At this point, any honest and serious discussion about the 2020 election is about HOW rigged it was, not whether it was rigged. And now we have evidence that the scale of mail-in voting fraud was massive … 20 PERCENT of mail-in votes were fraudulent.

So, if you were wondering how Biden did better in New Hampshire than Hillary, now you know. The Biden regime likely owes its “winning” New Hampshire to NeverTrumper Chris Sun-King Sununu and his loyal wingman Gordon MacDonald, who came up with the scheme to allow no-excuse mail-in voting.

Footnote: MacDonald’s reward for helping to rig the election? He was made Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

 

WHOA: Heartland/Rasmussen Poll: One-in-Five Mail-In Voters Admit to Committing at Least One Kind of Voter Fraud During 2020 Election
–17% of mail-in voters admit that in 2020 they voted in a state where they are “no longer a permanent resident”
–21% of mail-in voters admitted…

— Peter Schweizer (@peterschweizer) December 12, 2023

The post And Yet MORE Evidence That The 2020 Election Was Thoroughly RIGGED appeared first on Granite Grok.

I just finished listening to a webinar by the School Funding Fairness Project. Their whole approach to ‘funding’ (which focuses on fairness in spending while totally ignoring fairness in education) is based on two misconceptions.

The first misconception is that the state constitution requires the state to provide each student with an adequate education.

The second is that the state constitution requires ‘uniform taxation.’

The first misconception, I’ve written about elsewhere, but to recap:

Article 83, which is the basis for the Claremont decisions and for the recent Conval decision, says that seminaries and public schools are to be ‘cherished.’  So if the state can’t fund, operate, or regulate seminaries, it can’t do those things for public schools either. Which is to say, the state has no financial responsibility to do anything about public schools, and, in fact, is prohibited from pretending that it does. That’s the sort of thing a fifth-grader can figure out but which routinely escapes law school graduates.

Also, Article 83 says that ‘Free and fair competition in the trades and industries is an inherent and essential right of the people and should be protected against all monopolies and conspiracies which tend to hinder or destroy it.’  The courts have decided that this means it’s the state’s job to fund, operate, and regulate a monopoly to destroy competition in the industry of education.

The second misconception is perhaps even more insidious. You can verify for yourself that the word ‘uniform’ appears nowhere in the state constitution, whether in reference to taxes or anything else. And note that even if the constitution did require taxes to be uniform, that just means that everyone pays the same amount.

But the court (1) pretends that there is a requirement for uniformity and (2) conflates a uniform tax with a uniform tax rate.  Here’s the difference.

Consider three citizens: Manny, Moe, and Jack.  They own properties worth $100 thousand, $1 million, and $10 million, respectively. Now imagine that there is a need to raise $3,000 by taxing them.

Under a uniform tax, each of them would pay $1,000.

Under a uniform tax rate, Manny would pay about $27, Moe would pay about $270, and Jack would pay about $2700.   This is practically the opposite of a ‘uniform tax.’  (It is, in fact, Marxism. Remember back when that was something to be fought?)

So, to sum up. The courts have invented a fictional right to an education and elevated it above an actual right to free and fair competition; they have decided that the best way to protect people against monopolies is to set one up;  they have invented a fictional requirement for uniform taxes; and then decided that this requires uniform tax rates.

I got started in public speaking (and writing) by asking (a variant of) this question:

If the courts aren’t going to take the state constitution seriously, why should any of us — especially those of us who are serving in the legislature — take the courts seriously?

Shenanigans like this illustrate clearly and dramatically why we shouldn’t. And situations like this provide a perfect opportunity for the legislature to remind the courts that the branches are co-equal.  The judicial branch is not, like the pigs at Animal Farm, more equal than the other branches.

A phrase you often hear among siblings is:  You’re not the boss of me.  This is exactly what the legislature needs to say to the courts.  If you agree with me, contact your representatives and let them know that they have your support to tell the courts that the state constitution means what it says, not whatever the courts want it to.

The webinar ended with a plea for sympathetic listeners to ‘harass your representatives’ on this issue, specifically to do whatever the courts tell them to.  So you know your representatives will be hearing from them.  They need to hear from you, too.

The post Uniform Nonsense appeared first on Granite Grok.

As promised in Monday Memes, I have an overflow. Friday is guaranteed – at least from a stockpile of memes POV.

Let the mayhem, mockery, and ridicule resume:

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

Ordering a Pizza in 202?:

– Hello! Gordon’s pizza?

– No sir it’s Google’s pizza.

– So it’s a wrong number?

– No sir, Google bought it.

– OK. Take my order please ..

– Well sir, you want the usual?

– The usual? You know me?

– According to our caller ID, in the last 12 times, you ordered pizza with cheeses, sausage, thick crust

– OK! This is it

– May I suggest to you this time ricotta, arugula with dry tomato?

– No, I hate vegetables

– But your cholesterol is not good

– How do you know?

– Through the subscribers guide. We have the result of your blood tests for the last 7 years

– Okay, but I do not want this pizza, I already take medicine

– You have not taken the medicine regularly, 4 months ago, you only purchased a box with 30 tablets at Drugsale Network

– I bought more from another drugstore

– It’s not showing on your credit card

– I paid in cash

– But you did not withdraw that much cash according to your bank statement

– I have other source of cash

– This is not showing as per you last Tax form unless you got it from undeclared income source

-WHAT THE HELL? Enough! I’m sick of Google, Facebook, twitter, WhatsApp. I’m going to an Island without internet,where there is no cell phone line and no one to spy on me

– I understand sir, but you need to renew your passport as it has expired 5 weeks ago..

Welcome to the future

 

Coming a lot sooner than you think.  Consider this bit of news from Dubai:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/dubai-in-2024.mp4

 

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

 

 

 

Not a problem.  IMHO it’s crap anyway.

 

 

 

Brings to mind this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No matter how many times I see graphs like this – assuming they’re true of course – that show just how interconnected they all are, I’m still surprised.  Even though I shouldn’t be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the Post:

 

 

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

 

Palate cleansers:

 

 

If I have to have this make me stay up at night, so do you.

—

 

That’s a week on the couch for sure.

—

 

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

 

Come back on Friday for more memes.  Same meme time.  Same meme channel.

 

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

 

The post Meme Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

Governor Chris Sununu has decided to kill the presidential aspirations of Nikki Haley, not that she hasn’t tried to do that herself. Sununu endorsed her as his pick for President this week, just six weeks before New Hampshire’s First in the Nation Primary.

 

 

I’m confident that the Sununu homers think Haley is just dreamy. She has that DC political elite insider vibe. Darling Nikki also has the Neocon donor class money, but I’m unsure how many Sununu homers have already picked someone else. Not everyone waited that long, and Chris Christi is getting his support from somewhere. He has passed DeSantis in at least one poll.

(Related: Night Cap: Why Nikki Haley Is The Neoliberals’ Favorite Republican)

Trafalgar Group, with whom I’m unfamiliar, released a sampling yesterday showing Trump still way ahead at 45%, Haley at 18, Christie at 14, DeSantis at 11, Ramaswamy at 10, and Hutchinson at 0%.

Haley could do well here if Independents buy in on the Sununu Schtick, but while we’re on the subject.

 

Haley and Sununu are milking the moment, but Sununu slipped up. As he rambles down the list of everyone who needs to vote for Haley, he starts to say ‘Democrats,’ then catches himself. Too late.

 

Nikki Haley and Chris Sununu are bringing a whole new meaning to the term ‘Republican in Name Only,’ by encouraging Democrat voters and Democrat donors to help decide the Republican nominee. Chris Sununu knows Democrats can’t vote in the Republican primary—it’s illegal! Granite… pic.twitter.com/WmPT0fJZh2

— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) December 13, 2023

 

Democrats meddling in NH primaries is a contentious topic, so take that however you’d like, but the point Sununu is trying to make is this. Haley can’t win the Republican nomination with Republicans. She needs anyone with a heartbeat to make it to the polls.

What’s next, Chris? Asking out-of-state tuition-paying college kids to vote for Haley? It’s not like you’ve tried to prevent them from meddling in our elections. Maybe start an edibles for Haley get out the vote drive. You will have to compete with Dems trying to get them to write in Biden. They should write in Hunter Biden, but let’s not get lost on that point again.

Don’t expect much. Haley’s base is shared with Christie and DeSantis to a much smaller degree. Ramaswamy isn’t so much a not-Trump. Vivek has been working the DC outsider lane, picking up people who like the idea of Trump (disruptor) but can’t yet openly support the real thing.

The fun begins in Iowa in five weeks and in New Hampshire the week after, and it will likely be over on paper by early March.

I expect Chris Sununu to be disappointed, but he stuck to his promise (for a change) and refused to endorse Trump, which I’ve said would have done more to advance his goal than picking anyone else.

The primary clock is ticking.

 

The post His Excellency Endorses Constitutional Threat, Nikki Haley for President appeared first on Granite Grok.

Similar to President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu has become an irritant to the globalist brigade. How dare he call for not only victory but one which includes the last dead Hamas butcher when victory is now considered passé? It’s just no longer the objective!

Ever wonder why America settled for less in Korea and Vietnam when the latter even lacked a navy or an air force? From the victorious ashes of WWII, a different purpose of war emerged in which a more practical conclusion won out over the finality of a traditional victory.

Talk of eliminating the threat source is not now a possibility within certain circles. Aside from the military or national security angle, there is the more commanding “bottom line,” which, from a practical angle, more than justifies it since eliminating the threat equates with eliminating future business potential. With the globalist mindset, threat potentials can be business tools but can also represent an additional asset for gaining, even controlling, the public’s attention.

This craze for “civilian safety, which formerly was termed “collateral damage,” may now be the clarion call for playing fair in war! In addition, public heartstrings need plucking to the point that it’s now viewed as a life-saving (humanitarian) exercise. Conveniently, no mention that it effectively stymies Israel’s military assault from annihilating Hamas since the capabilities of the terrorists are limited to “first strike” or “hit and run” tactics.

We want to thank Jim Bowman for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
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Returning to Israel’s protector, Netanyahu, his intention would end any future Hamas danger while proving to the world the merits of achieving a victory. Lastly, from a military perspective, this cease-fire only offers an opportunity for Hamas to regroup and refortify.

Here at home, America’s uproar once again can be found on her campuses. It’s a replay of the sixties when condemning the war was the rage on campus. This time, their misdirected angst unbelievably centers upon the forces that are justifiably retaliating against those who attacked without cause, ravaged and killed the innocent and helpless.

With this misdirected rerun, America’s next crop of leaders is being once again instilled with the same American hatred that has been proven to last a lifetime since today’s reckless and, in some cases, treasonous leaders were the voices of protest from a few decades ago.

So, with this system now providing its worth, not only will it become engrained into the campus experience, but it will also guarantee the preservation of the tools for violence, which translates into business and influence. With such staying power, all that is missing is UN recognition!

