, released eight times the recommended safety limit for toxic volatile organic compounds (TVOCs).” Maybe an hour would be a better air-out, especially for vulnerable children.

 

John Klar is an Attorney, farmer, and author. Mostly farmer… And Regular Contributor to GraniteGrok and VermontGrok.

 

The post Masking Creates Toxic Health Impacts … appeared first on Granite Grok.

It’s becoming harder and harder for high school and college girls to compete against other females without intrusion by transgender-identified males. To see just how far we have fallen in refusing to recognize the fundamental injustice of allowing these males to compete against biological females, consider some historic scandals in the Olympic Games.

Once, everyone from the organizers of the Olympics to every national athletic association to every high school gym teacher understood that the biological differences between men and women gave well-trained male athletes an inherent advantage over their similarly well-trained female athletes. These biological distinctions are not insignificant. (RELATED: DEROY MURDOCK: It’s Time For A Big, Fat Gay Divorce From The Alphabet People)

Males have greater lung capacity, larger hearts, more bone density, and more muscle mass—advantages that allow them to jump higher, throw further, run and accelerate faster, and punch harder than females. One recent study revealed that in sports where upper body strength dominates, males possess more than a 50% athletic advantage over their female counterparts. This athletic gap emerges around age 12 when males experience a 20-fold boost in testosterone.

That is why the rules governing sporting competitions—especially those considered to be at the pinnacle of athletic achievement, such as the Olympic Games—long maintained strict prohibitions on female athletes taking male hormones and other kinds of performance-enhancing drugs for both male and female athletes.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, East German Olympic athletes “swam their way to glory, winning Olympic gold medals, setting world records.” It was only after the fall of the Iron Curtain that the secret to their success was revealed: an elaborate, organized doping system that fed hormones and steroids to the athletes, including the female swimmers, intended to enhance their performance and give their female swimmers a distinct athletic advantage of the kind only found in their male counterparts.

The Russian government has been caught doing the same thing multiple times with the same hormone-doping system as the East Germans had. Last year, Kamila Valieva, a 15-year-old Russian figure skater who won a gold medal in the Beijing Olympic Games, tested positive for Trimetazidine, a drug classified by the World Anti-Doping Agency under “hormone and metabolic modulators.”

Today, liberal pundits seem to have forgotten history. They’re willing to turn a blind eye to the universal disapproval of hormone use at all levels of national and international athletic contests.

It’s not hypocrisy, apparently, when we normalize allowing male-bodied athletes with overwhelming athletic advantages to compete in women’s sports, but sanction female athletes like Marion Jones, a standout winner at the 2000 Sydney Games, for using performance-enhancing drugs. Jones admitted in 2007 to lying to federal agents about her use of those drugs, spent six months in jail, and was stripped of all five of her Olympic medals by the International Olympic Committee.

But now a new rule has emerged in sports: men that psychologically feel like women can compete with all the physiological advantages rendered them by accident of birth against real women. However, real women get the book thrown at them for taking performance-enhancing drugs that give them the same advantages that biological males develop naturally in contests against their own. (RELATED: SUZANNE DOWNING: They’re Coming For Your Children)

So much for equality.

The future of female athletics is on unstable ground. The inclusion of men competing as women is greeted with nods of approval from liberal elites, cultural Marxists, leftist politicos, and gender ideologues at home and abroad. The evisceration of spaces where the enduring differences between the sexes are most on display is, for trans-evangelists, their brass ring.

As goes sport, so goes the rest of the gender contagion. This generation’s greatest “doping” scandal seems to be just getting started, but it is already cheating high school and college girls out of medals, awards, and the athletic scholarships they use to pay for their educations.

Now is the time to divest fake females of their titles, and call an end to athletic fraud. It is a matter of common sense, fundamental justice, and the important principle of fair play in sports that – up until now – has been a hallmark of our culture.

Hans von Spakovsky and Sarah Parshall Perry are senior legal fellows in The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

 

Hans von Spakovsky and Sarah Parshall Perry | Daily Caller News Service

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It had been quite some time since the native-born Englishman had returned to the far-east end of Greater London. Nothing had changed. Dagenham was still a socialistic stronghold, a horror hole populated by the embittered and resentful members of Britain’s lower working class. The expatriate spotted an old acquaintance and started up a conversation.

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The acquaintance immediately noted his childhood buddy no longer spoke the barely decipherable cockney brogue. The acquaintance queried if the town was no longer good enough for him and wondered if the returnee was trying to get above his station in life. The Englishman artfully avoided the questions, but he knew the answers. It was not a question of being better than, it was simply a question of whether he wanted to elevate himself from a dead-end London borough, and the answer was a resounding yes.

Around the world there are (and always will be) powerless, educationally deprived pockets of poverty; stranded in caste and class systems with little hope of ever elevating themselves, exploited by elites, who push the politics of envy and victimhood.

