Big Biz embracing drag queens as marketing shills seems like a distraction. We’ve mocked Hershey’s and Bud Light, and it looks like Jack Daniels did something similar two years ago, but no one noticed (really) until this week.

Related: Where Men Take Things from Women, and If You Don’t Applaud, You Are a Bigot.

Lost in the pandemic haze (or a drunken pandemic haze)?

JD, unlike Hershey’s – which chose a man portraying a stereotypical caricature of women for International Women’s Day (the actual offense) – thought it was being inclusive.

 

The whiskey makers said at the time that it was “a bold new experience—for both the queens and their hosts,” while Lauren Richmond, then-brand manager for Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire, noted the campaign “reaffirms our commitment to the LGBTQ+ community” despite being an “unexpected partnership.”

 

More like fishing for style points, if I had to guess, but it has been 22 months since the folks from Lynchburg, Tennesee, embraced Drag. Getting riled up about it now seems silly, but it’s not.

 

“Jack Daniel’s gets drag culture—which is all about celebrating individuality and inviting others to accept you as you are,” Trinity the Tuck, one of the drag queens involved in the campaign, said in a statement.

 

Drag has a strong connection to the LGBT movement, which is not the problem. The militant activists front the “band,” and the more recent “normalization” of the transgender agenda has become the tip of the spear for the radical among them. To be fair, many in the LGB portion would divorce the ‘T.” They oppose grooming kids, drugging them, mutilating them, and engaging in the government school equivalent of ‘transition’ “therapy” without parental knowledge or consent. Porn in schools is a no-go for them as well. They want to be left alone to live with their choices and equally free to object, but that’s not allowed, not even for them, and that’s the problem.

People who were incapable of living with who they are or how they were born won’t let you be who you are or how you were born. You have to accept them, use their pronouns, and celebrate their weird hobbies, and any objection is discrimination or bigotry. My knee-jerk reaction is to double down on the free speech they suppress. Some folks like to boycott. If that’s who you are, be you.

Related: Drag Queens Refuse to Do Future Events at Library That Featured Anti-Drag Feminist

As for Drag Queens, we’ve long found them an insulting vaudevillian stereotype of sex-show performance art that has no place around children. Adding a storybook in a library setting doesn’t change that. The only Drag Queen story I’m interested in is the one about why men (often) gaudily dressed in clown-caricatures costumes of women feel the need to be around your children. Oh, and why do Progressive politicians and activists want that too?

It’s creepy. And yes, I know the answer, but they need to say it out loud, and on that point, the day before the JD Drag PR hit my inbox, I stumbled across a piece from Seth Barron titled, “In America’s grim funhouse reality, the confusion is the message.” It’s short, to the point, and worth your time, but I must share this bit about Drag Queens.

 

I think of clowns, and the way they invariably cause at least some children to cry, whenever I see pictures of Drag Story Hours. It’s always the same thing—a few heavily made-up drag queens posing as grotesque caricatures of women, looking basically like a gay misogynist’s nightmare fantasy of a devouring, castrating bitch-mother; some librarians or other regime functionaries silently taking attendance; a bunch of downmarket loser parents trying desperately to opt out of their loathed cishet whiteness and score some cool points which they hope to roll over into the coming social credit system; and, finally and most importantly, a handful of children looking confused and bewildered.

 

And…

 

There is no connection between drag and literacy. The primary argument I’ve heard is that it teaches tolerance—but for what and for whom? Drag is not an identity; it’s a job or a hobby. Drag has been used in university seminars as a metaphor for the performativity of gender, but that’s a little recondite for the 5-year-olds in the average Drag Story Hour. Nobody, not even the most pronoun-forward among us, calls drag a gender.

 

Drag is cosplay. If you are an adult, and that’s your thing, either as a performer or a consumer, be you. But injecting it into the lives of children is weird and creepy and more about preparing the battle space of their minds for every other paradox of the progressive project.

• Supposedly pro-black policies keep people of color trapped in poverty.
• Anti-crime agendas that increase crime, especially violent crime.
• Pro-women priorities that alienate and risk the safety of women.
• Their Economic policies wreck the economy.
• The Left’s Immigration policies destroy the benefits the immigrants came here to enjoy.
• Public health policy that is bad for public health.
• Their Education monopolies churn out kids who can’t read or do the math.

As for Drag, Seth Barron notes, it is a hobby. Drag Queens do not spend all day and night, 24/7/365, in Drag. The idea itself is a lie. It is a persona they do when it suits them. For some, it is an occupation. For others, a side hustle. And then some just like to dress up as women. But in every instance, it’s temporary, fleeting, transitory (see what I did there?). They can walk away from it. But progressives and radials are using it to inculcate children with confusing images they then use to push them toward a gender transition that is not temporary.

You can’t just walk away from it.

There’s no setting it aside. De-transitioning does not make you who you were before, especially if you were coerced into surgery. But the doctors and therapists get to keep their money and maybe make more for the return trip. “Experts” cash in at the expense of culture war casualties who – when they speak out, have their story or struggle diminished or denounced as if they have no right to be that person.

Drag used to be a fringe hobby. These days it is used to normalize a culture that confuses kids, many of whom will commit suicide because of who someone else wanted them to be. Pawns expended in a political pursuit children are no more mentally able to understand than the clowns paraded before them.

It’s ghastly, and it needs to stop.

Be you, but if you are a drag queen, be you in front of adults, please, and if the adults don’t get it or don’t like it, that is them being them. f you can’t accept that, move along. As for Big Biz, you are not being inclusive or accepting. You are fomenting a war whose victims are children.

 

 

The post Promoting “Drag Queens” Is Not About “Inviting Others To Accept You as You Are” appeared first on Granite Grok.

Back on March 22nd (posted on March 24th), I sent an RSA 91-A to SAU 92 / Hinsdale asking for their Public School Library card catalog. Their response was received on March 28th (posted on March 31st), in which they effectively said, “No, we’re not sending it. Here are the library links – look it up yourself.”

Seems to be a standard answer lately.  I replied back and said, “Insufficient – a Requester cannot be made to do their own work; the Responder has to provide the requested information.” I figured I could be patient, to a point, and that they were going to consult with their legal counsel and then get back to me. That “to a point” time period just ran out.

I just sent them a reminder by calling Jodie Holmquist directly in the chance of smoothing things over.

Straight to voice mail.

So, I sent another reminder and CC’d the two ladies she had earlier CC’d:

—— Original Message ——
From “Skip” <Skip@granitegrok.com>
To “Jodie Holmquist” <jholmquist@hnhsd.org>
Cc “Kim M. Caron” <kcaron@hnhsd.org>; “Maria A. Webb” <mwebb@hnhsd.org>
Date 4/7/2023 9:59:32 AM
Subject Re[2]: Right-to-Know Request

Good morning,

Jodie, I just left you a voice mail concerning the lack of a response to my email and your refusal to supply the lawfully demanded governmental records. Thus, I will keep this brief.

I have waited patiently for your response to my email. Ghosting me doesn’t help your situation.  I have lawyers that write for me and they will be happy to assist in this matter IF NECESSARY if you continue to ignore my RSA 91-A demand.

I’m also sure that you have contacted your legal counsel at this point. Have them read to you Clauses 7 and 8 of RSA 91-A, especially the part concerning being personally responsible for civil penalties and legal fees.

And now, Kim and Marie, you will be part of this.

All I’m asking for a list of books commonly referred to as “the card catalog” which your library management system, Destiny, can create in a one button operation.

Your call.

-Skip

It is now up to them. Let’s see if they decide to follow the law or go rogue.