Is it any wonder that this web, which today’s evildoers are re-weaving, would target the nationalism of Trump and Netanyahu? Hence, love of country is targeted, while global profits and its future control remain alive.

As events unfold, there is a smugness appearing from Israeli’s bending to this humanitarian outcry, which is nothing more than the global repackaging of blackmail mixed with public intimidation. This sad drama should be a lesson to our American military as far as their potential abuse from no-win confrontations.

In to this state of affairs, the necessity for loyalty and proven leadership once again becomes substantiated as an essential quality in any candidate running for our American Presidency. This was the norm before the revisionists, and silver-tongued orators arrived, of which their natural or more appropriate venue has always been those sawdust-laden carnivals. Their cotton candy pitching is no match for dealing with the world’s evil regimes.

Was Patton politically correct or mild-mannered? Today’s enemy is not only ruthless and brutal but business-driven and directed. There’s only one leader with a capable and proven track record, and he’s gruff and convincing enough to prevail in this cruel and greedy global arena!

 

The post The Concept of Victory appeared first on Granite Grok.

From “the things we already knew” file, Consumer Reports has found that “Electric vehicle owners continue to report far more problems with their vehicles than owners of conventional cars or hybrids, according to their newly released annual car reliability survey.”

 

The survey reveals that, on average, EVs from the past three model years had 79 percent more problems than conventional cars. Based on owner responses on more than 330,000 vehicles, the survey covers 20 potential problem areas, including engine, transmission, electric motors, leaks, and infotainment systems.

“Most electric cars today are being manufactured by either legacy automakers that are new to EV technology, or by companies like Rivian that are new to making cars,” says Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports. “It’s not surprising that they’re having growing pains and need some time to work out the bugs.” Fisher says some of the most common problems EV owners report are issues with electric drive motors, charging, and EV batteries.

 

Consumer Reports is, for the record, focused on the vehicles themselves and notes that owners did not report issues with home chargers but the cars and their batteries. Nor was it their mission or perhaps even their remit to get lost on the esoteric issues like lifetime emissions reductions that fail to account for the electric source or the vehicle’s beginning or end of life.

EVs are not great for the Environment.

We won’t revisit those here, but you can sift the 240-plus far-from-flattering articles we’ve published on EVs if a trip down memory lane suits you.

Hybrids came out as the winners in this report. Owners reported fewer problems than their combustion-only equivalents. I’m not advocating any vehicle with a lithium battery fire-trap in it, but the transportation transition folks should have stuck with those. Hybrids cost less to make than EVs, augment existing technology, and even manage to get better gas mileage than their gas-only counterparts. Not all. Not all the time. Some fuel-powered vehicles get outstanding mileage without any risks to the planet or the owner associated with a lithium power pack of that size.

I drive a Honda that can get 50+ MPG on the highway, and others do that and better, though they are much smaller, lighter, and offer much less protection in a collision. You can’t tow or haul with them, and that might have been an excellent place to do a Hybrid instead of an EV. Trucks. EV trucks are little more than a virtue signal driveway ornament for people who want to drive a truck but don’t need one. A Hybrid pickup is more practical as a transition innovation, but none of that mattered to the politicians and activists, and we know why.

They aren’t trying to get us all to drive EVs. They are trying to get us all riding bikes or public transport. Car makers only ventured down this path because of government-enforced fleet range mandates and financial incentives. But at the end of the day, the dealer has to manage the unruly customer, reliability issues, and the real problem of working on damaged EVs, which are an enormous fire risk and whose repair costs a small fortune.

One positive outcome, we can hope, is that people who were not paying attention but who read consumer reports (and who might be herded into thinking an EV was a good idea) will avoid EVs altogether. That market is already soft as startups collapse, investment in EV technology wanes, and legacy car makers announce a shift toward more conventional combustion vehicles.

They should leave the market to TESLA and work on improving mileage and emissions technology. It might also be in their best interest, especially the auto workers and their unions, to stop voting for Democrats. They want to end the car industry, and the sooner you work that out and vote for someone else, the longer you’ll get to keep your good-paying American job.

 

The post Consumer Reports: EV Owners Say Their Cars are Unreliable appeared first on Granite Grok.

(Concord, NH Dec 11, 2023) New Hampshire Right to Life (NHRTL) issues the below comments on ads run by Democratic Presidential Candidate Terrisa Bukovinac that portray the reality of late-term abortion set to air tonight [0,1].

Jason Hennessey, President of NH Right to Life, said: “Many Democrats like Bukovinac are disgusted by the extreme push of their party leaders to legalize abortion through birth. We share the horror at seeing the reality of these violent and dangerous acts against mothers and their children.”

A 2022 Harvard/Harris poll showed that 90% of Americans disagree with legalized abortion through birth[2].

NH Right to Life is New Hampshire’s largest and longest-standing organization dedicated to the pro-life cause.

0: https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/11/pro-life-democrat-running-biden-will-air-graphic-explicit-pro-life-ad-nbc/

1: https://granitegrok.com/blog/2023/12/breaking-dem-presidential-candidate-to-run-graphic-anti-abortion-ads-tonight-on-nbc

2: Page 41, https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/HHP_June2022_KeyResults.pdf

Contact:
Jason Hennessey
New Hampshire Right to Life
(603) 230-8136
life@nhrtl.org
https://nhrtl.org

The post NH Right to Life Responds To Presidential Ads Portraying the Reality of Late Term Abortion appeared first on Granite Grok.

In today’s global economy, understanding and adhering to international tax regulations is paramount for businesses operating across borders. Complex and ever-changing tax laws can pose significant challenges, but they also offer strategic financial planning and growth opportunities. This article breaks down six crucial aspects of navigating global tax regulations, providing insights and strategies for businesses to optimize their international operations. Each section aims to unravel a piece of the global tax puzzle, helping businesses stay compliant and competitive.

Understanding Different Tax Jurisdictions

The first step in navigating global tax regulations is understanding the tax laws of each country in which your business operates. Each jurisdiction has its own set of tax rules, rates, and compliance requirements. Businesses must stay informed about these differences to avoid penalties and maximize tax efficiency. This includes understanding corporate tax rates, sales taxes, withholding taxes, and any other local tax obligations. Staying updated with the latest tax regulations in each jurisdiction ensures informed decision-making and strategic planning.

Leveraging International Tax Treaties

Many countries have tax treaties with other nations to avoid double taxation and encourage cross-border trade. Understanding and leveraging these treaties can significantly improve business compliance and tax efficiency. These treaties typically outline reduced tax rates and exemptions available to businesses operating in the signatory countries. By effectively utilizing the benefits of these treaties, businesses can minimize their tax liabilities and enhance their competitive edge in international markets. Businesses must consult with tax professionals who are well-versed in these treaties to ensure they fully benefit from the available provisions.

Outsourced Accounting Services Are the Solution for Managing Global Tax Compliance

As businesses expand globally, managing tax compliance across multiple jurisdictions becomes increasingly complex. One effective solution is to utilize outsourced accounting services. These services offer expertise in international tax law, ensuring that businesses remain compliant with the tax regulations of each country they operate in. Outsourced accounting services can handle various tasks, from preparing and filing tax returns to advising on cross-border transactions and transfer pricing. They keep abreast of the latest tax law changes, providing businesses with up-to-date advice and strategies for minimizing tax liabilities. By outsourcing these complex and time-consuming tasks, businesses can focus on their main operations, secure in the knowledge that experts are handling their tax affairs.

Transfer Pricing and its Implications

Transfer pricing, which is the practice of setting prices for transactions between companies within the same corporate group, is a critical element in international taxation. Incorrect transfer pricing can lead to significant tax penalties and damage a company’s reputation. Businesses must ensure that their transfer pricing policies comply with the arm’s length principle, meaning that the prices are consistent with those that would be charged between independent enterprises. Developing a robust transfer pricing strategy involves thorough documentation and a deep understanding of the regulations in each jurisdiction, helping to avoid disputes with tax authorities.

Tax Planning for Digital Operations

The digital economy has introduced new challenges in international taxation. Digital services often transcend traditional borders, raising questions about which country has taxing rights. This has led to the introduction of various digital services taxes and changes in international tax rules. Businesses need to stay ahead of these developments to ensure compliance as well as optimize their tax positions. As the saying goes, “Everybody wants to rule the tax world,” but navigating the digital taxation landscape requires careful planning and an understanding of the evolving international tax environment.

Staying Ahead of Tax Law Changes

The international tax landscape is continuously evolving, with frequent changes in laws and regulations. Staying informed about these changes is crucial for businesses to remain compliant and competitive. This involves regular monitoring of tax developments in all jurisdictions where the business operates. Companies can leverage technology, professional networks, and external advisories to keep up-to-date with these changes. Proactive adaptation to new tax laws can prevent compliance issues and enable businesses to take advantage of emerging tax opportunities.

From understanding different tax jurisdictions to leveraging international tax treaties and from managing transfer pricing to adapting to digital taxation, businesses must be well-equipped to handle these challenges. Outsourcing accounting services can provide the expertise needed for managing global tax compliance, allowing businesses to focus on growth and innovation. Staying informed and proactive in tax planning is not just about compliance; it’s a strategic business decision that can lead to significant competitive advantages in the global market.

The post Navigating the Complexities of Global Tax Regulations appeared first on Granite Grok.

Amid the mind-rape called the COVID-vaccine rollout, a “coalition” of ‘partners’ – people on the profitable end of the COVID-19-cash money laundering list, created a website called Healthy 603 Coalition.org. Its mission was to launder approved narratives into enabling legislation.

 

The Healthy 603 Coalition is a non-partisan group of Granite State small business leaders, health care professionals, advocates and activists. All with the common goal of providing fair and accurate information to help create a healthier, safer New Hampshire.

 

I can’t speak to its success. There was so much institutional political and media support fed by the same pool of money that adding this alleged .org seems like a waste of time and resources, which it must have been. They’ve not updated it in a very long time. Their Facts vs. Myths page is…a little out of date.

 

 

This one is by far the most interesting. First, the vaccine wasn’t rushed (they had it already), but the safety and testing process barriers were. No one denies this. Operation Warp Speed was about getting a mass-produced “cure” into human arms with as little safety monitoring as possible. The complete initial list of side effects was not released to the public as part of ensuring informed consent from Myocarditis to Pericarditis and COVID-19 until long after the needle-in-every-arm folks had 50-70% compliance (and the reality could not be ignored). They still tried to ignore it while pillorying anyone who said, “But look?”

From before Day 1, this thing was unsafe and ineffective, and they knew it might not prevent infection or spread, all of which proved true. Because of these lies, the vaccinated, with their damaged or weakened immune systems, became super-spreaders.

The institutional safety monitoring apparatus ignored, hid, or buried safety signals visible to anyone who stopped listening to the propaganda and looked. And that’s just the beginning of everything wrong with this claim.

