Thursday • December 12 • 2024
Vol.XVI • No.L
Manchester, N.H.
Mayor Pete’s apparent lock on bureaucratic incompetence regarding transportation might be up for grabs. Two of Spain’s senior transport officials were forced to resign. Isaías Táboas and Isabel Pardo de Vera are out of work after this ‘minor’ error became public.
Two top Spanish transport officials quit their jobs after ordering trains too wide to fit through tunnels.
The order for the new commuter trains amounted to nearly €260 million, although the Spanish government claims that the mistake was detected quickly enough to prevent financial losses.
Spain’s train operator, Renfe, placed the order for the trains in 2020, but the manufacturer CAF realized that the dimensions provided for the trains were inaccurate and halted further work. The mistake has delayed the delivery of the trains by at least two years.
Several other bureaucrats were relieved of their employment as well. It turns out that the trains they ordered were to be “built according to modern rail specifications.”
However, the rail network in Asturias and Cantabria was built in the 19th century and does not adhere to modern standardized specifications. The region is mountainous, and the tunnels that cut through the rock were not built to a standard size matching modern specifications.
Back in America, the only thing disrupted is Mayor Pete’s vacation. He’s had to travel to East Palestine, Ohio (to do what I have no idea), but only because Donald Trump showed up with pallets of bottled water and supplies for the town that he paid for himself.
Even out of office, Trump is more presidential than anyone running the Biden administration. However, it is said that stumbles Biden will attempt to get out of an aircraft somewhere near the man-caused ecological disaster in the near future.
If the cold, wintery weather permits.
And as for financial losses in Spain, I don’t believe them when they say there weren’t any.
Bureaucrats lie in every language.
The post The Trains In Spain … appeared first on Granite Grok.
New Hampshire Listens is well known for community organizing in New Hampshire. You should read more about that here. NH Listens is offering “community conversations” in the Henniker school district on March 8, 21st, and the 30th.
They say:
Join us in a series of conversations around belonging and inclusion at SAU 24 schools. Facilitators from NH Listens will guide us in discussions about issues facing our school community, with a focus on how we move forward and foster an environment where every person feels seen, welcome, and safe.
Isn’t this something a Superintendent and Principal should already know? Shouldn’t they be able to convey to the community that every person feels “seen, welcome, and safe?” School administrators earning 6-figure salaries now have to rely upon politically- biased community organizers to facilitate meetings in their district.
SAU16 has been immersed in the radical Critical Race Theory agenda in their school district. They even hired an ex-employee from NH Listens as their Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Director. Andres Mejia is a plaintiff in a lawsuit so that teachers can return to teaching CRT, and discriminating against some of the children in their schools.
Andres Mejia is also a board member of Black Lives Matter Seacoast. BLM called for the boycott of white-owned businesses during the Christmas Season. Nothing says MERRY CHRISTMAS like a big dose of hatred and discrimination towards white business owners!
Tina Kim Philibotte also worked for NH Listens in the past. Philibotte now works as the DEIJ Director in the Manchester Schools. In one of the poorest districts in the state, someone found money to pay for this position. When you see teachers begging for Kleenex in the classroom, pencils, papers, etc., remember what they prioritized.
Do you get the sense that NH Listens, with all of their inclusivity talk, has one leftist viewpoint when it comes to education? Let’s not pretend otherwise. Where is all of the focus on respecting and supporting religious students in the schools? Not everyone comes from the same mindset, but when these organizations exclude a portion of the population, their argument to support diversity flies out the window.
NH Listens also has a secrecy problem. A public meeting should be a public meeting. Maybe that’s the reason schools call upon NH Listens–so public meeting laws can be ignored? That’s a good question because in SAU16, they shut down a member of the public from recording one of their “listening” sessions. What did they have to hide? Why did they prevent discussion after they showed a video of an African woman talk about African pity. A person in the audience from Africa who had a different viewpoint wasn’t allowed to share it. That’s how community organizers work. They present the propaganda, but then do not allow other viewpoints to be shared. How can you possibly manipulate the public if there is a free flow of information? Especially if that information contradicts their propaganda!
So now NH Listens will come to Henniker/SAU25 to community organize. What do they have in store for those who attend? I hope someone will try to record these meetings. I hope that you now understand what these community organizers are all about.
Look past the sales job and propaganda. They talk about equity, but the last equity stunt from a public school called for eliminating honors classes. Instead of helping the black and brown children so they can participate in the honors classes, they simply gave up on them.
The post Community Organizers Coming to Henniker/SAU24 to Divide the Community? appeared first on Granite Grok.
It’s hard to believe that some people are arguing that Nikki Haley is NOT past her prime. Nikki’s prime was 40 years ago, when the Soviet Union was actually a security threat and NATO was relevant. Russia is NOT the Soviet Union and the war in Ukraine is NOT about protecting America … it is about padding the pockets of the military-industrial complex. Nikki’s thinking, however, is still stuck in the 1980s:
Ukraine is NOT free … Zelensky outlawed opposition political parties and took over the media AND even outlawed the Orthodox Church. Ukraine is very bit as oppressive as the old Soviet Union and is much more dictatorship … a dictatorship financed by the U.S. taxpayer … than a democracy.
It’s 2024 (almost), Nikki … not 1984.
The post Nikki Haley Is OBVIOUSLY Well Past Her Prime appeared first on Granite Grok.
On this day in 1862, the first fiat paper money became legal tender in America after the Legal Tender Act was passed. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet for British India to escape Chinese troops. And Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin in 1956.
In 1950 “Your Show of Shows” with Sid Caesar & Imogene Coca premiered on NBC, and in 1957 Buddy Holly and the Crickets recorded their smash hit “That’ll Be the Day” in Clovis, New Mexico.
It’s international sword swallowers day, chocolate covered nut day, pistol patent day, and if you are named Billy, Jessica, Kathy, or Nicholas, Feb 25th is your day too. But don’t get too rowdy; it’s also “Quiet day.”
Feb 25 also “commemorates the Soviet Red Army “Occupation” of Georgia in 1921.
The Morning MailCULTURE
LOCAL FLAVOR
B-B-B-BIDEN
TRUMP
The post The Morning Mail – Feb 25, 2023 appeared first on Granite Grok.
We know they are inept. We know they have chosen diversity over competence. We know that they are reactionary, not proactive. But these people are in the Executive Office of the greatest country on earth. Don’t we deserve the best staff in that office?
Absolutely, but we are settling for F-Troop or The Bad News Bears. They shoot down $12 weather balloons with half-million dollar missiles, but the massive, deadly train derailment in East Palestine is not severe enough for attention. They pledged $500 Million to Ukraine for pensions and social programs while our military families live on food banks and EBT cards. This is a crime against Americans.
Let’s look at some current events and how Biden and his team responded.
Biden and the Pentagon claim they were aware of the Chinese Spy Balloon before it entered the US airspace. Why wasn’t it shot down immediately? Once it was identified as property of the CCP, it was in violation of our sovereign airspace and should have been blown out of the sky. Instead, it was allowed to traverse the continental U.S. and directly over twenty of our most sensitive military bases. We claimed we did not know what was in the payload but that we had jammed any possibility of the airship communicating with China. Hogwash. If you don’t know what you are dealing with, you cannot defeat its technology. Not until it drifted off the South Carolina coast did the Air Force shoot it out of the sky.
