Artificial Intelligence, AI, has been with us for years, so what about it has people so riled up? Is it fear that AI will take over and rule our lives, supercomputers will replace humans, or ignorance of the concept? I feel it is the latter, as fear of the unknown can take down the strongest among us, and it can be debilitating for people who will not do the work to understand a concept. We have been in a technology explosion for the last 100 years, and nobody can argue that this growth has enhanced most lives. Still, some advances have negatively impacted individuals and society. I point to the Smartphone as one that has done both. These tools give us an infinite amount of information in our hands, but that device has made us dependent on technology and disrupted social connectivity. AI is a tool, and we have to learn to use that tool for good, not evil. But that decision is not the government’s to make.

AI has been with us for years, from robots making cars to helping surgeons in the operating room. We have benefited from AI, and in some cases, it has replaced our job. Like any other phase of technology, the advances ebb and flow. We are in a dynamic stage that concerns people because they cannot keep up with the pace. Fear trumps knowledge. I have been using AI for my writing for years and would not compose anything, from an article to a text, without it. Sometimes it is unnerving how the writing assistant understands my thought process and recommends a more straightforward way of presenting it. It also is my grammar and spell check. That is simplistic compared to the programs that are writing books or songs. The ability of AI to “think” like a human is startling, but we have to be aware of the pitfalls and develop means to distinguish between AI and human products.

Fear and trepidation are not to be solved or assuaged by a government agency or an AI Council. I fear government intervention more than a free enterprise unchained to explore possibilities. That quest by free thinkers is the core of advances that make our lives easier and more enjoyable. We should not allow the government and its inherent politics to control this technology. The government is designed to represent us, but we are no longer free people when we enable the government to assume control of our lives. Over the last two years, we have seen the results of our government wielding its power. The restrictions and rules grow as our freedoms wane.

The fear is that AI will cost jobs and eventually control the human race. Progress has always forced the workforce to morph. Think of manufacturing if every item we use was made by hand. We would never have enough supply or afford the cost. Labor had to shift to other needs. As for computers taking our place in the hierarchy, computers are still machines, and we always have control of the delete or power buttons. I am excited about AI’s possibilities and hope we can embrace it and quicken our pace to understand and use it rather than fear the potential. The potential of Joe Biden, Diane Feinstein, or John Fetterman putting their fingers on AI should be our greatest fear.

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The U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, was in China last weekend. He was there to polish President Xi’s shoes. Before the trip, the White House said Blinken was not going with the intention of making any deal or conveying any information. No big results should be expected.

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True to form, Mr. Blinken underperformed his goal.

The goal of the White House was to reestablish an emergency line of communications with Beijing. The hope was to be able to avoid an accident that might lead to military conflict between the nations. President Xi turned the proposal down. As importantly, the manner and words Xi used in delivering his message declining the request are a personal affront to both Mr. Biden and Mr. Blinken. Mr. Blinken struck out in his appearance on this point.

Blinken was also looking for help from China in clamping down on Mexican drug cartels making fentanyl. Chinese pharmaceutical companies partner with Mexican cartels by providing the precursor ingredients needed to manufacture fentanyl. The fentanyl manufactured in Mexico is flooding into the U.S. The CDC has reported there have been over 100,000 deaths from fentanyl overdoses in the U.S. No commitment for help on the fentanyl issue was obtained from China. Mr. Blinken struck out again.

Mr. Blinken went to China with two big asks. He got nothing on either issue except insulted personally and nationally. What was accomplished on this trip? Mr. Blinken says he had a robust discussion on a range of issues, including North Korea, Ukraine, and human rights. There were no results of any sort on those issues either. Mr. Blinken struck out on these issues too.

It seems President Xi thinks Mr. Blinken and Mr. Biden have more kowtowing to do before there will be any possibility of productive talks. Incidentally, Mr. Blinken sold out Taiwan over the weekend. He said the U.S. does not support Taiwan’s independence. That would appear to be a change in position and a large one. Still, President Xi says Blinken missed a spot in polishing his shoes.

This trip was supposed to happen in February. But that was when China sent a spy balloon across America. Mr. Biden said over the weekend that he does not believe the Chinese knew where the balloon was or what was in it, or what was going on. That probably shows us that the leadership of one of the two countries, America or China, has a pretty loose grasp of what is happening or what is going on. Hint: it’s not China.

Biden’s statement is stupid. He is apologizing for Beijing and its spy balloon program. His intelligence community has told him otherwise. His Secretary of State was sharing this with dozens of countries around the world. It sure appears Joe Biden is compromised by the Chinese Communist Party.

China’s spy balloon operations have been monitored for years by U.S. intelligence. They are operated by the Chinese military. They have sent many spy balloons all around the world. Mr. Blinken said as much last February when he canceled his planned trip. He also said China’s spy balloon program has violated the sovereignty of nations on five continents. Now, Mr. Blinken says it’s time to close that issue…. Oh my, what a strong, decisive position… that would be derision.

China got exactly what it wanted from the meeting over the weekend. We got nothing. We gave China public assurances that we do not and will not acknowledge an independent Taiwan. China gave us the promise to study the possibility of a committee that might address China’s culpability in killing over 100,000 American citizens through fentanyl overdose. What can be taken away from what the world has been shown?

That is what the world saw over the weekend. America is as weak as Joe Biden. We gave tribute. We got a pocketful of mumbles in return. We are fools. Not just fools but weak fools. Countries around the world are deciding which power to ally themselves with. America looks as stupid, weak, hypocritical, and unreliable as our erratic, woke, leftist leadership is. That’s what the world saw.

 

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Don’t try this if you have an “R” after your name. The Gestapo … oops! I mean the FBI … will arrest you and your family and friends, in a predawn raid carried live on CNN and MSNBC and replayed endlessly, while the Regime-media and the useful idiots pretending to be Rs, like former Attorney General Bill Barr, sonorously express their dismay and disgust at your indefensible conduct.

Instead just keep on pretending that there is such a thing as “the rule of law” in America; that we can vote our way out of the authoritarian government this former republic has morphed into; that the 2020 and 2022 elections weren’t rigged and that the 2024 election won’t be as rigged as 2020 and 2022. After all, we know that the FBI can’t be the Gestapo because the Regime-media keeps telling us that Putin is Hitler.

Democrats throw a 5 minute temper tantrum in the well of the House chamber as the vote to censure Adam Schiff passes, yelling "shame" at Kevin McCarthy and refusing to allow him to finish reading the resolution. pic.twitter.com/kqQocSoZPi

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 21, 2023

 

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In the next few weeks, the Supreme Court will be finishing up its October Term. The term gets its name from the fact that it begins Oct. 1. The next few columns will unpack some of the court’s most important decisions.

I will be focusing mostly (although not entirely) on cases interpreting the Constitution rather than on cases interpreting federal law.

It may not surprise you to learn that the media “take” on Supreme Court cases is frequently unreliable. The narratives pushed by nationally reported experts—conservative as well as liberal—often are unreliable as well. This is because their understanding of the Constitution is often limited, and because many have political agendas that cloud their analysis.

In addition to other comments, I’ll be assessing each case from the standpoint of whether it applies the Constitution correctly. And by “the Constitution” I mean the document as understood when it was ratified, together with all duly adopted amendments.

Accordingly, my analysis often will be very different from what you see elsewhere in the press.

Someone Didn’t Pay Her Taxes!

Geraldine Tyler owned a condominium unit in Hennepin County, Minnesota. She didn’t pay her real property taxes for at least six years. Eventually, she owed $15,000 in taxes and penalties. The county foreclosed on her unit.

The county sold the unit for $40,000. Following Minnesota state law, the county kept all $40,000. It did not return to her the $25,000 difference between the sum she owed and the sum the county received. She claimed the county’s conduct was unconstitutional. The case is Tyler v. Hennepin County (pdf).

On May 25, the justices unanimously agreed with her. They ruled that keeping the extra $25,000 was, at least for purposes of this dispute, an unconstitutional “taking” of her property. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion.

My first instinct was to cheer. Tyler is 94 years old, and (it seemed to me) the county was trying to rob an elderly lady by taking far more than justified—an unfair “forfeiture.”

But for many years before I switched full-time to constitutional law, I practiced municipal law; practiced, wrote, and taught extensively in real estate law; and was involved in the real estate markets in other ways. With that background, I scrutinized the case further. Now I’m not so sure the result was just.

Was The Result Just?

Justice rewards personal responsibility and punishes irresponsibility. The taxes on Tyler’s unit were very moderate. She knew about real estate taxes, since she had paid them earlier. After she stopped paying, she must have received many notices that her taxes were overdue. But she ignored her responsibility for at least six years—maybe longer.

What about her age? The court said she is 94, but her neglect began years ago. More importantly, the court never said she was mentally impaired. My mother (to cite one contrasting case) wrote all the checks for her property taxes until shortly before her death at age 101.

The court intimated that family members took an active role in assisting Tyler. Indeed, they’re likely the real beneficiaries of this decision because they will inherit her property after her death. But these family members also ignored her tax bills.

Then there’s another factor: The Minnesota forfeiture statute wasn’t new. The county didn’t spring it on Tyler. The statute had been in effect since 1935. Since the property was a condominium unit and there were almost no condominiums in the United States until the 1960s, the forfeiture rule almost certainly was on the books well before she purchased her unit.

That rule, like other aspects of real estate law, was reflected in the price she paid for her unit. In all likelihood, it lowered her price. Moreover, its application to other defaulters arguably reduced her own property tax bills.

So the court’s decision allowed her to benefit from the lower price and from application of the rule to others—but then allowed her to flout the rule herself.

Was This Result Correct Under the Constitution?

The Constitution reserves the primary governance of real property to the states (pdf), so for a federal entity to intervene it must have a constitutionally grounded reason for doing so. The court cited as its reason the “Takings Clause” of the Fifth Amendment, which is part of the Bill of Rights (ratified in 1791). The Takings Clause says “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” However, as the great Chief Justice John Marshall once ruled, the Bill of Rights was designed to regulate only the conduct of the federal government, not that of states and localities.