 

 

The crap in the mRNA gets into cells by design to create spike proteins that travel all over the body and into organs. Some recipients never stop making spike proteins, and there has been a rise in out-of-control cell growths nicknamed turbo cancers. Children are getting them. This appears to be a product of IgG4 antibodies whose release is exacerbated by the mRNA COVID vaccine. While you may still be able to say the mRNA isn’t rewriting DNA, it is stimulating cellular response to such a degree that healthy people, healthy kids – who were never at risk from COVID but were lined up and injected anyway – are watching their body attack itself until they die.

 

 

There is no COVID-19 vaccine per se, but as noted above (getting COVID-19 is a known side-effect of the vaccine), since admitted by national health organizations and demonstrated in peer-reviewed research, the COVID-19 vaccine makes you more susceptible to COVID-19, and the vaccinated have proven this to be true. It never prevented infection or spread; it made the potential for it worse. Actual public policy ensured that the vaccinated would get infected and spread COVID.

From a pre-vaccine launch FDA presentation, COVID-19 disease is the first Adverse Event of Special interest.

 

 

More recent research has also uncovered how mRNA,  “in addition to the toxic “spike protein,” mRNA vaccines have a weakness that introduces “read errors,” making vaccinated individuals produce nearly random proteins with unknown and unpredictable effects.”

We also have more news out of New Zealand, where thousands of public health officials were granted exemptions from the COVID Vaccie mandate, potentially because of a 2019 paper in an Oncology Journal that reported on how,

 

“…gene therapy has been caught in a vicious cycle for nearly two decades owing to immune response, insertional mutagenesis, viral tropism, off-target activity, unwanted clinical outcomes (ranging from illness to death of participants in clinical trials), and patchy regulations.”

Gene Therapy?

 

 Typically, DNA, mRNA, siRNA, miRNA, and anti-sense oligonucleotides are the genetic materials used for therapeutic delivery into a defective target cell or tissue to restore a specific gene function or turn off a gene responsible for disease or disorder development (35).

 

Perhaps it is time to take this ridiculous website down because we know that you know you cannot now tell the truth. If you saw the data or admitted you’d seen it, you would have to stop pimping these things and admit they are counterproductive, debilitating, and deadly.

Exit Question: Did your state our county have one of these, and is it still up and lying to the public?

 

The post Night Cap: Healthy603Coalition Needs to Update Its Lyin’ Pro-COVID-Vaccine Website, or Take It Down. appeared first on Granite Grok.

One of the ongoing tensions embedded throughout the years of efforts by mainly Western governments to subsidize their desired energy transition into existence has been the tension between these desires of the ruling class versus the demands of the global energy market.

Past efforts by governments in the West or any other part of the world to intercede in energy markets to produce desired outcomes have pretty much always resulted in epic failures and energy crises, and the prospects for this current multi-trillion-dollar charade do not appear to be shaping up any differently. (RELATED: Leaked Docs Show Arab Petrostate Wanted To Use Climate Summit To Strike Fossil Fuel Deals)

This reality set the writer of a special preview of Fortune’s CEO Weekly Europe Newsletter off on a bit of a rant this week, one that left him admittedly “wistful for the bygone era of state-owned energy companies.” The central conundrum at hand is that the biggest oil companies in Europe do not appear to be conforming their business priorities with the stated policy positions of the central planners at the European Union and of various European governments.

The stated policy positions by the EU and countries like Germany and the U.K. — and obviously preferred by Fortune’s writer — advocate that these big oil companies should be focusing their future capital investments on buying up and developing wind farms, solar arrays, building batteries and engaging in other “green” energy projects. Yet these big companies — the writer cites Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies as examples — insist upon continuing to allocate the great majority of their capital budgets to invest in the things in which oil companies tend to invest, like drilling wells, finding new reserves and transporting and refining oil and natural gas-related products.

Matter of fact, all three of those companies announced significant strategic shifts in 2023 in which they pledged to invest an even larger percentage of their capital budgets in their core oil and gas businesses for two simple reasons: 1) to meet rapidly rising global demand for oil and gas products, and 2) because those core business projects are so much more profitable than spending billions of euros on buying wind farms and solar arrays.

Go figure.

Fortune’s writer laments this disconnect between government edict and companies pursuing actual profits in this remarkable paragraph:

“This situation is problematic because the following two things cannot be true at the same time: that Europe pursues a policy of rapid decarbonization, betting that this creates prosperity for its people and that its largest companies continue investing in fossil fuels for the sake of their stakeholders.” (RELATED: STEPHEN MOORE: Climate Change Is Taking Over Common Sense)

What the writer ignores is what the central planners also studiously ignore, which is the fact that companies like Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies are not charitable organizations. They exist in the first place for one driving reason, which is to generate profits for their shareholders by producing products that are desired and needed by the public at large.

If European governments wish to convert Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies into renewable energy companies, then the task at hand for the central planners is to find a way to create a situation in which investing billions of euros in capital generates higher profits than investing the same capital in those companies’ core business enterprises.

Obviously, just enacting hundreds of billions of euros and British pounds in tax breaks and subsidies for the preferred kinds of energy projects hasn’t done the trick, has it? Nor have efforts by central planners to render the finding and producing of oil and gas and their related products increasingly difficult and costly via overbearing regulation managed to tip the scales.

The problem there is that oil companies tend to be quite nimble and adaptive by nature and always seem to find ways to continue doing their business despite the regulatory state’s best efforts. Quite inconvenient, that.

Thus, in the end, we invariably arrive at the admission by this writer that he longs for the return of state-owned energy companies. Because, surely, the central planners can do a far better job of running and managing companies and better provide the needs of billions of human beings for affordable and reliable energy than the market can provide.

This writer at Fortune was just saying the quiet part of and driving philosophy behind this energy transition out loud.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

 

David Blackmon | Daily Caller

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The post Saying The Quiet Part About This Utopian Green Energy Transition Out Loud appeared first on Granite Grok.

In late October, to scare people right before Halloween, Pfizer issued a press release reminding recipients of its COVID-19 vaccines that there was an increased risk of heart injury after injection. No Sh!t, Really?

 

Pfizer issued a press release Friday afternoon stating definitively that mRNA covid vaccines “show increased risks” of myocarditis + pericarditis. pic.twitter.com/BQ70xDIhJ0

— Antonio Sabato Jr (@AntonioSabatoJr) October 23, 2023

 

This has, of course, been fact-checked, and guess what? The fact check insists Pfizer has warned us about the risk of heart damage since 2021. And you could say that’s accurate. Before Emergency Use Authorization, the FDA knew about the risk of injury or death, including complications from Myocarditis and Pericarditis, but they pretended the risk of death from COVID was greater. (Related: New Research Suggests Evidence of Permanent Heart Damage to Some Adolescents Who Got COVID-19 Vaxx).

Long before the Vaxx-push, we knew that was not the case. A sliver of the population was at risk of Hospitalization or death, and those under 20 had nearly zero risk of even getting the virus or spreading it. What followed was a fear campaign pushing mandates and ostracizing anyone who opted out, and we don’t need that fact-checked. We lived it.

That press release isn’t telling us anything new. It is not an admission of wrongdoing. I’d go so far as to say it isn’t a definitive admission in any new sense. They admitted the thing was crap, and it could kill you from go. There was no informed consent. If you’d known, you’d have likely said no, and you’d have certainly not jabbed your kids or disowned relatives over, or been relieved of your job. No one in their right mind, at least. The left mind is another matter.

What would be new is if COVID-19 apologists admitted that these details were hidden from the public. Admit the level of deception, from safe and effective to incomplete package inserts to health risks from COVID or the vaccine. The fraud was systemic and institutional, and millions were harmed and many killed as a result.

That would be something, but it’s not anything we should expect from anyone who received money to pander to the lies in the approved narrative. And there were a lot of them.

 

 

The post When Pfizer Reminded Us That their Thing Could Damage Your Heart appeared first on Granite Grok.

Here’s what we know so far: Harvard President Claudine Gay has been accused of plagiarism by copying the work of others, inserting it into her Ph.D. thesis, and not acknowledging it.

This is called “academic fraud”.

If anyone else had done this and had been discovered, they would have had their Ph.D. revoked, and their academic record would indicate that they cheated.  If they were in a position of leadership and responsibility in a large multi-billion dollar company, they would probably be transferred somewhere out of the limelight and then quietly “let go.”

But not Ms. Gay.

I won’t speculate on why she isn’t being punished for stealing ideas at a university and calling them her own.  Nor will I speculate on why she’s being given a chance to “correct the record” and “modify” her Ph.D. accordingly (which is a tacit admission that her Ph.D. should never have been granted in the first place).

It seems like Ms. Gay is being treated with “kid gloves.”  I won’t speculate on why (he wrote, feigning naivete).

But the sad part of this episode is that it now confirms the fact that Harvard both approves and encourages falsifying academic papers.

So now, the question is: “How many other Harvard graduates received Ph. D.s for work that wasn’t their own?”

As they say, if there’s smoke, there’s fire.  Ms. Gay’s actions were the fire, and the Harvard Corporation (the BOD) decided to allow the fire to burn in an uncontrolled manner.

It may not happen now.  It may take years.  But Harvard’s action in not disciplining Ms. Gay for obvious and provable academic fraud calls into question whether a Harvard degree – at any level – is worth the paper it’s printed on.

 

The post Academic Fraud is Now APPROVED at Harvard appeared first on Granite Grok.

Trouble has followed Sara Catherine Jones since she married into the Biden family almost three decades ago. Not long after her 1995 wedding to Jim Biden, she took a job with one of his brother Joe’s Senate donors, who later accused her of “fraud” and “unjust enrichment,” according to court records reviewed by RealClearInvestigations.

In the years since, she and her husband have been accused of reneging on debts and failing to pay their taxes, court and property records show. Like their nephew, first son Hunter Biden, they have reportedly sold the promise of access to their powerful relative to companies, several of which have gone bankrupt, some of which are tied to foreign countries hostile to the United States.

Now, Sara Jones Biden has emerged as a key figure in the mushrooming Biden foreign influence-peddling scandal.

GOP lawmakers seek to question the 64-year-old licensed attorney as part of their investigation of President Biden for possible impeachable offenses, including bribery. They are especially interested in subpoenaed bank records that include almost a quarter million dollars in checks Sara Biden wrote to her brother-in-law Joe, conspicuously marking them as “loan repayment.” Republicans want to ask her about the origin of those loans and whether checks “were funded by Biden influence-peddling schemes with China.”

“The Committees require you to provide details of these payments and other related matters,” the chairmen of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees said in a joint letter they sent to her last month demanding she make herself available for a transcribed interview. In addition, they sent a subpoena to her husband for testimony and information.

Although Hunter and Jim Biden’s questionable business dealings – and their possible blessing from the president – are drawing increasing scrutiny, Sara Biden has drawn little attention until now. But court records and other documents show she has been a central player in the Biden family business for decades. They show how her and her husband’s desire for a lifestyle they could not quite afford has repeatedly led them to form relationships with shady figures and enterprises that often ended in lawsuits and even criminal investigations.

