The “leaders” of the NH-House GOP apparently believe that the voters in New Hampshire are Koch-bots, that their most important issue is cutting business taxes. Stated slightly differently, it’s as if the  goal of these “leaders” is not winning elections and gaining actual voting-control of the House, but rather getting a pat on the head and an attaboy from the local Koch organization.

It’s really not that complicated. Any voter who thinks cutting business taxes is the most important issue is already going to vote for the candidate with the “R” after his name. The best that focusing on cutting business taxes is going to achieve with the rest of voters … the vast, vast majority of voters … is NOTHING, and more likely will alienate voters being crushed by high local property taxes and who have seen the NHGOP fail to deliver real wins … not paper wins … on CRT and DEI.

So this is what inspired this post:

It’s also worth mentioning that the NH-House GOP leaders are speaking the language of the Democrats and the GOP-elite. Taxes are NOT “revenues.” Taxpayers, whether they are businesses or humans, are forced to pay taxes. There is no choice. Taxes are TAXES.

Essentially what the NH-House GOP leaders are telling voters is that they intend to, yet again, do absolutely NOTHING about stratospheric local school taxes (such as a HARD cap), because what really matters to them is getting a pat on the head and an attaboy from Koch-world.

The post NH-House GOP … So Totally Out Of Touch … Which Is Why They’ll Be A Numerical Minority Come 2024 appeared first on Granite Grok.

We’ve made sport of Ben & Jerry’s for years, with this past week’s foolishness offering up a cornucopia of opportunities for ridicule. In classic commie fashion, Limousine Libs Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield suggested “America” give back stolen land, just not their stolen land.

B&J no longer own the company, but they get to run a board of directors who cough up progressive hairballs on the brand’s social accounts and pretend it is social justice advocacy. The anti-Jewish Jews took July 4 as an opportunity to show more ignorance than usual. They’ve since been mocked and boycotted, their parent company has lost two billion in market share in just a few days,  and now an Abenaki chief has added to the merriment.

Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Band of The Coosuk Abenaki Nation, which is descended from the nation that once controlled parts of modern-day Vermont, told Newsweek in a recent interview that the nation has always been “interested in reclaiming the stewardship of our lands.” …

However, the chief told Newsweek that, despite the ice cream company’s virtue signaling, the tribe “has not been approached in regards to any land back opportunities from Ben & Jerry’s.”

That’s the thing about virtue signaling. That’s all it is. No one in Ben & Jerry’s social justice star chamber is giving up their land, transportation options, or security if they have it. But they feel very deeply about someone else sacrificing in the name of their crusade. It is the social justice equivalent of the Mullahs that preach radicalism; put on this bomb vest and blow something up in the name of Allah while we watch.

The 2020 Summer of Love BLM riots were a great example of this. Mostly peaceful protesters burned out black-owned businesses terrorizing the locals. White liberals demanded we all donate to what turned out to be cash-for mansions for anti-Semites triad. Local Dems sacrificed local police forces to this false god, and the black community was further harmed and continues to suffer. The only Black Lives that Mattered were its board members who got rich on corporate donations.

Cohen and Greenfield are cut from the same progressive cloth. Their ideological agenda would inevitably reduce everyone else into wage slaves at the bottom of a two-class one-party state.

They aren’t giving up their homes or offices. No one on the left is returning anything to anyone. All they do is take, but kudos to Newsweek and Don Stevens for poking them in their ideologically cataract-covered eyes.

“[T]he tribe ‘has not been approached in regards to any land back opportunities from Ben & Jerry’s.'”

Brilliant.

The post Abenaki Chief “Interested in Reclaiming” Stolen Land™ Where Ben & Jerry’s Built Their Corporate Headquarters appeared first on Granite Grok.

People are, with good reason, afraid to let Joe Biden continue in office, given some of the things that come out of his mouth when he goes off script. But here are a couple of recent quotations from his vice president, Kamala Harris.

1) “Culture is — it is a reflection of our moment in our time, right? And in present culture is the way we express how we’re feeling about the moment.  And we should always find times to express how we feel about the moment that is a reflection of joy, because as you know, it comes in the morning.  We have to find ways to also express the way we feel about the moment in terms of just having language and a connection to how people are experiencing life. And I think about it in that way too.”

2) “So, I think it’s very important, as you have heard from so many incredible leaders, for us at every moment in time — and certainly this one — to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future.”

It’s possible that we’ve been thinking about the vice presidency in the wrong way.  Maybe the main job of the Vice President is simply to make the President look good by comparison.  In which case, Ms. Harris is perhaps the best Vice President ever.

The post Best Vice President Ever? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Representative Paul Tudor Rockingham 1 Northwood / Nottingham endorses Jim Guzofski in the Republican Primary Special election on August 1st, 2023.

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

These are particularly difficult times for New Hampshire with skyrocketing electricity prices, record inflation, and out-of-control gas and heating fuel. We have also experienced the eroding of our personal freedoms and liberties, from parental rights in education to intrusive business regulations, as we saw play out during the Covid pandemic.

There is one candidate for State Representative in Rockingham 1 Northwood Nottingham who will put the people of New Hampshire first, stop government overreach and hold the line on taxes and spending. That candidate is Jim Guzofski. As a two-term selectman in Northwood, with 34 years in the ministry, he is a conservative Republican who understands we need to bring local values to Concord and to stop the politicians from taking more control over our lives.

I’ve known Jim for several years and observed his strong conservative approach to government in Northwood. He is a minority conservative voice on the very progressive Northwood selectmen board. He’s fought hard to toe the line on taxes and return surplus money back to town residents by using it to reduce town tax rates.

