The Biden administration aims to establish 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power on U.S. coasts by 2030 and has put half a billion into just Offshore Wind—with a focus primarily on the East Coast.

Offshore wind is not even reasonably priced! The cost of electricity from offshore wind is taking off, as New York awarded contracts to two developers in February 2024 at prices more than double what Massachusetts negotiated during its last procurement.

A press release issued by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul indicated the average cost of the two contracts in New York is $150.15 per megawatt hour. The press release said the price “is on par with the latest market prices,” but it’s a sticker-shock leap from the $76.73-per-megawatt-hour price that Massachusetts negotiated with Avangrid in March 2023.

Avangrid paid a $48 million penalty to terminate that contract in July last year, saying rising interest rates, inflation, and economic upheaval caused by the war in Ukraine made the contract terms unworkable. That decision set off a domino effect in the industry, as a number of projects up and down the Atlantic seaboard were terminated.

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

On the banking front, a $1.5 Trillion ESG Debt Market Has Started Bleeding Clients. Bankers say clients are wary of “greenwashing” allegations. Sustainability-linked loan issuance is down 74% year-to-date. [“Greenwashing”: Misleading the public to believe that a company or other entity is doing more to protect the environment than it is, greenwashing promotes false solutions to the climate crisis that distract from and delay concrete and credible action. ]

That is what is going on, and our oceans are paying the ultimate price. In comes Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street, and TRowe, all jumping onto the “Energy Transition” business, flushing money into the laundromat.

Where’s all the Biden offshore wind money going? Most of it is to foreign companies and their employees. Vestas (Danish), Siemens Gamesa (German), Orsted (Danish), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Japan), and Even GE’s involvement in wind is located in Europe, primarily in France, NOT the USA!

Then there is the “Jones Act” or the USA getting all those “green” jobs and green industries Biden promised. The Jones Act is a 100-year-old law that means that only US‐built and US‐registered vessels can transport goods by water in the United States. No existing Wind Turbine Installation Vehicles (WTIVs) comply with these restrictions, barring them from transporting wind turbine components to installation sites from nearby US ports. Jan 2, 2024…

But they found a way around that problem by using a feeder vessel. They bring it to New York on a barge. They hire stevedores (a person employed or a contractor engaged at a dock to load and unload cargo from ships) to unload from the barge onto land. They wait for a different vessel to show up at the barge, and then the stevedores take the stuff off of land and put it back on to the barge so that they can, with the different vessel, pick it up and then put it down.

They pulled this for the Block Island (US first Offshore Wind Farm) Wind Farm, too. That one tested the waters for the rest of them. So much for the USA getting all those “green” technology jobs.

The Vineyard Wind project (off Martha’s Vineyard) promised jobs to local workers, yet out of the nearly 1,800 union and nonunion workers hired by Vineyard Wind since January, only eight were from the Vineyard. Only one of those hires was a union job. Foreign companies bringing foreign workers and using foreign technology. That is not what the current Green New Deal and their people promised.

Wind and Solar are “Energy Transition” action items and are ripe for investors, seeing the billions pumped into Offshore Wind. They are the new “gold ring” for investors like Blackrock, Vanguard, and others, pumping money in and draining money out—our money. Our government has become the world’s biggest Laundromat.

Part 1 – The Whales; Part 2-The Money; Part 3-The Data and Part 4- What this means for NH

The post Save the Whales, No – Save The Wind! Part 2: FOLLOW THE MONEY appeared first on Granite Grok.

Inspired by yesterday’s Facebook post by former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte regarding her affection for law enforcement and a recent piece on her primary opponent, Chuck Morse, I have an important question for BOTH of them.  What do they plan to do with Formella?

If I’m not mistaken, his term expires a little over a year from now.  He was appointed by the Damn Emperor without a resume rich in prosecution and confirmed by the executive council.  Seeing Warmington, another lawyer, sparring with him on January 31 makes me think that she was a lone dissenter in a 4-1 approval, but I sent an email to the EC secretary to confirm what the vote indeed was. That also reminds me that it’s a good idea to ask executive council candidates, incumbents and challengers alike, if they would approve his reappointment, assuming it happens.

A lousy attorney general is no laughing matter. Remember what Formella’s predecessor, Gordon MacDonald, did and did not do.  He, through his henchman Attorney Nicholas Chong Yen, said out-of-state Dartmouth students could vote in the 2020 election despite the campus being closed all semester due to covid.  He also “did a Comey” on former Nashua school board member and Grokster Doris Hohensee when he sat on her complaint of the NTU electioneering for almost a year, dismissing it about a month before The Great Heist.  Doris’s complaint, loaded with evidence, was ignored by lots of lawyers, including our mayor and Attorney Bolton.

While Formella is an improvement from Gordon MacDonald and he handled Warmington’s January 31 attacks well, he is not without fault. There is plenty to discuss about him and things that happened on his watch, including the 10/13/21 executive council arrests, the 20 months of tormenting lawfare that followed for the nine victims, and all the unpleasantness associated with the youth center scandal.

This statement’s mission is not so much to serve as an attack on Formella but a wake-up call to the voters to get themselves informed.  Know your candidates on your primary slate and what they plan to do as governor and executive councilor when it’s time to choose the next attorney general and make them go on record.  Most higher office candidates stump with scripted talking points, but when it’s time to take questions, take advantage of opportunities to get to know stuff that’s important(to us, not them).

The post Speaking of Lawyers, Let’s Talk About The Attorney General appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright was more or less unknown before Barry Obama ran for President. One of Wright’s more famous idioms, perhaps due to the frequently shared recording of him saying it, was that after 9/11, America’s chickens were coming home to roost. Much like Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, it still has legs.

A phrase meant to infer one thing but useful for so many others in “right back at you” fashion.

Today’s roosting chicken lesson comes to us courtesy of the Summer of Love, BLM, and the Defund movement. A stupid idea based on a problem created by Democrats whose goal is chaos, disorder, and – I have long posited – a nationalized police force controlled from inside the Beltway in DC.

Pittsburgh’s Bureau of Police is responding to staffing shortages by foregoing any officer presence in dispatch offices 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. daily.

The Daily Mail reported that the cut was announced last month by Pittsburgh police chief Larry Scirotto, who noted, “Data said that from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m that we had 8% of our call volume, yet we had 33% of our personnel working during those periods of time.”

Scirotto’s decision comes as the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police has dwindled to just 740 officers.

Great news for the people of Pittsburgh if you think the cops are racists. Fewer of them are available less often, on top of the already declining racism and oppression announced in February.

In late February, Breitbart News pointed out Scirotto also made clear officers would not be responding to 911 calls that are not reporting in-progress emergencies, regardless of the time of day the calls came in.

Rejoice, rejoice; there is no end in sight to the decline in oppressive police racism, but being a minority victim of crime will, more than likely, continue to rise. Nothing, as they say, is ever truly “free.”

According to Neighborhood Scout, Pittsburg is “safer” than only six other places in America. You have a 1 in 33 chance of being a victim of property crime and a 1 in 177 chance of being a victim of violent crime.

There are an average of 187 crimes per square mile, so if you think you might soon be a victim of crime, try to avoid 3 am and 7 am, which is as counterintuitive as it sounds. Given the opportunity, criminals will pick the path of least resistance, and Pittsburgh just told them not just when that might be but when it is.

 

The post “Defund the Police” Chickens … Come Home to Roost in Pittsburgh appeared first on Granite Grok.

Americans are witnessing frighteningly high rates of inflation—gasoline prices have increased by 10 cents a day lately, it seems. Interest rates are rising and set to continue shooting up, compounding home affordability hampered by a seismic spike in home and land prices.

In Vermont, used car prices have increased 21% in the last year (an average of $31,907 for a used car), and heating oil is approaching $7 per gallon. But the much greater threat is food inflation.

Food prices for many staples like bacon and hamburger have already shot skyward under what the Biden administration dismissed last year as “transitory” inflation and now blames on the War in Ukraine.  The enormous infusions of newly printed (borrowed) money under COVID continue to trickle through the economy in the form of inflation, undermining real wages, inflating asset values, and ultimately impacting vital industrial inputs such as fossil fuels. The industrial food system is particularly vulnerable to these pressures.

