The Manchester Free Press

Thursday • April 3 • 2025

Vol.XVII • No.XIV

Manchester, N.H.

Spaces, the Final Frontier for Free Speech

The Liberty Block - Tue, 2023-08-22 18:01 +0000

I've spent the last month on Spaces. Here's what I've observed. First and foremost, there is so much untapped potential. Many people still don't know what it is or what it's all about. In my opinion, it has the potential to supplant live radio if done correctly. I encourage anyone who has a smaller news platform, organization, or a cause to get active on Spaces. 

The post Spaces, the Final Frontier for Free Speech appeared first on The Liberty Block.

Gentlemen, And Lady, Start Your Debate

Granite Grok - Tue, 2023-08-22 18:00 +0000

Living in New Hampshire gives me early exposure to the Presidential Campaign Season. We have seen most of the candidates in the Granite State as they share their time between New Hampshire and Iowa. Most candidates must now be sick of Pulled Pork and Funnel Cakes.

The real season begins this week with Wednesday’s first GOP debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The moderators will be Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum of FOXNews. The number of candidates appearing onstage is still in doubt, as is whether front-runner Donald Trump will participate. It is a mistake and a disservice to the voters should he decide to stay away.

I understand the need for a diverse field of presidential candidates. Still, I do not see it making for a favorable, productive debate as it shortens the time for questions and rebuttals, which we want to hear in a debate. There is also much talk about each candidate’s strategy and whether the field will “gang up” on Ron DeSantis, who has a strong hold on second place behind Donald Trump. Getting ugly and personal in attacks does not serve the electorate well. I would like to see the bar set higher for a ticket to the debate stage. If you cannot muster more than one or two percent of the votes after weeks on the trail, you probably should consider dropping out rather than your opening line for debate night.

Nobody on the GOP candidate roster is saying anything new except Vivek Ramaswamy. He is not a politician, which should be a massive plus to voters disheartened by the Washington handling of Donald Trump and the negative impact on our country of lifelong politician Joe Biden. He is young and relates well with the critical millennial voters, but he is brilliant and focused enough for the more seasoned GOP voter. Vivek also appeals to the crucial independent block that will ultimately decide the winner in 2024. As of this weekend, some polls have him tied with DeSantis for second as he surges and the Florida Governor continues to slide. You may see fringe candidates shooting arrows at Ramaswamy, but he has shown himself to be confident and unflappable. Vivek does not shy away from any question and is prepared with a well-thought-out response to them all.

It will be interesting to see who moves the dial, and the real loser may be Trump if he does not show up. Baier and MacCallum are pros, and I am glad to see them with the first debate on the schedule. They will ask good questions and keep the large field focused. This is a big night for Republicans, but especially Conservatives. The 2024 election cannot be lost. A second term by Joe Biden, or even a first term by Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer, will be catastrophic for America we know, and another step towards the total transformational goal of Progressives. Our candidate cannot only be able to beat Republicans but attract Independents. Wednesday will give us a good idea of who that candidate will be.

The post Gentlemen, And Lady, Start Your Debate appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

If Biden Gets That Lockdown Fever Will “Shutdown Sununu” Go Along With It Again?

Granite Grok - Tue, 2023-08-22 16:30 +0000

I got this from someone that has provided me with reliable information. Yes, he’s a firehose of an emailer, but his missives generally check out, so even though this is coming from InfoWars, I’m going to go with it.

EXCLUSIVE: Biden Admin Preparing to Bring Back FULL Covid Restrictions, Rollout to Begin Mid-September.

The reason this might have legs is other emails saying the same thing, and yes, rumblings are being heard about “get your seasonal COVID shot.” It could end up being another Internet Trolling Gag (is 4Chan having fun again at our expense?), but even if it is, the operative question it generates for us all to answer for ourselves is interesting, infuriating, and scary all at the same time:

What will I do IF it is true? Will I march around like a faceless NPC or drone or act like the Citizen I’m supposed to be and demand that the Constitution’s restrictions on Government be followed?

It did turn out that those restrictions stemmed from the Trump and Biden (or should I just say Fauci and get it over with??) administrations as they weaponized their agencies to quash any dissent from their “guidance.” And that label ended up morphing into an amorphous rule of Law.  Who knew that word had legal standing to us Normal people?

And who thought that Government would take control over our lives as they did?

Chris Sununu locked us all down here in NH and took Constitutional Rights away (e.g., keep the State’s liquor stores open but terminate our Right of Assembly and Religious Freedom of Worship and Expression away?).

My tipster made it clear:

No. We will not participate.  We’ve been through this farce, and we know what their goal is.  RESIST!

Which is to push us as far as they think we will bend – and, if we let them, martial law. “Show me your papers” will be a non-existent statement if they have clapped you into a jail cell.

Note the time – just as the Republican Primary season begins in earnest. They can only get one candidate off the table with the Democrat-honed tactic of Lawfare (yes, think Trump). But think of it – all rallies are brushed aside, people cannot gather, if the low level of campaigns can’t happen (think door knocking or meeting at campaign offices and a dozen other such activities), what does that do to Republican candidates?

Yeah, another way to clear the table. Mail-in voting, ballot harvesting, a few ways to watch the process, and all the kinds of shenanigans that have come to light since the 2020 election; would we end up with Biden and a Democrat “run of the legislative table” and this time, for good?

As an engineer, I hate sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but while the courts haven’t specifically declared outright fraud, there were a lot of “coincidences” that have everyone questioning if the election can or will be fairly administered. Again, just look at the Lawfare being applied against Trump and any lawyer trying to assist him. The Left is going all out to destroy these peoples’ legal careers – heck, I watched what happened here in Belknap County during the “Gunstock Incident” when the Left and Rich decided that THEIR best interests were being microscoped. There were a lot of political gallows erected and used against good men and women that didn’t have the means to fight back.

As the image states:

The lie you participate in today becomes the future you live in tomorrow

“Today” was yesterday and, again, if true, tomorrow comes in just a few short weeks”. We found out that we were lied to over and over and over again by a Government that is now confused as to why we lack trust in it. That they have to wage War over “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation” and destroyed peoples’ reputations. And now, any doctor, for instance, can prescribe Ivermectin and what many of us said was true and we were called “science deniers” – that masks were useless too especially the cloth and paper ones.

Wag the Dog returns and this time, the Leftist dog will be out for actual blood.

EXCLUSIVE: Biden Admin Preparing to Bring Back FULL Covid Restrictions, Rollout to Begin Mid-September

TSA & Border Patrol whistleblowers have alerted Infowars of a Biden administration plot to unleash a FULL Covid lockdown that will begin in September.

We can stop this! Never let the establishment control the masses with fear again!

Whistleblowers from the TSA and Border Patrol have raised the alarm to Infowars that the Biden administration is setting the stage for full Covid lockdowns that will begin with incremental restrictions like masking TSA employees in mid-September.

The first source, a high-level TSA official confirmed and known to Infowars, reached out to Infowars and cited a Tuesday meeting in which TSA managers were told new memorandums & policies were being completed that would reimplement masking, starting with TSA & airport employees as early as mid-September.

The TSA official also said next week they will receive new guidelines on how the policy will escalate: by mid-October, mask-wearing will be required by pilots, flight staff, passengers, and airport patrons.

After hearing from the TSA manager, Infowars reached out to our trusted Border Patrol source who is also a manager. This source confirmed the same directives were being given to Border Patrol.

They were told it was not a matter of “if” but “when” official Covid numbers will go back up and they expect by mid-October a return to forced-masking policies that the Biden administration previously only reluctantly ended after massive pressure.

Both whistleblowers were told this rollout will be in tandem with the new Covid “variant” hysteria that the MSM has been reporting on this week.

Fear. Scare. Create chaos and use it for the wrong purposes (at least for us; for them, it’s just what the doctor ordered). Sure – and how many of the illegal immigrants will continue to tsunami over our borders with nay a check on THEIR COVID shot history?

Speaking of doctors, a doctor friend of mine said this in relationship to an article they received from a medical journal:

Is Masking Still Best Practice to Reduce COVID-19 Transmission in Clinical Settings?

The response was correct:

STILL?  STILL!?  What the f… are they talking about?  It never f…ing was to begin with!!