Looming over it all is Joe Biden. Documents recently obtained by government watchdog America First Legal, under a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal that Sara and Jim’s main business, the Lion Hall Group, shows up in more than 3,735 emails generated by the former Vice President Biden’s office. The sheer volume of communications concerning his brother and sister-in-law’s business appears to contradict Biden’s repeated claims over the years that he was never involved in, or even aware of, his family’s business dealings.

A Match Made in Kentucky

Sara Biden’s links to Joe Biden date back to the early 1990s, when she landed a committee job with his close personal friend, Sen. Wendell Ford, a Kentucky Democrat.

“Sen. Ford has been an important part of our family for a long time,” Joe Biden said after Ford died in 2015. “He gave Sara Jones Biden, from Owensboro, Ky., her first job on the Hill when she graduated from Duke Law School, and that’s how she met my brother Jimmy.”

Jimmy and Sara weren’t just sweethearts; they were also business partners – with a taste for high living.

In 1997, Sara and Jim Biden formed the consulting firm Lion Hall Group with the help of Joe Biden’s old law partner, David Walsh, who acted as their registered agent, according to incorporation records they filed with the Delaware Department of State.

That same year, they bought an expensive home in the Philadelphia suburbs and struggled to make payments on the $650,000 mortgage, records show, even though a longtime Democratic fundraiser for then-Sen. Biden, Joel Boyarsky, loaned them as much as $200,000. In 1998, the IRS filed its first lien against their home to collect $145,000 in unpaid taxes.

In 2000, they borrowed $353,000 from another Biden donor – Leonard Barrack, a Philadelphia attorney who a few years earlier had agreed to hire Sara Biden at Jim’s urging for $300,000 per year, according to court and other records. Barrack would soon regret helping them out.

According to a lawsuit he filed against Sara Biden four years later, Barrack said Jim had convinced him that by hiring Sara as a partner, the Bidens would be able to attract clients to his law firm through their political connections.

“Jim Biden assured Barrack that he would be able to generate business for the Barrack Law Firm through his family name and his resemblance to his brother, United States Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware,” according to the 2004 complaint filed in Philadelphia County, Pa.

Instead, the document said, Sara Biden developed business opportunities for Lion Hall Group, where she served as president, a potential conflict of interest she allegedly never disclosed to Barrack.

The law firm, also known as Barrack, Rodos & Bacine, further alleged that she used its resources, including a travel budget, for personal benefit. The lawsuit said Sara Biden spent almost $250,000 to travel with her husband to Hawaii and Alaska and across Europe, including England, Ireland, France, and Italy. They even brought their son, Nicholas (now 26), and a nanny on some of the “lavish” trips.

“Contrary to Sara Biden’s representations, none of the foregoing trips generated any business for the Barrack Law Firm,” the suit stated. “The Bidens never intended to generate business opportunities for the Barrack Law Firm during their travels, using the trips instead for personal pleasure and to develop opportunities for Lion Hall.”

The couple also allegedly received a total of $500,000 in loans before Sara left the firm in 2003. These salary advances were never repaid, according to the legal complaint. The case, which charged Sara and Lion Hall Group with “fraud,” “unjust enrichment,” and “breach of contract,” was eventually settled. The terms are undisclosed.

Sara Biden did not respond to requests for comment. However, in a law publication profile, she asserted that she “co-founded” the Barrack law firm’s “institutional development and claims monitoring program.” Barrack apparently was unaware she was pursuing other outside interests while allegedly looting his firm.

In 2000, then-Vice President Al Gore and HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo announced a new $2 million partnership with NorthPoint Communications to help “bridge the digital divide” by providing broadband Internet access to more than 800 low-income urban neighborhoods.

Looking for political juice to help it win the licenses needed from the FCC for telecom development, NorthPoint invited Sara Biden to join its board, along with Hunter Biden. At the time, Hunter served as executive director of e-commerce policy at the Commerce Department, a Clinton-appointed position. It’s not known if his Aunt Sara did any lobbying for Northpoint, but Federal Election Commission records show that in 2000, she gave $1,200 to Northpoint’s PAC – People for Digital Competition.

Sara Biden does not appear in federal lobbying disclosure records as a registered lobbyist. Northpoint filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

Several years later, another Biden donor retained her and Lion Hall Group to lobby Sen. Biden and other senators for passage of a bill to help resolve tobacco-related medical claims. Although the bill, which Joe Biden supported, died in the Senate, the donor who pushed it – famous Mississippi trial attorney Dickie Scruggs – introduced Sara Biden to two associates, also Biden donors, who proposed bringing her into a potentially lucrative venture, according to legal documents.

Mississippi lawyers Steve Patterson and Timothy Balducci were looking to build a Democratic lobbying firm in Washington with global reach, and offered to make Sara a partner in the firm, which they planned to call “Patterson Balducci & Biden.” But the deal fell apart when Balducci and Patterson were indicted on federal bribery charges in an investigation that also ensnared Scruggs. After all three men went to federal prison, Biden was forced to return their donations.

Sara and her husband had more trouble with the IRS in 2013 when the agency slapped them with another lien for unpaid taxes, this one totaling $589,000. They also faced state and local tax liens, property records show.

The couple had just purchased a $2.5 million luxury vacation home in Naples, Fla., which the entire Biden clan, including Joe, used. But they racked up debt renovating the home – dubbed the “Biden Bungalow” – and went in search of more bailout money.

Owing a combined $700,000 in tax and vendor liens, they quickly found another Joe Biden supporter to rescue them. Over the next few years, millionaire car magnate and major Biden donor John Hynansky of Delaware floated Sara and Jim Biden “loans” totaling $900,000, records show.

During this same period, as then-Vice President Biden was the point person for U.S. policy in Ukraine, a federal lending agency – OPIC – authorized loans Hynansky’s company used to build a 7,300-square-foot Porsche dealership along the highway that connects downtown Kyiv to the Boryspil International Airport.

Mortgage records initially reported Jim and Sara Biden’s lender as “1018 PL, LLC,” obscuring Hynansky as the source of the loans. But the corporate entity is controlled by Hynansky, a 2018 document would later reveal.

The Bidens sold the waterfront house for a loss in 2018, and Hynansky released his lien on the property. However, Hynansky did not acknowledge full payment and satisfaction of the loans, according to the details laid out in documents recorded in Collier County, Fla.

Hynansky wasn’t their only white knight.

As the Bidens struggled to find money to pay contractors for hurricane-related repairs on their beach home and find a buyer for it, they went back to Joe’s old cronies from Mississippi. One of them, Mississippi lawyer Joey Langston, who had been sentenced to three years in federal prison for improperly trying to influence a judge, introduced them to the founder of Americore Health, who needed money to aggressively expand his chain of rural hospitals. Jim invoked his brother’s influence and said they had the political clout to drum up investment money, according to court documents and published reports. Impressed, Americore not only hired Lion Hall Group but loaned Jim and Sara Biden $650,000 for their personal use, even as the company hemorrhaged cash. The funds could have been used to help the company’s failing hospitals, which had to lay off hundreds of employees after Americore failed.

As soon as the couple received their loan payment, however, they stepped back from the venture, and the promised investments never materialized, according to a lawsuit filed against Jim Biden and Lion Hall Group by Americore’s medical partners after it went bankrupt in 2019. In a declaration, one plaintiff described Jim Biden as a con man who repeatedly made false promises “on the Biden’s [sic] family name.” According to a recent court filing, Diverse Medical Management and Azzam Medical Services, which hoped to manage Americore hospitals, claimed “Biden and his wife, Sara Biden,” made false assurances during a dinner they held at their home near Philadelphia that funding for the venture was forthcoming.

Meanwhile, Americore trustees have tried to claw back the $650,000 from the Bidens in bankruptcy court. An attorney for Jim Biden maintains that his client recently repaid Americore half the amount to settle the dispute.

After rural hospitals were forced to close their doors in Pennsylvania and other states, the FBI stepped in to investigate the Americore debacle as part of a criminal fraud investigation. While agents have questioned witnesses about Jim Biden’s role in the collapse, according to multiple reports, it’s unclear if his wife has been questioned. She did not reply to inquiries.

Around the same time the couple was raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from the crooked hospital deal, Hunter Biden was sending hundreds of thousands more to his Uncle Jim and Aunt Sara – and impeachment investigators on the Hill hope to question Sara about the origin and flow of these funds.

Starting in the summer of 2017, Hunter began sending large wire transfers to Sara and Jim’s Lion Hall Group – some of which ended up in Joe Biden’s bank account. The source of the funds was CEFC China Energy, a Chinese conglomerate tied to Chinese military intelligence. After a year, Lion Hall had received $1.4 million from Hunter Biden.

On Aug. 14, 2017, Hunter Biden wired $150,000 to Lion Hall after receiving $400,000 from a joint account he held with CEFC. On Aug. 28, 2017, Sara Biden withdrew $50,000 in cash from Lion Hall’s account. Later the same day, she deposited it into her and Jim Biden’s personal checking account, according to bank records subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee. On Sept. 3, 2017, Sara Biden wrote a check to Joe Biden for $40,000 for a “loan repayment,” exactly 10% of the $400,000 – matching a “10 held by H for the big guy” arrangement Hunter had made for Joe in the Chinese venture that was discovered in emails from his abandoned laptop.

Another personal check to Joe made out in Sara’s handwriting, this one for $200,000, was cut on March 1, 2018 – the same day Jim Biden got an equal amount from Americore. “Loan repayment” was also filled in for the memo line of the check.

If there were in fact loans between Joe Biden and his sister-in-law, the White House has not explained the reason for them or provided any details about their terms, such as the interest rates charged. A White House spokesman has only said that the release of the bank records is part of “a smear campaign against the president” by Republican investigators.

“There is nothing more to these transactions,” said Paul Fishman, a lawyer representing Jim Biden, “and there is nothing wrong with them.”

However, the wire transfers raised red flags with Hunter’s bank, Wells Fargo, which asked about their “purpose” and also questioned the recipient, the Lion Hall Group. The bank noted the owner, Sara Biden, is a “relative [and] the address appears to be a residential address,” adding, “What is the business type?”

Unsatisfied with Hunter’s explanations, the bank flagged the transactions as potential financial crimes, including money laundering, prompting the U.S. Treasury Department to issue a series of suspicious activity reports.

When her bank asked Sara Biden about the large transfers, she claimed the payments were for international consulting work (neither she nor her husband is registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents). However, she refused to provide any supporting documentation. The bank, in turn, closed the Lion Hall account, according to a 2020 Senate report.

Impeachment investigators tell RCI that they have subpoenaed related bank records from Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, and Cathay Bank, in addition to Wells Fargo.

