Not one to sit on their hands, the Dems – when in control – reach for everything and anything they can grasp, and with climate policy a priority, they’ve attempted to regulate everything they can’t ban outright, and now they are coming for your gas-powered generators.

It’s a bad idea for many reasons, not the least of which is the need for backup today. The current grid, ill-fitted for their future energy plans, has points of failure that require private use generators when the power goes out. But it’s not just homeowners. Businesses from small to large, hospitals, public service, and government, everyone who needs power when it fails runs gas-powered generators.

There is no wind or solar replacement for them, especially if wind and solar become the go-to point of failure in the grid and fail to deliver, they will. The Biden Admin and their Climate Cultist allies could care less. They are trying to burn the ships as it were standing us with only one choice. Their choice.

 

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has proposed a policy (pdf) that would remove nearly all existing portable gas generators from the market. The new rule restricts the amount of carbon monoxide that generators can emit by forcing these generators to switch off when they reach a certain level of emissions.

Smaller gas generators would have to cut carbon monoxide emissions by 50 percent, and larger generators would have to cut emissions by up to 95 percent. Nearly all models currently available are expected to not be in compliance with the new standard.

Once the proposed rules come into effect, manufacturers would have to comply with them in just six months, a process that usually takes several years. The rules would also ban manufacturers from stockpiling noncompliant generators before the new standards are enacted.

 

These changes will, at first, make them much more expensive and sustainable as incremental overreach works to eliminate them as an asset. Does FEMA have a plan to adapt? Emergency management from local PDs to Federal agencies use generators. Mandates such as this will drive up those costs making the government more expensive and, again, as if Demcorats care. But they might care about this.

You’ve seen the memes or pics converted into memes. An EV runs out of juice for whatever reason, and the only way to field charge it is for rescue vehicles to roll up with a gas-powered generator. I you make them too expensive or ban them – which is likely the goal, how do you plan to rescue those EVs trapped out in the wild?

The answer is, with any luck, no one who lives out there will be able to afford an EV and will have to move into a 15-minute city where no one needs that.

The vast gap between that future and the current reality makes no difference to them, nor the damage required to drag us from one point to the other. They don’t care about the hardship. All they care about is policy goals.

 

HT | The Burning Platform

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A recent article called (Publius Hulda Warning) appeared in the Grok and, in my opinion, insults the wisdom and spirit of the republic and our founding fathers regarding WHY the US Constitution Article V must NOT be exercised.

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

Article V directs state citizens thru their legislature the authority and duty to simply propose amendments to the US Constitution (To; reign in an out-of-control federal government – possibly leading to a Convention of the States – NOT a Constitutional Convention).

Common Sense is NOT so Common

NH State Legislators swear an oath as follows:

Do solemnly swear, that I will bear faith and true allegiance to the United States of America and the state of New Hampshire and will support the constitution thereof. So help me God.

Do solemnly and sincerely swear and affirm that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all duties incumbent on me as …………according to the best of my abilities, agreeably to the rules and regulations of this constitution and laws of the state of New Hampshire. So help me, God.

 

DUTY, noun Webster 1787  1. That which a person owes to another; that which a person is bound, by any natural, moral or legal obligation, to pay, do or perform. Obedience to princes, magistrates and the laws is the duty of every citizen and subject; obedience, respect and kindness to parents are duties of children; fidelity to friends is a duty; reverence, obedience and prayer to God are indispensable duties; the government and religious instruction of children are duties of parents which they cannot neglect without guilt.

Parchment Barrier: Jefferson spoke of; The Constitution can’t exist solely as a parchment barrier. We swear an oath and defend it with at times the blood of Patriots and tyrants. If we don’t then we have dammed our children to slavery.

In closing, it is my opinion; Publius Hulda and her supporters in NH  share failed logic and a lack of understanding of the obligations and duties of elected state legislators. They instead try to sell you on totalitarian tactics of sowing fear. How does this strategy support from one – we will become many?

So Publius Hulda, what other parts of the Constitution shall we instruct our legislators NOT TO FOLLOW?

 

Common sense is the basic human ability to think. Common sense has nothing to do with knowledge that a human being possesses. Common sense is actually a measure of one’s IQ level Common sense is an in-born trait in some cases, while it can be developed and harnessed with time too. People with a good common sense are sharper and quicker at solving puzzles, riddles, mind-boggling games and other related stuff which requires great mental sharpness and have nothing to do with your knowledge levels. Common sense is not something that everyone can claim to have; it is a rare quality of mind. It is something that people is really endowed with, being a special capability of your brain. In the words of Voltaire,” Common Sense is not so common.” The word “common” here is a misnomer since this particular capability is not that commonly seen in human beings.    Mark Twain

The post Common Sense of Article V and the Fools that Deny It! appeared first on Granite Grok.

Pregnancy care centers have filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Vermont for injunctive relief, claiming a bill signed into law discriminates against them and violates their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. I agree, and I’ll do you one better.

Related: Everyone is Claiming Vermonters Voted to Protect Abortion, But That’s Not What the Amendment Says

But we’ll get to that in a moment. First,

 

On May 10, 2023, Governor Phil Scott signed Senate Bill No. 37 (“SB 37”), attached hereto as Exhibit A. That law impedes the ability of pro-life pregnancy centers to continue providing help and support to Vermont women and families in two ways: First, it censors the centers’ ability to advertise their free services (Advertising Prohibition). Second, it precludes centers from offering non-medical services, information, and counseling unless provided by a licensed health care provider (Provider Restriction).

 

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the pregnancy care centers and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates. This religious not-for-profit organization oversees crisis pregnancy facilities across the United States.

 

“Women who become unexpectedly pregnant should be empowered with life-affirming options, emotional support, and practical resources,” said ADF Legal Counsel Julia Payne. “Vermont’s law, however, does the opposite—it impedes women’s ability to receive critical services during a difficult time in their lives and suppresses the free-speech rights of faith-based pregnancy centers. Pregnancy centers should be free to serve women and offer the support they need without fear of unjust government punishment.”

…

The lawsuit explains that the Vermont law specifically targets pro-life pregnancy centers as “limited services” providers because they do not refer or perform abortions. Under the law, the state attorney general has the authority to fine pregnancy centers up to $10,000 if she believes its life-affirming messages are misleading.

The law applies only to pro-life pregnancy centers—an abortion clinic that provides identical information would not be subject to the law. Also, the law does not define “misleading,” so it is left up to the discretion of the attorney general.

 

SB 37 quite clearly targets pregnancy care centers. And I get that Gov. Scott is a social-progressive Republican, but I’m unclear why he would sign this into law. Even if he wanted it, he could make noise about it being unconstitutional and let the Legislature override the veto. Instead, we got this.

 

“Today, we reaffirm once again that Vermont stands on the side of privacy, personal autonomy and reproductive liberty, and that providers are free to practice without fear.”

 

Shouldn’t reproductive liberty include the option to reproduce? “Choice” in the ruling class Democrat dictionary is defined as what they want and nothing else. Still, even the average Democrat voter understands the true definition—1,726 (or however many) different options for how to get your coffee at Starbucks. Scott and the Dems running the Legislature deliberately kneecapped the competition of a campaign donor. Abortion providers heap money on progressive politicians across the spectrum.

Pregnancy care centers not only do not donate to them, but they don’t typically charge any fees for their services, and no one is forcing taxpayers to fund them as if it is some protected right.

As for “without fear,” based on the complaint, SB 37 places pregnancy care centers in constant fear of being fined $10,000.00 by the state if it decides any communication is misleading. Speaking of which, free speech and other concerns aside, the state passed, and voters approved a constitutional amendment protecting reproductive liberty. If they have not already, ADF might want to consider that SB37 may also violate this new addition to the Vermont Constitution.

 

Sec. 2.  Article 22. [Personal reproductive liberty] That an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course and shall not be denied or infringed unless justified by a compelling State interest achieved by the least restrictive means.

 

What is the state’s compelling interest, and how is SB37 the least restrictive means?