Unbelievable (as of 6/16/2023):

Preventive measures, including masks (N95 respirators, surgical, and cloth), are recommended to reduce risk for COVID-19. Mask types vary in filtration efficacy, fluid resistance, and fit.

A new study urges people to continue wearing protective masks in medical settings, even though the US public health emergency declaration around COVID-19 has expired.

Masks continue to lower the risk of catching the virus during medical visits, says the study, published online May 16 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.[1] And there was not much difference between wearing surgical masks and N95 respirators in healthcare settings.

Researchers reviewed 3 randomized trials and 21 observational studies to compare the effectiveness of those masks and cloth masks in reducing COVID-19 transmission.

“[M]asking in interactions between patients and health care personnel should continue to receive serious consideration as a patient safety measure,” says an opinion article accompanying the study.[2]

“In our enthusiasm to return to the appearance and feeling of normalcy, and as institutions decide which mitigation strategies to discontinue, we strongly advocate not discarding this important lesson learned for the sake of our patients’ safety,” the opinion authors write.

Surgical masks limit the spread of aerosols and droplets from people who have influenza, coronaviruses, or other respiratory viruses, CNN reported. And although masks are not 100% effective, they substantially lower the amount of virus put into the air via coughing and talking.

The cynical side of me is asking the political rhetorical question of the day:

Whose water is this author carrying?  Even better: if he has made political donations, to whom or what Party/PAC?

 

The post If Biden Gets That Lockdown Fever Will “Shutdown Sununu” Go Along With It Again? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

The Right Move for Women’s Chess

Granite Grok - Tue, 2023-08-22 15:00 +0000

Lots of laughter and mockery ensued last week when the International Chess Federation announced that trans women (men who call themselves women) would not be allowed to play in women’s tournaments.

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

Even some conservatives opined that this is one “sport” where physical strength is not an issue, so who cares if men play women? I bet not one of these “experts” ever played chess, at least not seriously, or stopped to consider why women’s tournaments exist.

When I was a young teen, a family friend used to host a “friendly” chess tournament every year. Categories were simply adult and youth. The adults were always ALL men, and among the non-adults, I was usually the only girl. A lot of them took the game seriously—throughout the year, they read chess books and played-out famous games to improve their skills.

I rarely won a game at this neighborhood event, but when I did, it was often met with anger. Partly because I was a girl, of course, but mostly because I didn’t know or care about “opening gambits,” “end games,” and whatever comes in between. I just liked playing. In fact, I most likely won because I didn’t follow the expected pattern.

I pretty much stopped playing after high school, though I did teach my daughter the game. In middle school, she joined the chess club and actually went to some tournaments with timers and referees, and rule books. Sadly her experience was similar to mine, though worse as these were not “friendly” events. They were serious—no one chatted, some of the boys were very aggressive, and the kids were even expected to dress up. There were never more than a couple of girls, and as partners were chosen by draw, the girls rarely played each other even though they wanted to. My daughter didn’t enjoy the tournaments and soon gave up chess altogether.

I’ve never been to one, but I’m guessing the women-only events are run to encourage more girls to play and stick with the game. I read that only 12% of all chess players are women, so one can see that without a women’s category, a girl would rarely play another girl.

Any woman who wishes to can play in open tournaments. If a trans individual wants to play competitively, he/she can do that too. I applaud the chess federation’s decision to maintain women-only tournaments. I hope it encourages many girls and women to continue playing rather than drop out like my daughter and I did.

 

 

The post The Right Move for Women’s Chess appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Promoted from the Comments: Wag the Dog, Who’s Government is it, and Rich Men North of Richmond

Granite Grok - Tue, 2023-08-22 13:30 +0000

I haven’t done one of these kinds of posts for a while, and while going through my emails on Sunday after being OoO (“Out Of The Office”) on Saturday, these caught my eye as they each spoke to the REAL threat to our “Democracy.”

 

Sidenote: No, it’s not all the things that the Left is trying to blame being a threat or danger to our “Democracy.” First, we aren’t a Democracy. We’re a Constitutional Republic. Our Founders knew from studying history that direct Democracy always ended up badly. It should be telling that’s what the Democrats want – a direct Democracy so they would have the unbridled Power they so avidly seek at all costs.

Remember – WE who do not ascribe to the Left’s Narrative or philosophy are a danger to them and their continuing assault against the Constitution. It’s that decades-old redefining of our common language. In essence, getting the low-information voters to believe that the Constitution, and those that protect it, are the bad guys.

 

First up is the old Clinton “Hail Mary Throw” or “Wag the Dog.” When Bill was trying to distract the American public from his cheating on Hillary with his White House intern Monica Lewinsky.  NHnative, in a comment on my “Jeanne Shaheen: “Snowfall Is A Thing of the Past” wrote,

 

Have y’all noticed that as the dollar crashes, the debt rises, the interest rates climb- and all we hear about is the weather and Ukraine?

 

Distraction. Self-importance. As if Government shouldn’t be telling us what’s really important (in this case, Ukraine)? We’ve been heading towards our Financial Bridge that Congress and <insert President so-and-so here> have been “termiting” for 50 years.

But as Mike Remski points out in “Vermont Doesn’t Have a Sales Tax Holiday Because …”

It’s always difficult to give up revenue in the state.

And there is the “government” in less than 12 words.

Effin morons. It’s not “revenue” it’s MY MONEY.

Ah yes, the “Bruce Currie question” – who’s money is it FIRST? Reminder: Bruce refused, for years, to answer my question until I finally caught him.

Put those two comments together, and it is clear that Government believes that it is set apart from the rest of us.

Actually, that’s EXACTLY what the Founders wanted – a separate and subservient government that only acted when Civil Society didn’t solve problems or in matters delineated in the Constitution. It has now decided (as in, those that claim superiority to us in all ways) that ITS survival and power should come before those who gave their consent to be government.

I really am starting to wonder about that last part. Are we the abused trapped in an abusive relationship, or is this why the Southern Poverty Law Center called us “anti-Government” (they forgot to put “Big” in front of “Government”)?  WHY should we continue to give our assent?

Yes, I’m doing the head-scratching bit.

And to wind this up, let’s return to NHnative again on her comment in “It’s NOT Republican vs. Democrat … It’s The Rich Men North of Richmond Versus Us“:

This has 25 Million views right now and it’s been trending number one for days.

If you want your mind blown, start reading the comments here under the song..there are over 100,000 of them. You’ll float back and forth between mad as hell and broken-hearted.

It’s one American after another that is understanding that we’re busting our asses and being screwed over.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro&ab_channel=radiowv

[Verse 1]
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all-day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away

[Pre-Chorus]
It’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is

 

I doubt that the SPLC owns enough electrons and pixels to adequately catalog everyone that is claiming the sentiment expressed by this song for themselves.

But then again, the SPLC is a swamp creature that continuously crawls up to Big Government denizens in saying “issss preciousss” in doing their bidding to get their gold.

‘Cept people are starting to rebel against both.

I am afraid that we have been in a Cold War for quite some time – will it go hot? Or is it when and not if?

Sidenote: Yes, I could have used Gollum as the Featured Image above. But I so wanted to use Jeanne Shaheen in my post about her talking about no more snow but went the other way with the skier. So I used it now.

So here’s Gollum:

 

 

A person who has lost his soul and being to Power that he cannot ever fully control. There are a lot of people in Government that get captured BY the Power of Government that never realize or are cognizant of what they have given themselves up to.

 

 

The post Promoted from the Comments: Wag the Dog, Who’s Government is it, and Rich Men North of Richmond appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Another Unlawful Arrest in New Hampshire?

Granite Grok - Tue, 2023-08-22 12:00 +0000

For years, publisher Deb Paul has been stirring the pot in Londonderry, and you can tell she is doing a good job. The local Towney elite are not fans. They are so displeased with her first amendment exercises that it almost looks like someone got her arrested. For what?

 

Here in New Hampshire, the influence of small-town politics has led to the arrest of a weekly newspaper publisher, Debra Paul of the Londonderry Times. In November, on the day before Thanksgiving, Deb Paul will be in a courtroom, defending herself against the might of the Attorney General’s Office.