Oh, and I called the School Board Chair, Holly Kennedy. Had to leave a voicemail there as well.

 

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In the grips of Easter Weekend, it seems appropriate to reflect on what has happened to our country created out of a need for people from Europe to have a safe place to practice their religion. We were not a nation of one religion but one based on the principles of Christianity.

We needed never to lose the perspective of being mentored by a higher being. I am a Mason, and one of the prerequisites before climbing the degrees of Masonry is acknowledging your belief in a supreme being. To me, that is done to keep you from the goal of assuming excessive power. Having a Higher Power to look to is a humbling experience. You only need to look to the highest spot in Washington, D.C., to see the message from our forefathers. The Washington Monument rises 555′ above D.C. and, by law, will always be the tallest structure in our Capitol. At its peak may be the most significant message from our founders.

When the cornerstone of the Washington Monument was laid on July 4th, 1848, many items were deposited, including the Holy Bible. When completed nearly fifty years later, in 1899, an aluminum pyramid was placed atop the obelisk. On the pyramid were engraved the words LAUS DEO, which translates to “Praise to God.” Such was the discipline, the moral direction, and the spiritual mood given by the founder and first President of our unique democracy:” One Nation, Under God.”

We have weakened our grip on religion and spirituality throughout our short history. We have removed God from our schools, and there are always efforts to remove the words “In God We Trust” from our lexicon. Our wrongful priorities were exposed during the Pandemic in 2021 when churches and places of worship were padlocked. Places of prayer were off limits while Walmarts and Targets were designated as essential.

We must review our current body of work and hold it against our fundamental beliefs. We need to retire the words Racist and Racism. These words conjure hatred and have become the go-to reason for our ills by people too weak to form a logical debate on any subject. The terms have become a weapon for people who would rather cancel you than debate. These words are used to divide our country, not unite her, because a weaker country is easier to control. Control and power are the lifeblood of the ruling class. This mission to control the masses is why indoctrinating our children and teaching them to hate our history begins at such an early age.

Movements like BLM or LGBTQIA+ claim to be for inclusion and diversity, while isolating these groups and seeking special considerations and reparations does precisely the opposite. The Trans movement is elevating to the most dangerous threat to this country. Coaching gender reassignment to our elementary-aged children, blurring the difference between men and women, and tearing apart families by placing educators above parents makes no sense to logically God Fearing people.

There are signs of hope. Churches are filling once again. Young people are holding weeklong prayer meetings instead of protests. The loud Progressives who openly hate our country are identified as loud but the minority. Conservatives who love God and this great country must be equally loud. We must keep spreading our beliefs and stay strong enough to face opposition. We can win this battle and regain our land, but we must remain patient, steadfast and remember we have Right and a Higher Power on our side.

Happy Easter and Passover Season and Laus DEO.

The post A Weekend Of Reflection appeared first on Granite Grok.

Since well before we eagerly leaped into the world of high technology, we gave very little thought to the possibility that someday we would find ourselves at a perilous fork in the road as a society, culture, and country.

ICYMI – Original Publication Date-  April 2015

We began to see diminishing returns on our investment in the confidence that the Fourth Amendment and its prohibitions against illegal searches and seizures were sacrosanct.

One fork led to the God-given Rights in the Constitution. The other fork led to neighboring Enhanced Security. There appeared to be no third road that would enable us to arrive at both places. What we believed to be within the private domain, protected by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of illegal search and seizure, was turned on its ear as early as 1967. It impacted our First and Fifth Amendment rights as well, primarily free speech and the ability to invoke the Fifth Amendment when we had no desire to contribute to our own prosecution.

It was in 1967, well before that fateful day in 1976 when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak would build the first prototype of a personal computer, that SCOTUS ruled in Katz v. United States that, “[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office,
is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.” [1]

Previously, one would think that having a friend come over for dinner would render all discussions and exchanges of papers, etc., protected. And what of that private discussion you had at work, the one during which you were told you were getting a raise but admonished from telling anyone? That, too, we thought private. Not so, said the high court, the third branch of the government the Framers paid the least amount of attention to. It was tasked with weighing cases before it as if the Constitution were cast in granite.

It was in the 1960s, during which the phrase, “If it feels good do it,” would become a cultural norm, that somehow the liberal justices decided that the Constitution was an evolving document, subject to change with society. Wrong, in my view. The meaning and intent of the framers weren’t to allow for evolution.

This decision created a rule known as “third-party doctrine.” [2][3] It holds “that a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties,” a concept that haunts us far more today than it did back in the 1960s. Today, computers are ubiquitous and the majority of the nation’s population suffers from a pandemic of cyber addiction.

Katz would prove itself the foundation of future court rulings that now take us down two different legal pathways. According to Legislative Attorney Richard M. Tompson II, who authored The Fourth Amendment Third-Party Doctrine, [4] “[T]he Court has applied the third-party doctrine to two main sets of cases. In one, the Court has held that people do not have a reasonable expectation that a person with whom they are communicating will not later reveal that conversation to the police. In the second, the Court extended this doctrine to hold that people are not entitled to Fourth Amendment safeguards for records given to a third party or data generated as part of a person’s business transactions with a third party.”

In two of the most prominent third-party cases, Smith v. Maryland and United States v. Miller, the Court held that government access to telephone calling records and bank records, respectively, were not protected by the Fourth Amendment. [5][6]

Traveling through time, we arrive at 2015, and we have, on top of those cases, the PATRIOT Act, which most emphatically affects our rights. Try dressing up as a jihadi terrorist with a fake bomb vest and walking to a Halloween party only to find yourself picked up, turned over to the feds as a terrorist, thrown into a hellhole (or Gitmo) without any rights, not even the right to a phone call or have an attorney.

There are ways for us to have both freedom and cybersecurity. There have been rumblings in Congress about drawing up legislation to overrule the “third person doctrine” and to repeal or change the PATRIOT Act, but those cries are being drowned out by the terror threats of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, and a multitude of other terror groups. With their threats, together with those of Iran, North Korea and the “silent battle” we are fighting with the likes of China in a currency war, and Russia run by a lunatic, gaining back our freedoms doesn’t seem possible.

Of course, if we elect someone with a backbone to reside in the White House and manage to keep GOP majorities in Congress (hardly a sure thing), we just might be on the receiving end of rights restoration. But as long as Obama is president, I can assure you, your rights will continue to erode due to various odd edicts emanating from the president’s phone and pen.

 

 

CITATIONS
1. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967)
2. Ibid
3. Richard M. Thompson II The Fourth Amendment Third-Party Doctrine (2014, June 5) Congressional Research Service Retrieved from https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43586.pdf
4. Ibid.
5. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967). 2 Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 743-44 (1979)
6. Richard M. Thompson II The Fourth Amendment Third-Party Doctrine (2014, June 5) Congressional Research Service Retrieved from https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43586.pdf

 

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The budget passed by the nominally GOP New Hampshire House represented a CAPITULATION to the Communists (nominally Democrats). Among the lowlights … cutting back on school choice, while pumping even more money into funding DEI and CRT (the public education bureaucracy); continuing Obamacare Medicaid expansion; and massively increasing spending, according to Rep. J.R. Hoell by an obscene $1,900.00 per person.

And, predictably, the NHGOP is claiming that this CAPITULATION is a victory and is presenting an award to Sherm Packard … the figurehead Speaker who recently turned a blind eye to “hate speech” AND HATE ACTS against Christians for, AND I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP, “losing gracefully”:

Tell that to all the children and parents looking to escape from the indoctrination in CRT an DEI in public schools … “yes we failed you, but we did it with both strength and grace. Now send us more money.”