The Senate report noted that Jim and Sara Biden also benefitted from a $100,000 line of credit a CEFC executive opened for Hunter Biden in September 2017. After credit cards were issued to Hunter, as well as his uncle and aunt, they went on “an extravagant global shopping spree.” Records show Hunter, Jim, and Sara Biden used the cards for plane tickets, hotel rooms, and electronic devices, among other things.

House impeachment investigators tell RCI that Sara Biden, who acted as an apparent financial conduit, may hold answers to whether the president also benefitted from the Chinese largesse as part of a “foreign influence-peddling scheme,” which they say could “compromise his decision-making and threaten national security.” They also seek to find out how much interaction Biden has had with her business, the Lion Hall Group, while in office.

Congressional investigators suspect that Lion Hall, which was incorporated by Joe Biden’s old law partner, was set up to act as a pass-through vehicle to launder possible bribes to Joe Biden. They point out that Biden’s Mississippi donor pal, Joey Langston, pumped almost $200,000 into Lion Hall for unspecified services while Biden was vice president. According to subpoenaed Lion Hall bank records, Langston Law Firm Consulting Inc. began wiring money to Lion Hall within weeks of Langston losing his appeal in February 2016 to have his conviction for bribing a judge thrown out. A federal judge also turned down his petition to have his criminal record cleared. Records show that between March 2016 and October 2016, Langston made four payments to Lion Hall totaling $187,000. Investigators have asked Langston to come in for questioning and explain the nature of the payments. Attempts to reach Langston for comment were unsuccessful.

 

Paul Sperry | RealClear Wire

 

The post Who Is Sara Biden? Joe’s In-Law Emerges as Central Figure in Foreign Cash Deals appeared first on Granite Grok.

Former US Senator Kelly Ayotte left DC after one term to land on the boards of a bunch of different companies, including “BAE Systems, Caterpillar, Bloom Energy, Blackstone Group, News Corp., Boston Properties, and Blink Health, as well as the advisory boards of Microsoft, Chubb Insurance and Cirtronics.”

No one would be surprised to find people with deep pockets who happen to have an interest in or are part of the companies supporting her run for Governor of New Hampshire. Not because there is value in a small state governor. Ayotte was and continues to be groomed for much higher office, and I don’t mean the US Senate.

As a one-term US Senator, she was managed by the likes of John McCain and Lindsey Graham as a future GOPe standard bearer. With only a few years in office, her name was dropped as a potential vice president pick. When she lost her re-election by a handful of votes rather than contest it and get back into the US Senate in support of a president the Deep State GOPe didn’t like, she gracefully conceded.

Ayotte became the popular rhetorical blonde, landing on large corporate boards where she was made familiar with an even wider range of insider interests and individuals.

The thinking behind this seems evident to me.

Kelly is not running for Governor to keep New Hampshire ‘New Hampshire.’ She is running at the behest of her sponsors because a governor makes for a much more appealing VP candidate in 2028 than some one-time Senate candidate. A governor also makes for a much better Presidential candidate in 2028 or 2032 (assuming we’re still electing them by then).

Yes, there’s a story to be told about all the outside money, but it is impossible to run for higher office in a small state without it. Almost no one can run and win at any level above the NH House on local money alone. But the outside money is not the story. It is what that cash is trying to buy.

Yes, it wants to elect a governor, but not so it can influence a governor. That money wants future access to the Oval Office, and Ayotte is on somebody’s list for a future campaign as either a donor-directed VP or a candidate for President.

And yeah, the same crowd will take Nikki Haley this time around if you are curious.

That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

 

 

Disclosure: A majority of the board of the 603 Alliance endorsed Chuck Morse for Governor of New Hampshire, and I am a voting member on that board.

The post Why Kelly Ayotte’s Pile of Campaign Cash Has Nothing to Do with Her Running for Governor (Not Exactly) appeared first on Granite Grok.

This is an attempt to “break out” memes, links, and my commentary about the situation in Israel / the Middle East so as to not overload the standard meme posts that I do.  My last “normal” meme post.  In these Israel-related posts I don’t just have memes such, but lots of informative links as well as hopefully-insightful commentary.

Note that this is not meant to be a day-by-day update about what’s going on.  Rather, to highlight uncomfortable truths about the actual nature of the conflict, deep-history background, and so on, as well as to show the at-present immutable nature of Islamic Jew hate and why that matters to today’s events.

Note that these posts do not repeat information – so there is a lot of stuff in prior posts.  Please do check them out too if this is a topic of interest to you,  In reverse chronological order:

Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Still More Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Memes, Links, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Memes, Links, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: More Memes, Links, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Even More Memes, Links, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: More Memes, Links, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Memes and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Memes and Commentary – Granite Grok

With some Israel-related materials here:

Meme Overflow – Granite Grok

 

 

 

TOP OF THE FOLD

MEQ Features Bleak Assessment of Israel’s Oct. 7 Response :: Middle East Forum (meforum.org)

While the inflamed mood in Israel immediately after Hamas’ murderous rampage appeared to indicate that the conciliatory ethos would be a thing of the past, signs of a return to business-as-usual abound, from the resumption of fuel supplies to Gaza and an increase in Israel work permits for West Bank Palestinians to a hostage deal that disrupted IDF military operations in Gaza and helped ensure the bargaining process for future releases “will continue indefinitely.” Less than two months after October 7, “talk about destroying Hamas had nearly vaporized.”

Why the reversion? Pipes suggests that the Netanyahu government’s failures made it more vulnerable to myopic pressure from the Israeli public and scolding by foreign states. Avoiding future mistakes requires that Israelis “adopt a radically different attitude toward the Palestinians … and seek Israel Victory.”

—

Avi Shlaim’s Fantasy Land – Tablet Magazine

Shlaim’s idyllic vision, based on the social and economic mingling of upper crust Arabs and Jews in Baghdad during a brief period of time in the 1930s, is not a precedent or pointer to anything. My prediction? Were a one-state solution ever tried, it would collapse in anarchy and drown in rivers of blood, compared to which today’s violence is a mere trickle.

There is something of a utopian nature in us Jews.  We long for a return to Eden, having somehow forgotten that this is not possible.  Consider this idiot: Why I, as a Jewish member of MCSG, voted for resolution 13 – The Mac Weekly

 

I want you to consider how this level of delusion helps our enemies.

—

 

 

 

WAR & WHEN WILL IT END?

 

 

—

Not since the Yom Kippur war in 1973, has Israel been allowed to win a war (barenakedislam.com)

America too.  Vietnam was a watershed loss – not on the field, where we were winning, but in the minds of the people at home.  And it was a clear and bright lesson learned by all enemies.  And while the below is about America in war, it applies to Israel – and more broadly the West in general:

Afghanistan Vet: Every Enemy Knows How to Defeat the United States Now – PJ Media

In fact, we have abandoned everyone who has ever helped us in a major conflict since 1953. Since Vietnam, our adversaries have learned that all it takes to defeat the most powerful, technologically advanced military that has ever existed is to simply be patient. We think in two- to four-year election cycles, whereas our enemies think in decades to centuries. When you’re up against supersonic fighters, ten carrier strike groups, stealth bombers, and the most elite force on the planet, all you must do is wait it out. Poke and prod and kill enough Americans to keep the war on the front page of the news, and eventually, an election cycle will come up with the slogan: “Bring our boys home.”

Related to that:

This is Why America Forgot How to Win – Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish articles

In the real world, you win the war by defeating the enemy, not by winning the support of the people. Wars are not democratic elections and the battlefield isn’t a political campaign. When wars are run by politicians, the end result is a defeat that comes from never really trying.

Why don’t we win wars anymore? Listen closely to Austin, McChrystal and virtually every military head honcho in the last twenty years and the answer is obvious. We don’t set out to win wars by defeating the enemy on the battlefield, but on the battlefield of ideas. Our forces are led by a generation of politicians in uniforms who have been indoctrinated, beginning at the academy level, to think of wars as contests for the hearts and minds of enemy civilians.

…

Without a military leadership that understands the purpose of war, the next time we may not lose thousands, we could lose millions. And we could lose the United States of America.

IMHO the West in general.  Echoing the above, wars are won when the enemy is crushed and sues for peace.  Or dies.  Related:

Hamas calls on UN Security Council to end Gaza’s ‘brutal’ war – Insider Paper

UN invokes ‘most powerful tool,’ Article 99 on threats to international peace, to demand Gaza ceasefire (jihadwatch.org)

The moral collapse of the West – JNS.org

How Israeli forces take big risks to avoid harming civilians (nypost.com)

Everybody Is Upset About Civilian Casualties in Gaza, but Where Do the Numbers Come From? – PJ Media

Netanyahu calls out Western leaders for pressing Israel to end Gaza war | World Israel News

Hamas and the Arabs can always count on the useful idiots in the West to take its side and force an end to the war before they lose.

The End Is Nigh: Hamas Operatives Surrendering ‘In Large Numbers’ (jihadwatch.org) (bolding added):

What will Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif do as their Gazan empire crumbles around them? I think they’ll do everything they can to escape. If they should manage to slip away to Egypt through a tunnel, the Egyptians won’t return them to Israel but will promptly imprison them as members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas is the Gazan branch of the MB). If they can’t get out of Gaza, and don’t dare try to survive in the underground tunnels that may at any minute be flooded with seawater by the IDF, they’ll meekly surrender, or try to. Let’s hope that the IDF makes an exception in this case to its usual policy of taking alive those who surrender; Sinwar and Deif deserve special treatment.

I still think these leaders deserve the Jack Pershing treatment.  Publicly.

—

Iran warns of ‘explosion’ after US veto on Gaza war – Insider Paper

Not good.  And being deeply suspicious of the current administration, I would suspect that – while I support the veto – inflaming the world against Israel is an ulterior motive.  More:

Iran’s Regime Soon to Have Nuclear Bombs; Hezbollah Is Next :: Gatestone Institute

Stopping the Mullahs vs. Getting Them All Set Up :: Gatestone Institute

 

 

ISLAM: PRACTICES, HISTORY, AND MENTALITY

Why Did Hamas Attack Israel? – PJ Media

The absurd justification for Hamas’ atrocities against civilians that Hamas is fighting for land and orchards taken from them ignores the entire history of Islamic imperialism and the exterminationist approach that Muslims take toward people they define as enemies. Yes, genocide is an issue here, but it is the genocide that Hamas plans for Israelis and Jews around the world.

—

‘Life under Hamas is like under ISIS,’ says Syria-born journalist deported from Gaza | The Times of Israel

This person has personal experience.  So, naturally, expect her experience to be dismissed by the SJW set.

—

Why Are Islamists Claiming Non-Muslim Land? :: Gatestone Institute

Because Islam, ultimately, views the entire earth as its rightful due.  No less than every square attometer.  Especially if it was once, ever, held by Islam – as Israel was, as many lands were (italics replaced by underlining; link in the original):

Islamists believe that once a land has come under Islamic occupation and colonialism, the land conquered is forever Islamic. The Greek city of Thessaloniki, for instance, was once under Ottoman Muslim occupation. According to the official website of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, while it was under Ottoman rule (1430-1912), almost all Christian churches, parishes and monasteries were converted into mosques. Thessaloniki was liberated from the Ottoman Empire in 1912.