Deb Paul stands accused of violating NH RSA 664, titled “POLITICAL EXPENDITURES AND CONTRIBUTIONS,” due to her publication of political advertisements that allegedly did not adhere to the exact letter of the law requiring to the signing of ads for town elections and their labeling as “Political Advertising.” …

The attorney general’s announcement of Deb Paul’s arrest indicated she had received warnings on prior occasions regarding the labeling of political advertising. These warnings appear to have shifted the responsibility for education and enforcement of RSA 664 away from the secretary of state and the attorney general, and transferred compliance from campaigns to Deb Paul herself.

 

According to the Union Leader (quoted above), there is no provision in the over 9000 words of the law for arrest or detention, so I looked. The only place the word arrest appears in the law is to clarify that no political advertising shall appear on vehicles used to make arrests. The only fines listed are for pre-recorded campaign calls or misrepresenting the origin of a political call.

Violations are to be directed at campaigns, not publishers.

But Deb Paul is charged with multiple Class A misdemeanors (a word that never appears in RSA 664:14) and has been forced to finance her defense against the charges (which sounds a lot like a fine not listed in the statute – and that’s likely the purpose).

 

Threatening a local publisher with thousands of dollars in fines and possible jail time, while requiring spending many thousands in legal defense costs is a solid way to shut them down. Luckily for the First Amendment, Deb Paul does not crumble that easily and has been fighting. Her prosecution is a misuse of the attorney general’s limited resources and creates a chilling effect on local news when it is needed most.

 

None of that needed to happen, but this AG under this Governor is known for frivolous prosecution for effect. The NH 9 is the most well-known example among our readers, but the AG went after a local White Supremacy group for “civil rights” violations when they were peacefully exercising their first amendment rights. It’s okay not to like their message, but how do we feel about the message being sent by the NH AG’s office?

Or are the various accusers in any or all of these circumstances assuming their connection to power will shield them from arbitrary acts of government power?

That could prove to be a bigger mistake than the AG arresting and charging Deb Paul.

 

 

The post Another Unlawful Arrest in New Hampshire? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Is America Suffering From Irreconcilable Differences

Granite Grok - Tue, 2023-08-22 10:30 +0000

His versus hers. Black versus white. The Left versus The Right. Call or label it however you like. Americans are quickly approaching that point in a relationship where all communication and civility ends, and the two sides split up their possessions, friends, and even the pets to go their separate ways.

America is getting so polarized that there will not even be discussions about visitation rights. There will not be any.

There will be much finger-pointing and assigning of blame. The Liberal side will say the Conservatives are about keeping the races separate, sovereignty, focused on making money and destroying the world. The Conservatives will claim the Liberals have given up on America, erased her borders, lost their way on genders and families, and don’t know the difference between weather and climate. It has gone from differences in opinion to all-out war and well past the point of counseling.

Holiday dinners will never be the same.

Vivek Ramaswamy had a conversation this week with a member of the LGBTQIA++ community that went viral online. I’m not too fond of the ++ and the term viral, but let’s stay on point. Vivek fielded the question with a calm, even voice, a well-thought-out answer, and compassion for the questioner and ended the interaction with a handshake and a thank you.

This viral moment was what we used to call communication and manners, but neither of those traits exists in today’s American culture. They have been replaced with conflict and canceling. I am a fan of Ramaswamy and admire his brilliance and demeanor. Still, twenty years ago, this discussion would not have been newsworthy or garnered over one million views on people’s computer screens. This phenomenon proves that the two sides have lost the ability to share their thoughts, and when we see a glimmer of the past, it becomes a global event.

In 2020, Joe Biden promised to be the one to unite our country and return civility and decency to the White House. He lied, Americans bought it, and we now have the most incompetent, corrupt President in our history. Joe Biden will be credited with widening the gap and bringing us to the point of no return. And he did it with a whisper. So what do we do now?

Just like a breakdown of a family, the two sides have to be mature enough to share the same table the other side. We must force our way through the salad and main course and let the small talk begin over coffee and dessert. Who can fight over French-pressed coffee and Pecan pie? Just pass the cream and sugar, please.

It will take some time for the dust to settle to see what we have left of America, and then we need to rebuild her slowly and somehow as one. This is what we need in 2024 is someone who can counsel our differences but with the strength and courage to ensure the finished product resembles the design of our forefathers. They must have the traits that Vivek Ramaswamy still does and be an example of what it means to be an American. It may sound impossible, but it is our only hope for if Biden pulls off another miraculous victory, he will continue to drive the wedge between us and complete the job of Barack Obama to transform America.

 

The post Is America Suffering From Irreconcilable Differences appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Believe It Or Not

Granite Grok - Tue, 2023-08-22 03:00 +0000

I’m not one to put to much faith in early polls but this one is at least an eyebrow-raiser. RMG Research’s latest poll has this result:

  1. Trump = 60%
  2. Ramaswamy = 13%
  3. DeSantis = 8%

How accurate this is will be argued back and forth but it does indicate Trump is by far the most popular Republican candidate, no question about it.

This is in spite of all the fake accusations and indictments that Leftist activist State Attorney Generals are throwing at him. Even if he is in a jail cell on Election Day 2024, he will be our candidate and I believe we can still reelect him President for another four years.

The post Believe It Or Not appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

China Enters the Doom Loop

Granite Grok - Tue, 2023-08-22 01:30 +0000

China’s authoritarian gerontocracy has built a Doom Loop with Chinese characteristics, with over half the economy now crashing.

Chinese exports are now plunging at the fastest pace since the covid lockdowns: Exports fell 14.5% on the year, driven by a 21% drop in exports to Europe and a 23% drop to the US.

Meanwhile, imports to China are also falling — 12.4% on the year — as shrinking manufacturing buys fewer inputs and households buy less.

In short, foreigners aren’t buying, and the Chinese aren’t spending either.

 

 

This is all a problem for Chinese factories because they’re obscenely overbuilt thanks to cheap central bank money and government subsidies. To give a sense, the FT reported that Chinese automakers can produce 40 million cars a year, but the Chinese only buy 20 to 25 million. China’s now actually throttling new car production — denying production licenses. Even as the US is pouring hundreds of billions into production, that will soon be swept by cut-rate Chinese EV’s.

Manufacturing makes up over 27% of the Chinese economy and has contracted for four straight months now, bringing quarterly GDP growth nationwide to just 0.8%. The economy just officially entered deflation for the first time since the 2008 crisis.

 

 

Meanwhile, China’s comically indebted housing industry — also roughly one-quarter of the Chinese economy — is showing new distress, threatening the life savings of millions who could lose it all on empty apartment buildings. Just last week major homebuilder Country Garden, held up by China’s government as the poster-child of prudence and a model for the rest of the industry, missed two bond payments on their total $200 billion in debt, leading to a debt downgrade from the now ubiquitous Moody’s.

Considering this is all coming with youth employment at record highs — above 20% — it could signal political trouble.

 

Can China Reverse the Slide?

What’s driving the manufacturing pain is largely out of China’s control: Westerners not buying stuff. Korea’s exports also fell 17%, while 5 of 7 Asian countries contracted last month. Just about the only country buying is, ironically, Russia. Which, alas, is a tiny market: Mexico with nukes, as the saying goes.

 

 

China can’t do much about Americans and Europeans not buying — that’s our recessions talking, and it’s getting worse in both the US and Europe. Meaning more plunging exports and falling factory prices in China. Eventually, prices fall to the point that factories shutter, the overcapacity dries up, and prices can recover. Of course, at the expense of potentially millions of jobs and millions of freshly unemployed youth.

As for the property boom, it was driven by cheap money — buying an apartment was a no-lose proposition for millions of Chinese who plowed their life savings into empty cities that, apparently, cannot defy gravity forever.

Meaning the main solution — and China’s go-to whenever the economy slows — is to crank out more cheap money by cutting interest rates and handing tens of billions more to homebuilders.

The problem is that China is now swimming in debt — it has $50 trillion in non-financial debt, even higher than the US as a proportion of GDP. This raises fears of a Japan-style deleveraging, leading to potentially years of slow growth. Deflation, of course, makes those debts even bigger. This limits China’s easy options.