The Administration took so much heat that the next few balloons detected were shot down immediately. We don’t know what we shot, but we obliterated it anyway. Brilliant. To disguise the failure of this activity, the Biden team blamed it all on Trump and his ignorance of balloons over America. Everyone involved with the Trump administration and Pentagon disputed Biden’s claims, but too late. The message was delivered.
Pete Buttigieg finally arrived at East Palestine, Ohio, this morning. Three weeks after the crash, the Transportation Secretary graced the good people of this town with his feckless presence. He is bringing no solutions to the table, but he is getting plenty of photo ops with his reflective vest and hard hat. The only reason he is there is because he was upstaged by former President Trump and Tulsi Gabbard, who visited East Palestine yesterday. Biden has no plans to visit. Reaction, not pro-action, and no solutions.
Finally, this one should have been a no-brainer, but everything is challenging for Biden and his team. It is customary for professional and amateur sports champions to be invited to the White House to spend time with the President. Not so for the back-to-back college football champions, The Georgia Bulldogs. They were not invited in 2022 or so far in 2023 until yesterday. That was until FOXNews covered the story yesterday. The cat was out of the bag, and miraculously the invitation was extended to the Bulldogs. I wish they would RSVP; no thanks, we are all set. The snub has no viable reason, but any explanation would be fiction. Again, reaction, not pro-action.
We have some critical situations on the horizon. China and Russia are getting cozy, China is ramping up pressure on Taiwan, and the Russian spring offensive is close. None of these need a reaction, and the Biden Team better get ahead of the story, but nobody believes they are capable.
The post White House Cannot Even Let the Dogs In appeared first on Granite Grok.
Dan Hill, a Government Affairs PR strategist who (according to him) started working with Chessy Prout in 2015, had an article about Michael Delaney yesterday in the Boston Globe.
We want to thank Claire Best for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
You can review our ‘Op-Ed Guidelines‘ on the FAQ Page.
He boasts of helping his clients secure $25 billion in Government contracts using stealth media and special ops. The above Op-Ed, which advertises various non-profits with whom he and/or his client are involved, is one such example of his stealth tactics—designed to deceive.
I believe that Alexander Prout’s op-eds in the Concord Monitor and this op-ed for the Boston Globe were actually written by Dan Hill or the NHCADSV or others with financial interests in creating, maintaining, and adapting a fundamentally false narrative to keep the flow of Government contracts and federal grants. The Prout family are “ambassadors” for these.
The ACLU admitted to creating the Washington Post #MeToo op-ed for Amber Heard, which led to the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard lawsuit in Virginia. The ACLU and Amber Heard were represented by Government Affairs PR company Precision Strategies, a similar outfit to Dan Hill’s.
It’s amazing how history is changed and reinvented, and nobody on the New Hampshire public payroll will stand up and correct the record or do what is right to ensure the safety of children, the public, and the courts from corruption. School communities, alumni, and others become playthings in these dishonest narratives in which no thought is given to the lives of those who are smeared.
The records suggest that the reason nobody in New Hampshire will do anything is that a serious profiteering and racketeering enterprise is going on, and no public official or member of the NH Bar will call out anyone else because there is too much money passing hands.
The State, public officials, non-profits, and the attorneys they work with are apparently in the business of extorting schools, school districts, colleges, the diocese, and insurance companies with deep pockets. WMUR, The New Hampshire Press Association, New England Newspapers, and the Associated Press are effectively bought out to help this enterprise.
The Prout family, their representatives, and the NHCADSV wish to bring down St Paul’s School – but not before they’ve extorted all the money they can using slander, libel, bribery, and blackmail.
I’m not here to defend St. Paul’s School. I’m here to stand up for the rights of every family to a safe and honest environment for their child. Without honesty among the State’s public officials, there is no hope for any student. It is as simple as that. New Hampshire was used to set a precedent for the nation. So what went down in New Hampshire had a trigger effect that has harmed thousands in other states, in the UK, and in Canada.
The very same people involved in this racket are involved in cover-ups of corrupt police officers, prosecutors, judges, public officials, child abuse and sex abuse at the State’s own facilities – hiding records, deleting records, and creating shell companies, non-profits, trusts.
HB111, proposed last year, would have provided a path for citizens who’ve been harmed by public corruption to take action. The New Hampshire Municipalities Association, led by Mayors from Concord and other cities, blocked it. Concord Mayor Jim Bouley took a bribe to lobby for “Marsy’s Law” for a California Billionaire (Henry T Nicholas III) who is a convicted drug trafficking felon with a history of sex abuse and prostitution.
Chessy Prout was the face of Marsy’s Law New Hampshire.Who in their right mind would let a teenage female lobby for a man who kept an underground lair for his prostitutes and boasted about lacing their drinks with ecstasy? Amanda Grady Sexton: Chair of the City of Concord Public Safety Committee and Executive Director for Marsy’s Law; Mayor Jim Bouley, Lyn Schollett, Donna Soucy, Chuck Douglas Esq, and all of the others who were paid and who apparently failed to report their lobby earnings from Marsy’s Law.
The NHCADSV is a publicly funded agency that fails to disclose how it amassed $10.6 million in its coffers but puts its hands out for more federal grants. The NHCADSV creates and controls media for investigations, trials, and narratives in which it has a financial interest – the Sam Bankman-Fried way of doing business to game the system.
There would not have been NH v Owen Labrie, nor Prout/Doe v St Paul’s School had Concord Police and attorneys with a revolving door to the AG’s office not been excused for crooked deals protected by AGs- including Michael Delaney.
My research indicates that police & attorneys were cutting deals that the City of Concord, DAs, and AGs knew about. Strangely enough, my assessment is supported by dishonest Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin herself. She allegedly admitted her knowledge of backdoor deals to Lacy Crawford. Lacy Crawford’s case involved attorney William Chapman of Orr & Reno, where Lindsay Nadeau, Chair of NHCADSV, is also a partner.
William Chapman’s resume?
Whose interests are the New Hampshire judiciary and associated law firms protecting? Certainly not the public.
Concord Police have more interest in creating propaganda about private schools whose money they can go after than in proper investigations, which actually might save lives.<
Per Chessy Prout’s own statements with the Women’s Media Center, she was told by Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin about Laura L Dunn while she was at Concord Hospital in June 2014 getting a rape kit – she wrote in her own memoir with introduction by Congresswoman Kuster (for which Dan Hill was the publicist) that she didn’t know why she needed to go to hospital at all.
Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin introduced the idea of a White House “Not Alone” task force publicist/attorney to Chessy Prout, the State witness, before Concord Police ever contacted their suspect, Owen Labrie.
Publicity ruled every aspect of the investigation and the trial, the suit against St Paul’s School, the Grand Jury Criminal Investigation and the Prout & other Doe suits v St Paul’s school. But New Hampshire public officials failed to abide by rules of professional conduct whether as police detectives, lobbyists, publicly elected officials, prosecutors, judges. They threw the US constitution and New Hampshire’s Constitution to the wind because of the money involved for them, their non-profits, their law firms, and their political campaigns.
Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin’s affidavit was untruthful. It fell apart with the SANE nurse testimony in trial and the prosecutor’s admission to the judge that the witness upon whom Police Detective Julie Curtin had relied for the affidavit – Andrew Thomson – had been given a deal – a snitch deal. But instead of addressing this serious issue of police dishonesty, the judge, Michael Delaney, the AG, Concord Police Chief, and John Scippa of Police Standards and Training let it go. Now Julie Curtin is at Epping Police Department putting other lives in danger.
S. Daniel Carter, Laura Dunn’s partner at SurvJustice, told me personally in November 2019 that the use of publicity was a mistake. That it was insensitive and that the real interest for SurvJustice (and therefore the White House “Not Alone” task force & UNH/NHCADSV) was in St Paul’s School rather than Owen Labrie himself. But Prosecutors told the jury St Paul’s wasn’t on trial. Prosecutors who were being trained by a group of attorneys that came up from DC with Laura L Dunn – S. Daniel Carter’s partner at SurvJustice.
Truth to Power? Congresswoman Ann Kuster and the Prout family pretend to uphold this so I’ll take them at their word:
The goal was, in fact, for the government take over of a private school by corrupt actors. The NHCADSV and City of Concord Police, and local journalists were part of an orchestrated plan. They thought it would set an example for the nation, and that was the goal – stated by DA Scott Murray, Lyn Schollett, and others. Lyn Schollett misrepresented witness statements outside the criminal trial because her interests were a political win for her organization’s financial interests. Her organization that has a CAGE contract with the Department of Defense. That’s pretty scary, given the NHCADSV has yet to make an honest public statement about either Owen Labrie or St Paul’s School.
NONE of these people should be allowed anywhere near courts, schools, or students. They are not leaders. They are dishonest parasites who put students, their families, and educators in harm’s way.
Is Sweezy v New Hampshire not part of the curriculum at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce Law School? Do New Hampshire, the NHCADSV, Concord Police, Merrimack County Prosecutors, AG, and White House “Not Alone” task force, UNH Law just ignore Supreme Court precedents when it suits?
There was never any intent for the Prout Family to remain Does – if there was, why would they hire publicists pretrial? The trial – because it involved minors – shouldn’t have had any media at all. But it was turned into a media circus for the benefit of the NHCADSV, the Prout family, their ambulance chasing attorneys and Congresswoman Ann Kuster. Amanda Grady Sexton specifically called it “an opportunity”.
Senator Dick Durbin asked Michael Delaney about allegations of witness tampering in NH v Owen Labrie. There was witness and evidence tampering – the police and prosecutors. Delaney was aware – he was there. It got revealed by witnesses in the trial.
Michael Delaney, as AG, was aware of police corruption – records show he authorized cash payments between police officers in Winchester. He sorted a plea deal with Judge Charles Temple and Geoffrey Ward for Judge Julie Introcaso to avoid jail time for admitting to a felony.
Did he defend her because he and his wife have a financial interest in CASA NH and possibly Children’s Advocacy Centers on which Police Detective Julie Curtin is a board member? He appears to have had conflicts of interest which should probably have prevented him from representing St. Paul’s School at all.<
In defending St Paul’s School, Michael Delaney never mentioned the police misconduct. He never mentioned the State Agency’s own use of media to interfere with judicial outcome, only that of an out-of-state attorney – Steven D Silverman Esq.
Is this because Michael Delaney had a relationship with McLane Middleton Government and Public Strategies LLC and was working with Senator Shaheen, Congresswoman Ann Kuster, Amanda Grady Sexton, and NHCADSV? He joined McLane Middleton right after this company was formed. Interesting timing.
There are some serious issues here.
Robert Mittelholzer has given options to file a formal complaint. However, there are gatekeepers at every juncture so what good is a formal complaint when the incestuous club protects its own? New Hampshire’s Supreme Court Chief Justice, US Attorney, federal prosecutors are hardly going to hold themselves accountable for a racket.
I hope that Attorney General John Formella will have the fortitude to do what is right and not follow the pattern of all those who went before him with “creative” solutions and cover-ups that create unsafe and hostile environments for honest citizens.
The post Serious Problems with NH Justice & Use of Media to Sway Judicial Outcomes appeared first on Granite Grok.
After a hearing to re-fund the Multi-Tiered System of Support so that schools in New Hampshire can continue assessing, and treating the mental health of students, I sent this email to Lisa White, Director of Instruction for the NH Department of Education.
I continue to OPPOSE SB265. This expenditure directs valuable resources away from the children who need the most help.
Dear Ms. White,
After listening to your testimony (2:29:49) before the New Hampshire Senate Health and Human Services Committee, I wanted to bring some additional information to your attention. During your testimony, where you described the MTSS-B framework, you commented on how the MTSS-B system is set up. But within tier 1, you didn’t mention that this is where school districts are administering Social and Emotional Learning, oftentimes using outside vendors as their resource.
For example, I recently filed a complaint with Diana Fenton asking for an investigation in the Greenland School District. Greenland is currently using the SEL program Kimochis in the classroom. You can download that complaint and read how the Superintendent was not obtaining informed consent from parents when their children were participating in group therapy.
You will see that I included the provision in ESSA that requires parental consent when there is any kind of assessing of a child’s mental health or if they are providing mental health services. SB265 would make an appropriation for the multi-tiered system of support for children’s mental health. SEL is included in Tier 1, but school administrators are in denial that SEL has anything to do with mental health.
There is a pattern of denial among school administrators who have no education in this specialized field. That is why I always check with a Child Psychologist before addressing this matter. Whenever an outside vendor’s software is used to assess a child’s SEL, we then have the issue of personal mental health data collected, stored and possibly shared.
A New Hampshire teacher contacted me several years ago because she was using the DESSA mental health assessment on her students. She was concerned that her eight hours of training did not give her the expertise to subjectively score a child in this way. Back then, this mental health data was not only accessed using the DESSA vendor. That data was then shared with Plymouth State in order to conduct research similar to what Keene State BHII is doing now. Please note that at that time, Plymouth State referred to this as research. Keene State now calls this an “external evaluation.” (See Project Aware Attachment)
When I emailed the school administrators gathering this sensitive data on students, I found out that they did not ask for parental consent. Nor did they inform parents that the data was uploaded to an SEL vendor and then shared with Plymouth State researchers. This became so disturbing to some families who found out what was happening in our public schools. A New Hampshire Physician wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal. Some parents quietly removed their children from the public school because of the lack of transparency, refusal to follow ethical guidelines, and because administrators were ignoring federal law.
I sat down with researchers from Antioch after that. They were then tasked with collecting this sensitive mental health data in order to fulfill the federal grant requirements. Antioch also pushed the responsibility of obtaining parental consent on school officials, but school officials claimed they weren’t responsible either. It’s disturbing that those in the New Hampshire University system, who are supposed to uphold ethical guidelines on the research of children, would participate in this kind of gathering of mental health data and do nothing to ensure these important protocols and laws are followed.