 

 

HT | ADF Media.org

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Textualism is a prominent framework for interpreting the Constitution, particularly in conservative circles. Adherents of this school generally believe you can understand the Constitution simply by reading the words in the document and determining the “plain meaning” of the text. This differs from the “intent” of the framers or the “original meaning” as understood by ratifiers.

While textualism provides a good starting point, it often has some limitations. Reading the text alone can lead you astray if you don’t have some knowledge of the historical and legal framework within which the Constitution was drafted and ratified.

Following are three primary things you need to understand to have a good foundation for grasping the original meaning of the Constitution.

The Changing Meaning of Words

Words mean things and the meaning of words change over time. Words can also have different definitions in a legal context than they do in common use. That’s why it’s crucial to understand the meaning of words and phrases at the time the Constitution was drafted and ratified.

James Madison made this point in a letter to Henry Lee.

“I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers. If the meaning of the text be sought in the changeable meaning of the words composing it, it is evident that the shape and attributes of the Government must partake of the changes to which the words and phrases of all living languages are constantly subject. What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense!” [Emphasis added]

Academic textualists concede this point and generally try to determine the plain meaning of the Constitution based on the vocabulary of the day. But Madison reveals a big problem average people will run into if they try to understand the Constitution based simply on “what it says.”

A good example of this problem is the change in the definition of the word “commerce” over time. It had a much narrower meaning in the 1700s than it does today, and if you read the commerce clause using the modern meaning of the word, it will allow the federal government to wield much more power than intended.

In the founding era, commerce almost always had an economic meaning and was associated almost exclusively with the sort of activities engaged in by merchants.

As Rob Natelson noted in his paper “The legal meaning of commerce in the Commerce Clause,” this included “buying and selling products made by others (and sometimes land), associated finance and financial instruments, navigation and other carriage, and intercourse across jurisdictional lines.” [Emphasis added]

Today, “commerce” generally means any economic activity.

The commerce clause was never meant to give the federal government power to regulate manufacturing, agriculture, labor laws, workplace safety, or the host of other activities now micromanaged by the feds today under the modern definition of the word.

This is just one example of how the changing meaning of a word can alter our understanding of the Constitution. Referring to founding-era dictionaries and other period sources can help avoid this pitfall.

Historical Context

Political systems evolve from ideas. In order to fully grasp the system, you need to the historical context that birthed the ideas and their evolution through time. So, to properly understand the Constitution, it’s important to know the history that led to its drafting and ratification.

The United States were born out of the American Revolution. But it wasn’t so much about the war. As John Adams explained, the real revolution was a revolution in thought.

“What do We mean by the Revolution? The War? That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an Effect and Consequence of it. The Revolution was in the Minds of the People, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775.”

He went on to say, that a “radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.”

The most fundamental change was the shift from believing that government is sovereign (possessing supreme or ultimate power) to believing sovereignty was in the people. As James Wilson put it, “The truth is, that, in our governments, the supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power REMAINS in the people.”

As they began to recognize their own sovereignty, Americans started to question the traditional conception of political power. The colonists began to think of a constitution as something that exists above the government and to reject the idea that government formed the constitution. Instead, they conceived of a constitution as something that binds government.

We see this revolutionary conception of government taking form in the Massachusetts Circular Letter drafted by James Otis Jr. and Samuel Adams. They argued that when Parliament acts outside of its constitutional bounds, it destroys its own foundation.

The House have humbly represented to the ministry their own sentiments, that his Majesty’s high court of Parliament is the supreme legislative power over the whole empire; that in all free states the constitution is fixed, and as the supreme legislative derives its power and authority from the constitution, it cannot overleap the bounds of it without destroying its own foundation; that the constitution ascertains and limits both sovereignty and allegiance, and, therefore, his Majesty’s American subjects, who acknowledge themselves bound by the ties of allegiance, have an equitable claim to the full enjoyment of the fundamental rules of the British constitution.” [Emphasis added]

This led to the realization that constitutions need to be written in order to make the limits on government power absolutely clear.

Understanding this historical context will help you read the Constitution properly. When someone proposes an interpretation that runs counter to these founding-era ideas, or the interpretation sounds like something out of today’s British system, I can almost guarantee that it is a bad take.

Legal Framework

The Constitution is a legal document rooted in 18th-century contract law. To grasp some of the nuances of the Constitution, it’s important to have some knowledge of the legal framework of the day.

Think of it this way; you can’t work an algebra problem unless you understand the rules of algebra. In the same sense, it’s difficult to completely understand the Constitution without some knowledge legal rules of construction at that time.

For example, by enumerating the powers of Congress in Article 1 Sec. 8, the drafters excluded any powers not on the list.

Legal rules of construction dictate that when reading a legal document, the enumeration of certain powers logically excludes all other powers not listed. This is a legal maxim – Designato unius est exclusio alterius – meaning, “the designation of one is the exclusion of the other.”

Understanding this rule of construction clarifies the extent of the “general welfare” clause. If you don’t understand this legal maxim, you might think that Congress to do anything and everything to promote the “general welfare.” Alexander Hamilton explains why this isn’t the case in Federalist #83, and his argument is based on this rule of construction.

“This specification of particulars [the 18 enumerated powers of Article I, Section 8] evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd as well as useless if a general authority was intended.”

This isn’t to say that you need a law degree to understand the meaning of the Constitution. But it is important to grasp the basic legal framework it was written within.

Conclusion

Textualism provides a good starting point for understanding the meaning of the Constitution. But all text needs context. We’ve all seen what can happen when you pull a sentence out of its broader context. It can completely change the meaning of what was said. In the same sense, ripping a clause of the Constitution out of its historical and legal context can lead to misunderstandings. And these misunderstandings generally mean the federal government exercises more power than it legitimately should.

St. George Tucker wrote the first systematic commentary on the Constitution. He offers a good rule of thumb for reading the Constitution that is rooted in this legal and historical context.

“The powers delegated to the federal government, are, in all cases, to receive the most strict construction that the instrument will bear, where the rights of a state or of the people, either collectively or individually, may be drawn in question.”

 

 

Mike Maharrey | The Tenth Amendment Center

The post Three Essentials to Understand the Constitution appeared first on Granite Grok.

Mittens, like most Uniparty Republicans, has his dander up over the prospect of another Trump nomination. It’s cute in an elitist sort of way. Trump is the only guy we know will stand up for Americans (how dare he!), and Romeny happens to have a  former campaign advisor who sits on the board of Burisma.

He voted twice to impeach him, so he might be interested in keeping Trump out of the Oval Office. Business. Uniparty Business. Burisma Business.

Nothing to see there, of course, and maybe that’s not in play. Trump, would likely get us out of funding Ukraine if re-elected, which Dems and Romney-esque Republicans will spin as support for Russia. Still, Burisma would probably be less of a priority beyond the Biden’s influence-peddling schemes. No, the issue is with Trump, the disruptor. He is not one of them and doesn’t need them, so it’s only natural for scions of the uniparty to (continue to) work against him.

Or, in this case, against all but perhaps one primary contender. And I just mentioned this a few days ago. If everyone is so concerned about Trump steamrolling the primary, do something to scrape these barnacles off Ron DeSantis’s struggling tug. Mittens thinks the donor class is the key and would not be wrong. No money, no campaign, at least nothing anyone will follow, especially if you can’t raise small-dollar donations in the volume needed to blanket early primary states with mailers and flyers and TV; oh my!

 

“Despite Donald Trump’s apparent inevitability, a baker’s dozen Republicans are hoping to become the party’s 2024 nominee for president,” he wrote. “That is possible for any of them if the field narrows to a two-person race before Mr. Trump has the nomination sewn up.”

“For that to happen, Republican megadonors and influencers—large and small—are going to have to do something they didn’t do in 2016: get candidates they support to agree to withdraw if and when their paths to the nomination are effectively closed,” he added.

 

Or is it enough? Breitbart also quotes Papa Smuf John Sununu (former NH governor and Elder Bush White House Pratorian).

 

‘It is fun running for president if you know you cannot win,’” he continued. “Left to their own inclinations, expect several of the contenders to stay in the race for a long time. They will split the non-Trump vote, giving him the prize. A plurality is all that is needed for winner-take-all primaries.”