Jim strongly opposes any State income or sales taxes and is a strong steward of the taxpayer’s money. Along with being a selectman, he serves as a fire department Chaplain responding to many local calls in support of our Emergency responders and Veterans. To quote Jim,” The dedication and commitment of our emergency responders is astounding. They need our total support through financial funding and prayer as they deal with life-or-death issues. Our veterans, who have already done their service for all of us, need the same type of support.”

Jim supports Freedom of speech, Freedom of religion and is a strong 2nd amendment advocate opposing any restriction to our second amendment rights.

A seasoned professional with years of public service as a pastor and select board member, Jim is the person we need to take on the Democrat candidate in September. This is a very important special election and could determine control of the house. We need every conservative New Hampshire citizen in Rockingham 1 to come out in support of the Republican agenda by voting for Jim Guzofski.

I urge you to vote for Jim Guzofski for State representative on August 1st, 2023.

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

The post Rep. Paul Tudor Endorses Jim Guzofski in the Republican Primary Special Election on August 1st, 2023 appeared first on Granite Grok.

On Tuesday, June 27th, Aria DiMezzo checked into the FMC Devens federal prison in Ayer, Massachusetts. Dimezzo faced multiple charges relating to her sales of Bitcoin over the span of a few years. She ultimately pled guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business in September 2022. On April 25th, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $5,000. DiMezzo worked as a manager at Domino’s Pizza and a regular host of Free Talk Live, a widely syndicated libertarian radio show and podcast.

The post Satanist Anarchist Begins Prison Sentence appeared first on The Liberty Block.

District Court’s injunction from coordinating with social media companies; why did States have standing in this case but not in the election cases when courts said they did not have standing? SCOTUS decision on affirmative action; will legacy admissions be affected? Will universities train applicants how to circumvent the ruling by claiming adversity?

The post The Conservatarian Exchange Podcast #161 appeared first on The Liberty Block.

As you all know, our schools have gone woke, school curriculum is written by Left-leaning (to the point of being Marxists), and media will mouthpiece anything their political Masters tell them to do (not that it takes all that much urging as we all know). So when Grokster Mike made me three offers, I jumped at them all. However, these first:

From GeekPress: Physical Encyclopedia

“I just bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, and I regret nothing”. (Via H.R.)

…A World Book rep told Quartz in 2019 that the print encyclopedia sold mostly to schools, public libraries, and homeschooling families. Today, Evans says that public and school libraries are still the company’s primary customers. “World Book has a loyal following of librarians who understand the importance of a general reference encyclopedia in print form, accessible to all.”

…The 2023 version spans 17,000 articles spread over 14,000 pages in 22 volumes. The company says it features over 25,000 photographs, illustrations, diagrams, and maps…At a time when most information comes to us for free online (with strings attached, of course), it’s easy to have sticker shock at the $1,199 retail price for the 2023 edition of World Book

and

National Geographic magazine has laid off the last of its staff writers

National Geographic, the iconic yellow framed magazine that has chronicled the natural world for more than 100 years, laid off its last remaining staff writers this week, multiple departing staffers said. The latest round of layoffs at the magazine cut 17 editorial positions, including all of the publication’s staff writers, its entire podcast staff, and a group of editors, including one who’d been on staff for nearly 40 years, a former staffer affected by the layoffs told CNN. The layoffs, which were announced to the staff in April, were part of a wave of cuts from parent company Disney, which resulted in thousands of positions being axed across the media giant.

And the rest of the story…

What you didn’t know was that some long treasured times, in my youth, were spent with my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Larry. My Mom (single parent) would drive us from Brockton down to Mattapoisett to spend the weekend with them (she was my Mom’s older sister). First thing on Friday nights is that we’d make chocolate chip cookies (and yes, they were better than Mom’s (which were pretty good in their own right)). Then I’d head down to the finished cellar and dive into into the NatGeo magazines that spanned back to the early 1900s – you know, BEFORE “woke” was something we all did in the morning and got out of bed.

Sidenote: with the above layoff notice, please note that the National Geographic Society is separate from Disney. But I’m betting they are rather steamed at how their “joint-venture” just turned out.

Hours upon hours were spend down there, just soaking all that information up about all kinds of geography, culture, history, science, habitats; those memories remain with me to this day.

So when Grokster Mike offered the collection that he and Mar-Mar had gathered up over the years (with the backstory that Mar-Mar, being the self-appointed fairy grandmother to The Grandson, had ALWAYS showered him with books of all kinds), I said yes. Dunno where I’m going to put them yet, but as he is downsizing from his digs in the southern part of the State, but I’ll find a place for them such that the Grandson (and others, including ME!) can be sponges for all that material.

And for me, to relive some of those old memories.

As to the first, Mike also offered his hardcopy encyclopedia set (back in the late last century) as well so I snatched them up as well. After all, no wokeness there and it has HISTORY in there that the Left hasn’t corrupted yet. Mike also donated a set of bookcases in which to house them all as his new (transitory?) digs don’t have room for them.

For me, these written pages are solid gold even as I spent the majority of my time online hunting for stuff to write about. They will be treasured for years.

Again, Mike – MANY THANKS!  Especially for reawakening old and dormant memories of magazines and A.B. and U.L.

The post Of Old Encyclopedias (Dead Tree Ones) and National Geographic Magazines appeared first on Granite Grok.

My first question, after reading the headline “Court rejects Satanic Temple’s claim that Texas abortion ban violates ‘religious freedom,’” was, does the left want these folks playing so publicly on their team? Satanists are claiming that aborting babies is a religious right (by which they must mean rite).

[The Satanic Temple] is known for agitating against pro-life laws, sponsoring LGBT “pride” events, erecting Satanic statues on public property, and promoting “Satan clubs” on public school property, among other attention-generating antics in support of various left-wing agenda items.

What in the name of Lucifer’s cloven feet is this nonsense?

