Rising overdoses and homelessness in Oregon, where hard drugs have been legalized, may be a red flag to Vermont lawmakers considering repealing legal penalties for the personal use of opioids.

Granite Grok (New Hampshire news and commentary website) editor Steve MacDonald recently reported on the Oregon 2021 drug-legalization experience. “As expected, things quickly went sideways,” MacDonald writes. “In the first year, overdose deaths rose 200 percent. …Human nature had, once again, taken progressive policy to the mat and beaten its scrawny little [behind].”

Governor vetoed attempts to legalize hard drugs in Vermont

The Vermont Legislature in 2022 passed H.505, titled “An act relating to the creation of the Drug Use Standards Advisory Board within the Vermont Sentencing Commission.” The bill was sponsored by then-House Judiciary Chair Maxine Grad, Rep. Martin LaLonde (D-South Burlington), and Rep. Bill Notte (D-Rutland). Grad is no longer in the Legislature, but LaLonde is now chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee.

The purpose of the bill is “to reclassify the penalties for unlawfully possessing, dispensing, and selling regulated drugs; to combine the criminal penalties for dispensing or selling heroin, fentanyl, or a combination of heroin and fentanyl.” In effect, it repealed legal penalties for possession of 60 grams or less of crack cocaine, and established a drug sentencing review board to examine further steps, including possibly decriminalization.

Gov. Phil Scott was not sold on the idea of legalizing or decriminalizing hard drugs. He vetoed the bill and he wrote in his veto letter, “This bill creates a Drug Use Standards Advisory Board with a stated goal to identify a path to effectively legalize personal possession and use of dangerous and highly addictive drugs.”

Scott added, “It places no limits on which drugs can be contemplated for legalization or the amounts, and while rightly saying we need to view substance abuse as a public health matter — a point where I agree — it includes absolutely no recognition of the often-disastrous health and safety impacts of using drugs like fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, and more. Nor does it acknowledge the role of enforcement in tracking down and stopping the dealers who seek to poison Vermonters — including children — for profit.”

Burlington Police Chief says overdoses dramatically increasing

VtDigger.com was recently told by Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad that The Queen City is also seeing an exceptionally high rate of drug abuse when compared with much of the rest of the nation.

“I’ve spoken to my fellow chiefs around the county,” he told them. “They are not seeing the same spike in overdoses that Burlington is seeing.”

The city had at least 350 overdoses as of mid-September of this year. The previous high the year prior year as of that point was 155. The current tally for 2023 as of Oct. 31 is now 422.

In September he had said more on the subject, including that “Overdoses in Burlington are at unconscionable levels,” the report states. “It is possible there may be as many as 500 by year’s end.”

Burlington mayoral candidates soft on drug use?

The current candidates for mayor of the Queen City are already being challenged to come up with tangible solutions to the growing drug use crisis. A report on Wednesday by Seven Days covering one of their debates describes where the candidates stand.

“Burlington leaders have generally favored harm reduction, believing that substance-use disorder is an illness that can’t be treated with incarceration. As drug use becomes more visible, though, some have suggested the city’s stance is too permissive,” the report states.

The report continues that all the candidates generally seem to favor treatment rather than incarceration, not unlike the policies currently failing in Oregon.

“The candidates also share similar views on how to address the problem,” it states. “They all believe Burlington would be safer with more police and better-funded social services, such as street outreach teams.”

The City’s Council recently passed a resolution declaring drug abuse a public emergency, but its wording fails to commit to a hard line on drug use.

“The public safety and health approaches must go hand in hand and are all part of the holistic approach to fully addressing this crisis,” the resolution states.

The Seattle City Council also passed a similar resolution this year, similarly continuing to avoid commitments to a stricter policy.

Online reaction

When an X user shared a Fox News report on the failures of Oregon’s drug policy, commenters piled on their frustrations.

“Well, for those wanting government out of their ability to take drugs. Oregon sounds like the haven they’ve been looking for.” @crazzer6 posted last week.

Another said that decriminalization leads to “lawlessness.”

“Of course…liberal now means lawless, and lawlessness is how a civilization is destroyed,” wrote @onetruthonelaw.

A native Oregonian said he left the city.

“True News! Papa and I were born and raised in Oregon! Lived there until 2020. Between Antifa and Fake BLM, Soros DA, mayor and Kate Brown! All Soros! Then drugs! Yup we were outta there! ” wrote @Grams1st.

Another suggested that there is an outside influence at play.

 

Michael Bielawski | Vermont Daily Chronicle

The post Crime Rise in Drug-Legal Oregon Forewarns Vermonters After Recent Hard Drug Legalization Attempts appeared first on Granite Grok.

One of the biggest problems with New Hampshire’s ruling class Concord swamp creatures, what we refer to whimsically as ‘The Five Families,’ is that without regard to a political party, they love them some Federal Money, and there is no such thing as too much.

When confronted with the very real strings attached to handouts from inside the Beltway, the pat response is that there are no strings. But there are always strings. Federal grants exist, just like welfare and other handouts, to create dependency while erasing the ability of states to exercise sovereignty. If enough of the budget is top-loaded with taxdollars laundered through the General Government, leverage is easily applied. Transgender policies in schools, or else? One of many examples from COVID.

And there is no such thing as one-time money. Those funds – robbed from taxpayers – come with rules that typically require the state to continue funding the program after the grant runs out or to enforce regs with all the in-perpetuity costs associated with managing it … forever (to which we can add the increased expense of compliance by businesses or citizens where applicable). And there are few programs as expensive and burdensome as EPA regs under any circumstance but especially in the guise of reducing CO2 or greening the planet, which is a contradiction if you are an actual scientist. CO2 greens the planet!

Another contradiction is our state motto (Live Free or Die) smothered with a pillow by the whores in Concord who then (I’ll let you finish that sentence in your mind). They are beside themselves with glee about being “awarded” a new grant from the EPA.

 

New Hampshire has been awarded a Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to update the state’s climate action plan to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses. EPA is administering this CPRG Program as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The CPRG program has two phases: planning and implementation.

The goals of the New Hampshire CPRG Program are to:

• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions while supporting the creation of good jobs and lowering energy costs for families.
• Empower community-driven solutions in neighborhoods overburdened from pollution and impacts of climate change by directly seeking input from those communities. Under Justice40 guidance, the program’s goal is to have 40% of overall benefits flow to these communities.
• Deliver cleaner air by reducing harmful air pollution in places where people live, work, play and go to school.

Planning

In the current planning phase, NHDES will use awarded funds from EPA for development of a Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP) and a Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP). The PCAP is due on March 1, 2024, and will focus on identification of actionable measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and an analysis of some benefits. Completion of this initial plan is a necessary prerequisite to allow our state to compete for $4.6 billion in implementation grants described below. The CCAP is due on August 15, 2025, and will build upon the information in the PCAP but will include more in-depth analysis of benefits, projections of future reductions and more detailed study of future implementation options.

Implementation

In the second phase of the program, entities identified in the PCAP may apply for implementation grants. Implementation grant applications are due April 1, 2024. There will be a total of $4.6 billion available nationally for implementation, and grant applications will be evaluated by EPA on a competitive basis.

Engagement

The EPA has made clear that meaningful community engagement is essential  for this planning process and accessing funding for the implementation grants that follow (i.e., support for local ideas, policies and programs to reduce pollution and build more equitable and resilient communities). Learn more on the EPA website.

 

Meaningful community engagement. Yes, I think our readers should get engaged with NH DES. And what do they think that looks like?

 

Meaningful Community Engagement

Each climate action plan requires meaningful community engagement. The design and initial efforts to identify climate action priorities must actively involve the participation of people who live in communities that experience a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards that affect their quality of life – linked to the following sectors. There is much to talk and engage about across New Hampshire! See EPA Technical Assistance for more information.

1. Transportation.
2. Electricity generation and/or use.
3. Natural and working lands.
4. Industry.
5. Agriculture.
6. Commercial and residential buildings.
7. Waste and materials management.
8. Wastewater.

Process for Engagement

1. Assessment Phase: Clarifying engagement and workplan goals while identifying partners, interested parties, their interests and resources.
2. Design Phase: Work with and engage interested parties and partners to plan the engagement process.
3. Engagement Phase: Begin to implement the engagement plan by holding community conversations across New Hampshire with a mix of stakeholders, including and emphasizing people who are from communities most affected by greenhouse gases and air pollution in New Hampshire. The focus comes from guidance put forth by the EPA  and Justice 40.

Community engagement activities that will focus on building relationships and opportunities for people to voice their ideas are being scheduled between October 2023 and February 2024. Per EPA guidance, we will seek to:

• Develop a strategy with community involvement that outlines the benefits and disbenefits that the local community will receive and defines when and how community engagement will occur throughout and beyond the entirety of the project.
• Identify relevant community members (those with interest or influence, and those who will be affected), and what they care about or bring to the table.
• Develop a plan, with community involvement, that lays out the goals, challenges, potential solutions and methods to measure progress, and manners for continued engagement.
• Outline a strategy to understand, engage, and evaluate the full landscape of community interests and resources moving forward.

 

Interested? I think at least a few legislators should check it out in the interest of protecting their citizens from federal overreach. Maybe the Executive Council?

 

“If you are interested in joining a list for the community conversations between December 2023 and February 2024, please fill out your information here in this notification sign-up form.”

Some concerns might be how there is no reason to reduce CO2, or that doing so is detrimental to the planet, NH businesses, the tax base, and affordable quality living, they printed this money, and it has added to inflation, maybe just send it back. You know the drill. And don’t forget to look for the strings.