Tier 1 does include mental health assessments and services when using certain SEL programs and vendors. Would all qualify as mental health? Maybe not, you managed to highlight that some of Tier 1 include academic assistance to students. However, we also know that these SEL programs, as confirmed by DESSA representatives, are used to assess and treat a child’s mental health. The DESSA was used as a Tier 1 SEL mental health assessment on students in NH schools. I’m not here to judge the validity of these programs, only to highlight that school administrators are not obtaining parental consent in many instances. (See attachment)
In addition, while I am aware that school counselors are obtaining consent from parents when students are pulled out of class, that sensitive mental health data is then shared with Keene State BHII without parental knowledge or consent. It’s the sharing of the data that requires parental consent, but that’s not happening.
We have two situations where informed consent is not provided by parents and guardians:
1) When SEL mental health assessments and programs are used in the classroom.
2) When mental health data on individual students are shared by school counselors and social workers with Keene State BHII
There are situations when counselors obtain informed consent, but there are times when parents are not consenting to the treatment, assessing, or sharing of mental health data.
Professional, ethical protocols require informed consent when researching, assessing, and treating subjects. In this case, children would need their parents or guardians to consent. Ignoring these ethical boundaries would result in forfeiture of license in the private sector. (http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/ Section 9 Assessment).
IRB approval is contingent on having a protocol which includes that the data will be stored and secured. Parents need to see how their child’s personal data has been secured, and the protocol if there is a data breach. IRB requires individuals with diminished autonomy be entitled to protection, and that individuals enter into research voluntarily with adequate information. Children do not have the capacity to make those decisions, therefore, ethically, parental consent would be required. (https://hso.research.uiowa.edu/summary-belmont-report Summary of the Belmont Report)
Requiring or asking school counselors to share this sensitive mental health data with Keene State BHII appears to violate their Code of Ethics. (See attached document under Confidentiality) I would advise parents to seek legal assistance, and ask that a school counselor’s license be revoked if they discover that their child’s information was shared without their knowledge or consent.
How does Keene State get around the IRB approval? It appears by looking at the Project Aware Grant that if they add BHII as a “data analyst” role to SWIS School Wide Information System account, they become part of the school system versus a researcher. You can also see that they refer to BHII in the grant as an outside evaluator vs. a researcher at the same time. All of this becomes a way to legally jump through hoops in order to avoid ethical guidelines, and laws to protect a child’s privacy rights. How are parents to trust in this scheme?
Whether it be by jumping through hoops to avoid informed consent, or calling mental health assessments and treatment something else, informed consent has been thwarted in other circumstances.
You talked about aggregate data that is shared with the DoE, and speculated on whether individual (PII) is shared outside the school system. Maybe you did not read the Project Aware Grant before you testified. LEAs are sharing the PII with BHII.
“Governor Wentworth, Hudson, Merrimack Valley, Raymond, Sanborn Regional, SAU 34, and White Mountains LEAs are implementation sites for this project. BHII will have access to both aggregate (e.g., school or district-level) and individual student-level data provided by each of the seven participating LEAs to support implementation and ongoing evaluation and quality improvement of the SOC 2.0 program. BHII will collect measures of the background characteristics, services and supports, experience, and outcomes of youth that enroll in Tier 2 and 3 behavioral health services. These data are collected from and shared with BHII at the individual level. In addition, office discipline referrals, suspensions, attendance rates, and academic performance will be collected at the individual level and shared with BHII. The majority of school- and student level data will be provided to BHII by SOC 2.0 stakeholders in each LEA via a cloud-based data platform developed and hosted by BHII. BHII utilizes Quickbase software for collection and storage of sensitive data.”
The SWIS system also allows BHII access to demographic information (PII) about individual students including gender, ethnicity/race, IEP/504 Plan, and disability status.
SEL vendors also collect data on children. If you take time to read their privacy policies, you will see that they are anything but private. The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. §1232g, is designed to protect the privacy of students’ educational records. Regrettably, regulations were changed without Congressional authority, to allow the data mining of our children for research and development without the knowledge and consent of the parents. I believe it is important that parents are informed about this loophole in the federal regulations. Protecting children and families should be of utmost importance, particularly if children are being used as research subjects. Unfortunately this information never seems to be presented to our elected legislators. The loopholes profited Ed Tech companies at the expense of protecting this student data. In some instances, parental consent is not required by law, but in ESSA, there are times when informed consent is required. Do we need laws to uphold ethical research on children? What about the informed consent law that is ignored?
It is true that New Hampshire has some of the strictest privacy protections in place, thanks to leaders like Representative Cordelli and others–but the FERPA loophole remains a big problem for privacy rights activists. Thankfully the issue of data privacy is typically a bi-partisant issue, and has even had support from the ACLU. However, there have been times when Ed Tech lobbyists fought against the only parental rights advocate in the room, me. Data Brokers are profiting off of all of this newly attainable data, and most parents will never know it.
I hope that by sharing this information with you, you will correct your testimony in the future. All information should be provided to the Senators so that they can make informed decisions when they vote. I understand that some of the individuals testifying rely upon this funding, but even they should be forthcoming with all the facts. When I read the Keene State BHII MTSS-B Coaching, Technical Assistance, and Evaluation Update, it looked more like a marketing brochure than a peer-reviewed and independent study on MTSS-B.
Your testimony included a statement about hiring more interventionists at the DoE. Others, like me, were focused on stopping the hemorrhaging that occurs on a daily basis as children sit in hospitals for sometimes a week at a time, waiting to get into the one mental health facility in New Hampshire. The Senators will have to determine if this money is better spent on more bureaucrats working for the DoE or possibly helping children in crisis.
I don’t agree that schools should be awarded any of this money if the administrators are going to ignore federal laws, ethical guidelines, and risk their counselors’ license. If this program works well, then a child’s privacy rights, and the rights of the parents must be prioritized. I would hope that someone in your position would uphold the highest level of ethics, and demand better from those who seek to provide mental health services in our schools.
Please reference all attachments.
Ann Marie Banfield
TRUST REQUIRES TRANSPARENCY
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Is The “Media” Trying to Hide Vaxx Deaths By Reporting More Deaths By Other Causes?
I use several browsers to separate things that happen during my blogging day, and I’ve noticed something in recent months. Typical newsy homepages like Yahoo!, MSN, etc., report many deaths daily.
More than ever before.
Old sure, but more young and middle-aged deaths with obvious or likely causes. Things people die from all the time but that we never used to see promoted in this way. A noticeable emphasis on death. And it’s weird. Yes, celebrity deaths are fodder for news sites. But we’re getting reports of not-so-famous people who have died of explainable causes, accidents, or illness (other than COVID).
And yeah, death happens every day. It comes for our friends, family, strangers, and even each of us, but this looks like a deliberate effort to flood the zone with so many everyday deaths that the rise in sudden deaths and all-cause mortality that followed the COVID vaccines disappears in the noise.
And it’s been going on all year and maybe longer.
The carousels on these home pages always include a story about someone who died, sometimes more than one. It never used to be that way.
I want to think I imagined this, but I’ve been observing their tactics for so long that some things pop out as progressive machine language ticks. Uncontrollable movements on the Left that define some narrative or a deliberate campaign. Projection is the most obvious and more prevalent, but there are others. And I don’t catch them all, likely only a fraction. This is not my entire life, but this itch wouldn’t stop nagging at me, and these media pages keep piling on.
