Lahaina is a small part of Maui, and while the devastation and loss of life were epic and tragic, the remainder of Maui is open for business, but there’s a problem. No one is showing up, and the tourism-reliant economy is collapsing.

Related: Maui Sues Hawaiian Electric for Negligence Leading to Lahaina Fire When it Should Probably Sue Itself

“…nearly three weeks after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, the sharp drop-off in visitors is sowing a different kind of fear across an island where tourism dominates the economy. In recent days, officials and others have started to sound alarm bells, begging visitors to return to other parts of Maui.

“Maui update. South Maui resorts (Lahaina is West Maui) NEED visitors. Furloughs and layoffs starting because people think the whole island is closed. It is not,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) posted Thursday on the social media platform X. “If you are planning a trip to Wailea or Kihei, don’t cancel. If you want to come to Hawaii pls consider South Maui.”

 

While I’m sure there are loads of good-paying green jobs waiting to be created, the locals can’t rely on the island, the State, or the Feds to bail them out. They need something that could attract people now, and the observations in my last piece on Maui inspired me—introducing Incompetent Government Tours (IGT).

 

Tour the wreckage left by inept and bumbling bureaucrats, bungling oversight. Witness a reenactment of their poor planning, inadequate response, and the absence of follow-up. From bad policy to poor leadership, we’ve got it all, even a scapegoat – the power company your government oversees and regulates. It’s their fault they didn’t remind us to keep crawling all over them like ants on a pineapple.

Wait, sorry, not a pineapple. Maui’s pineapple business bailed in 2009, leading, in part, to the kinds of landscape responsible for the dry, invasive wild grass that burned so well when the climate gods’ power lines sparked the fire. Then, explore how Maui could sue them instead; when the government gets it wrong, the cure is always more government, and you need “revenue” to finance that.

 

I’m sure an anti-government approach would bring in planes or boatloads of MAGA supporters who are much better tippers than the Dems and progs who preach about little people, poverty, and the environment but leave little behind them but litter and waste. Maui IGT could also get free advertising from the Southen Poverty Law Center, which will gleefully add them to their Hate Map as agitators for rights and liberty.

And don’t limit yourself to Lahaina, which you may not even be able to access. The same incompetence responsible for that lurks across Maui and the Islands. You could employ a lot of folks all over with this plan an maybe – just maybe – encourage the locals to vote for new “management.” Preferably in something other than blue.

 

 

The post Maui is Screaming for Tourists. May I Make a Suggestion? appeared first on Granite Grok.

In this week’s column, I’d like to continue discussing Graham Priest’s unusual book Capitalism: Its Nature and Its Replacement. Priest uses ideas he gets from Marxism and Buddhism to criticize capitalism. Last week, I said that Priest has interesting things to say about Marxism but I avoided Buddhism.

This time I won’t avoid it, because the account of human personality he gets from it is crucial to his rejection of libertarianism.

Priest is an eminent logician, and he is quick to cut through nonsense. He says about historical materialism:

Marx and Engels . . . draw a distinction between the base and the superstructure of a society. The base comprises the means and relations of production: the superstructure comprises the consciousness of people. And the base determines the superstructure. . . .

The view is, frankly, incredible. It is clear that ideas can have enormous impact on people. Merely consider the effects of the teachings of Christ, Mohammed, or the Buddha, and their disciples. Moreover, such ideas can have an enormous impact on the economic base itself. . . .

It is unsurprising, then, to find Engels, at least, backtracking. . . .

Engels is clearly prevaricating. He says that the base determines the superstructure “in the last instance,” but he has no explanation of what that means . . . it becomes the banality that the economic activity is necessary for whatever else to happen.

Our author also makes an incisive criticism of Marx’s endorsement of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Marx said that after a socialist revolution, a new state controlled by the workers was needed to smash the remnants of capitalism and the bourgeois class that supported it. After doing so, the state was supposed to “wither away,” but for Priest this naively ignores what we know about the psychology of power:

It is clear, however, that Marx endorsed a centralized state in some form after the demise of capitalism: something that had the power to enforce new social relations. True, Marx and Engels claimed it would eventually “wither away.” . . .

However, Marx and Engels gave no reason for, or mechanism for, the disappearance of the state.

The points were forcefully made by [the anarchist Mikhail] Bakunin . . . [who] got it right. Once the Bolsheviks were able to take power away from the relatively democratic soviets and worker’s councils, and place it in their own top-down power structure, the rest was all downhill. . . .

The lesson, then, is a quite general one. Top-down power structures do not dismantle themselves. For whatever reason they arise, they start to run things for their own benefit. Such is the fate of all bureaucracies, be they of the major kind of the Soviet nomenklatura or the minor kind of bureaucracies that have taken over Australian universities.

Why won’t people give up power? Priest answers by invoking Buddhist psychology. The self is transitory, but people cannot accept this and engage in a futile quest for permanence. Getting and holding power is one way some people try to achieve this:

Buddhist psychology provides an acute analysis of what is going on here. There is no such thing as a determinate self, yet we try to construct one. . . .

Everything is impermanent. Moreover, it is clear that we all have a sense of this, much as we might try to suppress it. . . . Now, it is clearly natural to suppose that things like wealth and power are means to control these vicissitudes, and thus protecting ourselves from them. Desires for these things are, therefore, eminently explicable by our inchoate grasp of impermanence.

It is here that I part company with Priest. He is right that people have a sense of impermanence. As the French proverb says, “Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe.” He is also right that people seek power as a means to cope with this sense of impermanence. But to dismiss the self as an illusion goes too far and is inimical to liberty.

You can retain the wisdom of Priest’s account of power without denying the existence of a determinate self. He says, “As the nineteenth-century British politician Lord Acton noted: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Acton had this insight without taking a Buddhist view of the self. (By the way, Priest has slightly misquoted Acton, though he gives the correct quotation in a footnote; and Acton is much better described as a historian than a politician.)

Why do I claim that Priest’s denial of the self is inimical to liberty? He says:

In short, a post-capitalist society, if it is to work, must be organized in a bottom-up fashion, as endorsed by many anarchists. I note that nearly all those who do or did endorse such a kind of structure, argue for it on the basis of the value of liberty and its role in human flourishing. As is clear, we are approaching matters from a very different direction. It is Buddhist ethics that is driving the picture, not libertarianism.

In Priest’s Buddhist view, if I have understood it, oppression is bad because it is a form of suffering. You might now ask, “Why don’t people try to detach themselves from the suffering that oppression causes?” Priest’s answer is that human evolution has made it very difficult to do this. People should be compassionate and thus try to lessen oppression, but doing this isn’t based on the false view that persons are separate.

Priest has no use for the libertarian account of human rights, which impedes solidarity:

People are essentially interdependent from birth. Society is not a configuration formed to enforce pre-existing interests, but a pre-existing matrix, which forms such interests and provides for the needs of its members. In other words, this aspect of the [capitalist] ideology [i.e., Priest’s claim that supporters of the social contract view people as social atoms] serves to cover over the essential interconnectedness of people. Hence it can deliver those us/them attitudes which undermine solidarity. (emphasis in original)

Libertarians don’t in fact deny that people depend on one another. Priest’s accusation of “social atomism” is misplaced, as he himself seems to recognize elsewhere in the book: “For the most part, those who espoused social contract theory . . . did not regard the situation before the contract as an historical reality. It was simply a conceptual framework aimed at justifying a certain set of social relations.” Libertarians do, though, insist that people have inherent rights that other people cannot override, and this Priest cannot abide.

Priest supports democratic decision-making. People should be able to listen to each other in order to arrive at a common viewpoint, and doing this is especially important at the local level. If you disagree with the group’s decision, the others will certainly listen to you, and take into account the suffering you may undergo because your standpoint hasn’t won approval, but there isn’t a sphere in which the group has to defer to you, where your decision about what is to be done to your person and property is final.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Priest takes a favorable view of the “bottom-up democratic decision-making” of Communist Cuba, though, to his credit, he acknowledges that the Cuban Communist Party “wields a good deal of top-down de facto power.” Cuba has in fact been an oppressive dictatorship since 1959, but evidently this does not trouble Priest.

Author: David Gordon is Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute and editor of the Mises Review.

 

David Gordon | Mises Wire

Mises Wire We heartily encourage reprints and shares of Mises Wire articles. If you wish to reproduce an article in your blog, magazine, radio show, newspaper column, classroom material, textbook, discussion group, website, or any other venue, please do so. The original publication source must be included in an appropriate place.