“SB 8’s ban on abortions after six weeks infringes upon our members’ rights to engage with their chosen religion and to participate in religious rites and rituals,” claimed TST Director of Campaign Operations Erin Helian. “In accordance with our Third Tenet, The Satanic Temple will push back against the Texas legislature’s violation of our members’ bodily autonomy and freedom of choice.”

Admitting that abortion is, or at least might be, a religious sacrifice could be a red-listed bridge too far, even for your average I-Stand-With-Planned-Parenthood T-shirt-wearing blue-haired trans-feminist. You say it is your body, but it is actually an altar to satan, and abortion docs are high priests performing ritual sacrifice. I feel certain they’d all be happy to claim the tax deduction (my body is a temple to satan!) but won’t this put a hitch in Big Abortion’s Gary Cooper step?

Maybe some enterprising new media reporter can ask the next time they take questions at a Press conference: and not just Big A, but ask any of their fully paid-for franchisees doing business as elected officials.

Excuse me, is abortion a religious rite (that’s R-I-T-E) protected by the first amendment?

And in related news, is it worth reminding you that Statan CON in Boston (back in April) required masks and proof of vaccination? That was amusing, but this is just hysterical.

TST is a secular-leftist group that purports to embrace Satan’s name as a “symbol of the Eternal Rebel in opposition to arbitrary authority” while not believing that God, the devil, or other supernatural concepts literally exist, but also promotes satanic rituals.

There is no God nor Satan, but they sued to protect abortion based on religious rights that, banded on their worldview, do not exist.

They are self-admitted lefties. Government is their god, as is satan.  That’s an accurate description of the Democrat party if you ask me.

The post This’ll Be Fun: Satanic Group Claims Abortion Ban Violates Their Religious Freedom appeared first on Granite Grok.

I started on this kick back in the late 1990s as I became more politically aware and conscious of how politicians were always on the hunt for my wallet – and there’s nothing wrong with my sense of self-interest in protecting that private property.

My voice got louder once elected to my hamlet’s budget committee when the Town and School Board kept saying, “But it’s Free Money.” All kinds of grants that I asked about and later found were an on-ramp for the Town and School District to spend OUR money  – “They’ll pay for one cop and two firemen now, but we must keep them on the payroll and pay all of it after the initial three years.”

It’s the same story with our “sidewalk to nowhere,”  for which a six-grade class’s students got a grant. Nothing ever financially ratchets downward – NOTHING.

And thus, we get into this situation:

The problem isn’t purely a function of more debt. The bigger issue is that this new debt comes with a much steeper price tag. Interest on the national debt is rising at an alarming clip. The trailing 12-month (TTM) interest on the debt clocked in at just under $600 billion in May. This was up from $350 billion at the start of 2022, less than 18 months ago. The government has added an extra $250 billion in expenses per year on just debt service.

This is just the beginning of an upward trend. Based on the current interest payments, the Treasury is paying less than 2% interest on the total debt. But a lot of the debt currently on the books was financed at very low rates before the Federal Reserve started its hiking cycle. Every month, some of that super-low-yielding paper matures and has to be replaced by bills, notes and bonds yielding much higher rates. That means interest payments will quickly climb much higher unless rates fall.

Looking at the Treasury sale on June 26 reveals the extent of the problem. The Treasury sold $162 billion in securities, with $120 billion in short-term Treasury bills with high yields.

• $58 billion in six-month bills at an investment yield of 5.45%
• $62 billion in three-month bills at an investment yield of 5.34%.
• $42 billion in two-year notes at a high yield of 4.67%, amid very strong demand. Longer-term yields are still far below short-term yields.

For comparison, the entire US military budget is $858 billion. If interest rates continue to rise, that National Debt Interest is going to soar and can very easily take over most of the Federal budget quickly (go ahead, do the compute exercise if rates go up 3% or 4% over the next few months.

The question then becomes, WHO is going to take the haircut financially? And when that happens, WHO and HOW will be blame apportioned and met out? I would like #HeadsOnPikes for any politician that voted for the policies that led us up to this point. Starting with our own Federal Democrat coven of financial witches…but I’m not averse to going back in time for others (regardless of party affiliation) to do the required “wash, rinse, repeat”.

Will we, the electorate, finally figure out that it is our elected representatives that need to have their political heads (e.g., removal from Congress and the White House) removed?

(H/T: ZeroHedge)

Add this:

Politicians claim their bills bring us good things. Free health care! Child care! A cellphone for all!

But government isn’t Santa Claus. Government is force.

Most every law takes away a little of our money or freedom or both.

The post It’s Not like I Haven’t Been Warning People for Decades… appeared first on Granite Grok.

Yesterday, I scrabbled together a quick comment on Ben & Jerry’s ignorant indigenous Independence Day tweet, but when I saw Rob Roper’s take, mine went into the digital dustbin. I liked his more, but the fates have since blessed me with news that makes for a great follow-up.

Related: Ben & Jerry’s Says, “Hold My Bud Light!”

First, here’s the dopey tweet from Vermont’s socialist millionaires.

This 4th of July, it’s high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it. Learn more and take action now: https://t.co/45smaBmORH pic.twitter.com/a6qp7LXUAE

— Ben & Jerry’s (@benandjerrys) July 4, 2023

Rob’s headline was prescient. Unilever, which owns Ben & Jerry’s but allows Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield to head a board that sends out stupid tweets, lost two billion in market cap since, as calls for a Bud Light Level boycott of B&Js takes root.

Unilever stock lost about $2 billion in market capitalization amid calls to boycott Ben & Jerry’s ice cream after the company posted a Fourth of July message saying the United States should hand Mount Rushmore over to Native Americans.

Shares of Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch multinational company, dropped about 0.5 percent on Friday, 0.8 percent on Thursday, and 0.5 the previous day. It’s not clear if the drop was due to the calls to boycott Ben & Jerry’s, which has been owned by Unilever since 2000.