Today, just on MSN
“They” are normalizing death to hide their (deliberate or serendipitous) genocides.
The post The “Media” is Trying to Hide Vaxx Deaths By Reporting More Deaths By Other Causes appeared first on Granite Grok.
Our education system is costing more and producing less every year. In my small town, the Tax Rate is $24.75 / thousand, with Education accounting for $18.00. That is 73% of every tax dollar earmarked for schools giving us lower test scores yearly.
The system is broken but costly. The average home cost in Exeter is $240,000, and the tax bill is over $6,000. The average homeowner pays about $4,500 into the education cesspool. Is that too difficult a word? Not when you look at the results. Those numbers seem low. That is because of the 9,000 homes for the 22,000 residents; over 900 are mobile homes. These Mobile homes have an average value of $58,000. It is a very eclectic town but with one thing in common with most of America; we have a failing education system.
Two cities, in particular, highlight the extremity of the problem. Baltimore, once one of the finest cities on the east coast, is now a city to avoid. Recent numbers show 77% of high school students read at an elementary grade level. Many read at the kindergarten level. This is not only a failed system, but we are failing our children.
According to a FOX45 report:
Perhaps that’s why Patterson High School still boasts a 61% graduation rate despite the inability among most students to read at anything close to grade level.
But the problem likely isn’t limited to Patterson High. Nearly a year ago, FOX45 discovered that one student at a different Baltimore high school had passed just three classes in four years and “ranks near the top half of his class with a 0.13 grade point average.”
These “graduates” are unprepared to contribute to society, which may be why so many turn to crime, drugs, or suicide.
In Chicago, the proud city of Mayor Lightfoot, enrollment in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has dropped 25% since 2000. At $9.3 billion this year, CPS will spend $28,000 per student (operational, capital, and all other spending), compared to just $19,000 in pre-COVID 2019. The money is not well spent. Blacks comprise 80% of CPS students, and only 11% read at the high school level. Is there any wonder that gang numbers and crime rates are growing faster than school results fall.
Not to only focus on these two failed cities, the national dropout rate has risen to 5.3%, which is 1.19% higher than pre-COVID stats. It appears the only results growing in American education are the negative numbers. We cannot succeed as a nation if we do not prepare our children to contribute. The ultimate hypocrisy is progressives claiming we have to discuss sex and gender options with grade-school kids to prepare them for the complex world they will enter. What about preparing them to read and have the math skills to balance a checkbook. If we create an illiterate generation, does it really matter what gender they choose?
The Left’s solution to failing grades is to do away with grades all together and to ensure equity, advanced classes are discontinued. It was decided that AP classes were discriminatory and made “failing” students feel inadequate. It appears that everyone failing to reach their potential is how the Left and Progressives envision success.
The post Our Education System is a Failed State appeared first on Granite Grok.
Does Anyone at NPR Realise They Did This To Themselves?
In early December 2022, we reported some bad news at National Public Radio (NPR). Declining ad revenue meant a hiring freeze and other cuts, but they “intended to avoid layoffs.” The shelf life on “avoid layoffs” was about two months.
ICYMI: How Public Radio Got Their “Nuts” in a Bind…
NPR will need to cut at least $10 million from the current fiscal year ending next Sept. 30, the network’s chief executive, John Lansing, announced Wednesday, due to a sharp drop in revenue from sponsors.
Lansing told staffers in a memo that he intended to avoid layoffs, but would be forced to severely curtail hiring, amounting to what he described as “close to a total hiring freeze.” The network will also sharply cut back discretionary spending and non-essential travel.
The early December announcement was padded with false optimism. And maybe the pagans at NPR didn’t want to look like the grinch who stole Christmas, but with the holiday past, it’s time to accept the loose tooth and the coppery taste of blood in your mouth.
In a memo to staff, NPR CEO John Lansing wrote that “our financial outlook has darkened considerably in recent weeks. At a time when we are doing some of our most ambitious and essential work, the global economy remains uncertain.” …
“The cuts we have already made to our budget will not be enough,” Lansing wrote.
Have they stopped applauding Biden for sending money they could have used to Ukraine? It’s hardly the biggest irony. As I noted here, the economy that is killing them is thanks to NPR (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NYP WashPo, etc.). And while I’d like to feel remorse, we are busy juggling our home budgets for all the same reasons NPR had to cut spending, stop hiring, and lay off staff.
Non-stop partisan pandemic fearmongering and militant opposition to any science outside the approved narrative. You lied about the problem, the protests, the pandemic, the “cure,” and actual preventatives that would have stopped all of it in its tracks.
This could have been avoided, but you had to kill your golden goose to remove The Donald. But Trump’s presidency wasn’t just an economic boom for the American economy. It was a Golden age for Machine media so you got what you deserved (what many on the left asked for), not that you’ll recognize it or admit it.
You’d rather praise Biden or blame Trump, but that won’t stop the bleeding. That would require an epiphany, a road to Damascus moment, a hit-rock bottom-revelation that shatters a political and economic paradigm. The government, in general, but particularly in the hands of Progressives, does not exist for any purpose other than to serve itself.
Nothing can be permitted to stand in the way of that, and everyone but the government must sacrifice to that end.
As love-struck spokesmodels for that brand, you should consider yourselves lucky that you only need to cut 10% of staff (for now) but unlucky that you’ll likely be doing it again soon while unable to honestly report on how you did this to yourselves.
The post Does Anyone at NPR Realise They Did This To Themselves? appeared first on Granite Grok.
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. A note about the coming PREP Edition… since I missed last week due to illness, this coming week is chock-packed with lots of stuff.
*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***
A hat trick of prior essays:
A Tale From my Father: Miracle | Forward in Christ Magazine
“Something” stopped my father from getting on a plane, years before I was born. Why?
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Slip-Sliding Towards Hell with a Good Conscience – Granite Grok
The most horrific deeds are done when people believe that they are doing good… and even worse ones when they – doing good – are able to be bad to “wrongdoers”…
Link to AZQUOTES per their policy.
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The Right Way: Prophecy from Star Trek’s “Omega Glory” (obamasez.blogspot.com)
Apologies for the formatting; I’d write the pieces and them the blog’s owner would put them up.
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Can this Cuttlefish Pass an Intelligence Test Designed for Children?
In my youth I wanted to be an oceanographer, studying whales. There are times I’d like to return to those heady days of innocent enthusiasm, but I’d like to study cephalopods like cuttlefish, etc.
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Pretty much.
Take “Fifteen Minute Cities”. When I point out that, functionally, it’s a ghetto on lockdown… people will actually tell me that it’s needed to stop climate change or we’ll all die.
To which, mentally, I reply “Oh, go get another Covid booster… make sure you eat a lot of steak and eggs for two weeks beforehand too”.
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The Neverending Election
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Biden’s Betrayal | WRKO-AM 680 | The Kuhner Report (iheart.com)
But… but… but doesn’t the Senate have to vote on this? Not necessarily. Some years ago there was some thing – don’t recall what – that Obama passed that some international lawyer on LinkedIn said was perfectly legal without Senate approval, and that, going from memory, would require a 2/3 majority Senate vote to undo. All snaked through the legal code to be 100% legal. Not RIGHT, of course, but from a by-the-letter-of-the-law LEGAL.