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No one in Oregon is prohibiting Jessica Bates from exercising her religious rights, but they are denying her equal access to state-managed child welfare programs, including adoption because she’s a Christian.

The agency refuses to place a child unless “individuals seeking to adopt … agree to “respect, accept, and support … the sexual orientation, gender identity, [and] gender expression” of any child the department could place in an applicant’s home.”

 

“Oregon’s policy amounts to an ideological litmus test: people who hold secular or ‘progressive’ views on sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to participate in child welfare programs, while people of faith with religiously informed views are disqualified because they don’t agree with the state’s orthodoxy,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jonathan Scruggs, director of the ADF Center for Conscience Initiatives. “The government can’t exclude certain communities of faith from foster care and adoption services because the state doesn’t like their particular religious beliefs.”

 

Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a lawsuit in Federal court.

 

“Oregon’s policy makes a sweeping claim that all persons who hold certain religious beliefs—beliefs held by millions of Americans from diverse religious faiths—are categorically unfit to care for children,” said ADF Legal Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse. “That’s simply not true. Oregon is putting its political agenda above the needs of countless children who would be happy to grow up in a loving, Christian home like Jessica’s. We urge the court to remind the state of its constitutional and moral obligations and reaffirm Jessica’s First Amendment right to live out her faith without being penalized by the government.”

 

I’m no lawyer, and I don’t play one on the internet, but I’m not convinced there is a clear-cut first amendment conflict. Congress shall make no law true, and the 14th Amendment applies that restriction to the states, but denying an adoption application doesn’t interfere with her ability to exercise her faith. No one is stopping her from being a Christian. That was why I opened with the question of equal access under the law.

The US Supreme Court has repeatedly pointed out that neither states nor the Federal Government may exclude individuals or organizations from access to programs, grants, funding, or resources based on religious beliefs. That idea is rooted in First Amendment Protections with the 14th Amendment application of equal protection or equal rights under the law (at least, I think it does).

Put differently, to apply force discriminately (denial of rights permitted to others) creates state-sanctioned pretense based on religion, which is prohibited.  That still sounds swiss-cheesy to me, as in full of holes, and while I feel like I’m on the right track, I’ve simply failed to articulate it properly.

As ADF notes, Oregon has created an ideological litmus test that millions of people of faith around the country could not pass. And while the state can deny taxpayer-funded benefits to individuals based on a wide range of factors, faith can’t be one of them.

Oregon can have a gender identity rule, but it can’t enforce it on these terms. If a court agrees, we should expect the state to come back with new rules – assuming they do not already exist – that label any parent or guardian who questions matters of gender or sexual identity as guilty of child abuse which, ironically, is how most people would characterize drugged and mutilated children sacrificed to the secular gods who frame the belief systems in the Oregon Department of Human Services.

 

HT | ADF Legal

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by Mike Gleason, Money Metals Exchange As the gold market marches toward new records, it is proving the naysayers wrong and vindicating longtime bulls. Gold posted a record high close on a quarterly basis at the end of March. Now... Tom Bowler

It’s long past time that we stopped enticing deranged people to shoot children in schools. School “gun-free zones” make sick, evil people confident they can get the revenge and/or fame they crave.

Politicians, celebrities, banks, government buildings, etc., are protected by trained armed people. I’d rather we protect schoolchildren. The only way to protect them is with responsible, trained, armed people embedded in the schools.

Unfortunately, Democrat politicians are more interested in ideologically driven anti-gun laws, which only harass law-abiding citizens, than in actually saving children’s lives.

Anti-gun laws don’t stop criminals. If outlawing guns worked, then Chicago and California would be our safest city and state.  If universal background checks would reduce school shootings, advocates would present a long list of shootings that they would have prevented. They can’t.

Even if we took all guns away from people, guns would easily flow into our country via Biden’s open border. Bad people do bad things; let’s deter them from attacking schools.

Most murderers have either a history of violence or mental illness or both; they shouldn’t have access to guns. Parents, mental health professionals, and police must treat this seriously and realistically; they must ensure that all violent people, including youths, are put on the NCIC database so at least they can’t purchase guns legally.

Finally, officials and the media must stop giving these deranged people the fame they crave; their names should never be disclosed.

Anti-gun laws are intended to make naive people believe useful action will be taken. But children will continue to be killed until our society understands, as undesirable as it seems to some, the necessity of protecting schools with responsible, trained, armed and embedded protectors.

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America’s first constitution, the Articles of Confederation (AOC), was adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, but did not take effect until ratified by all 13 states on March 1, 1781.

We want to thank Kenn Quinn for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
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It quickly became apparent that this “firm league of friendship” among the States was utterly inadequate to govern our new nation. The impetus to replace the Articles of Confederation with a new Constitution began long before the commissioners met in Philadelphia in 1787.

Let’s see how things unfolded on the road to the 1787 Federal Convention, and along the way, we will answer the following questions, such as;

• Was the 1787 Federal Convention a “runaway” convention?
• Did the Framers produce an illegal Constitution?
• What is the original intent of the Article V convention?
• Did James Madison tremble at an Article V Convention being called?
• Is a Constitutional Convention the same as an Article V convention?
• What is a Convention of the States?
• Can an Article V convention be limited?
• What role does Congress play in an Article V convention?
• Has there ever been a Convention of the States?
• Can the state legislatures control their delegates?

The Efforts to Replace the Articles of Confederation with a Better System of Government

In his Vices of the Political System of the United States, April 1787, James Madison provided a few reasons why the Articles of Confederation were unsustainable and needed to be replaced. Madison was preparing a new system of government by studying ancient confederacies to learn from their experience in order to avoid their mistakes. Notes on Ancient and Modern Confederacies , April-June, 1786

The main reason for the failure of the AOC was Article XIII, which made it virtually impossible to amend the Confederation;

“nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed to in a congress of the united states, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every state.”

This provision required that any amendment be agreed upon by Congress and approved by all state legislatures. This was found to be impossible as the tiny state of Rhode Island refused to concur on all amendments.

The push for a convention of the states to adopt a new constitution was being advanced within the Continental Congress and with some state legislatures. The following quotes provide irrefutable evidence that a new constitution was the goal of the Framers to preserve the Union.

From Alexander Hamilton to JamesDuane, September 3, 1780

“The first step must be to give Congress powers competent to the public exigencies. This may happen in two ways,…the other by calling immediately a convention of all the states with full authority to conclude finally upon a general confederation,…that the delegates may come possessed of proper sentiments as well as proper authority to give to the meeting. Their commission should include a right of vesting Congress with the whole or a proportion of the unoccupied lands, to be employed for the purpose of raising a revenue, reserving the jurisdiction to the states by whom they are granted.

“The reasons for which I require them to be vested with plenipotentiary authority are that the business may suffer no delay in the execution, and may in reality come to effect. A convention may agree upon a confederation; the states individually hardly ever will. “

Resolution of the New YorkLegislature Calling for a Convention of the States to Revise and Amend theArticles of Confederation, July 20 20, 1782

“Resolved, That it appears to this Legislature, that the aforegoing important Ends, can never be attained by partial Deliberations of the States, separately; but that it is essential to the common Welfare, that there should be as soon as possible a Conference of the Whole on the Subject; and that it would be adviseable for this Purpose, to propose to Congress to recommend, and to each State to adopt the Measure of assembling a general Convention of the States, specially authorised to revise and amend the Confederation, reserving a Right to the respective Legislatures, to ratify their Determinations.”