 

Many run for book deals, higher speaking fees, west-wing offices, ambassadorship, other forms of resume plumping, or even a shot as the nominee’s VP. Lame Duck NH Guv Chris Sununu could be one of those things, but he’s not running for President, he said. He is going to Iowa for no reason but whatever.

And that all seems like a lot of work when, given the current culture, you could get away with saying, well, I identify as a presidential candidate (and Maybe socially Liberal Chris Sununu will try that cuz, according to Dad, it’s fun – but we think not. He’s got skeletons and that’ll keep him out of any high profile race).

Anyway – Romney again.

 

“Donors may think that party leaders can narrow the field. Not so. Candidates don’t listen to party officials, because voters don’t listen to them either,” he wrote. “And the last people who would ever encourage a candidate to withdraw are the campaign staff and consultants who want to keep their jobs for as long as possible.”

 

Donors would be stupid if they thought candidates listened to the party machine when it is supposed to be an unbiased and disinterested parade guide and little more. We know that is not true. Party machinists tinker with the wheels and gears constantly but not publicly. Nor can they allow themselves to be discovered pushing or pulling one candidate or another unless they are Demcorats – ask Bernie about that.

And Romney is just saying what they are all thinking. Americans, especially primary-voting Republicans, love this Trump guy. For better or worse, we know the GOP is in no position to steal elections, and that will hurt them come November 24, which I also speculated might be deliberate because of the likelihood of a Trump nomination.

And while I don’t put anything past the uniparty when it comes to Trump, which – you have to admit – is one of the best reasons to support the guy, they’ll try to do almost anything, but since they are Republicans, they’ll f— it up … and blame Trump who appears poised to roll over everyone if DeSantis doesn’t flip a switch his campaign can’t seem to find.

 

The post RINO Romney Says, Most of You Need to Get Out of the Primary Pool or Trump Walks Away with the Nomination appeared first on Granite Grok.

As promised in the last Monday Memes, I have an overflow. My meme cup runneth over.  Fairly certain about a Friday Overflow-Overflow.

Note – for those waiting for Survival Sunday, that’s going to take me a couple of weeks to get back up to speed.  But for now, let the mayhem, mockery, and ridicule resume:

 

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

 

 

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

 

Thomas Sowell-The Truth About Colonization Never Taught In School

 

 

And worthy of a reprise, I think:

 

 

Unfortunately, thanks to traitors at every level, in many countries including America, we’re seeing the reverse these days.  And in particular, my ire against my fellow Jews who are pro-migration, here.

 

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

 

 

I was amazed at how much construction was going on “over there”.  Everywhere we drove there were buildings and buildings and buildings going up – virtually all looking like apartments (which, in our parlance, would be condos; few people actually rent-rent, it’s rent-to-0wn or mortgages, etc.  It’s clearly a city with a growing population – from what the wife and cousins said, a lot of people are moving to the city.  Now, infrastructure and utilities were a concern.  One of the cousins, who spoke English, said that the buildings were there but the water was not.

 

 

It was hot.  Very hot.  And while there was rain it was modest in volume, and it was clear the city was in a near-desert climate, at least when we were there.

But back to the point: these buildings were all IMHO modern industrial-hideous.  There were artworks, and some classical – i.e., older buildings – that were beautiful scattered around town.  The main public theater / opera house was magnificent… but it was clearly decades old and likely dated from the USSR times when, at least for public buildings, they tended to try to make things look nice.  Even the apartment building complex we were in had a great statue of a man on a horse; all around, statues and other artwork was clearly present.  But the new residential buildings were just people-warehousing; some attention to style if only to differentiate blocks of buildings from each other, but not a lot.  Downtown, office buildings did have style.  Aesthetics matter.

But the lead-in image reminds me of this video:

 

Why is Modern Art so Bad?

 

 

Now, as it happens, while away I saw this snippet of a discussion between Tucker Carlson and Russell Brand (who, at least on some topics, is growing on me):

 

Tucker & Russell Brand on Architecture: The design of a society is a reflection of its people

 

 

Very definitely, IMHO – modern architecture, at least residential, was driving towards a “warehouse” look.  Imagine the psychological impact of that, even if only unconscious.  You are a unit to be warehoused, not a person valuable as an individual.  Right in line with the NWO and its megacity ambitions.

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

A little on that:

96% of U.S Climate Data Is Corrupted, Study Shows – Blazing Cat Fur

Record Breaking Heatwave in Europe? • Watts Up With That?

Scary Red Map | Real Climate Science

Climate Fakery Part 14 | Real Climate Science

The Heatwave of July 1808 – All Things Georgian (wordpress.com)

Remember, I used to be a “climate alarmist” and changed my mind.  Even now, when I mention this, nobody – NOBODY – asks why I changed my mind.  Instead, I get that I’m a climate denier hurled at me.  So, now, I respond with “Oh, you mean a climate heretic because I’m questioning the priesthood”?  Because that’s what this is: religion for people who think they’re too smart for religion.

 

 

Note the use of color to make the temperatures – utterly and completely in line with a prior snapshot-in-time – look scaaaaary:

 

 

 

It’s all fear, all the time.  It comes in waves, like a constrictor snake relaxing and then re-squeezing.  As the video, below, embedded here states:

 

MASS PSYCHOSIS – How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PSA: For those who actually can’t see it, it says “The vaccine is killing people”.

 

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

 

Matt Le Tissier on the madness of the last few years

 

 

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

 

 

Rand Paul: We Have Referred Fauci to DOJ for Prosecution for Lying to Congress (breitbart.com)

Show of hands.  Who thinks this will have any traction whatsoever?  Certainly not me.  Similarly:

‘Ultimate white privilege guy’ Hunter Biden may be hit with 10 criminal referrals: Comer (nypost.com)

Hunter’s already escaped multiple felony charges.  He won’t spend a minute in jail.  And don’t even bring up Her Heinous the Crone of Chappaqua.  Or others in a cast of thousands.

So in general it’s painfully obvious we have at least two – likely more – levels of law in this country.  Never mind around the world.  This is one of the reasons – I have contended for years and years – why Rome fell (link in the original):

This is how Rome fell.  When the average Roman finally understood how corrupt-to-the-bone the Rome they knew, loved, and would have fought and died to protect had become, they turned inward towards their community and even closer to their families… no longer willing to fight or die for that greater entity now that they understood that greater entity no longer represented them or their values.

Say, how’s that military recruiting going?

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the post:

 

 

So while my wife nattered away with her relatives in rapid-fire Russian I invested the time to listen to this interview of Andrew Tate by Tucker Carlson:

Andrew Tate Vs Tucker Carlson (Full Interview) (rumble.com)

Let me be clear: On some things I agreed fully with Tate.  On others, not so much.  In general, though, I came away more impressed with the man than I had been before, at least insofar as he comes across as far more intelligent than I initially thought.  One very interesting point he made, somewhere just past two hours in, was that people on a survival footing don’t have the time to deal with woke BS.  As Bill Whittle once opined in a conversation with Stephan Molineux, “It is success that kills a culture”.

 

 

But I am a firm believer in challenging my perceptions and thoughts.  Either I come out understanding that what I believe is better supported having been so challenged… or I change my mind.  One thing that Tate discussed was the idea of being uncomfortable is often a necessary thing to drive change.  As one, personal, example: I know I need to get off my butt and exercise more.  And as Tate spoke of this, among other examples of the need to be uncomfortable, it resonated with me.  I am uncomfortable with my relative lack of physical fitness.  Time to get moving on that.

But this thought relates to a problem we “conspiracy theorists” have: we on our side really want others to WAKE UP!.  Making them uncomfortable with what they believe is one way to do this.  At the same time, people resent being made uncomfortable, and that’s why they resist information that makes them so.  Particularly when that information means they’ve been bamboozled.

 

(Link to AZQUOTES per their policy.)

 

Doubly-so when to acknowledge the bamboozle means they’re proven wrong while we – the “unwashed, unscientific, knuckle-dragging deplorables” whom they looked down upon were right.