 

| NH DES

The post Concord Whores Drop Their ‘Drawers’ for EPA Green Deal Dollars appeared first on Granite Grok.

Public elementary schools have rapidly implemented nebulous “Comprehensive Sex Education” (CSE), which introduces children at a very young age to sex, gender identity, gender orientation, and a worldly rainbow of other sexual “education.” Parents of many faiths are resisting this ungodly initiative on religious freedom grounds. Christians who believe “He made them male and female” (Genesis 5:2) must opt out of CSE.

Despite incontrovertible scientific affirmation that God’s Word is accurate as to the gender binary dualism of His Creation, “queer theory” is being thrust into schools post-haste, all the way down to kindergarten. This is not simply an issue of teaching sexual deviance but of teaching sexuality at an extremely young age. According to some proponents, early training about transgenderism is necessary because “transgender young people become self-aware that their assigned birth sex is different from their gender identity between the ages of 3–5 years old.”

The recent case of Mahmoud v McKnight in the US District Court for the District of Maryland considered objections by three families – one Jewish, one Muslim, and one Christian – to this sexual conditioning of their children. The parents sought to be permitted to have their children “opt-out” of these periods of instruction. Many states already permit opt-outs for sex ed about birth control, but the Biden-appointed judge’s ruling dismissed the plaintiffs’ religious liberty claims::

The plaintiffs believe the books and the School Board’s guidance on their use promote “an ideologically one-sided view of issues” that is contrary to their faiths and their understandings of scientific evidence. …The sine qua non of a free exercise claim is coercion, and the plaintiffs have not shown the no-opt-out policy likely will result in the indoctrination of their children or otherwise coerce their children to violate or change their religious beliefs. …No government action prevents the parents from freely discussing the topics raised in the storybooks with their children or teaching their children as they wish. The no-opt-out policy does not prevent the parents from exercising their religious obligations or coerce them into forgoing their religious beliefs.

This is complete balderdash: of course, these policies prevent and pervert parents’ desire to hold off teaching their children about sex until a traditional age and challenge scriptural texts. Children who “misgender” other children are disciplined in public schools, even at very young ages. Moreover, progressive secular states are increasingly targeting religious schools for failing to similarly indoctrinate students into believing there are infinite genders (and presumably otherkin) with neither scientific evidence nor lawful precedent. The foregoing shallow decision in Maryland would equally justify allowing kindergartners to watch Debbie Does Dallas in school: parents of faith would be told they can “unteach” the porn at home.

The Court stated, “There is no doubt parents have substantial rights under the Due Process Clause, but the Court still must define the specific right at stake with granularity.” It is hard to imagine what religious rights remain for parents of faith if this anti-faith decision prevails. In these toxic times, parents who cannot opt their children out of indoctrination into ideological “theories” about race, gender, and sexual orientation may choose to opt out of public schools entirely.

It is to be hoped that this fatuous, virtue-signaling decision will be strongly challenged. As American courts tamper with clear religious rights, believers must reflect on their spiritual duties to shield young children from such corrupting perversions of the world:

Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

Scriptural guidance must be assessed with granularity.

 

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

The post Navigating the Cultural Storm – Religious Freedom, Education, and the Battle for Parental Rights appeared first on Granite Grok.

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

Speaking of, from this week, Monday 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 ***

 

 

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

 

 

 

Many years ago I was visiting a high school friend who was complaining that “the charitable people” wanted to put a homeless shelter in his neighborhood.  He said – rightly – that if they were so concerned they could build one in THEIR neighborhood.

 

 

 

 

This same Red Cross has denied that the Jab enters the bloodstream.  They’re also a subcontractor to the US government in providing aid and maps to the invading army poor migrants flooding into the US.

 

 

 

This isn’t just about Gaza.  It’s every war.  People – including civilians – die in wars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of BBB:

 

Build Back Better – the hidden message Bumper Sticker | Zazzle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

 

Remember, when a gun shop closes, all the 4473 forms you filled out go to FEDGOV.  Is there a person with three brain cells that talk to each other that thinks – pinkie swear! – they’re not compiling a database for confiscation based on that?

Start lining up your “tragic boating accident” plans.  Sooner rather than later.

 

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

 

 

 

 

From in-debt bartender to multi-millionaire.

 

 

 

 

Our society is dying.  The campfire of civilization is dying being extinguished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The OJ case proved to me that there is a privileged – i.e., rich – class.  This, above, versus the persecution Trump is facing, is just revealing the horrible truth about the various classes we really have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the Post:

 

 

Note at the bottom.  Provisional application in 2015.

2015.

20-frickin’-15.  By a Rothschild.

 

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

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

—

 

Back in the days when company leaders had a sense of honor and commitment / service to the public – not just a commitment to their personal bonuses.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Amidst the hustle and bustle of erasing the next Christian holiday and only a few weeks since the idea that slaughtering Jews is a good reason to stand with “Palestine,” the Queer lobby continues to beclown themselves in Burqua-level ignorance.

We’ll skip the bit about Palestine being a generically named region that includes Israel and Jordan – making them all, technically, Palestinians and sticking to the preferred narrative. Arabs, mostly Muslims as they ran the Christians out years ago, are afforded some special place in the region of Palestine, just not anywhere with Arabs or Muslims. They have to take land from the Jews, whom they hate and want to kill.

Funny coincidence. Gender-spectrumists with the intellectual agility of a small soap dish have been quick to grasp The Next Thing (attention can be so fleeting). The Television people are telling them to stand with Arab Muslims who hate Jews but also hate the LGBTQ community. Were you standing with them on a rooftop, for example, they’d be happy to assist you with your ‘suicide.’

Supporting Arabs backed by militant Islamists whom they put into power isn’t in your best interest. Still, this individual has discovered something in the Quran without discovering the part that might get them dead.

 

Trans social media influencer just fell in love with Islam and is now promoting the Quran.

Wait until Ahmed invites they/them to the LGBTQ-inclusive rooftop party.pic.twitter.com/H0GXnxZfJC

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 26, 2023

 

And this works for They/Them because,

 

Per Social Justice dogma, the ultimate Axis of Evil is whiteness, heterosexuality, Christianity, and maleness. Any identity that is not these things, therefore, is on the positive side of the moral binary, as it were. (It turns out they do love binaries when they are moral ones that they can put themselves on the favorable side of. Imagine that!)

Accordingly, the Social Justice faction of the left is positively desperate, and has been for years, to reconcile Islam with gender-deviancy as well as feminism, which it obviously cannot be.

 

Whoever is “teaching” they/them the Quaran is leaving something out, and you’d be right to wonder if that’s deliberate. The answer is yes. And the consequences are grave for anyone influenced to think otherwise.

 

The post Irony Alert: Trans-Influencer Loves They/Them Some Quranic Wisdom … Say, What? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Left has created its own conundrum. They hate gun violence and ownership, but the Democrat policies have resulted in a spike in legal gun ownership, including first-time gun owners.

This trend cuts across every demographic, but fear not, the White House has announced the first office of Gun Violence Protection, and heading up this new initiative is none other than Vice President Kamala Harris. Through Karine Jean-Pierre, the President admitted that Harris was his second choice, but Beto O’Rourke was unavailable to take the job.

How ironic that the Border Czar who has done nothing to alleviate the surge at our Border is now in clean-up mode. She is going to prevent Americans from the violence she has helped create by her failure at the Border. And let’s not forget we may never recover from the Defund the Police movement that was born during the Black Lives Matter Summer of Love. The Left is throwing money at policing, but we lost so many of our irreplaceable, experienced cops, and recruitment is down, meaning we have an inexperienced, understaffed police force in America. People are tired and fearful about the ridiculous 911 response times and are buying guns at a record rate to self-protect themselves and their families.

According to NBC News, 52% of American voters say they or someone in their household owns a gun. 41% of Black voters are now gun owners, and that is up 17% from the previous year’s numbers.

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) thought he had the answer when he called gun violence a Public Health Epidemic. If you cannot solve a problem, you should at least give it a label. He cited CDC stats of 48,000 deaths in 2022. That is 132 dead every day from “gun-related deaths.” Of course, you always have to be leery of statistics, and hidden in Durbin’s numbers is that 65% of the deaths he reports are suicides. Democrats are minimizing the issue and trying to sell a simple solution to a complex problem. They call it gun-related deaths as if the guns are pulling the trigger. People are pulling the trigger: evil people and desperate people. Kamala’s public service announcement of a new White House initiative will do nothing to solve the problem, but we know and associate Kamala with failed initiatives. She is the curse that keeps on giving to the Republicans.

To oversimplify the solution to the problem, we have to start with the state of the country. People are miserable with fear and anxiety. That state of mind has been created by the systematic destruction of our country by an Administration that Hates America. That might be a harsh observation, but how else can you explain this circle down the drain called the Joe Biden Presidency? He has destroyed our economy and decimated our retirement accounts, so he has disillusioned the older segment of America who were looking forward to a well-deserved retirement and now continue to work with no end in sight.

He has obliterated the American Dream of raising a family and buying a home. He burst the bubble for the younger generation. This generation is the first to be indoctrinated from K-16 and believed the Government would protect and provide for them. The Government pulled the rug out from under these kids, and their depressed state of mind is palpable. Suicides for people under 25 are skyrocketing, and yes, these are the 65% of gun-related deaths the Dems ignore.

The Left has abandoned lower-income Black and Brown citizens. Expenses, crime, drug-related deaths, and illegal immigrants stealing their jobs are what the Left has given these folks. Is it no wonder the frustration of this group in manifesting itself with crime and violence? We failed to educate, protect, or allow them to dig themselves out of poverty and into the middle class.