Fuels such as gasoline and diesel till the ground; plant the seed; spray the fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides; and harvest and transport the crop. But these and other fuels (especially natural gas) are the core resources from which modern synthetic fertilizers are derived, and other vital inputs such as potash and phosphorus must be shipped long distances. Fertilizer prices have doubled in the last year; plastic wrap, baling twine, and other essential haymaking supplies are scarce and very costly.

Consider a hamburger with all the fixings. Commercial lettuce, tomatoes, and onions will likely have been harvested using layers of fossil fuel inputs in some far distant location, then processed and transported to Vermont using yet more expensive energy (vegetables from Chile and China will soon be much more costly as well as less trustworthy and less fresh).

The cheese on your burger might be local, but if not, it was manufactured with multiple fossil fuel inputs. The bun might seem simple enough until one ponders how many field applications by tractors were involved in supplying the wheat from which it was baked. If the input costs of wheat production escalate permanently, the compounded impact on price is exponentially greater than the underlying commodity inflation.

This will become even more evident in the meat part — the burger is made from cows that convert grain and other feed as energy. Because most modern beef is raised in Confinement Animal Feed Operations (CAFOs), the cows are delivered feed derived from energy-intensive grain crops using industrial equipment. The entire American meat production system has become tightly integrated in recent decades, utterly dependent on cheap energy. As fuel prices escalate, the impact on food prices is likely to be cataclysmic. Sustained inflation will make the bulk of the nation’s industrial agricultural system economically as well as ecologically unsustainable.

Vermonters who remember the Great Depression will recall the dangers of dependency on others for food. But those same minds understand how very far short from that self-reliant agri-culture the Green Mountain State has become since. Farms have been decimated for 100 years, even more so under COVID, yet plans for EV cars and solar panels on every home, or equity panels to extirpate ancient Vermont sins, or more taxes to save the planet continue to eclipse real work to improve local food security and availability. This should be the number one issue for the Vermont legislature, which has instead dithered with expanded criminalization of speech against so-called public servants, amending the Constitution for no practical effect, and distributing money and healthcare based on race and sexual preference.

My campaign slogan when I ran for Governor in 2020 was “Farms Close, Bureaucracy Grows!” That is more obvious now. The State of Vermont added tens of millions of dollars to the agriculture budget — to hire more bureaucrats to work for the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets while yet more dairy farms closed! These endless expansions of taxation and regulatory overreach have decimated our small farms at the peril of all.

President Biden is aggravating fuel prices, inflaming social divisions, and targeting a nation’s liberties due to individual psychotic killers — but he does not appear to be concerned one bit about food. It is almost as if he is distracting voters from the most important issue in their lives: healthy sustenance.

That hamburger and the bun, cheese, and veggies — even the salt and special sauce — are all going to increase in cost while most citizens’ incomes stagnate or decline. Will the Vermont bureaucracy react as usual, and tax citizens into famine by invoking their poverty as grounds for another inefficient rescue “pogram”? When will the Vermont Legislature reaffirm the vital Vermont agrarian traditions that it has instead tarnished as racist, intolerant, and hateful? Why don’t we elect farmers to represent and provide for us in times of food crisis?

If the Vermont Legislature can’t fund pensions, restrain budgets, or tax people fairly, how can it possibly govern our food supplies? We need farmers to produce food: let the bureaucrats dine on their elitist cake while those who understand land stewardship have a voice.

Perhaps Vermonters could trade carbon credits from their pine trees for caviar from their wealthy climate-justice neighbors. Caviar is not as filling as a hamburger, but it’s better than snowballs.

 

(Originally published 5/29/2022)

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

The post ICYMI – Why Food Is About To Get Very Expensive appeared first on Granite Grok.

I like to harp on local House Reps, typically Democrats, who block people on social media that disagree with their public political statements, positions, or advocacy. Now, I can say they should have seen this coming, especially those who praised the courts for smacking then-President Trump around for doing the same thing.

The 9-0 decision sends a warning to anyone in government who chooses to mix private with politics on social media and uses that as an excuse to block people.

The United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Friday that government officials who post about work-related topics on their personal social media accounts can be held liable for violating the First Amendment rights of constituents by blocking their access or deleting their critical comments.  

While private citizens can block whomever they please if they are on the taxpayer’s dime in any official capacity, sharing content on a personal social feed could set up a potential lawsuit by anyone or everyone ever blocked.

I’ve issued similar warnings in the past that include not just Dems but Republicans and Libertarians. This was inevitable, and this latest 9-0 first amendment decision sets the groundwork. Suppose you discuss your political agenda on measures, bills, issues, or other business of a town, county, state, or federal office. In that case, the public must be able to comment, or you are violating their First Amendment rights.

The first case involved two elected members of a California school board — the Poway Unified School District Board of Trustees — who blocked concerned parents from their Facebook and Twitter accounts after leaving critical comments.  

The court upheld the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that said the board members had violated the parents’ free speech rights.    

The second related case has been returned to the Sixth Circuit for a second look, but you should expect Democrats to start suing their political opponents long before that case is reviewed. They might be the party of Real censorship, but they know how to work a decision in their favor, and they can prop up an NGO to sue you faster than you can read what I just wrote.

Everyone is on notice, from town councils to school boards, county delegations, state legislatures, and executive branch staffers. Separate the people’s work -however sinister – from private content, or stop blocking people from your social feeds.

Test cases are expected almost immediately.

And yes, this has enormous implications for systemic censorship on social media and pending SCOTUS cases (their decisions, at least) regarding organized censorship by the government outlined in the Twitter Files.

 

The post With 9-0 Decision SCOTUS Tells Public Officials How Blocking People on Social Media Could Get them Sued appeared first on Granite Grok.

• These are the most liberty-critical hearings for the week
• Click on the bill number to read the bill.
• Click on the committee name to email the committee your thoughts.

Of the 26 hearings in the House, we are recommending support of 1 and opposition of 1 with 4 being of interest.
Of the 29 hearings in the Senate, we are recommending support of 5 and opposition of 4 with 3 being of interest.