Other parts of the Constitution address state governments. One is the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868. It requires states to guarantee equal protection of the law, due process of law, and the “privileges or immunities” of U.S. citizens. The terms “due process of law,” “privileges,” and “immunities” appear earlier in the Constitution. As the Founders understood it, “due process” means if the government proceeds against you, it can’t make up the rules as it goes along. The Founders understood “privileges” and “immunities” to be certain important entitlements created by law, such as trial by jury (pdf).

The amendment doesn’t address “takings” at all.

But the court insisted that the Fourteenth Amendment applied the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause to the states through a legal theory called the incorporation doctrine. The incorporation doctrine is the view that the Fourteenth Amendment “incorporates” all or most of the Bill of Rights against state governments. This view was developed mostly by liberal justices during the 20th century.

Volumes and volumes have been written to justify the incorporation doctrine, but authors have uncovered almost no direct evidence that the state lawmakers who ratified the Fourteenth Amendment understood the amendment that way. Instead, authors rely on circumstantial evidence—most of it very weak or taken out of context—and they largely disregard the text and structure of the Constitution itself.

The Tyler case exemplifies one reason those who claim the current court is “conservative” are simply wrong: The court continues to apply a great deal of erroneous liberal precedent.

The Gorsuch–Jackson Concurrence

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a concurring opinion. They argued that, in addition to violating the Takings Clause, Minnesota’s forfeiture law violated the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause (“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed …”).

Treating the $25,000 forfeiture as an excessive fine does make more sense than treating it as a property taking. The problem with the concurring opinion, however, is that the Eighth Amendment Excessive Fines Clause is no more part of the Fourteenth Amendment than is the Takings Clause. It’s an entirely separate guarantee, as the Constitution’s text makes clear.

Conclusion

If I were a Minnesota lawmaker, I wouldn’t have voted for the forfeiture law. But the fact that a law is bad doesn’t make it unconstitutional.

The Tyler case also shows why it’s profoundly misleading to label this bench or its six non-liberal justices as “conservative.” Protecting property from unfair taking looks conservative. But other aspects of the case look anything but.

 

 

Rob Natelson  | The Tenth Amendment Center

The post The Supreme Court’s New Decision on “Taking Property” appeared first on Granite Grok.

There’s a rumor goin’ round that some in New Hampshire continue to accept and expend COVID cash to promote the mRNA vaccines because – according to the officials who decide such things – there’s no proof of harmful side effects. Talk about low-hanging fruit.

There is proof, and it comes from the people giving you the money.

There are over 1,830,000 adverse event reports, with over 35,000 deaths and over 66,000 permanently disabled. If even ten percent of the VAERS reported adverse events are legitimate, these are still the most dangerous vaccines in human history. But let’s not get caught up on that. The CDC has plenty of evidence of harm outside the VAERS system.

The CDC launched the V-SAFE App so that emergency use vaccine enthusiasts could report symptoms or side effects and their impact on daily life in real time. About ten million COVID jab enthusiasts signed up. Over 3 million reported an adverse event (that’s 30%), with 1.2 million reporting that they were unable to perform daily activities, 1.3 million missing work or school as a result of their adverse event, and 0.8 million seeking hospitalization, because of the vaccine—primarily white women and then white men in the Eastern United States.

Not far from home.

The App did not provide any easily traceable means for tracking more severe side effects like myocardia, stroke, or death, and that appears deliberate, but 7.7% of App users reported seeking medical care on the CDC’s App.

Not enough evidence of risk of harm. How about a Pfizer clinical trial?

 

In July of 2021, a study published by Pfizer explained that “during the blinded, placebo-controlled period, 15 participants in the [Pfizer vaccine] BNT162b2 group and 14 in the placebo group died.” Using FDA-style math, that is a 7% increased chance of death.

But it gets worse. After the placebo group was unblinded, an additional 5 participants who received the vaccine died. As Pfizer explains, “3 participants in the [Pfizer vaccine] BNT162b2 group and 2 in the original placebo group who received [Pfizer vaccine] BNT162b2 after unblinding died.”

 

Eleven out of twenty cardiovascular deaths. This fits hand in glove with recent admissions by the FDA and CDC of the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis around the VAERS safety signal. And that makes sense because both were recognized side effects before deployment and have been confirmed in public admissions since.

The EPOCH Times had to use a Freedom of Information request to uncover how the CDC was aware “that a much higher proportion of events after COVID-19 vaccination were serious. For adults, for instance, the proportion was 11.1 percent, compared to 5.5 percent after non-COVID-19 vaccines. The proportion of deaths for adults was 15.4 percent after COVID-19 vaccination, much higher than the 2.5 percent after other shots.”

Additionally, “Within the Pfizer documents is Document 5.3.6 (Post-Marketing Experience), a cumulative analysis of adverse event reports occurring in the 90 days after the public rollout of the Covid-19 mRNA injection. And within that report, 275 people suffered a stroke suspected to be attributed to the vaccine between days 1 to 41; 50% of these occurred within the first 48 hours after injection.”

Twenty percent of strokes were fatal.

In October 2020, “Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, a member of the CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force and the Vaccine Safety Team, released a slide deck explaining the tools and safety protocols being deployed in advance of a COVID-19 vaccine rollout.” Included was a list of known Adverse Events which begins with getting COVID and Death.

 

CDC Scientists did not clinically review the VAERS AEs of special interest, and they lied about it when asked. We also know there was systemic or institutional pressure not to report Adverse Events, so the best data is incomplete.

We do know that the final list AEs is a good deal longer, and (as a reminder)this is official government material available before deployment and after, so not only is there evidence of harmful side effects it was known and hidden along with (drumroll please) the fact that they knew their juice was neither safe nor effective against infection or spread before the pandemic of the unvaccinated lies emerged to hide this truth.

They knew before the EUA was issued.

And this is the tip of an enormous iceberg whose water is frozen hard with evidence of harm. The proof is buried in thousands of documents that Pfizer and the FDA hoarded; only pried loose by court order. No one was supposed to know, but we do, and still, our elected leaders and public health officials who answer to them pretend all is well.

It sounds like a Pulitzer Prize-worthy exposé about a massive cover-up, but you couldn’t get a New Hampshire journalist to touch this if you paid them – and that’s a fact because they are paid and not a peep.

 

The post If NH Needs Proof The Vaccines™ Have Adverse Side Effects, Just ask the CDC and FDA appeared first on Granite Grok.

The subpoena is already at the Sheriff’s Department. Remember those folks that were arrested at that now infamous Executive Council meeting?

 

 

Details are coming my way soon as possible, but it’s in process.

To be Continued…

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Did you know America now has city-sized jurisdictions operating under Sharia?  Got your attention?  The city council of Hamtramck, Michigan, has an all-Muslim governing body and mayor.  The local Hamtramck leadership voted unanimously to ban the display of LGBTQ Pride flags.

The resolution states the city’s commitment to representing the international character of Hamtramck. This is expressed by flying only the American flag and the flags of other nations.  Mayor Pro Tem Hassan told opponents of the proposal, “You guys are the ones making problems… I’m working for the people, what the majority of the people like.”

Mayor Amer Ghalib expressed support for the resolution. His position is the city serves everyone equally and does not discriminate… that’s why gays cannot fly their flag.  Ghalib says LGBTQ interests are represented on numerous boards and commissions.

Opponents accused him of hatred, to which his response is: He never terminated anyone from the LGBTQ community, which was deflection or maybe a threat depending on who you ask.

City Councilman Nayeem Choudhury said, “We want to respect the religious rights of our citizens… You guys are welcome… [but] why do you have to have the flag shown on government property to be represented? You’re already represented. We already know who you are. … By making this [about] bigotry … it’s making it like you want to hate us.”

Hamtramck’s decision to ban LGBTQ Pride flags, in their own estimation, stems from longstanding concerns about respecting Islamic religious rights. Mr. Choudhury’s words suggest the Pride flag’s presence on city property unnecessarily exacerbates divisions, which leaves unsaid the point of the disagreement; Islam does not tolerate gays.

During the public comment session, one woman suggested Hamtramck’s slogan should be altered to reflect the city “welcomes you if you’re straight.” She then engaged in a public display of affection with another woman. The incident shows the emotion around the debate.

A Muslim community leader from nearby Dearborn, Hassan Aoun, came to participate in the discussion. He voiced opposition saying, “Pride month, don’t put it down our throats… Do not put [the Pride flag] on city property.”

The corollary question from the opposition is: Why is it appropriate to have outside religious leaders participating in this local discussion at all?

The decision follows controversy surrounding Hamtramck’s Human Relations Commission Chair Russ Gordon flying a Pride flag alongside flags of other nations last year. Is Hamtramck now following Islamic theocracy or the American constitution?  That’s the question being posed.  Which side are you on?  It is coming to a town near you.

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W.V vs. EPA is a REALLY big deal. The US Supreme Court seriously spanked the EPA for trying to use the Clean Power Plan to regulate greenhouse emissions in any or every industry it chooses.

 

Congress did not grant the Environmental Protection Agency in Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act the authority to devise emissions caps based on the generation shifting approach the Agency took in the Clean Power Plan. Under the “major questions doctrine,” there are “extraordinary cases” in which the “history and the breadth of the authority that [the agency] has asserted,” and the “economic and political significance” of that assertion, provide a “reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress” meant to confer such authority. This is one such case, so the EPA must point to “clear congressional authorization” for the authority it claims. It cannot do so.

The EPA has admitted that issues of electricity transmission, distribution, and storage are not within its traditional expertise, yet it claims that Congress implicitly tasked it with the regulation of how Americans get their energy. Without “clear congressional authorization” for the EPA to regulate in such a manner, the agency lacks authority to implement the Clean Power Plan under the Clean Air Act.