So good luck with your new assignment, Kamala. We already know how this act ends. If you need us, we will either be at the gun store or range. Leave a message, and we’ll get back to you. By the way, you should have recorded your PSA in multiple languages because not many of those illegals you allow to flood over our Southern Border are fluent in English.

 

The post Left Hates Guns As Gun Ownership Soars appeared first on Granite Grok.

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has come a long way from traditional keyboard and mouse interactions. The evolution of technology has led to innovative interfaces that redefine how we engage with digital systems. Here are some key aspects of this transformative journey:

1. Natural User Interfaces (NUI):

NUIs aim to make technology interactions more intuitive and natural. Touchscreens, voice recognition, and gesture controls represent a shift towards interfaces that mimic human communication patterns.
Devices like smartphones and smart speakers have embraced NUIs, allowing users to interact with technology in ways that feel more familiar and less constrained.

2. Voice-Activated Assistants:

The rise of voice-activated assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant has fundamentally changed how we interact with devices. Users can now perform tasks, ask questions, and control smart home devices using natural language.
The continuous improvement of natural language processing and voice recognition technologies enhances the accuracy and responsiveness of these voice-activated interfaces.

3. Immersive Experiences with Virtual and Augmented Reality:

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies have introduced immersive interfaces that blend the digital and physical worlds. VR creates entirely virtual environments, while AR overlays digital information onto the real world.
From gaming and education to healthcare and design, VR and AR redefine how we experience and interact with information, offering new dimensions of engagement.

4. Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI):

BCI is at the forefront of futuristic interfaces, allowing direct communication between the brain and computers. Electroencephalography (EEG) and other neuroimaging technologies enable users to control devices with their thoughts.
While still in early stages, BCI holds immense potential for individuals with disabilities and has implications for enhancing human-computer interaction in diverse fields.

5. Tactile Feedback and Haptics:

The integration of tactile feedback and haptic technologies enhances user experiences by providing a sense of touch in digital interactions. This can include sensations like vibrations, force feedback, and even temperature changes.
From gaming controllers to touchscreens, haptic feedback adds a layer of realism to digital interactions, making them more engaging and sensory-rich.

6. Wearable Technology:

Wearable devices, such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, represent a shift towards technology seamlessly integrating into our daily lives. These devices offer convenient, hands-free interactions and real-time data monitoring.
The integration of health monitoring features, notifications, and smart assistant capabilities makes wearables a central component of the evolving HCI landscape.

7. Gesture Recognition:

Gesture recognition technology enables users to interact with devices through hand movements and gestures. This intuitive interface has found applications in gaming, smart TVs, and public displays.
The evolution of cameras and sensors allows devices to accurately interpret and respond to a wide range of gestures, providing a more natural and interactive user experience.

8. Biometric Authentication:

Biometric authentication methods, such as fingerprint scanning, facial recognition, and iris scanning, are becoming integral to user interfaces. These technologies offer secure and convenient ways to access devices and sensitive information.
The seamless integration of biometric authentication enhances the overall user experience by reducing the reliance on traditional passwords.

As technology continues to advance, the future of HCI holds exciting possibilities. From brain-computer interfaces to immersive realities, the evolving landscape promises interfaces that are not just tools but seamless extensions of human capabilities, fostering a more connected and interactive digital era.

9. Emotionally Intelligent Interfaces:

– The future of HCI includes interfaces that can interpret and respond to human emotions. Emotionally intelligent systems leverage facial recognition, voice tone analysis, and other biometric data to gauge user emotions and tailor interactions accordingly.
– This development aims to create more empathetic and responsive technology, enhancing user experiences in areas like virtual customer service, mental health apps, and personalized content delivery.

10. Spatial Computing:

Spatial computing involves the use of the physical environment as a medium for interacting with digital content. It encompasses technologies like mixed reality and spatial mapping, allowing users to manipulate digital information within their physical surroundings.
– The fusion of the digital and physical realms in spatial computing offers new possibilities for data visualization, design collaboration, and immersive storytelling.

11. Intelligent Automation and Predictive Interfaces:

Intelligent automation involves systems that learn from user behavior and automate repetitive tasks, streamlining workflows. Predictive interfaces leverage AI algorithms to anticipate user needs and provide context-aware recommendations.
These interfaces aim to reduce cognitive load by automating routine decisions and surfacing relevant information, enabling users to focus on more complex and strategic aspects of their interactions.

12. Multi-Modal Interfaces:

– Multi-modal interfaces combine various modes of interaction, such as touch, voice, and gesture, to create a seamless and adaptable user experience. These interfaces recognize that users may prefer different modes of interaction in different contexts.
– For instance, a smart home system might allow users to control lights via voice commands, adjust temperature through touch gestures, and receive notifications through visual cues, providing a versatile and inclusive interface.

13. Continuous Connectivity with Internet of Things (IoT):

The proliferation of IoT devices contributes to a more connected HCI ecosystem. From smart home devices to industrial sensors, the ability of devices to communicate with each other enhances the overall user experience.
Interconnected devices create a web of contextual information, allowing for more personalized and efficient interactions. For example, a smart thermostat may adjust settings based on both user preferences and real-time environmental conditions.

14. Ethical Design and Inclusive Interfaces:

As HCI evolves, there is a growing emphasis on ethical design practices and inclusivity. Designers are increasingly considering the social and ethical impact of interfaces, addressing issues such as bias in algorithms, accessibility for diverse user groups, and privacy concerns.
Ethical design ensures that technology serves users responsibly, respects their rights, and avoids reinforcing existing societal inequalities.

15. Adaptive Learning Interfaces:

Adaptive learning interfaces leverage machine learning algorithms to tailor educational content based on individual learning styles, progress, and preferences. These interfaces offer personalized learning experiences, catering to the unique needs of each learner.
This approach transforms traditional education models, providing adaptive feedback, recommending targeted resources, and fostering a more engaging and effective learning environment.

16. Ephemeral Interfaces:

Ephemeral interfaces focus on temporary and context-specific interactions. This concept is particularly prevalent in augmented reality experiences where digital information is overlaid onto the physical world for a brief period.
– Whether it’s navigating directions on a city street or accessing information during a live event, ephemeral interfaces provide timely information without cluttering the user’s ongoing experience.

In conclusion, the evolution of HCI goes beyond the tangible devices and interfaces we interact with daily. It encompasses a holistic shift towards more intelligent, adaptive, and ethical systems that seamlessly integrate with our lives. As technology continues to advance, the possibilities for human-computer interaction are not just expanding but redefining the very nature of our digital engagements.

The post The Evolution of Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping the Future of Connectivity appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you’d like a portrait of modern policing post-George Floyd Fraud, at least in Chicago, this might be your ticket. Four CPD diversity hires. All women. At least two “of color.” One taller black man is under arrest for retail theft (which is, itself, a rare thing). They can’t get the job done.

He was later arrested, but you’d be right to ask why he wasn’t arrested and detained here.

 

Video of a retail theft arrest at 95th and Ashland.

The subject resists police and takes off running.
Patrick Johnson-Henry, 32, was taken into custody on the 9400 block of S Justine and was charged with 4 counts of resisting police, 1 count of possession of a replica firearm, 1… pic.twitter.com/x5PBaBTwxF

— 16th & 17th District Chicago Police Scanner (@CPD1617Scanner) November 23, 2023

 

We accept (or at least hope) that this is not the norm for the Windy City Police Department. That there are female officers capable of escalating the use of force to detain a suspect without needing additional help. But as observed here, while Blue City Dems have walked back some of their toxic rhetoric about policing, they did irreparable damage during the Summer of Love (2020).

 

RT-This is what you get when police officers are fearful of being the next YouTube video, prosecuted, disciplined, and having the media doing an exposé on how they abused a citizen – which would be complete BS-

 

We also see that the culture within Police Departments regarding retail theft – even districts where DAs might charge suspects for retail theft – has degraded severely.

 

“The more shocking part of this video is the defeated tone in the sergeant’s voice and his order to let a retail theft offender who just fought with police go,” the crime blogger said.

2210: “If we can’t contain him and it’s just a retail theft…let him go.”

Police Officer: “He has a cuff on him already.”

 

As noted above, he was eventually caught, so whoever lost their cuffs can get them back. But the current terms of engagement aren’t favorable, either on paper or in person, to effective policing, and it is going to get cops killed, either in body or in the press, and cops know this.

It does not bode well for law-abiding Americans in places where they’ve been disarmed.

 

 

The post How Many Female Chicago Cops Does it Take To Arrest One Guy? appeared first on Granite Grok.

There are many thorny issues Republicans must deal with if we want to win next year, but perhaps the most difficult one is abortion. Abortion is a topic that pundits told us not to talk about – and that is essentially what some Republican candidates did in 2022. But not the Democrats.

In fact, Democrat groups spent over 360 million dollars on distortions and outright lies about abortion. It seemed nearly all of their political ads targeted the topic of abortion! The most common lie was that Republicans did not believe in providing lifesaving care for a mother during pregnancy, miscarriage, or ectopic pregnancy.

In Illinois, as in most states, abortion rights are codified into state law, but the left said Republicans would undo those state laws or even prosecute people for having an abortion. This cannot be done, but that did not stop Democrats from saying it. The problem is that when lies are heard often enough, they become the truth.

Democrats won by spreading lies about abortion in 2022. Make no mistake – abortion will be the number one topic in their playbook for 2024. We ignore the issue at our own peril! We must put Democrats on defense on abortion while we remain positive and compassionate. (RELATED: ERICK ERICKSON: Republicans Can Win On The 15-Week Abortion Sweet Spot)

Let us turn the argument around. Democrats: do you support a limit on abortion? 8 months? 7 months? Is there a bad abortion? Do you believe in gender selection?

