The Manchester Free Press

Tuesday • November 26 • 2024

Vol.XVI • No.XLVIII

Manchester, N.H.

This Time, He’ll Keep His Clothes On, but Hopefully, His Story Will Be Stripped Bare

Granite Grok - Sun, 2023-12-10 11:30 +0000

Nobody can say Hunter Biden doesn’t see himself above all others. Being the son of Joe Biden, he learned early on that he was one of the elites in America and rules do not apply to that group. Hunter Biden has been a self-proclaimed porn star, pop artist, and chief financial officer of the Biden Family Cartel.

CFO may not be totally accurate as Hunter was the front man who shook down foreign companies, officials, and governments for money in exchange for access to his Vice President, now President, father. Hunter had one of his Dad’s puppets in his corner protecting the First Son, but that puppet has been forced to the center of the ring. Special counsel David Weiss leveled a nine-count indictment against Hunter Biden late Thursday, accusing President Joe Biden’s son of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 to 2020.

There is so much to this story that is not in the headline. The period that Hunter failed to file with the IRS goes back to 2014, but due to Weiss dragging his feet, the statute of limitations has run out on the sins of those earlier years. Coincidentally, those earlier years are when Joe was the Vice President. Weiss did his job well, not for the American people, but for the Biden family by ensuring the information from this period never hits the light of day. Hunter’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, caused many to scratch their heads when he claimed that Hunter was charged solely because he is a Biden. Most people with minimal insight see the special treatment Hunter received by delaying action on these charges for five years. If his name were not Biden, he would be in prison serving his sentence. Attorney Lowell got the message on Biden Communications: lie, lie again, and end your lie with “That’s a fact.” It is that last part that makes everything so believable. People are beginning to see through the smoke.

The glitch in the Biden Administration’s handling of Hunter’s felonious crimes was the IRS Whistle Blowers. These two gentlemen came before Congress, at dire penalties to their careers, exposed the delay tactics of David Weiss, and crushed the plea deal Weiss tried to ram through the system. They stood their ground in front of a barrage from the Democrat members of the committee, and their conviction was absolute. They were not going to let the injustice they witnessed go unchecked. Weiss had no choice but to act quickly to bring indictments against Hunter Biden in Los Angeles. This trial will take place next year while Joe is trying to win a second term and continue the era of Biden Corruption in D.C.

This action by Weiss comes on the heels of Hunter being subpoenaed to appear in front of a House Committee, and he is to appear next week or face possible contempt charges.

Hunter displayed a higher level of hubris by offering to testify in front of the House Ways and Means Committee regarding his role in the Biden Family money laundering scheme. The problem is that Hunter had already been served a subpoena to testify, so he really did not have an option. He was subpoenaed for a closed-door meeting. He has offered to testify in a public hearing. Hunter loves the bright lights and thinks the truth will be buried in a closed hearing. He will probably negotiate for a primetime made-for-TV hearing.

Getting into Hunter Biden’s head is a scary thought. It is challenging to uncover his motive for pushing for a public hearing. There does not appear to be an upside, but he has a history of airing his sins on primetime, as he did a 60 Minutes interview to discuss his Pornhub videos, womanizing, and drug use. He is banking on the format of a public hearing being easier to manipulate. Jordan and Comer will have no part in his offer. He can have his public hearing after the private deposition and the release of the transcripts to the public. Hunter may have directed his porn videos, but he is only the star of this show. Comer and Jordan will be calling the shots, and Hunter will keep his clothes on, but hopefully, his story will be stripped naked.

The post This Time, He’ll Keep His Clothes On, but Hopefully, His Story Will Be Stripped Bare appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Night Cap: Dear “Tough Conservative” Kelly Ayotte … So, How Are You Going To Pay

Granite Grok - Sun, 2023-12-10 02:30 +0000

Context: After a “judge” in the New Hampshire trial, courts attacked our democracy (yes, bitter-clingers, this was an actual attack on democracy) by

“ordering” that “the State” (which has no money of its own) spend an additional one-half a billion on public education (which means, dear bitter-clingers, that the “judge” is ordering the legislature and governor to raise taxes or to spend less on roads, police, etc.), some Democrats began talking about not eliminating the Interest and Dividends Tax as is planned.

Kelly Ayotte’s response: NYET.

This is a fine response EXCEPT we know from Kelly’s stint as Attorney General that she AGREES with the Democrats that the judiciary has the power to tell the elected branches how much to spend on public education and what kind of taxes can be used to raise that money. More specifically, as Attorney General, Ayotte NEVER argued that the Claremont decisions and their progeny were illegitimate and should be overturned. Rather, she accepted the absurd premise that the judiciary has the power to tell the elected branches how much to spend on public education and what kind of taxes can be used to raise that money.

In other words, there really is NOT that much difference between Ayotte and the Democrats on this looming issue. Needless to say, the can is being kicked down the road via an appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme School Board … oh, I’m sorry, I meant Supreme Court. But what if that appeal is unsuccessful? Voters deserve to know exactly what every gubernatorial candidate would do in that scenario. So, “tough conservative,” Kelly … how are you going to pay???

The post Night Cap: Dear “Tough Conservative” Kelly Ayotte … So, How Are You Going To Pay appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

While Freedom Flourishes in New Hampshire, the Rest of New England Is a Different Story

Granite Grok - Sun, 2023-12-10 01:00 +0000

Most of New England has some work to do to keep up with New Hampshire’s status as the nation’s freest state. In the latest edition of the Cato Institute’s Freedom in the 50 States report, while New Hampshire finishes first in overall freedom (an index of personal and economic freedom), the other five New England states each finish in the bottom half among all 50 states.

Overall freedom:

  • New Hampshire: #1
  • Massachusetts: #26
  • Connecticut: #33
  • Rhode Island: #36
  • Vermont: #42
  • Maine: #43

When breaking down the rankings, all New England states do well on personal freedom (Connecticut being the lowest ranked at No. 16), but New Hampshire rises above the rest on economic freedom.

Economic freedom:

  • New Hampshire: #1
  • Massachusetts: #32
  • Connecticut: #33
  • Rhode Island: #37
  • Vermont: #43
  • Maine: #45

The two components of the economic freedom index are fiscal and regulatory freedom, on which New Hampshire also scores much higher than its regional neighbors.

Fiscal freedom:

  • New Hampshire: #2
  • Massachusetts: #18
  • Connecticut: #20
  • Rhode Island: #22
  • Maine: #41
  • Vermont: #46

Regulatory freedom:

  • New Hampshire: #17
  • Massachusetts: #39
  • Connecticut: #40
  • Rhode Island: #42
  • Vermont: #43
  • Maine: #45

Needless to say, all of New England, New Hampshire included, could use some regulatory reform. (These rankings accounted for laws enacted as of December 31, 2022, meaning New Hampshire’s universal license recognition law didn’t make the cut.)

In the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of North America 2023, New Hampshire is first in economic freedom among all North American jurisdictions, while Connecticut is the next “freest” at No. 25 among just the 50 U.S. states. After that, it’s Massachusetts (28th), Maine (41st), Rhode Island (42nd), and Vermont (48th).

How free your state is directly affects many important outcomes. One is the movement of people.

“Fiscal, regulatory, and personal freedom are all independently, positively, statistically significantly correlated with net in-migration,” write William Ruger and Jason Sorens, authors of Freedom in the 50 States.