And this is the thing I keep harping on, regretfully. These people are willing to break every moral code to impose their “enlightened, philosopher-king” rule. Because they’re better people in every dimension, and they truly view us as their dirty peasant rabble.
There’s no voting our way out of this. Make plans accordingly.
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You must remember the goal: a one-world Socialist Utopian state.
Thus, as formerly peaceful, safe, and prosperous countries descend into chaos, violence, and poverty, along will eventually come the “benevolent hand” of Socialism offering some form of stability and at least predictability… all you need do is surrender your antiquated notion of individuality and liberty.
Link to AZQUOTES per their policy.
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You must understand – when it comes to Israel and Arabs, anti-Semitism is hard-coded into the Koran. Recapture – not just of Israel but ANY LAND ISLAM EVER CONTROLLED – is hard-coded into the Koran.
Islamic Jew-Hatred – Geller Report
Antisemitism in the Qur’an – Winds of Jihad (sheikyermami.com)
Jew-Hate in the Muslim World | Frontpage Mag
You people in Spain, you people in Eastern Europe… beware. Islam’s diktats DEMAND Muslims retake where you live. Islam DEMANDS that the whole world be taken for Allah.
These people are patient and take a centuries-long view, and migration is a critical part of their strategy.
Bill Warner, PhD: Hijra, Islamic Migration
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I have to weep at these parents who will never hold grandchildren because of what they’ve done to their kids “to protect them”. Yes, they did it will good intentions, and complete trust… and that’s what makes it so much worse. They truly thought they were doing good.
As I wrote, here and here, there are almost certainly long-term fertility consequences and we’re just seeing the first leading edge of that hitting. Like water pulling back from shore before a tsunami, the impact on global human reproduction is about to catastrophically hit our world.
EXCLUSIVE: Whatever happened to Pfizer’s covid vaccine trial in pregnant women? (substack.com)
https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/naomi-on-birth-rates.mp4
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Pick of the Post:
Three words and a logo, that utterly obliterate cognitive defenses in 90% of even the sheeple. Brilliant.
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Tucker: People will die because of this
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Palate Cleansers:
If I had not cared that my first wife found out about what my second wife looked like, I’d have done this.
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The post Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.
A child’s death must be one of the worst and most excruciating experiences a parent ever has to live through. When it is a death by suicide, there are undoubtedly other emotional factors that family and friends have to deal with.
Our family was devastated by a recent suicide of a young man who was close to our family. We’ve shed many tears over this enormous loss.
When I read that SAU16 students wanted to include a memorial page in the yearbook for three students (friends) they had lost, it seemed like a meaningful way to honor their classmates. Unfortunately, school administrators disagreed and denied their request–but could they have at least allowed some kind of memorial in the year book?
The first question was, were the parents of the children who had passed aware that their children would be memorialized in this way, and did they agree? The last thing anyone wants to do is add pain to grieving families. The parents of the three students agree with this memorial to their children. I wouldn’t have supported the petition if they had not agreed, but I also suspect that the students would have honored their decision.
Students decided to start an online petition that reads:
Hi! We are members of the Yearbook Club & Exeter High School’s Class of 2023. We requested permission from our principal to include a page dedicated to the 3 members of our class whom we’ve lost along our journey to graduation. Unfortunately, we were denied access, even though we would have gained permission from each family first. We are hoping that we can get students, families, and other community members on board to help support our goal of showing our love, respect, and support to those who are no longer with us as we close out our high school experience. The goal of this petition is not to guarantee that a change is made, but rather to show awareness to a situation that impacts many of our students and to hopefully show that there are people in support of this addition to the yearbook.
None of this is easy, and I suspect that school officials do want to be careful about glorifying suicide in some way. How would other children respond? It’s a legitimate concern. I gave this a lot of thought before signing the petition. But children in the school have had to deal with this. They know what happened– they’ve felt the pain of losing their friends. They want to do something to honor and show love toward their friends. If administrators and board members care about the emotional well-being of the students, they should find a way to honor the friends they’ve lost in a dignified and thoughtful way.
Here are some suggestions that school administrators might follow:
Memorials After a Suicide
Memorials following a suicide are particularly important to monitor. The following approaches are recommended:
• Do not make a permanent memorial following a suicide.
• Do not glorify, highlight, or accentuate the event in any way.
• Choose memorials that are temporary, nonrenewable, or in the form of a “living” memorial (e.g., monetary
donation to charity or research, purchase of a suicide prevention program for students). These memorials will positively affect surviving students as opposed to glorifying the students that died by suicide, which increases the risk that others will copy the act.Every decision made regarding memorials after a student suicide will be extremely important, because it may help prevent the death of another student. It has been estimated that 100–200 students die each year in suicide clusters. School administrators and mental health staff can help by making recommendations not to establish permanent memorials after a death by a suicide. Memorials following a suicide may glamorize death or communicate that suicide is an appropriate or desired response to stress. School staff should discourage whole-school assemblies, full-page dedications in a yearbook, establishment of a scholarship, flying a flag at half mast, or any long-term commemoration. Spontaneous memorials (balloons, flowers, pictures, and letters) should be removed or allowed for only a short time.
Having an established school policy that addresses memorials in the district, and educating students, staff, and parents, will help to alleviate potential hard feelings and resentment by those who may not understand the reasoning for this approach and may be upset by it. Addressing the requests of grieving parents is easier when administrators can refer to a school policy. Decision makers need to remember that their primary concern should be about the surviving students that are left in their care. Otherwise, saying no to a memorial can be misinterpreted as the school not caring or being insensitive.
While they discourage full-page dedications, I think an administrator could have come up with some kind of compromise. As you can see, saying no to a memorial can be misinterpreted as the school not caring or being insensitive.
A tasteful mention and a small dedication to the children who passed might have been a good compromise. Explaining to the students that a request like this must be handled very delicately makes sense. Coming up with a solution that does not glamorize suicide but also allows their grieving friends to remember their friends should have been a priority. I’m sure the parents and students who’ve had to go through this immense amount of pain are mindful, and in no way want to glorify suicide.
SAU16 students have been going through a tough time since COVID19 lockdowns. Even more so than other students who were able to go back to school before them. I worked with the parents to try to reopen schools based on the emotional toll it was taking on some of the students. Parents were begging and pleading with school officials, and board members. to ease the restrictions on masks once they returned. Their focus was on the well being of their children, but many of them felt like their concerns were falling on deaf ears.
If this district is truly committed to the well being of the students who attend, then start looking at how these issues are dealt with. In life we have to compromise. We have to find a reasonable solution so all parties have been heard. Where is the leadership? Why does everyone have to battle this school in order to find a solution to a problem?
13 Suicide and Crisis Intervention Hotlines to Call or Text When You Need Help
The post School Administrators Deny Students a Memorial Page in Their Yearbook appeared first on Granite Grok.
…tell’em “Up Yours” like I used to tell the Treehugger denizens that were always screaming how badly we Americans were polluting the oceans and killing all the fish, whales, and corals.
