With a sick smirk on his face, Chuck Schumer addressed the press today and spilled the Democrat plan for the Border. He mocked the 60 Representatives whom Speaker of the House Mike Johnson led to the Southern Border to get a firsthand account of the situation.

Schumer snickered as he said it was nice to visit the Border, but if they really wanted to make a difference, they would be in D.C. working with Democrats on legislation to solve the border crisis. That statement sounds great and is encouraging until you realize he is not discussing our Border. What Chuck wants to get done is a comprehensive bill to address the Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan Borders and to allocate billions of dollars in aid for Israel and Ukraine. Chuck has no interest in our Southern Border. No wonder he was smirking and snickering. He was looking into the eyes of Americans and lying to them. It was shameful for anyone but deplorable for the Senate Leader.

Karine Jeanne-Pierre rambled today in the White House Briefing that Republicans are solely to blame for the crisis at our Southern Border. If Republicans would pass the Immigration Reform written by Democrats, DHS would have the resources to solve the problem. Again, it sounds good until you dig in and realize what solving the Border means to Democrats.

The solution means lots of money. Not money to build a wall or put troops on the Border to keep people out. No, it means money for an infrastructure that will allow more people to cross the Border and be processed more quickly. It means more judges on the Border to cut down on the 7-year wait to have an asylum claim heard. If Democrats had their way, the judges would approve asylum, grant them citizenship, register them to vote, and have them sign a preselected Democrat mail-in ballot for 2024.

The sleight of hand aside, there is no compromise on the Border situation. Republicans want the Border closed and secure. The Democrats want it open and a fast track to citizenship for illegals. Those two beliefs are on opposite sides of the mountain. Joe Biden can say he needs more money to secure the Border. Lie. KJP blames the Border Crisis on the Republican House because they are blocking all of Biden’s efforts. Nice try…..Lie. Schumer says the Republicans must return to D.C. to negotiate a bill to solve the Crisis. Smokescreen……Lie. Mayorkas keeps saying the Border is secure. Stupidity…….Lie.

The House passed H.R. 2 last year, and Chuck Schumer will not bring it to the floor for debate. Who is obstructing? KJP says the Republicans do not want comprehensive Immigration Reform. KJP, have you read H.R. 2? I didn’t think so.

The Democrats are concerned about the Border, just not ours. They want American dollars to be sent to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan to secure their Borders, but they want our Border open 24/7. The Border is a colossal scam perpetrated by the Democrat Party and the help of the mainstream media to con the American people. It is working, but the walls are crashing in on this play. With 4 million illegals a year, America cannot withstand the assault. Like the Pandemic, the illegal flow has spread to every state, and Americans have had enough. This legacy, along with Bidenomics, will topple Biden and prevent him from a second term.

 

The post Night Cap: Chuck Schumer Explained The Democrat Game Plan Today appeared first on Granite Grok.

Concord, NH —In an effort led by American Action Fund and New Hampshire Hazlitt Coalition members Tom Mannion, John Potucek, Matthew Santonastaso, and Michael Granger, the New Hampshire State House of Representatives has passed Defend the Guard legislation on the 2nd day of the 2024 Legislative Session.

“Defend the Guard legislation simply requires an official declaration of war by US Congress for the activation of the New Hampshire National Guard, and thanks to efforts made by many in the NH House, this America First legislation now moves to the New Hampshire State Senate. This is a great first step, but we have more work to do.” -Ted Patterson, VP of the Grassroots Department at American Action Fund, a project of Young Americans for Liberty.

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US Congress has not officially declared war on any nation since World War II, but since then, our nation has continuously been at war. Our servicemen and servicewomen have fought and died in unconstitutional conflicts conducted overseas for decades. Thousands of lives have been lost and trillions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted. Granite Staters and our representatives now have an opportunity to safeguard our valued servicemembers from unconstitutional conflict.

“With all the turmoil happening overseas it’s more important than ever that the citizens contact their State Senators urging them to pass HB 229,” said American Action Fund Northeast Manager, Matt Soss, “The people need to let the entirety of the New Hampshire Senate know that Granite Staters support our troops!”

American Action Fund
Matthew Soss
matthew.soss@americanactionfund.org
(512) 637-5217
americanactionfund.org

The post Led by the NH Hazlitt Coalition House Passes Defend the Guard Bill – HB229 appeared first on Granite Grok.

New Hampshire’s licensing cartels are a thing of legend for folks who’ve been around long enough to read about them, but most folks won’t realize it until a lack of a license interferes with their day-to-day. Things have improved, are improving, but the cartels who control occupations are “out there, Jimmy.”

That’s a reference to The Last Boy Scout and satan Claus. The malevolent evil that lurks in the everyday, waiting to pounce. Licensing boards are like that. Cartels. Occupational fiefdoms define who can legally do what sort of work, with rules that don’t always make much sense. Back in 2019, in a post titled, “In NH You Need a License to Shampoo Her Hair but Not to Perform Her Abortion,” I opened with,

 

Governments are stupid. How else do you explain this?  To get licensed as an EMT in the state of New Hampshire, you must complete 150 Hours of ‘Education.’ To be a Hairdresser the requirement is 1500 hours.

 

And closed with,

 

If you want to professionally shampoo a woman’s hair before her abortion (not cut, color, or style, just shampoo), you need a license from the state ($25.00) and roughly 150 hours of training. To perform an abortion in New Hampshire, you need tools and a willing patient.

Something’s not right about that.

 

There have been some changes. Abortionists can shampoo and cut hair and then perform the abortion without a license to do either. In the last session, the legislature passed a law allowing the state to accept licenses from out-of-state—you no longer need to relicense here. But the Cartels are still out there, Jimmy, and they can be vicious.

 

The case erupted when the [North Carolina Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors] discovered [Wayne Nutt] was using his decades of experience as a working engineer to offer opinions about the designs of public works. State officials claimed he could be found guilty of a misdemeanor unless he obtained his own engineer’s license from the state.

“State licensing boards nationwide increasingly act as if they are boards of censors, deciding who may or may not speak about the topics they regulate,” charged IJ attorney Joe Gay. “Today’s ruling is a powerful reminder that in this country, we rely on people to decide who they want to listen to. We don’t rely on government boards to decide who gets to speak.”

 

Wayne had some thoughts about the “municipal plumbing” in an area where several houses were flooded. He used his wealth of knowledge and experience, and some math, to explain what he thought was the problem, and the cartel tried to claim he was “engineering” without a license.

 

The judge’s ruling concluded that the state board was in violation of the First Amendment with the speech restrictions it demanded. …

“At its core, this case concerns the extent to which a law-abiding citizen may use his technical expertise to offer a dissenting perspective against the government,” the judge said. “Stating that dissent required the speaker to use his expertise in several ways. He had to do some math. He had to apply recognized methodologies. He even had to write a report memorializing his work. Some of that work may plausibly be considered conduct. But it ends up providing him the basis to speak his mind.”

 

The unelected Board threatened him and demanded he not “publicly offer opinions about engineering without a license.” Had this gone the other way, we expect it would have been appealed, but free speech is in a precarious position and under attack from many quarters. The uniparty machine may be run by the Dems, but it is a bipartisan beast, as is that thing which stands against it. But the latter does not have a police force or standing army or FBI, CIA, or DHS. We cannot send IRS or EPA officers to eat out their substance.

Speaking your mind has become like checking the “company” in a room before telling a dirty joke where you don’t know what “dirty” even means. The cabal has made everything so toxic people self-censor, many without even realizing it or how that rewires your brain toward silence and compliance.

Our congrats to Mr. Nutt and the Institute for Justice for the win. You’ve done the people of North Carolina a kindness, not that this will stop petty bureaucrats, but at least you’ve got recent precedent you shouldn’t need to defend yourselves.

Next up, was his using math in public racist?

 

Do ‘Grok Commenters Have More Fun? – Join the conversation and find out. You could win free stuff!

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The Boston Globe, Michele Wu (Boston’s mayor), Ibram X Kendi, and others cite racism in the forced resignation of Claudine Gay.  This is a patent lie. Claudine Gay was put in her position by the Harvard Corporation headed by Penny Pritzker, who was an early financial supporter of Obama for his presidential campaign back in 2008.

That campaign was successful in harnessing the attention of 17-25 year olds using social media which became a weapon to use to keep them engaged using certain narratives.  The University of New Hampshire received millions of dollars to help shape those narratives and to make them seem realistic. It was chosen as the location to introduce the “Dear Colleague” letter signed by Russlynn Ali of the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights.

Emails obtained by KC Johnson show very clearly that Russlynn Ali’s goal was to “change America forever” and to get rid of due process – a civil right.  Those emails discuss Notre Dame, Stanford, and Yale Universities – all private campuses. Russlynn Ali left DoE OCR in 2012 to work with Laurene Powell Jobs at XQ Institute which touts “DEI” and “Reimagining Education.”

Administrations were convinced they had to hire Title IX coordinators who’d been accredited by Brett Sokolow’s ATIXA, which he registered on April 1, 2011 – just days before the April 4 launch.  The University of New Hampshire Prevention Innovation Research Center became a strategic partner with the White House, targeting private campuses for its purpose—St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, in particular. The NHCADSV was involved as its partner, and so were Congresswoman Ann Kuster and Senator Jeanne Shaheen. They could raise millions under federal grants if they promoted this narrative, which, in turn, they could use to help the 2016 elections.