The post Marxist States Never “Wither Away” as Marx Predicted appeared first on Granite Grok.

No data exists, but that doesn’t stop the government from striving for power as the Blue states begin to roll out restrictions on all Americans. Over 100 colleges and universities, no reason to specify them as Blue, have placed mask mandates on students and faculty and are disenrolling students who are not vaccinated and boosted.

Some school districts are already shutting down just days into the new school year. These districts cite trends, but two days do not constitute a trend line for consideration. These schools at all levels act without adequate data or facts to justify their actions. They do not pinpoint the cause of the absenteeism trend. They claim students are contracting a new strain of COVID-19, Strep, and the Flu.

Joe Biden was asked about the new strain of COVID over the weekend. He responded that he had asked Congress for funding for a vaccine
that, in his words, would work. That was an obvious implication that the vaccines for the first round of COVID were ineffective. He also stated that the new vaccine should be mandatory for adults and children, even if previously vaccinated. Obviously, the government is looking to speed through testing another vaccine, and we will be ignorant of the side effects for years. We are seeing strong, young, and athletic men stricken by heart issues, some fatal. We will not know for years what we have done to the reproduction process for young women, yet we have a President who is clear he will insist on every American taking the shot. This is wrong, and we need to resist. Many states and local governments will use these Presidential mandates to control their residents. Let’s be clear. This situation and reactions are purely political and may be the foundation of the Left’s plan to replicate 2020 and how COVID and restrictions greatly impacted our elections. This effort by every entity on the Left is definitely election manipulation.

There was a report on FOXNews Monday morning about the health hazards of masks. The same masks the government wants us to wear may be causing more harm than the germs we are protecting ourselves from. They talked about the chemicals used in the production of paper masks and how it is good practice to let a new mask air out for thirty minutes before placing it over your nose and mouth. Have you ever seen anyone let a mask breathe before wearing it? Of course not.

This is a perfect distraction for Biden. The more he can get the media to focus on COVID, masks, and vaccines, the less we will have to understand the crime family that is the Biden’s. The case is building against Hunter and more details and evidence are pointing to Joe Biden for being the head of the cartel. Nobody with an iota of logic and commerce sense can look at the evidence and deny Joe Biden was complicit in the actions of his crime family.

Congress is scheduled to reconvene on September 6. You can expect Kevin McCarthy to open an impeachment inquiry before the sun sets that day.That same sun is setting quickly on the Biden Presidency and no mask or mandate can stop it.

 

The post Joe Says Put On Your Mask And Get Your Shot appeared first on Granite Grok.

Given that we can share the unvarnished truth ‘cuz America, I was (sort of, kind of) expecting our traffic to take a bit of a hit when the EU’s new censorship regime went into effect. Nothing yet, but we should note the globalists see this as a template for the world.

Emphasis in the original.

 

More than a dozen of the world’s biggest tech companies face unprecedented legal scrutiny, as the European Union’s sweeping Digital Services Act (DSA) imposes new rules on content moderation*, user privacy and transparency.

From Friday, a host of internet giants – including Meta’s (META.O) Facebook and Instagram platforms, Apple’s online App Store, and a handful of Google (GOOGL.O) services – will face new obligations in the EU, including preventing harmful content from spreading, banning or limiting certain user-targeting practices, and sharing some internal data with regulators and associated researchers…

 

We do not get much traffic from social media in general, so there is no loss there, but any filtering of search results could cut into our EU traffic. Depending on the month, there are typically a few European Countries in our top ten for daily traffic. Today, for example, the UK is number four, the Netherlands is seventh, and Germany is tenth.

By the way, China is consistently in the top three, as is Canada, and both are unfriendly to free speech.

And if you care, Pakistan, Australia, and India are also in the top ten for the past 30 days, and again, I have no idea why except when the majority language is the same, but I suppose Google translate has gotten better so that’s less of a limitation than it once was.

As for the EU thing

 

The overarching goal of the DSA is to foster safer online environments. Under the new rules, online platforms must implement ways to prevent and remove posts containing illegal goods, services, or content while simultaneously giving users the means to report this type of content.

Additionally, the DSA bans targeted advertising based on a person’s sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or political beliefs and puts restrictions on targeting ads to children. It also requires online platforms to provide more transparency on how their algorithms work.

 

And then this.

 

The EU is seen as the global leader in tech regulation, with more wide-ranging pieces of legislation – such as the Digital Markets Act and the AI Act – on the way. The bloc’s success in implementing such laws will influence the introduction of similar rules around the world.

 

The EU is leading the way on censorship with more than a foot in the door. They encourage member states to impose monarchical speech standards where the government approves it. If you dare to challenge that, you might end up like this guy.

 

This is about a Norwegian man named Trond Harald Haaland. He has long been outspoken about things like the World Economic Forum, climate change and vaccine passports. He has posted a lot about the excess death rates we have been seeing after the roll out of the mRNA vaccines.

In other words, this is a man who does not believe the mainstream media narrative. He thinks for himself. And he has been actively criticizing the Norwegian health system for what happened during the pandemic. …

Now someone had anonymously reported him to the police for being “mentally unstable”. We have no idea who it was. Could be anyone. It could be some antifa extremist that had reported him for all we know.

Then the police contacted the health system based on this anonymous tip.

That is all that was needed for two “health care workers” together with two uniformed police officers to arrive at his door and forcibly haul the man away and lock him up in a phsyciatric ward.

 

Before the response to COVID, we’d consider this extreme, but no more.

Now add the growing political embrace of assisted suicide and its proposed use on the poor and mental health patients, and we can see a path from state-sanctioned censorship to medical execution.

The EU’s new law is currently directed primarily at ad content and large platforms, but they have the totalitarian itch, and mission creep will expand the reach under the guise of limiting content they deem harmful, especially when it contradicts their politics and policy.

The law itself will become the harmful content, and the people of Europe will be the ones that suffer.

 

 

HT | PJ Media

 

The post EU Censorship Laws (To Prevent the Spread of ‘Harmful Content’) Went Into Effect Last Friday appeared first on Granite Grok.

Of the many silly arguments the NeverTrump grifters bloviate, one of the silliest is that their candidates, unlike Trump, are electable. These NeverTrump grifters are, at best, delusional or, at worst, simply lying. Polls consistently show that GOP voters no longer support forever-wars … voters are savvy enough to understand that it’s Mitch McConnell’s inflation as much as Joe Biden’s … and to understand that you can’t end the “weaponization” of government when Kevin McCarthy’s House GOP fully funds the corrupt government agencies that are a far, far greater threat to “our democracy” than Xi and Putin and every other bad foreign actor combined.

A poll from Rasmussen ranking the issues. And what, for example, is Nikki Haley talking about? Well Field Marshall Haley is going to “take the fight to China”:

Which of the following issues is most important to you when it comes to deciding who to support for the 2024 election?
23% Inflation
20% Government corruption
17% The border
13% Government spending & debt
5% Climate change
4% Job market
4% Crime
3% Russia
2% China
9% Not sure https://t.co/MSxxtULddG

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) August 27, 2023

It speaks volumes about the state of the GOP that Bobby Kennedy, a Democrat, is more in tune with actual voters (read the entire thread to see what I mean) than the non-Trump GOP Presidential candidates:

The #GOPDebate last night was out of sync with the mood of the country. It began with a request for comment on Oliver Anthony’s @AintGottaDollar song, “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 24, 2023

The post Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is More In Tune With GOP Voters Than The Non-Trump Presidential Candidates appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you want to know what the Left would do to America, pay attention to what it is doing to Minnesota. The Gopher State went into the 2023 legislative session with a forecast budget surplus of $18 billion for the 2024-2025 biennium. Given November’s election results, most observers expected some mix of spending increases and tax cuts.

Instead, not only did the DFL ‘trifecta’ spend almost all of that surplus, it also raised taxes and fees by $10 billion over the next four years.