A case where an Agency’s bureaucrats decided that its Administrative expertise trumped that of the law passed by Congress outlining what it actually could do – SCOTUS said, “No can do – stop and stay in your lane.” SCOTUS said that you can’t keep doing what the Executive Branch agencies have done for decades: mission or Powers creep. Bureaucracies ALWAYS want to do more than what Congress allowed them to do and have no problem in trying to “self-justify” their action and ignoring the Constitution and their authorizing legislation. In short, do something until slapped down. Lots of our elected representatives think the same way:

• NH State Rep. Debra DeSimone (R): “The Constitution is a guideline.”
• NH State Rep. Sandra Keans (R, now D): “I don’t try to justify anything by the Constitution, it’s not my job, and I don’t want to do it.”
• NH State Rep. Susan Almy (D): “Well, you don’t get to decide what is Constitutional, and I don’t get to decide what is Constitutional; the judiciary decides what is Constitutional.”
• President Obama: “The Constitution is an imperfect document, and I think it is a document that reflects some deep flaws in American culture” (BHO, 9/01)
• Fmr. Chancellor of Boston University John Silber: “I don’t believe anybody has a right to own any kind of a firearm. I believe in order to obtain a permit to own a firearm, that person should undergo an exhaustive criminal background check. In addition, an applicant should give up his right to privacy and submit his medical records for review to see if the person has ever had a problem with alcohol, drugs, or mental illness . . . The Constitution doesn’t count!”

NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Services decided that it, too, could pull an EPA and didn’t have to follow their authorizing Law and tried to force fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico to use GPS to tell NMFS where they were all the time ($3000 for the unit plus a $75 monthly monitoring fee. Their reason that NMFS believed they were right?

The ruling is major for many reasons, including that the government tried to claim that charter boat fishing is a “closely-regulated industry” to which the Fourth Amendment does not apply.

Sure, regulations beat Constitutional Rights. Good times, good times – not. Yeah, and all innocent people have to now buy their own ankle monitors, too. And NMFA was found guilty of “exceeded the authority granted by the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), and was arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). NCLA also complained that the rule required reporting economic data that had nowhere been specified by the agencies in proposing the rule for comment.”

Make crap up, and who cares about the Constitution and Congressional-passed law. Well, in a snit, NMFS just got smacked again! Shades of Animal House: “Thank you, sir, may I have another?”

Maine lobstermen stirring the pots win bigly in federal court

Back in 2021, the National Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), issued an opinion in pursuit of preserving the endangered right whale. As these edicts go, this “opinion” has basically force of law when it comes to imposing conservation-based measures, rules and restrictions.

The right whale, which has a population hovering at a tad less than 350 individuals, has been a focus of efforts for some years. The lobster industry, reviled by many environmentalists, became an easy target for a revised set of regulations when the Biden administration took over. And they hammered them.

…At the heart of the case is a set of much-debated regulations, including new gear-marking mandates, a reduction in the number of vertical lines in the water, the insertion of weak points in rope, and a seasonal closure of a nearly 1,000-square-mile area off the Gulf of Maine.

…The rules were the first of three phases designed to reduce the risk to the whales by 98% in 10 years. But opponents have said that level of risk reduction would simply shift the extinction scenario from the whales to the lobster industry. Fishermen have long contended that right whales are not in Maine waters, and there has never been a right whale death attributed to Maine’s lobster industry.

Environmentalists, however, have argued that just because a death hasn’t been linked to the fishery doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened; a historical lack of gear marking has made it difficult to determine where an entanglement occurred.

All documented entanglements from 2016 to 2018 were linked to Canadian gear.

“Doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened” – I agree with the author in that it’s the argument that stupid losers throw out when the see the Judge’s eye start to coldly narrow and the cast on his face is worse than your Dad’s when he caught you red-handed (although not as bad as your Mom’s face – THAT was a terrible thing to face!).

And THAT is a big problem for me. ENOUGH of this nonsense – Legislators NEED to write the laws and stop throwing their messes over the wall and allowing bureaucrats to make stuff up as “Administrative Law,” which is not found ANYWHERE in the Constitution. Enough of this “delegation of Powers,” which only results in bureaucrats taking that next mile. And having done it once, NMFS did it twice – and paid the price:

…The court’s ruling found NMFS overstepped its authority when it used worst-case scenarios and pessimistic assumptions in its crafting of its biological opinion, which required it to create new rules, which required lobster fishermen to switch to new gear.

…“This history shows the Congress did not want economic activity stopped in its tracks whenever complete data was lacking,” the court wrote. “To say uncertainty is a reason to veto a federal action is to say that many valuable activities must cease, even if the risk of jeopardy is not ‘likely,’ but speculative.”

The court added that the NMFS biological opinion was “capricious” and “contrary to law.

“The service’s legal reasoning was not just wrong; it was egregiously wrong” in that it based some of its legal arguments on legislative history rather than statute, Ginsburg wrote.

And here’s my favorite part from the Judge, which is ALSO my largest lament nowadays given what I see in Life around me in our erstwhile Constitutional Republic – CIVICS and how our political/history system should be working:

“As any high school civics student should know, legislators vote on and the president signs bills, not their legislative history,” Ginsburg wrote. “Statutory text and structure do not authorize [NMFS] to ‘generally select the value that would lead to conclusions of higher, rather than lower, risk to endangered or threatened species whenever it faces a plausible range of values or competing analytical approaches,” the court wrote. “The statute is focused upon ‘likely’ outcomes, not worst-case scenarios. It requires the Service to use the best available scientific data, not the most pessimistic.”

See my “Progressives

The tide is turning (yes, intentionally) on bureaucrats in that they, like us, MUST start to Follow the Law. You know, like us? I hope that SCOTUS continues this line that the LEGISLATURE makes the law – not them.

 

HT | Hot Air

 

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In what looks like another example of the government breaking it so it can pretend to fix it,  Maine has a ballot initiative set for November “launched by a citizens group called Our Power.”

Supporters want to buy out the assets of Central Maine Power (CMP) and Versant Power – which distribute 97% of the state’s electricity – and replace them with Pine Tree Power, a new, not-for-profit distribution utility.

 

Customers are reportedly unhappy with the high cost of electricity and the poor service during outages. If anyone thinks socializing the state’s power companies will improve that, I have some cheap vodka, a hammer, and a sickle to sell you.

And this isn’t some local municipality grabbing the reins; we’re talking about the entire state of Maine’s electric supply and infrastructure controlled as a not-for-profit collective committed to a faster greening of the grid and lower prices.

It won’t work.

Those two ideas are incompatible. Government interference to green the grid raised prices and manufactured this unhappy ratepayers crisis. The government broke it, and the communists say they can fix it.

Big Utility is, naturally, spending a small fortune to stop it. They are a business and make money, and the folks behind it want to keep making money.

 

Takeovers are rare, and usually involve cities, a process called municipalization. Since 2000, more than 60 communities have considered municipalization, but only nine proceeded, according to a 2019 study for the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities.

The fight in Maine is unprecedented in scope and potential losses. In smaller takeover battles, incumbent utilities lost a share of their business. In Maine, CMP and Versant are threatened with going out of business.

 

And money has poured into the battle but not always into the hands you’d expect. The Guardian reports that Democrats are being paid to stop the ballot initiative, including “$5m to a Democratic media and political strategy firm called Left Hook that regularly works with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and is staffed with Obama administration alumni.”

Obama alumni are taking paydays to prevent the socialization of Maine’s electricity. Strange bedfellows, indeed.

And what would Mainers get if the initiative succeeds?

 

The proposal for the new plan would create an elected 13-member board made up of a mix of residents from across the state and designated experts. The board would hire a private grid operator chosen through a competitive bidding process.

 

All in the advertised name of lower rates, but the plan is still handicapped. Pine Tree Power is focused on more green energy. That will cost them and not just in price. Reliability is a problem, and we can look to Germany for the solution. Burn more coal. And even then, people will be running gas generators and burning a lot of pine trees to keep from freezing to death in February.

The last time I checked, it wasn’t green but cheaper.

 

Independent media is a rare and precious thing, even here in New Hampshire, where many in “new media” continue to carry the establishment’s water.
GraniteGrok.com is a rare exception. Please consider the value we provide and then commit to a monthly subscription, a one-time online donation (via PayPal or GiveSendGo), or you can donate by check*.

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The post Maine Ballot Initiative Socializes the State’s Electric Utilities appeared first on Granite Grok.

You can call this absurd, but trust me; they will find something MUCH stupider. It’s a racist TREE. And it is, Of COURSE, it is another [il]liberal white female ringing the racist alarm bells. Can we PLEASE revoke their right to vote? And First Amendment?

Okay, let’s get ahold of yourselves – I would NEVER advocate for the latter to be pulled – we’d lose half the stuff we get to write about in a flash.

Is GROOT safe? Even tree mascots are racist now.

According to Robin Williams, a board member for the Sarastoa-Charlotte Democratic Progressive Caucus has decided that a TREE mascot is racist too!

 

 

Local affluent white female liberal claims that the New College mascot, a banyan tree, “closely resemble[s] an angry, threatening brown individual.”

Advice for white libs: if you see a tree and immediately think “looks like a scary minority to me,” you might be the racist. pic.twitter.com/mi2SuIXPc3

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) June 19, 2023

There are a bunch of comments at the link below that put a smile on my face (from conservatives that tend toward the humorous and satirical with these kinds of issues).

The important thing to me here is that when someone (like white [il]liberal Progressive women) is constantly wearing “Race colored glasses”…

Sidenote: or as one college is now defining it, completely ERASING women by defining them as “non-man”. Imagine that – even erasing the WORD “woman”!  And the Trans-Authoritarian and Emotional Blackmailers keep screaming that THEY are being erased?  Hahahahahaha!

…and overuse and abuse the hyperbole, they become like the Little Boy That Cried Wolf  shouting “RACISM!” and “RACISTS!” It becomes meaningless. When the REAL Racism shows up, no one will care.

You know, if someone were to call me that (yes, Zandra Rice-Hawkins, I’m remembering you), my response would be, “Ayup – and don’t forget all the other names you call us, too!”

Really – a tree is racist?

 

I read this and just laughed, as the only person doing the “anthropomorphizing” of a logo to be racist is Williams.