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The White House hired interns from Harvard, Tufts, the University of Maryland, and elsewhere for “Civic Engagement.” These worked with narratives, social media, and # engagement, getting awards for social entrepreneurship.  The White House worked with Political PR companies as well. (SKDK, Precision Strategies, Blue Crab Strategies, and Hill Impact in particular).  This was always about recruiting young people on campus for political agendas to get federal money from the Government and to extort private educational institutions.

First, it was the Campus Survivor Movement with a full recruitment scheme going on with SurvJustice, It’s On Us, End Rape on Campus, Know Your IX, PAVE, and NHCADSV.  Then BLM, MeToo, and Times Up were added. And lastly, DEI.  Not one of these holds up to scrutiny. Behind every single one is a profiteering racket. They are businesses that figured out that they could get grants, hire PR, hire ambassadors, train recruits, and use them to increase their businesses and grow them further, all without paying any taxes because they were “non-profits.”

To add fuel to the fire, they worked with journalists and turned them into influencers for the AP, the Boston Globe, the NYT, the Washington Post, New England Newspapers, and Conde Nast publications that would reach the demographic they wanted: the 17-25-year-olds and their parents. They used political donors to fund propaganda documentaries and then gave themselves awards and rewards for their work. They partnered the recruited ambassadors for the cause du jour with major retailers: Target, L’Oreal, Uber, etc.

Who paid for all of this? The public. The taxpayers paid for the federal grants which went to campuses with “non-profit” enterprises. The families coughing up tuition fees that have escalated to accommodate hoards of badly trained, inexperienced administrators. The political donors whose money would find its way into political PR funds being used for the propaganda.

Who benefitted? Not the public. Not the students. It has been, from inception, a money-making extortion racket designed to rob the public purse and private schools, their donors, and their educators.

DEI is a business. It’s a WEF business, in fact – that means it’s a business that benefits the “stakeholders” of large corporations and large law firms.  Don’t take it from me. Take it from the WEF site itself.

The Campus Survivor Movement was a business as well. It was also a WEF-tied business – Klaus Schwab’s daughter, Nicole Schwab, started the Gender Equality Project in 2009. She was a Harvard alum. Female students were useful for this cause.

The “rape” narrative would get them engaged. UN Women was fully behind it, out to get the “Harry Potter” generation. They hired SKDK and Emma Watson for the job. #HeForShe was launched in 2014.

So was BLM. SKDK launched the #OscarsSoWhite campaign in 2016.

They were ready to bounce off the success of #ItsOnUs in 2014, which was used for “The Hunting Ground” propaganda documentary, a 2016 Academy Award winner with Lady Gaga singing the theme song on the stage. This was all backed by the White House.

The newspapers and magazines that have promoted this nonsense are mostly if not all, partners of the WEF as well.

So was FTX — exposed to be a complete sham and tied to MIT and Stanford Law School via Sam Bankman-Fried — an MIT graduate — and his parents, Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman. They were all star-struck with celebrities and fancied a life in offshore Bahamas using other people’s money, which could be funneled into election campaigns via straw donors. Michael Kives of the Obamas’ agency, CAA, and a close friend of the Clintons, was there to facilitate. His wife described his wedding in Palm Springs as a “Michael Kives production” — branding, product placement tie-ins to celebrities and politicians were the name of the game. His wife, Lydia, had attended Stanford Law and spent her summers interning for Obama’s WH legal counsel.

Next time you see someone like Gloria Allred, Sam Bankman-Fried, or Elizabeth Theranos promoted on the front of Forbes or Time Magazine, give some thought to the PR companies behind that promotion and who they are working for.

Penny Pritzker was the Commerce Secretary under Obama. She went to Qatar in 2014. Qatar is a large donor to Harvard. Qatar hired winners of the Pritzker Prize to design museums.

Claudine Gay joined the board of trustees for Phillips Exeter Academy in 2017.  She graduated from the prep school in 1988 and went to Princeton before going on to Stanford and then Harvard.

How did she get into Princeton if her work included so much plagiarism? Kendra Stearns O’Donnell was the principal of Phillips Exeter Academy in 1988 when Claudine Gay graduated.  Ironically, she, too, was a graduate of Princeton.

After Gay graduated, Kendra Stearns O’Donnell received significant attention (rightly or wrongly) for her handling of a sex scandal involving a teacher and child pornography. 

“Exeter officials tried to quell the scandal at the 990-student school, where tuition is $17,050 and dozens of graduates each year go on to Harvard and Yale. Principal Kendra Stearns O’Donnell fired Bateman, ordered him out of his apartment and sent a letter about the case to 25,000 faculty, students, parents and alumni. Stephanie Casale, assistant director of communications, defended firing Bateman before his October trial: “The question … was not whether he was guilty or innocent. It was: could he continue to be an appropriate role model.”

History repeats itself at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Governor Maggie Hassan (now Senator) is married to Tom Hassan, who was principal of Phillips Exeter Academy when it covered up sexual abuse – keeping two sets of records.  There was a media blackout as Hassan was running her campaign to become Senator in 2016.  Only last year did a math teacher get prosecuted.  He was found guilty of sexual abuse during the final years of Tom Hassan’s tenure.

Tom Hassan is also a graduate of Harvard (and Brown). His pay increased after he allowed a teacher to “retire” in 2012. The teacher, Rich Schubert, admitted to sexual abuse of a student and went to work on Maggie’s Senatorial campaign.

There’s always a quid pro quo.  And there’s always a secret club with these “elite” schools.

Boston Globe, NYT, and co appear none too happy that the “elite” club where Democrats can go to raise money for political campaigns from wealthy donors has been exposed as the empire with no clothes.

 

The post Claudine Gay was the Pimple, not the Cancer appeared first on Granite Grok.

It happens to most of us from time to time, at least to me, but when it’s someone like the just resigned Professor of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, or Nikki Haley, running for the nomination for President of the US, we should expect better.

In these cases, it happens to be on closely related subjects, the Hamas/Israel war.

Ms.Gay went to testify before Congress on the issue of antisemitism in American universities and totally outed herself as an anti-Semite. She tried to excuse accepting radicalized liberal students’ support for Hamas and naming Israel the aggressor and the terrorists as “free speech”? Standing behind Hamas, who are Terrorists and initiated the conflict with an unprovoked, unjustified, murderous attack on Israeli civilian men, women, children, and babies, can not be justified by any human with the least concept of human rights. But there she was right before our American Congress, spouting her pander to the terrorists as if it would buy her any slack if they invaded Harvard.

Given all that has unfolded, I question why any University would allow Muslim organizations to exist on compasses where they work to radicalize our students and create ever more anti-Semites.

Now then, Nikki, and here again, trying to sound like the tolerant humanitarian suggests we accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza here in America. Has she no understanding of what Islam is, what its objectives for not only Israel is but also for America? In case anyone has any questions, it is the total destruction of both nations, the eradication of all Jews worldwide, and a Muslim totalitarian-dominated America. These refugees from Gaza are the people who elected Hamas to govern them with the promise to destroy Israel and kill the Jews; these “refugees” have no love for America, would have no sense of gratitude to us if we took them in, and would surely work against us just as they do against the Jews.

How could not Haley, who was our US Ambassador to the UN, not know this? Has her desperate drive for the nomination come at the cost of risking the millions and millions of lives it would cost if Islamic power archives its goals?

Any questions any readers might have can easily be answered by getting a copy of the Koran and reading it. It was written in the Dark Ages by a barbaric culture that was ruled by absolute totalitarian power and has never changed since then. Its basic ideology is misogyny, homophobia, and antisemitism, just for a start.

The post We Should Expect Better appeared first on Granite Grok.

Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackerman took to X to share some thoughts, not just about Harvard, anti-semitism, racism, and anti-racism, but a deep-dive analysis of DEI, the appointment of Claudine Gay as President, and inside baseball at Harvard, which he suggests should result in its full board tendering their resignations.

It is a well-written look at Harvard after October 7th and an eye-opening excursion for Ackerman. He shares with us his discovery of how sinister DEI is and offers a great deal of thought, some of which looks like this.

 

An ideology [DEI] that portrays a bicameral world of oppressors and the oppressed based principally on race or sexual identity is a fundamentally racist ideology that will likely lead to more racism rather than less. A system where one obtains advantages by virtue of one’s skin color is a racist system, and one that will generate resentment and anger among the un-advantaged who will direct their anger at the favored groups.

The country has seen burgeoning resentment and anger grow materially over the last few years, and the DEI movement is an important contributor to our growing divisiveness. Resentment is one of the most important drivers of racism. And it is the lack of equity, i.e, fairness, in how DEI operates, that contributes to this resentment.

 

He later announces that (FYI – ODEIB is Harvard’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging).

 

The ODEIB should be shut down, and the staff should be terminated. The ODEIB has already taken down much of the ideology and strategies that were on its website when I and others raised concerns about how the office operates and who it does and does not represent. Taking down portions of the website does not address the fundamentally flawed and racist ideology of this office, and calls into further question the ODEIB’s legitimacy. Why would the ODEIB take down portions of its website when an alum questioned its legitimacy unless the office was doing something fundamentally wrong or indefensible?

 

As an aside, does inclusion not also mean belonging? I’m not a Harvard grad, didn’t graduate college at all, though I wasted some money on it. I don’t suppose being included is as warm and fuzzy as belonging, but Ackerman is correct. That office needs to go away. After the discovery of the UNH Bias-Free Language Guide, the University did something similar. It retooled web pages and made some things disappear, but as I noted then until you cut that budget, close that office, and perp-walk those activists out the door, the poison was still in the well.