Minnesota’s state government spending will be 33 percent higher in 2027 than it was in 2022. This includes, among other things, new spending on welfare via refundable tax credits – rebranded “tax cuts” by the state’s biased media – free college tuition for children of families making less than $80,000 annually, and free healthcare, the latter two available to illegal immigrants. State employment will swell by thousands just as a new, higher pay deal has been agreed with state employees, and a brand new payroll tax will fund a generous paid family and medical leave scheme, although nobody actually knows how much this will cost. (STONE WASHINGTON: Minority-Owned Businesses Suffer A Second Pandemic Of Crime As Local Governments Handcuff The Police)

To pay for all this the DFL raised a range of taxes, including sales and gas tax, imposed new ones, such as on home deliveries and newly legalized marijuana, and hiked a range of fees on things like cars and boats. Primarily, they relied on hikes in pro-cyclical taxes such as ‘global intangible low-taxed income taxation’ and a new net investment income tax. As Mark Haveman of the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence notes, “Minnesota is replacing the least volatile sources of state income tax revenue—salaries, wages, and Social Security income—with the most volatile sources.” If the economy hits trouble, so will the state’s budget.

All of this will exacerbate one of Minnesota’s persistent problems: the flight of residents to other parts of the United States, with Ron DeSantis’ Florida being the top destination. Indeed, the last two years have seen record numbers of Minnesotans fleeing the state. We are hemorrhaging residents, on net, in five of the six categories the IRS reports – including those under 26 – and in every income category above $25,000 annually.

Gov. Walz admits that this is a problem but, while research has clearly found that taxes play a role in where people choose to live and work, his administration has hiked them. The DFL is gambling that it can offset the ‘push’ factor of higher taxes with the ‘pull’ factor of left-wing social policies – culture over economics.

 

 

NBC hailed “protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana and restricting gun access” as the trifecta’s key achievements, noting that “they have signaled their plans to take on issues like…providing legal refuge to trans youths whose access to gender-affirming and other medical care has been restricted elsewhere.” The Daily Beast celebrated “a wide range of progressive reforms” including “a bill making 55,000 felons eligible to vote” and “a measure allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver’s license.” Will this attract enough people to reverse Minnesota’s historic outflows? The research here is somewhat thin. (RELATED: HUNTER TOWER: Dem Governors Buy Union Backing — Just Like Biden)

Fifty years ago, Time magazine famously branded Minnesota ‘The State That Works.’ That claim rested on a thriving urban center, strong economy, low crime, clean politics, and exceptional education. In 2023, Minnesota can offer none of that. Minneapolis is now a ghost town, the state’s serious crime rate is higher than the national average, the largest fraud in the United States stemming from payments made during the COVID-19 pandemic occurred here, and our preK-12 ranks 22nd, down from 8th as recently as 2017. The legislative “triumphs” heralded by the national media will do nothing to improve any of those.

This matters beyond Minnesota. As Democrats search for an alternative to the ailing President Biden for 2024, some have offered Gov. Walz. The Daily Beast has branded him “the anti-DeSantis,” a comparison Walz has invited but which DeSantis would surely relish. The New Republic argues that Minnesota shows “What Democrats Can Accomplish When They Control a Whole State.” Sadly, we would not disagree. Pay attention

 

John Phelan is an economist at the nonprofit Center for the American Experiment. He previously worked as an economist for Capital Economics in London, where he wrote reports ranging from the impact of Brexit on the British economy to the effect of regulation on cell phone coverage. He holds an MSc from the London School of Economics.

 

John Phelan | Daily Caller News Service

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

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

The post If You Want To Know What the Left Would Do to America, Pay Attention to What It Is Doing to Minnesota appeared first on Granite Grok.

This week at the Republican Primary Debate, Nikki Haley referred to Donald Trump as the “most disliked politician in America”, apparently missing the irony of the moment given he didn’t attend the event because his popularity among the American voter is off the charts relative to her and the rest of the field.  Despite being ridiculed for running since day one – late-night hosts mocked him, politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Lindsay Graham guaranteed he’d lose, A-list celebrities like George Cooney superciliously dismissed the notion, and the media scoffed right up until the moment he was elected – Donald Trump’s popularity grew.

In his four years in office, the overwhelming narrative from the establishment class (coastal city, Ivy League graduate, upper-class income, etc.) was Donald Trump and his supporters are deplorable and bad for the future.  Before he could even start his term in office Rashida Tlaib vowed “We’re going to impeach the m*****f****r”.  Quickly, he was described as a racist, white supremacist, inveterate lying, misogynist, and xenophobic bigot – minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.  Clearly, this life-long showman had pulled a fast one on the slow-witted American people and the erudite class were duty-bound to make us wise to the scam.

The only problem was it wasn’t working.

No matter how vitriolic the charges, the people knew who and what they voted for and, thanks to the internet and to the chagrin of his detractors, were able to see the man and the results for themselves.

They voted to protect the border, he promised to build a wall, and he did.  They wanted more jobs for Americans, and he delivered manufacturing plants to the states.  They wanted to get out of endless wars, and he refused to start any.  They wanted fewer taxes, and so he cut them.

Though he was pilloried as an arch-white supremacist, misogynist, and racist, he somehow managed to create an economy where more black female entrepreneurs succeeded than at any time in history. He freed black prisoners and guaranteed funding to Historically Black Colleges ten times longer than America’s first black president, Harvard’s very own Barack Obama.  CNN’s own black analyst, Van Jones even had to tip his hat to Trump’s victories for black Americans.

We wondered about NATO spending, so he took the member countries to task.  We didn’t want to suffer the economic disaster of the climate change accords in Paris, so he withdrew us from them.  We were tired of fearing Middle Eastern terrorists like ISIS, so he took them out, and we were even more tired of funding them by buying their oil, so he opened up our pipelines and made us energy-independent.

All the while, the media tried to convince us he was perhaps the worst person on the planet.

It just wasn’t adding up.

Making good on Tlaib’s prophetic promise to impeach, the Democrat majority drafted the articles claiming Trump colluded with Russia, only to find out the evidence was bought and paid for by his vanquished presidential competitor Hillary Clinton.  This was followed by an exodus from the Democrat party.  The Walk Away campaign, founded by a gay man, suddenly exploded in numbers of loyal leftists seeing through the façade and walking away from what they knew to be lies.  The black community began to rally around Trump, giving thanks for using his office to support their needs.  The iconic Kanye West sought to work with Donald Trump and was castigated by white and black elite as crazy, even suggesting he was no longer black.  Suddenly, blackness was a political position, not an immutable characteristic.

Another prophetic prediction from soon-to-be media darling and establishment elite member Anthony Fauci warned Trump would be facing a breakout virus.  How he knew this is unclear, yet he stated it with the certainty of someone with insider information.  Suddenly, the pandemic came, and what followed was a cascade of government overreach and abuses both in America and worldwide the likes of which we had never seen.  No matter what Trump did, even pushing for their sacred vaccines, he was credited only with the disasters.  Once his predecessor, Joe Biden, took over, the media winds shifted 180 degrees.

It’s as if these people cannot see what they’re doing enough to realize Americans see right through it.  Their behavior is that of narcissists who cannot be told they might be wrong and are practiced at the art of projection and gaslighting.  Shrouding themselves in self-righteousness, they believe the object of their scorn should be the object of everyone’s scorn.  You must hate what they hate, believe what they believe, and practice what they practice.

The party of tolerance not only didn’t show any for Trump or his supporters but actively promoted violence toward them.

History is littered with examples of this social dynamic, perhaps never more so clearly as what we read in the Bible, a book the establishment likewise disregard as comfort for imbeciles.  Rather than read it and see the parallels, they can’t be bothered.  So they won’t see how uncanny their behavior is to the political and religious leaders in first-century Israel.  Like the Romans, Pharisees, and Sadducees they have constructed a mountain of rules and regulations, approved gods and behaviors offering them power over the plebes who suddenly were listening to a low-life saying he had come to make Israel great again.  However, the powers that be only heard the ramblings of someone who was exposing their corruption and how wrong they were despite their painstaking attempts to appear righteous.

You may be thinking I’m lionizing Donald Trump and comparing him to Jesus, but like them, you’d be missing my point.  Rather, what we are witnessing is a man beleaguered by an elite guard who have convinced themselves of their superiority and even god-like ability to rule the world.  They feign being champions of freedom as they pile burden after burden on the commoners.

If anything, Trump is more like David or perhaps his womanizing son Solomon, both of whom were demonstrably broken human beings, failing in the same ways we see Trump fail.  David suffered similar persecution by King Saul for much of his political life, and Solomon came clean with us that he chased women and built palaces and monuments not much different than the New York real estate developer who plasters his name on nearly everything he makes.