Most importantly, though, we must remind voters that the Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion back to the states, where state legislatures can determine the best course of action for their state. Abortion is not a federal issue – it is a state issue.

I had the honor of being a guest lecturer at the University of Illinois, Chicago, right before the leak of the abortion decision. My lecture was supposed to be a non-partisan presentation on how political parties in Illinois are organized and work.

After the lecture, I opened it up for questions – and voila – the first question was, “What will happen if Roe vs Wade is overturned?” I responded that it was more than likely the Supreme Court would return the question to the states for legislators to decide. I explained that in Illinois, abortion access was codified, allowing abortion for virtually any reason through the 9th month. I answered a few more questions and did my best to remain opinion-free. In closing, I asked, “May I ask you a question? When the abortion decision came down in 1973, it was said that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. My question for you is, how many legal abortions have there been since the 1973 Roe decision?” They didn’t answer right away. Some guessed half a million, 1 million, 1.5 million. The answer was over 64 million. (RELATED: DANIEL MCCARTHY: If Abortion Is On The Ballot, The Battle Is Already Lost)

You could hear a pin drop…

When the lecture was over, I got applause from the students, and the professor emailed me afterward, saying the students said I was “thoughtful and very nice.” You see if we ignore issues, we allow Democrats to get away with their lies and shape the discussion, and then it may be too late.

When confronted with liberal lies, Republican candidates must be ready to share the truth. Republicans are in agreement with the majority of Americans. Each candidate should confidently let voters know where they stand and outline Republicans’ compassionate pro-women, pro-child, and pro-family policies. Republicans must also stanDemetra DeMonteort for limitless, government-funded abortion, which is far outside the mainstream and not supported by the majority of American voters.

To win in 2024, Republicans cannot afford to stay silently on the sidelines. We will need each other, and we will need independent voters, too. In this fight, let us be happy warriors. Now, let’s go win!

 

Demetra DeMonte is the Republican National Committeewoman for Illinois, first elected in 2008, and serves as the RNC Vice Chairman of the Midwest Region. She and her husband Tony reside in the Chicago area, have two grown married daughters, and are the proud grandparents of two grandsons.

 

Demetra DeMonte | 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.

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Travel is more than just a journey from one place to another; it’s a profound exploration that opens doors to new cultures, perspectives, and self-discovery. In this 2000-word journey, we’ll unravel the transformative power of travel and how venturing beyond our comfort zones can enrich our lives.

1. Broadening Horizons Through Cultural Immersion:

Travel provides an unparalleled opportunity to immerse oneself in diverse cultures. From savoring local cuisines to participating in traditional festivities, the experience goes beyond sightseeing, fostering a deep understanding of the world’s rich tapestry.

2. Connecting with Nature:

Venturing into the great outdoors allows travelers to connect with nature in ways that transcend the ordinary. Whether it’s hiking through lush forests, basking on pristine beaches, or marveling at majestic mountains, the natural world becomes a source of inspiration and rejuvenation.

3. Embracing the Unknown:

Stepping into the unknown fosters personal growth and resilience. Travel challenges preconceived notions, pushing individuals to adapt to new environments, navigate unfamiliar streets, and interact with people from different walks of life. This adaptability nurtures a sense of self-confidence and resourcefulness.

4. Unveiling Historical Narratives:

Each destination carries a unique history waiting to be discovered. Exploring historical sites, museums, and monuments provides a tangible link to the past, offering insights into the evolution of civilizations and the stories that shaped the world we know today.

5. Finding Tranquility in Travel:

Amidst the hustle and bustle of daily life, travel offers a respite. Whether it’s a serene retreat to a secluded island or a peaceful mountain getaway, the journey provides moments of tranquility that allow individuals to reflect, recharge, and reconnect with themselves.

6. Building Connections:

Travel opens doors to new friendships and connections. Engaging with locals and fellow travelers creates a network of relationships that transcend borders. These connectios become lasting memories, turning a solo adventure into a shared tapestry of experiences.

7. Sustainable Travel:

As awareness of environmental impact grows, sustainable travel practices are gaining prominence. Exploring how conscious choices, such as eco-friendly accommodations and responsible tourism, contribute to the preservation of natural and cultural heritage.

Absolutely, let’s expand on the exploration of travel with additional sections for a more comprehensive article.

8. Culinary Adventures:

One of the most delightful aspects of travel is indulging in diverse culinary experiences. Each destination boasts its own gastronomic wonders, from street food markets to fine dining establishments. Exploring local flavors becomes a sensory journey, connecting travelers with the heart of a culture through its cuisine.

9. The Art of Slow Travel:

In the era of fast-paced living, embracing the art of slow travel allows individuals to savor each moment. Moving beyond the checklist of tourist attractions, slow travel encourages a deeper engagement with the surroundings, fostering a genuine connection with the destination and its people.

10. Travel Photography: Capturing Memories:

Photography becomes a powerful tool for capturing the essence of a journey. Whether it’s the vibrant colors of a bustling market, the serene landscapes of a countryside retreat, or the candid expressions of locals, each photograph tells a story and becomes a cherished memory that lasts a lifetime.

11. Overcoming Challenges: A Traveler’s Resilience:

Travel isn’t always smooth sailing, and overcoming challenges on the road builds resilience. From missed flights to language barriers, these obstacles become opportunities for personal growth. Navigating the unexpected transforms travel into an adventure, teaching valuable life skills along the way.

12. Impact on Creativity and Inspiration:

The new environments, cultures, and experiences encountered during travel serve as a wellspring of inspiration. Writers, artists, and creatives often find that the fresh perspectives gained during their journeys ignite their creative spark, leading to the creation of works infused with the richness of diverse influences.

13. Traveling Mindfully:

In the pursuit of transformative travel, adopting mindful practices enhances the experience. Being present in the moment, practicing gratitude, and respecting local customs contribute to a more meaningful and conscious exploration of the world.

Conclusion: The Ever-Unfolding Journey:

As we conclude our exploration of the transformative power of travel, it’s clear that the journey is not a finite experience but an ever-unfolding adventure. Each trip leaves an indelible mark, shaping our understanding of the world and our place in it. Through cultural immersion, nature connection, overcoming challenges, and mindful exploration, travel becomes a lifelong source of enrichment.

Embark on your next journey with an open heart and a curious spirit, and let the transformative magic of travel continue to weave its spell.

 

The post Exploring the World: Unveiling the Transformative Power of Travel appeared first on Granite Grok.

There’s a strange disjunction in the discourse about the 2024 elections. On the one hand, when presented with the proposition “Trump can win,” people will nod their heads sagely and say something along the lines of: “Of course, he can; only a fool would believe to the contrary.”

At the same time, whenever polling emerges showing that Donald Trump is performing well in 2024 matchups, a deluge of panicked articles, tweets (or is it “X”s?), social media posts, and the like emerge, reassuring readers that polls aren’t predictive and providing a variety of reasons that things will improve for President Biden.

As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Elections analysts seem to know that they are obliged to mouth the words that Trump can win, but deep down, they don’t believe them. The notion that Biden is the favorite is deeply internalized, likely for a variety of reasons.

So let us set the record straight: Trump can win. Not in a “maybe if all the stars align and then Russia changes the vote totals (even somehow in states like Michigan that use hand-marked paper ballots)” kind of way. Just flat out: Trump can win.

As of this writing, Trump leads Biden by 2.6 percentage points nationally in the RealClearPolitics Average. This is Trump’s largest lead in the RCP average to date. Not for 2024, mind you. Ever.

Let’s put this in perspective. In 2016, Trump led Hillary Clinton for all of five days in the national RCP Average, each of those days in the immediate aftermath of the Republican convention. He led in 29 polls taken over the course of the entire campaign, 10 of which are recorded in the RCP averages as Los Angeles Times/USC tracking polls.

In 2020, Trump never led Biden in the national RCP Average. He briefly closed to within four points in early January of 2020, but that is it. He led in five polls all cycle.

So, counting the L.A. Times tracker as a single poll, Trump led in a total of 24 national polls. This cycle? He’s led in that many since mid-September. He’s led in more polls in the past three weeks than he did against Biden in all of 2019-2020.

You may be thinking that we don’t elect our president via the popular vote, but rather do so through the Electoral College. This is, of course, true. It also makes Trump’s current position in the polls all the more striking. After all, Trump has consistently outperformed his polling, and his Electoral College positioning has consistently been stronger than his national positioning. That doesn’t mean that this will necessarily hold in 2024, and at some point, the GOP’s worsening position in the suburbs will reverse the Electoral College dynamic that has plagued Democrats for the past few cycles.

But we can look at state-level polling as well. In 2016, Trump (somewhat infamously) never led in a poll in Wisconsin. He was never within more than three points of Clinton there. He led in a single poll in Michigan and a single poll in Pennsylvania. His lead in North Carolina never exceeded two points in the RCP averages, while in Florida, his largest lead was 1.2 points.

The 2020 comparison is even more striking. Trump led Biden in Florida in the RCP averages briefly in October and March of that year. In Arizona, it was the same story. North Carolina was a little better for Trump, as he led in the RCP averages perhaps a quarter of the time. In Ohio, Trump led in only six polls all cycle. He led in five polls in Pennsylvania. In Michigan, it was five polls, and in Wisconsin, it was four.

To put this in even deeper perspective, Mitt Romney never led President Barack Obama in the RCP Average in Wisconsin (and led in just three polls), Pennsylvania (likewise, he led in just three polls), Michigan (he led in just eight polls), or Ohio (Romney led 10 polls all cycle). Things were a bit sunnier for Romney in Florida, where he had leads in the low single digits frequently. The same is true for North Carolina, although Obama led there until May.

