In May, Dominic Osmund, a paid lobbyist for 350NH, harassed me as I was handing out flyers in the NH State House to state reps, asking them to support a parental rights bill.

Dominic held his “I Love My Trans Friend” sign inches from my face, taunted me, blocked me from handing out the flyers, and ripped up one of the flyers, and it was all recorded on my bodycam.

I wrote about it for GraniteGrok in June, and according to his LinkedIn profile, which had shown him as employed by 350NH before my piece was published, he lost his job that same month. (Related: Aggressive Climate Justice Lobbyist Harasses and Obstructs Parental Rights Activist)

Previously, Palana Belken lost his job as Trans Justice Organizer for the ACLU-NH after I wrote about his burning of Harry Potter books and bragging about it on Twitter. He was mad at JK Rowling, the author of the books, for speaking out in defense of women’s rights to our own spaces and sports. (Related: Book-Burning ACLU-NH Trans Justice Organizer Axed.)

That is two-for-two for trans rights activists behaving badly and being exposed on GraniteGrok and losing their jobs.

 

The post Another NH Trans Rights Activist Loses His Lobbying Job After Behaving Badly appeared first on Granite Grok.

We have completely lost our minds and moral compass. When I say we, I don’t mean the collective we. I mean the Biden Government “We.” Weeks ago, Biden freed $6 Billion of Iran’s assets. Biden, Blinken, KJP, and the rest of the sordid cast have repeated ad nauseam that Qatar was in control of the funds and it could only be released for humanitarian purposes.

I surmise that Biden thinks Iran will order vast amounts of medical supplies from Amazon, and Qatar will pay the bill. How stupid is this Biden team, and how ignorant do they see Americans?

Now, we are five weeks into the Israeli/Hamas battle. We know that Iran is funding Hamas and Hezbollah and is controlling the rogue countries surrounding Israel. It is countries like Syria and Libya that are taking sporadic shots at our military installations and hurting our troops. Biden and his Team continue to claim we will retaliate for any attack on our forces, but so far, that has proven to be lip service and idle threats. We moved two carrier groups into the area and an Ohio class submarine. The Navy does not usually advertise the location of our subs, but they wanted all parties in the Middle East to know we were prepared to act in a big way. But we haven’t, which is a weakness and indicates poor leadership.

On a day when Biden is placating Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco, making numerous concessions, including relaxing sanctions, in exchange for a promise of China cutting back on Fentanyl shipments to America, Biden releases $10 Billion in frozen Iranian funds. The obvious response is why. Why in the world would you pad the wallet of a country that is orchestrating the attack on Israel and the multi-headed attack on Israel and our facilities in the region? This move is proof of how dysfunctional our current military leadership is.

In one day, Joe Biden weakened America with a country that wants to be the sole superpower and another that wants to obliterate Israel and the United States. What did we get for the concessions made by Biden? Nothing. We got no movement on the hostages held in the tunnels of Gaza, and our troops are still in the crosshairs. China made promises on Fentanyl, but there is no way to hold them accountable for their commitment. Xi and Biden may have dined on ravioli and chicken, but Xi ate Biden like a cheap egg roll on the noon-to-three buffet.

Biden, Xi, and their teams met for four hours on Wednesday. The official readout indicates that Xi dominated the time and was very guarded in his answers to Biden’s questions. On Wednesday evening, Biden held a solo press conference where he recapped the day’s meeting. Biden claimed the two leaders agreed on Fentanyl, AI, and stability in the Taiwan region. There were no significant announcements of agreements, but the two sides are now talking. He talked about the high-level diplomacy over the last year, but we only got an agreement to communicate. That is a failure. This is an Administration that cannot be given a second term. Every decision weakens America and favors our adversaries. That is not a President with America in mind. That is a President on the take, and today is ugly, vivid proof that these foreign countries are calling the shots. That is what money buys.

The post 57 Attacks On Our Military, 9 Hostages, And We Give Iran $10 Billion appeared first on Granite Grok.

New Hampshire is having an excellent week. It announced its First in the Nation Primary, while CATO and the Fraser Institute declared the Granite State the most Free. CATO ranked NH #1 among US States. Fraser chose NH as the freest place economically in North America.

Kudos to all involved, including our authors and readers who have worked at the grassroots level to keep us here. This is a circumstance that New Hampshire Democrats would rapidly undo if allowed, and we know that to be true. Since the Dems took it over, it has taken the inevitable slide associated with Democrat rule.

Crime is up, as are regulations, taxes, and the centralization of authority. And when it comes to freedom, they have descended and appear mired at the bottom of the pack.

From the Fraser Institute:

 

In the United States, the most economically free state on the subnational index was New Hampshire at 7.96, followed by Florida at 7.80, Tennessee at 7.73, Texas at 7.64, and South Dakota at 7.59. (Note that since the indices were calculated separately for each country, the numeric scores on the subnational indices are not directly comparable across countries.) The least-free state was again New York at 4.09, following California and Vermont at 4.27, Oregon at 4.56, and Hawaii at 4.58.

 

Vermont has been emulating New York and California for years, and look how well that worked.

CATO has very little good to say about Vermont. It is ranked 42nd (not its worst score, but it has languished in the bottom ten for years).

 

Vermont is the second-highest-tax state in the country. It also looks extremely fiscally centralized, with state government taking a whopping 10.8 percent of adjusted personal income and local government taking just 2.0 percent. However, this statistic is overstated, because Vermont counts the property tax as a state tax, even though towns have some discretion over the rate at which it is set locally. Vermonters would benefit from decentralization of tax and spending authority, as they have 3.5 effective competing jurisdictions per 100 square miles, well above the national average. Government debt is below average, but so are cash and security assets. Government share of GDP is slightly below average, but public employment is slightly above the 2022 average.

 

CATO is not precisely a Conservative think tank, and it offers praise for Vermont’s Social Policies without mentioning defunding the police, open borders, sanctuary cities (Vermont is a sanctuary state), and illegals voting in municipal elections, all of which are social policies speeding the State’s economic decline.

I would, therefore, disagree with CATO on that. Social policy in a progressive state has economic consequences. You can’t, nor should you separate them.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Connecticut River (also from CATO).

 

New Hampshire’s overall tax burden is well below the national average at 7.4 percent. The state government taxes less than any other state but Alaska. We show a decline in state taxes as a share of adjusted personal income from a high of 3.8 percent in FY 2002 to 3.1 percent in FY 2022. Meanwhile, local taxes have risen from 3.7 percent of income in FY 2001 to 4.3 percent in FY 2021. However, this measure has been trending down from a high of 5.6 percent in FY 2012. New Hampshire is, therefore, a highly fiscally decentralized state. Granite Staters have quite a wide choice in local government, with 2.8 competing jurisdictions per 100 square miles.

 

Regulation, zoning laws, and the State’s liquor store monopoly are a few of the things CATO views and negatives. Still, overall, the Granite State continues to rule the roost on “freedom,” ranking first or second every year since 2000 and first every year since 2012.

The lesson is that Vermont should try to be more like New Hampshire. The reality is that NH Dems want the Granite State to be more like Vermont. The only thing standing between them and that is you.

And if you are looking for an example of why Democrats don’t deserve someone’s vote because of what they will do to New Hampshire, point to Vermont.

It’s just a step to our left., but there is a steep drop in freedom that keeps getting worse.

 

The post New Hampshire Declared ‘Most Free State’ While One of The Least Free States is … Vermont appeared first on Granite Grok.

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

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

 

 

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

 

I attempt to populate each post with new material; thus, older posts have information that’s not in this one.  If this is a topic of interest to you I strongly urge you to go back through and peruse my older ones.  I do not focus on minute-by-minute updates but rather attempt to provide background and information relevant to this latest battle in a 1,400 year old war.  Reverse chronological order.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Israel: Memes and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Memes and Commentary – Granite Grok

With some Israel-related materials here:

Meme Overflow – Granite Grok

Please post this, tweet & email it out, share it widely.