Henry Knox to Gouverneur Morris, Feb 21, 1783

“In my former letters I mentioned that men of reflection and principle were tired of the imbecillities of the present government—but I did not point out any substitute. It would be prudent to form the plan of a new house, before We pull down the old one—The subject has not been sufficiently discused, as yet in publick, to decide precisely, on the form of the edifice. It is out of all question, that the foundation, must be of republican principles; but so modified and wrought together, that whatever shall be erected thereon, should be durable, & efficient—I speak entirely of the federal government, or what would be better one government instead of an association of governments.”

George Washington to Rev.William Gordon July 8 1783

“It now rests with the Confederated Powers, by the line of conduct they mean to adopt, to make this Country great, happy, and respectable; or to sink it into littleness; worse perhaps, into Anarchy and Confusion; for certain I am, that unless adequate Powers are given to Congress for the general purposes of the Federal Union that we shall soon moulder into dust and become contemptable in the Eyes of Europe, if we are not made the sport of their Politicks; to suppose that the general concern of this Country can be directed by thirteen heads, or one head without competent powers, is a solecism,… great part of which has arisen from that want of energy in the Federal Constitution which I am complaining of, and which I wish to see given to it by a Convention of the People,…

For Heavens sake who are Congress? are they not the Creatures of the People, amenable to them for their Conduct, and dependant from day to day on their breath? Where then can be the danger of giving them such Powers as are adequate to the great ends of Government, and to all the general purposes of the Confederation…”

Continental Congress UnsubmittedResolution Calling for a Convention to Amend the Articles of Confederation,July 1783

“Therefore Resolved that it be earnestly recommended to the several states to appoint a convention to meet at __on the__day of__with full powers to revise the confederation and to adopt and propose such alterations as to them shall appear necessary to be finally approved or rejected by the states respectively—and that a Committee of be appointed to prepare an address upon the subject.”

Henry Knox to Gouverneur Morris, Feb 21, 1783

“The army generally have always reprobated the idea of being thirteen armies. Their ardent desires have been to be one continental body looking up to one sovereign. This would have prevented much heart-burning at the partialities which have been practiced by the respective States. They know of no way of bringing this about, at a period when peace appears to be in full view. Certain it is they are good patriots and would forward anything that would tend to produce Union, and a permanent general constitution;…but they must be directed in the mode by the proper authority.

It is a favorite toast in the army, ‘A hoop to the barrel,’ or ‘Cement to the Union.’ America will have fought and bled to little purpose if the powers of government shall be insufficient to preserve the peace, and this must be the case without general funds. As the present Constitution is so defective, why do not you great men call the people together and tell them so; that is, to have a convention of the States to form a better Constitution? This appears to us, who have a superficial view only, to be the more efficacious remedy. Let something be done before a peace takes place, or we shall be in a worse situation than we were at the commencement of the war.”

George Bancroft, History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United, Volume II, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1885, page 187-189

On March 13, 1786, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina was deputed by Congress along with members Gorham and Grayson to the New Jersey Legislature for their refusal to comply with the requisition of the former Congress. Pinckney delivered the message in which he stated: “If New Jersey conceives herself oppressed under the present confederation, let her, through her delegates in congress, state to them the oppression she complains of, and urge the calling of a general convention of the states for the purpose of increasing the powers of the federal government and rendering it more adequate for the ends for which it was instituted;”

A few months later, Pinckney continued his drive in Congress for a convention to revise the powers of the Confederation, but to no avail:

“Congress must be invested with greater powers, or the federal government must fall. It is, therefore, necessary for congress either to appoint a convention for that purpose, or by requisition to call on the states for such powers as are necessary to enable it to administer the federal government.”

Pinckney had no success in calling a convention and requested a grand committee to begin working on amendments to the Articles of Confederation. He was appointed chairman of the sub-committee, and drafted seven amendments which were reported to Congress on August 7

Henry Knox to George Washington, January 14, 1787

“Notwithstanding the contra[r]y opinions respecting the proposed convention, were I to presume to give my own judgement, it would be in favor of the convention, and I sincerely hope that it may be generally attended—I do not flatter myself that the public mind is so sufficiently informed and harmonized, as that an effective government would be adopted by the convention, and proposed to the United States,, or that if this were practicable, that the people of the several states, are sufficiently prepared to receive it—But it seems to be highly important that some object should be held forth to the people, as a remedy for the disorders of the body politic—were this done by so respectable a set of men as could be sent to the convention, even if it were not so perfect in the first instance, as it might be afterwards, yet it would be a stage in the business, and mens minds would be exercised on the subject, and appreciated towards a good Constitution—were strong events to arise between this and the time of meeting, enforcing the necessity of a vigorous government, it would be a preparation which might be embraced by the convention to propose at once efficient system.”

Our next stop before we arrive at the Convention in Philadelphia to adopt a new Constitution will be at the Annapolis Convention of 1786. A convention limited to the subject of commercial trade.

 

Kenn Quinn | All Things Artiel V

The post On the Road to the 1787 Federal Convention to Adopt a New Constitution appeared first on Granite Grok.

“Rules for thee and not for we” became a cultural critique during the pandemic.  A mask-less governor Gavin Newsome was seen eating at an elite restaurant within twenty-four hours of issuing a stay-at-home order under a state-wide mask mandate.  A gubernatorial sibling and CNN celebrity host Chris Cuomo was seen mask-less and belligerent outside his vacation home after sanctimoniously scolding watchers for selfishly not getting vaccinated and reminding them to stay locked-down in their homes.  The former president Barack Obama held a birthday party at his mansion in Martha’s Vineyard where the staff were forced to mask while the celebrity political crowd was not.  This list isn’t even close to exhaustive as much as it is exhausting to realize these high society hypocrites actually exist and wield power over so many of us.

More recently we’ve seen the unspoken and asymmetrical rules of the culture clash in two of the biggest stories of 2023.  The first, former award winning Rolling Stone contributor, turned independent journalist Matt Taibbi, was given access by Elon Musk to report on the collusion between government agencies and Twitter executives.  The Twitter Files revealed the DOJ, members of congress and even the White House issued directives to Twitter for violating American’s first amendment rights, while also obfuscating apparently criminal activity conducted by major pharmaceutical companies who had withheld important data regarding vaccine safety and efficacy.  The ad hoc congressional sub-committee looking into the weaponization of the government called Taibbi to testify regarding his reporting on the Twitter files. In a moment of unparalleled irony Taibbi suddenly got a house call from the I.R.S.  The other irony?  Taibbiis a self-proclaimed progressive who votes Democrat.  Here he was in the cross-hairs of the machine that is willing to eat its own if only to save face by intimidation.  They left doesn’t care if lady justice is blind, they want you to pretend you are instead.

This week we’ve seen perhaps the most egregious instance of lady justice no longer being blind.  Forty-fifth president Donald Trump has been indicted on what even many on the left are seeing as a weak legal case by a Manhattan District Attorney who is famous for not prosecuting actual crimes.  D.A. Alvin Bragg is reportedly dropping 52% of all felony charges to misdemeanors yet is seeking to take a previously failed misdemeanor account and increase it to a felony charge for president Trump.  This lopsided approach to applying the law has many wondering why the favoritism toward even violent criminals but preferential punishment toward, in Trump’s case, an essentially victimless crime if it was a crime at all?