The rest of us just see a (slightly) green tree. If you can get “racist!” outta that, you need help – serious help. This is a person, indicative of many, that see racists behind every tree so much that their racism has now melded with the tree. Talk about Tree hugging!

It should go without saying, but “trees aren’t racist,” even if you want them to be. Angry trees? I had 40 of them behind my house, and every time the wind blew really hard, they were MAD that the wind was moving them around – did that make the wind racist, too? Or because the trees were mad, they were racist?

Well, cry no more, Ms. Progressive race-baiting Williams, they’re dead; I had them cut down. Now I’m burning those racist trees to keep my family warm in wintertime – see, almost ANYTHING bad can be turned to good.

Just like you – you’ve said something stupidly bad, and now the rest of us are smiling.

See any wolves lately?

 

 

HT | Twitchy

 

Independent media is a rare and precious thing, even here in New Hampshire, where many in “new media” continue to carry the establishment’s water.
GraniteGrok.com is a rare exception. Please consider the value we provide and then commit to a monthly subscription, a one-time online donation (via PayPal or GiveSendGo), or you can donate by check*.

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The post When You Wear “Race Colored Glasses” Everything Looks Racist. Even … A Tree appeared first on Granite Grok.

Having learned nothing from the California Prison system, the Girl Scouts of America policy now states that boys who identify as girls can share tent space on campouts with biological girls.

 

Guidance for campers reviewed by LifeSiteNews indicates that boys who claim to be “transgender,” “non-binary,” or “gender-fluid” may be allowed to board with girls during Girl Scouts camping trips. While families can theoretically opt out of accommodations shared with gender-confused boys, policies in place at Girl Scout chapters allow shared overnight arrangements.

 

Given the number of “transwomen” still sexually attracted to biological women, that seems like an incredibly bad idea. But “sense” is no longer common when it comes to toeing the transgender agenda, and there is no reason for an organization that used to promote and protect girls and women not to put them in harm’s way. After all, nothing says 21st-century progressive girl power like getting raped by a Girl Scout with a penis followed weeks or months later by a secret abortion.

 

Meanwhile, Girl Scouts Black Diamond states that, for overnight events, members “who are LGBTQ+ can share a room and all facilities with other Girl Scouts.” Moreover, the wording of the guidance suggests that girls may not know whether or not they might end up boarding with a boy who claims to be female. 

 

Some more culturally center-left readers might say, what are the odds of that? Of a girl scout getting raped by a girl scout with a penis. To which I ask, how many rapes will it take to make you uncomfortable? One, one percent, give me a number. Sexual predators of all ages use the loopholes created by progressive policy to gain access to vulnerable victims. Someone will be sexually assaulted. How many girls are you comfortable with being raped to promote this agenda?

Liberal prison systems appear to be operating on a no-limit basis. Rape is a prison thing, so what’s the big deal. But this isn’t prison, or is it? I feel confident the girls are intimidated out of even whispering a jot of concern and will be encouraged to keep quiet should they be victims or witness to a transgirl raping an actual girl.

Hopefully, like the Left’s promise on abortions, they will be rare…and…and … something.

 

HT | LifeSite News

 

Independent media is a rare and precious thing, even here in New Hampshire, where many in “new media” continue to carry the establishment’s water.
GraniteGrok.com is a rare exception. Please consider the value we provide and then commit to a monthly subscription, a one-time online donation (via PayPal or GiveSendGo), or you can donate by check*.

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The post Will the Gender-Bending Girl Scouts be Adding a “Raped at Camp” and “I Hid my Abortion” Patch Combo? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Listen to pretty much any of the idiocracy (members of the press designated by the ruling class to outsmart my chickens), and not a single one cared to look at the actual laws cited by the King’s lawyers (Biden’s attorney general) to indict Trump.

Nor did they care one iota to look at any of the cases that have interpreted the laws (believe it or not, Judges in other cases have interpreted these laws and explained what they mean). Nor did they ask why other Presidents, who have done the exact same thing as Trump, never got charged (not a political issue but an issue of interpretation of the applicable law-if prior Attorneys Generals-like his honor, the all-knowing, all-seeing Lord Barr who failed to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her possession and outright theft of top secret documents- did not prosecute former President’s for doing what Trump is charged with doing, does that not mean that the proper interpretation of the law is that Trump is not properly charged).

Well, here is a thought: why don’t we blaze a new trail and actually look at the laws being used to indict Trump. (Whoops! Be careful. Looking for stuff like the actual laws may get us blacklisted by …oh, who cares? My newest chicken is named Hunter. We will just say he did it. They will only slap his wrists, no matter what we say. And what little pain they will inflict will be fleeting-he doesn’t even have any wrists, so hah!)

1. THE ESPIONAGE ACT OF 1918: Trump is charged with violating 18 U S C 793e. This law was enacted in 1918 as a part of the World War 1 effort to capture and punish spies. It was upheld under the war powers act by the then Supreme Court (the same Supreme Court that said that sterilizing “the weak and feeble-minded” was necessary to purify the white race- a fact I add here to emphasize that what the Supreme Court said in 1918 probably would not pass muster today. Consider Plessy v Ferguson upholding racial segregation in schools, and Brown v Board of Education outlawing it).

Under section e, the law provides (with redaction of surplusage- sorry, my grandson told me to use that word; it means extra and largely unneeded words that lawyers add to statutes because they get paid by the word):

“e. Whoever having unauthorized possession of any document…relating to the national defense willfully communicates …(same) to any person not entitled to receive it…or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it…shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than ten years or both.

My newest chicken, HUNTER, points out this brilliant thought: this whole statute turns upon

1.The key word “unauthorized; and

2. The key words “person not entitled to receive it;”

3. The key words “employee of the United States entitled to receive it.”

Astute and learned scholars might note: to prove that Trump committed a violation of the espionage act, the government must prove – beyond a reasonable doubt – that Trump’s possession of the subject documents was not “authorized”; that he showed them to a person not entitled to see them; and that he willfully refused to return them to the person-Government employee-who was “authorized” to possess them.

In analyzing this whole mess, two concepts are critical before looking at these elements:

This is a criminal charge. The Government has the BURDEN to prove-BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT- each element of the case asserted. That means if the jury has any doubt, they must acquit.

Second, because this is a criminal case, the verdict of the jury in federal court must be unanimous. Most likely, there will be either 6 or 8 jurors. If anyone says, “I don’t think so,” the Government loses.

With these thoughts in mind, take a look at the PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT. (44 USC 2201-2209). Under this statute, there are two types of records, PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS, and PERSONAL RECORDS.

PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS: these are “documents…created or received by the President in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have the effect upon carrying out (his)…duties as the President. (44 USC 2201(2))

PERSONAL RECORDS: these are all documentary material…of a purely private or non-public character which do not relate to (his) duties …as President. (44 usc 2201(3)).

Under 44 USC 2202, all Presidential records belong to and are owned by the United States Government.

Question: who decides whether a record is PRESIDENTIAL or PERSONAL?

The National Archivist? Nope!

Attorney General Garland? or Barr?Nope!

Prosecuting attorney Jack Smith? Yea, right.Nope!

Under Article II of the United States Constitution, the President of the United States is the head of the military, is Commander in Chief, and by the admission of all legal scholars, is afforded total and complete control over all records. He and he alone decides what is a government record, what is a PRESIDENTIAL RECORD, and what is a PERSONAL RECORD. He does not derive his power in this regard from Congress. He obtains his power directly from the Constitution. And because his authority comes from the Constitution, Congress cannot deprive him of the power, cannot modify his power, and cannot regulate it. Neither can the Supreme Court.

While he is in office, the Presidential power under Article 2 to designate a document, Presidential or Personal, cannot be regulated by Congress. This means that he and he alone, without any regulation from anyone, defines what is a PRESIDENTIAL RECORD and what is a PERSONAL RECORD. When he leaves office, these designations remain as again; no one can go back and say that while he is in office, he categorized a record improperly.

To fully grasp this concept, it is a useless act to go back and look at 44 USC 2201(2) and (3). Why? Re-read what I just said. Congress has no right to tell the president what a PRESIDENTIAL RECORD is or what is a PERSONAL RECORD. Those provisions define non-binding categories on the sitting President. But they don’t constrain the President in any way.

In that regard, consider  44 USC 2203(b): “Documentary materials produced or received by the President, shall to the extent practicable, be categorized as Presidential records or personal records…”( In other words, Congress is saying to the sitting President, please tell us what is a Presidential record and what is personal?)

Under 44 USC 2203(c), the “President may dispose of those Presidential records…”(In other words, Congress is recognizing the President’s total control over all documents. He can even destroy them. That is his power under Article II. It’s not something Congress has any say in or control over).

Under 44 USC 2203(f)…”The President shall remain exclusively responsible for custody, control, and access to such Presidential records”( yea, just like I said. He has Article II power; he has unlimited power over all the documents and can do whatever he pleases with them. He can certainly decide if something will be called a Presidential record or a Personal record. And no matter what 44 USC 2201 (b) or ( c) says, his determination is final and complete. No appeal. No pointed-headed bureaucrat can overrule him by saying, “Wait,  Mr.President, I have decided that you made a mistake on designating the subject documents. I am changing your designation and now making what you designated personal as presidential.)

Indeed, the archivist has no such power to change what Trump did while in office. His sole power is to take custody of records that Trump, while in office, designated as Presidential:

Under 44 USC 2203(g), “Upon conclusion of a Presidential term of office, the archivist …shall assume responsibility for the control, custody…of the Presidential records.

Consider: while in office, the sole determination of what is a Presidential record belongs to the sitting President. To fully grasp this simple concept, turn off the section of your brain that controls logic and reason.  Turn on the part of your brain that focuses on the Power of the ruling elite. The question is one of power, not logic. Not statutory language. Nor reason and logic. Trump-while President- had the sole power to declare a record–any record–to be personal. The language of 44 usc 2201(b) and (c) is merely definitional but cannot overrule the decision of the Article II Presidential Exercise of Power.

With all this in mind, go back to the Espionage ACT of 1918. Under the Presidential Records Act, Personal records belong to Trump, and he is free to take them with him to his home after he left office. As such, his possession of his own personal records is not “unauthorized.”