 

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

 

TOP OF THE FOLD

Iran says expansion of Israel-Hamas war ‘inevitable’ – Insider Paper

Not just this.  All around the world conflict areas exist, with the potential for a spark in the Middle East to spread as the world descends into WWIII.  Now, relevant to Iran, understand that to a believing Shiite Muslim WWIII is not a bug, but a feature, for their version of the Messiah, the “Twelfth Imam”, cannot come until there is a global conflagration.  Though this is encouraging… unless they’re lying as a feint:

Iran to Hamas: ‘We won’t go to war for you’ (israelnationalnews.com)

Let me repeat this: for their messiah to come, a world war must happen which will – obviously – result in the deaths of billions.  This war is a necessary precondition.  Thus, their desire to precipitate WWIII will lead to the single biggest human sacrifice in history.

Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile over 22 times limit of 2015 deal: IAEA – Insider Paper

 

 

—

FLYING PIGS MOMENT! (barenakedislam.com)

Contrast with the above.  Good news.  Note that I still don’t trust the Abraham Accords, but they do – at least for now – seem to be having a positive influence.  And this video by a Bangladesh Muslim:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Bangladesh-muslim.mp4

 

 

WAR & WHEN WILL IT END?

Staring Into the Abyss | Frontpage Mag

We’ve taken the enemies – plural – into our very center.  The hour is late, and we’re in dire straights.

—

Hamas Hiding Vast Amounts of Fuel Under Shifa Hospital | Frontpage Mag

To a Westerner, that’s insane.  To a Muslim, that’s permissible.  Because – and I keep repeating this – any Muslim who dies in jihad gets an automatic ticket to the highest level of paradise.  They truly embrace death.  Such a person cannot be deterred, they can only be killed.

Hamas’ Hospital Hideout « Lawrence Person’s BattleSwarm Blog

Take a look at what’s being discovered under Rantisi hospital:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Rantisi-hodpital.mp4

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/inside-the-hospital.mp4

 

Surprise, Surprise! Guess What Was Found in Yet Another Gaza Hospital (townhall.com)

Proceeding through the hospital, Conricus pointed out how security cameras had been covered or obstructed before arriving at a disused MRI machine. Behind it, a “grab bag” for Hamas terrorists containing an AK-47 and ammunition, grenades, and uniforms. All stashed behind an MRI machine which, had it been used when the grab bag was there, would have sent the weapons and ammunition flying into the machine by its powerful magnets.

I did not realize AK-47s and grenades were standard hospital gear.  And take a look at this old man in the hospital who gives the reporters what-for about Hamas… and is quickly silenced as the “journalist” turns away from him: Gazan man: Why does Hamas hide in the hospital, why don’t they go hide in hell? (israelnationalnews.com) (bolding added):

 

“What is happening is a crime!” said the man. “Why is the resistance (Hamas) hiding among us? Why don’t they go to hell and hide there? They are not the resistance.”

The interviewer quickly cut the man off and began walking away as soon as he started to criticize Hamas.

 

HamAss, Hospitals and the MSM by Francis Turner – According To Hoyt

The AP at work today | Power Line (powerlineblog.com)

Memo to the AP | Power Line (powerlineblog.com)

Note how brazenly the media are taking Hamas’ side in covering this up.

In parallel, a note about Hamas’ use of civilian clothing – even guerillas are required to wear insignia or some other means to distinguish them from civilians.  And who remembers the Battle of the Bulge when German infiltration units were dressed in American uniforms?  Those Germans were summarily executed – with no repercussions or anything:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Civilian-clothes.mp4

 

—

Why a humanitarian ceasefire will bolster Hamas | JNS.org

Remember that, in war against the infidel, a hudna is allowed – but not to establish peace, but simply to rearm, reload, and reposition.  Speaking of humanitarian issues:

Hamas Shooting Civilians to Prevent Evacuation – HotAir

Gazans against Hamas do exist.  And the lesson of Abraham arguing with Hashem about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah comes to mind if even ten good people be found.  I wrestle with this as I view videos like this two:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Leave-us-alone-hamas.mp4

 

I read this article about comments on a NY Slimes Times piece on the Gaza tunnels and grasp that there’s widespread understanding of the problem of Hamas, even in New York Times-Traitor’s readership:

Tunneling is one of the most expensive and resource intensive enterprises known to man, the cost of the “Gaza metro” must reach billions of dollars. Imagine how much better the life of the Palestinian people would be if Hamas would have spent those billions of dollars of foreign aid on hospitals, schools, desalination plants, solar panels etc.

Hamas is absolutely the worst thing to have happened to the Palestinian people, similar to the equally ethnocentric and fanatical regimes of Germany and Japan during WW2, the life of the Palestinian people will never improve while Hamas exists, keep in mind that even if Israel where to cease to exist Hamas would blanket the middle east with a fundamentalist, corrupt and oppressive regime equal or worse to the Taliban in Afghanistan, where human suffering knows no bounds.

 

The video that Hamas doesn’t want the world to see (barenakedislam.com)

On tunneling:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/hidden-tunnel-entrance.mp4

 

But then I read things like this:

‘Palestinian’ Mother: I Will Happily Sacrifice My 17 Children, 65 Grandchildren for the Sake of Allah – Geller Report

And recall – I can’t find the link as this was 10+ years ago – a Palestinian woman whose son was being operated on by Jews in an Israeli hospital to save his life for a heart condition that the local hospital couldn’t handle, and who said as she was interviewed waiting during the surgery, that she hoped he’d grow up to become a shahid and kill Jews.  This was one of my lynchpin shifts of perspective on the situation: Jews are saving her son’s life, but she’d rather see dead Jews.  Death cult.

That boy, getting treated by Israel hospitals, is not alone:

3,000th Palestinian child has heart operation in Israel through Save a Child’s Heart | The Times of Israel

The child has not enjoyed a normal, carefree childhood. He has been unable to perform simple tasks and he has not been allowed to run around, or even walk for long periods, lest the exertion prove too much for his fragile heart. Instead, his entire life, he has been under constant medical supervision.

When Amir’s family found out about the option of getting him heart surgery in Israel during a check-up in Gaza, they jumped at the opportunity.

“When the doctors told us there was a possibility for Israeli doctors to carry out the complicated operation Amir needed, we were so happy. Everyone here in Gaza talks about how Israeli doctors are the most professional in the world and that they can be trusted completely,” Amir’s mother said.

Some “genocide”.  Add in this:

Gaza Children as Young as 10-Years-Old and Women Participated in Massive Slaughter of Jews in Israel on Oct. 7 | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

—

To Defeat Hamas, Emulate the Destruction of the Tamil Tigers :: Middle East Forum (meforum.org)

Must read.  Good strategies, though remember – Hamas welcomes dying in jihad (video, 13 minutes).  And while there are similarities, there are also differences (links in the original, bolding added):

After Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed at the Anandapuram junction, Sri Lanka released a grisly photograph of him with bullet holes in his head, likely under the assumption that cults tend to dissipate when the cult leader dies. That tactic won’t work with Hamas. After its founder and “spiritual leader,” Ahmed Yassin, was killed in an Israeli strike on March 22, 2004, he was quickly replaced with Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi who was killed in an Israeli strike on April 17, 2004. Others have followed. Since Hamas is more than a cult, it will not be defeated by killing only the leaders. The infrastructure, middle-managers, recruiters, and financiers will also have to be either killed or forced to accept their defeat and face consequences.

Finally, at the Battle of Puthukkudiyirippu, the LTTE used the civilian Tamil population as human shields, refusing to let them flee the advancing Sri Lankan military. Similarly, Hamas is very proficient at using civilians, both Palestinian and Israeli, as human shields.

In the aftermath of their victory, the Rajapaksa brothers came under even more scrutiny from the U.N. but refused to cooperate with international investigations looking to substantiate rumors of war crimes perpetrated by the Sri Lankan military and the “unnecessary” civilian deaths. Once Hamas is totally defeated, Israel should do the same.