It’s no surprise, then, that New Hampshire is winning the migration game. According to data collected by Kenneth Johnson at the UNH Carsey School of Public Policy, the Granite State experienced a net migration gain of 18,300 in 2021 and 2022. Forty-four percent of those migrants came from Massachusetts, 8% came from Maine and Vermont combined, and 14% came from elsewhere in the Northeast.

New Hampshire was one of only two New England states to see its population increase every year from 2018–2022, growing to nearly 1.4 million today—a 6% increase since 2010—while a state like Vermont sits at about 647,000 people. (The other was Maine, which saw a migration surge during the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Net in-migration isn’t something New Hampshire can take for granted. More people died in the Granite State than were born in 2021 and 2022, and New Hampshire consistently has one of the lowest birth rates in the country, meaning the state’s recent population growth has been entirely due to those moving into the state.

And what explains the Granite State’s net migration gain? “One channel by which economic freedom affects in-migration is by increasing economic growth,” Ruger and Sorens write. “We found a robust relationship between economic freedom in one year and income growth in the next.”

The bottom line is that freedom isn’t just valuable in its own right (which it is). Freedom, fundamentally, leads to greater economic opportunity and prosperity. More freedom generally means more of the other two as well.

New Hampshire’s median household income of $83,449 is $15,000 higher than Vermont’s and $20,000 higher than Maine’s.

While the rest of New England champions increased government spending for social programs and public welfare, higher tax rates, more regulation, and top-down control over education and the economy, they get in return lower levels of economic opportunity, growth, and prosperity than New Hampshire does.

Mitchell Scacchi | JBartlett

The post While Freedom Flourishes in New Hampshire, the Rest of New England Is a Different Story appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

The Conservatarian Exchange Podcast #183

The Liberty Block - Sun, 2023-12-10 00:37 +0000

The DeSantis v. Newsom debate last week; can trump win in November if nominated? Should DeSantis hit trump harder on electability and many other issues? Ed M believes Trump can’t win Iowa; from whom will RFK Jr. pull more votes, Trump or Biden? More covid information coming out all the time about how much we were lied to; will Fauci ever be hurt in any way for all of his lies? Where is congress on missiles being shot at boats by Houthis in Yemen?

The post The Conservatarian Exchange Podcast #183 appeared first on The Liberty Block.

Sandy Cortez “Exposes” Herself …

Granite Grok - Sat, 2023-12-09 23:30 +0000

Alexandria Ocasio Cortex, the recently minted millionaire (yes, it’s true) and former bartender, shared some keen-Cortez insight on the rising objections to boys being allowed to participate in girls’ sports. “Exposing,” if you like – not just the problem – but some of the contradictions in her argument.

 

Aren’t genital exams the Dem Party’s bread and Butter regardless of age? Hello, abortion! I’m not sure how familiar you are with those, but to have one, you need your “genitals examined.” Too extreme? Well, there are several situations where a medical professional might examine girls or women in that vicinity. Women’s Health Care – as I understand the Democrat definition, is impossible without it. That vicinity is the center, the apex of health for women from the progressive side of every aisle. A strange development after decades of suffrage and women’s rights marches (even some with cute pink pussy hats) whose point was to have the world view women as something other than that.

You Could say that in preparation for a lifetime of being defined as a vagina by an entire political party, we should “open up all women and girls to genital examinations when they are underage.”  Good practice for when the world is run by tyrannical men pretending to be women.

So, is this a privacy issue? That would be ironic.

The one-time “physical” is standard practice in all school sports.

Your concerns would allow boys who are attracted to girls to get their creep on in bathrooms and locker rooms  -“examining girls’ genitals” frequently and potentially at length. Obviously, in this context, the words examination and genitals cover a lot of territory, not just in the number of girls or the frequency of observation but in various states of dress and undress.

The infamous Lia Thomas is alleged to have been – on occasion – visibly aroused in the ladies’ swim team locker room, which, adding to the Sandy Cortez narrative, reminds us that the girls in her world are being forced to “examine” genitals against their will. (Related: College Hack: Just Do This Guys, And You Can Parade Naked Through Women’s Locker Rooms …)

And if we understand correctly, the discomfort at being examined once by a medical professional is significant, while objecting to being examined regularly in various states of undress by a boy (who could be naked with an erection) is bigoted. Peeping Tom only needs to change his name to Tammy, and exhibitionism and peeping become a right; its rejection is an act of discrimination.

More unpunishable crimes on the streets of the naked city.

And while the odds of serious injury are less common among pre-pubescent athletes, allowing the comingling of sexes based on how one feels (as in, I feel like staring at girls in their underwear without fear of punishment) not long into puberty, boys pretending to be girls present a significant “women’s health risk.”

Again, defenders will insist that rights trump risks, and generally speaking, as a society, we police after the fact, but is that truly an argument you’d like to make in the wake of years of rape-culture rhetoric? Men pretending to be women who are transferred to women’s prisons have an alarmingly common tendency to rape actual women.

It seems like that’s the culture you’re looking for, in which case women had best think about changing their party of preference before their daughters find themselves examining male genitals in ways that would be inappropriate to explain on these pages.

 

The post Sandy Cortez “Exposes” Herself … appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

The New Hampshire Republican State Committee, AT BEST, Is A Joke

Granite Grok - Sat, 2023-12-09 22:00 +0000

The New Hampshire Republican State Committee is “looking forward” to ABC News hosting a Republican debate. Have they ever watched the ABC Nightly News with David Muir? It is 30 minutes of schilling for the Biden regime and attacking actual Republicans.

Why would any institution charged with electing Republicans be “looking forward” to having a panel of activists posing as journalists asking GOP candidates questions that are not important to GOP voters and are intended to embarrass and weaken the GOP candidates?

 

 

Why? Because FITN is a grift. It is about the elites making money and feeding their egos. The Republican State Committee is a grift. No institution that actually had as its objective electing Republicans would be “partnering” with Fake News ABC, never mind “looking forward” to partnering with Fake News ABC. At best, the Republican State Committee is a joke. But you know as well as I do it’s a grift.

The post The New Hampshire Republican State Committee, AT BEST, Is A Joke appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Bananas: GOP IV – The Phantom Menace

Granite Grok - Sat, 2023-12-09 20:30 +0000

And then there were four… The Republican national championship has been whittled down to its final four competitors, and not without controversy.

Despite having an undefeated polling season and walking away with gigantic lead after gigantic lead, Donald Trump was nowhere to be found as the season-ending playoff among GOP hopefuls saw four candidates all having at least one loss on their record – they weren’t Donald Trump.

Sweet home Alabama was the site for this last and almost best brouhaha, where the crimson tidal wave crashed on the stage like the 2022 election season.  Both contestants and moderators brought their A games, but in a country with the educational standards of a Mad-lib an A just isn’t what it used to be.

Hosting the event was media upstart News Nation, which, like the debate stage, has become a clearing house for also-rans.  Elizabeth Vargas, Megyn Kelly, and Eliana Johnson were the moderators, and these fiery vixens had carefully crafted questions intending to evoke the highest in journalistic inquiry since the nation was confronted with that timeless query, “What is a woman”?  Don’t bother asking these ladies because manning up was the soup du jour as two of the three men on the stage set out to make misogyny great again!

Megyn Kelly began the interlocution by suggesting one of them had the chance to become “leader of the free world” if only they could overcome a fifty-point deficit held by Grand Wizard Trump, who CNN and MSNBC reported was either harassing the next Miss Universe or holding another MAGA Klan Rally.  At this point what difference does it make, right Hillary?