Consider the following: prior court decisions have affirmed everything I just said.

The most famous one is the CLINTON SOX case.

In 2012, former President Bill Clinton was being charged with pretty much the same charges now being made against Trump. He took what many at the time felt were Presidential records-many marked “top secret”- and hid them in his sock drawer. Judge Amy Jackson ruled in Clinton’s favor for the very same reasons I set forth.  In ruling that Clinton had not violated the law because he, while he was President, had designated the Documents in his possession as personal records, even though under 44 USC 2201 (b), they would best be described as Presidential records. She explained her confirmation of the Clinton decision that his records were all personal records, as follows:

“Under the statutory scheme established under the PRA(Presidential Records Act), the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the Presidential term, and in his sole discretion…Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even disposal of the Presidential records…it would be difficult for this court to conclude that Congress intended he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers his personal records…”

Of interest, she also ruled that the “penalty” for violating the Presidential Records Act was not criminal. The act only allowed the archivist to bring a civil action to obtain the records.

In another case, the Supreme Court ruled consistent with the Clinton Sox ruling. In United States Navy v Egan, 484 U.S. 518, the United States Supreme Court was asked to overrule the President in his exercise of his Article II, section 2 responsibilities:

 

Section 2

The President shall be the Commander in Chief of the Army and the Navy…

The issue presented was the authority of the President, under Article II, section 2-his authority as Commander in Chief, to issue security clearances to employees of the Government. In other words, does the President have the power to decide what records an employee can see and what records he cannot see? The Supreme Court held that under Article 2, section 2, the President has this power, and it cannot be overturned by an act of Congress. The Constitution itself confers the power and cannot be controlled by Congress or the Courts except in extreme circumstances. The Supreme Court said:

“As to these areas of ART. II duties, the courts have traditionally shown great deference to Presidential responsibilities…Thus, unless Congress specifically provided otherwise, courts traditionally have been reluctant to intrude upon the authority of the Executive in military and national security affairs…”

Conclusion: don’t think logic. Don’t think reason. Think Power. While in office, Trump has the power, under Article II, section 2, to, as Commander in Chief, designate any record he wants as a “personal record.” That the record he designated as personal looks and acts like a Presidential record as defined under 44 USC 2203 (b) makes no difference. He has the power to call it anything he wants and certainly the power to call it a personal record. If it is a personal record, then his possession is not “unauthorized” under the Espionage Act of 1918. The Presidential record act specifically confirms that he has the right to take his personal records with him when he leaves office. So far, Trump has affirmed to anyone who will listen that the records he took are all personal.

Looks like the Government sucks on this one. Especially when they have the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt and get a unanimous verdict from all jurors to affirm that the sitting President does not have Article II, section 2 powers.

 

Anxiety attack: How am I going to explain this to my chickens? My daughter says they will understand as they already understand that a rooster can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Don’t matter what anybody says.

Ok, so I just got to keep it clear for them: Trump is the rooster. He defines what happens in the coop. No pointy-headed bureaucrat can change that.

Anxiety attack 2: how do I tell them to stop chanting, “Let’s Go, Brandon.”

 

 

The post Woke in the Third Degree: My Chickens Decide to Actually Read the Statutes Indicting Trump appeared first on Granite Grok.

It is hard to think of a more important time to have your business online than right now. After all, this is an age when people look first on the internet for businesses, services, and products than in their local area.

This means that by not having a strong presence online, you are almost certainly missing out on potential customers and, therefore, more revenue. Of course, there are different paths you can take to go about getting more focus on your business, but by concentrating on the right areas, you can get off to an even better start.

#1 Use social media

With over 4 billion people accessing social media platforms every day, you would be foolish to turn your back on this highly useful tool. Even though this is a potentially large audience, it is important to know your target market. It has now been noticed that certain demographics use different social media platforms, with older people predominantly on Facebook and younger ones on Instagram and TikTok. Targeting your attention, therefore, on the wrong platform can mean missing out on the lion’s share of your market.

#2 Use SEO services

Undoubtedly any engagement you get from your social media posts will be directed back to your website, but your website will need more traffic driven to it than just your social media audience. The best method of getting this valuable traffic to your website is to invest in some quality SEO services.

An SEO and link building agency provides all sorts of services to boost quality traffic and heighten search engine rankings for relevant niche keywords. As most of your potential customers will be searching online for whatever it is that you have to offer, an agency can be crucial in those people finding your business instead of the competition.

#3 Create a Brand

One of the easiest ways to get that attention is to create a brand for your business. This can make your products, services, and even your business become more memorable to the public. It can potentially also make it easier to sell your products or services due to association. Brands are seen as having heightened quality, desirability, and longevity over non-branded items, even though, in some cases, this is not so.

You will soon find that if you offer quality products and services to your customers, they will show more loyalty to your brand and will, therefore, sing your business’s praises and purchase further items simply because they are made or sold by your brand.

A few final thoughts

If you haven’t considered it before, you really should divert some time and effort into boosting your online presence. The internet is considered to be an indispensable tool in the business world, with customers located all over the globe actively searching for the products and services that you provide. Turning your back on these important customers or failing to make your business known to them is simply throwing money down the drain.

Of course, there are the right ways of going about it to present the right image, and this is where professionals come into play, such as SEO agencies, social media experts, and brand creation businesses.

The post How To Boost Your Online Presence appeared first on Granite Grok.

In an embarrassing administration, Biden and company may have suffered their biggest defeat to date. Antony Blinken traveled to China this weekend and was to meet with Chinese diplomats but not Xi Jinping. That changed on Sunday when Xi consented to a one-on-one segment.

The optics of that meeting was emblematic of the entire Blinken visit. Ordinarily, the principals in a diplomatic meeting would be seated in neutral positions. Not so with the Xi-Blinken session. Xi made it quite clear by sitting at the head of the table and Blinken on the side of the table. Xi and China are in charge.

This meeting and the reports and write-ups indicate Secretary of State Blinken’s objective was public relations, and there would be no hard-hitting topics discussed between Blinken and whoever would meet with him. The only concessions made by China were an increase in domestic flights between China and the United States and an agreement to communicate more in the future. That is a waste of jet fuel and ink for a stamp on the passports. That meeting could have been accomplished on a Zoom call.

If the fruits of this meeting result from diplomatic talks between the two superpowers, then future discussions are meaningless. That concession was simply to placate Washington and is not worthy of high-level negotiations. As for additional travel between our two countries, who does that benefit? China is not a safe environment for Americans, and this increase in travel options would help American businesses manage their operations in the CCP. This change in international commuting is not advantageous for America when we need to pull companies from China and back to America. We do not need to make China’s effort to attract and control American businesses any easier.

If we concede any reason for this Blinken visit, what topics should have been breached by Blinken? 

1. The Surveillance Balloon. This situation was a violation of our airspace and an act of aggression by China. Even though Biden proclaimed the incident an embarrassing mistake by China, that statement is the embarrassment. The balloon’s flight was obviously controlled, and was allowed to traverse the continent before we shot it down over the Atlantic. We have no idea what information this balloon gathered as it passed over some of our most strategic military bases.
2. Fentanyl. We know the supply of raw Fentanyl used by the Mexican cartels to produce the tablets smuggled into America, killing 100,000 young Americans yearly. The only purpose of this drug is profit for China and dead men and women for America.
3. Ukraine/Russia. We must discourage any intervention by China in Ukraine. Whether they supply Russia with technology or weapons, China’s actions will only extend the Ukraine conflict and result in the eventual fall of Ukraine.
4. Environmental. While the Biden Administration continues to micromanage American activity to minimize our impact on the environment, China is putting a coal-powered plant online every two weeks. Unless there is a concerted effort by all countries to mitigate carbon output, the effort of any one country will be ineffective.
5. TikTok and Theft of Intellectual Property. The control of American minds through computer apps and the monitoring and stealing of our sensitive systems must stop.
6. The Uighurs. Our protest and disgust for China’s human rights violations must be on the table.
7. Taiwan. Our protection of Taiwan and the shipping straight between Taiwan and Mainland China must be clear. We have to stand up for the freedoms and rights of the people of Taiwan and to ensure future trade between America and Taiwan.

These issues are not in any particular order, and I am sure we can come up with more significant concerns. But the list shows how feeble and nonconsequential the two concessions are that Blinken brought back to us. Then again, we cannot expect better results from the Biden Administration, which excels in diversity and fails in competence.

 

The post Xi Jinping Had Biden Blinkin appeared first on Granite Grok.

Nobody thinks anymore, or if they do actually think, they’re afraid to say the truth out loud. For example, why are we fighting a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine? Because borders matter? If borders matter, then why do we have a wide open Southern border?

(Hint: our Southern border is wide open for the same reason we are fighting a proxy war against Russia.)

Are we fighting a proxy war against Russia because Putin is Hitler, and he is “not going to stop with Ukraine”? Anybody with a brain, who knows anything about Hitler, knows that “Putin is Hitler” is laughable.

Are we fighting a proxy war against Russia because it is the solemn duty of America to deter “aggression”? They’re plenty of other “aggressions” going on that America is not involving itself in … of course, you’d never know that if you depend on the Regime-mouthpieces, aka the media, including Fox News, for your news.

The real reason is MONEY for Blackrock and the other massive financial institutions that control the West, including and especially America:

BREAKING: @BlackRock Recruiter Who “Decides People’s Fate” Spills Info on Company’s World Impact

“It’s not who the president is- it’s who’s controlling the wallet of the president”

“You got $10K? You can buy a senator"

“War is real f***ing good for business” #BlackRockExposed pic.twitter.com/DZIy1DuZKF

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) June 20, 2023

Independent media is a rare and precious thing, even here in New Hampshire, where many in “new media” continue to carry the establishment’s water.
GraniteGrok.com is a rare exception. Please consider the value we provide and then commit to a monthly subscription, a one-time online donation (via PayPal or GiveSendGo), or you can donate by check*.

We are looking for a few benefactors, but every donation helps.
Thank You for Your Support.