And it is still in the well, has seeped into corporate culture, and is tainting culture and the nation. Harvard’s embarrassing few months of anti-semitism are – as Ackerman notes – but a canary in a coal mine. The real issue is DEI and the culture that has allowed it to metastasize. “The techniques that DEI has used to squelch the opposition are found in the Red Scares and McCarthyism of decades.” DEI is oppression in the name of anti-oppression. Racist in the name of anti-racism. A means to creat class division in pursuit of Socialism – whose only goal is Communism.

Ackerman’s remarks amount to several words, far too many to share outside its original tweet, but thanks to embedding, we don’t need to do that. We can share the tweet, and so we have.

There’s a lot there, and I think you’ll find it worth your time and attention. Click ‘show more’ for the rest. If you are not on X, I’ve copied it into a PDF you can view here.

In light of today’s news, I thought I would try to take a step back and provide perspective on what this is really all about.

I first became concerned about @Harvard when 34 Harvard student organizations, early on the morning of October 8th before Israel had taken any military…

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 3, 2024

 

The post “DEI is Racist” appeared first on Granite Grok.

To all those who are sending in memes, thank you!  Keep them coming please, as it helps me gather weaponry to fight the Left.  Please do share this post, and if you share an individual meme, consider mentioning you saw it on the Grok!

TGIF!

Speaking of, from this week, Monday Edition and Wednesday Edition.  Also check out my latest Israel-focused meme & commentary post if this is a subject of interest to you.

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s something that feels to me, just infernal, about this obsession with bug eating.  Some time ago I saw a video of Salma Hayek eating Mexican crickets.  Apparently that’s not the only creepy-crawly she eats.  And something in that video struck me as just wrong – no, not just the fact that she was eating them.  Call it intuition, but it was the glee she seemed to have in doing so that gave me shivers.  Later, I found out she’s married to the head of Baal, er, Balenciaga – of this infamous fame.  Add in Nicole Kidman’s seeming glee at eating bugs in her own infamous video… plus legions of other notables.

 

 

And through a good friend comes this:

KILL Switch (coldfury.com)

The more electronic they make these things, the less I like them.  Back when I worked in automotive it was all presented as “value add” features for the driver, but now I’m wondering if there was – even then – a more nefarious purpose.

 

 

 

 

 

Remember, overall the flow only goes one way.

 

 

It’s not just the weapons.  It’s the strength and courage and willingness to use them.  Remember…

Steel isn’t strong, boy, flesh is stronger.

And understand… I’m not chomping at the bit for this to happen.

 

 

 

 

You’ll own nothing, and be happy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It would be great to have some midwives weigh in on this.  I’ve sent in a request to:

NACPM

 

 

There are no words in my – or I think ANY – vocabulary to adequately capture the rage I feel about this.

 

 

A person I know in Europe verified this… and it got pulled ONLY because social media became aware of it and raised a storm over it.

 

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

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

 

Between honeypots (the adult kind) and pedoville traps, just what percentage of our politicians and other notables are compromised?  Especially now with the Epstein lists getting rolled out.  I was astonished at Stephen Hawking, for example… though from the piece where I saw him in a picture there are, discretion used, some things he liked to watch.  But this might explain one reason there’s so much rage at Trump:

 

 

 

 

There’ve been a lot of rumors about how pedo, or just plain kompromat, is used to get leverage on politicians, officials, and business executives.  If Trump truly is clean of this – and it seems to be so – how great their anger at not being able to leverage him.

And there’s a lesson in that for our own behaviors.

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m confoozled.  How can any person with three brain cells that talk with each other not look at this and not conclude something very fishy happened?

 

 

We don’t know they’re of “equal” importance but it IS odd.

Now let’s back up a little.  Pasteurization – plus refrigeration – were critical things in terms of being able to provide shelf-stable milk.  I don’t think there was the knowledge base to know just how much more nutritious raw milk is at the time.  But now that we know, it does seem odd that there is a literal war on anyone producing, selling, and buying raw milk even with contracts and signed acknowledgements of risk.  For example:

Police raid farm of former raw milk seller Michael Schmidt who says he is obeying law; among three farms hit by crackdown in 2021 | FarmersForum.com

Amish farmer raided by feds wins court battle against USDA mandates – COSAction (conventionofstates.com)

Again, I acknowledge there do seem to be risks as well as benefits to the stuff.  But if I sign a contract stating that I am aware of risks – enumerated and explicitly named, as they should be – and still want it… what’s the problem?

 

 

 

 

 

Words mean things.  That’s why the Left works so hard to change and/or compromise their meanings.

 

 

 

I started, a long time ago, a book by the “controversial” author of The Bell Curve, entitled:

Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950

I got distracted but should return to it.  Among the myriad other books I want to read.

 

 

The problem is that they believe – TRULY BELIEVE – that they do.

 

 

Follow the money… and how much for the “Big Guy” again?

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the Post:

 

 

This is not an appeal for aid to Israel.  This is a wake-up call to the Christians (and others) that think that by giving away The Sudetenland Israel they can buy their own safety.

First Saturday, then Sunday.  That is to say, first the Saturday People, then the Sunday People.  Islam wants the whole world.  Their Koran says so.  They say so.

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/british-mosque-preaching-until-you-are-strong-enough.mp4

 

Palestinians: We will conquer Europe and all infidels (rumble.com)

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/islam-wants-the-west.mp4

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/The-west-is-next.mp4

 

Have the moral courage to take people who openly say they want to conquer you at their word.

 

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

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

—

 

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

 

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

Please do consider buying me a coffee.

Buy Me a Coffee

 

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

 

The post Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

When I first heard of Joe Biden declaring January as Human Trafficking Prevention Month, I thought this was a story from the Babylon Bee site. I felt that even Joe Biden could never be so tone-deaf as to mock the most significant human trafficking operation in history by recognizing a tragic situation with a White House Declaration honoring its existence.

During Joe Biden’s first administration, every month sets a new record in illegal crossings, apprehensions, and get-always. Nearly 1.2 million illegals cross the Rio Grande. These people are scattered across America before they can undergo a proper background check. There have been dozens of Aliens who have been stopped on the Border and who were known to be sponsored terrorists. There is no way of knowing how many terrorists managed to avoid detection and are now living among us. That makes our Border a failure of National Security. And only one person is responsible for that failure, and that is President Joe Biden.

There are two key issues in Biden’s proclamation putting a label on the Month of January. One is the concession or appeasement of certain blocks of people or special interest groups; the other is a continued effort to sever our connection with our history and traditions. This thought line came to me last week when I saw an online post by the Bidens wishing all a happy Kwanzaa. I reacted to the post by searching to see if there was also a post celebrating the Feast of Festivus. My thinking is both “holidays” have the same historical significance. One was created by a Black man in 1966, and the other was the product of a famous sitcom.

Neither has deep-rooted historical significance, but there is a vast difference between the two. No group, other than Seinfeld groupies, knows what Festivus is, but not acknowledging Kwanzaa will get you labeled a Racist. This fear of being targeted as a Racist is why we have significant thoroughfares in cities like Minneapolis or Washington D.C. painted with BLM or Black Lives Matter. Nobody in America after the George Floyd death would dare say anything negative about the Black Lives Matter movement even though a couple of years after its inception, it was exposed for the money laundering pyramid scheme that it was.

The hypocrisy of Biden to even touch the topic of human trafficking is appalling. The Mexican Cartels are making billions extorting families from around the world in exchange for safe passage across the Border into America. There are horrid stories of women raped during their journey, and the U.S. government has lost nearly 30,000 juveniles who have crossed the Border and have now fallen out of the system. These children are suspected to be involved in the sex trade or the illegal, underage workforce. For Biden to attach himself to this month-long focus is to put himself in focus for his utter failure at our Southern Border, and now our Northern Border as it too is currently being breached.

Being tone-deaf to the complaints and wants of the people is bad enough, but to be absolutely deaf to the criticism Biden faces on nearly every policy front is inexcusable for someone like him who has been in the system for half a century.

The post Joe Says, January Is Human Trafficking Prevention Month appeared first on Granite Grok.

You’ll likely have heard the latest shot ’round the world. But, if not, a Democrat legislator in the New Hampshire House, speaking to his fellow members, said that while he supports transgender people, he could not condone surgical intervention on children.

Rep Jonah Wheeler (D – Peterborough) passionately mirrored the thing most everyone to his right whom I know finds objectionable about the transgender agenda (more than the grooming). These are children, and this damage is permanent.

 

Watch: @jonahowheeler, one of the more progressive members of the @NHHouseofReps, explains why he is supporting the amended version of HB 619, prohibiting gender transition procedures for minors #NHPolitics #WMUR pic.twitter.com/8TwoEFPRY5

— Adam Sexton (@AdamSextonWMUR) January 4, 2024

The gender-surgery zealots at Dartmouth Medical won’t be pleased.

 

I. Any referral for or provision of genital gender reassignment surgery to an individual under 18 years of age is unprofessional conduct and is subject to discipline by the appropriate licensing entity or disciplinary review board with competent jurisdiction in this state.

II. A minor or the parent of such minor aggrieved by a violation of this chapter may bring an action in the superior court for damages and injunctive relief against any person who has committed or attempted or threatened to commit such violation or any person who has aided or abetted the same.