Fixing her gaze on Florida Governor Ron Desantis, she reminded him he was trailing the aspiring dictator even in his home state of Florida.  Desantis quickly retorted by listing off the string of successes he’d had in combating leftist-woke ideologues in his home state before reminding Mrs. Kelly of her failed NBC show then pointing out Mrs. Haley’s eye-shadow was too dark for her dress, which would set the tone for the rest of the evening.

Haley was next to respond to a question about her entanglements with big banks and defense contractors and whether or not she would be beholden to them rather than the voters.  Still stinging from Desantis’ slight, she said, “Ron’s just jealous they want someone who actually knows how to wear heels,” which elicited thunderous applause from her high-paying cheering section.

Speaking of heels Vivek Ramaswamy wasted no time in turning his sights on Haley.  Fielding a question about his viability due to a recent drop in the polls, he suggested the stilettoed former governor from South Carolina couldn’t find Ukraine on a map before challenging her to play Are You Smarter Than A Third Grader with his nine-year-old son, who was recently accepted to his alma mater Harvard.  This elicited a cacophony of boos from the third-grade loving crowd of southerners, which quickly turned into cheers after he yelled out “Roll Tide!” while holding up a picture of Alabama football coach Nick Saban.

A game Chris Christie could be seen stewing on the sideline as he leaned against his podium in a three-point stance like an offensive lineman.  Clad in an oxygen mask and gulping down water with a look on his face that said, “Put me in coach,” Christie gamely came to the wounded Haley’s defense by calling Ramaswamy a “blow-hard” and then took a long drag from his mask before calling a time-out.

The half-time show featured 98 year-old Dolly Parton dressed in a cheerleader costume where she sang a few of the GOP favorites.  Mrs. Parton bravely tip-toed up and down the stage, accompanied by two midgets she appeared to have smuggled inside her bustier.  Also wearing seven-inch heels, which were the envy of more than one of the debaters, she belted out such conservative classics as “9 to 5”, “Take This Job and Shove It” by Johnny Paycheck, and “Money” by Pink Floyd.  Praise the Lord and pass the ridiculously overpriced ammunition, I say!

Desantis and Ramaswamy had been working on some plays during the break, then came out in another coordinated offensive set where both men set blocks for the beleaguered phantom menace Trump before running the ball up the middle again right at a defense-contractor-less Haley, who was performing CPR on a fallen Christie and his political ambitions.

Color commentators Tony Romo and Jim Nantz cried foul on behalf of the apparent abusing of a woman by two men in a competitive event but were silenced after Ramaswamy and Desantis emerged from the pile wearing wigs, lipstick, and sensible shoes while holding a sign that read “Queers for Palestine”.  This was clearly a play to gain votes from the crowd of collegial attendees but sadly for the panderers they failed to appreciate the context of the moment and after the jeering crowd of genteel southerners calmed down both were censured by the moderators for “harassing and bullying” a fellow candidate, which turns out is a big no-no.

Finally, the candidates were asked to choose a president from whom they drew inspiration.  A resuscitated Christie went first, choosing Ronald Reagan, then proceeded to pitch his new book titled “What Would Reagan Do?”  Clearly, in the holiday spirit, Christie then donned a Santa Claus costume and walked to the edge of the stage before casting dozens of WWRD bracelets into the mostly Reaganite worshiping crowd, just in time for Christmas.  Haley chose Hillary Clinton as her former president yet was reminded by Eliana she didn’t win back in 2016 and came dangerously close to calling her an election denier, also a no-no for conservatives.  Desantis made the unusual choice of Vermont’s very own silent Calvin Coolidge, then dared Mrs. Haley to name which state he hailed from.

Lastly, Ramaswamy paused briefly before waxing historically on the merits of yet another famous misogynist, Thomas Jefferson, who, he aptly pointed out, not only wrote the Declaration of Independence at a youthful thirty-three years of age but also “invented the swivel chair you ladies are sitting on” to the moderators, none of whom seemed to be as impressed as the seats themselves.

An exit poll was taken, and the results showed the candidates ranked as follows:

  • Desantis 2%
  • Haley & Ramaswamy tied at 1.5%
  • Christie -14%
  • Donald Trump 113%

 

The post Bananas: GOP IV – The Phantom Menace appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

[Update!] Is Facebook Fraudulently Fishing for Voter Data Using NH SOS Dave Scanlan’s Name?

Granite Grok - Sat, 2023-12-09 19:00 +0000

Facebook has been tossing up an alert asking if you are registered to vote. I ignored it when I saw it, as did a few other folks who noticed, but a Grok reader screen grabbed it, and it found its way to my inbox.

 

 

I’m waiting on Secretary State of Dave Scanlan to confirm this, but I had a secondhand conversation with someone who spoke to him. He said that his office has nothing to do with it, and he did not give anyone permission to use his name or office.

This is a big deal, and for our readers outside New Hampshire, please let us know if you’ve seen that yet or when you do. It seems likely this will be appearing either before your primary or just in general.

We will do a follow-up as soon as we have confirmation from the Secretary of State and any details about what his office has planned in response.

12/9/23 3:30 pm Update!

Secretary of State Dave Scanlan has responded to my email about whatever it is Facebook is doing.

Steve, Thanks for sending me this. This is the voter information lookup page on our website, however we do not contact voters in this manner. I will be alerting the attorney general. Dave

We will report any additional updates as we receive them.

 

The post [Update!] Is Facebook Fraudulently Fishing for Voter Data Using NH SOS Dave Scanlan’s Name? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Sexual Assault as Warfare

Granite Grok - Sat, 2023-12-09 17:30 +0000

Monday this past week, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said,  “One of the reasons that [Hamas] doesn’t want to turn over women that they’ve been holding hostage… is they don’t want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody.”

He later added he meant sexual violence. He also said that this issue played into why the ceasefire ended late last week.  It is why Hamas doesn’t want to re-engage in talks. Mr. Miller’s statement caught some people by surprise.

It caused media outlets to react with a degree of alarm. CNN interviewed Democrat Pramila Jayapal, who claimed that she and other Democrats condemn Hamas and their tactic of rape but that it is also important to “be balanced about bringing in the outrages against the Palestinians.”

We want to thank Marc Abear for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
You can review our ‘Op-Ed Guidelines‘ on the FAQ Page.

Hamas denies the allegations made in the State Department’s allegations.  They issued a statement Monday saying their fighters are Muslim. They would never engage in sexual assault. In that same statement, they also said they never attacked the music festival in Israel.

The music festival was where Hamas fighters paraglided in, slaughtered, and raped over 100 people. That’s on video. Also on video and retold by a survivor from that festival was a young woman assaulted by a gang of Palestinians who shot her in the head when they concluded their assault.

That story was published on Sunday by the Times of London.

Make of the warzone reporting what you will.  Just know there are facts somewhere.  They will vindicate one position and condemn the other, but is Hamas using sexual assault as a form of warfare?  Does Islam condone such a thing?  Have you heard condemnation by Islam of the tactics?  Why are many Democrats and Progressives not reacting to it?  Why aren’t they reacting, at least not negatively?

 

Reminder: The views and opinions expressed in Op-Eds are those of the author and may not reflect the opinion of GraniteGrok.com or its authors.