If lady justice can see at all she has a jaundiced left eye scrutinizing every movement of her right eye.  Her scales have been made to lean heavily in favor of the sinister side heralding a punishing disadvantage to its dexterous counterpart.  If her good side was her left side which famously called for tolerance why does it seem to only be offered to all things on the left?  Why are BLM riots that destroy billions called “mostly peaceful protests” yet a mostly peaceful protest at the capitol is called an “insurrection”? Why are libraries opening their doors for drag queen story hour yet refusing Kirk Cameron or Matt Walsh’s innocuous children’s books?  The ghost of Rod Serling wants to know.

Meet 1960s critical theorists and Marxist social philosophers Herbert Marcuse, Barrington Moore Jr. and Robert Paul Wolff. In 1969 the Boston Beacon Press published a book of essays titled “A Critique of Pure Tolerance” featuring musings from each in regard to how their Marxist revolutionaries should view tolerance.

As is typical of Marxist writings each essay takes many thousands of words to say what could easily be said in a few sentences.  This deliberate tactic of these narcissistic sophists is how they essentially hypnotize the reader through linguistic legerdemain using a few key phrases and ideas wrapped in hyper emotional or hyper intellectual word salad to essentially manipulate the reader into feeling oppressed while also feeling called to champion the cause of taking down the oppressors.

Recognizing the need to clarify the boundaries of tolerance and establish favorable rules of engagement the writers set about explaining why tolerance should be granted to the left – even at the level of tolerating criminal activity, like riots, assaults, or theft posing as reparative equity.  Conversely they maintain virtually all political activity from the right should be vehemently opposed with what Marcuse describes as “repressive tolerance”.  Essentially, they want tolerance for we but not for thee.

Consider Marcuse’s opening paragraph:

“THIS essay examines the idea of tolerance in our advanced industrial society. The conclusion reached is that the realization of the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions, and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or suppressed. In other words, today tolerance appears again as what it was in its origins, at the beginning of the modern period–a partisan goal, a subversive liberating notion and practice. Conversely, what is proclaimed and practiced as tolerance today, is in many of its most effective manifestations serving the cause of oppression.”

In other words “Blah, blah, blah…tolerance is oppression” when it allows conservatism to continue to have influence over public policy.

Don’t believe me? His friends on Wikipedia clarify:

Marcuse argues that genuine tolerance does not permit support for “repression”, since doing so ensures that marginalized voices will remain unheard. He characterizes tolerance of repressive speech as “inauthentic”. Instead, he advocates a form of tolerance that is intolerant of repressive (namely right-wing) political movements:

“Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left. Surely, no government can be expected to foster its own subversion, but in a democracy such a right is vested in the people (i.e. in the majority of the people). This means that the ways should not be blocked on which a subversive majority could develop, and if they are blocked by organized repression and indoctrination, their reopening may require apparently undemocratic means. They would include the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements that promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or that oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc.”

In another word game he refers to it throughout the essay as “liberating tolerance” rather than “repressive tolerance”.  This allows him to put his reader’s focus on what they need to do to be liberated or set free from the repressive policies of conservatism. Which policies exactly?  We have to read his essay “Eros and Civilization” to find it’s those that limit his erotic fantasies:

“He regarded the realization of man’s erotic nature as the true liberation of humanity, which inspired the utopias of Jerry Rubin and others.”

In case you wondered why the big push to assimilate BLM, LGBTQ, DEI and ESG agenda’s into culture, this is why.  Marcuse is referred to as “the father of the new left”.  He also wrote about fomenting revolutionary activity in “the ghetto population”:

“The ghetto population of the United States constitutes such a force. Confined to small areas of living and dying, it can be more easily organized and directed. Moreover, located in the core cities of the country, the ghettos form natural geographical centers from which the struggle can be mounted against targets of vital economic and political importance; in this respect, the ghettos can be compared with the faubourgs of Paris in the eighteenth century, and their location makes for spreading and “contagious” upheavals.”

It’s writings like these that inspired his student Angela Davis from Brandeis to aid and abet the murder of superior court judge Harold Haley.  This too was tolerated because, hey, it’s part of the revolution.

It’s a putative revolution that uses lofty language and calls for social justice to essentially justify its progenitor’s sexual desires and deviancy.

The post Trump, Taibbi and Repressive Tolerance appeared first on Granite Grok.

Suburbia? Rural? You ARE the problem. You are preventing “Nature” from returning to its “natural” state (no mention that people are part of Nature as well as flora and fauna).  Why else would NH Governor Chris Sununu (heh!) side with Democrat CA Gov Gavin Newsom and Democrat NY Gov Kathy Hochul (and lest I forget, the UN as well) that advances higher density living? Oh, they won’t all say the quiet part out loud – it’s always about “workforce / affordable” housing, but it is the same thing.

So what’s the reality about “urban sprawl,” which means we all should be “cityfied”?

Urbanization by State

The share of land in the United States that is urbanized grew from 2.90 percent in 2010 to 2.94 percent in 2020, according to data recently released by the Census Bureau showing how many square miles of land in each state was urbanized as of 2020. This can be compared with 2010 data and the total land area of each state to calculate what percentage had been urbanized in each of the two years.

Oh, about that affordability that is supposed to come with higher density? Any Ec-101/102 student should immediately say “Supply and Demand” and “Government is artificially constricting the Supply of Land,” resulting in this:

Thanks to its strict land-use regulation, including urban-growth boundaries that are nearly impossible to adjust, California still has the densest urban areas of any state in the nation. In fact, the state packs more than 94 percent of its population into just 5 percent of its land area, an urban concentration found in no other state.

Despite claims that increasing densities are the solution to housing affordability problems, the states with the densest urban areas tend to be least affordable and their affordability declines as they get denser. California has the least affordable housing in the country, and other states with dense urban populations, including Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon, are also among the least affordable. Few if any urban areas whose densities are below 3,000 people per square mile have problems with high housing prices.

There’s a chart at the link with more details.

 

(H/T: The Antiplanner (Dedicated to the sunset of government planning) )

The post Eco-Socialists, Urbanization Myths, and High-Density Housing appeared first on Granite Grok.

The John Fetterman saga is not one to take lightly. This man has many demons in his life, yet his wife, family, and supporters selfishly pushed him on to campaign and win the open Senate seat in Pennsylvania. This man should concentrate on getting well, not going through the motions of serving the people of the Keystone State in Washington.

John Fetterman was 37 years old when he became Mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, in 2006. Braddock is a run-down version of its former thriving blue-collar town in Southwest Pennsylvania. Braddock is a town of 2,100, far from the 21,000 who called it home when it was a bustling mining and manufacturing town. Fetterman was never a savvy politician, but when you listen to videos from his early days, he was unpolished but could formulate coherent thoughts. He can no longer string together a complete sentence.

Fetterman ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2016 but was successful in his quest for the Lieutenant Governor job in 2019. He held that position until the day that he took the oath as Senator in January 2023. The Associated Press investigated Fetterman’s commitment to the Lt Governor job and found that he could only account for thirty percent of his workdays in six months. His primary focus was on the legalization of marijuana and the commutation of sentences of many Pennsylvania inmates. He started his campaign for the Senate in 2021.

Fetterman suffered a near-fatal stroke on May 13, 2022, just four days before the Democrat Primary, which he won handily. He did not pull out of the general election. Fetterman limited his campaign activities and only agreed to one debate with Mehmet Oz. He got through the debate with the aid of a computer reader to help him comprehend the questions. He had the same technology installed at his spot in the Senate chambers to help him keep up with debate and comments on the floor. Fetterman’s performance was abysmal, but over one million voters had already cast their votes.

Shortly after the State of the Union address this year, Fetterman was thought to have had another stroke. He checked himself into Walter Reed Army Medical Center to be treated for depression and anxiety. Fetterman remained at Walter Reed until last Friday, when he was released. He plans to return to the Senate the week of April 17.