*For donations by check, please email steve@granitegrok.com for the address.

 

 

The post Blackrock Says It Out Loud … Biden’s War In The Ukraine Is To Make Money For Blackrock appeared first on Granite Grok.

Nobody will touch the question, and finally, the White House had to concoct a lame reason for Joe Biden’s irrational off-script statement. As the President was winding down his statements last Friday in Connecticut, he closed with the words, “God save the Queen.”

Well, the only Queen most of us relate to passed away last fall. There is no Queen of England at this time. The White House claimed the President was responding to someone in the audience, which is bogus. The President was not interacting with the audience, and there was no hesitation in his delivery. He pulled the line out of thin air. Biden’s comment is just another example of Joe Biden not being in control of his thought process when he goes off script or off prompter.

Speaking to the League of Conservation Voters last week, Biden bragged about his latest railroad project. This endeavor would be so incredible it was not included in his costly infrastructure plan. Biden claimed to have a plan to build a railroad to travel from the Pacific to India. With the depths of the Pacific, this would be an engineering marvel, but of course, the plan ones not exist, and nobody has a clue what he was referring to. Again, the White House will not explain the President’s irrational claim, which makes sense, as there is no explanation. In his following sentence, he said he has to stop because he gets in trouble when he goes off script. Too late, Joe. You already put your foot in your mouth.

With the President’s performance of late, is there any wonder why there were two months from his declaring his reelection bid and his first campaign event? Is there any wonder why he refuses to debate either of the two declared Democrat candidates? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is rising in the polls and becoming more of a viable candidate. Biden cannot get away with ignoring any other candidates in the race.

The Queen no longer needs divine intervention, but with Joe Biden and his administration in charge, America needs intervention and prayer. Every facet of our lives that the Government can impact shows that we have lost ground in the two and a half years under Joe Biden. The economy is still heading for a recession, according to economists, and though inflation has slowed, our incomes have not kept up with skyrocketing prices.

Though Biden brags about how far gas prices have dropped, he never takes credit for the double-digit inflation of his first two years. Crime and homelessness are still rising in our big cities, and five million illegal aliens have been relocated to every county in America. This forced migration is taxing resources and harming school systems. Biden’s war on fossil fuels is hampering our lives and much of the world. We should produce enough energy to satisfy our needs and most of Europe. Instead, Europe is forced to buy oil from Russia, and our Government is more concerned with the gallons of water our dishwashers or washing machines use.

It may appear that we are being rude and disrespectful to our President. That is not true. We are pointing out factual happenings that the mainstream media ignores. We must keep beating the drum as we are the only weapon of truth to fight back against a media covering up for Joe Biden. If we are to win back the White House, we must do the job the media is supposed to do but refuses to do.

 

Independent media is a rare and precious thing, even here in New Hampshire, where many in “new media” continue to carry the establishment’s water.
GraniteGrok.com is a rare exception. Please consider the value we provide and then commit to a monthly subscription, a one-time online donation (via PayPal or GiveSendGo), or you can donate by check*.

We are looking for a few benefactors, but every donation helps.
Thank You for Your Support.

*For donations by check, please email steve@granitegrok.com for the address.

 

 

The post Biden Says God Save The Queen, I Say, God Save Us … appeared first on Granite Grok.

This is a Right to Know Request that I DID send to DHHS Deputy Chief Legal Counsel John Martin is a rather simple one. I would like to know how many cases of neglect, abuse (and abuse & neglect) have been filed from 2018 to the present because I’ve heard rumors. I don’t always follow up on these types of rumors (too vague, not enough info, not in my wheelhouse of interest), but I figured I’d start from the broadest spectrum and, based on the data, follow it to see if my hypothesis about the rumors is correct.

Let’s see where the data leads to determine if my hypothesis is correct or if it has to change.

Here is the right to know request asking for the data:

—— Original Message ——
From “Skip” <Skip@granitegrok.com>
To “Martin, John” <John.B.Martin@dhhs.nh.gov>
Date 6/19/2023 1:13:02 PM
Subject New RSA 91-A request – Neglect, Abuse, Abuse & Neglect incidents to DCYF 2018 through 6/17/23

Good Afternoon!

I hope this email finds you in good mettle. Given your offer to me that you made, I’m now going to make use of it, sir.  Please find my latest Right To Know that kicks off my latest research project.

If this should be directed to someone else, however, just let me know and I will approach that person instead.

The RTK is reproduced directly below as well as attached

Many thanks!

-Skip

——————

Right to Know Request per RSA 91-A: Neglect and/or Abuse Cases reported to the NH DHHS Division of Children, Youth and Families.
Pursuant to the Right to Know Law (RSA. 91-A), I am demanding access, within 5 business days, to the following governmental records: For the Division of Children,Youth and Families (“DCYF”) and the time frame starting January 1, 2018 to today, June 17, 2023 (inclusive):

• Initial incident reports of neglect of a child/children, all sources
• Initial incident reports of abuse of a child/children, all sources
• Initial incident reports of neglect and abuse of a child/children, all sources

Only three data elements for each governmental record are demanded:

• Date of complaint filed with DCYF
• Complaint/incident type [neglect | abuse | neglect and abuse]
• Originating Town | City from where the complaint was filed

No other identifying or personal identifying data elements are requested or desired. Example:

7/5/2019 Portsmouth neglect
11/25/2022 Laconia neglect and abuse

Nor am I demanding that the Division “process data” to provide sorted or aggregated data – just the original raw material.

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. A spreadsheet or CSV comma delimited file will suffice.

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

Why 2018?

Baseline.

After all, there is NO consensus in science – EVERYTHING should always be in doubt as you never know when some bit of data will come up that will upturn the apple cart because the “consensus models” can’t account for the actions that the data now shows (i.e., “it shouldn’t have DONE that – WHY did it?”).

Needed a “normal time” just before the WuFlu hit as one part of my hypothesis was “life got turned upside down by Government bureaucrats seizing that moment in time to rule Administratively instead by our elected Representatives (and by our NH Governor Chris Sununu whose rallying cry was “Public Health trumps EVERYTHING” including the US and NH Constitutions). So what was that effect upon incidents?

And now we’re basically back to normal. Pretty much from where I sit, and that’s what I’m going on. Sure, there are still a lot of Obama/Biden bureaucrats working hard to make our lives more miserable:

• taking our gas stoves away
• taking our gas furnaces away
• taking our gas clothes dryers away
• taking 1/3 of today’s water away from dishwashers and using electricity

Sidenote: And yes, we’ll all be using a LOT more water and MORE hot water by needing to hand rinse before washing and then using TWO cycles instead of my old (now departed) dishwasher taking just 45 minutes (my new one last year takes at least twice as long already and does a poorer job).

• Making owning a gas-powered car more expensive, even as electric cars are even more expensive
• and making electricity less available and more expensive.

Sidenote: although I have to admit that Eversource, my electricity provider, just announced a price cut from 20.5 cents/KwH down to 12.5 cents. Truth must be told.

I’ll stop there for now. Until the data comes in, that will determine what comes next.

 

The post How Many Incidents of Abuse & Neglect has DCYF Received from 2018 to Now? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Several days ago, I heard a loud, raucous cacophony (a 50-dollar word only lawyers use, meaning chaotic, empty noise) coming from my chickens. I feared that rocky raccoon was doing another drive-thru (he recently used his opposable thumbs to peel back my chicken wire defense system, leaving me with two fewer hens). When I got to the coop, “Eddie,” my red rooster was trying to calm down the ladies with soothing words. It wasn’t working, so I made the dumb mistake of asking the warring factions to explain the issues.

“Trump needs to go to jail. Just look at all the evil he has done-stolen classified documents, revealed secrets to the Russians, ate dinner at McDonald’s.”

Several others exclaimed, “He is our only hope. He is being persecuted for no reason. They hate his hair. They hate his politics. They even hate his wife. He needs to win, or the world we know will cease.”

I wondered, “How did these chickens come up with all this stuff? They clearly cannot read. They don’t have t.v. They clearly don’t know how to access social media?” Then I realized that I may have made a critical error: to ward off Rocky Racoon, my son had installed a radio, thinking that playing a human voice would scare Rocky off.

He tried music, but John Denver did not work.

He turned on a talk radio station, and that worked great. Rocky could not tolerate the doom and gloom being broadcasted and stayed away. But the chickens had no choice. And, of course, with Trump being indicted, the Trump topic flooded the airwaves. I changed the station to a Spanish-language talk radio. But in the meantime, I had to calm them down.

” Ladies!” I exclaimed. “Ladies, please calm down. You have not given me any eggs in a week. It’s because you are too anxious. Let’s focus on your prime directive…”

“NO, “they all exclaimed (even the roosters joined in. Normally, they would say zero, but they walk in fear of the ladies, so they joined in). “This Trump issue is too important. Turn the radio back to the talk radio, or we are all on strike.”

“No can do,” I responded. “This is a chicken coop. And you are not bit players in the movie “IDIOCRACY. Let me give you a few tips on how to read this indictment. It’s first-year law school. “

“Ok, “Rooster Eddie said with some trepidation. “But hurry up as I got better things to do. “(like what, I wondered?)

First, and you can take this to the bank (if yours is still open), the “facts” alluded to in the indictment are zero. ZERO. NOTHING. NADA.

You are all getting excited about mindless drivel that will never ever be relied upon by anyone for anything.

 

 

ASK ANY FIRST-YEAR LAW STUDENT: What is an indictment? ANSWER: it’s a charge. It’s an allegation. It’s an assertion -essentially an unproven opinion- opinion of the prosecution of what he/she thinks he/she can prove.

Or worse: it is a trumped-up (I hope that is not confusing) set of maybe true, possibly false, or overstated assertions that are designed to intimidate the defendant into pleading guilty lest he or she faces 400 years in jail. I can tell you without hesitation that in setting forth what he/she feels they can prove, prosecutors allege things all the time that they cannot prove.

Think about that: and prove it to yourself. If every indictment consisted of true, provable, unexaggerated facts, then every defendant would be found guilty at trial because everything the prosecutors alleged would always be true. Or provable.