The post Sexual Assault as Warfare appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Thomas Sowell on Slavery – Race-Baiters Won’t Like It. Not One Bit.

Granite Grok - Sat, 2023-12-09 16:00 +0000

Slavery is one of those topics, like abortion, that can’t just be brought up in casual company. – without knowing who stands where and on what,  you might as well drop a lit-match into a room full of black powder.

People with opinions will share them. Those without will flee to avoid being a casualty. But since no one is arguing that the company we keep here is polite, we broach these subjects often and enthusiastically with the hope that it will expand the debate and arm us with some options. These are tools for prying the crazy back long enough to inform the innocent bystanders who hung around the way people watch NASCAR for the collisions.

To do this, we often seek the observations of experts, and when talking about slavery, it is difficult to get a better expert than Thomas Sowell. The man is brilliant, well-spoken, and fearless.

@bobanderson77, responding to a July 4 Tweet from Cori Bush in which he demands reparations, shared some of the wisdom of Dr. Sowell in rebuttal, and it’s …well, brilliant. Not all of it is new to our readers, but it is worth your time to be reminded and, most certainly, a valuable set of observations to keep handy should you find yourself confronted online by some progressive asshat.

 

“Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18th century. People of every race and color were enslaved – and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed.

“Everyone hated the idea of being a slave but few had any qualms about enslaving others. Slavery was just not an issue, not even among intellectuals, much less among political leaders, until the 18th century – and then it was an issue only in Western civilization. Among those who turned against slavery in the 18th century were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and other American leaders. You could research all of the 18th century Africa or Asia or the Middle East without finding any comparable rejection of slavery there. But who is singled out for scathing criticism today? American leaders of the 18th century.

“Deciding that slavery was wrong was much easier than deciding what to do with millions of people from another continent, of another race, and without any historical preparation for living as free citizens in a society like that of the United States, where they were 20 percent of the population.

“It is clear from the private correspondence of Washington, Jefferson, and many others that their moral rejection of slavery was unambiguous, but the practical question of what to do now had them baffled. That would remain so for more than half a century.

“In 1862, a ship carrying slaves from Africa to Cuba, in violation of a ban on the international slave trade, was captured on the high seas by the U.S. Navy. The crew were imprisoned and the captain was hanged in the United States – despite the fact that slavery itself was still legal at the time in Africa, Cuba, and in the United States. What does this tell us? That enslaving people was considered an abomination. But what to do with millions of people who were already enslaved was not equally clear.

“That question was finally answered by a war in which one life was lost [620,000 Civil War casualties] for every six people freed [3.9 million]. Maybe that was the only answer. But don’t pretend today that it was an easy answer – or that those who grappled with the dilemma in the 18th century were some special villains when most leaders and most people around the world saw nothing wrong with slavery.

“Incidentally, the September 2003 issue of National Geographic had an article about the millions of people still enslaved around the world right now. But where is the moral indignation about that?”

 

 

..

The post Thomas Sowell on Slavery – Race-Baiters Won’t Like It. Not One Bit. appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Icarus and the Sun

Granite Grok - Sat, 2023-12-09 14:30 +0000

In truly Icarian fashion, the higher mankind has climbed toward the technological sun, the more arrogant and reckless the race has become.

Almost every scientific advance has carried hidden and profound costs unpredicted by the prophets of science. Consider that the EPA has only this year determined what exposures of “forever chemical” PFAS are acceptable: the stuff has tainted millions of Americans’ drinking water since its introduction in the 1940s. There are thousands of PFAS: how could the Teflon frying pan be anything but good?

This example extends to technological “marvels” such as lobotomies, transgender surgeries (and synthetic hormones) for minors, thalidomide, Agent Orange, DDT, PCBs, phthalates, BPA, neonicotinoids, glyphosate, hydrofluorocarbons, and a dizzying myriad of other manmade contributions to the environment that ultimately delivered evils to compliment the promised good. Medicines saved lives but increased overpopulation; cars and refrigerators are essential gadgets that damage the environment. Over and over, man’s vision outstrips reality; repeatedly, the promised gifts of technology obscure the Trojan horse results after the supposed gift is unleashed within the city gates.

Musk Is Genius Mr. Musk is undoubtedly brilliant, and his accomplishments are superhuman. But he has also proved his capacity for error, especially in his space exploration ventures: his rockets keep exploding, spewing pollution and space debris widely. But Elon is hardly alone in his guru promises: Steven Hawking famously claimed humanity had a mere 1000 years to escape the surly bonds of earth and populate a new world or perish. A few months later, he reduced his escape timeline to a single century: Which Hawking is correct?  

If it is true humanity is destroying Earth with technology and must use technology to flee its masochistic destruction, is humankind simply a chubby virus that flits from planet to planet, destroying the universe? Which science fiction character is America in this scenario – the savior of Earth in Armageddon, or the Death Star of Star Wars?

Elon Musk is more sober than many prophets of techno-rescue, allowing his 100×100-mile solar panel array suffer from a battery problem. But he is still intoxicated by his vain imaginings: where is the power grid to deliver this energy?

What of the profound problems of intermittency?

How much pollution and energy would be generated while Musk and Co are paid stellar sums to manufacture 10,000 square miles of solar panels, and where and how will those toxic panels be “renewed” when their useful life inevitably expires? Perhaps the entire pile of solar panel refuse can be jettisoned into space to drift around with the growing pile of Musk-launched flotsam and jetsom.

Hawking’s vision of interplanetary rescue is alive and well in Musk and NASA, which are now partners in flying a BIPOC American to the moon. The potential conflict of interest appears large: Musk and SpaceX are to supply NASA with its future spacecraft for its Artemis missions; Tesla manufactures residential and commercial solar panels. That profit motive might taint the visionary’s vision but does not hinder the rose-colored receptiveness of fellow profiteers or the technologically faithful.

Exploding Rockets

Musk’s SpaceX rocketships keep exploding shortly following blast-off, but he has more readied for launch. The environmental cost of detonating rockets in the Earth’s atmosphere to populate space takes stock of the damage it wreaks, much the same as Kim Jong Un’s military missile launches.

It is indisputable that these space missions (and the manufacture of rockets and fuels) spew massive quantities of toxins and greenhouse gases in their profit-driven execution.

Any logical risk-benefit analysis of the environmental costs of space exploration is simply side-stepped by NASA, much like the monumental externalized pollution costs of solar panel manufacture and disposal: the “see no evil, hear no evil” of the biggest polluters of all. Instead, NASA amplifies the Hawking-Musk promise of stellar deliverance:

Setting Humanity on a Sustainable Course to the Moon The Artemis program builds on a half-century of experience and preparation to establish a robust human-robotic presence on and around the Moon. ….America will lead the monumental shift that frees humanity from our innate bonds to Earth. This is the decade in which the Artemis Generation will teach us how to live on other worlds. … Under the Artemis program, humanity will explore regions of the Moon never visited before, uniting people around the unknown, the never seen, and the once impossible. We will return to the Moon robotically beginning next year, send astronauts to the surface within four years, and build a longterm presence on the Moon by the end of the decade. … The sooner we get to the Moon, the sooner we get American astronauts to Mars.

NASA gushes of its grand visions and sticks the trigger word “sustainable” as a title on its predictions without ever explaining what on earth is sustainable about landing a person “of color” on the sterile moon or how the massive amounts of rocket fuel are being minimized with Musk catalytic converters on his Starship rocket’s 33 booster engines (they aren’t).