Trump, despite his own narcissistic tendencies, has repeatedly pointed us to the Creator in his humbler moments.  This is what the deplorable class love about him.  He reminds us of the broken heroes of old, exposed for their weaknesses and failings but with the courage and conviction to take on the powers who will oppress us for, as they see it, our own good.

Trump’s appeal is not him.  It’s his willingness to call out the phonies, the industry of liars, and the brutal honesty of a man who’s benefited by the system.  His promise is tied to America’s promise to its citizens – you were made to be free to pursue lives of happiness and prosperity, not be ruled by tyrants.

He is loved because he understands America, unlike those who are hell-bent on fundamentally transforming it until it is no more.

 

The post Why the Establishment Can’t Solve the Trump “Problem” appeared first on Granite Grok.

One of my favorite Dalrymple quotes is (paraphrased) that misery will always rise to meet the government subsidies created to alleviate it. And so it is with residential solar. The number of installs near my home has exploded, as has another interesting habit.

Related: Biden’s Green Future Makes Solar Panels More Dangerous to You and the Environment

We have had, for years, a handful of homes nearby with solar on them, several of which appeared to be bad decisions. Limited sun exposure or obstructions make them of minimal, if any, benefit. That’s not uncommon in a state like New Hampshire, which is in a neighborhood of 90% forested. We’ve got a lot of trees. Tract neighborhoods have fewer as do homes in cities – the few we have – but there are a lot of homes surrounded by oak, maple, and white pine, to name a few. They block the sun, and solar is already inefficient and unreliable in the Northeast, so the solution to that problem is simple. Remove the trees.

Oh, the irony.

We need solar because of CO2, but to have solar, we need to remove CO2 syncs so the solar companies get paid, the tree people get paid, and someone else pays for cut wood, not that we don’t have plenty of that already without the solar installs.

But it happens – the tree removal. I’ve seen “neighbors” clear their yard of trees for no apparent reason, only to (a few weeks or months later) find their roofs littered with a new solar installation. It’s not just existing solar installs but pre-installs.

It’s as if Solar companies, catalyzed by government meddling in the marketplace, are the Once-ler from The Lorax. Solar is the Thneed that everyone needs, and the only way to get that is to cut down the Trufula trees—Seussian prophecy, not at the hands of the irresponsible capitalist Once-ler but so-called environmentally conscious solar companies.

Related: Michael Moore’s Green Energy Documentary Admits “Solar and Wind are Not Going to Save Us”

It is not as awful a thing as clearing an acre or two for a solar farm or, absent that clearing, the devastation to everything else that was there when they dug up the land to install the footings and structure for the panels, which will keep the sun from reaching the ground. But it still strikes me as ridiculous and, at the same time, very much in keeping with the politics of the party pushing solar.

It’s like offshore wind saving the planet, but not for endangered whales or sea birds. But if government money is available, an industry or two will rise to ensure it gets spent on them, no matter what the other “costs.”

 

 

The post Is Residential Solar Bad for the Environment? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Don’t believe me?  Try this one on for size (reformatted, emphasis mine):

In a turn of events, Shannon revealed after 14 years of marriage, her husband met someone online who led him through a “medical transition.” Her husband also lost interest in partaking in certain activities with their children that he previously enjoyed doing. Furthermore, Shannon explained how gender ideology destroys the family unit. She shared:

“I think that gender is a lie. I don’t think that anybody can ever accomplish the goal of completely becoming the opposite sex. I believe it’s fraudulent therapy and fraudulent medicine. And it creates a lot of problems, not just the destruction of a family, which is serious enough. [But also] the erasure of fathers.”

Shannon added, “There’s this idea that runs through our society with this in other areas that adult fulfillment is more important than the family, more important than the marriage, more important than commitment. And that is why it’s harming families.”

Shannon also said her husband’s transition felt as hurtful as an “affair.”

She’s right, you know. Being one’s “authentic self” puts themselves FIRST above all other committments including one’s vow to their spouse and to their children. Doing what this “husband / father did” is a total rejection of what a husband and father is supposed to be – a Servant / Leader. While being the leader of a household (and yes, I believe in the traditional and Biblical ordering of a family, it means service to your wife FIRST and service to your children NEXT.  You’re supposed to be last.

This narcissist put himself FIRST and in doing so, willfully destroyed his wife, destroyed his children, and the family unit he had made a sacramental vow to protect. He was all happy-dappy to have “an affair” with himself.

How much more selfish could he have made himself.

Certainly, couldn’t get any more gullible, could he?

(H/T: IJR)

 

 

The post Notable Quote – Another Adjective for “Transgender” is Narcissistic appeared first on Granite Grok.

Electric vehicles cost more to insure. Minor accidents can result in damage that makes the vehicle unsafe or unrepairable. A parking lot fender bender could “total” your so-called green vehicle. But that’s not the only insurance cost driving up the price of EV ownership.

There have been multiple reports in recent years of freight ships catching fire.

 

Four hundred ninety-eight electric vehicles (EVs) and over 3,200 other vehicles, including 350 Mercedes Benzes, were bound for Egypt on the Fremantle Highway when one or more of the EVs caught fire, costing at least one seaman his life and injuring several others. Curiously, the Dutch coast guard had initially reported that only 25 of the vehicles were battery-electric models.

At last report, the Dutch coast guard admitted that it has been unable to put out the fire and that the ship has taken on water and is “listing” and on a trajectory toward a capsize. Should the ship sink, the total loss would also threaten the Frisian island of Ameland, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is home to over 10,000 aquatic and terrestrial species and located near one of the world’s most important migratory-bird habitats.

 

No worries. I’m sure all that front-end carbon to build all that and then all the emissions from burning plastic and electronics – including the rare earth metals and toxins (plus the ship), can be offset. Someone just needs to pay for a few indulgences. More than one someone, I suppose. That’s only one of several such fires. And if you recall, Havila Shipping, a self-proclaimed green Norweigen business, banned EVs from all its ships. The risk of EV fires was a threat to passengers, cargo, and crew—and, more likely than that, their insurance costs.

It has become the red-headed stepchild of the ocean freight industry, like child sexual assault in public schools. Everyone knows, but no one is supposed to talk about it, not outside the confines of the local community. Schools are trying to normalize it (grooming), but freight companies can’t do that. They either assume the risk and pay more to insure freight – which adds to the costs paid by consumers – or they refuse to ship them.

 

Just a year ago, the “Felicity Ace” sank as it was being towed from the site where 13 days earlier a fire had broken out on board. That ship, too, was transporting EVs and internal-combustion vehicles – including 15 Lamborghini Aventador LP 780-4 Ultimae supercars valued at half a million dollars apiece. Also lost were 1,117 Porches, 1,944 Audis, 561 Volkswagens, 189 Bentleys, and 70 other Lamborghinis.

And just a month ago, two firefighters died battling flames that broke out on another roll-on, roll-off (RORO) cargo ship docked at Port Newark in New Jersey. Firefighters arrived at the scene when just five to seven vehicles on the 10th floor of the ship were on fire, but the fire quickly spread to the 11th and 12th floors.

 

We’re talking about hundreds of millions in freight lost, plus the cost of the ship and the injury or death of crewmembers. It can’t be cheap or getting cheaper to cover the risk, which had me thinking along another vein. Having been Hazmat certified to ship lithium batteries in, with, or separate from electronic equipment, I’ve some small sense of the hurdles you must leap before you can ship or carry such material.

Cargo is no different. Every country has rules, plus the UN international rules. In the US, we have the UN and DOT, and no one seems to have resolved this recurring safety issue. The hoops one must jump to ship a tablet with a battery cannot be greater than massive EV batteries in assembled vehicles.

So what’s with the fires?

It’s a common question these days with Arson-induced wildfires in Australia, the US, and Canada—electrical fires in California in Maui. Deliberately set fires, all of which are impacting another green industry – carbon offsets. Companies and individuals “pay” third parties so they can emit like it’s 1979. These indulgences assuage their guilt, but as we’ve reported previously, are often scams.

 

The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.

 

According to tecent research published by The American Association For The Advancement Of Science (AAAS),

 

Thales West and colleagues evaluated 26 REDD+ projects in 6 countries worldwide and used synthetic control methods to estimate how much deforestation the projects prevented. West et al. found that most projects did not substantially reduce deforestation, and that the few that did reduced it much less than had been claimed. Furthermore, the authors show that a subset of 18 REDD+ projects have generated 62 million carbon-offset credits – 14.6 million of which have already been used by entities around the world to offset their carbon emissions. According to the study’s estimates, these projects have been used to offset nearly 3 times more carbon than their actual contributions to climate change mitigation.