Position	Bill	Title	Committee	Day	Time	Room	State Analysis
Oppose	SB588	relative to employer notice of veterans’ benefits and services.	Commerce	Tue 3/19	9:00 AM	SH Room 100	This bill directs the labor commissioner, in consultation with the department of business and economic affairs, to create and distribute a veterans’ benefits and services poster for employers to display in the workplace.
Support	SB516	relative to prohibiting collective bargaining agreements that require employees to join a labor union.	Commerce	Tue 3/19	9:15 AM	SH Room 100	This bill prohibits collective bargaining agreements that require employees to join a labor union.
Support	HB1066	relative to the graduation requirement of filing a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).	Education	Tue 3/19	10:00 AM	LOB Room 101	This bill changes the requirement for school districts, public academies, and chartered public schools to provide information to students on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and repeals the reporting requirement on the number of students provided in-person school assistance on completing the FAFSA.
Support	HB1105	relative to application of a local tax cap.	Election Law and Municipal Affairs	Tue 3/19	9:50 AM	LOB Room 103	This bill provides clarification that all recommended appropriations in the warrant are included when determining the estimated amount of local taxes to be raised for the fiscal year under the local tax cap.
Of Interest	HB609	(New Title) relative to the site evaluation committee for energy facility siting.	Energy and Natural Resources	Tue 3/19	9:45 AM	SH Room 103	This bill revises the member of the site evaluation committee for energy facility siting and eliminates subcommittees.
Oppose	SB593	relative to possession of firearms in safe school zones.	Judiciary	Tue 3/19	1:00 PM	SH Room 100	This bill prohibits carrying a firearm in a safe school zone.
Of Interest	HB1186	relative to firearm purchaser’s privacy.	Judiciary	Tue 3/19	1:30 PM	SH Room 100	This bill prohibits the assigning of a specific merchant code to the sale of firearms, ammunition, or firearm accessories. This bill further provides a mechanism for enforcement of this prohibition.
Of Interest	HB314	relative to the expectation of privacy in the collection and use of personal information.	Judiciary	Tue 3/19	1:45 PM	SH Room 100	This bill regulates the collection, retention, and use of personal information and establishes a cause of action for violations of an individual’s expectation of privacy in personal information.
Support	HB470	relative to fentanyl test strips and other drug checking equipment.	Judiciary	Tue 3/19	2:15 PM	SH Room 100	This bill amends the definition of drug paraphernalia to exclude drug checking equipment and authorizes the use of drug checking equipment.
Of Interest	SB303	relative to the use of renewable energy funds by the department of energy.	Science, Technology and Energy	Tue 3/19	9:30 AM	LOB Room 302-304	This bill adds battery storage projects to uses of the renewable energy fund, deletes a required renewable generation incentive program, and authorizes a political subdivision incentive, rebate, or grant program using the fund. The bill also modifies the reporting date by the department of energy concerning the renewable energy fund. This bill is a request of the department of energy.
Of Interest	SB391	relative to electric grid interconnection for certain customer generators.	Science, Technology and Energy	Tue 3/19	10:30 AM	LOB Room 302-304	This bill requires the department of energy to begin rulemaking for the purposes of setting uniform procedures for distributed energy resources that are proposed for interconnection to the electrical infrastructure.
Oppose	HB1217	relative to an exception to allow the state or a municipality to use video monitoring to identify the cause of damage to historic covered bridges.	Transportation	Tue 3/19	1:10 PM	LOB Room 101	This bill allows the state or a municipality to use video monitoring to identify the cause of damage to historic covered bridges.
Support	SB510	relative to sale of a vehicle to a Massachusetts resident.	Transportation	Tue 3/19	2:00 PM	LOB Room 203	This bill eliminates the requirement that a retail motor vehicle dealer submit a form notifying the New Hampshire department of motor vehicles of a sale of a vehicle to a Massachusetts resident.
Of Interest	SB322	(New Title) relative to licenses to carry and immunity for law enforcement officers issuing certain firearms licenses.	Criminal Justice and Public Safety	Wed 3/20	11:30 AM	LOB Room 202-204	This bill requires a license authorizing an individual to carry a loaded pistol or revolver in this state to include the name, title, and signature of the person issuing the license. This bill further provides immunity to law enforcement officers who in good faith issue licenses under RSA 159:6 or 159:8 from any liability arising from certain actions by the firearm licensee.
Oppose	SB414	relative to establishing a mandatory minimum sentence for the crime of distribution of a controlled drug with death resulting.	Criminal Justice and Public Safety	Wed 3/20	1:30 PM	LOB Room 202-204	This bill sets a mandatory minimum sentence for the crime of distribution of a controlled drug with death resulting.
Oppose	HB1292	relative to coverage of children under the state retiree insurance plan.	Executive Departments and Administration	Wed 3/20	9:15 AM	SH Room 103	This bill removes the requirement that young adult children covered under a retired state employee’s insurance plan be full-time students.
Support	HB1140	relative to requirements for homeowner installations of septic systems.	Executive Departments and Administration	Wed 3/20	10:00 AM	SH Room 103	This bill enables a homeowner to install a new or replacement waste disposal system in their own domicile without a permit.
Of Interest	SB327	providing penalties for the assault or harassment of sports officials.	Judiciary	Wed 3/20	10:45 AM	LOB Room 206-208	This bill permits courts to impose a ban on individuals convicted of certain offenses against a sports official from participating in sports events in this state for a specified amount of time.

The post Bill Hearings for Week of March 18, 2024 appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.

Kellogg’s CEO has said, “If you’re a cash-strapped household, you can save money by eating cereal for dinner!” But most major food companies’ cereal labels say, usually below the ingredients list somewhere, that it’s “bioengineered.” So, what the hecky heck is up with that!?

The last half century has moved us into the next phase of food production. We have moved away from natural, raised dirt-farm food, backyard gardens, and hybrids to the new era of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) foods and Bioengineered food. If you’re interested in what you’re consuming, here are some highlights…

Hybrid food

Many moons ago, farmers experimented with food to produce bigger, better crops. Hybrid crops are just intermixing of the existing genes in a species to achieve the right variety. Hybridization does not involve the addition of a foreign gene in the organism. For example, sweet oranges are not a native fruit. It originated in southeast Asia thousands of years ago. It is a hybrid combination of Pomelo and Mandarin. Then experimenting with food moved from the farmer to the chemist to now the geneticist. In the 70s, they started in earnest genetic experiments, and then in 1994, the “flavor saver tomato” was approved by the FDA.

Organically Grown

Food is grown and processed using no synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or genetically modified components. Organic food may not be chemical-free, but considerably lower than those found in produce manufactured with synthetic chemicals. In NH, the Department of Agriculture ended the state-run organic certification program, impacting NH farmers on the cusp of this year’s growing season! One does wonder what is going on… Contact your state representative and ask them to get this program back!

VEGAN

Vegan is a diet of plants such as vegetables, grains, nuts, and fruits. Vegans do not eat food from animals including dairy products and eggs. So if you’re on a vegan diet and buy Remilk because it’s advertised as non-dairy, you could be drinking proteins from actual cows injected into the concoction… never mind all the little creatures and bugs gobbled up in the combines to harvest soy and other plant products, but I digress… The point is you may believe you’re eating a Vegan diet, but the foods that are bioengineered may use proteins derived from animals.

Genetically Modified Organism (GMO)

Genetically modified and genetically engineered foods or crops are often used interchangeably. Genetic modification can refer to several methods such as selection, hybridization, and induced mutation. It can also cover some aspects of traditional breeding if it causes alterations in the genetic composition of the organism. Therefore, only the lab staff knows what “it” is…

BIOENGINEERED

Good luck trying to figure out what “bioengineered” means in food. They won’t and don’t have to tell you. Everything from soup to candy now lists “bioengineered” as an ingredient.

The Standard defines bioengineered foods as those that contain detectable genetic material modified through in vitro recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (rDNA) techniques! What?

The term “bioengineered” is more specific than GMOs and is, thus, preferred by scientists. GMOs are a little more challenging to define as several techniques can alter the genes of a crop. For instance, breeding for productivity, hardiness, shape, size, and flavor, though not done in vitro, can still change the genes of a food crop. Several techniques in modern agriculture can fall under the genetically modified label if you have a deep understanding of biotechnology and food science.

BIOENGINEERED AND GMO

Instead of using the more popular term “GMO,” food manufacturers now use “bioengineered” or “derived from bioengineering” as per the new federal standard. Former Agricultural Secretary Sonny Perdue announced the regulation in 2018.

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

Genetic engineering is only a type of genetic modification that entails a targeted change in the genome to achieve a specific characteristic using biotechnology. In essence, all “bioengineered” organisms are GMOs, but not the other way around. Some internet sources might use these two terms interchangeably, but there is a difference between these two concepts. GMOs are organisms—plants, animals, or microorganisms—that have their genetic material altered in a way that does not occur naturally, either by mating or natural recombination. Bioengineered products, on the other hand, use biotechnology to produce a desirable characteristic in organisms. For instance, golden rice has been bioengineered to produce healthy amounts of vitamin A—the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS) site for more.

It won’t be long before they try to rid the world of farming in the name of the “climate” because (they claim) livestock are causing too much CO2, methane, nitrogen, and other elements the globalists believe are causing a climate catastrophe. Dirt farmers are also poisoning the planet and water, they say.

Many folks have returned to backyard farming and gardens, but hold the phone! A new study claims that unless you are following their rules your rooftop or backyard farm must be carefully planned to avoid climate impact. That a backyard farm has more carbon footprint than traditional farming!? They can’t and won’t pick a lane.

The links at the bottom of this study go to their findings, which are a surefire cure for insomnia.

I’m not a geneticist or chemist, but I try to be aware of the foodstuff being sold to us. Some of the bioengineered foodstuffs may be great, but who really knows? How did we get from listing every chemical in food to the obscure word “bioengineered: is beyond me. What exactly is in the food that is bioengineered? Anybodies guess. This is criminal, in my opinion. We are beyond the age of worrying about added preservatives, flavors, chemicals, and fillers to a world devoid of consumer knowledge and information. Do your research and decide how far you trust these people to know if it is safe or better and if there are long-term effects.

Do you believe the globalist, WHO, and WEF people are lining up for Remilk and Impossible burgers? Frankly, I’m a bit snake bit about anything “lab” government-run…

Buy local, save a farm…

Other “No Farms, No Food” Granitegrok articles

“Rewilds” – The New ‘Wild Kingdom’

No Farms No Food

Where’s The Beef?