I still argue that the Jack Pershing treatment should be applied.  Screw “proportionality”:

The Idiocy of the Theory of ‘Proportionate Response’ | Frontpage Mag

And cut off their money:

PA will pay $2,789,430 to families of 1,500 dead Hamas terrorist murderers, this month | PMW Analysis (palwatch.org)

NOT JUST HAMAS! Palestinian Authority (FATAH) also says Muslims will “exterminate all the Jews” (barenakedislam.com)

 

 

ISLAM: PRACTICES, HISTORY, AND MENTALITY

Watch Chilling “Hamas-In Their Own Voices” (substack.com)

Video, less than three minutes.  All – every one – aired before the October 7, 2023, attacks.

They state, clearly, their aims and plans.  Note what the guy says about Rome.  Not Israel.  ROME.  Rome is to be an advance outpost for the conquest of Europe.  Then to the Americas.  Death to every infidel.  Why do so many not have the moral courage to take them at their word?

And what they did on Oct. 7 – graphic material alert:

HaShabbat HaShachora – The Judean

—

Islamic Nazis | Frontpage Mag

If a subject of the Palestinian dictatorship on the West Bank sells land to a Jew, for example, the official penalty is death.

—

Far-Left ‘Fact-Checker’ NewsGuard Denies Facts on Hospital Bombing, Covers For Jihadis | Frontpage Mag

The war is not just military, but a war of information.

—

There is No Moderate Jihad | Frontpage Mag (bolding added):

Coexistence is death, resistance is life. Until we learn to stop coexisting with our killers, they will go on killing us. All else is an illusion. A fantasy that we keep feeding ourselves. There is no moderate Islam because there is no moderate Jihad. And there is no moderate Jihad because there is no moderate way to conquer and enslave non-Muslims. Islam is a state of perpetual war. To know Islam is to never know peace. We coexist with Islam and so we are at war.

Savagery: The True Nature of the World | Frontpage Mag

We are the same brutal, cruel, and warlike creatures we have always been. Every headline, every act of hideous violence, and every pro-genocide cheer by the grad school sociopaths who fetishize Third-World savages, proves it. What we have to do is lift the scales from our eyes, understand the situation we are in, and accept it.

For the last couple of generations, we in the West have told ourselves that we have changed. We told ourselves that we are beyond violence. And we told ourselves that everyone else was too. But that was a lie.

The Gates of Gaza | Frontpage Mag

Civilization is a set of borders that men once carved out of the wilderness. On one side the village, on the other the wolf and the savage baying for blood. The capitals of civilization have all been blinded. They hold up signs welcoming refugees and wonder why bombs go off. They accept the rationales, capitalism, colonialism, zionism and imperialism, for these horrors, and convince themselves that this time they can trust Delilah… because what is the alternative?

Not just Israel.  The entirety of Western Civilization.

—

Israel Prepares for Possible Fentanyl-filled Rockets from Hamas, Hezbollah (breitbart.com) Hammer it home in your mind: to a Muslim in jihad there are no civilians on the other side.  They’ll cheerfully kill millions and not lose a second’s sleep over it… even as they use our own values against us complaining about “civilian deaths”.  Rockets, or drones.

 

 

ON INTERSECTIONALITY / LEFTIST SUPPORT

 

 

—

How any woman in the West can be for Hamas after reading something like this is beyond me:

‘She was gang-raped, then executed’: Testimonies from Oct. 7 – JNS.org

The detectives have been processing statements of perpetrators and survivors. One of them is a chilling testimony of a young woman who hid with her boyfriend in a shelter, where she witnessed the rape and murder of another Israeli woman.

“I saw them forcing her to bend forward and then someone rape her,” the testimony reads. “They were dressed in olive-toned fatigues, she was alive, and then she fell silent. She was raped and then killed.”

From another article about the same incident:

‘Hamas terrorists gang-raped Israeli woman before one shot her in the back of the head as he was still having sex with her’: Horrifying account revealed as police gather evidence of sex assaults during October 7 attack | Daily Mail Online

The witness says the victim was ‘alive’ and ‘on her feet and bleeding from her back. But then the situation was that he was pulling her hair. She had long, brown hair.’

The woman told officers one of the Hamas gunmen ‘shot her in the head while he was raping her… didn’t even lift his pants’.

Something else in the first article caught my eye (bolding added):

One of the Hamas operatives who was captured said in his interrogation that each cell had a mission, and the terrorists were divided into squads for training. He described how they trained for years. Each cell received a battle plan, and to prevent leaks only the cell leaders were briefed on the actual missions.

The terrorists had ambitious plans, one of which was to take over a community and hold the residents hostage.

So what’s one of the lessons?  That Hamas planned this for years and years.  All the planning, all the training, took place while there was an extant ceasefire.  Hudna, remember?

—

The Mindset of Our Anti-Semites | Frontpage Mag

Excellent – must read.  Don’t bother people with facts or call out their hypocrisy.  Related:

The Left’s Cheerleading for Hamas’ Terror | Frontpage Mag

The Left and Islam are more alike than not.  Both are totalitarian.  Both are expansionist.  Both brook no rivals.  And both see Western Civilization as the enemy.  And not for nothing is there the Arab proverb “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”… until, somehow, they defeat us.  Any takers on who wins the Islam – Leftist slugfest?

—

 

 

 

 

PALLYWOOD

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/pallywood-baby-makeup.mp4

 

A little touch up before the cameras do “real” filming.

—

‘Palestinian’ victim: ‘Mom, I’m fine, it’s just for the camera!’ (jihadwatch.org)

Fakery at its finest.  More on this, with a bunch of other topical links:

“PALLYWOOD” The widely discredited Hamas media propaganda arm is back spewing its usual lies (barenakedislam.com)

 

 

 

TERROR COMING GLOBALLY; ANTISEMITISM

Slouching Toward Kristallnacht | Frontpage Mag

Shoot back.  When threatened you cannot be passive.  Related:

One Sick War | Frontpage Mag

But the best way of understanding this sick war is that Israelis are Jews and the ancient plague of antisemitism is again sweeping the globe.

—

Around the world:

French Jews face surge in hatred – JNS.org

Skyrocketing antisemitism in Britain is ‘perhaps no surprise’ – JNS.org

London: ‘Death to all the Jews!’ (jihadwatch.org)

South African chief rabbi slams government: ‘You are Iran’s useful idiots’ – JNS.org

Head of Germany’s Jewish Community Fears ‘Hunt for Jews’ – Geller Report

NYC: Violent Jihadi Rioters Beats Jewish Man In The Head With Chair, Taunting, Laughing – Geller Report

Pro-Hamas demonstrator in London: ‘Hitler knew how to deal with these people’ (jihadwatch.org)

Montreal Jewish community targeted again as shots fired at yeshiva | World Israel News

Barbarism Is Winning – HotAir (image and quote from this article):

It goes far beyond politics and college campuses. At the pro-Palestinian protests you see people explicitly endorsing hatred and violence against Jews. Not just sly references to eliminating Israel, but open antisemitism and embrace of Hitlerian tactics.

…

It’s not just in America. It is an illness that has struck the entire West. Wherever you turn–France, Britain, Australia, New Zealand–you see a rottenness in the culture. It’s not that everything is rotten–far from it. But once the rot has spread far enough it eats away at the healthy tissue.

 

 

What’s the sum total of all the above?  The campfire of civilization is dying, whether from domestic strife and machinations, or from enemies outside.  The campfire of civilization is dying, and the wolves are closing in.  Hey, I wrote about that:

Hungry Wolves and Darkened Campfires – Granite Grok

Written specifically about America, but it applies globally.

WATCH: Muslim and Leftist Terror Mob Attacks Jews Outside Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles – Geller Report

Springtime for Hitler at MIT | Power Line (powerlineblog.com)

—

Gaza Strip’s Arabs enjoy spin classes, fine dining, private beaches, theme parks, luxury hotels | JTF

Just found this article in my favorites file.  Some “concentration camp”.

—

 

 

 

 

TREADING ON THE POLITICAL

Muslim Dems ‘Horrified’ by Plan to Halt Palestinian Immigration to U.S. (breitbart.com)

Heaven forbid we slow down the importation of potential terrorists!