The United States of America is a beacon for these people.

The great land of opportunity, where waves of legal immigrants {Irish, Italians, Polish, and more recently the Vietnamese/Asian Americans} all have come and used the same playbook to live a better life and assimilate into the melting pot of America. The nuclear family was the backbone, with each generation encouraging their children to work hard and do better than their parents. Most often, it was 2 to 3 generations before their offspring reached the brass ring, with a grandchild becoming a successful doctor, lawyer, or businessman, but it happened.

Except, this did not happen for African Americans and Native Americans (the Native American story is for another time).

The post-slavery African American population was subjected to horrible “Jim Crow” discrimination, but in the late 1950s/60s, things were improving, and MLK’s colorblind society seemed reachable. There was one cautionary note. In 1965, Patrick Monahan published the famous Monahan Report that highlighted the breaking down of the black nuclear family. The report has proved to be prophetic. Over 70% of black families are headed by a single parent, and that parent is most often a female.

MLK was assassinated, and the black culture moved away from assimilating into a color-blind, united American society. The LBJ Great Society ushered in the era of welfare, and affirmative action sent the message that the color of a person’s skin was more important than character, hard work, and merit. These realities, combined with an almost total breakdown of the nuclear African-American family, put into play all the variables required for a destructive culture to develop, and that is exactly what happened (think inner-city crime/drugs, vile rap music, failing public schools, high unemployment. and inability to achieve merit-based success). In other countries, African Americans would be left to their own self-destruction, but in America, the black culture has something the Democrats desperately need: their vote.

The Democratic Party receives over 90% of the black vote, and if this dropped to 80% the party would be nonviable. The Democrat power brokers know this and will do “anything” to make sure that it never happens.

Conniving Democrat imp operatives, figuratively perched on the shoulders of African Americans, whisper self-serving lies. The black economic situation had nothing to do with them because they were being held down by systemic white racism.  The developing black culture should be embraced and celebrated. Generations had this imbued into their psyche.

All the while, things worsened.

The black-on-black crime was epidemic, and future-destroying drugs were everywhere. Black children were failing in school, and unemployment {especially among black men} skyrocketed. In New York City, 50% of all black pregnancies ended in abortion. However, the conniving imp assured the minority population that progressive elites would fight for them and make sure the government supplied them with all their needs. The only thing the black community needed to do was every 2 years check the candidate’s box with a D next to their name.

Things continue pretty much the same until the Trump presidency. During this time, the economy was on fire, and black Americans were working. A significant portion, especially black men, began to question the imp on their shoulders.

Panic started to spread among Democratic power brokers.

If the trend continued, they would not survive. Then, George Floyd died while in the custody of a white policeman. Even though the actual rate of white policemen killing black suspects during felonies was extremely low, Black Lives Matter became the mantra (their manifesto even endorsed fatherless households). Progressive-fueled riots spread across America with no accountability for the violence or damage. Joe Biden was elected president, and progressive Democrat politicians pushed affirmative action on steroids. Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DEI) were put ahead of character, hard work, and merit. George Soros-backed prosecutors were elected in major progressive cities, and crime was no longer punished. And the black culture continued its downward spiral.

It may be too late for the progressive-run cities because many individuals who would have fought to turn the cities around have elected to leave, and the majority that remains still have conniving progressive imps whispering into their ears, telling them they are victims, telling them they are losers because of white supremacy.

In order to turn things around, the first thing that needs to happen is to brush off the conniving imps. Once this pernicious influence is gone, the minority communities’ minds could clear, and they would finally understand the need to start voting for individuals who can build up the minority communities instead of keeping them down. The streets need to be made safe and drug-free. It is not an impossible challenge. Rudy Giuliani did it, and once the streets are safe, children can be given school choices so they can escape the failed teacher union-controlled public schools. In this safe environment, black male role models could step up, and pastors/priests could work on the community’s spiritual needs.

Affirmative Action has been declared unconstitutional, and DEI will soon suffer the same fate.

That does not mean society cannot offer minority communities a helping hand. Affirmative Access {help based on economic status, not skin color} could open the door to state and community colleges. Appropriate funding based on need would make the opportunity real, and if minority students take advantage of the opportunity, the American Dream will follow.

Despite being born into the intellectually stultifying lower-class English caste system, the Englishman made it to the United States and lived the American Dream. He worked hard, married, and had a daughter, who he watched graduate from law school. Perhaps the biggest difference between the Englishman and the failed black minority community was that he brushed off Britain’s figurative version of a conniving elite imp. An imp who was always whispering, you are no good and you should stay in your place.

It is time for America’s black community to do the same, brush off the conniving progressive imp, clear its mind, and vote for its own self-interest. The American dream is through that door. All it would take is to walk over the threshold.

 

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