Islamic supremacists such as Erdogan believe that because Thessaloniki was once under the occupation of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, it is a Muslim land eternally and must be returned to its rightful owner.

More on that:

Why Are Islamists Claiming Non-Muslim Land? :: Gatestone Institute

And:

Brewing Islamic Storm: Geopolitical Fallout in India as Palestinian Conflict Sparks Alarming Rise in Calls for Ghazwa-E-Hind and Muslim Genocidal Aspirations Against Hindus (Videos) – RAIR (rairfoundation.com)

—

Hamas using safe zone in Gaza to fire rockets at Israel: reports (nypost.com)

“This is further proof that Hamas exploits the IDF’s humanitarian zone for terrorist activity,” the IDF said.

The IDF published a graphic showing the locations of the rocket launches from al-Mawasi, as well as an image showing a rocket launcher.

Of course.  Hamas wants Israel to retaliate, to create more camera fodder.

—

Some history of Israel regarding 1964 (rumble.com)

Rumble video on my channel.  It echoes a video of Golda Meir who was being interviewed and said “Pull back to the borders of 67 and there will be peace…  we were at the borders of 67, why was there war”?

 

 

—

Israel’s Work Permits for Gaza Enabled the Hamas Attack – Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish articles (link in original):

The Hamas invasion succeeded so well because the terrorists had an intimate knowledge of the communities they were targeting because they had worked there or had intelligence from those who had worked there. The attackers had detailed maps and building layouts. One woman whose husband and son were murdered said that the Hamas terrorists knew the names of the people, how many children they had and even which of them owned dogs.

…

There’s no win-win scenario with Islamic terrorists: there is only a win-lose scenario. Anyone who thinks that they’re in a win-win scenario with those who want to kill them has already lost.

And that’s the thing about the utopian mindset of many people, including a staggering amount of Jews.  Repeating a video about the pro-peace, “Team Humanity” people who got slaughtered by the people they embraced and to whom they reached out, employed, and thought they had befriended:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Message-to-sjws.mp4

 

When someone says they want to kill you, believe them.

 

 

ATROCITIES

HAMAS savages using Israelis for target practice while the bodies pile up (barenakedislam.com)

Video.  I really want confirmation that this is Hamas using Israelis.  Note – horrific regardless, but confirmation would be good.  We cannot be so enamored with “proof” of what we want to believe that we ignore the required vetting process.

—

 

 

—

Nazis, Muslims and the Jews (israelnationalnews.com)

Berl Katznelson, the foremost leader of Labor Zionism until his death in 1944, was a witness to Arab massacres of Jews in the 1920s and 1930s. He referred to “the Palestinian Nazis who succeeded to unite here in [Eretz] Israel the zoological antisemitism of Europe and the lust for the dagger of the Orient.” The connection between Nazis and Palestinian Arabs led the esteemed songwriter Naomi Shemer to offer a remarkable insight:

“Arabs like their murder hot, moist, and steamy, and if they will ever be free to fulfill themselves, we [Jews] will yearn for the good sterile gasses of the Germans.”

One only need look at the horrors Islam has perpetrated – not just on Jews but all its conquered peoples – to understand what will happen if Israel succumbs.  Related:

HAMAS BARBARIANS shot Israeli female soldiers in the crotch and breasts as part of ‘systemic genital mutilation’ (barenakedislam.com)

PURE EVIL: Hamas depravity that defies comprehension (barenakedislam.com)

Jew are considered “filth” to be killed:

Brigitte Gabriel – short ship on Islamic view of Jews (rumble.com)

Video at my Rumble channel.  More:

Jews are “human waste,” Europe and the US will do anything to keep them in Israel, says Palestinian political commentator

Related:

Savages – Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish articles

Civilizations have become too sophisticated and decadent to understand such concepts. When faced with barbarism, they go down a dialectic rabbit hole that explains the savages in terms of how civilized people interacted with them. Did they hurt their feelings, overthrow their governments or draw mean cartoons? Did capitalism leave them adrift in the world economy? How did we fail to integrate the newest generation of immigrants with all the welfare checks?

These sophomoric sessions are pointless. A hyena doesn’t eat your chickens because you failed to integrate it. That’s just what hyenas do. Man at the base state is a predator and savages strive to be the alpha predators. Civilizations become superior predators because they provide room for arts and sciences, because they think about something other than how they are superior to their neighbors and will prove it by killing their sons and raping their daughters.

But when civilizations spend too much time thinking, they forget that one reason they came into being was to build something better than a state of savagery. Decadent civilizations internalize all the criticism and their peoples endlessly quarrel and think that the worst possible things in the world are the ones that exist among their own people. Savages remind us otherwise.

—

This is not about Hamas atrocities, but part and parcel of Islam itself:

Iranian security forces raped and sexually assaulted male and female protesters as young as 12 – with six victims subjected to gang-rape by groups of up to ten | Daily Mail Online

 

 

It’s Islam, Stupid – Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish articles

During the first siege of Vienna in 1529, when the invading Muslim horde decided that “children were cut out of their mothers’ wombs and stuck on pikes”, was that a protest against colonialism or capitalism? When a Muslim chronicle boasted that during the genocide against the Sikhs in the 18th century, “the shrieks of the women captives who were being raped, deafened the ears of the people”, was this a response to globalism or Zionism? Or was this just Islam.

Everything Hamas did during the bloody High Holy Days massacres has been done by Muslims throughout history and is still being practiced today. There is nothing new here whatsoever. Medieval barbarism never went away because Islam kept those grisly practices alive. It endures side by side with the modern world of smartphones, electric cars and AI because its worst crimes are an object of religious law and faith.

A Yazidi girl abducted by the Islamic State when she was only 12 described how the Jihadist who raped her explained to her that because she “practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it”. He “bound her hands and gagged her. Then he knelt beside the bed and prostrated himself in prayer before getting on top of her. When it was over, he knelt to pray again”. The girl begged him to stop, but he “said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to Allah.”

Meanwhile, an Iranian voice supports Israel (link to video):

An Iranian woman voices support for Israel (rumble.com)

 

 

ON INTERSECTIONALITY / LEFTIST SUPPORT

SICK. Presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn Tell Congress that Calling for the Genocide of Jews Does Not Necessarily Violate their Campus Code of Conduct – Unless It Leads to Actual Genocide (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

But if you dare misgender someone… or strip Hams fighters after capture:

Dozens of Hamas Terrorists Surrender. Can You Guess Who Isn’t Happy About It? – PJ Media

I guess capturing terrorists is not a good thing for these people. Seriously, it’s amazing, after what happened on October 7, that these men would actually have the audacity to complain about how Hamas terrorists are treated — especially when the reason these men have been stripped is to protect the Israeli soldiers from hidden explosives.

—

Flirtation With Evil Will Not End Well for Leftists › American Greatness (amgreatness.com)

It is curious how people romanticize evil and insanity. The habit, I believe, is born in part of naiveté, or at least inexperience. The college student who prances about in a T-shirt bearing the image of Che Guevara, for example, generally has no idea of what a malignant figure Che was, how treacherous, how cruel, how murderous. He sees only a handsome “freedom fighter” swaddled in the gauze of exotic Latin flamboyance. The grubby reality escapes her entirely. Ditto with respect to Hamas.

Related:

J Street Lobbies Against Israeli War on Hamas | Frontpage Mag

The Unhinged Among Us | Frontpage Mag

For the first time in their lives, many of the ignorant protestors suddenly professed concern about refugees, colonialism, disproportionality, innocent civilians, and the rules of war.

But none could explain why the Palestinians who fled Israel in 1947-48 still self-identify as victimized “refugees” when 900,000 Jews ethnically cleansed from Middle-East Arab cities about the same time do not.

The 200,000 Greek Cypriots driven out from norther Cyprus by Turkey apparently do not warrant “refugee’’ status either.

Victor Davis Hanson is always a must-read, and very insightful.  Speaking of useful idiot support of monsters:

Jewish woman kicked out of “Caliphornia” cafe after complaining about Jew-hating graffiti in the restroom (barenakedislam.com)

—

The depravity of the unholy alliance between Leftists and Islamofascists (barenakedislam.com)

Video embedded, about 10 minutes.

 

 

PALLYWOOD & MEDIA IN GENERAL

Everybody is Upset About Civilian Casualties in Gaza | Frontpage Mag

If you follow an asterisk down to the small print, you’ll see that the UN attributes its figures for Palestinian casualties in Gaza to the “Ministry of Health” and the “Government Media Office.” Which Ministry of Health? Which government? The UN doesn’t say, and its reticence on this point is likely due to the fact that the government and Health Ministry in question are those of Hamas in Gaza. The Guardian likewise attributes its figures to “the Gaza health ministry.” Yes, that’s right: the one that Hamas runs.

This would be like the New York Times during World War II reporting massive German civilian deaths in an Allied offensive and attributing its data to Josef Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry. Hamas obviously has very good reasons to inflate the number of Palestinian civilian casualties: the higher the numbers, the angrier Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Antony Blinken get, and the closer the Biden regime moves to cutting ties with Israel and isolating the Jewish state completely.

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/sometimes-civilians-get-hurt.mp4

 

Also to be found on my Rumble account:

Englishman speaking on civilian casualties (rumble.com)

Again, dead civilians make good CAMERA FODDER.

UN and Hamas: Partners in Crime :: Gatestone Institute

The propaganda campaign’s main aim – besides smearing Israel – appears to be to build overwhelming international pressure on Israel to agree to an indefinite ceasefire , which will give Hamas the needed time to regroup and replenish to continue its terrorist activities and to avoid being eliminated by the Israeli Defense Forces.

Remember, lying and deception are so entrenched in Islam they have separate terms for different means of doing so:

Taqiyya: Deception and Lying in Islam (thereligionofpeace.com)

Related is this video:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/urban-combat-casualties.mp4

 

Same video at my Rumble channel:

Urban combat fatalities – and the reality in Israel (rumble.com)

As is this one (link only):

2024 Oscars go to… Pallywood (rumble.com)

—

 

 

Somehow I do not see obesity as being consistent with “open air concentration camp”.  Also take a look here at what this journalist misses about Gaza.  Some “concentration camp” – link to video:

Gaza Journalist misses her home (rumble.com)

My great uncle, his wife, and their teenage son were murdered in Auschwitz.  Somehow I don’t think that place was like this.