They based themselves on that “factoid” – which tells you how off-based they are:
Note that there are NO Western nations mentioned. None. Yet the Enviros keep yammering how WE are filling up the ocean with plastic stuff.
It’s nothing but Guilting you. Like everything else that the Left wants to control -> control your emotions, they get to control you.
(HT: ZeroHedge)
The post Data Point – The Next Time Your Enviro-“Friend” Tells You That the US Is Biggest “Ocean Plastic” Polluter… appeared first on Granite Grok.
We learned that when Republicans show up and stay for the session, we can stop bad bills and move along good ones. That was the main theme throughout the 2-day voting marathon. Apparently, we were still unable to stop some very bad bills, too (read on).
We learned that HB639 – cannabis legalization – passed 234-127 in the House and will now move onto the Ways and Means Committee. They will no doubt give great scrutiny to the claim of how much revenue, and also cost to the State, this program will yield. The plan is for the NH Liquor Commission to handle the regulation and administration of cultivation, manufacture and sale of cannabis statewide. This bill still has a long way to go – you might want to grab some munchies while you wait to see what happens.
We learned that some bills won by landslide votes. One such bill was HB272 – which would increase charter school funding. That bill passed 348-11 with the Speaker saying, “I don’t think I have to vote on this one!” It’s refreshing to see that not all votes are ties or near ties.
We learned the House was kind to fire fighters, police and retirees. We passed HB250 (260-103) giving group II fire fighters and police better death benefits. We passed HB436 (282-80) that made several changes to the NH Retirement System, one of which was to restore pension benefits of 1731 Group II employees from a tiered decrease when vesting rules were changed in 2011. This “righted a wrong” of a retroactive law that was passed in 2011. We also passed HB571 (192-167) which is an $84 million Cost of Living increase for Group II employees. It was an expensive morning on 2/22/23.
We learned that the House passed Medicaid expansion for certain postpartum health care services. HB565 passed 184-179. We did kill HB574 (185-179) – which would have re-established a supplemental nutrition program for WIC (Women, Infants and Children) which would have given $30 to program recipients so they can purchase food at farmer’s markets. It was a failed program that not very many people utilized in the past and would have cost taxpayers $300,000. SNAP benefits accomplish the same thing anyway. Now it’s just one less bill for Finance to consider.
We learned that there will not be an establishment of a State hourly minimum wage. HB 57 died a death when Ought To Pass failed 178-183. A Tabling motion after that also failed 183 No-180 Yes… and then when the ITL motion came up it passed on a voice vote after the speaker said “the ayes have it 183-180”. He could just tell that because the Yes votes were 3 votes louder, and also based on the previous tabling motion.
We learned that private well owners will be given assistance from a newly established fund, to replace, repair and/or treat their private drinking water sources, based on their ability to pay, in the event of a natural disaster. That bill, HB534, passed 179-177. Well now, that was close.
We learned that a committee will be established to study the issue of unmarried cohabitants, domestic partnerships, and common law marriage in NH with HB 151 passing 199-155. I was not married to this idea at all.
We learned that the “nipple bill”, HB 160 – relative to the public display of the chest – died 223-129. It would have interfered with local municipal ordinances. Interesting to note that public display of the chest is not a violation of state law, but we are a Dillon’s Rule State and what is seen in Hampton Beach is not necessarily what people might want to see in Conway – or vice versa. Unless you check local ordinances, you may want to keep your shirt on.
We learned that HB191 died 237-121 and that would have allowed unwanted firearms to be destroyed by the authorities. It would have been a great way for criminals to dispose of weapons used in a crime. You’d just be able to murder someone and then turn the gun in and have the police destroy the evidence for you! 121 state reps thought that was a great idea! One of them was Rep. David Meuse (D- Portsmouth). Gun grabbers prove again that they are a criminal’s best friend.
We learned that lesser penalties for driving without a valid license was passed. HB 201 was voted OTP 190-165. The bill changes the penalties of driving without a license to a violation (instead of a class B misdemeanor), unless the person is convicted a second time in a 12 month period. Proponents claim this will help new immigrants or visa holders, who are just learning our laws, the economically challenged, single mothers and other poor souls who don’t carry a valid drivers license. The claim this will save them from going to court and unburden our court system. Also, they say it will prevent these poor individuals from having to check a box on a job application that indicates they have had a criminal charge.
We learned that the effort to establish a committee to study loan forgiveness (HB45) died 312-43. Apparently, another committee, the Public Higher Education Study Committee, is already studying this “important” work.
We learned that after many motions, HB601 passed 205-151. This was relative to state participation in the Medicaid direct certification program for free and reduced priced school meals. Despite parents and students not wanting their information shared, regarding their Medicaid status, it looks like that will happen anyway if this gets passed and signed into law. Would you like Federal strings with your reduced lunch fries?
We learned that worth noting was the vote on HB196 – establishing a commission to review and make recommendations about campaign finance laws. It was tabled by a whopping 339-7 majority!
We learned that the House supports our farming community. They passed HB252 with a vote of 266-84. This would exempt farming activities from local municipal noise ordinances. This helps farmers who need to do their work early in the morning or late at night. The Democrats tried to remove agri-tourism activities from the exemption, with an amendment failed 176 No-164 Yes. They don’t like farmers who offer their site for weddings, hayrides, moon walks, or fundraisers, even though those are means for those farmers to supplement their income and help them keep afloat.
We learned that the retirement age for judges was raised from 70 to 75. CACR 6 was voted 321-27. A 3/5 majority was needed to pass this. The selling point from Rep. Lynn (R-Windham) was his rhetorical question regarding the average age of House members… and how many of us assembled here should be retired because of “diminished capacity”… hmmm… good question and point well taken.
We learned that a bridge in the town of Merrimack will be named after former Speaker of the House, Rep. Dick Hinch. That was by a vote of 356-4 on HB20. It was a roll call vote and you can see for yourself who voted NO.
[ NOTE: Skip here – I did it for them, Judy: Josh Yokula (R-Freemont), Sherry Dutzy (D-Nashua), Eric Gallager (D-Concord), and Ellen Read (D-Newmarket) ]
We learned that the HCR1 bill for an Article V Convention of State resolution failed 198-150. Originally an OTP recommendation from the State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs Committee, that got flipped to an ITL after the OTP vote failed 156 Yes-192 No and a tabling motion also failed 163 Yes – 184 No. Other House Resolutions also failed having to do with supporting federal gun bans and supporting the Statehood of the District of Columbia.
Finally, we learned again that attendance is everything this term!! On Thursday afternoon the House got its first real taste, this session, of what happens when Democrats have a majority in the chamber. Democrats led a direct assault on education freedom and voted to raise New Hampshire energy rates. They did this by removing HB234 and HB430 off the table, when they knew they had the advantage in numbers, and successfully passing both bills. Earlier in the day (at 1:08pm) Rep. Lucy Weber (D-Walpole) attempted to take HB 234 off the table and that was met with a tie vote 175-175 (with the Speaker voting). When they saw their numbers at 2:17 pm later in the day, they did it again and took it off the table with a 177-169 vote. It was mayhem after that.