The Overhyped China Story

China taking over the world has been the story of the decade.

In reality, President Xi’s decade-long rule has been terrible for the Chinese economy, replacing China’s free market miracle with regulatory crackdowns to hobble any political threats and channel capital to state-dominated industries. The upshot is growth under Xi has been about 5 to 6 percent — a far cry from the miracle days and pretty standard for a poor country.

 

 

Xi’s covid lockdowns have been monumentally destructive, his post-covid recovery has fizzled, and now China is running straight into a global recession. Xi is probably too careful to, say, invade Taiwan to soak up all those unemployed youth. But then, I thought that about Putin, too, and I was wrong.

As for the US and Europe, expect China’s manufacturing problems to flood us with cheap goods. Which is great for consumers and should take some of the edge off inflation short-term, at the expense of what’s left of American and European manufacturing.

Author: Peter St. Onge is a Mises Institute Associated Scholar and an Economic Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.  For more content from Dr. St. Onge, subscribe to his newsletter where he writes about Austrian economics and cryptocurrency.

Peter St. Onge | The Mises Wire

Originally published at PeterStOnge.com. The article has been edited for the Mises Wire.

 

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The post China Enters the Doom Loop appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Maui’s Other Catastrophic “Climate” Emergency – Sea Level Has Steadily Declined for the Past 4 Years

Granite Grok - Tue, 2023-08-22 00:00 +0000

New Hampshire has a red-headed stepchild it is hiding in the basement. Since 2012 catastrophic sea level rise has fallen. That’s not news. Neither were power lines causing the Maui “wildfires.” Another climate “catastrophe that’s not newsworthy is Maui’s collapsing tide levels.

 

Since at least 2019 the tide gauge at Kahului, Hawaii, on the Islan od Maui, has shown a sharp downward trend.

 

 

If I were Time magazine or Newsweek or CNN, I’d have a beautiful graphic of how, historically, the tides are receding. I’m not them, nor o I need to beautify the decline, but I can isolate it from the image above to make the point with a big arrow for effect.

 

 

While the world watches Hawaii annex the burned areas for some new social engineering project still to be named, the surrounding ocean has abandoned the narrative.

In nearby Kawaihae, they are experiencing a similar decline.

 

 

 

Hilo and Honolulu have similar profiles, but everywhere you look, there’s a declining trend, not as pronounced or prolonged as New Hampshire’s, but enough that, if the approved narrative were receding seas, you’d not hear the end of it.

And isn’t that truly the point?

None of this has much to do with anything related to the climate, and that represents a significant threat to human liberty and prosperity.

 

 

The post Maui’s Other Catastrophic “Climate” Emergency – Sea Level Has Steadily Declined for the Past 4 Years appeared first on Granite Grok.

Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Hillary Clinton Just Gave Away The Left’s Playbook For Censorship And Oppression

Granite Grok - Mon, 2023-08-21 22:30 +0000

Hillary Clinton and her powerful media affiliates seem to have co-opted the title of my book, “The Weaponization of Loneliness,” for the purpose of repackaging their propagandistic narrative against Trump voters and freedom of speech.

In her recent conversation with Rachel Maddow, Clinton spoke of “the weaponization of loneliness” to vilify those who disagree with her, portraying them as villains responsible for the crisis of America’s polarization and loneliness epidemic. The springboard for that interview was Clinton’s recent 3500-word essay in the Atlantic, headlined “The Weaponization of Loneliness.”

Most of Clinton’s interview with Maddow was a giddy chit-chat over the latest rollout of indictments against President Trump. Clinton interjected the term “weaponization of loneliness” to blame her usual suspects of deliberately sowing all of the division and distrust America is experiencing. Her article is a cataloged enemies list that includes anyone skeptical of the handling of the 2020 elections and anyone who doesn’t blindly trust our institutions and government.

She also uses smears like “alt-right” and “conspiracy theorist.” As I’ve written, such polarizing name-calling has always been a staple of those who want to shut down conversation, isolate those who disagree and enforce compliance with increasingly bizarre demands. By relying so heavily on demonization rather than substantive analysis of America’s current crisis of isolation, Clinton herself is practicing the weaponization of loneliness on an amplified scale.

The Actual Thesis

“The Weaponization of Loneliness” represents my thesis which was decades in the making. The resulting book is a multi-faceted deep dive into the history, the science and the culture behind the phenomenon of social isolation as a political weapon. There is a process by which we go down that rabbit hole. It’s urgent for Americans to become conscious of that process, to become far more aware of how vulnerable we are to having our fears of ostracism exploited by bad actors. We are losing our freedom because of that fear.

Ponder how so many people are manipulated into joining dangerous cults. Also consider the phenomenon of Stockholm syndrome, whereby the isolated captive bonds with the captor out of a sense of dependency and despair.

How do such things happen? First, human beings have a primal terror of social rejection and a corresponding urge to conform to the demands of authority. Anybody who seeks power — whether a gaslighting partner, a toxic boss, a cult leader or a totalitarian dictator — can exploit this fear to achieve their goals.

There is a “machinery of loneliness” operating in our society that isolates us and destabilizes our relationships. The “machine’s” three main components are identity politics, political correctness and mob agitation.

Identity politics serves to erase us as unique individuals by assigning us group identities as either oppressor or victim. Political correctness induces us into self-censorship by threatening us with ostracism. Mobs can take different forms, but they enforce all of the above. Other components include propaganda, political censorship, the criminalization of comedy, snitch culture and much more. Demonizing labels (such as “bigot!” “anti-vaxxer!” “transphobe!”) along with political censorship play a huge role in stoking that terror.

 

 

The tyrant’s big prize in this game is to control the private sphere of life, our web of relationships of family, friends, faith and community. Tyrants have always targeted that sphere because that’s where people get their inner strength. It’s rich with knowledge, conversations, ideas and influences. If that sphere is captured, we become atomized, a condition leading to our demoralization and a loss of strength to resist tyranny.

These methods and goals are not new. As a student of totalitarian systems, I noticed how social isolation was critical to all tyrannical rule through modern history. A few examples are the Jacobin mobs of the French Revolution, the brutal war on private life in Soviet Russia, the Nazi’s brutal regime of identity politics (dubbed “racial hygiene”) and Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China whereby mobs of Red Guard youth inflicted violent struggle sessions on any perceived political enemy.

All of the above point to a process of the weaponization of loneliness. By contrast, Clinton uses the term simply to demonize her political opponents. If you disagree with her, you are “sowing dissension.”

Clinton often complains that people don’t trust the government enough. Seriously. But government policies over the past many decades have actually cultivated isolation by encouraging government dependency, contributing to family breakdown and undermining free speech and freedom of association, among other ills.

The COVID mandates literally enforced our isolation and deceived us into thinking it would only last a couple of weeks, not years. How can reasonable people trust a government that forces them to choose between an experimental injection or their livelihood? Or that brutally separates them from dying loved ones? Or that instructs them to snitch on their neighbors? Yet Clinton is allied with all such policies and demands trust.

All the tactics of the weaponization of loneliness are right there in Clinton’s Atlantic article and Maddow interview: the psychological projection, the use of a huge media monopoly to enforce a narrative, the constant deception and the claim that free speech should be suppressed under the guise of protecting us from “misinformation.”

How do people keep falling into these traps?  And how do tyrants get away with it?

My answer is that human beings have not yet developed a conscious enough that’s aware of the process. We don’t appreciate how much our fear of ostracism dictates what we say, how we act and with whom we associate. Tyrants have always harnessed that fear to pit us against one another.

That’s what the weaponization of loneliness really means. If we don’t put checks on that process, we can’t sustain civil society or healthy communities. Instead, we get government-controlled pseudo “Hillary-villages” where our speech, our ideas, our families and our associations are regulated. If you read the surgeon general’s advisory that Clinton promotes in her Atlantic article, you can easily detect a blueprint for building them.

In sum, Hillary Clinton’s use of the title “The Weaponization of Loneliness” is beyond weird. It transcends academic theft because she has such a mammoth censorship-industrial complex at her disposal. This gives her and her base a good chance to drown out a thesis that I believe can really help Americans build the awareness they need to escape that trap. I can only conclude that the term has been hijacked because it builds awareness of how the propaganda we’re constantly fed is used for silencing, dividing and conquering.