Fetterman’s comments upon his release are disturbing. He claims he was indifferent to life and had suffered from clinical depression for some time. “I had stopped leaving my bed,” he said. “I had stopped eating. I was dropping weight. I had stopped engaging some of the things that I love in my life.”

There are two sides to this story. On one side, we are all empathetic to his plight and wish Fetterman well in a long recovery from the mental and emotional challenges. He will be battling these while still recovering from his stroke. On the flip side, these issues were not presented to the people of Pennsylvania while they were deciding on who would fill the vacant Senate seat. Objectively, he should resign and concentrate on his health. His wife should explain why she let him endure the rigors of the campaign, knowing how he was suffering.

One thing is for sure, the people of Pennsylvania deserve better representation, but they should have seen the writing on the wall before they cast their vote. If not, they were not paying attention and got what they deserved.

The post Fetterman Story is a Sad Tale appeared first on Granite Grok.

The improbability of Net Zero as achievable or as a means to prevent the climate cult’s world-ending apocalypse mythology (were it even true) has done little to slow the progressive pursuit of it. They seem almost giddy at the thought of how many lives could be lost.

If not giddy, then indifferent.

We’ve reported on the inhuman, almost slave-like conditions at mines in third-world countries. The environmental damage from these projects is generational. But the Climateers dismiss it and forge ahead. Industry oligarchs are happy to reap the whirlwind of financial rewards without fear of being labeled racist human traffickers or polluters. And generations not yet born can’t punish today’s politicians for a life of debt and taxes for which they had no chance to vote.

None of this concerns the Left. So, what about this?

Net Zero policies will significantly reduce global food production.

 

The recent experience in Sri Lanka provides a red alert. “The world has just witnessed the collapse of the once bountiful agricultural sector of Sri Lanka as a result of government restrictions on mineral fertilizer.”5 The government of Sri Lanka banned the use of fossil fuelderived nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides, with disastrous consequences on food supply there. If similarly misguided decisions are made eliminating fossil fuels and thus nitrogen fertilizer, there will be a starvation crisis worldwide.

The early estimates are that 40-60% of the world could starve absent fossil-fuel-derived fertilizers, pesticides, and farming. Does anyone doubt that 40-60 percent of those starved would be brown people? Human beings do not want to be poor. They want cheap, reliable energy and the ability to use it to improve and lengthen not just life but its quality. If not for them, then for their children.

Irony Alert

The leading global lights behind this man-caused mass extinction of brown people also wear the mantle of their protector. And how ironic is it that the same people that rant endlessly about the evils of colonialism are projecting it from The West, into their lives, through energy policy?

Related: If Climate Change “Colonialism” is a Real Thing Greta, Your Whole Movement is Doomed

Millions, if not billions, could starve due not to the environmental damage of net-zero-industry but the absence of agricultural capacity, which is only possible with the tools and technology the Green insist we must abandon.

All because a few Marxist-minded Western globalists, primarily rich white men and women, wrecked the supply chain and the food supply in the name of a phantom boogeyman (CO2) without which life on earth – especially agriculture – is impossible.

And you thought we were joking when we said you were the carbon they want reduced.

If Net-Zero is allowed to move forward as policy and then in practice, energy will become unaffordable, agriculture will become impossible on the scale needed to feed us, and many people will die of starvation.

Hungry people deprived of food don’t stay put.

The promised mass migrations alluded to because of “man-made” climate change will occur instead in response to man-made policies like Net-Zero imposed to mitigate it. There will be violence, war, instability, chaos, a breakdown of modern society, and a lot of death. More dead in fewer years than all of the misery and death attributed to colonialism.

Thanks to progressive anti-colonialists pursuing an impossible goal to solve a non-problem.

 

 

 

The post The Left’s Net Zero Colonialism Will Kill Billions of Brown People appeared first on Granite Grok.

Follow the money and you will find the science. Environmentalists Spent a Record $2.4 Billion Pushing Global Warming Ideology https://t.co/ZcwF350wLJ — Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki (@MatthewWielicki) March 14, 2023 Tom Bowler

To all those who are sending in memes, thank you!  Keep them coming please, as it helps me gather weaponry to fight the Left.  Please do share this post, and if you share an individual meme, consider mentioning you saw it on the Grok!

Speaking of, from this week, Monday Memes and Meme Overflow.  Also don’t forget both complementary parts of my Survival Sunday feature: PREP edition and SITREP edition.

 

*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***

 

 

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Journalists Reveal True Self to Undercover James O’Keefe at Trump Arraignment

 

 

Note the raw, open enthusiasm for the political persecution & Soviet-style show trial of a hated politician.  A politician who is beloved by millions of people… who own guns.  Lots of guns.  The question, though, is the will to use them as outlined here in a very pessimistic piece.

We Deserve What Is Coming! We Allowed This To Happen! You Can’t Vote Your Way Out Of Tyranny! | NC Renegades

Understand, I don’t want this.  But I fear one of two fates is coming: a blow-up, or a resigned extinguishing of the Great Experiment.

Speaking of guns – help me buy a new one.  Get a bumper sticker or ten.  You may need to change your content filter – this comes with a PC 13 warning.

 

 

On trusting Democrats Bumper Sticker | Zazzle

As do the below:

 

 

Show why you own guns! They’re TYRANT VACCINE. Bumper Sticker | Zazzle

With another version:

Show why you own guns! They’re TYRANT VACCINE. Bumper Sticker | Zazzle

 

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Yes.  Yes it is.

 

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PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

mRNA is coming to your steaks and hamburgers.

American Farmers To Begin Injecting Livestock With mRNA Shots This Month (substack.com)

And gag on this puff piece “oral servicing” of the mRNA shots in – horrors! – a Wyoming news outlet.

We KNOW the mRNA & LNPs spread systematically.

We KNOW the mRNA can get reverse transcribed into the DNA.

We KNOW the mRNA is synthetic & more durable, and IMHO likely will survive cooking.

We KNOW mRNA gets expressed in milk.

Seek out sources of untainted beef & dairy products.  Demand – for whatever effect it will have – that your local supermarket / butcher only provide clean meat.  Write to your elected officials about this – again, hoping it might just have an effect.

Demand USA Beef – Connecting You to Your Local Producer

I am not endorsing any of the providers above; but presenting informationally.  More as I learn it.

 

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I’d call this hypocrisy out except there’s no point.  To the Left, they cannot be shamed because they only value views from their own side.  Still, essential to point it out.

 

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And this is why they censor so much.  A bit of a personal story (formatting & links in the original):

This is, by the way, why the Left so nastily attacks conservative ideas – for fear that the above revelation, as happened to me, might happen to others. Take their utter hatred for Rush Limbaugh (and Conservative talk radio in general). For years I had heard only the worst about him. Racist. Misogynist. Selfish. Hater!!!!!!!!! I very deliberately avoided listening to him because of what my peers said about him. One day I was radio-channel surfing in my car and I stumbled across a man talking. I didn’t know who he was, but he had a nice voice and what he said intrigued me. I listened to him, agreeing with most everything and accepting the well-laid-out persuasiveness of his argumentation on the remainder, when he identified himself before a commercial break.

I was utterly floored. I had been assured that Rush was one small step away from the Devil Himself, but I’m agreeing with him. Again, that’s weird…; Rush had two books out – The Way Things Ought to Be and See, I Told You So – so I bought them at a used book store and devoured them. Wow. Even, at the time, still believing myself a liberal I found very little to disagree with him. It was then that I realized: maybe I’m not a liberal.