It ain’t. A large number of indictments fail. Because the prosecutors simply cannot prove what they alleged.

I made a living proving the falsity of allegations found in indictments. And I had a thriving practice because I won nearly all my cases. How: by proving that what the Prosecutor alleged in the indictment was false or by filing motions to the court to exclude the evidence being offered, or the allegations being made, as inadmissible under the rules of evidence that the Federal and State courts follow and have followed for over 250 years.

More often than not, I found that Prosecutors, in my opinion, overstated their claims in the indictments, threw in all kinds of things they can never prove, added charges that they knew wouldn’t stick, and ran up the possible years in prison that they knew would never happen–all to intimidate the defendant into a guilty plea on “lesser” charges. It’s just a way to get a guilty plea. And it works for a whole bunch. It’s wrong, but it happens so often that no one in the profession seems to even care anymore about what’s in an indictment-except the scared, ignorant defendant. And well-meaning but ignorant members of the public that don’t know how the system works.

Let me give you some references to the allegations being made-the alleged evidence asserted in the indictment- and assess what is likely to happen with it.

First, is the indictment itself admissible evidence? Will the allegations made by the prosecutor ever be made known to the jury as admissible evidence?

Nope!

The jury never reads or is allowed to read the indictment. Unless they read it in the press, they will never know what’s in it. And if they read it in the press, more than likely, they will be found to be prejudicial, and they will be excluded from serving. Essentially, the indictment never sees the light of day. Its not evidence.

(That raises a simple question: why get excited over this document? That a former sitting president is being sued by his political rival is certainly noteworthy. But the contents of this document make its value similar to twice-used toilet paper).

Secondly, the indictment alleges some 30-plus charges of crime related to some 30-plus contraband documents. It charges a separate violation of law re each document.

Consider the following: you rob a bank of 10,000 dollars. The prosecutors file an indictment against you, alleging that each dollar you stole is a separate count of bank robbery. Thus, if the penalty for bank robbery is ten years in jail, they charge you 10,000 times ten years. I don’t know any judge that would allow this. My expectation is that the charge will be reduced to one bank robbery, not 10,000.

However, despite this likely outcome, it has long been the practice of certain prosecutors to pursue this strategy of turning one crime into multiple by parsing out the charges based upon some ill-conceived notion that each item stolen is a separate crime. In my experience (including candid conversations with many prosecutors regarding this strategy), this strategy of multiplying the crime by separately charging each document is violative of federal law. If so, why do it? Maybe to scare Trump into pleading for a single crime? Maybe to present a sensationalized indictment aimed at public opinion. In my practice, this “strategy” is always wrong. Always dishonest. And always violative of what I believe is the prosecutor’s sacred duty to be fair and operate within the law.

Third, the indictment makes a big deal about BOXES. It alleges that during his term as President, Trump loaded up boxes with personal materials and comingled classified documents in those same boxes. They then offer pictures of boxes at the White House and at Mara Lago and infer this is evidence that Trump moved massive amounts of illegally possessed classified documents via these boxes.

Let’s now imagine we are in trial.

Imagine the prosecution wants to tell the jury all about these boxes. Prior to trial, there is a pre-trial conference wherein the court and the parties discuss the details of the trial, exchange evidence and witness lists, and argue motions outside of the hearing of the jury. One of the principal events in this pretrial conference is what is called MOTIONS IN LIMINE: MOTIONS TO EXCLUDE EVIDENCE DEEMED INAPPROPRIATE UNDER THE RULES OF EVIDENCE.

In my trial days, I responded to and made thousands upon thousands of such motions. It’s just standard practice. The whole point is that proposed evidence that one side wants to offer can be excluded from the jury by an evidentiary motion asserting that the subject evidence is inadmissible. It’s done outside the presence of the jury because if the Court excludes it, then the jury should never hear it. If you do the motion in front of the jury, they obviously hear the “proposed” but inadmissible evidence (which, of course, circumvents the Courts ruling excluding it.) Let’s listen now to what I think will transpire in such motion that I expect Trump’s lawyers to make:

Prosecutor: Your honor, we now offer into evidence pictures we have of Boxes.”

 

 

Trump lawyer: ” Objection: relevancy. Speculation. No foundation. The prosecution offers no evidence of what is in the Boxes. We have no evidence, your honor, of what is in the boxes. Unless they have evidence that these boxes contain the contraband material, they are just boxes and, as such, have no bearing on any issue in the case.

Boxes are common in America. Having boxes while moving is normal. Unless there is evidence that there is some contraband in every one of these boxes, it is inadmissible to show a jury a picture of 50,60 or 100 boxes and infer that contraband documents are contained therein. Having a box by itself without any additional evidence is simply speculation and highly prejudicial to the defendant, as the number of boxes shown is just to smear Trump and make the jury believe that he was somehow wrongfully moving 10’s of thousands of documents. Proving that Trump had boxes is irrelevant and proves nothing.

Let me give an example, your honor: The prosecution shows us a picture of boxes in the driveway of the White House while Trump was moving. They show us more photographs of boxes at Mara Lago. Are they the same boxes? They just want us to infer that the boxes at the White House are the same as the ones shown at Mara Logo. But speculation and guessing are a very inadmissible way to prove the viability of their assertion. Each picture shows numerous boxes-50,60,70. There is no way to verify if the Boxes shown at the White House are the same as the ones shown at Mara Lago. Maybe the boxes shown at the White House went to a different location. Maybe the boxes at Mara Lago have been there for years. We just don’t have any evidence showing a chain of custody. Surely the prosecution is aware of the need to show that chain- yet they have not. As such, what is the admissibility of pictures of boxes?

The prosecution just took pictures of boxes and failed to show us where they came from, that the boxes shown in the photos are the same as boxes in other photos. Moreover, they offer no evidence that any of these boxes contain any contraband they allege exists. We don’t know what is in the boxes. Could be underwear. Could be artwork. The prosecution has the burden of proof to demonstrate what is actually in the boxes before pictures of boxes are admissible as evidence.

Now, of interest- and to me, this shows the weakness of their offer of proof-the prosecution has alleged in the indictment that they have a photo of one box that spilled its content and that a photo exists that a document in that one box had some “classification” marking on it. Your honor, at best, that does not show what is in any of the other boxes, and as such, this one box is woefully inadequate to make any other box admissible. Moreover, as to that one box, where is it? What evidence does the prosecution offer that the one document itself is relevant to this case? The prosecution lists some 37 documents that Trump had that form the basis for his crime. This one document shown in the photos from the one box is not one of the 37 they say Trump held illegally. As such, it is irrelevant. As such, by their own conduct, they admit that this one document is not in his possession illegally. The only other possible conclusion is that the prosecution feels that Trump has this one document legally. How can a document that is in Trump’s possession legally form a basis for admitting hundreds of boxes, contents unknown?

The objection is that the photos of “Boxes” is irrelevant, and no foundation for their admissibility has been shown (foundation means that the contents of the boxes have been authenticated to be filled with the 37 documents that the prosecution alleges were held by Trump illegally) and is only offered, not to prove a fact but to smear by speculation and innuendo, the defendants.”

On its face, then, the indictment’s reference to BOXES is simply a reference to inadmissible evidence. I personally expect it will either be withdrawn as stupid or denied as inadmissible by the Court.

Take another piece of evidence: transcripts of discussions Trump had about top-secret documents with those who did not hold clearance. Some of which are conversations with his lawyers.

Are these tapes admissible? Are the transcripts?

How did the FBI get such transcripts? Did they wiretap the former President? Did they acquire the statements of the lawyers without violating Trump’s attorney-client privilege? (In this regard, a critical piece of law is vital. The attorney-client privilege belongs to Trump-not his lawyer. His lawyers have no authority to talk to the FBI. They cannot waive his rights. If they do, the material is inadmissible, and the State/Federal Bar will likely ask the lawyers to justify what appears to be unethical conduct).

 

 

The indictment alleges that the FBI had proof that certain phone calls were made between either Trump and Nauta or Trump and others. They infer these calls were made to further a conspiracy. They cite the date of the call. The involved parties. And the amount of time spent. Did the FBI wiretap the former president? If so, was it done legally?

It may be that everything the FBI did in gathering info was legitimate and legal. However, as a trial attorney, I would spend considerable effort finding out the who, what, when, why, and how the FBI obtained access to these calls. How the hell did the FBI listen in on Trump? On his conversations with his lawyers? His conversations with Nauta? If obtained in violation of Trump’s constitutional right to privacy, or in violation of law, or in violation of his attorney-client privilege, some or all of it will be inadmissible. Its only value then would be to smear Trump to the public who reads it.

SPEAKING TO MY CHICKENS: “To summarize and conclude: only a moron would rely on the facts alleged in the Trump indictment to determine innocence or guilt. Any first-year law student will tell you that. As such, what is the value of listening to the political commentators? And what is the quality of their analysis? They exist at the Bozo level of analysis.

Henrietta(Eddies number 1 hen and leader of the” I hate Trump” contingent of the coop) replied: “But he is charged with very serious crimes. Even you said that the indictment’s value is in telling Trump what he is charged with. Those charges alone tell me that he is a very bad man. There are over 30 separate charges that can result in him going to jail for over 400 years.”

Master feeder:” Really? Well, Henrietta, some of the coop thinks you are a lazy, evil, vile hen. They point out that you secretly eat other hen’s eggs. Should we simply believe these allegations, or should we seek the evidence before we evaluate you?”

Sylvia (another prominent hen) “Wut? you mean it’s not ok to eat other chicken’s eggs? Yikes!!”

Master feeder: ” LOOK-the whole point of my talk is to tell you to stop being morons by believing the wild ass allegations made by the Government. When did the Government ever tell you the truth?

Just realize that the jury will decide the case on the evidence, and so far, nothing in the indictment seems remotely likely to ever make it to a jury. Sleep on it. Tomorrow, we talk about the law Trump is charged under. It’s fascinating. Oh, by the way, I better see some eggs-uneaten- or no dinner.”