I, and others, have pointed out multiple times that Gaza could be the Singapore of the eastern Mediterranean Sea.  Beautiful beaches, prime trade location, arable land…

—

No, There Has Been No Sixteen-Year Israeli Siege of Gaza (jihadwatch.org)

There has been no 16-year “siege,” but only a narrowly-tailored blockade of “dual-use” materials, such as cement and steel rods, that can be used to build tunnels and bunkers. The fact that there is not enough work in Gaza is hardly Israel’s fault; it is due entirely to the corruption and mismanagement by Hamas itself, three of whose leaders (Khaled Meshaal, Mousa Abu Marzouk, Ismail Haniyeh) have stolen from the aid meant for Gaza the colossal sum of eleven billion dollars. Israel has tried to alleviate the problem by providing well-paying jobs for 20,000 Gazans — a number it was about to increase before October 7, but of course since then, no Gazan workers have been allowed into Israel, given the belief that some of those guest-workers provided intelligence to Hamas about the layout of both kibbutzim and the house shelters, and the placement of security details.Contrary to Bartov, the Israeli “siege” never included food or medicine; Israel also had been supplying Gaza, until October 7, with food, water, and 50% of its electricity. None of this is taken into account by Omer Bartov. It is entirely possible he knows none of this, but more likely, he is counting on his audience not knowing.

This quote from fiction applies to reality:

“Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to believe, no matter the conflicting evidence.”

― Brian Herbert, House Harkonnen

—

Another video I uploaded with several people talking about “apartheid” in Israel.  The first woman is an Arab Muslim woman.

Arab Woman in Israel describes her experiences in “apartheid” Israel (rumble.com)

—

If not for their double standards, the Western and Arabic media wouldn’t have any standards at all (barenakedislam.com)

Two videos.  More:

HAMAS THREATS: ‘Cut off heads,’ ‘Slit Throats,’ and ‘Slaughter Every Jew on the Planet,’ isn’t worthy of media coverage in America (barenakedislam.com)

 

 

TERROR COMING TO THE WEST?

UK: Two women beat a Jewish woman unconscious as passersby ignore the whole thing (jihadwatch.org)

London 2023 has become Berlin 1938. And it’s not just London.

Coming?  It’s here.  More:Man Fires Shots Outside Albany Synagogue, Screams ‘Free Palestine,’ FBI Working to Find Motive (jihadwatch.org)  University of Pennsylvania’s Jewish students taunted on campus with chants of “We are Hamas” and signs that say “Jews are Nazis” (barenakedislam.com)

 

MARYLAND Muslim teacher put on administrative leave because of of her email signature that supports the genocide of Jews (barenakedislam.com)

—

Now ‘Jihadi’ Joe Biden wants to take in the 1.7 million Afghan illegal aliens that Pakistan expelled last month (barenakedislam.com)

And Palestinians.  And the already-ongoing stream.  Say, doesn’t a ban on immigrants from Muslim countries look good about now?

—

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/islamic-plans-in-france.mp4

 

Another French incident:

France: Muslim Migrant Stabs Elderly Couple With Butcher’s Knife Inside Crowded Mall Food Court | Frontpage Mag

 

TREADING ON THE POLITICAL

American Jews Never Learned to Fight Leftist Jew-Hatred – Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish articles

The actual Socialist, the actual USSR, hated Jews.  Why, then, the fascination and attraction?

The pact between Islam and the Left manifested once again in the response to the Oct 7 atrocities should be met the same way. The Left should be rejected the same way the Communists were. The ‘Communazis’ have been replaced by ‘Commuhamasniks’, but that is the only thing that has changed. American Jews must relearn how to fight this enemy.

—

David Sacks Explains Why Jews Are Becoming Republicans . . . Where They Belong (rumble.com)

Video, about 3 minutes.  I suspect a longer version exists.

—

Biden’s schizophrenic Middle East policy is disastrous – he vetoes anti-Israel UN resolutions, but lets Iran attack US forces 76 times without decisive military response | All Israel News

MHO?  Playing to make Jews think he’s on Israel’s side, while he’s actually not.

 

 

MISCELLANEOUS

POETIC JUSTICE: Prominent law firm rescinds job offer to Muslim attorney because of her support for Hamas (barenakedislam.com)

Hey, cancel culture works both ways.

 

 

GIVING SUPPORT TO ISRAEL

You can’t go wrong with a donation here:

Connections Israel

And please share this post far and wide.  There’s a lot of info here that many people don’t know.  Post it, email it, share widely.

Also, if you’re willing:

Buy Me a Coffee

 

A CONCLUDING THOUGHT FOR THIS POST

 

 

Weimar America – Victor Davis Hanson (victorhanson.com)

At Hillcrest High School in Queens, New York, hundreds of students rioted on news that a single teacher in her private social media account had expressed support for Israel. Waving Palestinian flags, and screaming violent threats, the student mob rioted, destroyed school property, sought the teacher out and tried to crash into her classroom—before she was saved from violence by other teachers and an eventual police arrival.

…

A pro-Israeli demonstrator in Los Angeles was hit on the head and killed by a pro-Palestinian university professor.

Jewish students were trapped in a Cooper Union university library surrounded by pro-Hamas demonstrators. At MIT, Jewish students were warned to keep away from particular areas of the campus deemed dangerous for them.

…

Once a society mainstreams the values of thuggish brownshirts, and ignores their “from the river to the sea” eliminationist chants and screams of “beat the f—king Jew,” then the next emboldened step is foreordained.

Familiariaze yourself with this.  Pin, in your own mind, where we are now:

 

 

I was listening to those Ivy League Presidents unable to answer a simple YES (or NO) to a question about whether calling for genocide and/or the destruction of an entire nation rises to an actionable item under their own codes.  The legalese bob-and-weave that they all did utterly disgusts me.

Universities Contextualize Calls for Genocide of Jews | Frontpage Mag

The students, of course, are no better:

Survey: Students Who Hate Israel the Most Know the Least About It | Frontpage Mag

I’ve seen students asked “Which river, which sea”? and they have no idea.  It’s the Current Thing, the trendy thing, and they have no idea what they’re supporting other than eeeeeevil colonizers being taken down.  But this is how it starts.  And we’ve seen how this ends.

Stop pretending otherwise.

Don’t let “Oh that’s just not possible” or “That can’t happen here” be what you continue to intone, mantra-like, until you get dragged from your home or worse.

Don’t be a TWENTY-NINER.

 

Nazi Book Burning

 

 

My transcription starting about 7:41, bolding added:

“…my mother who, when I asked her if we had to worry about a guy like Hitler, she said: ‘No, we are living in a Democracy, we have the protection of the police, nobody is going to hurt us’, so talk about warning signs there were plenty of them.  Did we take them serious, my family didn’t, never believed the Germans would stoop so low they would implement the threats one fanatic uttered…”. 

James Woods Advises Jews to Arm Themselves in Response to Shocking Poll – Twitchy

The post Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary appeared first on Granite Grok.

Some of the current Progressive stands taken by the Left cost them dearly in the pocketbook. That financial hit is the best way to get the attention of a Liberal. Some of the results of elections at home and worldwide are evidence that voters are anxious to get the radical liberals out of office.

It shows we are heading to a more moderate, even Conservative, place in politics.

First, look at two elections where voters might want a second chance. In Chicago, the Homicide Capital of America, Lori Lightfoot was replaced with, hard to believe, a more radical leftist, Brandon Johnson. In addition to the kill rates climbing, he has made other decisions that will further add to the decline of the Windy City. Chicago had a chance and blew it. They will not next time. (Related: Signs The Pendulum Is Swinging To The Right … Part 1)

In California, Gavin Newsom survived a recall election. You cannot find one parameter that indicates positive growth for the Golden State except for the salaries of the Los Angeles Dodgers. As bad as the gem of the West Coast has become, Gavin Newsome is considered the next Democrat in line for the White House. Newsome has to be the poster child for the Peter Principal. God have mercy on us if Newsom’s next stop is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

But some recent elections have moved their countries sharply right. Europe is not known to be a bastion of Conservatism, but the conservative Popular Party won the elections in Spain. However, it fell short of its hopes of scoring a much more significant victory and forcing the removal of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Instead, the party led by candidate Alberto Núñez Feijóo performed below the expectations of most campaign polls. A split ticket is a win for Conservatives.

Sweden and Norway have also seen Conservatives win in major political positions. Paraguay and Guatemala have also elected Conservative leaders. These countries have been known for their Liberal leanings for some time. That tide has changed and in a big way. We hope these hot spots become the epicenter for a Conservative wave.

The elections of 2023 showed the winning key for Liberals in our country. If any Abortion related question was on a ballot, Democrats came out in droves. Abortion is the hot-button ticket in politics, and Democrat candidates are riding the emotional power that Abortion conjures.

Sheila Jackson Lee was a force in Congress and left the House to run for Mayor of Houston. She thought the election was a slam dunk, but she was on the losing side of a landslide win by a more moderate candidate, state Sen. John Whitmire. Ms. Lee wasted no time announcing she would run to regain her seat in the House. Lee is a member of the aging Democrat party that has been in power far too long. The young Radicals are proving not to be worthy heirs, and people on both sides have tired of their hatred and disrespect for our country. The Squad may be the poster children for the Conservative rebirth. Representative Cortez was seen polishing her shaker!

 

The post Signs The Pendulum Is Swinging To The Right Part 2 appeared first on Granite Grok.

There is one and only one way to determine the “true cost” of an adequate education. That is to create a competitive education marketplace. Alas, that is not the approach New Hampshire has taken.

Instead, legislators have tried to set the cost by decree. Public school districts, asserting with some justification that the amount is too low, have asked courts to… set the cost by decree.

Now a court has done so, and the results are as absurd as one would expect.

On November 20th, Rockingham County Superior Court Justice David Ruoff ruled that the Legislature’s decreed amount ($4,100 per pupil; he excluded differentiated aid) was unconstitutionally low. But, he said, the plaintiff school districts’ asserted amount ($9,929) was too high. The actual minimum constitutionally permissive state per-pupil expenditure was, he figured, $7,356.01. 

Note the penny. Such precision carries the weight of both mathematical and legal certainty. 

Except, the entire number, including the penny, is merely a guess offered as a suggestion for legislators to consider because the court lacked enough information to find the true figure. So says… Justice David Ruoff.

“Although the evidence demonstrates that a base adequacy aid level of $7,356.01 would be constitutionally insufficient, the Court cannot set a higher threshold at this time,” Ruoff wrote. “Such a step is precluded by the limitations of the evidence presented at trial, as well as the involvement of certain policy considerations. The Court is confident, however, that the guidance offered here will empower the legislature to meaningfully consider and appropriately respond to the relevant issues.”

Well, glad that’s cleared up. 

How did Justice Ruoff conclude both that $7,356.01 was the minimum threshold of constitutionality and that he had too little information to make such a conclusion?

After reviewing the statutory and regulatory requirements for adequacy, and examining actual school district spending, he undertook the following policy analysis: 

He used “common sense” to guess that some district spending wasn’t essential for adequacy, lopped off an arbitrary percentage from some figures (without examining others that would be relevant, such as public charter school spending), and wound up with a back-of-the-envelope guess that can’t quite be called educated, but probably could pass as educated at a cocktail party if it didn’t talk too much. 