That’s a pittance for them. A hiccup. But so was Bud’s before things got serious. We will know soon enough. Ben and Jerry not only stepped in it, they did it on Independence Day with a level of ignorance typically reserved for the corporate media. They picked Mount Rushmore and the Lakota Sioux as the first land we should give back to the indigenous people. Not the land on which sits every Ben & Jerry’s, or any retailer that sells it, or even under their own homes, but Mount Rushmore.

Corporate media-level ignorance.

We’ve written about this very claim, made by the Lakota Sioux who stole the land from the Cheyenne, and they from whomever, and so on back to the original colonization of North America 16,000 give or take years ago when it was land occupied by no one up to that point but has changed hands ever since.

Regular readers will also be familiar with my scores of pieces on the notion of indigenous people in America. There were none. If you were born here, you’re no less indigenous, and if having your property taken is the only other requirement, your government has taken some and is working diligently to steal everyone’s land. That sort of government never gives back, and that’s the same team for whom Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield play.

As for an official Ben & Jerry’s boycott, game on, stop buying it. Just understand that, like Anheuser Busch, which is owned by a foreign colonialist power, Unilever is another foreign multinational. The stock price is reflective of many influences, none of which have to do with you taking your umbrage with the Birkenstock Socialists from Vermont. And if that’s not a good enough reason, do it because of their religious devotion to left-wing talking points; from #MeToo to BDS to Reverse-Racism, they’ll ape whatever hate and ignorance the DC/Media narrative mill coughs up, even on Independence Day.

They sort of hate America and the government that made their wealth possible. You can’t take that away from them, but maybe you can put enough pressure on the brand to get Unilever to disband their social justice board and any future ability to use the brand to express their dopey ideas.

They can, after all, afford to tweet as themselves.

The post Is Ben & Jerry’s Taking a Bud-Light-Level Beating After Ignorant Independence Day Tweet? appeared first on Granite Grok.

It’s the second line:

IS SHE MENTALLY SLOW? SHE HAS TO ASK THAT?  ‘It Smells Bad’: Nikki Haley Asks Whether Biden Loves Hunter More Than He Loves America.

The Bidens would sell out America for a used condom and a pack of Twinkies. Arguably they already have.

While everything that has been popping up about Biden Shakedown Inc. consist only of allegations, I would like to say that we are starting to see the “swirling the toilet bowl” phase and none of it is good. I keep thinking back to that infamous line by Biden Sr.: “if that lawyer isn’t fired, I’m taking that billion dollars home with me” (the US, not his home but I wouldn’t be surprised if a bundle here or there made it to Delaware).

But knowing what we do about Junior (that would be Hunter, if you don’t know), I would not be surprised if the Blogline of the Day held true.

(H/T: Instapundit)

Also, this from Instapundit.

The post Too Good (or Bad?) to Pass Up? appeared first on Granite Grok.

In celebration of American Independence, a Louisiana Judge blocked the Feds from colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans on social media. This was meant to stop the FBI, CIA, CDC, and others from pressuring the platforms to remove content at their discretion. Biden Inc. was not amused.

The Biden administration is appealing a court ruling sharply limiting the ability of federal officials to interact with social media companies about the content contained on their platforms.

In addition, a Justice Department official said Wednesday night that attorneys there plan to act “expeditiously” to seek a stay of the unusual injunction issued on July 4 by U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty in response to a lawsuit filed by Louisiana and Missouri last year. …

The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal Wednesday evening that will send Doughty’s opinion and the accompanying injunction to the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for review. That court is considered one of the most conservative federal appeals courts in the nation, but previously ruled against Doughty on a couple of disputes about demands for depositions of federal officials in the same litigation.

They won’t find much joy at the Fifth Circuit. But as Politico suggests, an order to revisit the breadth of the ban might be possible. The question turns on this. Will the Fifth Circuit view the actions of the government through big Tech proxies as censorship in violation of America’s First Amendment Rights?

The Feds infiltrated and coordinated with private companies to control what people were allowed to publish or share. Censorship rebranded as stopping misinformation or disinformation. Actions that interfered (or meddled) with election communications.

I don’t think the Feds have a leg to stand on, but like Pooh Bear used to say, you never can tell with bees Circuit Court Judges.

The post Biden Inc. Appeals the Ban on Feds Colluding With Big Tech to Censor Americans appeared first on Granite Grok.

54% of Americans believe that Joe Biden is doing a lousy job as President. 51% do not approve of the performance of Kamala Harris. Only 34% approve of Biden’s economic performance, and those same people support Biden’s Border policies. A mere 39% polled think Biden has a grip on foreign policy. If your child came home from school with this report card, they might find themselves without certain freedoms for a few weeks. If you were generous, you would give Joe a solid D or about the same grade he got in law school. This Presidency is a disaster and the only reason Jimmy Carter is hanging tough. He wants to ensure he loses his worst rating ever to Joseph Biden.

Two facts Biden, Harris, and Karine Jean-Pierre fall back on when discussing the economy are job and pay growth. Both need asterisks and disclaimers. The 13 million new jobs include the 12 million lost during the Pandemic. You cannot claim new job creation when people return to their pre-COVID positions. When inflation falls back to Earth from a nearly double-digit high, the modest rise in hourly rates is not keeping pace with inflation. Much of the rate increase comes from continued jumps in the minimum wage. These minimum wage increases harm small business owners the most, resulting in rising costs or businesses closing. These added costs add to inflation, and the lousy cycle continues. This is life in the real world, and why nobody is buying into Bidenomics.