Night Cap: Remilk – “Real Dairy – No Cows”

No Farms, No Food – The Bugs You May Already Be Eating

The Left Pivots from No Farms No Food to – No Farms!

Local farm resources to get you started

NH farm bureau https://www.nhfarmbureau.org/

NH farmers markets

https://www.visitnh.gov/things-to-do/food-drink/farmers-markets
https://extension.unh.edu/resource/nh-farm-network

NH farmers co-ops

New Hampshire

The post Can You Picture The Global Elite Lining up for Remilk and Impossible Burgers? appeared first on Granite Grok.

We let our authors write about whatever they want—almost anything—because we know the readers will tell them what they think. Two recent examples include a trial balloon suggesting Tulsi Gabbard as Trump’s VP and, a few months prior, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the same job. Both are too liberal in too many other ways, so it’s a big no for me.

But the Federal Government is a big place, and while a heartbeat away is a no-go, what about something with a bit more distance?

RFK+HHS= …

A notion crept into my noggin the other day while I was walking the Labrador. We do that daily, and while I can usually predict what is going through his head, what pops into mine is more of a mystery that sometimes finds its way here. Who might be Donald Trump’s likely VP candidate (for real, not the click-bait headlines we keep getting)? And hey, he’ll need to replace everyone, so what might that look like?

I’ve not thought deeply about all of that and likely won’t, but given the nightmare that was public health in recent years and how easy (and enjoyable) it is to trigger the proglodytes, what might be the best thing I could imagine happening?

Yes, proglodytes. You know who I mean.

Trump wins by some numerically impossible sum that the uniparty cannot overcome. Sorry. Dream sequence. Soft Focus. Soft music (Harps, perhaps). Trump wins by some numerically impossible sum that the uniparty cannot overcome. We survive the months of domestic terrorism that follow (proglodytes!). All the election denying from the left (they do that a lot more than they’ll admit). And prevent whoever is running what’s left of the Biden administration from doing that of which they again accused Trump—starting a nuclear war, for example, or an actual insurrection (see reference to domestic terrorism raised by foreign terrorists Biden let with the third-world Biden Miles club – great rates on food and lodging!).

They prevent the bombing of the inauguration and multiple assassination attempts, and Trump gets to Day One.

Or, he just gets to day one and says, you’re all fired.

Wouldn’t it be the best thing ever if he nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services? I realize that Kennedy’s ascension to the gig would be another hurdle (similar to the one just described), but this is a dream sequence, so go with it. The smoke clears. He gets the job, and Trump says, welcome to the team, no go clean that shit up.

Would anyone object to that, assuming we woke up and it actually happened?

Might RFK consider dropping his Indy bid if Trump sat him down and told him he’d do that if he helped him get elected? Free reign with, at best, tiny guardrails and a few suggestions of his own (no mandates, protect children, etc).

What does that promise do for people still leery of The Donald’s Warp Speed braggadocio?

And what does Bobby do, then, in the wake of our surreal but sweet-tasting victory (after fumigating Levine’s essence from his new office)?

The post I’d Never Want RFK Jr for Trump’s VP… But How About as His Sec. of Health and Human Services? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Do you have concerns about the current direction of our country? I am moved now to make an appeal because 2024 must be a turning point for us to set right our unsustainable course. One that could be accurately summarized as a colossal compilation of defeat that spans back decades before my millennial memory even begins.

I must concede that I do not know when you are reading this—the beginning of one day, the ending of another, or at some point in between. I do know that in the face of the economic and humanitarian crises, in the midst of our waning strength and cracking defenses, and our own weaknesses weaponized against us that are defeating us, I am impelled to make this appeal all the same.

We have a powerful ally here in Granite State. She is someone I have had long conversations with, someone I listen to and follow, someone I have introduced, with whom I have shared meals, and whose family I have met. She is someone I fight for. She understands the course we must be on.

We want to thank Matt D. for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
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We must unleash the true potential of our economic system and remove unnecessary and harmful restraints that impair it from thriving to the extent that it must. We must have energy freedom and remove restrictions that are making us dependent on entities in this world that we must not be dependent on. We must adhere to the Constitution and be able to think and speak in liberty. Our borders are a catastrophic disaster that must be, and that can be, substantially corrected with great expediency. Our Second Amendment, like our First, must be thoroughly upheld and protected. And we must have peace through strength and American interests first.

She credits our Constitution with liberating her from communism’s claws, and she sees with painful clarity how the mechanisms and machinery of our systems are being compromised and turned against us by the lengthening and deepening reach of those same claws.

I implore you to stand with our ally in this fight and with the greater cause she represents, which truly transcends us all. Stand alongside Lily Tang Williams in her campaign for Congress.

She knows that the United States represents the final line of defense and must be held. She will fight in that fight, even at great personal expense, because she knows this darkness that has come against us—the kind of darkness that I know General Stark had in mind when he carved those lasting words into the Granite of our state: “Live free or die: death is not the worst of evils.”

And I must further press that those final words so powerfully articulated by President Reagan, that great enemy of communism, resonate so perfectly with Lily’s core beliefs, those words he spoke when he described America as “…the last, best hope of man on Earth.”

The people of these United States are the final line.

And it is in acceptance of that God-forged reality that has come to me to be undeniable, and in defiance of the grand design, the masterpiece that is the work of malicious machinery spurred on by the darkest sides of human nature, that I submit this appeal now – whether that be by the last lingering light of a dying day, or the fading darkness the dawning of another – to someone whose judgment is of incredible consequence.

And that someone?

That someone is you.

 

Reminder: Content about candidates or by candidates is not an endorsement by GraniteGrok.com or its authors.

The post She Credits Our Constitution With Liberating Her From Communism’s Claws appeared first on Granite Grok.

A recent study of beaver dams in northwestern Alaska concludes that the explosive repopulation of Arctic terrain by beavers is thawing large areas of tundra and releasing climate-destroying methane.

The purported negative climate impact of northern beavers regarding methane is the polar opposite of the vaunted benefits of southern beaver populations, which climate scientists have for years claimed sequester vital carbon and rescue humanity from climate change.  The dichotomy between the two beaver populations is paralleled by the tensions between animal rights activists’ views of fur trapping.

Is it O.K. to trap animals to save the planet?

The beaver problem in Canada and other northern climes is attributed to anthropomorphic causes – warming temperatures and reduced trapping.  Beavers are populating these areas in explosive numbers.  The resultant locust-like beaver onslaught has caused even the study’s authors to raise concerns about how to counter the beaver infestation and protect the planet.  This posture is reverse-mirrored by earlier laments that beavers were unavailable to save the Earth in North America because of European colonizers who trapped them to obscurity.  Trapping, like beavers, appears to be morally climate-binary: It is an “evil” practice against good climate beavers, a “good” practice against bad ones.

Equity and Beaver Fever

If equity is thrown into the mix, climate assessments get muddied into inscrutable darkness. Earlier beaver loss arguments scolded white people.  One glowing article titled “How the Eager Beaver Helps Protect the Planet” claimed:

Before the European colonization of North America, there were likely hundreds of millions of beavers. Many Indigenous communities revered them as keepers of water and some had strict policies against killing beavers. But the value of beaver pelts and oil—as fashionable fur hats and perfumes in Europe—lured trappers across the continent and beavers were nearly eliminated from the landscape as a result of heavy exploitation. In the process, our waterscapes became less complex, less resilient, and less able to support diverse plant, animal, and human life.

Now scientists allege that Canadians need lots of trappers ASAP to save the world from pesky beavers and suggest beaver meat will make good human food.

Perhaps the native Canadian tribes whose fur and trapping industry has been thoroughly throttled by progressive animal rights activists will thrive by reducing bad climate beavers.  If that solution is pursued, will white people be denied permits to hunt and eat beaver, or is the climate mission paramount?  Likewise, does putting a colored person on the moon help the environment (as NASA has proclaimed it will do), or are the jet fuels and other pollution colorblind?

This quandary highlights the unavoidable tension between histrionic social justice initiatives.  At times, humanity must choose between competing interests when they are not in accord, such as men’s “rights” to be women versus women’s identity in sports, bathrooms, etc.  As the social justice destruction of the world unfolds, social justice warriors fashioning their plans to create a true Utopia will continually run aground on these inconvenient truths.  Not all paths to “equity” and world salvation coincide.