 

:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but nothing in the indictment is in fact admissible evidence at triel. the jury willnever ead the indictment. they willnever hear its words. other than telling Trump and his assitant, nauta that you are being sued by me becasue i hagte you, the indctment has no value, use or purpose. noone–noone has ever been convicted by a jury based upon the allegations in an indcitment.

 

Independent media is a rare and precious thing, even here in New Hampshire, where many in “new media” continue to carry the establishment’s water. GraniteGrok.com is a rare exception. Please consider the value we provide and then commit to a monthly subscription, a one-time online donation (via PayPal or GiveSendGo), or you can donate by check*. We are looking for a few benefactors, but every donation helps. Thank You for Your Support. *For donations by check, please email steve@granitegrok.com for the address.

 

The post Woke in the Third Degree: My Chickens Woke up to the Trump Indictment and Feared the Advent of the Idiocracy 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.

Also, for those prepper-minded, my last Survival Sunday:

Survival Sunday – Granite Grok

Now, let the mayhem, mockery, and ridicule resume:

 

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

 

 

I admit, there are times when I wish I didn’t know what I know.  That I was as blissfully unaware as most of the sheeple, and that when the economic collapse, or Jab-pocalypse, or whatever else happens, I’ll go knowing that I can trust my government completely and that all this is just my bad luck.

But whatever my fate, I’d rather go into that dark night with my eyes open, determined to fight to my last breath for freedom.

 

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

 

 

 

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If there’s anyone genuinely surprised by this, I have some prime self-irrigated land in Louisiana to sell you.

 

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

 

 

On that last one, I kind of resent the term SWAMP.  A swamp is a rich and dynamic ecosystem that is self-sustaining.  Think SEWER.  Full of sh*t and requires perpetual & artificially-created resupply of the same.

 

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

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/cultural-revolution.mp4

 

Several years ago I noted what I saw as rising similarities between the Chinese cultural revolution and what was starting to become clear in colleges and other young peoples’ behaviors – in particular to what the Chinese called the FOUR OLDS.  To wit (bolding added):

During the following months, he encouraged the Red Guards to attack all traditional values and “bourgeois” things and to put CCP officials to the test by publicly criticizing them. These attacks were known at the time as struggles against the Four Olds (i.e., old ideas, customs, culture, and habits of mind), and the movement quickly escalated to committing outrages.

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

Am I psychologist or biologist or whatever?  No.  But I’ve got some life experience and do read widely.  And one of the things I’ve learned in my life is that the human mind can only handle so many stressors at once before it shuts down from so much input.  So we’ve been bombarded by fear and uncertainty and so many stressors that I can’t even enumerate them easily.

Fear is the Mind Killer… – Granite Grok

The above has a quote from an earlier piece (bolding and links in original)

But in a fascinating book about survival, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why, I learned that people make huge errors in assigning actual risk levels.  One of the factors is dread.  Relentless dread overrides saner, calmer risk assessments.  One of the stats I’ve read is that over some not-in-memory distance, driving is statistically more dangerous than flying.  Yet there are people who refuse to fly and insist on driving, because they dread being in a plane crash.

What have we been exposed to, relentlessly, for well over a year?  Fear porn.  Yuri Bezmenov was completely right.  Between unremitting terror being pumped into us, the ever-shifting “science” of masks, the lockdowns, then lifted, then reimposed, etc., creating confusion, people just throw up their hands and scream I’LL DO WHAT YOU WANT JUST MAKE IT STOP!

And this is, I think, by design.  So overwhelm us that we’ll just go along with whatever… just to make it stop, and just to give some semblance of normality again.  Even if crushing slavery, still, it’s normality and predictability.  Which, summing up this commentary, brings to mind this Aesop fable:

A lean, hungry wolf chanced one moonlit night to fall in with a plump, well-fed house dog. After the first compliments were passed between them, “How is it, my friend,” said the wolf, “that you look so sleek? How well your food agrees with you! And here am I striving for my living night and day and can hardly save myself from starving.”

“Well,” says the dog, “if you would fare like me, you have only to do as I do.” “Indeed!” says he, “and what is that?” “Why,” replied the dog, “just to guard the master’s house and keep off the thieves at night.” “With all my heart; for at present I have but a sorry time of it. This woodland life, with its frosts and rains, is sharp work for me. To have a warm roof over my head and a bellyful of victuals always at hand will, I think, not be a bad exchange.” “True,” said the dog; “therefore you have nothing to do but to follow me.”

Now as they were jogging on together, the wolf spied a mark in the dog’s neck, and having a strange curiosity, could not resist asking what it meant. “Pooh! Nothing at all,” says the dog. “No, tell me” said the wolf. “Oh! A mere trifle, perhaps the collar to which my chain is fastened.”

“Chain!” cried the wolf in surprise; “you don’t mean that you cannot rove when and where you please?” “Why, not exactly perhaps; you see I am looked upon as rather fierce, so they sometimes tie me up in the daytime, but I assure you I have perfect liberty at night. The master feeds me off his own plate and the servants give me their tidbits. I am such a favorite, so what is the matter? Where are you going?”

“Oh, good night to you,” said the wolf; “you are welcome to your dainties; but for me, a dry crust with liberty against a king’s luxury with a chain.”

 

In my copious free time I’m writing an essay based on this concept – and lessons from my career that incorporated Quality – that it’s not the absolute level of quality that people respond to so much as the variation in that quality.  People still eat fast food – McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, etc., not because – in my opinion – they’re good (my kids would differ) – but because they’re predictable.  I can go into a McDs just about anywhere in the world and, even if nowhere near great, I still know more-or-less what I’m getting.

 

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

 

 

I wonder if this actually works.  (Apologies; this is a little blurry.)

 

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

 

Pick of the post:

 

 

Steve Kirsch has a challenge.

I’ll donate $50K if Paul Offit takes the entire CDC recommended vaccine schedule in one sitting (substack.com)

Given that Paul Offit has said that all vaccines are safe:

He once said “healthy infants could safely get up to 100,000 vaccines at once.”

This is a classic put your money where your mouth is challenge.  Not that it’ll ever be answered.

 

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

80 Life Lessons My Grandfather Told Me I Could Never Forget (83-Year-Old)

 

(Don’t be misled by the screen image; it’s great stuff!)

 

 

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

 

Palate cleansers:

 

—

—

 

Independent media is a rare and precious thing, even here in New Hampshire, where many in “new media” continue to carry the establishment’s water.
GraniteGrok.com is a rare exception. Please consider the value we provide and then commit to a monthly subscription, a one-time online donation (via PayPal or GiveSendGo), or you can donate by check*.

We are looking for a few benefactors, but every donation helps.
Thank You for Your Support.

*For donations by check, please email steve@granitegrok.com for the address.

 

 

The post Meme Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

Everyone everywhere, from the Feds to the World Health Organization to Persian cat-stroking supervillains like Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates, has it in for us, from our right to free speech, to travel, to informed consent, and even privacy.

Our inherent right to privacy has been under attack from all corners with nary a word from New Hampshire’s executive branch, which should have something to say considering the state’s Constitutional Privacy Amendment. So far, not a peep. And you won’t get one unless they can find a way to score a huge payout. That’s how justice works around here.

It says live free or die on the license plate, but “Collect a Fee to Thrive” might be more appropriate. Our political elites are not much different from the swamp denizens inside the DC Beltway regarding money laundering. Their New Hampshire Advantage is using the enrich the ruling class. So I don’t expect much pushback on this, not even from those devout constitutional defenders in the city of Dover.

Barry Soetero (dba, Barak Obama) says we need mandatory digital fingerprints “to help authorities censor so-called “misinformation.” It’s a constitutional rights double tap. He’s going after privacy and free speech.

 

In a new interview, Obama suggested the development of new technology to track and identify people online to combat “disinformation.” He argues that such a move would help to remove “misleading” news from the Internet and provide consumers with only “true” information.

 

B-B-B-But Barry. We already have that. The peasants need only look to the alphabet. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WP… I think you can see where I’m going. And this isn’t me playing partisan political politics. They were wrong about everything. That Covington Kid, COVID, vaccines, the laptop (Hunter, not Weiner), your Sec-O-State’s illicit server (which you knew about and then lied), and almost everything they wrote or said about anyone named Biden is misinformation.

The sources you argue are trustworthy put the “lie” in reliable, as in we can count on them to ignore the truth in favor of the next partisan narrative. A practice protected by the First Amendment when they do it as long as it doesn’t stumble across the trip wires of defamation or incitement, two fine lines that are hard to find even given the most blatant of instances.

You have to prove intent and awareness. They knew the truth but chose to lie anyway. You’d be familiar with that, Barry. We remember the early days of your digital presidency. The Democrats had Obama Truth Squads with canned responses to any expression to which they objected. You had a federal version, while local and state Demolition parties had their own information Stasi. If you rat out your neighbors or snitch on your Facebook friends, the truth squad might swoop in and carpet-bomb them into silence.

And then, out of nowhere, you and the Obamanauts introduced Attack Watch.

 

 

If you’ve forgotten what AttackWatch was, back in mid September Jim Messina and the Obama team concocted it as a place for people to identify and report opposition commentary about the President so they could “set the record straight.”   This isn’t Nabisco asking people to let them know if something is wrong with the crackers.  This is the office of a man basted in the corrupt Chicago Political Machine,  charged with enforcing the nations laws as he sees fit, and technically the most powerful chief executive on the planet, asking people to report dissenters.  Chilling.

 

You were not the first digital president, but you were the guy who repeatedly tried to use digital intimidation and censorship to silence political opponents.

 

 

You also weaponized the bureaucratic surveillance state, began arming Executive branch Departments, encouraged local PD to buy military street vehicles, and now this—digital fingerprints—the next level in message control with the potential to violate privacy and silence dissent.

No one is surprised, but I’d love to hear what the Constitutional oath takers in Democrat Dover, New Hampshire, have to say. Rumor has it they loathe this sort of censorship.

 

The post Barry O is Back to Attack Your Free Speech and Your Privacy appeared first on Granite Grok.