Biden went to South Carolina this week to promote Bidenomics. South Carolina is one of the booming Southern states pulling people and businesses from the Northeast and West. There is a boom in states like Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, Florida, and the Carolinas because they are more attractive for many reasons. The crime rates are lower, some of these states have no state income tax, real estate is more affordable, and many are right to work, meaning less union control. This migration is because of forces due to us being a Republic. States can create their economic environment and attract people from other states. Biden does not understand these forces and claims to be the reason for the economic boom. This is simply not true. The boom in these states is despite, not because of, Federal policies. That was not enough for Biden, who had to go even further in his lie. He claimed his policies were better for Red states than Blue states. He was okay with these results because he is President for all Americans, Red or Blue. Even going into his patented whisper, nobody buys what Biden is serving. Bidenomics will be more of a liability than a benefit for Biden in 2024.

Biden and Harris cannot deliver the message, which is why their approval ratings are falling. Bidenomics may have worked for Biden’s Dad, but it does not work for America. Biden claims he is for the middle and lower classes, but if he keeps penalizing the upper class, there will be no growth, and we will continue to be a service, not a production, economy.

The post Bidenomics Is Folly, Here Are Some Facts appeared first on Granite Grok.

Okay… So, by now you have probably heard that Ben & Jerry’s, in a “Hold my Bud Light” attempt to see who can alienate the most customers with one Tweet, kicked off July 4th with the statement, “It’s high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it.”

Please welcome Robert Roper, who will be joining us as an author/contributor when VermontGrok opens its doors.

The PR equivalent of blowing your fingers off with an M-80.

A more detailed press release explained, “Who doesn’t love a good parade, some tasty barbecue, and a stirring fireworks display? The only problem with all that, though, is that it can distract from an essential truth about this nation’s birth: The US was founded on stolen Indigenous land. This year, let’s commit to returning it.” The company, which was purchased by Unilever in 2000 for $326 million, then suggested that we start by giving the Black Hills, including Mount Rushmore, to the Lakota Sioux.

So, here’s my question. If the US government, having stolen this land from the Sioux, gives it back to them, will the Sioux then give it back to the Cheyenne, the Native American tribe the Sioux stole the Black Hills from less than 75 years before the US Government signed the first treaty granting the Sioux rights to the land? Who the Cheyenne stole it from is beyond this author’s knowledge of Native American history, but presumably, it was someone. Where are the Clovis people today?

Donning my Woke Hat for a moment, isn’t it a rather Eurocentric view of history and social justice to assign these theoretical ownership rights to whoever happened to be occupying the land at the time white men “discovered” it? Isn’t that a cultural devaluation of all Native American history before the arrival of Europeans on the scene?

The fact is that Native American tribes were constantly at war with one another, taking and occupying one another’s territory through brutal acts of violent conquest, often capturing the members of rival tribes into slavery – sex slavery if you were a young woman, which was the style at the time.

When the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth in 1620, Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag tribe, allowed them to stay (breaking a long-understood, universal Native policy toward Europeans of “trade then leave”) and gave them aid not so much out of charity, but because the Wampanoags were about to have their land taken away by the Narragansett tribe. Massasoit thought these new immigrants – and their guns – would be handy allies in preventing such an attack. It worked! At least in the short term. Long term, let’s just say there are lessons to be learned from the experience.

When Francisco Pizarro began his improbable conquest of the Inca empire, he was greatly aided by the fact that the Inca chief Atahualpa was in the middle of and distracted by his own war for imperial power, his armies away conquering distant lands and not immediately available to protect against conquistadors arriving by sea.

This is not meant to disparage the Indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere; it’s just to show that human history everywhere is the story of one people taking another people’s land one way or another since the beginning of time. We are “One Race, the Human Race,” and we all behave the same way, for good and bad.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the Saxons took the land of the Britons. The Vikings took the same land from the Saxons. The Saxons took it back until the Normans conquered England in 1066. The Romans conquered Europe. Mongol hoards swept through Asia. When Alexander does it, he’s Great. When Ivan does it, he’s Terrible. Historical juries are fickle.

If you’re going to start giving land back to its “original” occupiers, where do you start, and where do you stop? It’s an impossible task, complicated by the fact that the victims of any injustice have been dead for multiple generations, and those being punished today for those past transgressions are innocent of any crimes, which creates its own new set of fresh injustices and grievances sure to poison the present and future without actually healing the past.

If we all go far enough back in our 23 and Me profiles, we can assuredly find ancestors on both sides of the social injustice scale. Heck, someone calculated that 16 million of us are direct decedents of Genghis Kahn. Should these folks pay reparations for the actions of their ancestor? Or receive them given that their relationship was likely the result of great, great, great, great, great grandma being raped?

At some point, you have to accept that the past is the past. It is what it is. Learn from it and use its lessons to move on into a better world for all.  Let’s be glad – and eternally grateful – that we now live in a very unique time and place in human history where property rights are respected, and wars of conquest are generally frowned upon rather than glorified. It’s a good thing that we look at the history of how Native Americans were treated and conclude as a society that this was bad behavior that should not be repeated. You cannot fix history, but you can use it to build a better future.

So, how about we use our Independence Day to pledge to keep this new and fragile record of progress regarding human rights and the continued eradication of poverty and violence worldwide moving in the right direction for future generations to enjoy? Let’s thank the rise of capitalism and the evolution of governing philosophies embodied in our Constitution and Bill of Rights for their huge role in ushering in this unprecedented time of peace and prosperity where anybody from anywhere can be a success — even two ungrateful hippies getting rich selling luxury ice cream.

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

Cross-posted | RobertRoper on Substack

The post Ben & Jerry’s Says, “Hold My Bud Light!” appeared first on Granite Grok.

When I filed my last Right To Know with DCYF, I had tagged these last few items. Number of data breaches; Timestamp, and Number of records exposed/each incident. And I thought about that afterward, and I came to the conclusion that more needed to be asked of this area.