The ships’ “flight termination system” explodes the rockets in midflight if they veer off course. In his most recent launch, that technology effectively blew up the rocket in mid-flight so it would not plummet to earth and do harm. It failed on the previous launch. But where is all this pollution being sequestered? SpaceX has lost a series of prototypes that have “collapsed, exploded, or crashed and then exploded,” but claims that “success comes from what we learn … And this flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary.”

As bizarre science strives to make men into women and transhumans immortal, the proposal of infecting the universe with human folly and toxic consumption in the name of “what we learn” demonstrates how little we ultimately have learned. Elon Musk may have saved free speech by purchasing X, but he will not save humanity by selling America 100×100 square miles of solar panels or ten spaceships for colored human explorers. George Lucas told a great story, but he and his air-conditioned audiences could still differentiate between reality and science fiction.

Space Religiosity 2023 The techno-colonization of foreign worlds will prove an elusive Holy Grail, but Elon Musk will enlarge his empire by billions in the trying. His fortunes may exceed those of fellow fantasy visionary Bill Gates. Most Americans, though, are strangers in an ever-stranger land, being lorded over by space-fantasy prosperity prophets for profit. Tithing is economically and environmentally compulsory in the Musk megachurch of the Space Cadet age—a small step for Elon, a giant step background for mankind. John Klar is an Attorney, farmer, and author. Mostly farmer… And Regular Contributor to GraniteGrok and VermontGrok.

The post Icarus and the Sun appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Where -20°C is Global Warming

Granite Grok - Sat, 2023-12-09 13:00 +0000

From the hottest hotness ever files. Look at that picture of the earth. Nearly everything is red—a dark, muddy-looking red. And red is bad. Red is hot. Red is…a color anyone can apply to fool people into thinking something that is not true.

This image, in particular, is interesting because of the accompanying text in the original tweet compared with reality.

 


Tony Heller went and pulled the temperature data from the Danish Meteorological website.

 

 

The average temperature to which this scary red image related was somewhere between -15 and -20°C. The average of these averages, for you fans of Farenheight, is Zero degrees.

Have you ever been outside when it’s zero degrees Fahrenheit? Do you picture a muddy red map and the words ” warmest” anything?

Is it “warmer” than normal? Yes! Is it above the mean? It sure is. Is that graphic insanely misleading? Definitely.

As is the predictable hottest hotness ever narrative, which we’ve debunked more times than I can count or share. The Climate Cult lies so badly and so often that the truth becomes impossible to glean, and that’s the point. By systemically misleading everyone about everything, serial liars protect their narrative and muddy up the debate.

There is nothing red-hot about zero degrees, but that’s the picture they will paint if it will separate people from common sense so they can pry their money away from them for their ridiculous cause: the idea that, even if there was a man-made impact they would or could do anything about it but rob people blind.

 

 

The post Where -20°C is Global Warming appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

While Americans Skimp To Pay For Dinner, Elites Pay $930,000 To Dine With Biden

Granite Grok - Sat, 2023-12-09 11:30 +0000

Joe Biden is making the rounds of the elites on both coasts this week, and it is not sitting well with the average American. Biden has not been very active on the campaign trail since launching his reelection bid, but he has not been very active on the Presidential trail either.

He has been busy announcing new daily restrictions on Americans that hit us in wallets that are getting very thin with more credit cards than cash.

Biden also has time to be in Boston and Hollywood this week. Biden was joined in Boston by James Taylor for an event that cost donors up to $7,000 to see and hear the two Octogenarians. The $7K is almost equal to the $11K that Bidenomics is costing the American family. Still, it is not even a drop in the bucket compared to the $930,000 the elites of California dished out to dine with the President. This exorbitant amount of money should be embarrassing, but these celebrities will spend it gleefully.

To not support Joe Biden would be UnAmerican in California. Prior to this week, Joe Biden’s Campaign has amassed a record-breaking amount of donations and has $91 Million in the bank. That is about $1 for every vote he received in 2020. Both are ridiculous and questionable amounts.

Joe Biden’s official schedule is very lean on events and contains virtually no official events beyond the daily briefing. He has one daily fundraiser, equating to the usual number of official events our part-time President can handle. There is nothing more important to the Democrat Party than to get Joe reelected for another term. Whoever is pulling the strings behind the curtain only has power if Joe is sitting behind the Resolute Desk. Now when he gets elected, if he gets elected, he can drive off to Reheboth and hop on his bike. He will have done his job.

Get out of the way and let the Mystery Team finish the job of destroying America.

We can joke about the money people are throwing at a President in his 80s, but this is serious business, and big money will go to great lengths to ensure Democrat control for four more years. Joe can brag every day that he is the President of the little people and all people. He can talk about his roots in Scranton, but he has been out of Scranton since he was a young lad.

He is disingenuous to still Chaim the Scranton connection, and the people of Scranton have severed ties with him. Joe Biden is an extremely wealthy man, and he achieved that status by being corrupt. That is the other reason he needs to be reelected. He and his family require the cover of the office, hope we disregard the polls, hold off on Impeachment, and let the 37% of the voters keep pulling for Joe, and put Scranton Joe back in for four more years.

The post While Americans Skimp To Pay For Dinner, Elites Pay $930,000 To Dine With Biden appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Night Cap: Be Choosy About Where You Get Your Christmas Tree

Granite Grok - Sat, 2023-12-09 02:30 +0000

It’s time to talk about the Londonderry Lions Club again. A topic that I have been talking about for a long time but feel the need to cover once again. I was inducted into the club in April of 2022 and sat in on a members briefing in which the treasurer said they had record rental Revenue income during covid.

Later that summer, the Lions leadership, without a vote from their members, worked with the town of Londonderry to quit the Morrison Hall lease. The Joint public statement from the Club and the Town claimed that the Club had declining revenue during covid, but this directly contradicted what was told to members about Club finances.

We want to thank Jonathan Esposito for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
You can review our ‘Op-Ed Guidelines‘ on the FAQ Page.

Having filed a 91a for town records, and armed with the knowledge that the club had misrepresented their revenue, I started an email chain to members in September of 2022 that eventually resulted in me being discharged from the club. The “official” reason stated was that I was being divisive, but prominent longtime members who now serve both in our Town and at the State later claimed credit for planning my removal. This series of internal club emails were later maliciously forwarded to town Councilor Jim Butler, who read them at a July 2023 Public Meeting of the Council to try to disparage my public image at that time.

The club relied on the taxpayer to offset the upkeep of the hall for many years until the Town Finance Director was finally told that this was a violation of their lease. Coincidentally, the Club quit their lease shortly thereafter. The decision-making behind this process is still being driven by the Town Council and not the citizens, as recently noted by a member of our budget committee. The Town Council only did a listening session because council candidate Shawn Faber held one first. The Planning Board was outright disrespectful towards public comment on the topic. Incredibly, the possibility was stated at a recent public meeting that the property may revert to the Club. Am I the only one who feels like this is morally wrong to give a historical property back to people who did not fulfill their obligations in maintaining it?

I understand many people do not want the tax burden of another property on the town books, but surely we can do something better than giving the property back to a dishonest and disloyal group of people like the Lions. The Lions’ community service to the town of Londonderry has largely come at the expense of a disenfranchised taxpayer. I do not believe we should give them a building, or buy their trees, or let them test our kids’ eyesight.