Leftists cannot handle dissent, because it would introduce thoughts that might call into question their beliefs.  It might cause people to think.

 

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Now… I have said for years, and it’s in my bio/blurb, that I am a Zionist Jew.  But it is time, I believe, for the umbilical cord to be cut.  For several reasons.

First, America cannot afford it.

Second, it’s a sore point for the ethno-nationalists.

Third, it creates an apron-string dependency and makes Israel a client state of America.

IMHO, Israel is strong enough to stand on its own given some period of weaning.  For both Israel’s sake and America’s sake, this needs to happen.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

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We are in a war for the future of America, and for the very idea of liberty and self-governance itself – a no-holds bar brawl in which the Left continues to smash beer bottles for gut-stabbers, and the Right continues to put up its dukes and sagely intones “Marquis of Queensbury Rules, of course”.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Of course, it’s the birds!

 

 

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Pick of the Post:

 

 

Hard-hitting mockery on multiple levels.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Cowards

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

 

 

The post Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

The pressure parents face from Dartmouth Health to medically transition their gender-confused children was brought to light in a guest editorial by endocrinologist Francis Lim-Liberty, MD.

Related: The Trans Suicide Myth and Blackmail Politics

“I see a patient whose parent has been refusing to sign a consent form for gender-affirming hormone therapy for three years,” she writes. Although she promises to administer hormones as soon as her client turns 18, “my biggest fear manifested, would she make it to her 18th birthday just three months away? I worry I won’t see her again.”

In her February 17 Concord Monitor op-ed, “But what if you’re wrong and they’re right? Listening to our trans kids,” Lim-Liberty appears so immersed in Transgenderism that she’s unable to weigh the consequences of administering opposite-sex hormones or to question whether children with gender dysphoria really are at immediate risk of suicide without them.

Although child-transing advocacy group The Trevor Project provides astronomical suicide rates from self-report surveys solicited on social media, if Lim-Liberty dug deeper she would know that suicide among trans-identified youth is rare. Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, Finland’s leading child gender expert, has warned physicians that telling parents their children are in immediate risk of suicide without hormone therapy or that medical transitioning relieves suicidality is  “purposeful disinformation.” 

Lim-Liberty shares another trans-or-die story about Nick, who had been scheduled to start hormone therapy, but whose parents are reconsidering consent. “His parents worried about Nick changing his mind.” Although she concedes that she has “little data” on how often children later regret their transitions, she flips the question, “But what if he doesn’t change his mind? What happens then?”

With a little research, she could better answer her own question: Children who are spared puberty blockers and hormones will also be spared “extensive and irreversible adverse consequences such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, increased cancer risk, and thrombosis,” According to a policy statement from Sweden. “This makes it challenging to assess the risk/benefit for the individual patient, and even more challenging for the minors or their guardians to be in a position of an informed stance regarding these treatments.”

Contrary to Lim-Liberty’s reassurance, the rate of regret appears to be accelerating since gender-affirming care has become popular. A 2021 study from an adult gender clinic found that 10% of those receiving gender-affirming care detransitioned or showed a pattern of detransitioning within 16 months. Another 22% disengaged without completing the treatment. The authors concluded “detransitioning might be more frequent than previously reported.”

A 2022 study from a UK primary care practice showed that 12% of patients who started hormonal therapy either detransitioned or expressed regret, while a total of 20% stopped the treatment for a wider range of reasons.

Lim-Liberty offers parents a false dichotomy: The vast majority of children who aren’t affirmed in their belief that they are the opposite gender outgrow their dysphoria. In the most recent and largest study of gender dysphoric youth, 87% were content living as their natal sex when they reached adulthood.

She doesn’t seem to see a downside to hormone therapy. Citing one of the two Dutch studies that serve as the foundation for Dartmouth Health’s puberty-blockers-to-hormones regiment, she asserts that “We know that transgender individuals who received gender-affirming hormone therapy earlier, rather than waiting until completion of puberty . . .  had better outcomes in adulthood.” If she had read the actual studies instead of just the abstract she cited, she would know that they proved no such thing.

Among the significant flaws in the studies, the subjects received psychotherapy as well as hormones, but there was no control group. Consequently, we don’t know if their modest short-term improvements in mental health were due to psychotherapy or hormones. Also, those studies didn’t take into account the significant medical consequences of opposite-sex hormones.

Aside from these shortcomings, the Dutch studies aren’t applicable to Lim-Liberty’s practice because they focused on an entirely different population. In contrast to the gender affirmation model practiced in the US, the Dutch researchers selected children who had gender dysphoria from early childhood and who had “no serious comorbid psychiatric disorders.” They also screened out children with autism whose dysphoria might have evolved “from a general feeling of just being different.”

The gender affirming care model assumes that coexisting mental health problems are caused by “minority stress,” and will improve with hormones and surgery. This means that even mentally-ill children are qualified to diagnose themselves and decide their treatment path. As Dartmouth Health Gender Clinic Director John Turco has said, “There is only one test I know of to determine gender identity, and that is to ask the person.”

Lim-Liberty’s unqualified enthusiasm for child transing raises the question as to whether she and her colleagues have even considered why, after systematic reviews of the research, Norway, England, Sweden, and Finland have dropped the affirmative care model as dangerous and ineffective.

Lim-Liberty ends on a happy note by describing transgender siblings. “They are both on gender-affirming hormone therapy, doing well.” Given the long odds of two trans-identifying children in one family, a curious physician might want to explore whether there were environmental factors at play, but Transgenderism isn’t open to scrutiny.

The post Trans or Die: The Ideological Blindness of a Dartmouth Health Endocrinologist appeared first on Granite Grok.

Kathy Sullivan is a former NH State Democrat party chairman and a former Vice-Chair of the Democrat National Committee. It is safe to say that she is plugged into that count every vote narrative.

Given all the noise over the years from the Democrat Party about disenfranchising voters, you’d think Sullivan would WELCOME efforts to ensure votes cast by Democrats are rightfully and lawfully counted. Isn’t that how “the game” is supposed to be played? A lawful resident goes in and votes, and of course, it SHOULD be counted correctly.

 



 

Then why the NO vote, Kathy? Even Kevin Landrigan of the Union Leader gave the hearing a positive report (“spank’em when they’re wrong and thank’em when they’re right!). 

Reformatted, emphasis mine:

Gargiulo claims that election officials made numerous errors in the handling, reporting and the counting of ballots in his District 24 election race. He stressed he wasn’t appealing his loss by more than 3,700 votes to Stratham Democratic Sen. Debra Altschiller, but wanted the Ballot Law Commission to see the analysis of his volunteers who spent 700 hours uncovering what he said were numerous problems. “This tells me we have a fundamental issue that nobody is addressing,” Gargiulo said after a one-hour presentation of his report from his lawyer, Corey MacDonald.

“If a town continues to fail, (it) needs to be penalized, maybe financially, maybe criminally but they need to be penalized.”

Here is the report:

Lou Ballat Irregularties Election Voting Presentation April 5, 2023

 

(hover over the file and the navigation bar will show up at the bottom of the page)

Landrigan pointed out what my video of the reporting laid out about all the mistakes and all the different kinds of mistakes that were made. Go read his enumeration of the tales, but I will provide a couple of conclusions from the NHBC members:

• Secretary Scanlan said the report contained a lot of “good constructive criticism.”
• Ballot Law Commission member David Campbell of Nashua, a former Democratic House member, praised the report’s approach. “This is very thorough and very thoughtful, and I think the commission appreciates the non-accusatory tone of it,” Campbell added.