Stella Morabito is the author of  The Weaponization of Loneliness: How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer. She is a senior contributor to The Federalist where she has written extensively on the social fallout of propaganda and group think.

 

Stella Morabito | Daily Caller News Service

 

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

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Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

The Bigger Threat Than Climate Change

Granite Grok - Mon, 2023-08-21 21:00 +0000

The New England overnight has been cool in August, the nighttime sleeping temperatures at their optimum – which means cold enough to need blankets and very comfortable, in my opinion. Not exactly what you’d call a warming trend, but you could say the climate changed.

Related: It Was Not the Wettest July in NH History Nor the Hottest

And it does.

Around here, it changes in minutes, but it has always done that. Nothing new about it. But THIS is, maybe. August is not known for its cool nights, certainly not coming out of what was billed as the hottest month ever, everywhere, and forever. That was hogwash, but you would think global warming being what it is and CO2 accumulating the way they claim it does, there would be no end to the misery index.

No end, if you mean, lefties ranting every summer about how hot July gets.

 

  • NOAA’s Temperature Anomaly Data for July (Science) vs. Boiling (Science Fiction)
  • It’s Hot Out, but It’s Been a Lot Hotter, In More Places, For Longer, with Less CO2 – And Anything Else is a Lie
  • Sorry, but July 3rd, 2023 Was the … 49th Hottest July 3rd on Record
  • 2022: Biden Says July 2022 Third Hottest Ever! – Sorry, Try 17th, or Maybe Even 42nd.
  • 2021: The Hottest Lie On Record?
  • 2019: Sorry, July 2019 was NOT the Hottest on Record
  • 2019: Friday, Saturday and Sunday Will Be Hot. But July, 1911 Was Hotter for Longer
  • 2016: Hottest July Ever? Still not Even Close
  • 2016: July 2016 Hottest Ever? Nope. Just Kind of Average.

 

Does anyone else detect a pattern? July is hot, and Democrats lie.

And July is an excellent month to spread lies because it is the hottest month of the year (around here) every year, and sleeping is critical to health, and hot nights mess with that. Tired and uncomfortable people might be inclined to go along with the narrative flow.

Wow, it’s hot. Yup, global warming. Don’t you mean climate change? Huh? Oh, yeah.

But August is not cooperating, and it’s been dreamy. But no one is writing headlines about how comfortable the weather in August has been for sleeping. Who the heck would click on that? How about Joe Biden spends a gazillion dollars because it was hot last month? Or, Maui burns, Brooklyn burns, Ukraine burns, I’m detecting another pattern.

Big headlines, but none of them are as big as the grant money available for folks willing and ready to declare consensus as the new gold standard in scientific theory. Excuse me for being a non-scientist, but if some group of people connected to or funded by the government can decide things, and declare that everyone (who matters) agrees, then there are no such things as theory, only mandates.

Dictates.

And isn’t that a bigger threat? “Scientists” that are willing to produce results their sugar daddy wants – especially when Daddy is the Federal government? It sets a standard for the culture that leads to politicians and a government that could justify almost anything, from killing the unborn to killing the poor or folks with mental illness to a public health protocol that kills people.

How about a media machine more interested in repeating that than finding the truth?

 

 

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Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Our Republic, Parents, and Education

Granite Grok - Mon, 2023-08-21 19:30 +0000

I want to remind folks what we are up against and comprehend the evil around us that HATES our LIBERTIES, FREEDOM, and the Constitutional Republic by calling it a DEMOCRACY, never using the word REPUBLIC.

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This evil includes Biden’s Build Back Better, now costing us more in medical, energy, groceries, housing, and of course, electric everything.

Natural gas and nuclear to them are unclean and unsafe, and the next loss is our LIBERTY to use wood-burning stoves and how many miles you can drive.

One thing about the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA, in case you didn’t notice) it has done the opposite of reducing inflation since it was instituted. The nay-sayers will call me a lair or blame Trump, but you cannot hide the truth forever, but maybe long enough to fool the people into voting incorrectly.

Then there’s this from Adolf Hitler. “The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people, as long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and any deprivation.”

Or how about Joseph Stalin? “Education is a weapon whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”

Vladimir Lenin said, “Destroy the family, you destroy the country.”

We are a Democratic Constitutional Republic (democratically elected legislators in a “Republic” making laws limited by the NH and US Constitution, Bill of Rights), not a Democracy (mob rule, NH and US Constitution, Bill of Rights meaningless, majority rule).

Parents, you have options for schooling, AND you may qualify for the Education Freedom Account (school choice) to help pay for it.

Voters, stop being deceived by the Democrats saying one thing and doing the opposite. Don’t forget the democrats voted against the family by voting down HB10 and SB272 Parental Rights bills to save the family.

 

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Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

The US Air Force is Broken

Granite Grok - Mon, 2023-08-21 18:00 +0000

If you need another reason why Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles “C.Q.” Brown is a #woke threat to the US military and national security (he is nominated to be the new head of the joint chiefs), we’ve got it.

 

Enter USAF Col. Benjamin Jonsson. He was nominated by *President Biden to be promoted to brigadier general. Col. Jonsson is white. And “woke.”

Col. Jonsson believes the “problem” with the Air Force is “white colonels” like himself—but not really him, just all the other white colonels.

After the death of Saintly George Floyd, Jonsson penned an article for Air Force Times “calling out” his fellow Caucasian USAF colonels.

“As white colonels, you and I are the biggest barriers to change if we do not personally address racial injustice in our Air Force,” Col. Jonsson began.

 

Jonsson is a product of General Brown’s Air Force and, like Brown, thinks there is too much whiteness and too many white people in the US Air Force. But is you call him out, he’s got the pat progressive response.

 

“Defensiveness is a predictable response by white people to any discussion of racial injustice,” Col. Justice Warrior continued. “White colonels are no exception. We are largely blind to institutional racism, and we take offense to any suggestion that our system advantaged us at the expense of others. …

“Start by developing a game plan, he preached. “A good primer is to read or listen to the short book, ‘White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism,’ by Robin DiAngelo. Dear white colonel, it is time to give a damn. Aim High.”

 

Which is a very strange thing to say about voluntary service. Maybe the Air Force is like Hockey. People of color would rather be somewhere else. It’s not the NHL’s fault if a person with brown skin prefers Soccer, Basketball, Baseball, or Football. Why can’t this also apply to states like New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont (more than just mostly white and cool or cold seven months out of twelve, or the Air Force?

Gotta be racism or some sort of supremacy or tunnel vision or something.

How about Obama-style white guilt as a vehicle for false morality? A problem manufactured by cultural Marxists for the same Marxists to “solve.” Translated, that means the systemic destruction of American institutions by progressives.

The goal isn’t diversity or equity, they are certainly not color-blind, so the only goal left is weakening the country, and a dysfunctional fighting force will get you there.

Reminder

General Charles “C.Q.” Brown’s Senate vote for confirmation as the new head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is in a few weeks. Should he succeed in the appointment, we can expect every branch to bend (or bend further) to his #woke agenda.

Contact your US Senator and ask them to vote against his nomination.

 

HT | PJ Media

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Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

MONDAY MEMES

Granite Grok - Mon, 2023-08-21 16:30 +0000

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

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

Remember, ridicule and mockery are effective weapons:

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

Now, let the mockery and mayhem begin.

 

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

 

 

Just got called one last weekend!   Cha-ching!

 

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Last-minute add, up top:

 

 

In full disclosure I was sent this by a Telegram contact; I do not know who is organizing this.  But… presented for your information.

 

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A victory!  Here’s another:

In UK – Oxford pressured to remove pride flags from churches (massresistance.org)

 

 

 

 

Remember, we have a crisis of trust:

A Crisis of Trust – Urban Scoop

 

 

Assuming there is an election in 2024 – on which, IMHO, I will lay odds less than 50-50 – I will still vote.  But I have no hopes it will actually accomplish anything, and it will merely be my last-gasp attempt to assuage my conscience before when the avalanche really gets going.