HB430 is a bill which attacks the Education Freedom Account Program and will require kids to attend a public school for a year before applying for an EFA. HB234 has to do with how unused Renewable Energy Credits are redeemed, and if the bill is implemented it will make energy costs much higher for NH consumers. The magic numbers were 170 and 176. Republicans fell 6 votes (or so) short with every motion, when the Democrat shenanigans of pulling bills off the table began, and it underscores the fact of how close these numbers in the House chambers are. Our only saving grace is that these bills will go to Finance and come back to the House for a second vote. Let’s pray Republicans show up and fight in round 2… otherwise we’ll have to depend upon our Senate and our Governor to save us from bills like this. I’d be remiss if I did not give a big shout out and Thank You to the Republicans that came out and stayed despite the snowstorm.
The post So Kids, What Did We Learn From This Week’s House Session (Feb 22-23)? appeared first on Granite Grok.
On this date in 1852, Pope Gregory VIII introduced his new calendar—the one we all use today. In 1868 US House of Representatives voted 126 to 47 to impeach President Andrew Johnson. And in 2022, Vladamir Putin Invaded Ukraine.
February 24th is Flag Day in Mexico, National Tortilla Chip Day (US), Tartar Sauce, Skip the Straw, and Trading Card Day. It’s also Friday Fish Fry Day, and I hate Coriander Day. If you are Romanian (or identify as one), it’s Dragobete Day. (?)
Today’s Morning MailDragobete, a traditional Romanian observance, is celebrated on 24 February each year, 10 days after Valentine’s Day, and is a day dedicated to love and nature. With the month of February marking the onset of spring, all of nature itself seems to be in celebration, as birds begin to mate and build their nests during this time. For that reason, this day is also known as the day when ‘birds are betrothed’, and, in turn, this promising sign inspires Romanian youth to pursue their own future ‘mates’. Why the name Dragobete though? Legend has it that he was the son of Baba Dochia, the goddess who ushered in spring, and because of his unending kindness, he was blessed by the Virgin Mary, to be the guardian of love.
TRUMP
Massacre Averted Thanks to Armed Citizen – Freedom Headlines
Republicans refused to fix our elections after 2020 & then 2022 happened. – Kari Lake/Twitter
Arizona teacher tells lawmakers that parents are unqualified to oppose LGBT propaganda in classrooms -LifeSite News
‘Reverse Woke Act’ That Would Force Employers To Cover Detransition Care – Daily Wire
The First Country Built on “Critical Race Theory” – Officially Implodes – Revolver
Cyber Attack on Produce Giant ‘Dole’ Shuts Down Production Plants in North America – Gateway Pundit
WWII-Style Rationing Needed to Fight Climate Change – Breitbart
Radical Black Activist Angela Davis Learns She Is Descended From A Mayflower Passenger – Daily Wire
The post The Morning Mail – Feb 24th, 2023 appeared first on Granite Grok.
Pull Quote (emphasis mine):
Wilcox says the “striking” thing about the survey results is that “the happiness gap is very large between conservative and liberal women….this is in part because conservative women are more focused on family life and in part because conservative women are more religious. In other words, cultural differences between the two groups of women are key to explaining ideological gaps in life satisfaction, family life, and marital status.”
Another snippet
Conservative women “enjoy a 15 percentage-point advantage over liberal women in being ‘completely satisfied’ with their lives,” he noted at the website of the American Enterprise Institute. “31 percent of conservative women in this age group are completely satisfied with their lives, versus 16 percent of liberal women.”
Wilcox attributes the difference to conservative women’s greater likelihood of marrying and feeling “happy with their family life.”
“In other words, it seems that the happiest women in America today are those least likely to be following the profoundly self-centered and anti-family catechism of our ruling class,” Wilcox says.
In other words, being Normal and traditional sets the stage for happier lives. There’s another report that I have bookmarked somewhere that the number of single women are increasing more and more Liberal. And I bet within their cohort, the question keeps getting asked “where did all the good guys go?”.
Heh! Now you have the answer (in part). They are looking for those that aren’t forever kvetching about their lives.
(H/T: Liberty UnYielding)
The post Ladies, Want to be Happier? Become Conservative! appeared first on Granite Grok.
Dominion Voting systems have been the whipping boy (girl, non-binary-genderless-carbon-based life-foom) of the election integrity folks for years. Dominion got mad and finally sued FoxNews, and how’s that going?
Discovery is a bitch, as they like to say. Defendants get access to all sorts of information (unless they are being sued by Michael Mann), Bits and bites, and this or that, and in the Dominion Case, Lawyers for Fox have found some golden tickets.
Dominion’s products are buggy, suck, and a complete F—up, and the company does not address weaknesses effectively. And that’s from the Director of Product Strategy and Security.
Do Y’all feel better now about your electronic vote tabulating machines?
“Beckstrand,” the brief continues, “identified specific instances in Georgia and North Carolina and testified that a Dominion machine was ‘hacked’ in Michigan” and “confirmed that these security failures were ‘reported about in the news.'”
No worries. Even coming from Executives at Dominion, this is all just a conspiracy—nothing to see here.
One more point. As a reminder, none of this has anything to do with overturning any elections, especially that 2020 presidential disaster. A court can’t change that. But a court can expose the internal disaster and, in the process, provide evidence that future elections are at risk.
If counting every legal vote matters, this is not something we can ignore.
HT | Just The News
The post Dominion Voting Systems Sued Fox News and Look What the Discovery Cat Dragged In … appeared first on Granite Grok.
Remember way back when Obamacare was passed? The GOP said they opposed it … would replace it … REPEAL AND REPLACE!!! … yet another damn lie from the GOP Establishment. Hat tip to my dear friend Mikey Graham at NH-NeverTrump Journal for a post he’s got up about the NHGOP Senate’s push to make OBAMACARE Medicaid expansion permanent.
In case you had forgotten, Mikey reminds us that:
Gov. Sununu worked with legislators in 2018 to deliver a five-year reauthorization of Medicaid Expansion
Actually, it was much worse than that … Sun-King and his legislative minions CODIFIED virtually all the rest of OBAMACARE too … that is, they made Obamacare … which the GOP was going to REPEAL AND REPLACE until in 2016 they actually got the ability to do so … state LAW in New Hampshire. Such LIARS.
Mikey’s post is instructive because it reveals the people/groups supporting OBAMACARE Medicaid expansion:
Extending Medicaid to low-income Granite Staters has been economically beneficial to the state’s hospital system, according to Steve Ahnen, president of the New Hampshire Hospital Association. …
Business & Industry Association President and CEO Michael Skelton said keeping Medicaid expansion in place is good for businesses … “Hospitals and other caregivers avoid catastrophic loss of revenue and employers and employees across the state will benefit from individuals being healthy enough to work.”
All the talk from the NHGOP about LIMITED GOVERNMENT, INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY, etc. etc. etc. is just that … TALK. There is no Republican Party in New Hampshire … it’s a corporatist party … you will own nothing (i.e. be dependent on government for everything) … and be happy.
The local Koch organization is actually on the right side … my side … on this issue, which I guess reminds us that even a broken clock is right a couple of times a day.
The post It’s Not Just The House NHGOP Making New Hampshire BLUER … The Senate NHGOP Is Too appeared first on Granite Grok.