Attempting to rewrite history on an oppressor-oppressed narrative fails epically every time.  The Cree Indians who depended (and still depend) on fur trapping used the profits to purchase goods from Europeans – apparently, it was bad for Europeans to trap, but good for Natives.  This patently racist conclusion eludes social justice warrior awareness because logic is not permitted to eclipse feelings.

The Canadian beaver infestation presents this awkward contrast in bold relief.  Shall trapping be encouraged to save the world from beaver methane, or shall the world perish, and all humanity (and beavers) die because crazed animal “rights” advocates lay on the road to stop “inhumane” trapping?  These are moral judgments emanating from a morally deluded cadre of agitators whose sole moral compass appears to be identifying something to attack and destroy.

The intersectionality of conflicting ideologies

Food was always the first priority for Native American tribes – periods of famine were common.  If cows are to be sacrificed to prevent climate change, society is valuing carbon dioxide levels above food (cows are not an environmental problem: their industrial confinement is).  Conflicting demands on resources and disparate outcomes based on resource and policy allocation mean that the social justice rainbow of causes will always be bleeding colors. Every intersectionality of supposed shared oppressions yields parallel divisions.

Many feminists are now outspoken against trans athletes in sports.  Sharp critiques by some gay members of transgenderism suggest maybe those QBGLT+ letters do not always accord.  Black women claim additional “lived experiences” of oppression beyond the ken of mere white girls.  The myriad of unfolding divisions transforms the Utopian Unicorn rainbow into a fractious, confusing kaleidoscope of pronouns, grievances, and mental illness.  Americans once rallied around shared challenges rather than splintering divisions.

Would animal rights activists approve of trapping and eating beavers to reduce methane levels in Ontario?  Perhaps they would instead relocate captured varmints to midwestern areas, dropped by helicopter into areas suitable for their dams to sequester carbon.

Wild Horses

Activists defending wild horses have created an environmental disaster: the number of feral horses in the United States increased from 17,000 in 1971, when the Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act was enacted, to 225,000 in 2023. Killing them is illegal, but the ecosystem is at risk: what shall be done?

The Sierra Club alleges that wild horses are a problem:

Wild horses are reproducing at unsustainable rates; between 2007 and 2021, their numbers more than tripled. In their search for forage, wild horses are tearing up high-desert vegetation, degrading riparian areas, and trampling fragile native plants. Free-roaming horses and burros are a major cause of the destruction of biocrust—the top layer of desert soils, which has been shown to be an anchor of desert biodiversity.

Every climate conflict raises competing interests. Indeed, climate warriors insist regressive taxes on the poor to finance EVs, solar panels, and heat pumps for the middle class are justified…. to rescue the poor from climate change! Every crisis in social justice fantasy land is manufactured into the leverage of power and government control—even when the government seeds the crisis. The swirling dizziness of all the experts and technocrats saving humanity and Earth from ubiquitous social justice evils has become a senseless, vapid din.

Thus, the beaver trapping conundrum.  Is the trapping of animals immoral regardless of the purpose?  Does purpose determine ethicality?: Sport versus fur versus food versus saving the planet from imminent existential collapse?

If the world is truly at risk from carbon dioxide, and beaver numbers in the Alaskan wild actually impact such climatic forces, then surely trapping methane-spewing beavers for fun, fur or food will all be welcome -– world-saving! -– pursuits.  As for the horses….

 

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

The post Nigth Cap: Fur Trapping to Save the Planet! appeared first on Granite Grok.

Frustrated by my inability to get the facts on the legal details of reps’ gmails, I’ve taken a few Plan B detours along the way. When I say “Gmails,” let it be known that I mean all emails used by members of the legislature that don’t end in “leg.state.nh.us” due to my keystroke laziness.

If you want to refresh your memory on HB 1002, and my most recent article, click here (where many relevant links are included).

Since submitting my most recent article, I had the creative idea to light a fire under some Legislative Legal Lads in Concord by emailing the Senate Clerk’s office.  The senate clerk is a nice lady that I’ve always exchanged friendly greetings with in person upon seeing her, and she promptly did her job when I asked an RTK question about Ms. Maya last year, at this time when I was blocked on Twitter.

Attorney Lehmann professionally and expediently answered my question, so it stood to reason, based on personal observation, that finding information on the Senate side of the wall is a more user-friendly experience than its House counterpart. Let it be known, however, that the House clerk replied to my Monday email on Tuesday but did not answer my questions to my satisfaction, though his answer was polite. My email to the House clerk said the following:

“I am emailing your office as per 91A right-to-know to ask a 2 part question. The first one is whether an email address ending in “leg.state.nh.us” exists for each of ALL 400 reps(less the two current vacancies), whether or not they prefer to use them. Secondly, if the answer to the first question is yes, please provide a list of email addresses for all the reps that do not display one with “leg.state.nh.us” on their home pages.”

And his reply:

Good morning, Ms. Smith.

In answer to your first question, no, not all members utilize the legislative email system (which ends in leg.state.nh.us). In answer to your second question, all members who list their emails (in any manner) can be found on our Roster Download page available at https://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/ (on the left hand side – you can download it is an excel file, word file, or .txt file).

I hope this helps.”

Rather than follow up and be THAT annoying person criticizing the House clerk, I figured that both chambers would have a mirror-image policy with regard to email issues, hence my decision to reach out to Tammy and elicit a response from Attorney Lehmann, whose response was prompt and professional and … answered my questions. Unfortunately, what he had to say was a disappointment, legally speaking.  I will share some of what he said that might be of interest to people passionately interested in truth-seeking.  I asked Tammy four questions, but the answer to the 4th question sadly rendered my first three questions moot.

What I find share-worthy is the following excerpt from Attorney Lehmann’s email:

“RSA 91-A does not apply to all legislator email, but it may apply to some legislator email.  I know that is not a particularly helpful answer, so I will try to respond in greater detail.  The Right-to-Know law has two main sections.  One section applies to public meetings, and the other section applies to governmental records.  Since you have asked about email, I will assume you are primarily interested in governmental records.

Governmental records can be records of a public agency or of a public body.  The definitions section of 91-A:1-a makes it clear that the general court (and its committees)  are “public bodies.”  Qualifying records of public bodies are, of course, available to the public.  However, individual senators are neither the “general court” nor are they committees of the general court. For this reason, the email of individual senators are not public records subject to RSA 91-A.

Although individual Senator’s emails are not subject to the Right-to-Know law, emails sent to a quorum of a committee are. Accordingly, emails received by a senate committee are subject to the Right-to-Know law, and are included in the bill folder for each piece of legislation considered by each committee.

This interpretation of the Right-to-Know law has been in place for as long as I can remember, and I started as legal counsel to the New Hampshire Senate in December 2000.  This interpretation has also been endorsed by the New Hampshire Department of Justice. An opinion of the former Attorney General from 2011 is attached for your convenience.”

This was in response to my 4th question, which was if 91a applied to ANY email to or from ANY member of the legislature involving “the people’s business.”

While it was not the answer I had hoped for, I wanted to thank Attorney Lehmann in the public square for his answer and remind everyone that HB1002 still has not yet received official Interim Study status from the whole House.

 

The post Legal Lad Lehmann Weighs in and It’s a Right to Know (91a) Jersey Barrier. appeared first on Granite Grok.

I say SO WHAT? So what that New Hampshire’s Sun-King, Chris Sununu (a/k/a Biden-boy), does NOT support voter ID. So what if that means scores of illegal aliens and non-residents will be able to vote in New Hampshire in November? What’s that you say?

That the Sun-King’s opposition to voter ID helps Biden and the Democrats. That is the point, DUMMIES.

The Sun King has “paid his dues.” He did everything he could to help that empty-pantsuit, corporate-shill, donor-zombie Nikki Haley defeat Trump. He is the right kind of Republican. Don’t tell me otherwise. He’s got an “R” after his name … Republican, Republican, Republican.