What does the state polling show today? Trump leads in the RCP Average in Michigan for the first time, ever.

Pennsylvania? He leads for the first time ever and has led in most polls.

He narrowly trails Biden in Wisconsin but has already led in almost as many polls as he led in the state in 2016 and 2020 combined. His 0.7% deficit compares to his previous best showing in the state: A 3.5% deficit in August of 2020.

Florida? Trump has led or tied in every poll, including some double-digit leads.

Arizona? He leads by five in the RCP Average.

Georgia? He leads by six.

Ohio? Polling is sparse, but he leads by 10.

In other words, analyzing this election correctly isn’t just a matter of giving lip service to the notion that Trump can win this election. The correct position right now is that Trump is better positioned in the polls to win this election than any GOP nominee since at least 2004. Not only that, he habitually over-performs his polls. Frankly, if you are willing to set favorites this far out, you should almost certainly declare Donald Trump the favorite.

Does any of this mean that Trump will win the presidency in 2024? Absolutely not. There are good arguments why perceptions of the economy will improve between now and then (although maybe they won’t). Perhaps Trump will under-perform his polling this time, as the GOP did in 2022 (although, maybe, he won’t). There are good arguments that Trump’s criminal trials will erode his standing in the polls (although, having watched Trump scandals unfold for the better part of four decades now, maybe they won’t).

These all make for fun speculation and are useful reminders that if a week is a lifetime in politics, then a year is, well, a very, very long time. Analysts should, of course, feel free to indulge in gaming out the possibilities.

But when the conversation returns to what we do know, there honestly is only one correct answer: Trump can win this election and is well-positioned to do so.

 

Sean Trende | RealClear Wire

The post Night Cap: Not Only Can Trump Win, Right Now He’s the Favorite To Win appeared first on Granite Grok.

In 1803 to the frustration of Thomas Jefferson, Chief Justice John Marshall established judicial review in the case Marbury v. Madison. Prior to 1984, ambiguous language in a statute resulted in a judicial review of the legislative history to determine the legislators’ intent or resulted in a ruling of unconstitutionality because the language was “ void for vagueness.”

In 1984, Jefferson rose from the grave, and thunder and lightning struck the federal legal system. Judicial laziness or cowardice resulted in the doctrine of “Chevron Deference.” FDR and his successors had constructed a bureaucratic monstrosity on the shores of the Potomac. “Chevron Deference” unleashed a nest of vipers and vampires, overriding the constitutionally mandated three branches of government and bringing our Federal Republic to the “ Eve of Destruction.”

In simplistic terms, SCOTUS forfeited judicial oversight to the bureaucratic establishment, the so-called experts. The Epoch Times, today’s newspaper of record, reports federal judges have cited “ Chevron Deference” 18,000 times, hiding in their Chambers and punting control of our lives (including the puddles in front of our homes) to the dictatorial menagerie of human authoritarians known as The Deep State.

There is hope! SCOTUS recently marginalized Chevron with the institution of the “major questions doctrine,” requiring federal judges to presume that Congress does not delegate policy decisions of great economic or political magnitude to unelected bureaucrats. SCOTUS has now granted review in four cases that may overrule Chevron.

The overruling of Roe v. Wade, dedication to the plain language of the Constitution, and stare decisis indicate “Chevron Deference” will hopefully be consigned to the dustbin of history. Only the re-election of Donald Trump is more important to the survival of the USA.

The post Can “Chevron Deference” Be Consigned to the Dustbin of History? appeared first on Granite Grok.

A significant but unknown number of public schools across the U.S., particularly in big cities, have lost so many students in the last half-decade that many of their classrooms sit empty. Gone is the loud clatter of students bursting through crowded hallways and slamming lockers.

The harm from these half-empty schools is inflicted directly on all students in a district. Without enough per-pupil state funding to cover their costs, they require financial subsidies to remain open, forcing district-wide cutbacks in academic programs.

“I visited one school that takes up an entire city block but there were only five classrooms used, plus a library, a computer room, and an afterschool room,” said Sam Davis, a member of the Board of Education in Oakland, California. “As our budget officer said, if you don’t have enough students for two teams to play kickball, there are a lot of other academic activities that are not going to be sustainable either.”

But nothing in public education is more controversial and difficult than closing a neighborhood school. The protests that recently flared up in cities like Oakland and Denver over proposals to shut low-enrollment schools, which also tend to be the worst academic performers in districts, are just a prelude of the reckoning to come, according to interviews with school leaders, researchers, educators, and charter officials.

The permanent closure of schools slowed drastically during the pandemic, even though many urban districts suffered a major exodus of students, with double-digit losses in New York City and Los Angeles. Many hollowed-out districts have temporarily sidestepped the tempest of shutting schools because Congress provided them with a historic windfall of pandemic-related funding and wide latitude in spending it, said Georgetown Professor Marguerite Roza, who directs the Edunomics Lab.

But the $190 billion lifeline – called the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund – ends next September. So school leaders are facing mounting pressure to shrink their oversized districts, setting up the next battleground over public schools.

“Many districts have too many schools, not enough kids, and are propping them up with federal relief funds,” Roza said. “And they haven’t laid the groundwork for closures when the funding goes away. Imagine the anger and protests when families learn suddenly that their schools are on the list to close.”

With aid flowing during the pandemic, districts shut an average of 810 schools a year in 2021 and 2022, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That’s far less than the 1,350 average from 2011 to 2020, a difference that underscores the magnitude of the problem of zombie schools.

Why Schools Are Hard to Close

In the business and nonprofit sectors, wasteful spending is typically reined in by downsizing operations into fewer buildings and personnel. But public schools often find protection from the calls for efficiency. The first wave of pandemic-era proposals to shut schools in several districts has been countered by a formidable coalition of local advocates, forcing school boards to backpedal on their consolidation plans.

Families are leading the protests at school board meetings. Some have sentimental ties to neighborhood schools that go back generations, and others cite transportation issues in switching to another location that’s further from home. Teachers unions have joined the fight in Oakland and other cities, arguing that closures pose unfair labor practices. And racial justice advocates have succeeded in reframing the issue as a matter of equality rather than wasteful spending since nearly all the schools to be closed serve mostly black and Latino kids.

Districts like Seattle that aim to shutter schools often cite reasons that are out of their control. The birth rate has been dropping since 2007, according to federal data, chipping away at enrollment. Families are also leaving cities like Los Angeles and Chicago because of the rising cost of living and concerns over crime and homelessness. San Francisco, for instance, lost 7.5% of its population between 2020 and 2022, according to the census.

But public schools share in the blame. With test scores on the Nation’s Report Card in decline since 2012, families have been quitting traditional schools in search of a better education and a safer environment at charters, micro, and home schools. Charter enrollment, for instance, grew 7% from 2020 to 2022, while district schools lost 3.5% of students, according to the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools.

School districts can’t do anything about the birth rate. But many of them do control the fate of charters. In Los Angeles and other cities facing closures, school boards that formerly encouraged the expansion of charters have grown hostile toward them and blocked their expansion, in part to preserve their own enrollment.

How Zombie Schools Hurt Education

Some districts are now devising proposals to close under-enrolled facilities because of the financial burden they create.

Even a school at half capacity needs a principal, support and food service staff, custodians, and sometimes a nurse, librarian, and counselor. Education is highly labor-intensive, with compensation comprising at least 85% of a school’s expenses, Georgetown’s Roza says.

Since zombie schools don’t cover their own expenses, superintendents have to pull resources from other schools and programs to subsidize them. Funding for art, music, special education, and advanced placement classes may be cut, affecting students throughout the district.

“In the end, districts have to spread resources too thinly, across too many buildings, and nobody gets served well,” Roza says.

In Denver, Superintendent Alex Marrero detailed the financial benefit of shutting schools in a memo to families last year. In proposing to close 10 out of about 155 traditional and innovation schools – one of which had only 93 students – Marrero said the cost to the district to subsidize them was $5 million annually. That money was pulled from healthier schools and programs.

But if the 10 skeletal schools were closed, the superintendent added, the district could hire an additional 50 full-time employees to benefit students.

The financial logic of school closures has won the day in some districts. Indianapolis announced it was shutting six schools in May to promote the efficient use of taxpayer funding and higher student achievement. St. Louis said it would lock the gates on eight schools, some of them half-empty, two years ago.

The city of Jackson, Miss., may approve a sweeping closure plan in December. The superintendent is calling for the elimination of more than a quarter of its 55 district schools after community outcries scuttled plans over the years to close under-enrolled facilities.

“The closures are long overdue and I think they will happen,” says Rachel Canter, executive director of Mississippi First, a nonpartisan education policy group. “The reality is that the population has declined so much that Jackson cannot support the number of schools it has and provide a quality education.”

Opponents Prevail in Oakland

But in many cities, schools that are almost empty shells are protected from closing. Consider the heated battle in Oakland.

The performance of the Oakland school district, which is two-thirds Latino and black, is among the worst in California: Just 25% of students meet or exceed math standards, and only 33% reach this bar in English.

The poor results have contributed to a steady drop in enrollment to about 34,000 last year from more than 50,000 two decades ago. Many students left for charters, which now educate about a quarter of students in Oakland.

To improve performance, the district had set up a number of small schools with about 400 kids. That provided enough funding for a couple of teachers at each grade, as well as art and music programs, to create a rich learning environment. That’s now mostly gone.

“Several of our campuses have dwindled to what I call micro schools that are each under 250 students, with only one class at every grade level and without much enrichment,” said Davis, the school board member. “We no longer have that robust environment for teachers or students.”