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

I’d mentioned My Tree in Israel in the last post.  They also have an adoption program for wine bottles – again, not cheap, but it comes with your own custom label (I did one grapevine last year, and would be renewing but their new distributor does not ship to New Hampshire).  And I was intrigued by the fact that now they have a whiskey option.  Not up and running yet, but… I’ve inquired.  And I got an answer back.  100 bottle, minimum.  Even for the 100 bottle option (!) not in my budget.  Alas.  Pushing eight large for 100 bottles (per bottle it’s not out of line with others I’ve seen, it’s the volume that’s the killer).  But for a whiskey aficionado who wants his own name-labeled bottles?

Two of their recipes from the past, randomly-selected:

 

 

Note: In Israel, “hummus” = chick peas.  “Hummus salad” is their name for the dip most of us in the US think of has just hummus.

 

 

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

 

Palate cleansers:

 

—

—

 

The post Meme Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

Keep people frightened, scare them with cherry-picked data, and don’t teach them Earth’s history. Then is it any wonder why Democrats are so worried about climate change? It builds groupthink and Otherizes the rest of us.

 

(click to enlarge)

 

Members of the Green Party? Not mentioned, but I bet the percentage change would be far lower as their base of concern would most like be almost 100% to start (why else be a Greenie unless you’re in stealth mode as an Eco-Socialist?)

Democrats? There’s a reason why the Democrat States and the Federal Government’s bureaucrats are going all out using the Administrative State to “regulate away Climate Change” – our own freedom to decide doesn’t matter. After all, WAR FOOTING!  EVERYONE must be collectivized (and, of course, we’re in charge).

(H/T: Powerline)

The post Its Why They Also Preach “We HAVE To Be On A ‘War Footing’ For EVERYTHING!” appeared first on Granite Grok.

Mike Graham does NOT want the GOP to win the 2024 election. More precisely, Mike Graham does NOT want the GOP to win the 2024 election IF the nominee is Donald Trump AND, given that the Ron DeSantis campaign has crashed and burned, the nominee is going to be Donald Trump.

NeverTrump is growingly increasingly angry and reckless. The Fat Man, a/k/a Chris Christie, is now claiming FALSELY that Trump told his supporters to “attack Mike Pence.” And Mike Graham is amplifying that LIE. At the same time, Graham ignores all the recent evidence that the “Big Guy” was not only aware of, but participated in, Hunter’s influence peddling schemes.

If you still think Mike Graham is “one of us,” “on the same side,” blah, blah, blah … you are DELUSIONAL.

The post NH-NeverTrump Journal Amplifies Chris Christie’s J6 Lies … While Ignoring Biden’s Crimes appeared first on Granite Grok.

Vermont goes out of its way to steal from its citizens. They are one of the most taxed populations in the US. So an op-ed by EV advocates concerned that vehicle and charging taxes might impact economically vulnerable populations seemed worth my time.

I was not disappointed.

Deep inside Vermont’s transportation law lurks “a section that could impose a double tax on electric vehicle drivers in an attempt to replace gasoline tax revenue.” The authors explain that the state’s adding a mileage tax on top of a proposed “kilowatt-hour-based tax at public charging stations” is out of step with Vermont’s commitments to clean transportation.

 

The drivers who will feel the sting of a kWh tax the most aren’t out-of-state drivers. They’re Vermonters who live in multifamily buildings — often those in low-income communities. These drivers are more likely to rely on public charging, and with a kWh tax in place, they’ll pay the price for it.

The authors, one being the “deputy director of Vermont’s clean energy trade association” and a “senior manager of public policy for the world’s leading electric vehicle charging network,” oppose what they call double taxation. I’m no fan of their respective agendas, but I’m no fan of taxes, so I’m with them there. And while they make what may appear as persuasive arguments, their big picture ignores THE BIG PICTURE.

First, this is Vermont. Democrats run it with a popular RINO Republican Governor with no power (is that why he’s popular?). The Left has a veto-proof legislative majority. They can override anything at will, and – lest we forget – Democrats love taxes because they love spending, which leads to more and higher taxes. They also love the lie of green energy, and they hate fossil fuels, and in case I didn’t mention it, they love taxes. Any excuse to levy, raise, apportion, extract, or rob the people is always an option.

It has to be. They’ve already spent it in their minds, so the rest is timing and logistics. And Vermont already has a lot of energy taxes.

Vermont taxes solar (Uniform Capacity Tax) and wind farms (Electric Generating Facility Tax), costs that find their way down to consumers in the cost per kilowatt hour, which is 32% higher than the national average. That is, itself, a significant burden on the economically vulnerable. Electrifying everything will make that go up. Powering that spike with wind and solar will make it go up more. And no one seems to care about the impact.

Vermont taxes kerosene, propane, fuel oil, natural gas, coal, energy production, storage, gasoline, and diesel. It also taxes the revenues from companies that profit from the sale of those things, energy inflation that raises the cost of goods and services even taxes as providers and state and local government offset the increased cost of “doing business.” As a matter of policy, the economically vulnerable are paying more upfront in every commercial transaction and higher taxes (to cover governments’ increased energy costs), all to pretend that Vermont is the greenest state when mostly what it is doing is offshoring emissions to nations full of brown people.

Vermonters are also paying for carbon credits (RGGI), another tax built into their energy plan, and no “you know what’s” were given by so-called “green energy” advocates. So, let’s say I have doubts about any concern over double taxation on charging EVs in a state like Vermont. But we’ll ignore all that because I have yet another angle to consider.

Gasoline and Diesel taxes are levied to address wear and tear or other needs related to transportation infrastructure. I suspect it can also be argued that the taxes on electricity are collected to cover the state’s costs to oversee energy-related infrastructure, which – as we all know – is not even remotely ready to handle the goals of the promised electric future. Upgrades will not come cheap. There will be added expenses added on the backs of citizens. The government will get in the way, mismanage things, and it will need funds to force change in which only it believes: it and vested interests writing op-eds.

My point is this. Is it a double tax?

On one side, you are taxing EV charging “at the pump” to address increased transportation infrastructure wear and tear. Given the greater weight of EVs over combustion engine vehicles resurfacing and repair will become more common or frequent at greater expense. At the same time, EV charging will also create additional wear and tear on the grid and infrastructure required to keep them charged. Per kilowatt, taxes would be needed by our benevolent masters (at least on paper) to maintain or update that infrastructure if they’ve not raided it to teach gender studies at the local left-wing madrassas doing business as public schools.

I agree that these added costs might deter people of less ample means from buying into the EV lie, but they are already priced out of that market, so what exactly is your point? That ignoring the tax for infrastructure formula for the grid (not to mention all the other taxes and fees already in place) might discourage people Democrats don’t even want driving to buy a car they can’t afford?

Vermont has problems, but an EV tax double tap might be the least of them.

 

The post Is Vermont’s “Double Tax” on EVs Really the Problem? appeared first on Granite Grok.

“Woke” culture has become so prominent in the American education system that it would not be surprising to learn that schools were replacing the once popular rhyme “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” with “sticks and stones may break my bones but opinions I disagree with can make me feel unsafe so they must be silenced.”

Take the case of 12-year-old Liam Morrison, a student at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts. This March, Liam was told to change his shirt or be sent home. School staff are reported to have said his shirt targeted a “protected class.” Liam says he was told his shirt was making some students feel unsafe. Did Liam’s shirt advocate violence? No, Liam’s shirt simply stated that there are only two genders.

A free society cannot exist where a substantial portion of its population demands and receives protection from exposure to opposing ideas. If the history of authoritarianism teaches us anything it is that those in positions of power are often willing to provide a frightened people with “security” as long as the people are willing to sacrifice their and their fellow citizens’ liberty.

Fighting the woke agenda is therefore not, as some libertarians claim, a culture war distraction from the pursuit of liberty; instead, fighting the woke agenda is crucial to restoring a free society. Of course, this means working to roll back government power by, for example, shutting down the unconstitutional Department of Education and getting Congress to pass legislation forbidding government officials from telling social media companies to censor certain American citizens. We must also resist joining those misguided conservatives who are calling on the right to seek to use government power to impose a right-wing version of wokeness on the American people.