 

Ahead of possible @NHHouseofReps vote on HB 1569, which would eliminate exceptions to voter I.D. requirements, @GovChrisSununu says "…our system works very well, so I'm not looking to make any changes" #NHPolitics #WMUR pic.twitter.com/kTy5Bt94Vs

— Adam Sexton (@AdamSextonWMUR) March 14, 2024

That was sarcasm, by the way. And, I KNOW … “but he’s good on guns and taxes.” The Sun-King made sure Biden won New Hampshire in 2020 by instituting (with the assistance of many morons in the NHGOP) the same COVID-hoax voting rules as the Blue States. And … SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE … he’s also rigging the 2024 election.

 

The post Chris “Biden-Boy” Sununu Says … You Should NOT Need An ID To Vote appeared first on Granite Grok.

My headline includes multiple crimes: VP Joe’s illegal possession of classified information, sharing it with a ghostwriter with no clearance, attempting to hide, erase, or delete evidence, and making eight million dollars on the book written using that information. It’s OK. They were Democrats, so no charges have been filed.

If anyone else (you, me, Eric Trump, The Donald) had shared these state secrets illegally obtained, the full weight of the US Government would have been upon them. Jail time would have been for everyone, but none of that happened. Everything else did.

[A]mong the more intense moments at the hearing, there was one electrifying series of questions where Congressman Jim Jordan prodded [Special Counsel Ben ]Hur into admitting that not only did Biden take classified documents — when he was just the vice president, with no presidential declassification powers — but Biden also disclosed official secrets to the guy who was ghostwriting Joe’s autobiography, a guy with no security clearance.

Joe then made $8 million bucks on the book deal.

Please move along, ladies and gentlemen, nothing to see here.

Other highlights of the hearing included Special Counsel clarifying that memory issues included in his report are there because Biden kept bring it up and then proving his own case, even when Democrats tried to get Hur to explain it away using other langauge.

Hur did not back down on his assessment of Biden’s memory, proclaiming that the “president himself” made it an issue. In one case, the president tried to deflect from his inability to recall an event by claiming his son had died in the same year. As Hur notes, Beau Biden actually died two years earlier, in 2015. The White House lied about that exchange in the initial aftermath of the report, claiming that it was the special counsel who brought up Beau Biden. The president repeated that assertion during a disastrous press conference. The transcript, which Hur had at the ready during the hearing, showed otherwise.

And it wasn’t just Democrats in Congress who were working to hide these issues from the public.

On that same topic, Hur was asked about whether the White House pressured him to change parts of his report to protect Biden politically. He confirmed that did happen, sharing details of a letter in which it was demanded that mentions of Biden’s failing memory be removed.

What do the White House and Joe’s Ghost Writer have in common? Obstruction of Justice!

Another incredible exchange came when Rep. Adam Schiff suggested that Hur should have released a sanitized version of his report so as not to make judgments about someone who wasn’t criminally charged.

Of note is that Schiff fully supported Robert Mueller’s special counsel report, which made all sorts of negative claims about Donald Trump despite the former president not being charged with any crimes. The California congressman also lived on television for several years, making all kinds of wild accusations involving Russian collusion, including claiming to have proof. For him to go after Hur for reporting the facts on Biden’s activities and testimony is the height of irony.

Nothing will, of course, come from any of this. No one charged, no indictments, no media circus, or 24/7/365 coverage with expert commentary. That’s for the enemies of the deep state. Actual crimes, no punishment. And they wonder why a growing number of Americans don’t trust any of these bastards. But this is all public now, so it has its uses.

You can use it to melt progressive snowflakes.

Prison would have been better.

 

The post Joe Biden Read Classified Government Intel to a Ghostwriter Who Then Tried to Hide The Evidence it Happened appeared first on Granite Grok.

If Democrat Senators got an earful from their constituents about rising property taxes, rising crime, and the cost of housing while they were home, it was nothing like what they heard from Senate President Pro Tem.

Kicking off the “welcome back” Senate Democrat Caucus meeting on March 12, Philip Baruth (D/P-Chittenden Central) took the microphone for a five-and-a-half minute, action-packed rant that included telling his colleagues not to pay attention to constituent objections to their climate policies – they are passing these bills anyway! – instructed the media, if they were listening, not to report the costs of said policies, and threatened to take away Republican lawmakers’ “seat at the table” if they didn’t accept the premise that these ludicrous policies were legitimate.

Baruth complained, “Every time we come out with something to mitigate the effects of climate change or to slow the effects of climate change – and I’m talking about the Clean Heat Standard, the Renewable Energy Standard, which we are going to see a concerted campaign to kill, and this bill, the flooding bill, will also see a concerted campaign to slow it, alter it or kill it. And that is because, again, one of the major parties, and it’s the Republican Party in Vermont, has decided not to create policy to deal with this issue.”

Let’s take this whining missive one point at a time….

Yes, every time you come out with a plan to tax the living hell out of working people trying to heat their homes, drive their cars, do their jobs, etc., in a thinly veiled attempt to steer hundreds of millions of dollars to your political cronies, it tends to tick people off. And, yeah, it sparks some folks to start blowing the fiscal rape whistle in a “concerted effort” to stop your highly corrupt and worse-than-useless policy from happening.

As for noting the Republican party in Vermont has decided not to spend time and resources on schemes to alter the trajectory of planetary climate trends in order to affect the weather patterns in our tiny patch of New England landscape, of course, Republicans aren’t putting forward policy here. Why? because, despite the many shortcomings of the Vermont Republican Party, its members aren’t completely insane.

Anyone who thinks Vermont lawmakers can or will have any impact on the global climate or Chinese/Indian/Russian/etc. policies regarding same is, very politely speaking, a fool. And any parties—looking at you, Vermont Democrats and Progressives—that want to make such an utterly useless gesture the primary function of state government at a cost of multiple billions of dollars better spent on solving solvable problems are fools who also pose a serious danger to others. It’s time to take away the scissors.

Baruth goes on… “What they [Republicans] do is wait for us to offer policy in this space, and then they line up against it with whatever the best argument is. The two arguments we most often hear is that it costs more than a dollar, and it will disrupt a little bit to a lot.”  Well… yeah…. You’re reading this right: the Democrat/Progressive leader of the Senate is upset with elected officials who question the cost to and impact of a policy on their constituents and raise good arguments in regard to those policies.

Senator, the Republicans are not the problem here!

Baruth admits in his little speech that the cost and disruption caused by their plans to “remake an economy that runs on fossil fuels” requiring “huge systemic change” will require disruption and cost. Quite a bit of both! He warns his colleagues, “You will not receive kudos for your work [on the Renewable Energy Standard Bill, etc.]; you will receive sharp criticism, paid advertising talking about how you’re going to cost Vermonters money that they don’t have.” Note: you do not deserve kudos for these policies; they are unaffordable, ineffective, accrue no benefits, and take resources away from other crisis issues in our state. You deserve not just sharp criticism. You deserve to be fired for what you are doing.

Does Baruth think elected officials should listen to the concerns of the people who elected them? Oh no! He says, “We need to circle our wagons! We need to rededicate ourselves to getting these things through,” despite widespread public opposition.  This is what Democracy looks like?

Then Baruth goes after the media, “putting them on notice,” to use his words on how they should cover these issues. “I’m also talking to the Vermont media,” he says. “The way it works [now] is, when the Renewable Energy Standard comes out, the headline is, ‘Democrats propose comprehensive legislation; Republicans point out that it will cost X number of dollars, with a quote from Phil Scott right up front.’” Um…. Question! Isn’t that what good reporting should cover? Here’s the policy and what it would do; here’s what that policy will cost and who pays; and here’s what the top elected official in the state has to say about it so you, a member of the public, can craft an informed opinion. Not according to Phil Baruth, and since no one spoke up against his take, I guess every other Democrat senator did as well.

Instead, Baruth et al. say the headline should be, “Democrats propose comprehensive climate change legislation, Republicans don’t.” In other words, don’t discuss the cost of the program. Don’t discuss what actual impact the program will have on Vermont citizens or, for that matter, the complete lack of impact it will have on a changing climate. Don’t ask the governor what he thinks. Just run propaganda that casts Democrats as heroes and Republicans as villains for, you know, asking critical questions about transformative policy and attempting to listen to what their constituents actually have to say. The bastards!