—

Biden admin isn’t sanctioning Hamas for use of human shields, drawing bipartisan ire | World Israel News

Time to understand Biden is not on your side, American Jews.  Related:

Biden giving tax money to mosques that seek total annihilation of Jews (wnd.com)

‘JIHADI’ JOE BIDEN considers waiving additional sanctions on Iran which will free up $10 billion more to fund the Hamas war against Israel (barenakedislam.com)

American Jews… you’re seriously still considering voting for this guy again?  Or “D” in general?  More:

US Jews Should Deploy Ultimate Weapon – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics

Past time.  More:

What to Do to Win the War – PJ Media(bolding added):

While Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is virtue signaling at a self-serving rally about anti-Semitism in Washington, this hypocrite refuses to let the House-passed bill to send financial aid to Israel even come before the Senate floor.

 

—

 

 

 

MISCELLANEOUS

 

The Untold Exodus of Jews from Arab Lands

 

 

The speaker wrote the book UPROOTED.  Excellent book.

—

Melanie Phillips Video: What the Media isn’t Telling You About Israel’s War on Hamas | Frontpage Mag

Speech and transcript.

—

Dalia Al-Aqidi, Muslim Candidate for Ilhan Omar’s Seat in Congress, Visits Israel – The Media Line

I saw death. I saw torture. But let me take you to 2014. I was covering… I was a journalist by then. In 2014, ISIS entered the city of Mosul and started persecuting Christians. I was born as a Muslim, and I launched a campaign, an international campaign and I went on air.

I said I am the Sunni Muslim [and] I am going to wear that cross to stand with the Christians of Iraq and to stand with the Christians of the Middle East. And I won’t take it off until every Christian goes back to their villages and cities. Yesterday, I put [on] the Star of David and I say I am a Sunni Muslim that I would wear the Star of David until of the hostages come back.

Hope.

 

 

GIVING SUPPORT TO ISRAEL

You can’t go wrong with a donation here:

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

Also, if you’re willing:

Buy Me a Coffee

 

A CONCLUDING THOUGHT FOR THIS POST

An addendum in my critique of the person who said “Violence is taught” to what she must believe are the noble savages before they are corrupted to become violence-doers.  Here:

In forming tribes, we are like our closest living relatives, chimpanzees. Chimpanzee troops have been observed, for example in the Gombe Chimpanzee War, massacring another troop. To increase access to resources, chimpanzees may beat to death every member of an opposing tribe.

So, who taught the chimps this?

—

The mythical advanced human society

For my high school American History project I did my term paper on the stock market crash of 1929.  One of the things that I read was that economists of the time, prior to the crash, kept saying that the economy had reached a “new plateau” and that things only looked up from here.  That crash shattered that claim.  So a quote to warm up:

The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization – PJ Media (bolding added):

So the great achievement of Western civilization — consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism in partnership with religious belief, free market economics, and constant self-critique and audit — was to liberate people from daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, and an often-unforgiving nature.

But so often the resulting leisure and affluence instead deluded arrogant Western societies into thinking that modern man no longer needed to worry about the fruits of civilization he took to be his elemental birthright.

As a result, the once prosperous Greek city-state, Roman Empire, Renaissance republics, and European democracies of the 1930s imploded — as civilization went headlong in reverse.

We in the modern Western world are now facing just such a crisis.

We are now faced with the civilizational cycle, as discussed by Bill Whittle (long but absolutely worth it):

 

Bill Whittle The Assault On Civilizational Structures

 

 

Or my cycle:

 

Success breeds confidence

Confidence breeds complacency

Complacency breeds distraction

And when distracted one becomes vulnerable

 

Distracted by all the wonderful gadgets and endless entertainment and apparent unending plenty, we have indeed become vulnerable.  People do, indeed, have stability privilege these days thinking things cannot backslide to savagery:

Try to remember that Sarajevo once hosted an Olympics. Remember that Beirut used to be called “The Paris of the Middle East.” Remember that women used to wear lipstick and miniskirts in Tehran.

Try to remember that, prior to October 7, 2023, Israel viewed Hamas as “maturing” and benefitting their people from the calm of the ceasefire.  Meanwhile, they were planning and rehearsing for years.  So now the West is faced with the horrors that our stable, peaceful civilization thought they’d left behind in that New Civilizational Plateau.  Stability is an illusion:

 

 

As the sage Thomas Sowell said:

 

 

Be willing to do violence to those who do violence to you.  Be the ruder breed, or be consigned to extinction:

“The curse of every ancient civilization was that its men in the end became unable to fight. Materialism, luxury, safety, even sometimes an almost modern sentimentality, weakened the fibre of each civilized race in turn; each became in the end a nation of pacifists, and then each was trodden under foot by some ruder people that had kept that virile fighting power the lack of which makes all other virtues useless and sometimes even harmful.”

― Theodore Roosevelt

And concluding with this truth-hidden-in-fiction cold splash of reality:

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms”

― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

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

If Dartmouth Health is right that administering puberty blockers and hormones to boys and girls to try to make them look like the opposite sex is medically necessary, safe, and well-researched, then systematic reviews that say otherwise by France, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, and Finland are wrong.

Dartmouth Health’s written testimony against New Hampshire bill HB619 which would end child transing, signed by 21 clinicians including head pediatrician Dr. Keith J. Loud, asserts that “All gender-affirming care (GAC) is safe, age-appropriate, medically necessary, and well-researched.” However, every country that’s conducted a systematic review of the data has concluded that the evidence for these treatments is low and the risks are great.

As a result of its systematic review, Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare issued a warning about GAC’s dangers:

These treatments are potentially fraught with extensive and irreversible adverse consequences such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, increased cancer risk, and thrombosis. This makes it challenging to assess the risk/benefit for the individual patient, and even more challenging for the minors or their guardians to be in a position of an informed stance regarding these treatments.

The UK conducted a review of the data for gender-affirming care as part of their investigation of the Tavistock, the world’s largest gender clinic which was shut down this year. The resulting report, the Cass Review concluded that “At this stage, the Review is not able to provide advice on the use of hormone treatments due to gaps in the evidence base.”

The Council for Choices for Health in Finland concluded from its study that “Research data on the treatment of dysphoria due to gender identity conflicts in minors is limited.”

The Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board stated:

The knowledge base, especially research-based knowledge for gender-affirming treatment (hormonal and surgical), is deficient and the long-term effects are little known. This is particularly true for the teenage population where the stability of their gender incongruence is also not known.

The two studies Dartmouth Health provided to the NH House Health Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee to support their claim that GAC is evidence-based are fundamentally flawed.

The University of Washington study Mental Health Outcomes in Transgender and Binary Youths Receiving Gender Affirming Care explored the effects of hormonal interventions on mental health after only one year of treatment. They didn’t find statistically significant improvements among the subjects who received hormone therapy.

The researchers based their claims of the benefits of GAC on the fact that while the treated patients didn’t get much better, those in the control group got worse. They ignored the fact that only 7 of the 92 members of their control group remained until the end of the study, making any inferences of causality irresponsible. The UW knew the study didn’t find causality, but covered up this information.

The other study Dartmouth Health submitted to the committee, Puberty Suppression for Transgender Youth and Risk of Suicidal Ideation was mined data from the 2015 US Transgender Survey, which used mostly online convenience sampling created for lobbying purposes. How accurate was the survey? Among the study’s significant flaws, 73% of those who claimed they had taken puberty blockers reported that they had done so before they were available for puberty suppression. Although the survey excluded those subjects from their final count, why assume the responses from younger participants are accurate?

Not only does Dartmouth Health brush aside consistent and compelling evidence that GAC isn’t safe or evidence-based, but they also blackmail lawmakers with the trans suicide myth recently denounced by a leading expert in gender care: “Our multi-disciplinary program includes pediatricians who understand that banning surgical care to gender-diverse individuals is harmful, and, according to data, can be life-threatening.”