The backlash against wokeness in schools is leading more parents to either become involved in their local school boards or to look for alternatives such as homeschooling. Parents who are interested in a homeschooling program that provides children with a well-rounded education that will help their child awake but not become “woke” should consider my homeschool curriculum.

The Ron Paul Curriculum provides students with a well-rounded education that includes rigorous programs in history, mathematics, and the physical and natural sciences. The curriculum also provides instruction in personal finance. Students can develop superior written and oral communication skills via intensive writing and public speaking courses. Another feature of my curriculum is that it provides students the opportunity to create and run their own Internet businesses.

The government and history sections of the curriculum emphasize Austrian economics, libertarian political theory, and the history of liberty. However, unlike government schools, my curriculum never puts ideological indoctrination ahead of education. Interactive forums allow students to engage with and learn from each other. The forums ensure students are actively engaged in their education as well as give them an opportunity to interact with their peers outside of a formal setting.

I encourage all parents looking at alternatives to government schools —alternatives that provide children with a well-rounded education that will allow them to learn about the history and ideas of liberty instead of pushing on them “wokeness” and the lies of the cultural Marxists — to go to RonPaulCurriculum.com for more information about my homeschooling program.

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.

 

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Corruption, Bribery, Tax-Evasion, Money Laundering, Lying, and deception; are not sins of the mob but of our President, his family, and his administration. Over my seven decades, I have seen Presidents do questionable things while in power.

Kennedy was known for his womanizing, Nixon for his cover-up of the Watergate break-in, Carter for being incompetent, and Clinton for staining a blue dress. Still, no President or administration has been overtly corrupt and played on the American people like Joseph Biden.

I am not sure what is more insulting, Biden telling the American people he was going to restore dignity and decorum to the White House or his disregard for addressing the American people as more facts and evidence are disclosed about the crimes of the Biden Crime Family each day. Either way, it is clear that Biden needs to stay in office to protect himself and his family from the Republican-controlled House.

The House Ways and Means and the Oversight Committees had been promising block-buster and incriminating evidence for months to the point that conjured the antics of Adam Schiff for the four years of Trump’s Presidency. Finally, James Comer and Jim Jordan brought witnesses before their respective committees and delivered the promised evidence, but to what end? As enthusiastic as the Republicans were in presenting their case against the Bidens, the Democrats countered every punch with their claim of conspiracy theory and sham investigation.

The media played its part in the cover-up by not playing at all, as FOX News covered the hearings in their entirety while the networks, CNN, and MSNBC, gave zero minutes to the testimony. This cover-up by the Left’s Media is why 54% of Americans have little or no knowledge of the current affairs involving our government. Those who are aware of current events see some blood in the water. We need somebody to feel the pain of retribution, and a low-level staffer given up for sacrifice will not do.

There was no issue putting Roger Stone or General Flynn behind bars. The Biden Cartel will never see jail time, and only Hunter, who pled guilty to lesser crimes thinking he would avoid the heavy issues, will get probation. Joe’s approach since the campaign is to lie and get offensive with anyone who dares broach the subject. So far, this tactic has worked. Today, KJP had a different answer when asked about Biden’s contact with Hunter about Hunter’s business dealings. The proof is too deep. She cannot categorically deny the charges any longer. The sharks are circling, and even the mainstream media is in sync with their questions.

As for Kamala Harris, who has yet to visit the Border or East Palestine, she took the first flight available to Florida to speak out about a new Black History curriculum for middle school students. This curriculum is the most in-depth generated by any state, and two Black scholars were involved with the writing. The piece is over 200 pages, but Harris only focused on one sentence that she found offensive. The media jumped over the ledge with the VP. Everyone looked foolish because none read the work or understood the sentence presumed to be an issue. Ironically, Harris accused Republicans of gaslighting on the subject of slavery. For a Black woman, Harris showed she knows little about slavery. Then again, she knows little about any topic.

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Putting aside that calling themselves “No Label” IS a label, it’s clear, after reading their Policy website, they have already labeled themselves. Calling their Policy website CommonSenseMajority.org is both a message and a label.

If the No Label folks really believed in what they say they are, why wouldn’t that website have the domain NoLabelsPolicies.org or some such thing? No, they didn’t. They can’t even be original with the “Common Sense” bit, and let me buttress that with this question: OK, Conservative activists, what OTHER group uses “common sense” and claims to be in the majority as well?

Yep – the Democrats and FUDDites that are all in for Gun Control. They of the every style and tactic to “infringe”  ramped up and thrown against the wall after the SCOTUS Heller and Bruen decisions.

So if the No Labels folks, just on this ONE issue, are willing to void my Constitution Rights because “Common Sense” why should I or other folks concerned about both our Constitutions (US & NH) support them?

Look at “Idea 10,” and I’ll fisk just a couple of statements they make:

 

10 Americans have a constitutional right to own guns, but society also has a responsibility to keep dangerous weapons away from dangerous people.

 

• Is it Common Sense NOT to give the full picture when you make a claim like, “In 2021, nearly 49,000 Americans lost their lives to firearms, a level of carnage unparalleled in any other developed country?” Common sense should have said the following but No Labels is misleading to begin with so why not continue with it
  1. They don’t split out the suicides by guns out – which is the majority of those deaths.
  2. The majority of the rest is due to crime / gang-bangers
• And wouldn’t it be Common Sense that with a statement like this “Research has shown that more 18 and 19-year-olds are arrested for homicide than people of any other ages“, they’d consider Chicago, Milwaukee, Atlanta, or LA and realize that gang-bangers rear their crime-riddled heads again.  And not that they refuse to reference the race stats on gun crimes.
• And this is plain amusing in a very sad way: “But raising the age for gun purchases can save lives.”. Yet, time after time, criminals tell us that they don’t legally buy their firearms – they buy stolen ones.  No paperwork or ID needed (and in fact, not wanted).
• And the No Label folks are perfectly fine in setting up the environment for a gun registry by claiming: “enable universal background checks by closing the notorious gun show loophole to ensure all firearms are sold with the same level of scrutiny required for licensed gun dealers.”  So much for private property and they show their Leftism by yammering about the “gun show loophole”.

 

That latter part is just regular private individuals at gun shows selling their own property. No different than if Mike said at a gun range, “Steve, I like your gun; ever consider selling it?” Steve tells Mike the same thing, and the transactions are completed. The only thing that is notorious” is that yet another political party is making use of that canard – and desiring highly to have you believe what they say is God’s honest truth.

So their credibility with me is shot.  And no mention of Free Speech which is also contentious now even if Constitutionally protected. There’s a few other things I could pick on (amnesty, price controls but I’m not going to take the time. What I will finish with is their own words that reveal their mindset:

America can’t solve its biggest problems and deliver the results hardworking taxpayers want, need, and deserve unless Democrats and Republicans start working together side by side on bipartisan solutions.

I once made the statement while serving on the NH Senate Commission for Grandfamilies that NONE of the ideas that the other members put up had mine:

Why did no one bring up that Government is part of the problems and we should identify what it should STOP doing?

There is a phrase that makes the rounds that states that the difference between the Democrat and Republican Parties is that the former is ALWAYS for more and bigger Government to “solve problems” while Republicans are only for a bit lesser increases (e.g., Jeb Bradley and Chuck Morse bringing Obamacare into State Law) but that Rs can “manage it better.”

Nowhere on their Policy website did I see a single part that called for lesser Government – only more?

If you really examine their policies, I think you’d agree that this is “stealthy Democrat” speak.

Ignore them but hope that IF they put up a Presidential candidate, it’s a Democrat like Joe Manchin – he’d suck votes away from Biden.  But that’s about all the good they are. No Labels means no attachments to Principles.

The post The “No Labels” Party Tricksters. They Call Themselves Problem Solvers. And Then Give Themselves a “Label”? appeared first on Granite Grok.

I received the news while I was enjoying my morning bowl of oatmeal, raisins, and walnuts with a dab of peanut butter. That’s usually my morning quiet time when I get a few minutes to myself and meditate on the coming day.