 

The Bill, HB619-FN, passed (199-175). It moves to the State Senate, where it is in less danger than at Governor Sununu’s Desk. Sununu has advanced so-called gender-affirming legislation in the past. I’m not clear on his position regarding the surgical mutilation of children, but the bi-partisan House vote is significant. So is what happened after. Rep. Judy Aron reported (of Rep Wheeler) that,

 

After his visit to the well to speak in favor of this bill, he was immediately verbally attacked in the back anteroom by members of his own caucus, prompting the House Clerk, Paul Smith, to intervene. So much for the “Be Kind” and “Diversity and Inclusion” crowd.

 

So much for those “People Over Politics” signs we’ve seen sprout up with Democrat names on them as election day looms. Dem Reps Murphy and Rung put politics before children (as did Rep. Thomas), voting to let adults coerce children into life-altering surgical interventions. I’m not saying that Murphy, Rung, or Thomas were involved in berating Rep. Wheeler in this incident. My point is that their politics always came before and over people. This vote, their voting record, and social media antics prove that.

Perhaps by People over Politics, they mean like a pig on a spit.

HB619 also puts the brakes on chemical transition and the use of hormone blockers on children. (Correction: Puberty blockers were not banned.)

But as Rep Aron noted earlier today, that wasn’t the only good news.

 

The House killed HB264-FN (191-185), which would have allowed transgender people to alter historical documents – their birth records. The House also killed HB368-FN (190-185), which would have given certain privacy protections (like protecting medical records from subpoena) for transgender people seeking gender-affirming health care in NH. There were many issues surrounding the legal ramifications and possible lawsuits resulting from this type of legislation, especially if one parent objects to said care and sues the state or medical practitioners over the transgender healthcare received by their child.

 

I am reminded of how the transgender agenda, like the gay agenda that preceded it, claimed that it only ever wanted to be equal—the same. And a lot of people fell for that. That they would be treated like everyone else – except where everyone else treats everyone else like crap and gets on with their lives anyway; people can be mean, and we all get to see it but don’t be mean to openly LGB folks – and for clarification, I mean the activist class of this movement. Their equality was to be a step above. Not just acceptance but reverence.

You could be an ass to anyone else but them. Their equality rose to a level of inequality where – in this case, the transgender movement – they get extra special treatment, more privacy, benefit from legal protections no one else gets, and the power to define the speech and thoughts of others. Compel it.

You lost a lot of support with that line of thought, much like you will lose support if you insist on adults having the right to alter children surgically – permanent body-altering surgery before they can even begin to understand how that will impact the remainder of their lives.

Thanks to House Leadership and the slim Republican majority, as well as the 21 NH House Democrats who voted to protect children.

Three Republican members, for the record,  voted Nay. I know one of them and have asked why they opposed the bill. I will update this post when I get their response.

 

UPDATE

Belcher, Mike(R) Carr. 4 – Was a Yea on HB619 and a Nay on the amendment. That was my mistake – and I apologize for the error. Bickford, David(R) Straf. 3 Wolf, Dan(R) Merr. 7

And thanks again to Rep. Aron for her timely (next day) NH House legislative updates (read this week’s here and here if you missed them).

 

The post ICYMI – Bi-Partisan NH House Vote Bans Transition Surgery for Minors [Update!] appeared first on Granite Grok.

We learned that today we were able to finish up all of the leftover 2023 retained House bills and were successful in passing some really good bills… and killed some bad ones, too. It was a good two days!

We also learned that while yesterday (1-3-24), the majority of Democrats attended the House session wearing face masks, by the end of today (1-4-24), most of them had ditched their masks. It made me think of what is on the plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty in NY harbor, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

We learned that our first bill of the day was a big one. HB263-FN, which would have made Medicaid expansion permanent, without the 7-year sunset that the Democrats agreed to last spring in HB2 and the governor signed into law in June 2023. We killed this bill and kept the sunset provision with a vote of 191-183 (and it was roll-called). I happen to enjoy sunsets… don’t you?

We learned that our first close vote of the day was HB267-FN, with a vote of 189-188 to kill the bill (the Speaker did not vote). The Finance committee recommended killing this bill because they felt that asking for $250,000 to fund a Department of Environmental Services position to monitor cumulative impacts of polluting emissions when applicants seek permits for waste projects should have been in the initial budget and requested by DES last year. Of course, this position is not a one-time thing and would be a permanent position in DES. Rep. Karen Ebel (D – New London) said that she believed $250,000 was a modest amount of money to request. The folks sitting behind me pointed out that this represented the cost of a used Lamborghini. Everything is relative, and seeing as this is a permanent DES position, there’s a cumulative impact right there.

We learned that the transgender agenda did not fare well in the House today. The House killed HB264-FN (191-185), which would have allowed transgender people to alter historical documents – their birth records. The House also killed HB368-FN (190-185), which would have given certain privacy protections (like protecting medical records from subpoena) for transgender people seeking gender-affirming health care in NH. There were many issues surrounding the legal ramifications and possible lawsuits resulting from this type of legislation, especially if one parent objects to said care and sues the state or medical practitioners over the transgender healthcare received by their child. Finally, HB619-FN passed (199-175), which would prohibit minors, age 18 and younger, from receiving gender transitioning procedures/surgery. This one made national news almost immediately. A very brave and rational Rep. Jonah Wheeler (D-Peterborough) spoke at the well about his support for the transgender community, but at the same time, he could not support life-altering and irreversible sex change operations for kids. After his visit to the well to speak in favor of this bill, he was immediately verbally attacked in the back anteroom by members of his own caucus, prompting the House Clerk, Paul Smith, to intervene. So much for the “Be Kind” and “Diversity and Inclusion” crowd. Kudos to Rep. Erica Layon (R-Derry), who spoke so well in support of NH putting “a pause” on gender transitioning surgeries and treatments in NH (like hormones and other drugs) for minors until we have real data to ensure that no permanent harm is done to these kids. This bill also redefines conversion therapy and removes restrictions on this practice. Almost all votes on these bills were roll called.

We learned that HB396 passed 192-184. This bill allows for the state to recognize biological sex, such that it permits classification based on biological sex in lavatory facilities, locker rooms, sporting competitions, and detention facilities. Rep. Kristine Perez (R-Londonderry) did a great job and put in a lot of work in her amendment (2023-0441h) to this bill to make it clear. The House passed the amendment with 194-182. Someone truly needs to help Rep. Eric Turer (D-Brentwood) and Rep. Marjorie Smith (D-Durham), as well as others in their caucus, who simply cannot seem to understand or define what the term “biological sex” means. Trying to answer their request for clarification of the term “biological sex,” Rep. Bob Lynn (R-Concord) gave a brief biology lesson with regard to XY and XX chromosomes in humans. Hah, and you thought these folks “followed the science”! I mean, isn’t that what they keep telling us?

We learned that HB194-FN passed 194-179. This was the bill that would direct the division of archives and records management to compile and maintain a list of public monuments, update that list every ten years, and make that list available publicly online. It was argued that this was an unnecessary bill because the Director of the Division of Historical Resources says towns already have their own lists, and we don’t really need to spend the money and resources to do this at the state level. Proponents say it will assist those doing historical research and planning trips to visit them. As far as I am concerned, I don’t like such a list… it could easily become a list of targets for those who seem to enjoy defacing and damaging our treasured monuments, as we have seen happen in the past across the country. I hope the Senate kills this one.

We learned that a voice vote killed HB434-FN, which was a bill that would have allowed people to fly drones in state parks for a $25 fee. Aside from the testimony regarding interfering with people enjoying their time in state parks, even the Audubon Society didn’t like this one because they claimed it would disturb the wildlife. In any case, this bill just didn’t fly.

We learned that HB199 died with a whopping 319-53. This would have eliminated useful thermal energy from renewable energy classes. Many people/municipalities statewide rely on Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) that come from biomass (wood or waste to energy) plants. So, the proposal to ditch this classification for RECs went up in smoke.

We learned that the “Defend the Guard” bill, HB229, passed 187-182 after adopting an amendment (2023-0045h) made by Rep. Diane Pauer (R-Concord), Rep. Michael Granger (R-Milton Mills) and Rep. Tom Mannion (R-Pelham). This bill limits the activation of the NH National Guard to active combat areas to only those times when the US Congress has passed an official action pursuant to Article 1, Section 8, of the US Constitution, thereby not allowing our NH National Guard to be placed in harm’s way in foreign countries in undeclared wars. This bill does not in any way prohibit the guard from participating in training exercises outside the US, training with foreign countries, or performing humanitarian or civic assistance, nor will it prohibit the governor from consenting to the deployment of any NH guard member under Title 32 of the US Code. There are more details in the bill, but essentially, it prevents our NH guard from being sent into combat without a declaration of war. An important note is that the Finance Committee waived this bill off coming to them after this vote and requested that it be sent along to the Senate.

We also learned that two bills from the Transportation Committee were Tabled. One would allow nonresident aliens (HB375-FN) to obtain an NH driver’s License, and another one that would give REALID NH driver’s licenses to those people applying for asylum without identity verification or vetting (HB570). Tabling votes were 185-179 and 187-180 respectively. There just seems to be this continued effort to give noncitizens living in NH drivers licenses; which would otherwise be fine if it also didn’t also give them the key credentials to vote in our elections!

We learned that there were two gun bills pulled off the Consent Calendar by Rep. Jason Gerhard (R-Concord). One was HB144, which would have allowed the restoration of firearms ownership to nonviolent felons. This bill was unanimously killed in committee because there already is an annulment procedure for state offenses. There is no annulment procedure for federal offenses, though, and we don’t control that. The House agreed with the original unanimous committee vote, and ITL’d the bill 297-63. The other was HB512, which would have exempted firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition manufactured in NH from interstate commerce and federal regulation. This bill would have put manufacturers in serious conflict with state and federal law, and again, the House agreed with the original unanimous committee vote and ITL’d the bill with a vote of 286-69.