 

When eco-terrorists or other actors set blazes or cause them, through inaction or inadequate action, to get out of control, they may have set fire to someone’s offset while releasing even more carbon and emissions into the biosphere. Just like peaceful protesters burning down black-owned businesses, the whole thing stinks like yesterday’s burneded up EVs.

 

 

The post Carbon Scams on Fire! appeared first on Granite Grok.

Parents Defending Education has a summary of the 1,040 School Districts in which School Boards have abused their Powers (Government has Powers, Individuals have Rights) in forcing their staff members, including teachers, to lie to Parents concerning the transgender/gender dysphoria of their children when asked (either tangentially or directly).

Here is the New Hampshire part of their list:

• Alton School District
• Barnstead School District
• Barrington School District
• Brentwood School District
• Claremont School District
• Dresden School District
• East Kingston School District
• Epping School District
• Errol Consolidated School District
• Exeter Region Cooperative
• Hanover School District
• Kensington School District
• Manchester School District
• Milford School District
• Monroe Consolidated Schools
• Newfields School District
• Pittsfield Schools
• Sanborn Regional School District
• Stratham School District
• School Administrative Unit 23
• Wakefield School District
• Windham School District

(Links to each school District are on the Parents Defending Education page)

I happily see that, after a two-and-a-half-year struggle, SAU73-Gilford School District is no longer listed in this, which shows that one person (with help!) can make a difference if courage and persistence are brought to the fore.

I also have a Right To Know outstanding to a school district in the Exeter Region Cooperative concerning this nasty issue.

Note that the Newfields School District is on this list – NH Governor Chris Sununu’s hometown. I suppose that he is just FINE with this, given that he gave the Left the Green Light when he signed the bill making gender identity a “protected class,” forcing normal Parents with normal children to start a years-long fight to protect them against the Trans-Authoritarians.

And even though NH State Rep Mike Bordes (R- Laconia) isn’t Transgender (that I know of), he certainly is a card-carrying member of the Trans-Authoritarian Club as he has avidly voted, with his RINO posse, against the Parent’s Bill of Rights this year and last (HB272) along with introducing (I think at the Democrat and teachers unions behest), amendments that gutted the bill.  I summarized his stance thusly:

Effectively, NH State Rep Mike Bordes is SCREAMING:

PARENTS – Your children belong to Government!!  SCREW YOU, PARENTS!

The above School Districts (the School Boards and their Superintendents) are fine and dandy in giving you all the Middle Finger.  THEY have your children – and you don’t.

So what ARE you going to do about them deliberately keeping secrets from you?

Let me finish this post with this from the Fordham Institute (reformatted):

…It is not possible to overstate the level of distrust, even contempt, reflected in the practice of excluding parents from discussions about their child’s gender preference, even deceiving them if students claim their parents are unsupportive.

Moreover, such policies, typically justified as protecting students from harm, are wholly unnecessary. Teachers are “mandated reporters” in every U.S. state. If they have reason to believe children are unsafe at home, they are required by law to alert local child protective services.

In no other conceivable instances is there any justification for excluding parents from profoundly life-altering decisions about their own children. If schools insist on inserting themselves between parents and their children, they do so not because they are compelled to, but because they choose to.

The Supreme Court has recognized for over a century, going back to Pierce v. Society of Sisters, that “the child is not the mere creature of the state.” Keeping a child’s gender switch a secret from parents as a “best practice” is the state saying, in effect, “Oh, yes he (or she) is.”

And now School Districts ARE ignoring what SCOTUS has made plain: these Districts DO believe that children should, first and foremost, always be considered to be the legal wards of the State.  Parents are not. This is “Childism” – the bastard offshoot of Critical Race Theory (“ALL Whites are Oppressors, ALL Minorities are Oppressed by them) that has inverted the loving relationship between Parents and their children:

ALL Parents Oppress their children, and School Districts must save them because, being unloved, they are now OUR Children

School Districts have decided that ALL Parents are the enemies of their children. And in how much contempt do teachers view Parents:

…It is not news that Americans’ trust in major institutions has been in freefall for some time. In the case of public education, it’s a two-way street. A December 2021 poll conducted for EdChoice showed that only about a third of teachers (36 percent) say they trust parents, a level below their confidence in their principals, union leaders, and the U.S. Department of Education. This level of institutional disregard creates ripe conditions for public school personnel to assume that their judgment is superior to a child’s parents. And that’s exactly what appears to be happening.

So, anytime a Parent steps into a school, 2/3rds of the teachers looking back at those Parents find them contemptible.

And you’re going to put up with this?

 

The post NH School Districts Giving Themselves the Power To Force Staff Members to Lie to Parents: Trans-Authoritarians appeared first on Granite Grok.

The leaders of China, Russia, India and Brazil met to discuss common interests with dozens of dignitaries in South Africa.  The meeting was a three-day summit seeking to cobble together currently unaligned powers who would counter Western influence worldwide.

Russian President Putin joined the conference virtually – there is an active warrant for his arrest by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.  As it turns out, South Africa is a member of the International Criminal Court. Prudence dictates Putin minimize his exposure, but 67 other countries participated. That amounts to about one-third of the nations on earth.

The gathering in Johannesburg is the 15th annual BRICS summit.

 

[Photos] Arrival of Heads of State
His Excellency President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China arrives at the OR Tambo International Airport in South Africa for the XV #BRICSSummit2023 #BRICSza pic.twitter.com/vrGWVNmfsg

— @SAgovnews (@SAgovnews) August 22, 2023

South African President Ramaphosa welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and a number of other leaders. Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East sent representatives.

 

The Russian Federation has just arrived#BRICSSummit2023 #BetterAfricaBetterWorld pic.twitter.com/OE1lT1o93a

— ATHI GELEBA (@AthiGeleba) August 22, 2023

 

Leaders are discussing expanding the organization’s membership with more than 40 countries wanting to join BRICS, including Ethiopia, Iran, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia.  This bears watching because of the size and the makeup of nations interested in not having trade disrupted by western sanctions.

There is animus about the harm done as a result of those sanctions. Many nations feel Western sanctions impinge their sovereignty and have a growing interest in forming a second international trade clearing system and a currency to rival the U.S. dollar.

The post More BRICS in the Wall appeared first on Granite Grok.

A nation’s leader just wanting his nation to stay neutral regarding a war undertaken against another nation by the United States government can set in motion a US government effort to boot that leader from office. A previously secret Pakistan government document disclosed in a Wednesday in-depth The Intercept article suggests that such a removal effort is just what the US government successfully accomplished in Pakistan in the early days of the Ukraine War.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had been steadfast in supporting keeping his country out of the Ukraine War, in which the United States and other nations have been using the Ukraine government and military as a proxy to fight against Russia. An indication of Khan’s approach to the matter is provided in this relating in The Intercept article of comments he made on March 6, 2022 — the day before the meeting between US and Pakistan officials detailed in the newly revealed Pakistan cable:

The day before the meeting, Khan addressed a rally and responded directly to European calls that Pakistan rally behind Ukraine. “Are we your slaves?” Khan thundered to the crowd. “What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and that we will do whatever you ask of us?” he asked. “We are friends of Russia, and we are also friends of the United States. We are friends of China and Europe. We are not part of any alliance.”

That type of foreign policy approach is as American as apple pie or George Washington. But, its expression by a foreign government leader to justify opting out of supporting US empire is sure to bring contemporary American uber-interventionists to rage.

The US interventionists got their way. The Intercept article relates:

One month after the meeting with U.S. officials documented in the leaked Pakistani government document, a no-confidence vote was held in Parliament, leading to Khan’s removal from power. The vote is believed to have been organized with the backing of Pakistan’s powerful military. Since that time, Khan and his supporters have been engaged in a struggle with the military and its civilian allies, whom Khan claims engineered his removal from power at the request of the U.S.