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I was interrupted by the buzzing of my cell phone, usually set to silence during these quiet moments. I had mistakenly set it to vibrate.
I could have just ignored it, but instead, I did what we all do when our peace is interrupted by this rectangular piece of metal and plastic we take with us everywhere – I looked at who was calling.

It was a number and name I knew, someone who I hadn’t heard from in a while. I could have ignored it, gone back to my feast, and checked later to see if a voice message was left; instead, curiosity got the better of me, and I answered.

“Did you hear the news?” my friend excitedly said.

“What news?” I answered, now dreading my decision to answer.

“Sununu, he’s out,” laughed my friend. “He’s not running again. His reign is over and it looks like the perfect opportunity for you for another run. Are you in?”

The news did come as a bit of a shock to me. I had been thinking long and hard about whether or not I would run again for governor as the Flatlander Party candidate. I had already run, with limited success, every two years since 2000. I was thinking it was possibly a good time to call it quits. When I first ran, I was only forty-five with still many delusional years of grandeur ahead of me. Being elected governor was just one of the many aspirations on my grandeur list.

But now, at sixty-seven, those delusions have lightened a bit, and now I’m excited if I can stay awake past 9 pm.

Still, running for the big chair (I hear it is very comfortable) is something I have dedicated a lot of time and energy to, and it would seem foolish not to give it one last try now that the race will be wide open for the first time in years.

These thoughts ran through my head as I held my phone in one hand and a spoon circling the half-eaten bowl of oatmeal in the other. I realized that this could be my last great opportunity.

“Yes, I’m in,” I said.

And that was that.

I was running, possibly for the final time.

So now it was time to start to work on a new campaign strategy.

I turned on the local news and saw that many of the obvious folks whose entire existence hinges lately on always running for some office or another had already declared their candidacy, the same old same-olds surely salivating as soon as they had heard of Sununu’s plans to step aside. They had political resumes already, and that gave them some name recognition on the political front.

Realizing that this would most likely be my swan song of politics, I knew I’d have to go all out and try something entirely new. So, I am going to use my twenty-plus years of unsuccessful campaigns to my advantage.

It’s time to make people realize that all of these folks they have been electing to different offices over the years and who now want to be governor have basically….well…accomplished little or nothing in that time.

So maybe it’s time to go with a loser.

It made me think of one of Donald Trump’s more memorable lines (and there were many) in his successful 2016 campaign for president: “What have you got to lose?”

I think that pretty much sums up the average voter’s feelings nowadays. I mean, how much worse can things get? We keep throwing the same people at the same problems and expect different results.

So, why not try what you keep rejecting? Mainly me.

Any good campaign knows the first thing you need is a catchy slogan, Maybe “Smith – Why Not?” or maybe recycling an old favorite from pizza boxes: “You’ve Tried All The Rest, Now Try The Best.” Or possibly even one of those oversized political mailers that will have the faces of all the other candidates with big letters proclaiming: “Vote Smith – Can He Be Any Worse?”

I will also campaign on the fact that this is it for me. Win or lose, I am not going to aspire to any other political office. After all, if I happen to get re-elected for two terms, by the time the second one is done, I’ll be about seventy-three and tuckered out, so why in the world would I want to be pursuing even bigger things like being a U. S. Congressman or Senator and having to travel back and forth to Washington all the time. At this stage of my life, I barely want to travel from Laconia to Concord.

So, it looks like this will be my last campaign, and I will be pulling out all the stops.

You can keep picking the same old, same olds and then pick some other same old same olds in another two years because you aren’t happy with the original same olds, or you can vote for me.

I’ll be one and done, and then I promise to go away quietly.

Now let me get back to my oatmeal.

 

Brendan Smith is the editor of The Weirs Times weekly newspaper where he also writes the column “A F.O.O.L* (Flatlander’s Observations On Life) In New Hampshire.” Brendan started The Flatlander Party in New Hampshire in 2000. He is the author of “The Flatlander Chronicles,” “Best Of A F.O.O.L. In New Hampshire,” and “I Only Did It For The Socks and Other Tales of Aging,” available at BrendanTSmith.com. He is hoping to cash in someday with his memoirs reflecting on his time as governor of New Hampshire if he should ever finally win.

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The Obamas are a piece of work. They whine about sea level, then drop 12 million on an island mansion on the coast (worth about 21 million these days). They also hired their personal White House chef to join them there, where he has just turned up dead from drowning.

It is a tragic loss, of course. The man was only 45, clearly talented. Still, whenever anyone close to Demcorats in power has an unfortunate end, we can’t dismiss the possibility they knew too much and had to go. The official story?

 

On Sunday, Massachusetts State Police enacted a search for a missing paddleboarder after a fellow paddleboarder said that the man had “struggled on the surface, went under, and didn’t surface,” according to the Associated Press.

 

Tafari Campbell reportedly lives in Virginia, and with no Obamas to be seen, why was he there, and who else was with him? We do not know. But Barry Inc did release a statement.

 

“When we first met him, he was a talented sous chef at the White House – creative and passionate about food, and its ability to bring people together,” the couple said. “In the years that followed, we got to know him as a warm, fun, extraordinarily kind person who made all of our lives a little brighter.”

 

The great divider gushing about a guy they claim could bring people together with food. Call me skeptical. Obama set race relations back a century from day one. He weaponized the government against its people and its allies. His administration had plenty of scandals, but all the crap Joe Biden did while VP is also at their feet. It is not inconceivable that the family chef, who was with them at the White House, knew more than he should.

And no, I have nothing but a well-developed distrust of government and Democrats to justify my speculation.

I predict they will declare it an accident, and the other paddleboarder will likely never be named (I have not found it), but I’m sure the Obamas will hold a touching memorial and support Tafari’s wife and twins as a show of remorse.

A healthy young man drowning is not an uncommon fate, but given his proximity to Left-Wing power, I wouldn’t dismiss other possibilities. Besides, the Clinton’s White House Chef died the same way. Drowning.

 

TIL Hillary's White House chef also drowned… Not kiddinghttps://t.co/uOTuqlVAvu pic.twitter.com/Kgf6Nmepvr

— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) July 24, 2023

 

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The Harmony Montgomery circus of investigation clowns will never look at themselves. That’s not good enough. The Feds need to come in. But not the Boston FBI, the ones from Washington Field in DC because there is a cover-up.

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In January 2022, The New Hampshire Police News Twitter @NHPD_News site posted a Union Leader article declaring that Governor Sununu had ordered an internal review of DCYF in light of failures regarding Harmony Montgomery’s disappearance and the two years of inaction.

The following month a 7-page report was released with recommendations.

 

harmony-montgomery-update-recommendations

 

Now Governor Sununu has asked AG John Formella’s office for an investigation into Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig and email correspondence regarding Harmony Montgomery.

This is coming from a Governor whose office never responds to public inquiries of concern, whose office never returns calls and whose office admits to deleting emails after 30 days. The AG’s office, meanwhile, is not much better, having suddenly found millions of documents that had been hidden for decades about child sex abuse at the State’s Youth Detention Center.

Manchester Police Chief and Mayor Joyce Craig and Governor Sununu are playing a game. Manchester Police Chief Aldenberg was nominated by Mayor Joyce Craig in 2020 and approved by Manchester aldermen.

“IN NOMINATING HIM, MAYOR JOYCE CRAIG CALLS HIM (Allen Aldenberg) A MAN OF INTEGRITY WITH 23 YEARS OF POLICING EXPERIENCE.”

Sununu’s words about Mayor Joyce Craig regarding failures to respond to Right To Know Requests are vacuous. It’s not just his office and Mayor Joyce Craig’s office who don’t take public inquiries seriously. It’s the Mayor of Concord’s office, Police Departments, DAs offices, and AGs offices across the state who all bat the ball off their desks each and every time. It is a statewide systemic problem, and that’s because the State officials rely too heavily on qualified and sovereign immunity to be bothered with a public inquiry about the safety of children or public corruption.