 

 

 

 

 

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Judith Curry: How Climate “Science” Got Hijacked by Alarmists

 

 

The original article is gone, but here’s an archive link to a critique of the FIRST 97% stat that was bruited about:

In fact, the “97 percent” statistic was drawn from an even smaller subset: the 79 respondents who were both self-reported climate scientists and had “published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change.” These 77 scientists agreed that global temperatures had generally risen since 1800, and that human activity is a “significant contributing factor.”

77 out of 79 cherry-picked data points?  Wow, that’s overwhelming.  Not.  And then there’s another such 97% stat, also ripped to shreds:

Cook’s 97% Scam Debunked | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com) (bolding added, link in original):

Jose Duarte, expert in Social Psychology, Scientific Validity, and Research Methods, has actually called the Cook paper “multiply fraudulent”, and, as far as I know, Cook has taken no action to challenge the claim. This, as much as anything else, shows just what a con trick the whole business was. How many scientists, after all, would accept being called fraudulent without taking action?

The 97% Cook Consensus – when will Environ Res Letters retract it? « JoNova (joannenova.com.au)

Remember, like Curry, I used to be a climate alarmist and changed my mind.  For more, ongoing, on glo-bull climate change:

Watts Up With That? • The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change

Real Climate Science | “Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.” — Richard Feynman

Climate Change Dispatch – Climate Science And Environmental News

A whole series here:

Manhattan Contrarian

Is the Earth’s Climate History Largely a Fraud? | Power Line (powerlineblog.com)

So the Earth’s temperature “record” has been subjected to endless adjustments and alleged corrections by the very people who are trying to use that record to justify billions of dollars in payments to themselves. In any other context I know of, this is considered corrupt and perhaps felonious.

Observation trumps theory. What is extraordinary about our current situation is that the people who created the self-interested and politically-motivated models also control the temperature record, and they have been changing it to make their models, and their entitlement to billions in government grants, look better.

This is, in my opinion, the greatest scandal in the history of science.

Just look at this graph – hopefully animation carries through – from here:

 

 

The right side goes up; the left side doesn’t change or even goes down a tad.  Funny how “adjustments” work.  And a great piece:

Why I’m a Global Warming Skeptic | Frontpage Mag

 

 

In line with the above image:

Another Climate Alarmist Lets It Slip: Why They Want To Scare You | Investor’s Business Daily (investors.com) (bolding added, link to archived version of relevant URL):

Klein’s statement is perfectly in line with Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, and in fact is almost an echo. Figueres acknowledged earlier this year that the environmental activists’ goal is not to spare the world an ecological disaster, but to destroy capitalism.

Closing out:

Happer, Lindzen: EPA Climate Regulations Based on a ‘Hoax’ | Principia Scientific Intl. (principia-scientific.com)

 

 

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

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

Right on cue as the CDC starts calling for annual Covid Jabs…

New Covid variant BA.6 ‘likely’ present in US, experts warn as calls for masking return – Insider Paper

 

 

 

I wonder if Mayor Maskolini will renew his face diaper diktat.  And it’s already starting:

 

 

Related to all this, above, at least to me… remember a post or three ago how I mentioned that I went diabetic last year?

 

 

So now, this:

Vaccines are causing most Type I diabetes (kirschsubstack.com)

But I don’t think that’s what did it for me, though there may have been vaccine damage over the years.  Only He knows.  But since these two papers came out about people who developed Type I diabetes after the Jab:

 

Jab and Type 1 Diabetes

 

Jab and Type 1 Diabetes 2

 

Plus news of shedding from the Covid Jabs for years, comes this tidbit about the possibility – I need proof, dammit! – of the mRNA itself transferring from “vaccinated” to others.

 

mRNA Vaccine Can Spread Through Physical Contact ADMITS Pfizer!

 

 

My wife got two initial shots and at least one more (that I know of).  We’re in close contact living in the same house.  Occasionally *cough* very close.  Given the timing of my (very unusual for an adult my age) launch of Type 1 diabetes, along with my tinnitus (also a known Jab symptom), I am now searching to see about tests for spike production.  In the meantime I’m taking action with nattokinase, bromelian, NAC, curcumin, dandelion root, and other things.

If, indeed, I did “acquire” the mRNA, well, I won’t say here.

 

 

Reprising, all my Covid-related cartoons here.

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I and many others have said that political correctness will kill people.  And it has, here and elsewhere.

 

 

 

 

Very similar to this quote:

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.”

― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

 

 

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From this article – interesting in its own right IMHO – comes this quote by Henry Kissinger:

Ukraine: An Expendable Country May Soon Run out of Expendables – American Thinker

To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal

Ukraine is finding this out.  There’s a quote – trying to find it – but assuming I don’t some guy from southeast Asia, IIRC Cambodian, said his biggest mistake was trusting the United States.  The Afghans learned this recently too.

 

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

 

 

 

Regarding that image above, see the quote I used here (bolding added):

IN 1974, FORMER ALGERIAN PRESIDENT HOUARI BOUMEDIENE SAID IN A SPEECH AT THE UN:

“ONE DAY MILLIONS OF MEN WILL LEAVE THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE TO GO TO THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE. AND THEY WILL NOT GO THERE AS FRIENDS. BECAUSE THEY WILL GO THERE TO CONQUER IT WITH THEIR SONS. THE WOMBS OF OUR WOMEN WILL GIVE THE VICTORY.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Millstones are expensive and will be needed after the collapse.  3-4 cinder blocks ganged together should work as well.

 

 

I ask Biden supporters who deny there was any election fraud “So, what’s the innocent explanation for this”?  “It’s been explained”.  “So what’s the explanation”.  They can’t answer.  Because they have none that they can articulate, which is interesting to me – but more telling is the fact that the great glowing screen has decreed it’s been explained, so they just believe it has.

Aside: I see so many of my own fellow Jews absolutely continuing to cleave to the Democrats and supporting Biden, regardless of the evidence of the growing Jew hate on the Left… I see them cleaving to their Tikkun Olam fetish, misusing the idea of doing good as a rationalization for their liberalism… and I can’t help but have this image that – for the vast majority of American, indeed, global Jewry – we have abandoned Hashem en masse, instead having adopted Wokeness  / “Social Justice” as the new golden calf.

 

 

Please see this quote from a Rabbi on American Jews (link in the original):

As Jonathan Neumann puts it in his excellent book To Heal the World?, American Jews have been led to believe that “the purpose of the Jews in the world is to campaign for higher taxes, sexual permissiveness, reduced military spending, illegal immigration, opposition to fracking, the banishment of religion from the public square and every other liberal cause under the sun — all in the name of God”.

It’s not Jewish, just, or even very social, constituting a mish-mash of Marxism, moral relativism and paganism.

So three-quarters of American Jews have contracted a kind of religious auto-immune disease, which has caused them to junk the stuff that will protect their spiritual health while eagerly embracing the stuff that will destroy it.

Golden Calf, indeed.

 

 

 

 

I can easily see how burning an actual rainbow flag would be charged as “hate speech” – even as those doing so routinely burn Old Glory.  I wonder what reaction I’d get if I burned a UN flag (or a WHO or WEF banner) publicly.  Hmmm…

 

 

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Adversity toughens manhood, and the characteristic of the good or the great man is not that he has been exempt from the evils of life, but that he has surmounted them.

— Patrick Henry

 

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Covid, The Jab, and Broadly Related:

‘Scientists demand Britons wear face masks as new Covid variant BA.X spreads’; what a load of specious drivel, garbage, they all know, SAGE, CDC, NIH, FDA, Health Canada, PHAC that masks are JUNK, (substack.com)

Ex-medical chief Jonathan Van-Tam takes job with Covid vaccine giant Moderna (msn.com)

Kiszel et al. (Hungary scientists) have shown us again a MAJOR catastrophe with the mRNA technology gene based COVID injections, the IgG4 ‘class-switch’ IMMUNE Tolerance with repeated mRNA shots (substack.com)

As I understand it, IgG4 antibodies tell the immune system “Hey, this guy’s cool”.  Not a good thing about an actual infectious agent.