Until and unless the Lions Officers at large present a check to the Town for repayment for past Hall upkeep, I highly encourage you to donate your time elsewhere. Donate your money elsewhere.

 

Reminder: The views and opinions expressed in Op-Eds are those of the author and may not reflect the opinion of GraniteGrok.com or its authors.

The post Night Cap: Be Choosy About Where You Get Your Christmas Tree appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

An 18 Percent Property Tax Increase Will Not Fix Our Public Schools

Granite Grok - Sat, 2023-12-09 01:00 +0000

The Scott Administration made big news last week when they warned of an unprecedented impending property tax increase for next year of 18.5 percent. Driven by a 12 percent year-over-year increase in public school spending, they anticipate this will add another $650 to the bill of a $250,000 home.

FYI, the median price of a home in Vermont in 2022 was $310,000.

Vermont already spends more per pupil than almost every other state in the Union at the official count of $22,953, but the NEA pegged the number at $25,053 in 2022-23, which is the number you get when you simply divide the education budget by the number of students. And what are we getting for all this increased spending year after year? An unmitigated disaster of falling student outcomes, rising classroom violence, and a shockingly arrogant lack of accountability or common sense by public school officials.

Here’s a rundown of some recent stories.

I have written previously about Curt Hier’s ongoing battles with the Slate Valley School Board in which Hier, a school board member himself, is trying to discover the extent of abuse in his district, particularly against students with disabilities, regarding the use of “seclusion and restraint” – euphemisms for locking kids in closets or pinning them to the ground. Rather than joining Hier’s attempts to get to the bottom of this, his fellow school board members joined with school officials to attack Heir, attempted to remove him from the board and block the information he seeks from becoming public.

Good news on this front: Judge Mary Miles Teachout sided with Hier’s public records request, stating, “The transparency policy of the (Public Records) Act would be served by making such records available as long as individual privacy of students is protected. Without access to the only government records documenting compliance with its detailed policy on the use of restraint and seclusion in schools, the public has no access to information collected by the government on whether Rule 4500 policy is actually being responsibly implemented (Rutland Herald).” Umm… yeah!

The school pledged to appeal the ruling to keep their compliance (or lack thereof) with the law secret. We hear so often in the debate over school choice in Vermont that public schools are transparent and accountable, whereas independent schools are not. This episode should put the lie to that claim. Public schools are neither transparent nor accountable to the public, and don’t think they should be.

Note: “Seclusion and restraint” abuses are not isolated to Fair Haven. There is currently a bill in the legislature, H.409, to address this statewide problem.

In Morrisville’s Peoples Academy, there was recently an incident in which a student was stabbed through the hand by another student who brought a six-inch serrated knife to school. While the details of what actually happened between the two students are disputed, the key beef school officials have is with the parent of the student who was injured for reporting the incident to the police.

According to the News & Citizen, Mindy Marshall, the boy’s mother, “… alleged that Peoples principal Phil Grant told her to keep the incident under wraps as he didn’t want the media reporting on the incident…. Marshall also said that she and other parents found it upsetting that there was no public communication between the school and parents that a stabbing occurred at the school.”

Again, so much for transparency and accountability regarding student safety.

In Hinesburg, a police chase ended on the grounds of the Community School where kindergarteners were outside playing. School officials refused to let the police search the area because they worried the sight of law enforcement officers would scare the children. Later, a loaded gun and a bag of what is suspected to be cocaine were found – by students. Likely but unconfirmed, they were second graders (WCAX). This is how public school officials interpret “safety first” for our kids.

Similarly, the principal of Burlington High School was compelled to resign after she resorted to pulling a fire alarm in order to break up a fight. Much was made about her judgment in pulling the alarm, but the question remains: what was happening that was so bad that she felt her best option was to resort to such a drastic action? And where were the school security officers? Oh yeah, they were let go because seeing them caused trauma or some such logic.

But despite all this, the kids are learning, right? Wrong.

As has been reported, Vermont test scores are dropping significantly and have been for over a decade. A recent deep dive revealed that our public schools have been teaching kids to read the wrong way for over a generation. Along that line comes a story from the Brattleboro Reformer, Low Reading Scores Alarm BFUHS Board, in which the Bellows Falls Union High School principal revealed that half of the freshman class “were reading at a first-grade or elementary school level.”

And for these kinds of results – culturally and academically — the people running our public schools want us to pay 18.5 percent more on top of our already exorbitant property tax bills? $25,000 per year per kid isn’t enough?

Clearly, money isn’t the problem. It is the way the system is structured and being operated that is the problem.

Did you know that Vermont public schools don’t have to go through any accreditation process to show that they are performing to standards? Our independent schools do. Every five years. And it is an arduous process involving in-depth auditing and outside review.

According to the Associated Independent Schools of New England, “The goals of an accreditation through AISNE are quality assurance and continued school improvement. AISNE accreditation is a system of accountability that requires self-reflection, analysis, and planning for the future. Comprehensive in scope, it is based on a set of standards that define the characteristics of independent schools. AISNE accreditation attests to substantial compliance with established qualitative standards, integrity in statements to the public describing the school’s program, school commitment to improvement, and sufficiency of institutional resources.”

In Vermont, if an independent school cannot successfully pass through the accreditation process – again, every five years – it is not allowed to receive public money through the tuitioning system. This is a big reason why you don’t hear stories about kids attending Vermont independent schools not being able to read or being locked in “blue rooms” because discipline in the classroom is gone.

Public school advocates big lie in trying to shut out and shut down independent schools is that they don’t have to do all the things public schools have to do. Fairness! Okay. How about the 2024 legislature passes a law that mandates every Vermont public school must follow the same rigorous review and accreditation process that independent schools have to pass? That would not only be fair, it would also be of tremendous benefit to our students, families, and taxpayers.

But until our public school system demonstrates it is capable of reform, willing to be transparent, can reasonably guarantee the safety of our students, and, you know, is competent to teach them to do things like math and to read, Vermonters should send a loud and clear message: not another dime!

The post An 18 Percent Property Tax Increase Will Not Fix Our Public Schools appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Sponsor of California’s New Gender-Neutral “Toy” Mandate … Genders Toys

Granite Grok - Fri, 2023-12-08 23:30 +0000

The Marxist goons in Leftistan (DBA California) passed a law requiring retailers with 500 or more employees to include a gender-neutral children’s section or face a 500.00 fine. Well, of course, they did, but wait until you hear what the sponsor had to say about it.

 

Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), who introduced the legislation, said, “We need to stop stigmatizing what’s acceptable for certain genders and just let kids be kids.” The bill, he said, was designed to “encourage more businesses across California and the U.S. to avoid reinforcing harmful and outdated stereotypes.”

“Part of it is to make sure if you’re a young girl that you can find a police car, fire truck, a periodic table or a dinosaur,” Low reportedly said. “And then similarly, if you’re a boy, if you’re more artistic and want to play with glitter, why not? Why should you feel the stigma of saying, ‘Oh, this should be shamed,’ and going to a different location?”

There are more reasons to make fun of this statement than we can shake a copy of Gender Queer at, but in the interest of staying over the target, we need to ignore them. They are distractions like how a parent might buy their daughter a truck or their son glitter without the state forcing stores to carry things they’d not otherwise sell to appease the virtue-signaling idgits in Sacramento. Or how they could deliberately go to stores that have these things to do that without any mandate. Or not. The issue is that a gender warrior of the land of the genderless genderqueers assumes boys like trucks and police cars and the Periodic Table and girls are more artistic and like glitter.