Numerous people have brought up police misconduct, the DCYF, and lack of accountability for decades. Each and every Governor, each and every AG has swept it under the rug, or if they have addressed it, it has been a performative “internal” audit. Public comments get ignored or ridiculed. Even when the US DHHS publishes reports on the utter failures of NH DCYF and New Hampshire officials agreeing to the recommendations, nothing happens.

Sununu’s empty words at Joyce Craig could just as easily be leveled at himself and those he has appointed or nominated for leadership positions — including Gordon MacDonald as both AG and Supreme Court Chief Justice:

“It is about leadership. You have to be able to be transparent, be responsible, be accountable. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a lot of accountability out of the mayor’s office,” Sununu told NHJournal Thursday.”

Sununu’s request that the Attorney General’s office look into the email correspondence from Harmony Montgomery’s mother to Mayor Joyce Craig is just lip service since the AG’s office has been pretty unresponsive to requests for investigations as well. The AG’s Public Integrity Officer, Geoffrey Ward, deleted the files of 28 corrupt police officers before he became a federal prosecutor while his boss, now NH Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald, argued that the list of corrupt police officers should remain private. Leadership is missing across the agencies. Why do they still get federal grants when they continue to ignore the recommendations?

Sununu can decry Joyce Craig’s lack of accountability all he likes, but it doesn’t change the fact that there is no accountability from his office, the AG’s office, NHPD or Mayors’ and City Councils’ offices, or the Executive Committee, DAs or NH Judges, Superior, District, Family or Supreme Court. They’ve all protected corruption within their own ranks and with the DCYF and affiliated non-profits and agencies. They all like to make money off child abuse, but they have no desire to actually address it because that would require looking in the mirror and admitting to the cover-ups.

The police have asked the public to come forward with tips, but what good is that? It’s the same old same old — we come forward. We give tips about child trafficking, drug trafficking, and money laundering. We get ignored, or we get threatened.

The question the officials in New Hampshire will never ask or answer is whether Adam Montgomery was, in fact, a drug trafficking mule for Manchester Police and whether Manchester police, DCYF, were involved in the abuse of Harmony Montgomery and covering it up. And that is why the Feds need to come in.

Something’s off about Kayla Montgomery’s affidavit, which begs the question: was she coerced under blackmail or as part of a bribe to cover up a child, sex, and drug trafficking ring for the police or DCYF? Was the affidavit strategically created, then unsealed and given to news media to divert attention from the police and DCYF’s role in Harmony Montgomery’s tragic ending? Was the emergency plan for prosecutors to pin everything on Adam Montgomery while their buddies in law enforcement and DCYF slip into the shadows, avoiding potential criminal charges?

The Division for Children, Youth and Families was involved with Adam Montgomery and his children due to reports of abuse, according to Dunleavy. Adam Montgomery allegedly gave Harmony a black eye in August of 2019…..

It wasn’t until Kayla Montgomery testified before the grand jury, and was then charged with perjury, that her story started to change. In June of 2022, Kayla Montgomery said Adam Montgomery beat Harmony to death in the Sebring……

Adam Montgomery then decided to remove his daughter from the duffle bag and placed her into a maternity bag from Catholic Medical Center.

How would Adam Montgomery have access to a maternity bag from Catholic Medical Center? Did Kayla Montgomery provide it for him? And how credible a witness is Kayla Montgomery anyway? She has a history of fraud, lying, and missing court dates. So far, she’s been given an absurdly lenient deal, given the gravity of the case and her role in it.

But then there’s another curious statement:

Adam Montgomery then kept his daughter’s remains in the freezer at the Portland Pie Pizza restaurant on Elm Street where he worked, the affidavit said.

Portland Pie abruptly closed doors on March 1, 2020 — within three months or less of Harmony’s alleged murder. Was the shutdown of the company related to Harmony Montgomery’s remains being kept in the restaurant freezer?

The last time the DCYF saw Harmony was in October of 2019. Despite months of Sorey raising the alarm about the whereabouts of her daughter, DCYF waited until September of 2021 to contact the Manchester School District about the girl. DCYF did not contact Manchester police. In fact, police started the investigation based on Sorey’s call to the department.

Who shapes the media for police, prosecutors, and DCYF but Amanda Grady Sexton of the NHCADSV. Whichever way any of them dress it up with pretrial media leaks of potentially coerced affidavits, there is no getting around the fact that police and DCYF carry a great deal of responsibility for what happened to Harmony Montgomery. And the NHCADSV do, too in working with these agencies and prosecutors to create and control media that protects their own where they bask in qualified and sovereign immunity.

History demonstrates in spades that pretrial media in New Hampshire is not to be trusted, and it is planted for the police and prosecutors by the “Victim’s Advocates.” But nobody has actually been an advocate for Harmony Montgomery, whether she was murdered as Kayla Montgomery’s unsealed affidavit claims — or trafficked. Is the murder story in her affidavit a cover-up? It’s not that far-fetched of a notion if you read this lawsuit.

Harmony’s remains have not been found.

Governor Sununu knew that Adam Montgomery was a violent drug trafficker. So did the police. So did DCYF. So did NHCADSV. So did Children’s Advocacy Centers, which are DCYF. That means so did the board members of Children’s Advocacy Centers, which include Richard C Tracy, NH’s top crimes investigator, police officers in Manchester, and DAs.

 

 

The post Governor Sununu and the Circus of the Harmony Montgomery Investigation Performance Artists appeared first on Granite Grok.

The U.S. Constitution is the greatest document in world history.  It does not need to be rewritten.  It needs to be read and understood.  We are not teaching it in our schools.  We know that because there are generations of birthright Americans who are crappy citizens who hate America.

We want to thank Marc Abear for this Op-Ed. If you have an Op-Ed or LTE
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Our constitution is not a way for the government to bind, restrain or control Americans.  It is not a tool of government at all.  The United States Constitution is a tool for us, We the People.  It is how American citizens are to limit and restrain Government’s size, growth, and power.

The people who wrote our constitution were extremists in the cause of liberty.  People like Patrick Henry were not meeting their opposition halfway.  They were not whining about free healthcare, free college, or free housing.  Those things are not American birthright.

The founders wanted the opportunity to control their own destiny.  They were fierce people, determined to defend what was theirs, to respect others as they respected themselves, and to live in a place where we all have the right to try, to fail, and do it again until we make things better.

If you think it is right to compare our ancestors with immigrants crossing our southern border today, you have no understanding of America or what being American is about.  Settling an untamed, undeveloped land and building Judeo-Christian civilization is not the same as coming to an industrialized nation so you can sign up for the government-sponsored freebies.

The people who wrote the U.S. Constitution did not include the Second Amendment because they enjoyed hunting.  They had just fought a war to liberate America from the tyranny of a king.   They wanted, they expected, every man to support and defend his freedom from governmental tyranny.  That’s why we need the right to keep and bear arms.

Today many Americans are willing to; they do crap all over this country.  They denigrate her inception, her history, and her future.  That is because they have not walked in the boots of those who came before.   They are frustrated by what they were not given.

They do not understand what the colonies which preceded the American nation were. They do not understand why we fought the King. They do not grasp the significance of the Civil War.  They do not love freedom, opportunity, or the duties of citizenship.

They understand how to destroy what is but not how to build on the base.  Unity does not come from the destruction of other people’s property rights or attempting to compel them to do what is not in their own self-interest, or trying to compel belief and conformance.

 

The post Regaining America appeared first on Granite Grok.

Montgomery County Maryland Public Schools (a swanky DC suburb) have themselves a dilemma. The laws of the state and policies of the schools allow parents to exclude their children from objectionable lessons, but the district has decided to ignore the requests.

 

Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools claims it was flooded with opt-out requests when the books [“storybooks” with sex workers, kink, drag, gender transitions and same-sex romance] were introduced in the curriculum in January, giving it legal justification, on logistical grounds, to issue a blanket policy of no exceptions and no notifications.

The district didn’t provide a specific number or even vague range, however, in its memorandum opposing the motion for preliminary injunction by Catholic, Muslim and Ukrainian-Orthodox parents who filed the First and Fourteenth Amendment lawsuit in May.