The urgency for Oakland to close schools, in addition to buildings it shut years ago, is underscored by the state takeover of the district in 2003 to prevent bankruptcy. The district is still paying off the bailout loan, so wasting money on under-enrolled schools could prompt another intervention by its Alameda County overseer.

To stave off more financial trouble, the board approved a plan in 2022 to shut or merge 11 schools, beginning with two that year. The savings would give the district a chance to reinvigorate the remaining schools with more teachers and programs.

But weeks of community demonstrations and a hunger strike by a group of protestors culminated in the election of new board members who opposed school closures. Two of the winners were backed by the Oakland Education Association teachers’ union.

In January, the new board hastily overturned the earlier vote on closures, saving five schools from shuttering without considering the financial impact in apparent violation of its own policy.

Sasha Ritzie-Hernandez, who has numerous relatives attending Oakland schools, helped rally thousands of protesters to keep them open. She says the schools targeted by the board were disproportionally black and low-income and questioned whether the savings would actually benefit students or get absorbed in what she considers a bloated district bureaucracy.

“I oppose closing schools,” said Ritzie-Hernandez, who lost a race for an open board seat in November. “Families in Oakland didn’t feel like they were involved in the decision-making process, so we mobilized parents to the board meetings because there was not robust community engagement.”

The decision to keep the schools open adds at least $5 million a year to the district’s budget, forcing the board to consider across-the-board cuts to its 78 schools, which could only add to their struggles.

Up Next: Denver

The Denver school district is now in the throes of a closures fight after enrollment has suffered from a declining birth rate and gentrification.

While Latinos make up the biggest group of students, their families are having fewer children. At the same time, rising housing costs are pushing lower-income families out of the city, and young couples without kids are moving in. The district is becoming whiter and smaller.

Enrollment peaked in 2019 at about 94,000 students and has fallen each year to 89,000 in 2022, according to the district. It projects it will lose thousands more students in the next few years.

When birth rates fall, elementary schools are emptied first. At the beginning of the year, the Board of Education expected that 15 district-run elementary and middle schools would have fewer than 215 students. Two elementary schools would have fewer than 120 students and not enough incoming kindergarteners to form a viable class.

After more than a year of gathering community feedback and analysis by an advisory committee, Superintendent Marrero, in the fall of 2022, recommended closing 10 of the 15 schools with fewer than 215 students. Nine of them were predominately Latino and black.

In the racial politics of Denver, the plan drew swift blowback from families and some members of the school board, which was entirely backed by the influential Denver Classroom Teachers Association. Vice President Auon’tai Anderson declared in the media that the closure plan was a “tactic of white supremacy culture” – despite the fact that it was developed by a Latino superintendent.

Bowing to pressure, several weeks later, Marrero was expected to cut the list in half to five schools, targeting those that required the largest subsidies. Instead, he chopped the list to just two schools.

Still, that wasn’t good enough. The school board rejected the slimmed-down plan, saying more input from the community was needed. A few months later, in early 2023, as the financial burden of zombie schools sank in, the board finally acted, closing just three of them.

What will happen to the rest of the under-enrolled schools is anyone’s guess. This month, Denver voters signaled they wanted a more moderate school board, electing three new members – none of them backed by the teachers union – to the seven-person panel. One new member is the former CEO of a charter network in Colorado who has expressed support for closing under-enrolled schools.

If Denver shutters more schools, it will likely happen slowly over many years, says William Anderson, a former public school teacher in the city who’s now on the faculty at the University of Denver.

“Maybe they close three next year, and see if it’s working the way they expected, and then they tweak the process before closing three more,” he says.

Charters on the Firing Line

As a subplot in the battle over vacated schools, districts in Oakland and Denver have rejected several requests by charters to expand. While that may help protect a district’s funding, it’s not good for families looking for better options for educating their children.

Charters, which are publicly funded but privately managed, have been particularly effective in accelerating the academic growth of low-income students, outperforming traditional schools by a significant margin, according to a 2023 study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford.

This is true in Denver, according to a separate CREDO study of the city, where charters make up about a quarter of all public schools. DSST, a charter network in Denver with waiting lists for many of its schools, stands out. It won national acclaim for the outstanding academic results of its disadvantaged students, 80% of whom are Latino or black. All of its graduates have been admitted to college since 2008, according to its website.

Yet DSST’s expansion in Denver has come to an abrupt halt. It last started a school in 2021, and that required the charter to appeal to the state after the school board sought to delay the opening for years. Since 2020, the Denver board has received three requests for new charter schools and rejected all of them, citing the potential difficulties they would have in recruiting students and other reasons, according to board memos.

“The local school board has been controlled by members who are hostile to authorizing new charter schools,” says Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president for state advocacy at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “While Colorado’s law does create an appeals process, the time-consuming nature of it can serve as a deterrent to growth.”

In Oakland, the school board has rejected two charter proposals it has received since 2020: a new school was denied because it didn’t have a sound educational program, and an expansion was shot down because of the financial impact on the district from losing more students to the charter, said Davis, the board member.

Even Yu Ming, the top performing K-8 public school in Alameda County, which includes Oakland, encountered resistance in its request to grow its enrollment in the city. Students in the Mandarin immersion charter—30% of whom are low-income—performed about three times better than Oakland students on a 2022 state test, an extraordinary margin. Although Yu Ming has a waiting list, the Oakland board passed a resolution to compel the county, which controls the charter, to allow it to expand into a neighboring city.

“The problem is that if we expand enrollment at charter schools, including the highly successful ones, that contributes to the decreasing enrollment in the district and leads to us closing more neighborhood schools, which is very painful,” Davis said.

But the benefit to students who would have enrolled in an expanded charter like Yu Ming could be significant. One of the most effective ways to deal with the chronic academic problems of low-income students is simply to put them in a better school. That alone makes a big difference, according to a CREDO study of school closures in 26 states.

The research showed that students – particularly blacks and Latinos – who transferred to superior schools made greater academic gains than their peers who remained in poorly performing schools. But a little less than half of the displaced students were moved to higher quality schools, which are in short supply in many cities.

Margaret Raymond, the CREDO director, says local boards closing facilities should also focus on finding ways to transfer students to better schools, including charters, even if districts take a financial hit.

“The lesson is that choosing the worst schools to close is probably a good thing, but that’s only half the exercise,” Raymond said. “Districts also have to figure out how to marshal those kids into settings where they have a chance of recovering academically.”

 

Vince Bielski | RealClearWire

The post Night of the Living Ed: Zombie Public Schools, Drained of Pandemic Lifeblood, Haunt the Land appeared first on Granite Grok.

Every time I write something about how Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP) appears to be wasting money trying to convince people Trump can’t win, the local AFP – which has no control over any of that – gets a heads up. I have friends at AFP-NH, so a big hello (you know who you are).

Anyway, we have continued to get mailers from Americans for Prosperity reminding us that this Trump fellow won’t be able to beat Biden. As a reminder, I don’t think it will be Biden. He wins the nomination, and they pick someone to replace him (he’s old, weak, sick, drops dead – whatever the DNC needs to do). And!, since no one has done anything about election integrity in “swing” states, it hardly matters who anyone is, but let’s not get bogged down in those details. I’m here to do something I rarely do. Share a campaign email beatdown that mentions AFP (Hi, Again!)

I get a lot of emails when we aren’t in the circus cycle. The presidential primary season amps that up. Most of it never sees the light of my day, but once in a while, something pops. This happened to feature a point I’ve been making for a while. It is attributed to 2022 Congressional candidate Karoline Leavitt (who lost to Chris Pappas). I like Karoline, who will likely be notified by a reader that I wrote about her. There’s no escape for wicked bloggers regardless of the spell we cast, and we’re okay with that, but the headline reads “The Koch Network Continues To Light Money On Fire.”

 

“The Ron DeSantis campaign finally got it right when they bitterly attacked Americans for Prosperity for being a vessel of globalist shills. That’s exactly why AFP backed Ron Desantis in his 2018 and 2022 gubernatorial races.

Everything old is new again. The Republican primary is split between career politicians who are tools of the billionaire class and the one man who delivers for the American people. Americans for Prosperity has already lit millions of dollars on fire this primary only to watch President Donald Trump’s lead grow. No amount of money can break the bond President Trump has with voters. He kept his promises.” — Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for Make America Great Again Inc.

 

I’m not here to advocate for or against any of that except to say that Trump is not beholden to the donor class, and they hate that. They hated it then and now, with almost as much fury as a Uni-Party could. And that AFP is burning money, but it is theirs to burn. They must do what they think is right, like the rest of us.

As for the other two whom we presume AFP-Action finds preferable to the Trumpian Trumpness of The Donald, DeSantis should be embarrassed Nikki Haley is ahead of him in New Hampshire or that he’s not doing better everywhere else where he is in second place but again, Gov Ron is focused on Iowa and Haley in New Hampshire. And neither is anywhere near Trump. Not really. Not anywhere.

So, everyone is burning money, and in a few weeks, that will translate into primary votes, so we’ll see what we see.

 

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A few weeks ago, I did a piece on the alleged voter fraud that took place in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in which a Democrat Party official was caught on video stuffing absentee ballots into drop boxes around the city.

Further investigation discovered that she had been using official data from a low-income housing program that should have been private to target vulnerable voters, then filling out absentee ballots for them before returning them to unsupervised drop boxes. Update on that story: a judge threw out the results of the Bridgeport mayoral primary election because of the fraud that took place and its magnitude. So, we can scratch that “alleged” qualifier used earlier.