Finally, we learned that we got all our work done and won’t have to come back to session until February when the 2024 early bills start emerging with committee recommendations for the House to vote on. Let the games begin, and may the odds ever be in our favor.

The post So Kids, What Did We Learn From Thursday’s House Session (1/4/24)? appeared first on Granite Grok.

In a story that seems to be becoming increasingly common as time goes on, The Western Journal reported this week about a Canadian EV owner experiencing some massive sticker shock over the cost of replacing the damaged battery in his electric vehicle.

Now, those of us who have always driven internal combustion engine (ICE) cars have, at one time or another, been faced with big repair bills for some of those vehicles. I can remember spending $4,000 on a new radiator for a 10-year-old Infiniti QX 50 with 220,000 miles on it that I just couldn’t bear to part with several years back. I did finally retire that wonderful vehicle when faced with the prospect of a $6,000 tag for a rebuilt transmission.

So, all cars will eventually cost you or your insurance company big money to repair — no one is saying that’s unique to EVs. But where EVs are concerned, it’s the magnitude of the price for replacing a damaged or worn-out battery that is often quite eye-popping.

I wrote a story in September about a fellow in the U.S. deciding to junk his paid-off EV when he got an estimate of $30k to replace his battery. We now see frequent reports that auto insurance companies are charging higher rates for EVs than for comparable ICE cars due in large part to this extravagant battery replacement cost.

If you think that $30,000 is extravagant, well, get ready because it apparently isn’t even close to the worst-case scenario. Per the Western Journal, a Canadian man, Kyle Hsu, paid roughly $55,000 Canadian ($41,583 US) in 2022 to buy a brand new Hyundai IONIQ 5. But, less than a year later, Mr. Hsu was involved in what seemed to be a minor accident resulting in superficial damage to his beautiful EV.

Unfortunately for Hsu, it turned out that the battery protector cover on his car’s undercarriage was warped, a problem that could, in certain instances, cause the battery to explode. This meant that he would have to replace his car’s battery pack in addition to fixing its structural damage. Hsu says he was shocked when the estimate to replace the battery came in at $61,000 Canadian, or about $46,000 in US dollars. That’s almost $6,000 more than he paid for the car when he purchased it brand new. (RELATED: DAVID BLACKMON: Climate Fascists Are On The March)

Even worse, because the damage was caused by an accident, the bill was not covered by the car’s warranty, leaving Hsu with the alternative of filing a claim with his insurance carrier. But the resulting insurance implications were enormous, with Mr. Hsu facing a rate increase of up to 50% if he filed the claim. His only other choice would be to foot the repair bill himself and now have over $87,000 US dollars invested in a $41,000 car.

This is insane. This is not sustainable. The EV industry simply cannot have stories like this one popping up with increasing frequency and hope to sustain growing demand for its products.

When you combine horror stories like this one with:

• range anxiety that pops up any time the weather isn’t perfect;
• the lack of charging infrastructure;
• the unreliability of the infrastructure that does exist;
• the non-recyclability of the battery materials;
• the increasing restrictions on charging due to the massive load EVs place on the grid;
• and all the other significant issues EV makers have yet to address,

you see an industry that is almost doomed to failure before it really gets up and running.

I frequently remind readers that EVs have been around since the 1880s. They are not a new idea in any sense of that word. If they were really the answer to displacing ICE cars at societal scale, it seems likely they would have already done so. What we see popping up with increasing frequency now in the form of stories like this one are simply manifestations of the reasons why that has not already happened.

EVs today are what they have always been: A niche product, a luxury item suitable to fill discreet purposes for the upper 5% or so elites in any society. The technology simply is not there yet to make them anything more than that.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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

 

David Blackmon | Daily Caller

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Well, Happy New Year to all, and now that we are officially in 2024, I’m turning my attention to election-year politics (as if it’s not always really). So I welcomed a call from Lily Tang Williams, who ran in a bid to face Annie Kuster two years ago and intends to run for another chance to displace “rubber stamp” Annie.

For those not familiar with Lily, she is an immigrant from China who is now an American citizen and really knows the horrors of communist China and can make listeners really feel the danger. I was privileged to be one of the Grok interviewers who unanimously endorsed her campaign last time and, speaking for myself, do so again. With her life’s experience, she is unquestionably a true constitutional conservative, exactly the kind of person so many of us here on the Grok have been calling for. She presents no risk whatsoever of going to DC and succumbing to the swamp like so many others (RINOs) have, of that I’m certain.

Here in Gilford, I’m in District 1, as many of you may be, still, I have signed up as a campaign worker for her in the second. I am inviting all Grok readers to join me regardless of which district you are in and, for once, get behind a candidate who can face down both crooked politicians and media on the left. The lack of great name recognition can be changed if we all join together starting now and work to force news outlets and career politicians to listen to our demands for that conservative voice we have all been looking for that the left can’t challenge her first-hand life experience in a hostile communist nation.

I’ll be presenting updates on where and when she will be holding presentations and campaign events here on the Grok as I am made aware of them. Together, we can make a difference.

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Most of the groups and members of groups who hate or fear firearms are clueless about them. They’ve never fired one, carried one, or paid a moment’s attention to the detrimental side effects that follow the laws they advocate. Oh, and sometimes – if you are these idiots – you break the laws you demanded.

 

Blissfully unaware of state law, a gun control advocacy operation called New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence visited the homes of some people who wanted to get rid of a firearm and trade it for a gift card. Then, right there on site, they used an angle grinder to cut the gun’s receiver in half.

Once that was done, they took the two pieces to a local high school. The parts were then given to young gun control activists, who used the bits of wood and metal to build anti-gun “works of art.”

 

If you are playing along at home, you have likely discerned the criminality for yourselves. New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence advocated for a law prohibiting the private transfer of firearms. The number of violations is equal to the number of firearms they took possession of from private owners regardless of what they planned to do with them. Here’s the second.

 

Worse, the group’s destruction of receivers don’t comply with ATF guidelines for rendering them permanently inoperable. So, when they took these guns (which were still legally guns) onto school grounds and transferred them to minors, they broke all kinds of laws — laws NMPGV itself supports — including state and federal felonies.

As a result, the local Sheriff has announced that he is investigating them. Strangely, NMPGV doesn’t think that’s fair at all.

 

The bit about the Sheriff’s investigations is (IMO) hilarious. One of the motivations for groups like NMPGV is Sheriffs who refuse to enforce laws that violate the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. This bit of lawlessness followed the local city cancelling a gun-buyback program. NMPGV, ignoring their own advocacy, violated the private transfer prohibition, which includes not having completed a background check.

 

“Reviewing the law I do not see where they are exempt from having to undergo a background check and are required to like anyone else,” San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari wrote in a Facebook post. “A sale is taking place (gift cards $100 and up), it is advertised as a purchase and called a ‘buy back.’ ” He went on to explain that the law prohibits all transfers, and that the gift cards were definitely “consideration” under state law, triggering the prohibition.

A decision on how to proceed is pending input from New Mexico’s Democrat Attorney General. If the AG gives them a pass, they have established that you don’t need to follow the law to transfer firearms, which will be the rule until someone they want to prosecute does it. Again, without any consideration of the reality that the Second Amendment doesn’t give them the right to enforce any of this, even against the goofy anti-gun group.

The only real “crime is the fraud perpetrated by New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. Nothing they are doing does that, and certainly not cutting a few rifles in half.

 

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For those old enough to remember or who may have served during the Vietnam era, the impact that war had on the fabric of our military and our nation was truly devastating. It was compounded by the nation’s apathy and, at times, outright hostility towards those who served.

The result was a disaster in morale and significant indiscipline incidents throughout the force. Readiness and our warfighting ability were placed at risk. We left Vietnam a hollow military and now appear to have come full circle.

The rebuilding of the military after Vietnam and the transition to an All-Volunteer Force took years, led by then-President Reagan and senior officers who vowed never to let what happened in Vietnam happen again. It was very painful, but we came out of it a better, more capable force with extremely high morale. It was this force that fought the first Gulf War, along with Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Unfortunately, our senior leaders have again lost their focus on the most critical aspects of our profession, namely, readiness and warfighting and selecting leaders based on merit, not some Marxist concepts such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). These leaders have forgotten their primary responsibility is to man, train, and equip the armed forces. They have displayed a cavalier attitude and a lack of loyalty in dismissing over 18,000 military members and volunteers, all of whom refused to take an experimental vaccine. Recent medical studies seem to vindicate these service members.

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Leaders now care more about bringing a “woke” culture to our profession with its disastrous impact on recruiting and readiness while giving priority to finding phantom nonexistent “extremists” in the ranks recently debunked by the Wall Street Journal, among others, me included. Their major achievement, however, was giving us unilateral surrender in Afghanistan and the sacrifice of the lives of 2400 brave soldiers while leaving behind $70 Billion in equipment, aircraft, armored vehicles, and thousands of real “assault weapons” to arm our adversaries. To this list, we can add a recruiting shortfall of crisis proportions driven in part by using Drag Queens and cross-dressers to entice young military-age middle-class males to join. No surprise that the American public’s desire to serve is in the toilet. Our values have become nonexistent while our apathy rating is off the chart.