Related: Detransitioner Sues American Academy of Pediatrics for Fraud and Conspiracy

Whether Dartmouth Health’s claims are deliberate deceit or willful ignorance, the consequences are the same. Children are having their fertility destroyed and their health permanently damaged with experimental treatments.

 

Dartmouth Health Testimony HB619

The post Dartmouth Health Falsely Claims Child-Transing “Well-Researched” appeared first on Granite Grok.

I don’t expect anyone at CBS to know how this works, but the story annoys me. It is clickbait from people in a business that pretends to know more than our knuckle-dragging morons (and their bloggers) about the NH primary and claims that “we” are defying Joe Biden. And it’s not just CBS.

Here’s that report shared at Gateway Pundit.

 

New Hampshire is defying President Biden and the DNC by remaining the first primary in the nation, rejecting their plan to put South Carolina first. “Republicans and Democrats up here were just not having it,” CBS News’ @JakeMRosen reports. https://t.co/DOT2Jnp0aZ pic.twitter.com/NCbvkizXaK

— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 15, 2023

 

There are a few obvious points for the cheap seats. The DNC is a private corporation. They do not define what states can or cannot do (I know, it depends on the state). President Biden is not the head of the Republican Party, another private corporation acting (when it chooses) without regard to Uncle Joe’s opinion (or the will of voters). None of these individuals or entities has any authority to circumvent state law unless they get elected to office and change it. The law states that New Hampshire will have the first ‘Primary’ independent of which or how many political parties want candidates on that ballot.

All you have to do is pay the registration fee to be on the First in the Nation Primary ballot.

The Secretary of State is not allowed to change this. He or she must set the date seven days before the next scheduled primary. It is not something anyone can debate except in the legislature, should they desire to change it, and no one wants it changed. Not even New Hampshire Democrats.

In other words, no one is defying anyone unless you’d like to argue that Biden and the DNC have defied tradition to make their weak president look better in a primary process whose outcome they will “fix” if needed so none of it truly matters.

What is news is how amusing the process of getting from there to here has been—a few examples from our pages.

 

• Why NH Democrats Should Be Proud to Lose Their Primary
• 3,542 Democrats Switched to Independent So They Could “Interfere” in the NH Republican Primary
• New Hampshire Dems – We Won’t Be Following the DNC Primary Schedule ‘cuz Reasons …
• DNC Gives NH Dems Another Yard of Rope to Rhetorically Hang Themselves
• The DNC Just Screwed the NH Dems, and It’s Glorious
• What Will NH Dems Do If the DNC Dumps Their First in the Nation Primary?
• Could DNC’s Latest Draft Proposal Kill NH’s First in the Nation Primary?
• Can Democrats Overcome “Systemic Racial Inequality” When They Can’t Manage it in Their Own Primary?
• Will the Democrat Presidential Primary Please Pick Up the Nearest Bias Response Team Courtesy Phone?

 

NH Dems have no choice. They can’t have their primary until March (DNC rules), but New Hampshire isn’t doing this twice, not that it would. The law is clear.

So, Biden is not on the NH primary ballot, but many other “democrats” are, as are independents and Republicans, so the local Dems are running a write-in Biden campaign. Why? Because they hate jobs, prosperity, medical freedom, open and unregulated internet, national security, low energy prices, global peace, secure borders, and economic stability. (I’ve suggested they write in Hunter Biden, but we’ll have to wait to see if that got traction.)

The results of that write-in campaign will mean nothing to the DNC until their official Democrat primary date for the Granite State, weeks later.

To summarize. No one is defying anyone.

Joe’s puppeteers deciding to start their circus tour in South Carolina is irrelevant to New Hampshire law. We were always having our primary first, and until the law changes, we always will.

There will be ballots with names on them, and citizens will be encouraged to show up and vote in defiance of tyranny (we would hope), though there is no guarantee.

That’s how this all works.

 

The post New Hampshire is NOT ‘Defying’ The DNC and Joe Biden … appeared first on Granite Grok.

Ya gotta wonder why there are so many Americans siding with Muslim extremists and why the Biden administration is deeply bowing both to them and massive numbers of Palestinian “supporters” here in the US.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d guess it goes much further than payoffs to Biden: I’d guess that there are some major pockets of Muslim terrorists – and maybe some nukes – that are being used to blackmail the US into anti-American policies and the weakening of anti-American interests around the world.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, that is…

But then, we’ve been allowing (and practically importing) anti-American immigrants into the US and allowing them to settle here, and then standing by while they use Constitutionally guaranteed American freedom and liberty to undermine American freedom and liberty.

MIT has recently backed down from expelling violent Muslim protesters on campus because… well – because they’d lose their education visas and would have to leave this country and return home, which the MIT administration wants to prevent. So, by only suspending them for a short time, those Muslim protesters can stay here and continue to disrupt classes and intimidate non-Muslim students for the foreseeable future.

When John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other,” he was referring to those who would want to destroy this country…

…such as the descendants of the Barbary pirates from Algiers, Tunis, and other Middle East nation-states who were attacking American ships and taking prisoners as slaves in the early 16th century. We even fought a war – the Tripolitan war (ever heard of “Tripoli”?) against these Muslim invaders. (Related: The 1.5 Million White Slaves in North Africa.)

And yet, today, we welcome them in and then wonder why there are so many anti-Americans of Muslim descent here in the US.

We have learned nothing in the past 300 years…

 

The post From the Halls of… appeared first on Granite Grok.

As Tom Renz rightly notes, no one is saying definitively that the DoD was providing one or more service members with a Moderna COVID-19 (ish) vaccine in 2014, but given the information from the whistleblower and the Medical record obtained via court order, shouldn’t someone (in Congress) be asking some questions?

Renz is also curious about details related to developing a pathogen (SARS CoV2) in a lab in China (a sworn enemy of America) as part of American gain of function research (and why aren’t we all, I’d add). That could not have happened – he says – without DoD and or CIA knowledge. The DoD knew. CIA knew. Fauci knew. CDC. Who else knew? And what does it have to do with the 2014 medical record or patent documents showing the COVID-19 “vaccine” has been around a long time and that warp speed was smoke and mirrors? (Related: Dr. David Martin and Rasmussen Poll Reveal COVID Crimes Against Americans.)

COVID used to mean something more general, but check out the remarks and the context and let us know what you think.

 

@RenzTom

• Evidence suggests that COVID-19 was developed in the mid-2010s, with a Moderna patent from 2016 indicating a connection.
• A whistleblower provided military medical records showing a soldier receiving COVID-19 immunization by Moderna in 2014.
• Attorney Renz has developed a legal case against EcoHealth Alliance, alleging their involvement in creating SARS-CoV-2 with the CCP and Wuhan Lab.
• He then asked: “Does anybody believe that we transferred that sort of [bioweapon] technology to a CCP lab without an okay from the DoD or CIA? I’ve got news for you. They knew exactly what was going on.”

 

Attorney Accuses the CIA and DoD of Being Deeply Involved With COVID-19

“When someone got this [COVID] shot. They didn’t get it from Pfizer or Moderna. They got it from the DoD. The DoD distributed this,” testified attorney @RenzTom.

• Evidence suggests that COVID-19 was… pic.twitter.com/hSfk1GrdPr

— The Vigilant Fox (@VigilantFox) November 15, 2023

 

HT | Vigilant Fox

The post Medical Record Shows Service Member Received “COVID” Shot from the DoD … in 2014 appeared first on Granite Grok.

When the Biden Administration recently announced a record $42 billion investment in broadband internet, it was pitched as an investment in rural and underserved communities. A new study, however, found many of these funds went to wealthy, urban areas because of a questionable allocation methodology, according to Fox News.

The Broadband Equity Access and Development program was marketed as a way to “ensure that everyone in America has access to affordable, reliable high-speed internet,” with an emphasis on underserved areas with spotty or expensive internet coverage.

A new report from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), however, found that not all of these funds went toward these goals. To decide how much each state would receive in these funds, the White House identified areas that lacked broadband internet in each state, with more areas lacking internet meaning more funding for the state.