Meanwhile, over in Lawrence, Massachusetts, there is video evidence of someone stealing absentee ballots out of people’s mailboxes, filling them out, and turning them in. According to the local NBC affiliate,

NBC10 Boston has obtained video footage from a man’s home that appears to show a woman removing ballots from his mailbox.

The man, who did not want to be identified, said he went to vote in person on Election Day last week and was told, according to the list, he already voted.

So, he checked his camera footage and then contacted the police….

As of Tuesday afternoon, there were two reports of potential voter fraud—or stolen ballots— in Lawrence.

“There may be more. It’s premature to say how many,” [Secretary of State William] Galvin said.

Maybe more? Yeah. I’m sure this person just went into this one stranger’s mailbox, stole just this one ballot, and cast just one counterfeit vote for the sheer thrill of it all. No systematic absentee ballot fraud operation happening here, no sirree.

A couple things to note about these cases. First, it took a highly motivated citizen to detect, report, and pursue this fraud — plus the luck of a well-placed security camera. Election officials were oblivious and therefore would have been perfectly happy and ready to count the fraudulent vote. In the other incident referred to in the story, it’s not even clear whose vote election officials will ultimately count – the fake one or the real voter’s. Because if somebody steals your vote, how do you prove it absent security video? Lastly, it will be extremely hard to identify the person on the video stealing the ballots. Not holding my breath that this person will ever be caught or prosecuted. Pleasantly surprise me!

Moving down the road to Springfield, Massachusetts, another Democratic mayoral candidate is facing vote fraud accusations, this time that an operative from his campaign was caught on video paying people ten bucks a pop to vote early for his candidate. According to MassLive,

Signed affidavits from the city clerk, four city election workers and a police officer document what they witnessed, including multiple voters asking city staff about where to get their $10.

“I heard people asking ‘Where is my payment’ and ‘I was promised ten dollars,’” reads an affidavit signed Tuesday by Daisy Lorenzana, who works in the elections department. “I had seven people ask me directly where their ten dollar payment was,” she writes, adding that a man said in Spanish “vote for Hurst and you’ll get ten dollars.”

Great…. But, this is an example of why you need to require filling out a ballot in person in the presence of election officials. These voters in question were voting at the clerk’s office. Were they stupid to ask election officials where to get their bribe money? Yes! Do they clearly have no clue about election law? You betcha they had no clue! I guarantee you none of them was weighing the possibility that doing this could get them a $10,000 fine and a year in prison so maybe not worth it. But the fact that voting in person created the opportunity for them to be stupid in front of election officials is how they got caught – which led to catching the guy running the scam. Yes, one good reason why we should require voting in person.

Beyond that, having pocketed their ten dollars, these voters were still able to fill out their ballots in secret for whomever they really wanted to. I mean seriously, are you going to trust the person who just sold you their vote for ten bucks to be honest with you about who they really voted for if they do so in secret? So even if they took the money (still a crime), voting in person is still a better system for free and fair elections.

But here in Vermont, where we send out absentee ballots to all voters regardless of request, these transactions don’t have to take place in front of election officials. They can take place in people’s homes or workplaces or under a bridge where even the most ignorant or mentally impaired coconspirator poses zero risk of blowing the cover off the scam. And, even better for the fraudster, whom the ballot is filled out for can be verified and returned by the fraudster for safekeeping. Yes, Vermont’s electoral system is a joke.

This gets us to the next recent story, and switching parties here to keep things non-partisan, where an Iowa Republican’s wife was convicted on fifty-two counts of voter fraud perpetrated during her husband’s 2020 primary race for Iowa’s 4th Congressional District and a subsequent campaign for local office. Kim Taylor’s scam involved taking advantage of recent Vietnamese immigrants who spoke little English. Taylor, a Vietnamese immigrant herself, according to the Justice Department’s press release:

“…completed and signed voter forms without voters’ permission and told others that they could sign on behalf of relatives who were not present.”

Taylor was caught when two of the people whose ballots she stole showed up in person to vote and were told they had already voted, but signature verification indicated that the fraudulently cast ballots were, in fact, fraudulent. Note: we don’t have signature verification in Vermont as a deterrent to vote fraud. In fact, in Vermont, we don’t have ANY meaningful deterrent to voter fraud.

Remember that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Vermont lawmakers have, over the years, created a system in which evidence of voter fraud is nearly impossible to detect or collect because they have taken virtually every tool away from election officials for detecting fraud. We don’t require in-person voting, we don’t have voter ID, we don’t have signature verification, we have removed pretty much every aspect of voting from registering to vote to casting a ballot out of the direct supervision of election officials, and we have given fraudsters 45 days of early voting in which to organize and fully exploit our hyper-lax election laws.

How can anyone expect honest citizens to trust the outcome of elections conducted under these conditions? We can’t. Until this is fixed, we have a system where the winner can be determined by who’s the best at cheating. It’s not a comforting way to pick the people who make our laws, is it?

 

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

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Whenever someone says something is a neo-colonial construct, you should look them in the eye and ask how many Legos it took to build that.  Neo-colonialism is a buzzword from the hive mind of a herd of people with obscene amounts of Liberal Privilege.

It’s something you inject into conversations to look bright or clever on the run-up to changing the subject and shouting because you can’t defend one of many idiotic Left-Wing canards.

Like this!

 

In reality, the term “terrorism” is a neo-colonial social construct which aims to serve the Western powers and their allies.

— Mohammed Hijab (@mohammed_hijab) November 22, 2023

 

Mohammed Hijab. That handle has something wrong with it, but let’s not get distracted. Does this appropriation of Lib-Speak Told-you-So Trash Talk have a wooden leg on which to stand?

According to Merriam-Webster, ‘Terrorism’ is not neo-colonial at all. It first came into use during the French Revolution when white people in France were killing other white people in France for control of the country. More specifically, acts of terror by the government upon the French people.

A deliberate use of force by a government to intimidate its citizens is neither new nor colonial, but the citizens of Islamic countries would be familiar. Muslims exist under a constant state of fear of failing to submit to the will of the people running the local theocracy, which the dictionary defines as terrorism. And a program projected across the globe in the name of Allah.

Mohammaed Hijab, who could be a white liberal chick from Hoboken for all we know, is using an invented liberal smear (neo-colonialism) to hide the very essence of progressive governments (in their proper and final form) everywhere. The end game of Democrat Socialism is impossible without it. The “deliberate use of force by a government to intimidate its citizens.”

A few examples.

The weaponized Obama intelligence community Spied on its allies, members of Congress, the media, an opposing presidential campaign, a Republican president-elect, that Republican president, his campaign staff, his transition staff, and his White House staff. The weaponized Obama intelligence community spied on all of us and infiltrated media and social media to control messaging and silence opposing speech. It lied about Hunter Biden and his laptop. Surveilled and followed innocent citizens, detained them without due process, and continues to do so out in the open. It raises star-chamber congressional committees and threatens parents who dare to speak up at the local school board meeting. And let’s not get started about Democrats and the COVID business.

Resistance to that terrorism is called insurrection. You might also be able to fit guerilla warfare in there or resistance fighters, depending on what is being resisted, like the ideological colonization of America by Marxists doing business as the Democrat Party in the pursuit of a constant state of terrorism. And they can get there from here. The only things stopping them are a couple of amendments in the otherwise disregarded parchment we call the US Constitution and the handful of people willing to defend it.

Individuals prepared to resist government terrorism in all its forms, including the State-Sanctioned version paid for by Iran that’s been playing out in the Middle East, where militants terrorize local Arabs whom they hide behind while they try to kill Jews.

 

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It is we, the Americans, who are failing. In our moral depravity, our banal ignorance, our idiotic complacency. We are allowing ourselves to be led astray by our own, to be deceived by our own, by the stupid or foolish in our midst.

We, in this city on a hill, must shine brighter, must stand up straighter, must bend but not break, must temper and strengthen our resolve, and must come back to our roots— our constitution— what makes us who we are.

A close family member of mine is on his deathbed this week. He was a good man who began his life as a citizen of a different country, not the United States, and he succeeded. He succeeded in migrating and starting a family in the United States of America in this country, but this country failed him. The federal uniparty and all of the disgusting, despicable corruption. Those men and women deserve nothing but a swift end to the evils they have spread on this nation. 

Its immigrants like my family member who came to this country and believed in what was sold to them through official media channels through official advertisements that the government should regulate and must regulate to maintain a moral and healthy society. And in the States the government has failed miserably.

The American democracy is not democratic. It is corrupt to the core. It’s a hollowed-out husk of a shell. The political parties must be burned and cleansed. Some may say this is radical, but those who do say it is radical are the ones themselves who are totally corrupt, and it was they who totally sold themselves out against their own fellow citizens.

They think it’s right. They think it’s correct. They think it’s the right way to live, but they don’t even know what right is. They have no moral grounding. No understanding of what is right and what is wrong or what is good and what is evil. They are totally lost, and somehow, they end up in positions of power in the government, determining who’s going to be selected or elected to serve in public office and receive public funds. Selling yourselves out to money for politics is wrong.

The United States of America has become a morally depraved nation of atheist idiots following what the media say. Many do not have the courage to think for themselves, let alone stand up and yell back what the correct way should be. To set the government in line. It is not the government that controls the people. It is the other way around. The people control the government. And when the government becomes corrupt, people have legitimate and just cause to remove them.

I was born and raised in the United States of America, and I was sold a lie. I was told to take student loans and that I’d be able to repay them within ten years of graduating from college. I grew up in the 90s, led to believe that globalization was a good and well-intentioned ideology that would allow people to move across borders and work where they’re like.