After all, I grow weary of seeing Government taking much (or TOO much) time in reporting their own breaches but hypocritically turning around and actively going after the private sector for the same thing. Every time I think, “Who are YOU to tell others how to manage their affairs but can’t do it themselves?”

Sidenote: funny, the Trump Administration decided to move in a direction that would leave us citizens alone to make our own decisions. Biden, on the other hand, has decided that we all are morons and must be told what to do – yet keeps on making a mockery of itself.  But I digress…

Anyways, given that it was MY information put at risk, I was curious as to how the NH government, especially DCYF, handles our personal affairs.

Right to Know Request per RSA 91-A: “Family Connections” Data Breaches

Article 2-b of the NH Constitution by which all agents of NH Government (elected and administrative workers) shall obey:

[Art.] 2-b. [Right of Privacy.]An individual’s right to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information is natural, essential, and inherent.

Pursuant to the Right to Know Law (RSA. 91-A), I am demanding access, within 5 business days, to the following governmental records:

From the DCYF system that aggregates putative contact information of family members of accused suspects of abuse or neglect of a child such that they are sent the contact information of care providers for that child:

• Provide the number of data breaches since the “Go Live” date (when the system/subsystem was vetted for use for certain DCYF personnel in the performance of their duties) accomplished by either by State personnel or external actors (regardless of the “breach size”):
  • Timestamp of each incident
  • Number of records exposed per each incident.
• Provide the “we screwed up” confirmation announcement utilized to communicate the breach to each affected person/entity.
• For each breach, provide:
  • the number of care providers affected.
  • the number of accused affected
• Provide the remedy/remedy’s offered by the State, to those affected by the breach for remediation of the loss of their identity information
• Provide the total cost to the State/the State’s insurance companies spent:
  • remediation costs
  • legal defense actions (either through pre-court agreements, plea deals, court actions, et al)

Per RSA 91-A:4 IV(c) If you deny any portion of this request, please cite the specific exemption used to justify the denial to make each record, or part thereof, available for inspection along with a brief explanation of how the exemption applies to the information withheld.

As you are aware, in 2016, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that a governmental body in possession of records is required to produce them in electronic media using standard common file formats: Green v. SAU #55, 168 N.H. 796, 801 (2016). Unless there is a valid reason that it is not reasonably practicable for you to produce these records in the requested format, I ask that you either do so or explain why it is not practicable for you to comply.

Please also note, per RSA 91-A:4 III, III-a, and III-b, you are required to maintain the safety and accessibility of such responsive records. This also includes such responsive records (e.g., emails) which may have been deleted from respective In mailboxes/Sent mailboxes or local folders but are still available on the applicable email server or in your / email host’s backup systems or file server(s) or other archival systems.

Please let me know when these records will be sent to me for inspection. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. You may email the responsive records to me at Skip@GraniteGrok.com. If the volume turns out to be substantial, I have already set up a Dropbox folder for all of your responsive records to which they can be uploaded.

Thank you for your lawful attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

-Skip
Skip Murphy
Skip@GraniteGrok.com

The post DCYF – Regarding Data Breaches… appeared first on Granite Grok.

How does a person who is so feeble and lacking enough cognitive activity to complete a sentence cause so much damage to our fundamental rights and freedoms?

Joe Biden and his administration devise new and creative ways daily to curb our freedoms endowed upon us by God, not the government. A Federal judge issued a 150-page injunction slamming the Biden Administration for their activities during the Pandemic and putting a stop to dangerous practices and actions such as:

• Meeting
• Emailing
• Flagging
• Calling
• Collaborating
• Threatening
• Urging
• Following up
• Issuing BOLOS for censored content with social media.

In a preliminary injunction issued by US District Judge Terry Doughty, the judge ordered several federal agencies and more than a dozen top officials not to communicate with social media companies about taking down “content containing protected free speech” posted on the platforms. The ruling is significant as the injunction results from many facets of our government interfering with Free Speech, with the worst offender being Joe Biden and his Administration. Types of information censored were the Pandemic, Biden policies, campaigns, and election integrity.

Officials subject to the injunction include White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Justice Department and FBI employees, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. The case was brought forth by Republican Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, now a GOP senator from the Show-Me State. Landry and Schmitt showed a plethora of examples of censored or suppressed social postings and, ultimately, social media accounts deleted at the request of the Biden Administration.

The most hypocritical part of this chapter in the Biden Presidency is his claim that this would be the most transparent administration in history and that he was bringing decency and morality back to the White House. I do not see how censorship of your opposition and an all-out assault on our First Amendment fits into any of Joe’s claims.

Instead of apologizing to the American people and assuring us that this practice is done and will not repeat, Biden has doubled down. The administration has appealed the injunction. This thinking can only mean they are convinced their work to shut down free speech is legal and justified. They have little respect for the Constitution, which is why Biden was confusing it with our Declaration of Independence. It angers me that nobody calls out the President when he makes an obvious mistake.

Joe Biden and his team of misfits are turning our White House into a frat house. Hunter lived there for weeks to avoid being served for the support case in Arkansas. Biden hosts a Pride Month celebration, and we have topless women on the North Lawn. This week we discover a bag of Cochin in the West Wing. If this is how Biden describes a moral White House, it is understandable why he makes mistakes daily. Biden is not in control of his faculties, so naked women, bags of drugs, and an assault on the First Amendment are just another day in the life of Joe Biden.

The post Joe Gets Busted Destroying Free Speech appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Bennington Banner has an article up applauding another bucket of someone else’s money. Vermont is allegedly getting 229 million for a broadband buildout.  The editors and the Banner left out a critical and necessary point in their headline.

You wrote: “Vermont to receive $229 million from Federal Government for broadband buildout.”