And Khan’s expressed policy of keeping his country free of Ukraine War involvement and international alliances has gone by the wayside in Pakistan foreign policy:

Pakistan’s foreign policy has changed significantly since Khan’s removal, with Pakistan tilting more clearly toward the U.S. and European side in the Ukraine conflict. Abandoning its posture of neutrality, Pakistan has now emerged as a supplier of arms to the Ukrainian military; images of Pakistan-produced shells and ammunition regularly turn up on battlefield footage. In an interview earlier this year, a European Union official confirmed Pakistani military backing to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign minister traveled to Pakistan this July in a visit widely presumed to be about military cooperation, but publicly described as focusing on trade, education, and environmental issues.

This realignment toward the U.S. has appeared to provide dividends to the Pakistani military. On August 3, a Pakistani newspaper reported that Parliament had approved the signing of a defense pact with the U.S. covering “joint exercises, operations, training, basing and equipment.” The agreement was intended to replace a previous 15-year deal between the two countries that expired in 2020.

But that’s not all. This month, Khan was imprisoned in Pakistan and barred from holding office for the next five years.

Another win for USA.

 

Adam Dick | The Ron Paul Institue

Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

The post US Pushed for Removing Pakistan Prime Minister to End Pakistan’s Neutrality Regarding Ukraine War appeared first on Granite Grok.

I came across a fascinating book review this week. The book is “The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes” by Nancy Pearcey.  It is loaded with insight, some of which you may have seen. The debunked point about Christian men being demeaning toward women comes from Pearcey’s research.

 

Pearcey then challenges one of the common stereotypes about conservative Christian men: that they are demeaning towards women and that their theology justifies mistreatment of women. Pearcey documents this claim’s frequency in pop culture and mainstream media, but then marshals extensive social science research to show that “evangelical Protestant men who attend church regularly are the least likely of any group to commit domestic violence.” It is nominally Christian men, those who claim Christianity as a label but rarely if ever attend church, who have the highest rates of divorce and domestic violence. All of this means that “any statistic that blends together both committed and nominal Christian men will be misleading” (37).

Pearcey then offers her perspective on why this divergence between nominal and committed Christian men emerges when it comes to metrics of family flourishing.

It seems that many nominal men hang around the fringes of the Christian world just enough to hear the language of headship and submission but not enough to learn the biblical meaning of those terms…. They cherry-pick verses from the Bible and read them through a grid of male superiority and entitlement that they have absorbed from the secular guy code for the “Real” Man. (37)

After laying this groundwork, Pearcey then goes on to trace the trajectory of masculinity through several centuries, starting roughly in the colonial era. But there is one shift that was particularly definitive in changing the role of men and the conception of home, work, and family that still has us reeling today, and continues to form much of our patterns of thinking and living.

I’m going to buy this book. The snippets on how the Industrial Revolution changed male and female roles are fascinating, as is an observation along similar lines about Darwinism (per the title of this post).

 

Darwinism’s Impact on Masculinity

Pearcey traces Darwinism’s impact on masculinity—how it became an excuse for sexual infidelity, aggressiveness, and survival of the fittest behavior in men, and how in more recent forms of evolutionary psychology, it painted men as needing to be tamed by women and marriage. Against Darwinian conceptions of masculinity, Pearcey argues, “men do not have to sacrifice their essential identity in order to marry and raise a family” (169).

 

Combined with the cultural change brought about by the Industrial Revolution,

 

For most of human history, life was structured much differently than what we presume as normal for industrial and post-industrial societies. For one, most adults—men or women—didn’t go to work in the way we conceive of it today. Economic productivity in prior times was much more connected to one’s home and family, and it ebbed and flowed naturally with the seasons. Mother and father spent more time with their children in the warp and woof of pre-industrial life, and their educational and economic ventures were joint projects. There was “an integration of life and labor,” Pearcey notes. “Husband and wife were engaged in a common enterprise (though not necessarily identical tasks). They worked side by side, suffering common defeats and rejoicing in common victories. A husband/father was the head of a small commonwealth—a semi-independent economic unit” (72).

Industrialization, however, drove a wedge between home and work, family and father. Pearcey laments, “because men were gone from home most of the day, they began losing out on dimensions of their personality that were no longer being fostered by deep relationships within the family” (92). Work increasingly became man’s domain, separate from women and children and, as such, a new set of self-interested and utilitarian principles came to dominate in the workplace.

 

The Review itself is loaded with insights worth further exploration I can only get by reading the book so I’ll add it to my queue and will share more as I find things I think worthy of your attention.

Or, you can read it and share yours with me, and I’ll share those with our readers. I’m good either way.

 

Note: We are not receiving any compensation from purchases of the book described in this article.

 

HT | Salvo Mag

The post How Charles Darwin (Probably) Destroyed the Traditional Family appeared first on Granite Grok.

Interesting.  I was actually scurrying around the NH Secretary of State site looking for something else (dang if I can remember now) when I thought this was what I wanted. It wasn’t but still kinda interesting. Look at the SECOND arrow and compare it to the June 16, 2021 numbers a 17% drop in total voters.  That’s a huge drop in what would have been perceived voters here in NH. And that set the stage for my second quick observation – a trend:

• Right after that, the registrations for three Parties (yes, I’m including Undeclared as a Party just because I can) were stagnant for February, May, and August of 2022.
• In May, 2023, a big surge in registration – Democrats up by 6,200 (+/-), Republican up by 14,500 (+/-), and Undeclared by 16,100. 
• Kinda strange, though, that the totals for each fell from May to August of 2023.

However, look at the between the Democrat and Republican registrations:

• At the purge, the difference was 10,000 (round numbers)
• Feb 2022, it was 1,000 more to the good for Democrats
• In May, the Republican registration erased that 1,000 gain
• In May, 2023, Republican registration almost erased the gap entirely coming to within 2,000.
• In August of 2023, the gap is less than 1,000 registered voters.

While the Undeclareds swelled to 348,ooo in May 2023 from Feb 2022, that also dropped to 344,000. However, Undeclareds still swamp the R or D numbers.

What are my quick takeaways?

• Registrations are never static (says Dr. Obvious)
• NH Voter registration has not “caught up” from the June 2021 total
• The upcoming election may be closer than before.

THE question, however, is amongst the NH Undeclareds, what is the current split of leaning D or R? That will determine if NH stays purple or more Blue.

Still, the election is months away and I’ll abuse the phrase “an eternity” because, well, it is in politics when perceptions can change literally overnight.

So, for “what it’s worth”…

The post Data Point – NH Electorate is Switching Parties appeared first on Granite Grok.

Despite years of Biden family and media disinformation, we are finally learning that President Joe Biden really did fire Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin for looking into state corruption involving the oil company Burisma and Hunter Biden — and ultimately Joe Biden himself.

As vice president, Biden, in his own words, bragged that he had threatened to cancel the deliverance of American foreign aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was dismissed.

So what is Congress to do now — un-impeach and exonerate an innocent impeached Donald Trump, and instead impeach a guilty Biden for essentially the same allegations?

After all, the Left redefined the impeachment bar in 2019 as leveraging foreign aid to Ukraine to benefit one’s political career.

And that is exactly what Joe Biden did to ensure his son could continue to raise millions for the Biden family with foreign governments, while being shielded from political consequences.

An impeached Trump also was accused of using the power of government to go after his likely 2020 presidential rival by suggesting that Joe Biden and his family were corrupt and should be investigated by Ukrainian officials for fraud and bribery.

Despite Joe Biden’s denials, Trump was right: there was plenty of evidence to link Ukrainian unwarranted payoffs going into Biden family coffers.

So, Trump in 2019 had good reasons to ensure that none of the Bidens were still burrowed deeply into the Ukrainian payoff machine.

In contrast, Biden had far less grounds to unleash the full powers of government against his probable 2024 rival, ex-president Trump.

 

 

Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is not charging Trump with bribery of the Biden sort. He does not allege that Trump gave special foreign policy preferences for those foreigners who paid his family for such services.

Instead, Smith argues that Trump unlawfully took out classified presidential papers — although Joe Biden did nearly the same.

Biden kept quiet about his vast removal of classified documents for over a decade. Not until Trump was being investigated did Biden suddenly notify the government of his illegal removals.

In contrast, a combative and boisterous Trump fought openly and constantly with federal archivists over which of his papers at his Mar-a-Lago estate were truly classified.

Prosecutorial leaks floated all sorts of unproven nefarious agendas that had prompted Trump’s disputes over his presidential papers.

But no one to this day has seriously asked why senator and then Vice President Biden secretly and weirdly removed and kept such sensitive material for years.