I send caution to all those who would follow that false hope: do not go overseas blindly. The world abides by the law of the jungle. There are pockets of compassion, civility, and kindness, but they are not enough. In the 1990s, there was a beautiful hope for a globalized, connected, and civilized world. That hope is now a twisted lie.

This government, the American government, in its current depraved iteration, will use only force to ensure that it gets the best possible outcome, even if it means that you, as a citizen of your own country, are destroyed totally and completely.

That is why the American government must be cleaned out, and the American people must renew their understanding of what it means to be compassionate and kind to other citizens – their fellow Americans.

 

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Joe Biden needs to make a decision. Does he want to run for re-election or be President of the United States? He cannot be both and cannot do either well, but this country needs its Commander in Chief.

Biden is governing to the Radical Left and to the votes he will need to beat Donald Trump. It is time for him to face reality. The people do not want him, his Party does not want him, and he will not beat Donald Trump unless he finds a way to use his Justice Department to lock him up, ala Third World Banana Republics.

Domestically, we are in a spiral. Not only does Bidenomics not work, Biden can no longer convince anyone it does. Prices are still rising beyond the middle class’s ability to keep up. New home ownership is beyond the dreams of our children. Crime is out of control, and the wide-open Southern Border is now adding to those growing crime numbers. Our education system is failing; all Biden can do is throw more money at the problem. The White House Briefing should be canceled as the Misinformation Police have muzzled KJP. Her time each day is a joke. She spews lies and finishes each section with, “it’s a fact.” Really? Well, you have been fact-checked, and you are no longer needed.

Internationally, Biden is playing both sides of the fence. He tells Israel that we are behind them and then puts the cuffs on them by pushing for a long-term cease-fire. If Israel does that, and they won’t, Hamas will be killing women and children before sunset. We have sent billions to Ukraine without accountability, including how much is bouncing back to the Biden Family bank accounts. We have no idea who the American hostages are in Gaza, whether they are alive, or when, if ever, they will be released. In turn, Biden relaxes restraints on Iran, giving them more money to fund Hamas and Hezbollah.

We cannot decide between 1st Amendment Rights and Hate Speech. Colleges are protesting our support of Israel, and High School teachers are threatened by students for supporting Israel. More than 60% of Americans disagree with Biden’s policies on the Economy, Domestically and Foreign, but Biden shrugs it off, saying Americans don’t understand. 30% approval is because Americans are stupid. Brilliant explanation, Joe.

I don’t think Joe Biden can get America back on track. Joe Biden has lost sight of our track. But, the only chance we have is for Biden to step down from his ridiculous attempt at re-election. As poor Jimmy Carter was wheeled out for his wife’s funeral service today, I realized he and Joe have more in common than we imagined. I do not say that to disrespect Carter. He is 99 years old. But it is to disrespect Joe Biden because I do not respect him. He hates America, has done everything in his power to destroy her, and has committed treason against the American people. He cannot leave office soon enough.

 

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Michelle Obama can predict the future. Well, she can shape it anyway.  Back in 2012, she stood before the assembled throng at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, and said words that are still shaping elections a decade later. “Let’s be clear,” Michelle said, “elections aren’t just about who votes but who doesn’t vote.”

Today, we finally understand what she meant.

Here’s what happened: just a few weeks after Biden moved out of his basement and into the Oval Office, he was handed a piece of paper to sign – a paper that set in motion an extremely clever scheme designed by the Obamas and their Biden-managing team. The paper is Executive Order 14019, and it was signed on March 7, 2021. Within its flowery language is something without precedent in our history. Specifically, it deputized every single federal agency and office across the nation to identify eligible voters, get them registered, and help them vote.

In crafting this order, the so-called “elites” had a very specific mission in mind. They already had a sense that Democrats would suffer a bloodbath in the 2022 midterm elections. Their party’s notional leader was Joe Biden for goodness sake, and election watchers were already predicting a “red wave” for the GOP. They also understood that if Republicans regained majorities in Congress, the radical Obama-Biden agenda would be stopped dead in its tracks.

That needed to be prevented at all costs – even if the price to be paid was the integrity of America’s elections. So, the elites put Michelle’s words into motion. Enter Executive Order 14019.

For the first time ever, the federal government dove directly into the election process, with officials identifying and contacting federal benefits recipients who might be inclined to vote for Democrats. Food stamp recipients, job training participants, and farm workers were among the millions contacted and assisted. True, many of them may not have planned to vote in the midterms or even known who the candidates were, but no matter. As soon as the officials (who happened to be the source of the benefits they received) urged them to register and fill out ballots, many of them did exactly that.

This isn’t conjecture – it’s documented. For example, the Labor Department sent a memo to state and local officials who administer the huge sums of federal cash that fund their programs. The memo advised officials to use the nation’s nearly 2,400 American Job Centers (AJCs) not solely for job training and employment services. That’s so pre-Biden! Instead, Labor called on them to be used as voter registration agencies, where job training participants would register to vote – with the officials’ help, of course. What to do with all those ballots? Simple – the Labor memo also authorized job training centers to engage in “collecting and transporting voter registration forms.” Factual, documented, and flat-out wrong.

Congress and election watchdogs found out about this and filed multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to get to the bottom of it. At no point, however, have their FOIA requests ever received a fulsome response, and an Obama-appointed judge blocked disclosure. Even when ordered to come clean, Merrick Garland’s highly partisan Department of Justice only issued heavily redacted documents that hid the real story.

Meanwhile, ballot harvesting occurred on an unprecedented scale. As Biden actually boasted on video, “We have put together I think the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.” (That’s not a typo – he actually said it!) In a report perversely named “Strengthening Democracy,” 14019’s backers estimated that it “could collectively generate an additional 3.5 million voter registration applications per year.”

As for the 2022 and 2023 elections, I’ve examined the data and reached my own conclusion: the “red wave” of 2022 and the strong GOP showing of 2023 that nearly every pollster anticipated did in fact happen. Americans of all types have told pollsters they are sick and tired of the damage being done by the Obama-Biden regime and are ready for a new direction.

So, why didn’t Republicans regain the Senate in 2022 and win key races in 2023? Executive Order 14019 is why. In 2022, for example, a red wave did roar across America, as over 3,000,000 more votes were cast for Republicans than Democrats. But it ran smack into what I call the blue wall.

Or, to be precise, Michelle’s blue wall.

Nor am I the only one to note this. My friend Jason Chaffetz recently wrote about the 14019 scheme. And legendary election watcher Charlie Cook observed, “Clearly something or someone intervened, affecting the outcome of the election in the places that mattered.”

You don’t say…

 

Ashley Hayek (@AshleyHayek) is Executive Director of America First Works, Chief Engagement Officer of America First Policy Institute, and the author of Beat the Elites!: 5 Steps to Stop the Elites and Save America.

 

Ashley Hayek | 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.

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We’ve complained about energy security and reliability in the Northeast for years. ISO New England warned policymakers ten years ago that we had demand and infrastructure issues that continue to go unaddressed. And they remain unheeded.

Here are a few more recent examples.

 

• Vermont Democrats Want You to Freeze to Death
• Winter is Coming: Is It Time for New England to “Pay” the Green Energy Piper?
• Another Reason to Vote Out Democrats – The Potential for Rolling Blackouts in a New England Winter
• New England’s Shortsightedness on Energy Isn’t Just Bad for You; It is Bad for The Green Agenda

• Northeast Activists Still Working to Ensure We All Freeze to Death

 

We’ve got dozens more, but you get the point, and perhaps in ways you’d rather not. With all the focus on decommissioning reliable on-demand generation in the absence of any replacement, the break-neck, cutthroat, at all costs (mostly yours) Biden energy transition looks more like a planned culling of locals when demand exceeds supply and people lose power. And the threat is increasingly real for many of us.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) has released a winter reliability assessment for North America, and it is not flattering to the Biden Energy Agenda.

 

(Fox Business)The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) warned this week that more than half the U.S. is at an elevated risk of blackouts this winter due to a combination of increased demand, regional power generation shortfalls and potential fuel delivery challenges in the event of prolonged cold weather events.

The findings came from NERC’s annual Winter Reliability Assessment released Wednesday, which, for the first time in its 55-year history, pointed to energy policy as one of the top threats to the U.S. power grid due to the Biden administration’s green agenda.

 

The Report (here) includes a map with some details as well as information about each region.

 

 

The Map blurb for New England includes this.

 

• NPCC-New England: The capacity of natural gas transportation infrastructure could be constrained when cold temperatures cause peak demand for both electricity generation and consumer space-heating needs. Potential constraints on the fuel delivery systems and the limited inventory of liquid fuels may exacerbate the risks for fuel-based generator outages and output reductions that result in energy emergencies during extreme weather.

 

These are problems shared by huge chunks of the nation.

Here in New England, the issue has festered for many years, but efforts to improve the situation are met with resistance. The keep-it-in-the-ground nimrods who hate reliable energy run scare campaigns that set the NIMBY folks into action, and before you know it, infrastructure gets canceled.

We should be adding to Seabrook Nuclear not talking about decommissioning it. Could Northern Pass have been handled differently? Getting a gas pipeline to bring needed energy north (or any direction) is as impossible as a pipeline from Pennsylvania’s rich gas fields across New York State, which will not allow it.

Our own members of Congress have done nothing to allow domestic gas and oil to travel from the Gulf of Mexico to New England, so you’d be right to think they rather see your wallet raped and your toes freeze.

They are guessing mild winter where I live, and maybe that’s what we’ll get, but it only takes one storm (and we get those) with extreme cold to stress the grid and send everything in a tailspin. But a huge chunk of that map above is expected to have a lot of snow and cold this season, and according to NERC, they are at risk from Biden’s Energy Agenda and it doesn’t need to this way.

 

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