All-cause mortality started trending upwards with vax rollout, not Covid, report finds (rebekahbarnett.com.au)

The Unforgivable Ivermectin Swindle – by Quoth the Raven (substack.com)

[INTERVIEW] Awakening From A Dystopian Nightmare -Drs. Pierre Kory & Jessica Rose – Bright Light News

Some Pfizer Vaccines Were Contaminated — What Does That Mean for Millions Who Got the Jab? • Children’s Health Defense (childrenshealthdefense.org)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Say, anyone remember that the WEF bigwigs had unJabbed pilots?  I found this:

Former Airline Pilot Says Elites Are Actively Searching for Unvaccinated Aviators to Crew Their Planes – But Would Any Accept the Offer? (westernjournal.com)

Now what’s interesting is that the above is surrounded by a veritable swarm of “fact-checked” articles saying it’s not so.  Which, in my book, gives it more credibility.  As Bismark said, never believe something until it’s been officially denied.

Remembering Three Young Cyclists From a Single Belgian Team Who Were Suddenly Afflicted With Severe Heart Problems Shortly After Receiving the Covid Vaccine – The Daily Sceptic

100% of ‘Died Suddenly’ Autopsy Cases Causally Connected to the COVID Vaccine, According to Review (vigilantnews.com)

 

 

So he uses his position to help Murderna make buckets of cash, then he gets a sweet job with them.  MHO is that he could probably play video games all day and he’d still be a positive ROI.

 

 

 

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Ham-Handed Surgeons

 

 

Bill warned us about this:

 

PJTV: Five Alarm Fire

 

 

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The Coming Tyranny

 

 

Caption that was with the image:

ULEZ cameras going up directly outside peoples houses in a cul-de-sac. These people will have to pay 12 quid to get off their own driveway. Madness… The UN’s Plan To Control Us ALL!! This Report is INSANE!!

 

Some other good stuff on the channel too.

 

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Pick of the post:

 

 

For sheer deliciousness, on multiple levels.

Look, I get that someone’s BBQ in another yard can be obnoxious.  But living in modern society requires some level of flexibility and living in a close-in neighborhood some forgiveness and tolerance.  It’s not like they were doing it in her yard, it’s not like they were delivering dishes full of the stuff to her door, and it’s not like they were holding a barbecue deliberately to piss her off… but she complained.  And not just complained… sued.

FA – FO.

IMHO she deserves every burnt-flesh molecule that crosses here olfactory nerves.

 

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Monday Musical Memory:

 

Europe – The Final Countdown (Official Video)

 

 

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

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

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Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

“Gold Standard” Study Shows Charter Schools Outperform Public Schools

Granite Grok - Mon, 2023-08-21 15:00 +0000

Ten years ago, I took part in a series of debates on school choice opposite Paul Cillo of the Public Assets Institute and Bill Mathis of the National Education Policy Center and the Vermont State Board of Education. I was for school choice; they were opposed.

At the time, Mathis used the then-latest and second installment of the Stanford CREDO (Center for Research on Education Outcomes) study on charter schools, which he called “the gold standard,” to argue school choice options led to statistically insignificant differences in student outcomes, and so we should not adopt them.

I countered that what CREDO II (2013) showed is that independent charter schools do at least as good a job as their public school counterparts but for significantly less money. If nothing else, better ROI for taxpayers! But even then, there was something else. Though the 2013 study did show negligible differences in outcomes overall, it also showed that certain subsets of students – Black, Hispanic, low-income, and English language learners – performed better in charter schools than their peers in public schools.

Addressing such learning gaps long experienced by these categories of students in Vermont was, at the time, a primary problem we needed to focus on solving. (Unfortunately, it still is, though we have added more problems to the list.) Expanding school choice options would have been a solution benefiting these children without harming others.

But now that the 2023 CREDO III study is out, I can’t help but wonder if Bill Mathis is still touting it as “the gold standard” because ten years later, it shows conclusively that access to educational opportunities outside the traditional public schools (TPS) absolutely, undeniably lead to overall better student outcomes – especially for those afore-mentioned groups that have been traditionally underserved by the public school system.

Here are some highlights from the 160-page report:

 

The majority of charter schools provide better year-to-year outcomes for students compared to their traditional public-school options. Most of these schools perform better to such a degree that the difference is statistically significant. The results stand up to deeper investigation. Charter schools produce superior student gains despite enrolling a more challenging student population than their adjacent TPS. They move Black and Hispanic students and students in poverty ahead in their learning faster than if they enrolled in their local TPS. They are more successful than the local public school alternatives across most grade spans and community settings. These results show that charter schools use their flexibility to be responsive to the local needs of their communities. (p.13)

 

Moreover, the longer a student remained in a charter school, the better that student’s outcomes become. And, like the students, the longer a charter school exists the more it adapts and improves to provide better educational opportunities.

The research also eviscerates the false argument that independent charter schools either actively “cherry pick” or passively benefit from the self-selecting of more talented or better prepared students. As noted by CREDO, if the cherry-picking theory were correct, the students switching to charter schools would start out at a higher level of achievement than their TPS peers. “In multiple analyses, we do not see significant evidence of an undue advantage to charter schools. In fact, we find the opposite is true: charter schools enroll students who are disproportionately lower achieving than the students in their former TPS (p. 26).”

As for Black, Hispanic, low-income, and English language learners:

 

Perhaps the most revealing finding of our study is that more than 1,000 schools have eliminated learning disparities for their students and moved their achievement ahead of their respective state’s average performance. We refer to these schools as “gap-busting” charter schools. They provide strong empirical proof that high-quality, high-equality education is possible anywhere. (p.12)

 

This should be inspiring stuff!

But these gold-standard findings come at a time when the Democrats and Progressives in the Vermont legislature are going all out to eliminate such choice-based opportunities for our kids where they exist, rather than strengthen and expand them. Multiple bills this past session were introduced to curb or eliminate funding for Vermont’s tuitioning system, which allows families in districts with no public school to choose the best public or independent school that meets their child’s needs with money following the child.

Although Vermont doesn’t have charter schools, our approved independent schools perform a similar function. They are independently operated but receive public funding on a per-student basis. Like charter schools, they are more flexible in their abilities to define their mission, adopt and adapt curriculum, and hire and fire teachers. And because their students can withdraw – along with their money – if the school fails to perform, they are far more accountable to the customer for their results.

This combination of flexibility to adapt paired with incentives to perform is the dynamic behind the quick, vast improvement CREDO found in charter school outcomes over just the past decade. It is the dynamic we should be – needs to be — building more into our publicly funded education system.

Why? Because over this same past decade, Vermont’s traditional public schools have seen the opposite results: a steady decline in student outcomes with persistent and worsening learning gaps for low-income and minority students. Behavioral problems and mental health issues are on the rise, as is the cost of the system as a whole. The system isn’t broken. The system doesn’t work at least for a lot of students who deserve better.

So, the results are in. Giving students a variety of mission-driven options to meet their educational needs provides better outcomes and greater equity for less money. Are there more improvements that need to be made? Always! But, as the research shows, those improvements will come faster outside the traditional public school model. All we need now is a majority of state representatives and senators willing to put children and taxpayers before the special interests desperately trying to hold onto their lucrative status as a state-run monopoly.

 

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

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Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Democrats Support Crime in Their Cities and Whine for “Help” from the Rest of Us

Granite Grok - Mon, 2023-08-21 13:30 +0000

After waves of racially charged protests and riots (2020), Democrats across the country issued calls to “defund the police.” They had political positions in many cities, allowing them control of budgets.

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In several cities like Chicago, New York, Portland, and Washington, D.C., among others (many others) Democrat “leaders” caved to demands from leftist activists. They cut police funding in their jurisdictions. The predictable happened.

Crime rose to out-of-control levels in these Democratic-run cities. Things have gotten so bad that Democratic leaders want to “send in the troops” to assist their overstretched, demoralized police forces.

Crime has continued to rise to the point of being out of control in many jurisdictions. These Democrat-operated cities are becoming unsafe. Things are so bad as a result of the action of Democratic “leaders” that those currently in charge want “troops” sent to their jurisdictions.  They expect the rest of us who do not live there to pay for sending in troops to assist their overstretched, demoralized police forces.

They created the problem and they want us to solve it for them.

In the nation’s capital, Council member White called on the National Guard to stop the surging violence. He says the Southeast neighborhood he represents has become a “war zone” plagued by frequent gunfire and rising homicides.