The time for accountability to the American people and those serving has arrived. The damage of the past three years is immense and will take many years to correct, while those responsible will escape any responsibility. They betrayed our trust and the trust of our soldiers and their families; this was unconscionable. Correcting this damage starts with a values-based Commander-In-Chief and senior leaders who lead from the front, not from their office, and who will hold everyone under them accountable regardless of skin color or ideology and promote based on merit, not your DEI score. They need to get their heads out of email, Facebook, and Twitter and get in the damn foxhole with soldiers and fix this problem or be shown the door. At the end of the day, the mission of the Armed Forces is to fight and win our nation’s wars. To do that requires we instill a warrior ethos, not a woke ideology, into the young men and women who volunteer to join and who want to make a difference. After all, it’s only the security and survival of our nation that’s at stake.

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“Jimmy” Kimmel is one of those tough guys … oh, I’m sorry: tough persons … on the Left who can dish it out but not take it. Here’s “Jimmy” acting like a bitch in response to Aaron Rodgers speculating that “Jimmy” will be on the Epstein List.

NOTE: This was written a couple of days before the court began releasing the documents. Needless to say it has been upstaged/overtaken by that.

But read carefully. “Jimmy” NEVER denies he visited the Island.

 

 

This is the funniest “Jimmy” has been in years, and needless to say, it’s unintentional. He thinks he’s so much smarter than us that we will fall for his non-denial. Cry harder, bitch.

 

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Teacher’s Unions are sinister private entities whose only concern is how much money they can make and how best to use that to impact politics at every level of government. Sure, Janus v. AFSCME was a great decision, but the war against public employee unions continues, and Ron DeSantis is leading that fight.

He may not be your guy, and there’s plenty of room to debate campaign failures and whether he’s another Republican Governors Association stooge, but we give credit where due. Florida passed a law in May of 2023 that “requires at least 60% of workers in a bargaining unit to be dues-paying members.”

Janus v. AFSCME affirmed that unions cannot force members to pay dues. DeSantis and Florida Republicans passed a law that requires unions with fewer than 60% dues-paying members to hold an election to recertify the union. The recertification threshold isn’t high, but this new wrinkle could end the union, and it has also created an opportunity for a different sort of “union” to vie for teachers’ attention.

 

Another union, led by Miami teachers who are dissatisfied with UTD, is trying to get on the ballot too. The Miami-Dade Education Coalition (MDEC) needs a 10% showing of interest by mid-January to qualify. The new union’s pitch is that it will fight for teachers’ and students’ interests without the politicking and divided alliances of the UTD.

“We are going to be totally and completely nonpartisan,” says MDEC Vice President Renee Zayas, a district high school teacher and former UTD member. “We will not be endorsing candidates.”

 

Competition. We’re supposed to love that in America. Kudos to these teachers for trying to change the game, but a union is a union, and public employees should not have them. Period. Private sector, I get – and as a matter of disclosure, for those who do not know, I was a Teamster for close to a decade. Long enough to collect a very small pension (tiny) when I reach retirement age. That also means I’ve been inside a union, seen it work, and talked to union homers, stewards, union bosses, and rank-and-file for and against. Our union went on strike, so I’ve seen both sides of that, and I understand the deal.

Teachers should not be in unions. Government employees should not have unions unless you privatize local education or public safety. That might then open the subject to debate and to local government choosing to drop a union shop like a hot potato for one that was not.

I’m Drifting…

The Florida Law could be tighter, but it sets a standard for addressing some of the more common problems with unions. They are political, and plenty of members would prefer they not be. Forcing a vote of confidence, even with a threshold as low as 30%, is a start. And it has opened the business up to competition. DeSantis may not have run an outstanding national campaign, but he’s done some excellent work in Florida that other states could try or build on.

 

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This is an attempt to “break out” memes, links, and my commentary about the situation in Israel / the Middle East so as to not overload the standard meme posts that I do.  My last “normal” meme post.  In these Israel-related posts I don’t just have memes such, but lots of informative links as well as hopefully-insightful commentary.

Note that this is not meant to be a day-by-day update about what’s going on.  Rather, to highlight uncomfortable truths about the actual nature of the conflict, deep-history background, and so on, as well as to show the at-present immutable nature of Islamic Jew hate and why that matters to today’s events.

Note that these posts do not repeat information – so there is a lot of stuff in prior posts.  Please do check them out too if this is a topic of interest to you.  In reverse chronological order:

Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Still More Links, Memes, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Memes, Links, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Ongoing Memes, Links, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: More Memes, Links, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Even More Memes, Links, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: More Memes, Links, and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Memes and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Memes and Commentary – Granite Grok

With some Israel-related materials here:

Meme Overflow – Granite Grok

Another new website – or at least, new to me:

Taking Back the Narrative (tbtnisrael.com)

 

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

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An excellent long-form interview / discussion with Brigitte Gabriel.  In the first she asks a critical question: If Israel has this 45-odd-minute presentation of the atrocities captured from Hamas’ own terrorist cameras, why has it not been released?  From what I understand, NOBODY who sees it comes away thinking that the attacks on Gaza are an overreaction on Israel’s part.  I’ve seen snippets here and there and it’s obviously not the most graphic stuff – and even that makes my blood boil.

 

Brigitte Gabriel – Making Sense of the War in Israel

 

 

Somewhat related to some things she says about Gazans:

Freed Gaza Hostage: ‘Everyone Over There is a Terrorist’ – HotAir

Silence On Hamas’ Twisted Use Of Hospital Will Ensure More Die (thefederalist.com)

—

You can’t be a settler or occupier in your own land | Guest Columns | clevelandjewishnews.com

Just see here:

 

 

 

 

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

 

Israel Victory Project (meforum.org)

Another news site I just found – a slew of articles, like this one:

The Psychological Battlefield Is Just as Important as the Military One :: Israel Victory Project (meforum.org)

 

TOP OF THE FOLD

 

 

Israel’s area is a little more with the Golan Heights, but not much.  From north to south it’s 424 km (263 miles) and at its widest it is 114 km (71 miles).  It has NO “strategic depth”.

Note: I live in New Hampshire (duh).  The area of NH is 24, 214 square km.  For reference, Massachusetts is 27,340.  Now, imagine being in NH and being surrounded by people who, to varying degrees, would love to see you wiped out as a political entity, and your people enslaved or killed.  Some of those neighbors, say from Vermont, launch thousands of missiles at you in a year, and have been for years.  How long would YOU put up with it?

‘They’re So Cruel’: How Oct. 7 Destroyed an Israeli Peace Activist’s Faith in the Palestinians (freebeacon.com) (link in the original; italics replaced by underlining; bolding added):

Lahav, a manager at a travel company, long participated in peace demonstrations. In recent years, she volunteered for an Israeli charity called Road to Recovery, driving Palestinian children from the border of the Gaza Strip, less than two miles from her home, to Israeli hospitals for life-saving medical care.

“We thought that Palestinians are good people. All they want is peace and prosperity,” Lahav told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview from a hotel in this Red Sea resort city where she and most of her community were temporarily relocated. “It’s just that Hamas is forcing them to be in this aggressive situation.”

When terrorists first shook the door of her safe room on Oct. 7, Lahav was sure that she and her 22-year-old daughter were about to be killed. But a makeshift lock she had fashioned out of an oar and a vacuum cleaner thwarted three separate break-in attempts. The women lay in the darkened room for about 10 hours listening to sounds of automatic gunfire and grenade explosions. At one point, they heard a group of teenagers robbing their house.

Later, Lahav learned from other Nir Oz survivors that Gazan women and children as young as 10 years old had followed Hamas terrorists into the kibbutz, looting, helping the armed terrorists, and apparently enjoying themselves.

Somewhat related:

The Status of Settlements in International Law (jcpa.org)

Does Israel Occupy the West Bank? (youtube.com)

Video by an internationally-known lawyer extremely knowledgeable on international law.  And related to the situation, a selection of videos (links only):

Are Israeli Settlements the Barrier to Peace? (youtube.com)

A Palestinian Explains Hamas (youtube.com)

Why Isn’t There a Palestinian State? (youtube.com)

Why Are There Still Palestinian Refugees? (youtube.com)

On this last one: ONLY in this situation have the “refugees” been given multi-generational refugee status.

—

Related to the hostages:

Declining Temperatures – Liberty’s Torch (libertystorch.info)

Embedded quote:

“It seems that, back then, Islamic terrorists preferred to ransom infidel captives rather than kill them. They took quite a number of such captives, and for a while they received a great deal of money for them. One group that had made a pile kidnapping and ransoming Westerners decided to try the game on a Soviet agent. But the KGB didn’t respond the way their Western victims’ governments had. Instead it performed a counter-kidnapping of one of the group’s members, and returned him to his confreres in pieces, in a plastic bag. There was a note on the bag, in Russian and Arabic. It said, ‘This is the way we play.’ The kidnapped Soviet agent was back with his comrades within twenty-four hours, alive and whole. No Soviet agent was molested ever again.”

So… find the Hamas leaders, whisk them away, and not only do something similar, but enclose a CD with a video of them getting the Jack Pershing treatment while still alive (see link just below) before sending their remains to Gaza.  MHO, pig p*n!ses sewn into their mouths would be a nice added touch.  Perhaps with the testicles hanging out like they were engaged in f——o with the pig.

How American Soldiers Used Pig’s Blood and Corpses to Fight Muslim Terrorism | Frontpage Mag

 

 

WAR & WHEN WILL IT END?

Israeli army did not fire on own civilians at Nova music festival – Truth or Fake (france24.com)

Remember, in war the first casualty is truth.