Justice Ruoff tasked himself with deciding three questions:

“[T]here are three inquires before the Court: (I) what are the necessary components or cost-drivers of a constitutionally adequate education, as defined by the legislature, exclusive of additional services provided to students eligible for differentiated aid?; (II) what funding is necessary for school districts to provide those components and cost- drivers?; and (III) how does that amount compare to the funding currently provided via base adequacy aid? As the third inquiry is a matter of simple mathematics, the evidence presented at trial largely focused on the first two inquiries.”

To answer these questions, Ruoff considered state requirements and district expenditures. At no point did the court consider whether there might be other, more effective, more efficient and less costly ways to satisfy the state requirements.

Damning for the decision is that the word “market” appears just nine times in the 69-page ruling. Plaintiffs use it to argue for higher teacher compensation, as competition for good teachers drives up wages, and the court uses it to argue that professional development funds are part of adequacy. 

The word is used to justify higher spending, never lower. That’s odd, given that competitive market forces have been shown to improve productivity and drive down costs in K-12 education. 

• A 2010 Harvard University Graduate School of Education study found that “competition from private schools boosts achievement and lowers costs.” According to the study, “a 10 percent increase in enrollment in private schools improves a country’s mathematics test scores on PISA by almost half a year’s worth of learning. A 10 percent increase in private school enrollment also reduces the total educational spending per student by over 5 percent of the OECD average.”
• A 2012 study of open enrollment policies in Wisconsin found that “schools respond to competitive forces by improving quality.”
• A 2003 study found that “regular public schools boosted their productivity when exposed to competition.” That productivity increase typically took the form of higher performance rather than lowered spending. Nonetheless, the study shows that schools can produce better results without higher spending when competition is introduced.
• A 2019 study of private schools participating in Wisconsin’s voucher program found that “private and independent charter schools tend to be more cost-effective than district-run public schools in the state overall and for the vast majority of individual cities.” Particularly, private schools received 27% less funding than district public schools overall but generated “2.27 more points on the Accountability Report Card for every $1,000 invested than district-run public schools, demonstrating a 36 percent cost- effectiveness advantage for private schools.”

Any examination of school spending that ignores chartered public schools and non-public schools is incomplete at best. And any that doesn’t even consider the effects that competition could have on the system is negligent. 

The understatement of the ruling came in Justice Ruoff’s caveat that he was hindered by the “limitations of the evidence presented at trial.” Those limitations, he acknowledged, prevented him from determining with certainty how much an adequate education should cost. But the limitations were greater than he realized. 

Not only did the court lack sufficient school district data to make an accurate cost determination, but it lacked equally important data on the efficiency gains created by competition. Going forward with an analysis despite such huge gaps in available data was a critical error. 

The ruling was plagued with numerous problems, the first being its roots in the wrongly decided Claremont decision. But even accepting the Claremont fallacy, the ruling was doomed by fatal methodological flaws and a devastating shortage of information. 

The information problem should have been obvious from the start. Prices are information. Prices absent competition are woefully inadequate information. Since no competitive education market exists in New Hampshire, the court is left applying legal analysis and back-of-the-envelope math to discover something that only the market can discover: the best available cost of a service. 

It’s clear that legislators set a low figure in the hope that this will press district spending downward. Districts, however, encourage local voters to approve ever higher budgets, which counters the Legislature’s intent. Districts then use those higher levels of spending to claim that the state appropriation is too low. Given these dynamics, it’s impossible to determine with any accuracy just how low district spending could go while meeting the state mandates for adequacy.

Until New Hampshire introduces some form of robust market competition, Granite Staters will never know what an adequate education really should cost. 

 

Andrew Cline | JBartlett

The post Markets, Not Judges, Set Prices, Even for Education appeared first on Granite Grok.

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs sent Joe Border Bender Biden a bill. She says he owes Arizona a 512 million dollar handling fee for illegal border crosser management. Those aren’t the words she used, but that’s what this is. She also wants more troops, not to stop the invasion but to manage it.

 

In a letter to President Joe Biden, Hobbs is requesting that the 243 National Guard troops already on federal orders in the Tucson Sector be redirected to helping with the Lukeville Port of Entry’s reopening.

She also said that she wants “additional National Guard members currently on federal active duty orders to be reassigned to Arizona to assist U.S. Customs and Border Protection to reopen the Lukeville Port of Entry.”

In addition, the governor included in her letter a request for the federal government to reimburse $512.5 million to the state over border security-related costs including “migrant transportation, drug interdiction, and law enforcement.”

 

Hobbs abrogated the sovereignty of her state and its people to the will of the Federal government and its open border policy but needs them to step up and help her manage their mess.

Here’s an idea. Send your own troops and block the border. Keep the illegals out. Make them stay in Mexico. Send a message that the law as written – not as reimagined by a doddering fool named Biden – will be enforced. Don’t make the trip. Don’t risk your life. Stop selling your children. We won’t let you in. We can’t. There are too many here already.

That won’t happen. Hobbs’ Arizona is a franchisee of the Progressive Cloward Piven agenda. Overwhelming the system is the goal. But if that’s the point, why ask for help preventing the system from being overwhelmed? It’s not like you need votes from actual voters to stay in office.

And what if Biden says no? What do you do then?

 

HT | Just the News

The post If Overwhelming the System is the Point, Why Are You Asking for Help? appeared first on Granite Grok.

If ever a picture is worth a thousand words, it is the painting of George Washington kneeling and praying by his white horse in the snow at Valley Forge. Because of our forefathers’ prayers and sacrifice, our families enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas by warm fires, stuffing our bellies, and watching football.

In spite of the freezing winter of 1777, the divine seeds of liberty were growing in the hearts of our troops. Even while most observers agreed with John Adams’ conclusion: “The prospect is chilling on every side; gloomy; dark, melancholy, and despairing,” Washington’s faith was the Continental Army’s most powerful weapon. Washington sought guidance to overcome previous defeats, retreats, and how his men would survive the freezing winter. Our forefathers paid the price of liberty with their lives, fortunes, and sacred honors. Let us pray to the same God who guided and answered Washington’s prayers.

Imagine the dark outlook endured by soldiers, half-naked, leaving bloody footprints in the snow of 1777. The Continental Army all but beaten after September’s retreat from New York. Suffering defeat at Brandywine: 200 troops killed, 500 wounded and 400 captured. How did the troops endure the dark gloom when Philadelphia fell to the British? They were a destitute army with soaked ammunition as their only weapon. No one today suffers the hunger our soldiers endured at Valley Forge: “One soldier’s meal on Thanksgiving Day declared by Congress was a “half a gill of rice (1/4 of a standard pint, 2 oz of rice), and a tablespoon of vinegar.”

Beaten down with defeat, the count of 4,000 soldiers was incapacitated in January and February of 1778, resulting from exposure, undernourishment, and disease. Historian George Bancroft tells us that “love of country and attachment to General Washington sustained them through these unparalleled hardships, and that without his leadership, the army would have dissolved and vanished.” Tory Quaker Issac Potts, after observing the source of Washington’s power, praying in the snow, related to his wife, “Independence will be established because God in His Providence has willed it so because Washington was the only one on earth the Lord would listen to.”

Prayers were answered that spring, cheering our soldiers as France entered the war as an ally with the promise of French money and troops. The Continental Congress acknowledged this as the hand of God, declaring a National Day of Thanksgiving on May 7th following Washington’s orders issued at Valley Forge on May 5th of 1778. He proclaimed:

“It having pleased the Almighty Ruler of the Universe propitiously to defend the cause of the United American States, and finally by raising up a powerful friend among the Princes of the earth, to establish our Liberty and Independence upon a lasting foundation; it becomes us to set apart a day for gratefully acknowledging the Divine Goodness, and celebrating the event which we owe to his benign interposition.”

Yes, the political climate of our day is gloomy as globalists move to control our lives. Read Psalms 2, where David tells us that “the Lord laughs at the Kings of the earth and the rulers who counsel together against Him.” Pray that our people once again will rise up in a thundering appeal to the same God our fathers relied on for divine protection. Who was, who is, and who will always be, “The great I Am.” Just as at Valley Forge, prayer was the Continental Army’s greatest asset. Today, it still remains our most powerful weapon.

 

The post Prayer is Tyrannies Most Powerful Enemy appeared first on Granite Grok.

The fiasco that was the COVID response continues to find new broken ground as the truth seeps like sand between the fingers of a despotic American government.

An institution that was deliberate in its deception, forceful in its demand for compliance, and has yet to be held accountable for the damage it has done.

 

Lieutenant Ted Macie is an active-duty officer with the U.S. Navy Medical Service Corps who serves as a health administrator and medical recruiter. His wife Mara Macie is running for Congress in Florida’s Fifth District. Both have been speaking out against the Pentagon’s COVID jab mandate and its treatment of service members who objected.

In a video uploaded to social media, Lt. Macie cited a July letter from U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel & Readiness Gilbert Cisneros Jr. acknowledging the authenticity of previously exposed data from the Pentagon’s Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED), which shows that 2021 saw drastic spikes in a variety of diagnoses for serious medical issues over the previous five-year average, including hypertension (2,181%), neurological disorders (1,048%), multiple sclerosis (680%), Guillain-Barre syndrome (551%), breast cancer, (487%), female infertility (472%), pulmonary embolism (468%), migraines (452%), ovarian dysfunction (437%), testicular cancer (369%), and tachycardia (302%).

 

The military vaccine mandates have proven to be one of the most effective attacks on US Military readiness in our lifetime. A chemical injection mandated by our government, justified by a virus if paid to an engineer, is released from a lab in China.

The numbers are staggering, but on the matter of fighter pilots, those people don’t grow on trees, and replacing them doesn’t happen overnight.

If you’d like to talk about an insurrection, perhaps you start with the money and permission trail that led to the virus and then the chain of command for mandating the poisoning of our troops.

 

“There is a complete lack of trust in the military ‘leadership’ among those who were not only involuntarily separated, but also those who walked away (including just shy of retirement), those who fought from within but were flagged for promotion, those who didn’t want to take the shot but were coerced, and us family members who have been told that our community’s mental and physical health is important to that alleged leadership,” Mara Macie said on X.

“Accountability is the only answer,” she continued. “Every single voice of servicemembers who suffered because of these ILLEGAL mandates should be heard before Congress. Every single military ‘leader’ who was informed by servicemembers presenting them with the law and still did nothing should be investigated until we remove all those who put their careers above the mental and physical safety of our servicemembers and their families.”

 

Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen who cannot trust the chain of command present a huge problem for the service and the nation. And you’d be right to wonder if that were not the point. And if that is the case who decided what, and when, and what is their endgame?

And if it was just a mistake? What are those people still doing in positions of power?

 

The post Night Cap: It Sure Looks Like Your Government Tried to Undermine Your Military appeared first on Granite Grok.