 

The school said you can opt out of the grooming lessons, so parents of faith – of which there appears to be a majority – did. This made using the books untenable, so the district said F— All! and retracted the opt-out because it claims it cannot operate given the demands.

Really, how did you operate these schools prior to January, when these offensive titles were added to the library and curriculum? Uniform statewide control of public education was authorized in 1864, and by 1865, “Maryland shifted from local control of schools to a highly centralized system whereby the State Board with the State Superintendent selected textbooks, set the curriculum, certified teachers, approved school building designs, and distributed State funds.”

For more than 155 years, Maryland educated children without “storybooks” with sex workers, kink, drag, gender transitions, and same-sex romance. I find it difficult to accept that you could not right your logistical ship with their removal.

Besides, isn’t this combined effort the very thing for which you pithy progressives and your coexist bumper stickers have been hoping?

Jews, Muslims, and Orthodox Christians (and no doubt other denominations of Christianity are on board) in agreement on the need to focus on academics.

 

The district imposed the no-exception and no-notification policy March 23, a day after it told the media it would honor requests and issue notifications, which united parents across the religious spectrum in opposition.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a reliably liberal advocacy group on most issues, has been especially vocal and visible in challenging the policy.

“Public schools have an obligation to be inclusive and neutral,” Maryland Director Zainab Chaudry said at a multifaith rally Thursday. “They can’t be favoring one group over another.”

 

We’ve been writing about the inevitable clash of approved left-Wing victim groups for some time, and while this is not the first example, it could become a very deep trench on the frontline in the Left’s Gender war. If the Muslims that the progressives have been encouraging and accepting with open-arms pushback in numbers, the sex-book party might find itself at cross purposes.

They aren’t at all concerned about Christians or Jews, but Muslims intimidate them.

And imagine all of them, other concerned parents and feminists trying to protect women from predatory men using trans-policy to gain access to potential victims, all sharing an issue.

All coexisting in opposition to the Left’s latest cultural hill to die on, but that would be the old coexist. There’s a new one.

 

 

The new one is gender approved and comes with the same progressive contradictions as the original. The goal is not to get everyone, mentioned or not, to get along. It is to get them all under the thumb of the government and subservient to its wishes. If you’d like an example, the Montgomery County Maryland Public Schools response to parents of faith opting out of “instruction” involving “storybooks” with sex workers, kink, drag, gender transitions, and same-sex romance. will do.

 

 

 

The post COEXIST Bumper Stickers Come to Life … As Interfaith Opposition to Left-Wing Porn in Public Schools appeared first on Granite Grok.

Memo to the NHGOP gubernatorial candidates: The NH-Communists Democrats running for Governor, with a few exceptions, stopped pushing “broad-based” taxes in 1996. Yet a quarter of a century later, the NHGOP continues to insist that this election is about an income tax (and/or a sales tax (which we actually already have, in part, in the form of the room-and-meals tax)). See:

The lodestars for NH-Communists Democrats in 2023 are abortion and climate change … NOT an income tax/sales tax.

An ever shrinking number of voters are persuadable. Assuming the NHGOP can get its voters to vote in the same numbers the NH-Communists Democrats will get their true-believers to vote, the question then becomes how to persuade the potentially persuadable voters. Shouting INCOME TAX, INCOME TAX, INCOME TAX or talking about how to generate affordable single-family homes – not apartment complexes, but homes? HINTS – it’s 2023, not 1993, Joyce Craig is not running on an income tax, and home ownership in New Hampshire is increasingly a perk of the high-income.

The post Does Kelly Ayotte Even Know What Year It Is? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Climate News Network (CNN) didn’t mean to do it. They tried to sell the only possible takeaway as planetary doom and gloom. That’s their job, after all. But the good news is impossible to hide. The oceans are teeming with an abundance of new life.

And the piece assumes that what is happening is our fault.

 

“While the researchers are still working to unpick exactly what the changes mean, what is clear, they said, is that the changes are being driven by human-induced climate change.

 

There is no proof that Mann-made warming exists in a meaningful capacity or is responsible for the boom in ocean life, but let’s take it at face value for our discussion. The oceans are getting greener, and while they don’t know the long-term impact, it’s a net positive for ocean life.

 

More than 56% of the world’s oceans have changed color to an extent that cannot be explained by natural variability, said a team of researchers, led by scientists from the National Oceanography Center in the UK and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, in a statement.

Tropical oceans close to the equator in particular have become greener in the past two decades, reflecting changes in their ecosystems, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The color of the ocean is derived from the materials found in its upper layers. For example, a deep blue sea will have very little life in it, whereas a green color means there are ecosystems there, based on phytoplankton, plant-like microbes which contain chlorophyll. The phytoplankton form the basis of a food web which supports larger organisms such as krill, fish, seabirds and marine mammals.

 

You naughty human. A decades-long increase in ocean life. How dare you? But hey, since the seas are allegedly rising, they’ll have plenty of room to move. More Ocean food stock, healthier fish, it all sounds like a solid for planet Earth whether you were involved or not.

The only problem appears to be spin by “experts” paid to figure out how natural processes can be blamed on people so the progressives can raise their taxes.

James Taylor writing at WUWT, notes that it isn’t just CNN trying to peddle an ocean bounty as bad news for planet Earth and its various inhabitants.

 

“Climate Change Is Literally Changing the Ocean’s Color” – The Daily Beast.

“World’s oceans changing color due to climate breakdown, study suggests” – The Guardian

“Climate change is making our oceans change color, new research finds” – CNN

“Oceans are changing color, likely due to climate change, researchers find” – CBN News

“Climate Change Is Getting So Bad that the Ocean Is Changing Color” – The Byte

 

It makes sense if you are a member of the Climate Cult. Nothing disproves their mythology, and everything supports it. Cooling is a sign of warming. The greening of the earth and record crop output is a sign of impending starvation, climate migration, and doom. The steady post-ice age rise of the sea will accelerate rapidly any minute now. Or maybe now. Wait, now!

We’ve been playing that game for thirty years, and the only change is a flatlining of sea level (at least on our coastline) for over a decade.

But since nothing contradicts the approved narrative, and tithing to this faith-based scientism is mandatory, the good news that the oceans have benefited from the natural rise in CO2 can’t be anything but a sign of the climate apocalypse and entirely your fault.

 

 

HT | WUWT

The post CNN Accidentally Admits That Your Affordable Western Lifestyle is Saving the Oceans (Sort Of…) appeared first on Granite Grok.

Economic Freedom: “[E]conomic prosperity comes and goes as adherence to the principles of economic freedom comes and goes.”  – John Taylor (First Principles)

 

And this is because we elect those that promise much that Government will do for them while never saying that the tradoff is the reduction in Freedom for how you can participate in the Marketplace.  Who makes the decision: you or the central planners? It all depends on your vetting of candidates and voting for those that prize YOUR Freedom over Government control.

Lobbying as Protectionism:

To a large degree, the modern political process can be viewed as a series of “exchanges” between coalitions and politicians. Concentrated interest groups provide votes, financial contributions, high-paying jobs in the future, and other forms of support in exchange for subsidies, spending programs, and regulatory favors often financed by taxpayers. The rational ignorance effect – the fact that voters choose not to spend the time required to be well-informed – facilitates this process because a lot can happen in the halls of Congress of which voters are unaware. As a result, resources are moved toward lobbying and other favor-seeking activities and away from production and development of better products.

-James D. Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, Dwight R. Lee, Tawni H. Ferrarini, and Joseph P. Calhoun (Common Sense Economics)

 

And ending with the “Selling The Rope By Which Anti-Capitalists Will Hang Them.”:

 

When the history of corporate America is written, one of its most shameful chapters will be about how big business sold out to political correctness, by inflicting the harangues of “diversity consultants” on their employees and donating their stockholders’ money to advocacy groups opposed to the free market on which their own existence depends.

-Prof. Thomas Sowell (Barbarians Inside the Gates)

 

Like to BLM and the Transgender groups whose purposes are to overthrow our Capitalistic system or to so regulate it that it is no longer free.

The post Freedom, Protectionism, and Selling The Rope By Which Anti-Capitalists Will Hang Themselves appeared first on Granite Grok.