Recent reports allege that Hunter Biden may have been treated with kid gloves by prosecutors, partly because Hunter’s lawyers had threatened otherwise to call Joe Biden to the stand as a favorable witness.

Government prosecutors under pressure from the White House apparently balked at  the nightmare of a befuddled president of the United States testifying under oath about the supposed innocence of the very guilty Hunter Biden.

In truth, the former drug addict Hunter has played lots of such strange games with his own family.

In his laptop communications, Hunter whined that no one in the family appreciated his hard work at family grifting.

He sounded petulant that his father forced him to fork over half his income to the Joe and Jill Biden household.

At time of universal scrutiny of Hunter, the last thing any sane first son might do would be to hawk his own childish paintings at exorbitant prices to those wishing to buy influence with his father the president.

In effect, Hunter was almost daring the White House to stop his blatant grifting artistry.

Instead, the Bidens moved Hunter into the White House, apparently to keep him under closer watch.

Hunter is still out of control. He could take the family down with him unless President Biden continues to shield him from prosecution.

Ironically, the double standard used by Biden and the media to hound Trump has only raised new questions of fairness.

Why had the Biden family — with its far greater legal exposure — never faced such serial indictments?

A Republican House of Representatives had ended prior Democratic protection given to  the Bidens.

And the Ukraine war has again turned attention to the Biden-Burisma connection and Hunter’s shaking down of Ukrainian officials.

Finally, Joe Biden can no longer work a full day. He mutters. He stumbles. He serially lies.

He hijacks solemn occasions commemorating national tragedies by trying to one up the grieving with his own self-absorbed stories — most of them irrelevant and narcissistic half-truths.

If a cognitively and criminally challenged Biden cannot finish his term, we will finally learn the full story of 15 years of Biden family corruption.

The Bidens will lose the only impediment — Joe Biden’s political machinations — left in the way of an honest, full-blown felony investigation into what is likely the most corrupt presidential family in American history.

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won,” from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.

 

Victor Davis Hansen | Daily Caller News Service

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

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

The post The Biden Clan’s Con Is Coming To An End appeared first on Granite Grok.

Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), like the Catholic Church, are reaping millions of dollars to assist in the disbursement of illegals throughout the country. These payments are making these NGOs complicit in the most incredible human trafficking operation in United States history.

At the current pace, the Biden Administration and their partner NGOs will be responsible for the spread of 8 Million illegal immigrants from over 150 countries.

As always, there are two sides to every story. On the one side, we have NGOs that are doing a service to help these people, especially children, who have migrated to a new land and need genuine help getting acclimated. When the Border Patrol reaches capacity in a particular sector, they release processed migrants to NGOs to shelter, feed, and coordinate travel for migrants to their final destination. Catholic Charities USA, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and Church World Services are some of the more present NGOs on our Southern Border. These agencies are essential in doing the work our government cannot provide to ensure the safety of the illegals. On the flip side, these agencies are reaping billions of dollars, taxpayer dollars, to perform their services. These NGOs are not always altruistic or humanitarian. This cooperation between NGOs and the government is a big money game, and we taxpayers are their bank.

According to Forbes, the NGO Catholic Charities USA received $1.4 billion from government support compared with $1 billion in private donations. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service reported more than $93.1 million in U.S. government grants in its 2021 financial statement, making taxpayer-funded grants more than 80% of its total support.

And that number would only climb as the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service would receive $182.6 million in grants in the fiscal year of 2022 from the Department of Health and Human Services.
Another NGO, Church World Services, reported more than $20.5 million in grant funds in its 2022 financial report, making more than 40% of its assets coming from taxpayers.

As always, fraud, corruption, and poor planning are present in any interaction with our government. Two situations I have written about in the past are Lewiston, Maine, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Catholic charities placed thousands of Somalian refugees in these cities and changed the demographics of the towns forever. These people were placed, often without the consent of the local governments, and immediately placed burdens on city budgets. Housing, food, medical care, and clothing were now expenses for the state and city governments. Schools were inundated with non-English speaking students who were assimilated into public schools, creating an overcrowded situation and a drain on overall student performance.

As of 2021, there are about 1.5 million NGOs in operation in the United States, representing a wide variety of causes. Some NGOs focus on developmental projects, such as clean water, while others promote awareness of specific causes, such as gender equality. All receive a portion of their operating costs from taxpayer dollars, often with little oversight by our government to ensure these dollars are used as intended. There is also little control as to what percentage of our dollars is used for the stated purchase versus eaten up by the “administrative costs” of the NGO.

NGOs are essential in any humanitarian crisis in America. Our government is not capable of supplying all the needs presented by each situation, but unfortunately, our government is not capable of monitoring or policing these NGOs and there in lies the problem and the opportunity for people to dip into the funds for personal gain. That part of the process is where our government and politicians shine and why some politicians love to see these occurrences and NGOs go on and thrive forever. We just keep on paying.

The post NGOs Are Perpetuating The Border Chaos For Profit appeared first on Granite Grok.

Name change suggested by a Marine friend of mine.

 

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

 

 

So, like last time, where are the boat parades for The Potato?  Any car parades going on yet?

 

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

 

They’re flying so thick and fast it is amazing.

Take heart – there will be a Meme Overflow and almost certainly a Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow.  Last week’s Overflow-Overflow.

Remember, ridicule and mockery are effective weapons:

1. Ridicule cannot easily be fought
2. Ridicule makes the enemy angry, and angry people make mistakes
3. For those in the “squishy middle” a Thought Splinter (and Part II and Part III and Part IV) can often be hidden inside humor.

Now, let the mockery and mayhem begin.

 

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

 

 

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

 

This is why the media ignores Thomas Sowell and go for the Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc #shorts

 

 

Heaven forbid a black man speak clearly against the Left’s narrative.

 

 

FYI, The Exodus Movement seems to be comatose but #Jexit is active.  And I’ve just started to see #walkaway videos again.

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taxes.  Inflation.  And the never-ending stream of “stuff” and “services” that we have been convinced we simply cannot live without.  Never mind offshoring of good-paying jobs.

 

 

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

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

No to Economic Slavery – by T.L. Davis (substack.com)

I don’t know the timeline to catastrophe, because I don’t know how well they can put lipstick on a pig or how long that lipstick will last, but with the accumulation of economic red flags swirling in the air, it only takes one of these fundamental collapses to set off the whole thing.

It Has To Crash – by T.L. Davis – T.L.’s Posts and Podcasts (substack.com)

Save up what you can.  Stock up what you can.  Learn what you can.  And build alliances as you can.

It’s coming.

Survival Sunday

 

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

 

Covid and Medicine Related:

Florida Surgeon General: Do Not Cooperate With Mask Mandates · The Floridian (floridianpress.com)

More on masks:

Masks ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Are Face Masks Effective? The Evidence. (swprs.org)

The Face Mask Folly in Retrospect (swprs.org)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesse Watters Exposes Embarrassing COVID Stats That The Media Doesn’t Want You to Know About (vigilantnews.com)

Disturbing Trend: Maternal Death Rates Have Soared 50% in America Since Vaccine Rollout (vigilantnews.com)

CDC Now Refusing New COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports in Its V-Safe Program ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Yu et al. in 2008 (NATURE): Did Yu et al. show us in 2008 that NATURAL exposure immunity was bullet-proofed, robust, life-long, at least 100 years long? Yes! looking at antibodies derived from (substack.com)

Natural immunity rocks.  Which we knew.  Until they needed to sell Jabs.  That, actually, was one of the singular data points that made me suspicious – I did a report on Immunology in high school in biology.  Natural immunity was prominent in virtually every reference I looked at.  So for it to be so utterly dismissed – “Natural immunity doesn’t count and we have to wait for the vaccine” – was totally dissonant with everything I’d learned about it.

 

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

 

Firearms License Armageddon UK – Gun Grab 2023

 

 

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

 

On Vivek:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/vivek.mp4

 

I am fascinated by the near-identical wording he, and earlier Barackus, used.  And other things.  Clearly there’s a lot more about this guy than is evident on a surface skim.  More:

Matt Kim on X: “Should we trust Vivek? Lots of coincidences here… https://t.co/xVJqM3KisD” / X (twitter.com)

Don’t use my name, Vivek Ramaswamy tells World Economic Forum (nypost.com)

Just MHO, there’s something… off with this guy.  Again, MHO.  Among other things his meteoric rise – like Barackus.  Out of nowhere.