In Chicago, crime is up 36% compared with last year; Illinois state representative Ford says sending in the National Guard “should not be off the table.”  And in California, Gov. Newsom deployed the National Guard to San Francisco in April to help address fentanyl trafficking in the city, which has become a haven for criminals.

Nationwide, Democrats are bad at stopping crime.

They are good at calling for prepositioning federal troops throughout the country, so is crime the excuse?

Do we want direct federal control of our cities with armed troops? What is the posse comitatus act?

The Posse Comitatus Act bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement except when expressly authorized by law. This 143-year-old law embodies an American tradition that sees military interference in civilian affairs as a threat to both democracy and personal liberty.

Sure, Democrats’ first emotion is to empathize with the victims, but they have carried their caring for the victim to the extreme. They are caring for the anti-social individuals in their jurisdictions to the detriment of the law-abiding citizens.

The result is most people who vote for Democrats do not feel safe in their own neighborhoods. Yet, those people could vote for different leadership… When will they?

Democrats are beginning to admit crime is a legitimate problem, but the question is, will they admit they enable the people who commit the crime they admit is a problem?

They are still denouncing their critics as racist, while some insist everything is fine. On its face, this suggests the situation on the ground is bad. It also suggests the situation will deteriorate more because there must be sufficient fear, pain, and death to motivate change.

We know antagonizing police officers, cutting their funding, reducing their numbers, attacking them personally, and tying their hands is an ineffective way to stop crime. But we do not need troops in our cities. We need good citizens to take back political control in their jurisdiction.

We need common sense to return to a society with law and order.

This is hard work that needs to be done locally. It costs society less, and those costs must be borne by those getting the improvements in their living conditions. The community will not improve unless and until it is willing to do the work to make it happen.

Just think about it.

 

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Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

It Isn’t Easy Being a Victim of Remdesivir

Granite Grok - Mon, 2023-08-21 12:00 +0000

The PERP Act, sorry, I mean PREP, established immunity for the Public Health Industrial Complex from responsibility for treating COVID-19—a sort of secular ‘papal’ dispensation for sins to be committed. A man suing in Michigan has been granted an exception.

 

In a groundbreaking decision, a Michigan judge ruled on Aug. 8 that a drug manufacturer and hospital are not protected by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act in the case of a man who experienced two strokes and a leg amputation after receiving the COVID-19 medication remdesivir that was contaminated with glass particles.

 

Willful misconduct is not protected by PERP (sorry, PREP), which ought to cast a wide net given how much the FDA, CDC, and others knew about risks associated with the alleged “treatments” and protocols (as evidenced in documents pried from their greedy hands). But that remains to be seen.

As for Dan Nowacki, his family’s fight has just begun, and the “misconduct” is more a matter of negligence and poor quality control.

 

According to the complaint (pdf) obtained by The Epoch Times, Mr. Nowacki, on Nov. 10, 2021, was admitted to St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea Hospital and diagnosed with COVID-19. During his stay, he received five doses of remdesivir. At least two doses belonged to contaminated lots.

Days later, Mr. Nowacki experienced his first massive stroke. On Nov. 24 Mr. Nowacki was released to a skilled nursing facility and began developing hematomas and swelling on his hands, face, and arms. He was readmitted to Henry Ford Hospital where his “symptoms remained a mystery to physicians.”

Mr. Nowacki experienced a second stroke on Dec. 16 that left him bedridden and in need of permanent round-the-clock care for the rest of his life.

 

The tragedy and loss can’t be measured, but if they win, a Jury must work that out. I’m wondering whether, in the course of the case, anyone will even bother to point out that Remdesivir doesn’t even work on COVID-19 and may make it worse. 

 

WHO has issued a conditional recommendation against the use of remdesivir in hospitalized patients, regardless of disease severity, as there is currently no evidence that remdesivir improves survival and other outcomes in these patients.

 

The WHOs down in Whoville didn’t get the gumption to make this admission until late 2022, but the evidence started piling up when it got the green light in May 2020. But it was so damn expensive that no one could bring themselves to stop the money train.

People died.

No one can sue for that, it seems, but Glass particles may have been present in as many as 55,000 doses recalled by the manufacturer (Gilead). What remains to be seen is whether a court or a jury will view accidental contamination as willful misconduct, assuming some other judge, upon appeal, doesn’t decide that Dan Nowacki does not have standing to sue.

 

 

HT | Epoch Times

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Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

Laurie Ortolano Wins in State Supreme Court 5-0 vs City of Nashua

Granite Grok - Mon, 2023-08-21 10:30 +0000

Today was a big win for every Nashua resident, and it also vindicated Laurie Ortolano as the Supreme Court ruled in the Ortolano case against the City of Nashua with a 5-0 win.

The Supreme Court stated:

Part I, Article 8 of the New Hampshire Constitution provides that:

“the public’s right of access to governmental proceedings and records shall not be unreasonably restricted.”

The Right-to-Know Law states that “ [e]very citizen … has the right to inspect all governmental records … except as otherwise prohibited by statute or RSA 91-A:5.” … The purpose of the Right-to-Know Law is to ensure both the greatest possible public access to the actions, discussions and records of all public bodies, and their accountability to the people. Although the statute does not provide for unrestricted access to public records, [the New Hampshire Supreme Court] resolve[s] questions regarding the Right-to-Know Law with a view to providing the utmost information in order to best effectuate these statutory and constitutional objectives. As a result, [it] broadly construe[s] provisions favoring disclosure and interpret[s] the exemptions restrictively. The party seeking nondisclosure has the burden of proof.

Ortolano v. Nashua, No. 2022-0237 (August 18, 2023 Opinion) (internal citations omitted).

This win hopefully will show the City of Nashua that residents are concerned and want to know how their government is being run. But more importantly, it states that residents have the right to inspect all governmental records.  

Three cheers for Laurie Ortolano!!

The decision:

Laura Colquhoun on Laurie Ortolano win – Supreme Court Order on 2022-0257 Back up tape emails

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Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

What The GOP-Elites Do Not (And Likely Never Will) Understand About GOP-Voters

Granite Grok - Mon, 2023-08-21 01:30 +0000

See tweet below from the editor of the Babylon Bee. The GOP-elites think GOP-voters are simpletons and/or cultists and that MAGA is a cult of personality. So wrong. While there are some cultists …. “he’s playing six-dimensional chess” … the vast majority of the GOP-voters supporting Trump know that he is human, imperfect, flawed. BUT YET THEY SUPPORT HIM. The question the GOP-elites should be asking is … WHY?

The tweet below posits an answer. Here is mine … BECAUSE THEY KNOW THE OTHER GOP CANDIDATES ARE GASLIGHTING THEM (in blunter terms … are full of sh*t). Christie, Haley, Pence, Scott, etc. are NOT going to secure the Southern border because the donor-class, the GOP-elites want an open border. Nor are they going to “stand up to China” because the donor-class, the GOP-elites make lots of money from America investment in China. Nor are they going to end the Ukraine-gravy-train because … again … the donor-class, GOP-elites makes lots of money from that gravy train.

GOP-voters gave the GOP the House in 2022. What have they accomplished? NOTHING. GOP-voters gave the GOP total control of the federal government in 2016. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell refused to fund a border wall and instead were complicit in “investigating” Russia-collusion in order to get rid of Trump or at least block/slow his agenda. GOP-voters gave the GOP the House in 2010 believing that the House would block Obamacare. Instead, GOP members of the House and Senate who actually tried to deliver on that promise were attacked by GOP “leadership” who kept telling the GOP-voters that they needed the Senate … and then the Senate wasn’t enough either they needed the the Presidency too. And then, as noted previously, when they got it all in 2016 … they REFUSED to repeal Obamacare.

And to add insult to injury under “Republican” Governor Sun-King Sununu, the NHGOP wrote Obamacare into State law.

To cut to the chase, GOP-voters are soundly rejecting the non-Trump GOP candidates because the Establishment-wing, Swamp-wing, whatever-you-want-to-call-it wing of the GOP has shown itself TIME AND TIME AGAIN to be FULL OF SH*T.

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Categories: Blogs, New Hampshire

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