Bigot!

Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! And isn’t that the problem? Take Drag Queens, for example. Burlesque queens would be more appropriate. Men dressed as caricatures of slutty women. What’s gender-neutral about that? Nothing. Not a damn thing. It is insulting to not just women but slutty women.

It is lousy cross-dressing. Something you’d expect to see coming out of the Target-Sponsored clown car at the gender-neutral circus, except, as we noted, it’s not neutral.

Garish and over the top is OK, as long as you’re honest about what it is, and yes, I brought it up to make a point. If California can force retailers to carry products for which their customers don’t typically shop, when can we expect a new law mandating costumes and makeup for drag queens? They can’t shop just anywhere for that stuff. Shouldn’t they be able to find what they need at Home Depot or Hobby Lobby – if they happen to be either handy, artistic, or crafty – and isn’t the absence of such accouterments shameful?

Drag shows are all about promiscuity and sex. Think of all the entenders one might double with a DEWALT 20v 1/2 inch drill driver on a tool belt wrapped around your green sequined velvet Mikado (knee-length to show off your rhinestoned snake-print leather lace-up Doc Martens)? All of which Home Depot would have to sell if Assemblyman Evan Low’s law was taken to its illogical conclusion.

You can’t just be neutral about gender; just ask him about the toys boys and girls prefer.

So, what does one “not stock” to make room for what the state says you must have on hand to satisfy an abuse that can never end because it would be discrimination even to define what “gender neutral” means?

And here’s the thing about that. Retailers must make decisions about the already high cost of doing business in much of California. At some point, it will no longer make sense to be there.

Especially if the inspectors show up and cite them because the “gender-neutral” section had just been looted by shoplifters who know they won’t be prosecuted.

 

The post Sponsor of California’s New Gender-Neutral “Toy” Mandate … Genders Toys appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Traditions, Troops, and Hoops

Granite Grok - Fri, 2023-12-08 22:00 +0000

I recently received a text from an old Marine Corps buddy who now teaches history at Clemson University. “What’s up with the Celtics floor at the Garden? No more parquet?”

I hadn’t watched much early-season basketball, so I went to YouTube to check the look. Not pretty. Then I read a post by @SamLaFranceNBA.

For the first time in franchise history, the Boston Celtics will be playing some of their home games on a court that doesn’t have a parquet design … [earlier] the NBA officially unveiled the alternate court designs that all 30 teams will use for In-Season Tournament games. Boston’s design features a dark green paint job with a wooden-colored runway down the center. The “city edition” logo for the Celtics is featured at center court, on top of a painting of the NBA Cup trophy. In a statement, the NBA said that the alternate courts will be used for all group-stage and quarterfinal tournament games. The league added that the goal is to make it “instantly clear” to fans when they are watching an In-Season Tournament game.

 

The in-season tournament gimmick is grist for a different mill (i.e., material for another column), but the absence of the parquet is a big issue for many Celtic fans. You see, the Celtic product largely involves tradition—more so than any other NBA team.

Tradition.

Holiday traditions are especially sacrosanct. Detroit Lions home games on Thanksgiving. My mom’s Christmas popcorn balls. The Indy 500 on Memorial Day.

Don’t mess with tradition. Yankee pinstripes. Throwing hats on the ice for hat tricks. Cutting down the net. The seventh inning stretch.

And the Celtic parquet.

As Henry James said, “It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.”

As Winston Churchill said, “Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd.”

As Woody Allen said, “Tradition is the illusion of permanence.”

Tradition binds together generations, providing common experiences and shared imagery. Mess with tradition at your own peril. (Google “New Coke.”)

Our military services are dealing with terrific recruiting challenges. There are several reasons for this. But a significant cause for the recruiting crisis involves eschewing traditions. For example, Marine Corps female recruits no longer train separately from males. And when veterans no longer sense those traditional ties to the military, they’re less likely to encourage sons or daughters, nieces or nephews, friends or acquaintances, etc. to consider joining the military. There is great intangible recruiting value to honoring tradition.

The current presidential administration now imposes “woke” values onto our military. There’s less focus on warfighting and more focus on social justice. Now the Biden administration wants to use the military to fight “climate change.” No wonder Army enlistments fell 25% short of goals in 2022. Hopefully the next administration will return to celebrating traditional values relating to camaraderie, patriotism, and service as opposed to dreary and dubious woke values relating to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Our enemies must love seeing our military focusing so much time and energy on politically correct wokeness. It’s becoming a national security issue.

Tradition.

Consider the lyrics to that wonderful song from that that Academy Award winning film:

“Tradition! Without our traditions our lives would be as shaky as … a fiddler on the roof!”

Truth.

So, may the Celtics bring back the parquet floor and may the military cut back the woke insanity.

Merry (traditional) Christmas!

The post Traditions, Troops, and Hoops appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Londonderry Needs a Town Manager That isn’t a Whiney Little Bitch

Granite Grok - Fri, 2023-12-08 20:30 +0000

A judge’s recent decision on another Right to Know Lawsuit in New Hampshire could cost the Town of Londonderry a pretty chunk of change in Court and legal fees.

I only bring that part up because the case exposes for our amusement just how corrupt and contemptible a local government can be. While not the slimy cistern of obstruction we know as Nashua, Londonderry has been circling its own drain for years. And without getting into a debate about any war waged by its self-proclaimed political elite against Londonderry Times publisher Deb Paul, this case was indeed frivolous.

The Judge used the word repeatedly in the decision. Frivolous. The Town had no basis for refusing the RSA 91a request for the documents in question but having read them, I can see why there might have been some interest in hiding them. They make Town Manager Michael Malaguti looks like a whiney little bitch.

Malaguti filed a sexual harassment complaint (creating a hostile work environment) with the Town based on this exchange, publicly available from a public Town’sg on the Town’s website.

 

COUNCILOR PAUL: . . . I believe that’s conflict of interest with the Planner being in economic development. You have
somebody seducing businesses to come here and then looking at their plans. That’s not a conflict of interest? That’s not a setup for a law firm, a lawsuit? No.
CHAIRMAN FARRELL Ok, we don’t seduce anybody.
COUNCILOR PAUL: Well, entice, intrigue, convince, use a word.
CHARMAN FARRELL: We follow the guidelines and follow the laws of the State of New Hampshire.
COUNCILOR PAUL: It’s still a conflict for me.

 

No one in their right mind – and a keen observer might discern that Malaguit appears trapped in his Left mind – would construe that to be harassment implicit, explicit, inferred, backhanded, or otherwise unless they are fragile and ill-suited for the job of town manager … or vindictive.

And then deny access to the email and attached letter of complaint to the accused. Deb Paul had to sue the Town for refusing to cough it up, and the Court took the Town and Malaguti to the woodshed.

 

This case involves a frivolous complaint of sexual harassment, brought in apparent bad faith. The complaint was brought by the highest administrative officer of a town. He brought the complaint against an elected official to have her censured for what she said at an on­the­record, public hearing. The views she expressed, and the language that she used, was constitutionally and statutorily protected political speech. …

Make no mistake, Malaguti’s accusation of sexual harassment was frivolous. …

On the record provided by the parties, it is impossible to view Councilor Paul’s comments as sexual harassment, or as sexual anything, or as a comment on the gender of the Town Planner/Development Director. Malaguti’s complaint that Councilor Paul attacked the personal integrity of the Town Planner/Development Director is equally specious.