 

 

Barackus said that he was a “blank screen” onto which people projected their hopes and so on.  Once more, just MHO, but I get that sense here as well.

 

 

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

 

 

Separated from the above memes.  Open question.  What binding, if any, does the Nuremburg Code have on America?

Can anyone suggest a lawyer to ask?

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

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

 

There was a book I read in high school, The Pearl, in which a pearl diver finds an utterly magnificent large pearl.  Going to the various agents of pearl buyers, hoping to sell it to benefit and advance his family, he uniformly is told that such a pearl is actually grotesque, disfigured, etc., and thus not worth much – but they’ll “generously” take it off his hands for a pittance.  And it comes out, in the text, that all these different buyers are actually reps for one big monopoly that merely gives the illusion of competition.  (Of note that just came to mind – so is the doctor who “cares” for their infant son, but actually works for this cartel and poisons the kid as a way to gain leverage.  Sounds… familiar?)

So what can we make of these?

 

 

 

Two staggeringly important issues – wedge issues that clearly demark the Right from the Left… unraised at the debate.  Hmmmm.

 

 

 

 

Must See … Jesse Kelly Destroys Faux News And GOP Pretenders For Going Along To Get Along (“Climate Change”) – Granite Grok

 

 

As I keep saying, the priority of everyone in the GOP – with only a couple of exceptions – seems to be to stay in office or position, feather their nests, and get invited to the “beautiful people” cocktail parties.  And the hell with the country.

 

 

GOP Begs for Donations after President Trump’s 4th Arrest After They Said NOTHING to Defend Him | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

 

 

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

 

The Return of The Masquerade

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not the only one who’s pointed out the phrase “You cannot win, Darth.  If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine”.  My belief is this: if they can’t stop him, they’ll kill him.

 

 

 

 

I’m educated, both formally and informally.  But one of the things that I’ve noted is the tendency of highly educated people to become locked on what they know and, thus, lack the humility – a virtue – to concede they might be wrong.  My late father had a short essay, which he framed and I treasure, about the necessity to be willing to change one’s mind and say “I used to believe…”

 

 

 

Why can’t New Hampshire?

 

 

 

 

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

 

The Rutherford Institute :: Police Twice Arrest the Wrong Man and Hold Him in Jail for Three Days Before Verifying His Identity |

What floors me is that the courts have ruled that his rights were not violated.  Appealed, same ruling.

The police and the courts are, increasingly, not your friends.

Multiple witnesses are saying that the police blocked people from escape in Maui and let them burn. (bitchute.com)

Related:

How My Views on Government Have Changed ⋆ Brownstone Institute

I had a head start on distrusting government because of Waco and Ruby Ridge.

 

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

 

IT HAPPENED!!! (Western Leaders Left SCRAMBLING!)

 

 

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

 

Pick of the post:

 

 

Or “for the greater good”.

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/for-the-common-good.mp4

 

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

 

Miscellaneous Topics & links:

 

Note: This separating out is costing me a lot of time.  Have to rethink this format change.

 

The Coming Global Tyranny (Broad)

Mapped: Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest and HSBC branches shutting down within days | Personal Finance | Finance | Express.co.uk

Strongest sign yet Australia headed toward totally cashless society (9news.com.au)

—

Biden’s alcohol czar warns Americans could soon be told to limit themselves to just two beers per WEEK under strict new booze guidelines | [your]NEWS (yournews.com)

 

There is no detail of your life they don’t want to manage.

 

 

Heat stress could threaten health of one billion cows – Insider Paper

MHO?  They put this out there to mask the coming “mysterious cow death” epidemic.

—

They’re coming for your guns – American Thinker

Prospect Park News – PROSPECT PARK ALLIANCE, NYC DOT + NYC PARKS RELEASE PARK DRIVE SAFETY STUDY : NYC Parks (nycgovparks.org)

Working on 15 minute districts already.

Bill Gates: People Who Resist ‘mRNA Tsunami’ Will Be Excluded From Society – The People’s Voice (thepeoplesvoice.tv)

 

 

=+=+=

Climate Change

 

 

Reminds me of this, about the world being the warmest it’s ever been, from here (link and underlining in original; bolding added):

One person I know, whose specialization is metrology, told me that the prior year was the “warmest year on record.”  But when I turned around to ask what I thought was a logical follow-up question, i.e., “OK, by how much was it warmer”? they did not know.  Not only did they not know, but that question had – by their own admission – never occurred to them to ask.

Huh?  A person whose job it is to measure things and understand differences doesn’t even think to ask??  And when I pointed out that the temperature difference was something like 0.1 Celsius, thus well within any error bars, there wasn’t a follow-up of “Where can I go to learn more”?

The Biden Admin Is Going After Another Common Household Item in the Name of Climate Change (townhall.com)

Button up Your Overcoat – American Thinker

Shock Retraction of Climate Science Paper Showing No Climate Emergency Draws Comparisons with Climategate Scandal – The Daily Sceptic

 

=+=+=

Economy

Why Do Some Countries Stay Poor? | CDN (conservativedailynews.com)

Lessons of history.

 

 

=+=+=

Culture Wars

 

 

 

 

Maryland court rules parents do not have a “fundamental right” to opt their children out of classroom instruction on the LGBT religion | Not the Bee

 

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

 

Monday Music:

 

Jerusalem of Gold – Yerushalayim shel Zahav -Ofra Haza- with English Lyrics

 

 

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

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

—

 

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

 

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

The post Memestream News: Monday Edition appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Machine is revving up its flumongering again with warnings about “rapidly” mutating variants that put vaccinated and unvaccinated alike at risk for “serious disease,” maybe, kind of – so we’d better assume the worst. How about no, get lost, f**k off. How about that?

It feels good to type it and to say it, but absent pushback at the local, county, and state levels, it is little more than posturing. Yeah, I told them! Did you see how I did that? Yes, thanks, so why is everyone wearing masks?

It hasn’t happened yet, not around here, but the totalitarian itch will beg to be scratched by those inclined to abuse power, so who are they, and is there hope of convincing them to let it be? That’s not a random thought; it is homework – yours. You know your town better or know people who do. Getting in front of this is the best way to put it all behind us, and it is safe to say that none of our state-level elected leaders will stand up for your medical freedom without encouragement.

We don’t have a Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD. He is Florida’s Surgeon General, and he is setting the table for the Sunshine State when it comes to your personal rights and medical freedom.

 

What do you call re-imposing mask policies that have been proven ineffective or restarting lockdowns that are known to cause harm?

You don’t call it sanity.

These terrible policies only work with your cooperation. How about refusing to participate…

— Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD (@FLSurgeonGen) August 24, 2023

 

Let us know what’s up in your town, city, or state, especially in New Hampshire.

I can tell you that NH DHHS does not have anything new popping up on the rising chatter over masks and boosters or flu vaccines. Not yet. Neither have we heard anything from the top pushing back or making clear, as has Dr. Ladapo, that anyone even mulling the idea of forcing kids or employees back into masks is a bad idea.

My sense, based on past antics, is that Chris ‘Local control when it suits me’ Sununu will pretend to be hands-off, which means it is all on you. Get your research ducks in a row (we have a few links here and there). Be prepared, brief, polite, and to the point if the mask menace begins creeping into local social media groups or your town weekly.

The single most important issue here may seem like how useless masks are in most circumstances, but it is actually about bodily choice. Consent. The right to choose to wear or not wear something over your face. If you think it helps, have at it, but leave me out of it.

…

The post Florida Once Again Leads on Medical Freedom and Where is New Hampshire? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Concord, NH – Chris Ager, Chairman of the NHGOP, released the following statement following concerns of Trump’s ballot access in the State of New Hampshire:

“Efforts to deny New Hampshire Republican Primary voters a full slate of options are antithetical to our Live Free or Die spirit. The New Hampshire State Republican Party will fight all efforts to eliminate candidates from our Primary ballot.

I have confidence in our Secretary of State and Attorney General to make the right decisions. Let voters decide the nominee, not a weaponized federal justice system using tortured logic. “

 

Editor: For more background from the Grok, look here and here.

Reformatted for this medium

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, August 28, 2023

CONTACT: Jimmy Thompson jimmy@nhrsc.com (603) 769-1609

The post Breaking: NHGOP Chair Says Let New Hampshire Voters Pick the Republican Nominee appeared first on Granite Grok.