He concludes, “We are going forward with these bills!” despite public opposition. And, “We are going to make it clear that if nothing comes from the Republican side, do they deserve a full voice in the argument?” Well, the people who elected them might say yes, they do, and you do not have a right to de-platform duly elected officials simply because you disagree with them about priorities and policy. But that would be if you truly believed in the democratic principles of truly representative and responsible government. Baruth and his entitled, dictatorial fellow Democrats clearly don’t.

 

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.

The post Ignore Voters, Dictate to Media, Threaten to De-Platform Republican Lawmakers appeared first on Granite Grok.

SB 563, a ban on sanctuary cities, predictably advanced in a 14-10 roll call last week to Senate Finance, but not without the expected drama in the chamber.  You can click here and skip to 4:56:20 for almost a whole hour of debate, but you already know the outcome.

The “discussion” included lots of long and insufferable drivel and gaslighting by most members of the enemy camp.  As expected, senior swamp rat Lou D’Allesandro had to weigh in, mentioning several large cities by name (including mine) with police chiefs that allegedly want their cities to be a sanctuary.

But wait a minute, what about sanctuary TOWNS?  Not only is Merrimack a large town but there’s some stuff to know about it, in no particular order. The Everett Turnpike, which connects NH’s two largest cities, runs through several miles of Merrimack and has three exits there.  Merrimack has three places to vote, which differentiates it from other towns (such as Hudson and Bedford) large enough for more than the three usual number of rep seats.  Merrimack also has a police chief in support of sanctuary cities.

As to not get lost in the “he said, she said” wording, I’ll just quote what former Rep Max Abramson said on Facebook:

“Merrimack: I’ve been told repeatedly that there’s no remote chance that the town of Merrimack would ever be turned into a sanctuary city.  I literally just spoke with the police chief, and he said that his policy is to prevent officers from enforcing federal immigration laws or immigration detainer requests!

We need to stop kidnappers, murderers, and rapists from coming into the country illegally and kidnapping, raping, and murdering Americans.”

I was aghast to read that, especially coming from a reputable person like Max Abramson, who is seeking higher office, so I decided a little research was in order.  I haven’t gotten very far at this point, but it was a natural first step to want to learn the chief’s name: Brian Levesque. Of course, I couldn’t help myself and had to indulge in a silly thought about “you-know-who.”

I’ve been told that it’s the most common last name in Nashua, so I quickly moved on from that goofy moment to continue with my initial research.  According to my findings, Chief Levesque actually lives in Nashua!  There are a variety of ways to verify that, but I don’t want to be accused of doxing.  Do your own fact-checking as you see fit, but I personally find it disappointing that the highest law enforcement official of a large abutting suburb lives here in the city because that means his character lives here, also.  If I had to guess, he probably voted for our insufferable mayor instead of retired fellow cop Mike Soucy.  Remember that Nashua is a welcoming city, which is the bane of its existence.

I recommend that the Merrimack Town Council call him out on it. Unlike most other towns, Merrimack hasn’t yet had its local elections. As far as I know, the police chief is not an elected office, but voters and candidates for local office ought to know how Chief Levesque feels about sanctuary cities.

According to the town website, their elections are on Tuesday, 4/9/24, so there are less than four weeks to gather intel on the candidates running for offices that make decisions affecting their police department. If you have any ties with Merrimack, consider yourself alert and do what you see fit.

The post Rumor: Local Police Chief’s Policy Is to Prevent Officers From Enforcing Federal Immigration Laws or Detainer Requests! appeared first on Granite Grok.

If You look up Bidenomics in the dictionary, you won’t find the made-for-TV term. If it could be found, the definition would read:

Bidenomics Noun 1. A political term to define the state of the economy with total disregard for metrics or reality.

Biden and his team continue to brag about the impact of Bidenomics on the horrendous economy they inherited from Donald Trump. They continue fantasizing about how incredible Biden’s economy is today. They continue to explain the poor poll results are because people don’t understand how good they have it. None of the storylines the Biden Administration wants to hold up high are based on facts. These storylines are pure gaslighting, and the numbers are starting to stack up to a point where the legacy media cannot ignore them.

Job Numbers: Biden loves to talk about the 13 million jobs he created, but the reality is that 12 million were people returning to their jobs after COVID. He also refuses to include that 60% of the new jobs created are government jobs, and of the remaining 4o% %, the bulk has gone to non-native-born Americans.

The other disturbing fact about job numbers is the habit of reporting bogus, inflated numbers and then posting the actual number weeks later. People pay attention to the first and never to the second. Eleven of the last thirteen reports were overstated, and the revised counts were down as much as 50%. In layman’s terms, that is called cooking the books.

Inflation: Biden claims that inflation is falling, but it is an outright false assessment (lie). The inflation rate is down, but the reality is three years of inflation gives us an overall increase in retail prices of 19%. That equates to the average household spending over $11,000 yearly for the same goods in 2020. That is not the result of a robust economy, but Joe says we have the best economy in decades.

Wages: Every American knows their dollar is not going as far as it did three years ago. This is contrary to the claims of Biden and Karine Jean-Pierre. The two of them tell us daily that wage growth exceeds inflation. It is simply not true, and the lagging wage growth is one of the reasons that Americans have grown credit card debt to over a trillion dollars.

The Biden economic team picks different time frames to make the numbers work in their favor. They compare wages today with pre-COVID wages of 2019, but when it comes to prices, they compare today with 2022, when prices were at their highest. The Biden team proves the adage that numbers don’t lie and liars use numbers. The American people are catching onto the Biden game of semantics and numerology, which is why the Biden approval numbers continue to fall.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was interviewed by FOX Business this week, and she was shown as the mistress of the non-answer. She says the inflation trend is clearly visible. She talked about the robust growth in EV sales and how more subsidies will continue that trend. She failed to acknowledge that American tax dollars are being used to lower inflated prices so the upper class can buy EVs. EVs are still far outside the reach of the middle and lower classes. When asked about the less-than-glowing inflation numbers of the last few months, she twisted the numbers to say that inflation is down two-thirds from the 2022 high. That is a number she cannot justify. It is a sound bite. She says Biden’s top priority is to lower costs, so he is putting pressure on the private sector. There is no place for the government to set prices for companies, but that is precisely what Biden is attempting to do. She wrongly stated that the most significant contributor to inflation was housing costs, totally ignoring energy, food, and gasoline.

Yellen reiterated that credit card numbers are not a problem, but she also said that our national debt is not a concern. Maybe not to her, but these will be huge factors for younger people unless she believes that they will be enjoying a government subsidy under the Socialist America she and her colleagues are pushing us towards.

Yellen’s interview is frustrating and infuriating, but it gives a clear image of the fantasyland this Administration is living in. Unfortunately, that is a luxury most don’t have, and we are forced to live in the reality of Biden’s America. That, too, is frustrating and infuriating.

The post Biden Ignores The Facts When Praising Bidenomics appeared first on Granite Grok.

Last week, the world’s leading authority on transgender treatment and surgery was caught with its non-binary pants down. Internal documents proved they knew hormone therapy in children could lead to cancer or death. Three days of mourning later, the UK’s health ministry and the NHS have banned them.

No one under the age of 18 years can receive puberty blockers from public health services, with one exception: clinical trials.

Following a four-year study, while gender dysphoria diagnoses multiplied like crazed rabbits by over ten times, the UK’s National Health Service finally issued new rules Tuesday. Trans activists were shocked and appalled that the NHS completely prohibited prescriptions for puberty blockers for kids under 18 (apart from in approved clinical trials). On top of that, British lawmakers introduced a bill law week that would even ban the private sale of puberty drugs.

So, no—Schellnberger’s WPATH files did not drive the decision, but it seems like the announcement release date was. They invested four years in research and review and just happened to have planned public notice three days after the UK Telegraph covered the WPATH Files expose.

A week earlier on March 4th, Twitter-files journalist Michael Shellenberger published a new 242-page report he called the ‘WPATH Files.’  WPATH — the World Professional Association for Transgender Health — is the ‘premier’ global, pro-trans nonprofit. It publishes an influential ‘transgender standard of care’ that has been adopted by most Western governments and key licensing boards like the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The side effects of the WPATH files may be far-reaching. Other European nations have considered limitations or restrictions for minors, as have several states in the US, as Forbes notes, “despite opposition by organizations including the American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics.” I wonder what will next be their basis for opposition. Follow the science? WPATH is (or was) the go-to authority, and they’ve admitted to significant health risks, including death. That the therapy is not the panacea advertised that transition surgeries are dangerous, mutilating and neutering the patients for life.