—

Israel Is in a Strong Position, Not a Weak Position – American Thinker

An interesting perspective.

—

From a contact on Telegram (grammar and formatting changed):

They’re screaming: “we want the az adeen Al-Qassam battalions” (The millitary wing of the hamas…)

Rammalah is the Palestinian Authority’s capital in the west bank… Which has also postponed the elections in the west bank for the last 20 years out of fear that hamas would win the elections in the west bank too…

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/new-year-in-rammalah.mp4

 

Again and again I ask: how do you live not just with neighbors that openly state they want you dead, but people ostensibly within your borders that say so?

—

Hamas War Crimes: Terrorist in Civvies Hides RPG under Blanket, Terrorist Tells Gazan “I’ll Place a Bomb Between You and Your Wife.” | The Gateway Pundit | by Richard Abelson

Such wonderful people.  Related:

IDF Proof: Hamas, PIJ use young children for Gaza terror activities – The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)

—

80,000 Israelis Displaced as War with Hezbollah Looms – Iran-Proxy Strikes Israel Over and Over | CBN News

Not good.  Israel is already in a multi-front war.

 

 

ISLAM: PRACTICES, HISTORY, AND MENTALITY

A series of videos about Islam being a “Religion of Peace” (links only):

Is Islam a Religion of Peace? (youtube.com)

The myth of “peaceful Islam” – History: Islam is NOT a religion of peace (youtube.com)

Former CIA officer: Stop calling Islam a ‘religion of peace’ (youtube.com)

And one, specifically, on the alliance between Islam and the Left:

What Radical Islam and the Woke Have In Common (youtube.com)

Don’t forget these two books about that topic:

Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam And the American Left (2006-02-17) [Paperback]

United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror

 

 

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

 

So we understand the kind of people Israel is dealing with:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/doctor-on-child-cured-by-jews.mp4

 

Also on my Rumble channel:

An Israeli doctor – look what was found in a terror hideout (rumble.com)

So this doctor is pointing out that one of the documents found in a terror hideout full of weapons was a set of discharge papers for a Gazan boy treated for – and cured of – cancer in an Israeli hospital.  It reminds me of an incident, over a decade ago so I can’t find a link, of a Gazan boy with a heart condition.  As he was being operated on by Jews to save his life, his mother hoped he’d grow up to be a shahid and kill Jews.  Said this in a TV interview literally as her son was in the operating room.

 

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

 

 

ATROCITIES

Israeli Forces Capture Terrorists in UN Schools, Find Weapons in UNRWA Sacks | The Jewish Press – JewishPress.com | Pesach Benson / TPS | 14 Tevet 5784 – Tuesday, December 26, 2023 | JewishPress.com

Storing munitions in schools invalidates any protection they might have under international “Rules of War”…  just look at what the IDF found in one high school:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/khan-yunis-high-school.mp4

 

Does this resemble anything that might be found in your – or your kids’ – high schools?

—

 

 

From Telegram:

The Kedem-Simantov family.

They were all slaughtered by Hamas terrorists on October 7. We will remember and not forget.

—

This is a short clip of a corpse on Oct. 7.  Very graphic.  This is a civilian.  But remember, in Islam there are no civilians who are not Muslim.  Any person – ANY PERSON – in a war with Islam is, by definition, a combatant from the “House of War” and therefore fair game.  I don’t know how to say this more clearly, but they simply do not think like you do.  Click on the link to view, but be warned.

Oct. 7 casualty; bloody and maimed.

On the sexual atrocities Hamas committed on Oct. 7 (substack.com) (italics replaced by underline):

Which is good, because the Times’s descriptions of these crimes nearly beggar belief. They go beyond rape, or gang rape, or even the execution of prisoners. As described by witnesses who survived, and confirmed by video and forensic evidence, Hamas’s attackers turned murder and torture into can-you-top-thissport:

And detailed descriptions of corpses and eye-witness accounts to rape and worse:

‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7 (yahoo.com)

More – sourced from the same original:

What Happened on October 7 | Power Line (powerlineblog.com)

“The Times viewed photographs of one woman’s corpse … with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin” (legalinsurrection.com)

Horrific.  But while I deeply respect the tweeter here:

Perhaps the greatest mercy Israel is showing to Gaza is not releasing to the public the full details of what was done by the invaders to their victims. Ostensibly for the sensitivities of the families, but also I think because what populace would be able to restrain themselves?

I disagree, and concur with Brigitte above.  The world needs to see these videos.

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/woman-i-want-to-live.mp4

 

Gaza terrorist confesses to raping then murdering Israeli woman | World Israel News

According to the report, the terrorist described in detail to his interrogators how the woman was raped and then murdered. The details even enabled Israeli authorities to identify the female victim.

With three other associated images, click-through but be warned:

Crimes 1

Crimes 2

Crimes 3

Again: the world needs to see that 45 minute video.  All of it.

Related:

Hostages were starved, tortured, sexually assaulted and denied treatment | World Israel News

—

Merry Christmas, Gaza | Power Line (powerlineblog.com)

Embedded quote (bolding added):

In the compound, the IDF found explosive belts specifically modified for children to wear, along with dozens of mortar shells, hundreds of grenades and several intelligence documents, it said Sunday.

—

Mia Schem’s Captivity Was Anything but Kindness – HotAir

Don’t be fooled otherwise.

—

On the “Two State Solution”:

The ‘Two-State Solution’ Echoes Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics

Again – you can’t make peace whose base position is your complete destruction:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/can-there-be-a-two-state-solution.mp4

 

On my Rumble channel too:

A Former Hamas Member on the Two State Solution (rumble.com)

And related:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/more-on-palis-hating-israel.mp4

 

 

ON INTERSECTIONALITY / LEFTIST SUPPORT

Unmasking SJP (jcpa.org)

Two page document.  SJP is nothing more than a Hamas PR / brainwashing front.  Related to college campuses, though this is supposedly about BLM I seem to remember it being about pro-Gaza events (or maybe it was another, similar video):

 

Liberal Jewish Student FINALLY Wakes Up

 

 

—

Douglas Murray, a gay man himself, weighs in on the “Gays for Gaza” “Queers for Palestine” insanity of the Left (barenakedislam.com)

I saw a video of a chain of people being tossed off a rooftop – possibly Gaza but not sure – but regardless, Islamists murdering people in a manner consistent with how gays are treated by them.  And… STILL the LGBTQP+ crowd supports them.  Talk about a total atrophy of the survival instinct; discussed in my three-part series on the biological roots of civilizational collapse:

Civilizational Collapse and Biology (Part 1) – Urban Scoop

Civilizational Collapse and Biology (Part 2) – Urban Scoop

Civilizational Collapse and Biology (Part 3) – Urban Scoop

—

We Have Abdicated Our Responsibility | Frontpage Mag

We deluded ourselves into believing that advocating for Muslim immigration from countries that export terrorism would be no threat to us. But we failed to realize that most of the immigrants coming from these Muslim countries have been taught since they were babies that the Jews are the sons of apes and pigs.

We allowed ourselves to become fragmented. We told ourselves that Tikun Olam is the most important thing above and beyond our own security. We told ourselves that supporting the Democratic Socialists of America and being Bernie Sanders supporters was okay despite their positions on Israel. We told ourselves it wasn’t a big deal that Linda Sarsour was one of the heads of the Women’s March.

—

If Israel is sooooooo apartheid, explain how the Muslim Druze seem to be doing quite well (on my Rumble channel):

Druze in Israel – a man explains (rumble.com)

—

Campus Anti-Zionism Dates Back to 1967 – American Thinker

Some great history, including how the USSR got involved.  And how weak many “Jewish” organizations are on campus.

 

 

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

 

Yoseph Haddad interviewed by Dr Sheree Trotter

 

 

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

 

PALLYWOOD & MEDIA IN GENERAL

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/lights-camera-makeup-pallywood.mp4

 

Look at these people grinning as they’re being dolled-up for the cameras.  Also on my Rumble channel:

Lights… Camera… Make-up… PALLYWOOD! (rumble.com)

—

Gaza – so dangerous that nobody dare do anything.  Except hold an open-air market.

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/market-in-central-gaza-dec-18.mp4

 

—

The True Cost of the Israel Apartheid Narrative | Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (jcpa.org)

Video – about 45 minutes.  Including a woman from South Africa who knows, you know, actual apartheid.

—

NBC Asks If IDF Tunnel Display Justifies ‘Massive Palestinian Deaths’ (newsbusters.org)

Liberal Media Spreads Blood Libel About Israel and Organ Harvesting (legalinsurrection.com)

The media are actively taking sides.  This link is long and broad but it shows the role of information in this war:

“You have Jews everywhere,” one former Hamas minister, Fathi Hammad, shouted to a crowd in 2019, “and we must attack every single Jew on the globe by way of slaughter and killing, with God’s will” (barenakedislam.com)

—

No wonder so many people, including most other Arabs, hate the Palestinians (barenakedislam.com)

Video & text.  And who actually stabbed her to death?  (Bolding added).

Police confirmed that Aya Abu Hajjaj, a 24 year old Palestinian woman in her final term of pregnancy who was fatally stabbed last month, was killed by her 14-year-old brother, her 51-year-old father, and a 15-year-old cousin.

Honor killings are nothing new in the Arab world.