Back to Kathy Sullivan.

Ah, but I’m a cynical kind of guy that, after over a decade and a half of listening to their nonsense, knows that she (and the rest of the Democrat “Disenfranchisement Decriers”) is playing a different kind of game. It isn’t that HER voters are getting disenfranchised (well, their actions may be doing it to some of their voters, but they don’t care). It is that their Opposition voters should be disenfranchised by whatever means. Sorry / not sorry, but failure points can be used for “opportunities.”

My analogy for when I was writing software still stands – 20% of time and effort to achieve the purpose but 80% spent on defending against stupid people and people with bad intentions.  Listening to the report findings, there were certainly a lot of exploits of the system (whether by stupidity, laziness, or deliberate is beyond my ken – they just were there) found by the volunteers.

Remember, it isn’t WHO votes. It’s who COUNTS the votes. What the report showed is that there were numerous failure points from the time that the ballots entered the machine (some done by voters themselves) through to the recount.

So, she voted NO to sending the findings onward to the AG and SecState.  One would think that a reasonable person, one that treasures accurate, reproducible, and transparent results, would be happy to have those two offices “plug the holes” and monitor to see that any “upgrades” were meticulously followed.

Nope, not Kathy Sullivan, and she said so herself – a one-word answer: “NO.”

One only has to ask her a one-word question: “Why?”  If I were to ask that of her, she’d run away (like she did during the TEA Party movement when I caught her on the field and approached her with my then-new FlipCam to ask her what she thought about TEA Partiers. I got the same one-word answer then as her Ballot Commission answer:

NO.

‘Nuff said. My interpretation is that she, as a proxy for the Democrat Party, LIKE all those failure points and is RATHER steamed that some “nobodies that should have stayed out of her business” discovered them with Bright Flashlights.

And that last quote from Lou about punishment for those involved in the ballot process who refuse to mend their ways?  I think that was the point that she knew the jig was up.

I agree with Lou – just look what happened when (Belknap County) NH State Rep Mike Bordes voted to repeal any criminal charges stemming from performing an abortion after 24 weeks. Without the penalties, the entire bill has been neutered, and its purpose nullified.  Didn’t have to repeal the entire bill, just the part that punishes wrongdoers. Just think of San Francisco and all the “legal” (less than $900/incident) shoplifting.

No punishment means that there is nothing to fear for consequences.  Decisions SHOULD have consequences. Removing consequences such as these create Lawlessness.

Thanks, Kathy!

 

The post NH Ballot Law Commissioner (Democrat) Kathy Sullivan Voted NO to Send the Gargiulo Report to the AG & Secretary of State appeared first on Granite Grok.

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So Kids, What Did We Learn From This Week’s House Session (04/06/23)?

We learned that India and NH have good business relations. The Ambassador from India, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, was warmly welcomed to House chambers at the start of House Session, with members of the Senate in attendance. He spoke about the great work India is doing in many sectors of the economy and that NH is a great working partner with Indian run and Indian owned businesses.

We learned that after passing the committee amendment for HB2 (The Budget Trailer Bill) we took all morning to vote on 17 other amendments on that bill. A good amount of NH trees were used to make paper to print out all those amendments (plus more that did not come up for a vote) for 400 state reps to have in their seat pockets. Much time, taxpayer money, and effort was spent to print up so many pages that ultimately ended up in recycle bins at the end of the day.

We learned that of those 17 amendments, only 7 of them passed. The most important one was the bi-partisan deal struck by Majority Leader Osborne and Minority Leader Wilhelm (1336h) which included Emergency Power Reform language from HB127, made $15 million appropriation to the Affordable Housing Fund, removed some Education Funding Account language, added in the Ladd/Luneau education formula language, increased Medicaid provider rates, added $5 million to System of Care and $2 million for family resource centers. That amendment passed 326-63. We’ll see how all that fares in the Senate.

We learned that other amendments that passed were 1288h (247-Yes 139-No) to require law enforcement agencies provide public notice of immigration checkpoints, 1299h (241-Yes, 143-No) deleting a section of the budget bill relative to Northern Border Patrol program funding and appropriation (proponents claimed that should be paid for by the Feds), 1295h (249-Yes, 136-No) deleting a section of the budget bill that would have deleted the 16 person cap on the number of auxiliary state police forces. I understand we don’t want a police state, but if NH has an illegal immigration problem then we can look to these votes to see why.

We learned that 1292h passed (199-Yes, 187-No) that deleted the section in the budget bill that limited the retirement system eligibility for full time community college system employees to only those participating prior to January 1 2024. Those employees will be happy to learn that their retirement benefit will not change with this budget.NH taxpayers may not be as happy.

We learned that 2 other amendments both passed on voice votes having to do with a changes to civics education bill language (1272h) and the historic horse racing implementation date (1328h). Both made minor changes to bill language for bills that were already passed in the House.

We learned one of the amendments that did not pass was 1290h which would have eliminated the accelerated phase out of the Interest and Dividends tax (190-Yes,199-No). House Democrats are very upset that they couldn’t stop the retirement of this tax on old people and their investment savings.

We also learned that 1313h died (191-Yes, 197-No) that would have changed the language in the budget bill regarding how money is appropriated to the department of education from the education trust fund and the general fund and it changed the percentage of receipts coming to the trust fund from the Business Profits Tax and Business Enterprise tax.

We also learned that 1273h, the amendment to legalize the possession and use of cannabis for persons 21 years and older did not pass as the House. It failed 160-Yes, 214-No. Rep. Verville (R-Deerfield) thought it was “high time” we passed this reform and send some green back to NH citizens. The House did not agree with this amendment but went on later in the day to pass HB639 with a roll call vote (OTP 272-Yes, 109-No). This bill legalizes, regulates, and taxes cannabis in NH. Rep. Spilsbury (R-Charlestown), speaking for the Ways and Means committee, said he did not want to get into the “weeds” of the bill but all aspects of dealing with legalization in NH was baked into this brownie. We’ll see what the Senate thinks of this brownie.

We learned that after all the presented floor amendments to HB2 were done, the House passed the budget bill with a voice vote, and so it was with HB1 as well. It was quite a palate cleanser to pass this bi-partisan House budget after all the amendments we considered. It was almost as if the Red Sea parted on this Passover day with the House budget now marching dry shod off to the Senate.

We learned that once our budget work was done, the remainder of the calendar could be tackled. We killed many of the bills that the House Democrats previously managed to pass. Remember when they held a momentary majority in the chamber and sent some bills off to Finance? Well, some of those came back and were killed today. HB234 – The one about renewable energy credits died by a slim 193-191. HB430 – which would have made kids attend public school for a year before being able to apply for Education Freedom Accounts – died by a slim 194-192. HB626 – requiring the Department of Education to administer Education Freedom Accounts – died 195-194. Today, House Republicans managed to successfully defend EFA’s from continued House Democrat assault.

We learned that HB250 passed 328-53. That bill increased accidental death benefits for Group II pension members. An amendment to the bill insured that with this change, no costs would not be passed down to the municipalities.

We learned that one bill today had full House support and that was HB337. That bill directed the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification to provide notice of public hearings and opportunity for public comment. That passed 387-0. Apparently everyone desires transparency from OPLC.

We learned that I was able to attend today’s House Session, despite it being Passover, because of changes in my family’s plans to celebrate at my home. I much appreciated Passover snacks being provided in the ante chamber of the House by members of the House. I wish everyone a healthy, happy, and joyous Holy week, no matter what you are celebrating!

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