Should Be: “Vermont to receive $229 million from children and grandchildren robbed by Federal Government for broadband buildout.”

The Bennington Banner is most certainly stuffed to the gills with progressives who know better—the sort of people who whine about social justice and voting rights. The Feds are over thirty trillion in debt, with the interest on that debt rising. A mountain of responsibility piled on the backs of generations who have not been born and didn’t get to vote on it.

What happened to no justice, no peace?

“This country once made a historic effort to bring electricity to rural America,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. “Today, we must make every effort to do the same for broadband. In the year 2023, high-speed internet must be treated as the new electricity – a fundamental and essential public utility for every member of the community, no matter their income or geography. I look forward to seeing this historic investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which we passed in the Senate in August 2021, bring quality broadband to hard-to-reach pockets of Vermont that have gone without internet for too long.”

“We have a real opportunity to transform rural America, in large part thanks to the Biden Administration’s commitment to rural broadband,” said Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt. “This essential service – which is key to running a successful small business, connecting with family, and getting medical care in small towns – is also key to revitalizing our rural communities. We cannot be left behind in the digital transformation, and this funding will ensure that isn’t the case.”

The Political Elite is printing another 2.45 Billion for this pet project, and while I have no issues with improving connectivity, you should have the decency to admit who will pay for it.

Legions of gender-cult mutilated children who have yet to cast a vote or work a day in their lives. Every dime you spend, have spent, in at least the past few decades, has created an unfair and exponential commitment over which they had no voice. And it makes no difference what the object. Democrats applaud spending for the sake of spending, sending trillion to Ukraine while complaining about homelessness and crime, which is a byproduct not just of their policies but of their spending.

Locals (in Vermont, New Hampshire, or anywhere else) bragging about getting money from a nation over 30 trillion in debt who also claim concern over misinformation or disinformation might want to start writing more honest headlines to clarify who is paying for it in their copy.

It’s not free. It is not the rich who will pay. It is everyone else, and more than you’d like to admit, taxes due on labors, not yer performed because they have yet to be born to be taxed.

The post You Left Out “Children and Grandchildren Robbed” … appeared first on Granite Grok.

So to recap:

• NH DCYF sent my personal information to people I don’t know so they could contact the Granddaughter that we are caring for (6/30).
• I demanded, via RSA 91-A Right To Know, how DCYF decides who gets to give it to those people I don’t know – what are their protocols.

And now, I demanded information on the system / subsystem that is in use by DCYF that creates that list of people that would receive the private info (re: location) of where care givers. My granddaughter was amazed at the names that were reeled off over the phone by the DCYF representative. MY response was “what system do they have in order to get that information, determine the correct relationships, and who has access to that information?”.  So, another RTK – this time on some of the technical aspects of such a system (assuming it is computer based – and I have no reason to believe it isn’t).

BTW, DBMS stands for Database Management System:

Right to Know Request per RSA 91-A: “Family Connections” DBMS

Article 2-b of the NH Constitution by which all agents of NH Government (elected and administrative workers) shall obey:

[Art.] 2-b. [Right of Privacy.] An individual’s right to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information is natural, essential, and inherent.

Pursuant to the Right to Know Law (RSA. 91-A), I am demanding access, within 5 business days, to the following governmental records:

First:

• Produce the form that which my wife and me, as currently unlicensed Grandparents, signed giving DCYF permission to share our personal contact information to those people that we don’t know (or they, us).

Second – (IF an in-house system, even if hosted by an outsourced hosting service):

For the Division of Children,Youth and Families, provide the name of the database system (along with its supporting subsystems) that, when queried by DCYF staff with single given name, returns non-accused family members (immediate, secondary, tertiary, including those no longer part of a family due to divorce, et al) and their personal information such that DCYF can send them notification where any placed child can be reached.

Example: enter the name of an alleged abuse/neglect suspect and the DBMS returns records (and their personal information such that those people can be notified where a placed child can be found to foster family communications after being removed from the home.

Second – To also be included in the Responsive Records to this part of this RSA 91-A demand, provide the following if being used as an in-house system (if a software-as-service solution is being used, see Third, below):

• The commercial name of the database management system (e.g., Microsoft SQL, Oracle, RDB, MySQL, Neo4J, MongoDB, et al) used to house “family connections” as described above.
• Type of DBMS:
  • SQL/Relational
  • Non-relational
  • Object-oriented
• The name of the hosting company as applicable (if not installed in-house):
  • AWS
  • Azure
  • Liquid Web
  • Other(s)

Audit Trail:

• The Request For Proposal (“RFP”) sent to prospective vendors.
• The listing of vendors contacted to demonstrate their wares
• The scoring results of each according to the RFP.
• The methodology used to evaluate the prospective DBMSs in processing the DCYF sample load including the methodology’s point/scoring system
• The “point/scoring award” results for each of the vendors after the testing phase

 

• The name of the winning vendor
• The final contract and pricing, including (but not limited to):
  • purchase price
  • Pricing model: seats, capacity measurements
  • ongoing maintenance pricing per time period
  • automatic maintenance price increasing (if automatic)
  • training classes
  • webinars
    • on-site (e.g., admin, programming, in-house support)
    • off-site (including travel costs)
    • manuals (as applicable)
• The implementation project plan showing major milestones and those costs vs (estimated vs actual)
• Names of the NH State Government (employees, elected officials)
  • sign off of the winner
  • signing the contract.
• The final cost of the implementation project management process.
• The number of times that the support contract has been renewed and each version’s pricing.
• Promised uptime/availability of the system as a whole

Current:

• Actual uptime/availability since “Go Live” to now
• Approximate size (in TB)
• Capacity utilization (all standard measures).
• Number of queries/day average
• Number of search results/day average
  • Non-zero
  • Null
• Personnel training/certification

 

• Rate of growth of content
• Enumerate the external sources / methodologies utilized in content lifetime for DBMS content:
  • acquiring
  • modifying
  • deleting
• Number of data breaches
  • Timestamp
  • Number of records exposed/each incident.