WPATH member surgeons cheerfully discussed Frankensteinian techniques on kids to create freakish and unnatural results, like keeping both sets of genitals (the “phallus-preserving vaginoplasty”), gruesome nipple-erasing mastectomies, and worst of all, a grotesque “nullification” surgery, leaving no genitals at all, neither real nor fake ones, just smooth skin.

And now the NHS has stepped up, after conducting four years of scientific research, to say we’re not giving these drugs to children. It’s not … safe or effective.

Talk about an awkward transition.

The game-changing significance of the UK ban might not be completely obvious at first. Surgeries are nearly always reserved for older children, and usually require kids to have been taking hormone for months or years before the invasive medical procedures. And if kids aren’t taking early puberty blockers, normal development can occur, which often resolves the gender confusion. Stopping early puberty blockers shuts down the railroad to surgery.

Some US States will rightly use these revelations to advance protections for children but don’t expect any movement nationally. The drugs and the surgeries are big business, and the Democrats, along with bureaucrats in the public health industrial complex, are keen to keep that laundromat open for business. It also abets both cultural division and depopulation agenda.

Besides, if harming a few children were of real concern, no one would have approved the COVID Jab for anyone under the age of eighteen.

The End Of The Transgender Craze Is Near

The backlash against “gender-affirming care” and trans-identified males in women’s sports and prisons is accelerating

by @shellenberger & @galexybrane
Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, on February 18, 2024 (left) J.K Rowling… pic.twitter.com/vmjTyG0Tfc

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) March 13, 2024

The post UK Bans Puberty Blockers for Everyone Under 18 years of Age appeared first on Granite Grok.

On March 12th (I’m writing this on the 14th), some Communist witch in the State Senate demanded that State Senators follow a speech code that would replace the term ILLEGAL ALIEN with woke-speak such as “undocumented.” What Communist BECKY WHITLEY was demanding is called a speech code or censorship, if you prefer.

And what did “journalist” Adam Sexton have to say in his “reporting” … not that speech-codes are un-American and used by Communists to control and indoctrinate? Oh no. Comrade Sexton found the proposal “interesting.”

Interesting discussion in @TheNHSenate Judiciary Committee today as @BeckyWhitleyNH asks @SenatorGannon not to use the term "illegal alien" as they debate a bill dealing with immigration issues #NHPolitics #WMUR pic.twitter.com/xodktsXknh

— Adam Sexton (@AdamSextonWMUR) March 12, 2024

The irony, of course, is that the Left is all about … to borrow a phrase from Communist witch Becky Whitley … DEHUMANIZING the opposition. Disagreeing with Whitley and her ilk is discrimination, extremism, hate, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera … and makes you a racist, an election-denier, a climate-denier, a white-supremacist, anti-choice, a fascist, an insurrectionist, a transphobe, a homophobe, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Whatever the COMMUNIST accuses you of … it’s a sure bet that it is precisely what the Communist practices.

The post Adam Sexton Thinks Speech-Codes Are “Interesting” appeared first on Granite Grok.

Is it a bad day for your narrative when you have to stoop this low to justify a kink? We’re talking about whales. Male whales. One is reported to have attempted some form of whale-like penetration of the other, possibly without its consent. #MeToo? #BeleiveallWhales. Why bring it up?

Some goofy dude wrote a desperate article about it in The Guardian. It makes you wonder what they are guarding. How about same-gender whale rape.

Philip Hoare excitedly informs us that: “The first documented sex between two male humpback whales is just the latest challenge to our presumptions about sexuality.” (I myself didn’t have a huge number of presumptions about the sex lives of humpback whales, but alright.) This is leaving aside the fact that whale-to-human comparisons, which are always exceedingly tricky, are particularly so with this example. Hoare admits:  

In fact, one of the whales was ailing and there has been speculation that the encounter may not have been consensual or that the healthy whale was actually giving comfort to the other. Whatever the truth, such ‘flagrant’ acts also expose many of our human presumptions about sexuality, gender and identity.

…

Hoare spends several more paragraphs attempting to make the clumsy case that the “queer sea” should cause us to embrace gender fluidity, or something – he doesn’t mention that they have not yet discovered sea animals volunteering for castration due to identity crises, but I look forward to the inevitable and valiant effort. He does admit that “We cannot know how whales and dolphins themselves regard genital interactions,” which is a big admission, all things considered.  

Another big admission might be how big the oceans are and how few queer sea creatures last beyond their current generation, and how if that’s, in fact, normal, the mystery as to why the biosphere is trying to rid itself of them.

Humans are less a mystery, but why not muddy the sea waters with wild speculations about the wild time had by wildlife, consensual or not, as the template for human culture? Cross-species appropriation? Birds do it, bees do it, and male whales who like rape do it. Let’s do it; let’s end our genetic history. If that’s your thing, swim in the adult waters in which the two (or more) of you agree. Just leave the children and non-consenting mammals out of it and call it what it is.

Adopting a whale’s gay sex habits (if that’s even what this is) is a leap that Darwinists would label a failed evolutionary mutation. If ending your genetic posterity is who you are, accept that maybe that’s what the earth wants and be you. But there’s no need to justify it with a one-off event between two whales who’ve had the fortune not to get themselves murdered by offshore wind farms.

 

The post Night Cap: “Gay” Whales and The Queer Movement appeared first on Granite Grok.

Maine has lost its moral compass. This past year, bills have worked through the legislature and been signed into law by Governor Mills, making Augusta seem like a foreign land.

Mainers have conceded Portland, Augusta, and Auburn/Lewiston to the Liberals. Unfortunately, the residents and their reps from these urban areas have become so powerful that they have set the cultural tempo for the entire state, even though rural Maine continues to be more traditional and conservative.

Some of the laws passed since 2019:

• Expanding Child Care in Rural Maine
• Making Absentee Voting More Accessible 
• Create Online Voter Registration 
• Ban Seclusion and Restraints in Maine Schools
• Blocking the “School to Prison” Pipeline
• Reforming Cash Bail System
• Avoid Eviction Through Mediation
• Increasing Racial Equity in Legislation
• Payment for Unused Earned Vacation
• Remove Time Constraints on Abortions
• Establish Maine as a Sanctuary for Transgender Youth

Most of these new laws exhibit an overreach of government, the insertion of government in parental decisions, and easing controls on free and fair elections. At the same time Maine is creating more laws, Cumberland County DA Jacqueline Sartoris announced a policy change that will no longer see illegal aliens charged for specific traffic violations. These offenses encompass driving without a license, driving with a suspended registration, or driving an unregistered vehicle. Sartoris claims that her department does not have the manpower to enforce these laws and should concentrate on problem-solving and genuine public safety issues.

Correct me if I am wrong, but we are talking about people who have committed a crime by entering the country, have not shown the ability to drive a vehicle, and have not registered the vehicle. Are these people not creating public safety issues? I do not want to drive along Route 4 at any time of day with these folks behind the wheel. People will be hurt or killed by this lousy policy decision.

Maine has also gotten the attention of many other states in the union with their lawmaking. A letter spearheaded by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and signed by 15 AGs could face lawsuits from other states if it adopts the proposed statute LD 227. The letter’s signers referred to the bill as an attempt to impose Maine’s views onto the remainder of the country.

LD 227 aims to protect medical professionals who perform “gender affirming” medical care and medical professionals who perform late-term abortions on women from states where such procedures would be illegal. They claim this bill would set up Maine to be a destination for so-called “abortion tourism.” This bill would undoubtedly redefine Maine’s motto of “Vacation Land.” LD 227 also protects people who transport minors to Maine to obtain an abortion, sex-change hormones, or sex-change surgery. This law would make Maine a magnet for young boys and girls from all over the country who want gender-affirming care, possibly without the consent of their parents.

This is the second time Maine has drawn national attention in recent months. The first instance was when Maine attempted to remove Donald Trump from the primary ballot. These far-left progressive proposals do not endear Maine to the rest of the country. Maine is on track to replace California, Oregon, and Washington as the most Progressive state in the country. That is not an honor worthy of celebration.

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