Washington, D.C. was assessed as having 184 areas lacking internet, but 58 of them, almost one-third of the locations, were located in the Smithsonian National Zoo, raising questions about D.C.’s funding. In Delaware, a location designated as lacking internet was the Biden Environmental Training Center, a conference and retreat facility near President Biden’s home.

Funding in these dense, urban areas flies in the face of the original intent of the program, which was to bring internet coverage to rural and underserved areas. D.C. and Delaware were allotted over $547,000 and $52,000, respectively, for each location without broadband access, while the national median allocation for areas without connectivity averages $5,600 per location.

In other cases, wealthy areas received funding. Tuckernuck Island in Massachusetts will receive federal funding for broadband, despite mansions in the area selling for over a million dollars. Additionally, the area already receives ample internet coverage, just not of the kind this program aims to promote.

Making taxpayers in Kentucky and South Dakota pay for internet investments in D.C. and Delaware is unethical and counterproductive, but that’s exactly what this program seems to have accomplished.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

 

Adam Andrzejewski | Real Clear Wire

The post How Much of Biden’s $42 Billion Internet Investment (For Underserved Communities) Went to Wealthy Areas? appeared first on Granite Grok.

In a recent video, Donald Trump unveiled his latest campaign promise: Give the socialists what they have been striving for - a socialist college system administered and funded by the federal government that is tuition-free. Chuck and Nate from ‘Liberty At Night’ pointed out, the program would not likely be completed before 2028, at which point Trump would have to leave office, anyway. (When’s the last time the government efficiently created a huge new program?) In 2029, the socialist college would be controlled by President Newsom or Warren…what could go wrong?

The post Trump Loves Free College, Haley Hates Privacy appeared first on The Liberty Block.

[PRESS RELEASE – Concord, NH, November 16, 2023] The 603 Alliance, a leading conservative grassroots organization in New Hampshire, endorses Russell Prescott to represent New Hampshire’s First Congressional District.

Prescott is committed to limited government and Constitutional principles. Through five terms as a State Senator and two terms as an Executive Councilor, he has held firm to those values.

As a State Senator, Russell Prescott introduced legislation for Constitutional Carry in New Hampshire, underscoring his firm commitment to the 2nd Amendment. Prescott also proposed legislation to strengthen voter integrity and sponsored right-to-work. He has been a staunch advocate of responsible spending and lower taxes.

As the owner of a highly successful business, Russell Prescott understands the importance of a balanced budget. Under his leadership, the family business has grown by over 500%.

Prescott has acknowledged that Washington “has a massive spending problem”, promising to oppose any efforts to increase income taxes and committing to vote for reduced federal spending. He has signed the US Term Limits pledge, committing to co-sponsor and fight for legislation that would limit the tenure for Members of Congress in the US House to a maximum of six years.

Russell Prescott also understands how to get things done, bringing together diverse coalitions to gain ground for conservative causes. He has committed to running a positive campaign. That reflects his history as an elected official in New Hampshire. The New Hampshire Business Review noted that “his ability to get along with others and thoughtfully compromise on solutions impressed many who have worked with him.”

“Russell Prescott not only has what it takes to beat Chris Pappas next November,” said Diane Bitter of the 603 Alliance. “He’s the kind of proven results-oriented conservative we need to send to Washington.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Fran Wendelboe
Phone: (603) 513-0378
e-mail: info@603alliance.org

###

ABOUT THE 603 ALLIANCE: The 603 Alliance is a grassroots organization whose mission is to restore Constitutional principles at all levels of our government by championing the principles of free people and free markets, uniting likeminded citizens in support of candidates who will further these principles.

The post 603 Alliance Endorses Russell Prescott for Congress appeared first on Granite Grok.

To Gov. Christopher Sununu and the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services; We, the undersigned, understand that children are at no significant risk from SARS-Cov-2 (COVID-19). We, the undersigned, understand that no medical intervention is without risk.

We, the undersigned, understand that in an analysis of the risk-to-benefit ratio, there is more risk to being vaccinated for COVID-19 than not being vaccinated for children,

Now, therefore, we, the undersigned hereby demand Gov. Sununu and the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services to end their recommendation for children to receive the COVID-19 vaccines and cease all activity in promotion, purchasing, distribution, and administration of the COVID-19 vaccine to children.

SIGN THE PETITION

(At RebuildNH.com)

The post Urge Gov. Chris Sununu and DHHS to Immediately End All Activities Surrounding the COVID-19 Vaccine and Children appeared first on Granite Grok.

I’m proud to be a new member of a distinguished club:  Authors from Indiana who have had a book banned by a public library.  Other members include Theodore Dreiser, Kurt Vonnegut, and Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.

Someone read one of my books, The Croydon Budget Battle, and decided that it was important enough that people should be able to find it in his local library.

So he bought a second copy and asked the Leach Library in Londonderry (an institution that is 100 percent supported by taxes) to include it in their collection.

After some time had passed, he noticed that it still wasn’t on the shelves or listed in their collection. He started filing Right-to-Know requests, asking about the status of the book and about the process that the library goes through when deciding whether to approve a book.

He learned that it wasn’t just an oversight, that there were discussions about the book. Or rather, there were discussions in email that indicated that other discussions should happen in person — presumably to avoid creating a paper trail that would inevitably end up in his hands.

Finally, tired of the stonewalling, he went to the November 1 meeting of the library’s board of trustees, which I also attended at his invitation.

At the meeting, he recounted his experiences, then asked the director of the library, point blank, to explain why the book hadn’t been accepted into the collection.

He noted that it was by a local author.  He noted that the topic — the relationship between school spending and academic achievement — should be of interest to everyone in the state.  And he noted that the library was getting it for free.

What happened next was disappointing but entirely predictable:  The director invented several excuses, which I’ll go through one by one.

1. We only consider authors local if they’re from Londonderry.

After the meeting, we went upstairs and asked where we could find the ‘local authors’ section.  We were told that no such section existed.  The librarian noted that books by ‘New Hampshire authors’ were sprinkled throughout the entire collection and might be tagged as such.

2. The book is already available through inter-library loan.

This is an interesting excuse because most of the books in the Leach Library collection are available through inter-library loans. If this is a disqualifying attribute, why are all those books on the shelves?

Again, we checked to see whether this is true. We made an inter-library loan request at a local library. We were told that one library had a copy but wasn’t loaning it out.

3. There’s no demand for it.

It’s a new book.  How would people even know to demand it unless they see it in places like their local libraries?  Isn’t that one of the things that libraries are supposed to be for, to expose patrons to works they might not otherwise come across?

And there is certainly an interest in the topic.  Doesn’t every town have the problem of spending too much on schools to get too little? What could be more relevant?

But this is also an interesting excuse. It is very likely that many of the books on the shelves just sit there for years without ever being checked out by anyone.  Shouldn’t those books be removed from the collection if the collection is just supposed to contain books for which ‘there is a demand’?

4. It’s self-published.

Interestingly, someone else at the meeting noted that she’d donated nine books ‘about economics, written for children’ and wanted to know why only five of them had made it onto the shelves. She was talking about books from the Tuttle Twins series by Connor Boyack.  The others are still sitting in a box, the same box where my book sat until the library returned it to the donor.

Boyack formed a publishing company to publish his books.  We formed a publishing company to publish our books.  If our books are ‘self-published,’ so are his.  But at least some of his are on the shelf, so that can’t be a reason for excluding my book.

5. We couldn’t find any reviews.

There are positive reviews on Amazon from verified purchasers. And really, having a resident spend his own money to add a book to the library’s collection — isn’t that about the best review a book could hope to get?

6. We have to be mindful of shelf space.

After the meeting, we went upstairs and looked around the shelves.  We agreed that, after decades of spending time in dozens of libraries, we’ve never seen one with so much unused shelf space.

So, six excuses, apparently made up on the spot, all of them red herrings — untrue, non-sensical, or irrelevant.  The simplest explanation is that the director felt she could give answers that could only be verified later, hoping that the questioner would just go away.

We know this guy.  He’s not going to just go away.