Third – IF a commercial software-as-service solution is used instead of an in-house system (even if then hosted by a commercial entity such as AWS or Azure):

• Repeat the above Responsive Record demands as applicable

Per RSA 91-A:4 IV(c) If you deny any portion of this request, please cite the specific exemption used to justify the denial to make each record, or part thereof, available for inspection along with a brief explanation of how the exemption applies to the information withheld.

As you are aware, in 2016, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that a governmental body in possession of records is required to produce them in electronic media using standard common file formats: Green v. SAU #55, 168 N.H. 796, 801 (2016). Unless there is a valid reason that it is not reasonably practicable for you to produce these records in the requested format, I ask that you either do so or explain why it is not practicable for you to comply.

Please also note, per RSA 91-A:4 III, III-a, and III-b, you are required to maintain the safety and accessibility of such responsive records. This also includes such responsive records (e.g., emails) which may have been deleted from respective In mailboxes/Sent mailboxes or local folders but are still available on the applicable email server or in your / email host’s backup systems or file server(s).

Please let me know when these records will be sent to me for inspection. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. You may email the responsive records to me at Skip@GraniteGrok.com. If the volume turns out to be substantial, I have already set up a Dropbox folder for all of your responsive records to which they can be uploaded.

Thank you for your lawful attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

-Skip
Skip Murphy
Skip@GraniteGrok.com

I do wonder if anyone else that DCYF decides to pick on has the gumption and know-how to fight back without a lawyer? Would love to shake their hand!

The post DCYF – So How Did You Determine to Send TMEW’s and My Personal Information To? appeared first on Granite Grok.

We got ourselves a presidential election, and Americans for Prosperity Action is getting involved. They sent out a mailer with the happy lead that “America’s Best Days Could Be Ahead.”  I agree. Then I flipped it over.

I’m curious how they know that and why, if they are so certain, they aren’t spending money to help fix the problem. It’s the sensible way to go. Trump is blowing away everyone almost everywhere except Minnesota, where he only has a one-point lead on DeSantis.

But otherwise, Republican voters want Trump.

I get it. The whole Trump is undesirable to the independent’s thing—and the alleged threat of a down-ticket washout. I actually have a cure. We treat the Trump candidacy the same way the same folks tell us to take the next political class RINO they put in front of us, regardless of office. Hold your nose and vote for them.

And what makes them think the Democrats won’t do the same thing to whomever Republicans pick or that it matters? If we get the 2022 treatment, the left is going to wash out the down-ticket races the same way they wash out the top of the ticket.

The cure for that is an unstoppable freight train and people willing to vote for anyone but a Democrat, no matter who that is, because we’ve articulated the separation correctly.

AFP Action decided to tell us we need someone besides Trump. They can’t say who that would be. It is outside their approved advocacy. So you are welcome to speculate.

Is Chris Christie better than Trump? Traitors Pence or Haley? Vivek. Gov. Ron? I’d take them over Biden or any Dem, but are they the people we need to de-weaponize the FBI, CIA, IRS, DOE, Big Tech, CDC/FDA, and the rest?

I just don’t see it. I also don’t see it much mattering unless we can convince Mary Ann Williamson and RFK jr to run as third-party/indies off-ticket. If we can’t divert millions of votes, the Democrats would then also need to steal in swing states no Republican is winning.

AFP should be working on mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting campaigns, and every lefty-legal loophole they can find to match the Dems ballot for ballot.

Everything else is just window dressing.

And I think Trump can win if everyone acknowledges that if he gets the nomination, we have to get him over the finish line. No excuses.

This is not, by the way, an endorsement.

The post AFP Action Doesn’t Think Donald Trump Can Win in 2024 appeared first on Granite Grok.

I have had discussions with the Attorney Discipline Office (ADO) about Nashua’s Corporation Counsel and his fitness for duty. I tried to address this matter confidentially first with an Alderman, then the Board of Alderman, and the Mayor. The topic was too hot to touch. I then turned to the ADO.

The Supreme Court has no method available for citizens to report a fitness for duty or mental health matter for people practicing in the legal profession. I witnessed a shift in Corporation Counsel’s performance after he suffered a stroke. He appeared unable to perform his job or control his temper. He became abusive, explosive, and harassing. The personal targeting appeared outside the bounds of his legal professional conduct rules.

The ADO Deputy informed me that I could not file a complaint on mental health or fitness for duty issues. Only the ADO could act on those types of problems, and they would report the matter to the Supreme Court.

One wonders how that works. How does the ADO receive information if they won’t accept the public’s complaints? I asked the ADO and received no response. Apparently, there is an antiquated grapevine system at work. I understand that these matters are sensitive, but I am somewhat insensitive to these “sensitivity concerns” having been the target of this attorney’s uncontrolled attacks. The Supreme Court’s approach to sweeping the matter under the rug, particularly given the type of work an attorney performs, can be extremely consequential. For me, it has been extremely consequential.

I recently attended a court hearing, and after the hearing, Corporation Counsel engaged in a personal, red-faced, angry, agitated attack on me. This attack was witnessed by an individual who was stunned and noted that they had never before seen that level of hatred directed from one person towards another. They were afraid he would physically attack me. The encounter was witnessed by the Nashua Deputy Corporation Counsel, who said nothing.

Those closest to Corporation Counsel appear to have chosen silence rather than addressing this sensitive issue to safeguard the Counselor and the City. This approach has created snowballing legal costs and serious liabilities for the municipality.

The post The Judicial System’s “Policy” on Mental Health and Fitness for Duty matters within the Profession appeared first on Granite Grok.