 

The Judge goes on to provide numerous examples in context, including dictionary definitions of the word ‘seduced’ that have no sexual connotation of any sort. It is embarrassing or should be, and (again) perhaps that is why Londonderry worked diligently to hide it.

So what is it that doesn’t offend them about Malaguti’s behavior? In his effort to smear her, Londonderry lost a bunch of money, damaged himself and the Town, and wait – why don’t I just quote him?

 

 

I’d be curious to know if people thought that the war raging against Deb Paul by the Town of Londonderry, represented by this completely fabricated sexual harassment fiasco – exacerbated by the absurd obstruction undone by the 91-a court case – is the sort of disparaging, discriminating, harassment, the Town of Londonderry should never tolerate.

 

The post Londonderry Needs a Town Manager That isn’t a Whiney Little Bitch appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Knowing the Christ of Christmas

Granite Grok - Fri, 2023-12-08 19:00 +0000

Christmas is undoubtedly the most recognized and celebrated holiday around the world, and the owner of its namesake easily the most known human in all of history, and for good reason.  No human being has ever had the impact of Jesus Christ – alive or dead or resurrected.

For most people throughout history, Jesus was either an archetype or, for those of us since His resurrection, an almost mythical figure we try to know through stories and legend.  At Christmastime, we are reminded of His miraculous birth, immaculately conceived, heralded by angels singing to shepherds, and visited by star-seeking Magi from the Far East.  The story of His birth alone is larger than life and one that is known worldwide.  A birth so significant we set the human calendar by it (B.C. Before Christ, A.D. Anno Domini / “Year of the Lord”).

Christmastime is special for many reasons, however, it has taken on a parallel meaning for many.  Rather than a celebration of God’s gift of salvation wrapped in a manger, it has become a commercial festival of gifts wrapped by Amazon and under a tree.  Though the gift-giving and seasonal flavor are nice they pale in comparison to the real reason for the season, which is Christ Himself, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  The One who’s name is above all names and titles are above all titles because, He was not just the Son of God, He is God the Son, and there is an important distinction.

The title Son of God can often be construed as Jesus was somehow lesser than God, yet that is not the case at all.  He said so Himself, and Paul reiterates it in the book of Colossians:

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him.” (Colossians 1:15&16)

Consider again then why this time of year is so special and why our ancestors sought fit to reorient time itself to His birth.  Christ is God Himself come to dwell and reveal the God we all wonder about to us – Emmanuel i.e. “God with us”.  It’s in this very act we see the God of the Universe, creator of all things – Heavens and Earth – chooses to be known by us, not just believed in.  Again, He said so to the prophet Jeremiah:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.” (Jeremiah 29:11-14)

This seems to be the mistake so many people who wrestle with God fail to grasp, the full-hearted seeking of Him now that He chooses not to be physically with us.  This is the core of faith and also the way to build it.  It can almost seem like He’s playing an impossible game of hide and seek, but He isn’t.  He is there, and He wants you to know He’s there, and He’s given you the way to know it.

Many of us fail to seek with all of our hearts because we either believe our half-hearted attempts were good enough or we lose faith in world that falls so horribly short of even our minimal hopes and expectations we don’t want to suffer the thought God is the ultimate disappointment by not being real.

Even though our ancestors from all over the world changed times, penned scripture, faithfully shared their testimonies, wrote songs, and even made His word the best-selling and most-distributed book of all time, the worry that God won’t meet us in this life in a way that is meaningful and assuring is often too much to bear to risk putting our entire heart on the line.  The thought of the disappointment can be too painful, and for many who no longer believe they have walked through that pain sorely disappointed.  Why God?  Why haven’t you answered me?

I, too, was once in that place in life, ready to give up on any hope God was real let alone good or trustworthy. At perhaps my lowest point in life, which is often precisely where He needs you to be to cry out with all your heart, is when He met me for the first time in a way I couldn’t deny was Jesus, God the Son.

Despite my disdain for Christians and their book, I was so broken and lost I figured, “what did I have to lose?” having lost almost everything.  From a humble and contrite heart, I finally let go of my anger, bitterness, and resentment toward God for the horrible life I’d lived and asked Him for help.  More specifically, I asked Jesus, having learned from some Christians, to ask in His name as He says to in the gospel of John:

“Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.  Ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete.” (John 16:24)

And I kept asking and kept talking to the Jesus I couldn’t see.  And He kept answering in ways I couldn’t deny – someone was listening.  Though I doubted at times and chalked it up to coincidence, I kept going back to the same well and asking again, in His name, always humble and always trusting the same Jesus would answer again.  He did, again, and again, and again.

It’s been twenty years since I started to seek Him with all my heart, and it’s been twenty years of a life punctuated by divine answers to my deepest needs and warmest desires.   I have come to know Him and, more importantly, come to know He knows me and my needs better than I know myself.  The comfort and peace that come with that are beyond description, but they are as real as the sun in the sky.

It was angels that knew God who broke into song that night, just like those who have known Him throughout history are compelled to do the same.  It’s in the knowing Him that our souls rejoice and are comforted to know the Christ of Christmas.  The one who healed the lame, gave sight to the blind, calmed the raging storms, and walked among mankind long enough to change the very way we view history and also how we consider eternity.

So this Christmas, I hope you stop and listen to the words and consider Who it is about which it is sung.

“Joy to the world, the Lord has come, let Heaven and nature sing!”

He is more than a song and a set of legendary stories.  He is the God who made you and wants to know you, and you to know Him, at Christmas and every day unto eternity.

Merry Christmas!

 

The post Knowing the Christ of Christmas appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow

Granite Grok - Fri, 2023-12-08 17:30 +0000

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

Speaking of, from this week, Monday Edition and Wednesday Edition.  Also check out my latest Israel-focused meme & commentary post if this is a subject of interest to you.

 

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

 

The day after, but critical to never forget:

 

 

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

 

 

 

That’s the problem.  All these things, whether the Jab / depopulation, or CBDC, or whatever… for the vast majority of people, it’s too big.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prescient.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The idea that the net could go down, or the power could be out for more than an hour or three, or that you might be targeted and frozen out for wrongthink literally does not cross the minds of the vast majority of people.

 

 

 

 

This is astonishing on so many levels I can’t fully wrap my mind around it.

 

 

I’ve never looked… but I did see one meme a while ago of a woman with a bathrobe open to her navel.  Former teacher.  Salary $40-something K per year.  Now, about that same amount per month.  While I certainly do not condone it, at all, I do understand the economic incentive.

 

 

 

 

What’s that conventional wisdom?  They who name a number first lose?

 

 

 

 

 

The lie is believed blindly because it makes people feel good about themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

 

This is something I never considered, but damn, that’s clever.

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the Post:

 

Now, I’m not saying the sun’s been engineered.  But… how utterly convenient the timing, no?

 

 

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

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

 

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

 

And don’t forget… come back Monday for another edition.  Same Meme Time.  Same Meme channel.

Please do consider buying me a coffee.

 

 

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

 

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

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

The Manchester Free Press aims to bring together in one place everything that you need to know about what’s happening in the Free State of New Hampshire.

As of August 2021, we are currently in the process of removing dead links and feeds, and updating the site with newer ones.

Articles

Media

Blogs

Our friends & allies

New Hampshire

United States