The meeting was surprisingly well-attended by both progressives and conservatives. Many of the comments were about ‘book banning,’ and at least two of the speakers mentioned the book Maus (by Art Spiegelman) by name as if it had been removed from the library, but it is still in the online catalog.

But more of the comments had almost nothing to do with books or literacy, focusing on the need for ‘safe, welcoming, inclusive spaces’ for children to hang out in — where they can, perhaps, play with the games and puzzles that seem to be filling up the library’s scarce shelf space.

This sounds familiar. We heard the same sorts of things in Croydon when we tried to shift the focus of schools from extra-curricular activities to academic achievement. This is, in fact, one of the main themes of The Croydon Budget Battle.

What parents seem to want most — and want other people to pay for — aren’t so much schools, libraries, literacy, or learning. They are community centers — places where kids can hang out while their parents are working and maybe indulge in some hobbies, like sports or music.

The simple truth is that any institution that is funded by taxes is inherently political. This means that the people who end up running it will use it to push their own agenda — whether progressive or conservative. So it’s not surprising that the directors of a ‘public library’ are okay with banning books. It would be more surprising if they weren’t.

 

The post Night Cap: Mom, They Banned My Book! appeared first on Granite Grok.

Drugs have side effects, some worse than others. The COVID vaccines, for example, had a lot of them, but you were lied to about most until it was too late. Things like heart damage and death come to mind. But they still want you jabbed so how do you sell that?

How about like this?

 

“Evidence does suggest that local and systemic reactions to the COVID shot may mean they are building more robust protection,” says Onyema Ogbuagu, MBBCh, FACP, FIDSA, a COVID vaccine/infectious disease expert and assistant professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, CT.

 

May? And what may you experience after receiving these new COVID “vaccines” (emphasis in the original)/

 

 A brand new study (a pre-print, meaning it has yet to be peer-reviewed and so should not be seen as final or definitive) from researchers at the University of California San Francisco, found that if you have chills, fatigue, fever and/or headache after your vaccine, your body makes more antibodies against the virus compared to those who didn’t have side effects (these antibodies are detectable at both one month and six months following immunization.) The study reports that the more of these symptoms you have, the more antibodies you’ll have; also, if your heart rate increases and your skin feels warm, that’s a further indication that your immune system is revving up.

 

Previous versions of this wonder cure have been effective at making you more susceptible, assuming you survive the side effects. But it is nice to see the marketing departments getting ahead of the game this time around. If your heart starts racing and your skin gets warm, you should wait it out and not worry about the possibility of heart injury. After all, they’ve injections for that too.

 

The post New COVID Vaxx Narrative: More Side Effects Mean It Might Be Working … Better! appeared first on Granite Grok.

Chinese President Xi Jinping supposedly has not spoken to President Joe Biden since the Spy Balloon incident in February. This seems odd for a relationship that Biden calls one of his strongest. Maybe Joe measures the quality of relationships by the deposits to the Biden family bank accounts.

That is not how Americans measure our international relations. The consensus of Americans is we have lost standing on the global front during the Biden term. There have been numerous trips by members of Biden’s Administration in 2024, but none of them got time with Xi. Gavin Newsom did spend time with Xi during his recent China trip, much to the embarrassment of the Biden Team.

Many topics should be on the agenda for Biden to address with Xi. There are so many topics that show the difference between the two countries. Let’s look at the list and then the list that the two leaders will probably touch on.

1. Threat of invasion of Taiwan
2. The Uyghur concentration camps and genocide
3. Violation of American air space for surveillance 
4. Fentanyl 
5. Purchase of American land by Chinese nationals
6. Theft of intellectual property
7. The role of China in the Ukraine and Israeli conflicts
8. The source of the COVID-19 virus
9. The manipulation of the Chinese currency
10. The Militarization of the Indo-Pacific Seas

These are some serious issues that threaten the lives and security of America as well as threats to our economy. Still, the crux of the conversations will undoubtedly be Climate Change and increased business between the United States and China. This bilateral meeting will be a wasted opportunity to address critical issues. Still, Biden and his team will bend a knee and placate the Chinese President even though his long-range goal is Global Domination and about as fake as the clean-up of San Francisco for this summit.

California, and specifically San Francisco, went into a whirlwind cleaning spree to make the City by the Bay presentable for the visit of Xi. This clean-up involved repaving some of the downtown streets, the power washing of the subway system, and, most importantly, the removal of the homeless and the tent cities throughout San Francisco. On any given day, there are nearly 4,500 homeless living in tents or sleeping directly on the sidewalk. This massive fall cleaning was accomplished in one weekend, leaving many asking why it took the top Chinese coming to town for the clean-up. Why could it not be done for the residents and taxpayers of Frisco?

San Francisco is the home of the most elaborate and expensive real estate in the country. Still, there has been a massive exodus of businesses and residents from California and major cities like San Francisco in recent years. The absence of the homeless on the City’s streets does not mean the homeless tent city situation has been solved. These thousands of homeless have been moved to the streets of Oakland for the duration of the summit and President Xi’s visit. Then, they will be allowed to return “home,” and life will return to the ugly reality in San Francisco. The new look of San Francisco and the summit are a big charade, but Americans are seeing behind the curtain, and this week’s events will not favorably impact Biden.

 

The post What Should Be On The List Of Topics With Xi appeared first on Granite Grok.

Burlington has once again found itself the victim of its own politics as progressive rules claim another two lives in the city of Burlington. Police report that two young men were shot and killed, one dead at the scene and the other after being transported to a local hospital.

 

Burlington police are investigating two murders just steps from downtown.

Burlington police received calls about gunfire on Decatur Street just after 9 p.m. Sunday night.

According to police, when law enforcement arrived on the scene, they found two adult men. One man was dead, and the other was seriously injured, both had been shot in the head. The surviving victim was transported to the UVM Medical Center, where he also died.

See, just like I said. And not with any pleasure or even amusement. This is tragic. And not just these unnecessary deaths. Burlington has been ill-equipped to deal with any crime since its knee-jerk progressive city government defunded its police force in the wake of the BLM protests in 2020. Efforts to hire more police have been stymied, probably by the obvious lack of support new hires could expect from their employer in the event of an incident too good not to milk for progressive policy points.

Burlington had made arrangements with the Vermont State Police to help them manage the overload, but they, too, were understaffed. Likely a result of a similar effect. Vermont as a state is a Left-Wing plantation whose Republican governor would have a hard time getting elected as one in a majority of Red states. Not that it matters. Any knee-jerk effort to hew toward a defense of natural rights or smaller government is easily overturned by the Democratic majority legislature. Two bodies that are murdering life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by ramming through every failed Democrat priority they can conceive.

The obvious connection is their anti-gun laws, in whose wake we always see increased crime and violence. And while this year is on pace to be less of a disaster than last, and they will try to sell that as proof of improvement, it is anything but.

Update: This now appears to be drug-related.

 

Police got a call about gunfire at a home on Decatur Street just before 9:15 p.m. Sunday. When officers arrived, they found two men — Anthony Smith Jr., 26, and Khalif Jones, 27 — both of whom had been shot in the head.

There was evidence of drug trafficking at the house, Murad said during a press conference Monday. ..

Police responded to two other shooting incidents Sunday night and early Monday morning: a report of shots fired around 101 Main Street, and a man who was shot in the foot.

And, add one more November murder in Vermont: “Investigators said 52-year-old Robert Marquis died over the weekend at the University of Vermont Medical Center following several days of treatment.”

Marquis was shot in his home.

 

HT | WCAX | MYNBC5 | Vermont Public

 

The post More Murder and Mayhem in Vermont appeared first on Granite Grok.

The issue of voter fraud and election integrity dominated much of Trump’s presidency, and by its end in 2020, many of his supporters raised concerns about the credibility of the electoral system.

Well, voter fraud appears to have metastasized and is now out of control.   We saw that in Arizona’s gubernatorial race, and we see it all across America.

In recent years, concerns about voter fraud have grown significantly, with many individuals asserting that there are systemic issues within the American electoral system.

One striking example cited by those raising concerns about voter fraud is the Kentucky gubernatorial election, which looked like a close race, with the Democrat nominee, Andy Beshear, defeating Republican incumbent Matt Bevin by just over 5,000 votes, or 0.37%. This made it the closest gubernatorial election in Kentucky since 1899 by votes and the closest ever by percentage.

The discrepancy in the voting patterns in this election raises eyebrows and sparks suspicions among those alleging voter fraud. While Kentucky Republicans voted overwhelmingly for their party’s candidates for other statewide offices, such as Attorney General and Secretary of State, they simultaneously chose a Democrat for the governor’s position. This divergent behavior among voters, especially within the same party, appears perplexing and contradictory.

The core argument here is that when voters consistently support one political party across multiple offices, they are expected to do the same for the gubernatorial race. However, the outcome of the Kentucky gubernatorial election needed to align with this pattern, raising concerns about the integrity of the voting process. Such inconsistencies in voting behavior could indicate manipulation or irregularities in the election system, as it is unusual for voters to exhibit such discrepancies in their choices.

The assertion that elections are rigged is rooted in a belief that nefarious forces may be at play and that a coordinated effort could be behind the inconsistent voting outcomes.

It is, therefore, crucial to consider the possibility that allegations of rigged elections could have a basis in reality, thus warranting a thorough investigation.

The close relationships between prominent politicians, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and high-ranking members of both the Republican and Democrat parties in Kentucky suggest a hidden agenda. Even if we take it for granted that political alliances are common in politics, it is not unreasonable to wonder if such connections could influence election outcomes. A closer look at these alliances and their impact on elections is justified.

This alignment or collaboration between high-ranking members of both the Republican and Democrat parties suggests that they might be working together with shared interests rather than representing distinct political ideologies. The “hidden agenda” here is that these politicians, despite belonging to different parties, are collaborating behind the scenes to achieve specific goals.

The practice of split-ticket voting, where individuals choose candidates from different parties for different offices, may be more complex than it seems. Moreover, the nature of these splits, where voters make different choices for various offices, is a sign of manipulation within the electoral process and doesn’t reflect the diverse political opinions of the electorate. The varying outcomes in other races may be more indicative of foul play than genuine voter choices.

The Heritage Foundation has posted a long list of verified election fraud cases in the U.S.

Allegations of systemic voter fraud in America, exemplified by cases such as the Kentucky elections, deserve serious consideration. While some may dismiss these concerns, it is essential to recognize that the electoral system’s rectitude is paramount. Investigating these claims and addressing potential issues will help safeguard the democratic process and ensure the public’s trust in elections remains intact. By taking these concerns seriously, we can work to protect the sanctity of our democratic institutions.

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The Nikki Haley for El President Campaign has announced $10 million in political ad buys beginning in December. The Vegas odds suggest she will be going after Ron DeSantis in an effort to secure second place coming out of the first two contests on the Republican Primary calendar.

 

Details of the advertising plans, which represent the Haley campaign’s first official advertising reservation, were obtained by The Associated Press ahead of a public announcement expected Monday. Haley’s planned investment, as of now, is more than five times larger than DeSantis’ current advertising reserves for the same time period, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.

 

It would appear that the Republican Establishment has made its choice, which isn’t such a bad thing for DeSantis. Being an establishment darling isn’t really his style, and looking like an outlier might actually appeal to some voters who could easily connect Haley with the warmongering Neo-Con RINOs who echo her sentiments.

Just so we are clear, I still think Haley was the best UN ambassador we ever had, but when the rubber hit the road, she listened to Swamp Rat Rasputin. Instead of standing up for her boss, who was innocent of all the charges at the time, she aped the lies of the left as sold by Republican insiders who saw Trump the way Democrats did, as a threat to their Deep State livelihood.

They picked the government before the people, and there were plenty of them.

Chris Christie fits in that category as well, a character flaw that makes both of them unelectable to me. I can’t trust either of them not to sell me out to the whims of the biggest donor or the highest bitter.

Trump is not perfect, but the left fears him, the GOPe fears him, the media fears him, and that’s something worth considering when you look at where we are today.

As for the Ad buy and the primary, Haley has been on the move while the DeSantis campaign – and I’d take him over her any day of the week and twice on Sunday – has continued to struggle for traction. He also has a better chance of ending up on a VIP shortlist. Haley stabbed Trump in the back. She needs to win this thing, or she will disappear from the national stage again until 2028.

And I don’t think 10 million is enough to change that.

 

Note: This piece was written before Haley’s (in my estimation) campaign ending Gaffe so ten million is definitely not enough as her opponents rhetorically beat her campaign to death with it.

The post Nikki Haley’s Holiday Gift to Iowa and New Hampshire appeared first on Granite Grok.

As promised in Monday Memes, I have an overflow.  And yes there will be a Friday edition too.

Let the mayhem, mockery, and ridicule resume:

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only someone totally bought off cannot see the problem here.

 

 

 

They have praying facilities.  This is a show of power.  Per Dr. Warner of politicalislam.com, the majority of their holy writ is how to deal with the Infidel.

 

 

Some POS “migrant” does this to my daughter they’d better pray the police find them before I do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One correction: They didn’t give the Jab for free.  Governments around the world paid billions for it.  Then they get to make billions more on fighting the adverse effects.  Nice business model… for people without a soul.

 

 

 

 

I’m sure she’s blown away!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was in Iran, pre-revolution.  OK, knee-high to a grasshopper, but I remember it.  As I recall, the only time my western-dressed mother had an issue was when we were visiting one “very holy” mosque in Shiraz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And… the above is why I don’t get invited out a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bought off, or threatened?

 

 

 

 

Infertility and other reproductive consequences discussed here:

Dark Thoughts in the Small Hours – Granite Grok

Borrowing from a Dog Food Ad – Urban Scoop

 

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the Post:

 

 

If G-d doesn’t do something soon, then He owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.

 

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

 

Palate cleansers:

 

—

—

 

It’s not easy being green…

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

The post Meme Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

The loons in Europe like to leap before they look, especially when it comes to climate voodoo, so they make for a great example of how stupid things can get. Take the UK. It’s got a complex bureaucracy and layers of rules that make doing anything more difficult, even when the doing is done by some other part of the Government.

In its quest for net-zero common sense, the UK government wants to place 600,000 heat pumps in the next five years. They’ve even offered some fiscal incentives that pretend to save you money if you jump through the hoops with them. Except that they can’t.

 

In order to qualify for the government grant, heat pump installations must comply with regulations set out by the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) – including a minimum level of noise disturbance to neighbours. It means a heat pump must not generate a noise louder than 42 decibels within one metre of a neighbour’s door or window.

Yet the report, which was presented to the Institute of Acoustics at a conference, found that of the top heat pumps from the five main manufacturers, not one device would meet MCS standards on noise unless the unit was at least 4m away. ..

To meet noise regulations and receive grant funding, some homeowners would have to build a sound barrier – potentially at a cost of up to £5,000 – said Jack Harvie-Clark, of Apex Acoustics. But even if sound-proofing was installed, it may not be enough to reduce the noise to an acceptable level.

 

Government at its best, yes? But what to do?

Most heat pumps (based on a quick internet search) run from 43 to 70 dB. The high end is annoying and distracting, but the lower levels are tolerable and would likely become little more than white noise you get used to or rarely notice. The UK problem might be resolved with a land-a-man-on-the-moon-like investment is a quieter heat pump, but more likely, they’ll change the notice regulations. But not before a protracted and expensive process because bureaucracies don’t work any other way.

Sometimes that’s a good thing. Slowing down the pace at which your rights can be taken from you is good. It might even provide time to stop the theft. But governments don’t give things back. Nor do they easily step away from a commitment to foolishness on the scope of climate. But there is a lesson to be learned if those in the colonies make time to learn it.

Heat pumps are noisy. If you expect everyone to get one, you might not be able to ignore all the impacts, thought they have turned a blind eye to so many already. What difference would ignoring a few more make?

 

The post When Government Mandated Heat Pumps Violate Government Mandated Noise Regulations appeared first on Granite Grok.