Dr. Sanity: HONOR KILLINGS AND SUICIDE BOMBINGS – ISLAM, ARABS, AND SHAME (drsanity.blogspot.com)

One of the things that I recall from Brigitte Gabriel’s book Because They Hate was that Palestinian terrorists would rape a woman (or boy) and then say that the only way for them to protect their family’s honor would be to become a shahid and do a suicide attack… same with kids that are found to be gay.  Threat of disclosure of their rape or their being homosexual to the wide world, shame on your entire family… or here’s your suicide vest.  Other resources / info / links on honor killing:

You searched for honor killing – Political Islam

Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings :: Middle East Quarterly (meforum.org)

You searched for honor killing – Geller Report

 

 

TERROR COMING HERE?  TO THE WEST?

Italy: Pro-Hamas demonstrators disrupt Milan Christmas concert (jihadwatch.org)

Note that the sign is in English, not Italian.  More in Europe:

GERMANY: Three Muslims arrested in alleged terror plot to attack Cologne Cathedral (barenakedislam.com)

What the Hell is wrong with Spain? It took them 700 years to eliminate their Muslim rulers the first time, why are they heading down the same suicidal road again? (barenakedislam.com)

Netherlands: Islamic Schools Ban Muslim Children From Befriending Jews and Christians, Teach Non-Believers Should Be Killed (Video) – RAIR (rairfoundation.com)

—

Indiana: Muslim prays ‘Oh, Allah, bring annihilation upon the aggressor Zionists, the criminal Crusaders’ (jihadwatch.org)

Such nice people.  Let’s invite more in.  Here they are in Berlin:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/pro-hamas-new-years-in-Berlin.mp4

 

More on terrorists already on our soil:

German Police Foil Islamic Terrorist Attack on the Iconic Cologne Cathedral on New Year’s Eve, Five Muslims Arrested – Geller Report

NJ Busted Muslim: “Jihad… Coming Soon To a US Location Near You” | Frontpage Mag

Muslims Attack the Police Across France: Riots, Arson Stone Pelting – Geller Report

 

 

Attacking a person with a Canadian flag in Canada:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/enemy-in-the-gates-in-canada.mp4

 

They’re utterly open about what they plan – wait until you’re strong enough:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/british-mosque-preaching-until-you-are-strong-enough.mp4

 

—

 

Brigitte Gabriel’s Warning: The Shocking Truth About What Lies Ahead for America

 

 

 

TREADING ON THE POLITICAL

Biden has ‘frustrating’ call with Netanyahu over Israel’s decision to withhold tax revenue from the Palestinian Authority in latest sign of tension between Washington and Tel Aviv | Daily Mail Online

Biden to Israel: Hey, we know you’re in an existential war, but could you please give your sworn and mortal enemy money?

—

 

 

Not just Hamas:

BIDEN’S INVASION: Iranian Terrorist Apprehended at US Border – Geller Report

 

 

MISCELLANEOUS

 

The Maori of New Zealand show support to Israel with the famous Haka dance

 

 

Related (link only):

Why so many Māoris are standing for Israel (youtube.com)

—

A follow up to my last CLOSING COMMENT on the silence of the world… if it’s not Jews:

World Ignores Muslims Butchering and Slaughtering Christians “For Sport” in Nigeria, 50,000 and Counting – Geller Report

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/nigeria-is-a-warning.mp4

 

Related:

 

 

—

Israel’s Opium Addiction – American Thinker

I agree.  Long-term, Israel needs to be weaned off American largess.  Not just because it creates a dependency that no nation should tolerate, but it creates enormous hostility in America towards Israel.

—

Beating the Anti-Semites – American Thinker

The flip side of this is that no American Jew who supports his community, who values his heritage, can honestly call himself a leftist. This despite the fact that most American Jews (the ultra-orthodox excepted) were raised in liberal-left traditions. It’s a difficult thing to overturn the convictions of a lifetime, but it has to be done. As it stands, American Jews are in the ghastly position of collaborating with those out to destroy them

 

 

GIVING SUPPORT TO ISRAEL

You can’t go wrong with a donation here:

Connections Israel

Here’s a video they just did:

WAR FOR ISRAEL | connectionsisrael

And please share this post far and wide.  There’s a lot of info here that many people don’t know.  Post it, email it, share widely.

Also, if you’re willing:

Buy Me a Coffee

 

 

A CONCLUDING THOUGHT FOR THIS POST

On New Year’s Eve my family and I went to downtown Boston to my wife’s favorite restaurant.  And, of course, the Gaza protests were there in Boston Common.  Between the crowd gathered and chanting “Free free Palestine”! and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”! plus others wandering around or some in coffee shops with signs and patches, I’d estimate at least 100 people.  Likely there were more – which is supported by the link below.  More on the event:

Hundreds of Pro-Palestinian Protesters Take Over Historic Boston Common, Crash New Year’s Eve Celebration | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

In Chicago they are, per one source, cosplaying Gazans:

 

 

It was cold; not as cold as I’ve seen it but cold.  So get this through to your core: these people are committed if they were out there for that long.

These are people that make calls and write letters.  They do op-eds and Letters to the Editor.  They write their elected officials at every level.

Write and call yourself:

Senate

House

Find your local paper and use my – and other – sources to write letters countering their narrative; after all, those who supply the information control what people think.

 

The post Israel: Ongoing Links, Memes, and Commentary appeared first on Granite Grok.

About three years ago, two Conservatives from Maine created a grassroots organization to lobby the State Legislature to pass laws that align with traditional Maine values and assist Conservative Republican candidates in their quest for office.

The Dinner Table was named after the famous Ronald Reagan line, “ALL GREAT CHANGE IN AMERICA BEGINS AT THE DINNER TABLE.” With Reagan’s inspiration, Alex Titcomb & Rep. Laurel Libby created the most significant grassroots political action group ever in the Pine State.

The Dinner Table continues to grow and sees a membership surge every time Augusta comes down with another Left-Wing decision. 2023 was rife with written and passed decisions to assuage the Left or Special Interest groups. One such law was the ultra-liberal reproductive rights (abortion) bill passed last summer that aligns Maine with the least restrictive abortion rights states in the country. The bill effectively allowed voluntary abortion up to the point of birth and was opposed by over 80% of Maine voters. The bill had the support of the largest abortion services provider in the country, Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood claims that abortion is one of the least sought services they offer, but they spent nearly $800,000 wooing State Reps and Senators. Proponents deluged the Capitol chambers with support and against the people’s will. The bill was passed after an all-night session in the House chamber.

The Dinner Table has been active in resisting new laws that promote the spread of the Marijuana Industry. Marijuana has been legal for medicinal and recreational use since 2016 and has become the third-largest industry in Maine. The politicians want to see those tax dollars continue to grow.

Most recently, the Dinner Table was active in fighting the removal of Trump from the state’s election ballot. They were unsuccessful, but that was not due to lack of effort. The cards were stacked against Trump and any supporters, and the Liberal Left got their wish when the Secretary of State released her decision last week. She immediately suspended her decision, knowing it would be directly challenged in the Maine Supreme Court. The Trump Team has filed a challenge to the decision.

Recruiting and supporting candidates is the other focus of the Dinner Table, and the support is both in training and helping with the financial demands of running for state office. The time is right for the Dinner Table as the political pendulum appears to be swinging to the right. However, you still need candidates who can do the job, represent Conservatives, and be attractive to Independents. That is a tall order, but the leadership team of the Dinner Table is confident, and they have built an enthusiastic team of Conservative Patriots who have already shown they are primed and ready to meet the challenge.

Conservatives are motivated but also angry and feel threatened. They think the effort by the Left to push America toward a Socialist form of government, and they take it personally. If there is one lesson the Left needs to heed, it is you do not threaten the Democracy that Conservatives hold dear. They appear to be slow learners.

The post BEAR Pond Conservative Chronicles: In Maine, “The Dinner Table” Links True Conservatives appeared first on Granite Grok.

When these documents were pried (rhetorically) from Jeffy Epstein’s dead hands – or, more accurately, stemming from Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit against short-term New Hampshire property owner Ghislaine Maxwell – the names on that alleged list were not easy to find.

Everyone was looking for names. Where are the names? Who is on “the list.”

Several searches produced nothing. The usual mainstream media suspects had articles about the doc release, the lawsuit, and the judge who declared the documents with the names could be made public, and there were a handful of actual names, but not all. Bill Clinton. Prince Andrew. Donald Trump. Nothing we didn’t know.

They were out there, somewhere, but I’d expected a flood of content upon release, with every one of them including a nice, neat, easy-to-share “list.”

I found one this morning—Newsweek, of all places. Emphasis, mine.

 

The names were unsealed from a lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre, an alleged trafficking victim, against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend. Maxwell, 61, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted in December 2021 of helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse underage girls.

Many of those whose names appear in the documents released Wednesday aren’t accused of wrongdoing or have been mentioned previously in legal proceedings or news accounts. The documents released Wednesday are not an Epstein “client list.”

What they are exactly will be up to the people who read it. Still, you’d be right to wonder why they appear in previously sealed court documents related to the human trafficking trial of a woman linked to a pedophile operation.

Some of these names may be the result of an inconveninet coincidence—some of them. You get to decide, and you can view the released documents for yourself in search of context – and please share your thoughts in the comments. I’m still skimming them, but could not resist getting something out there for people like me looking for some sort of list.

Newsweek ads that,

 

Some portions of the records will remain confidential, including those identifying people who were children when they were sexually abused by Epstein, who took his own life in August 2019 in a federal prison in Manhattan as he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges.

Preska gave lawyers for each of the people named the opportunity to review the files before they were unsealed and argue in favor of keeping them out of public view.

Here are the names Newsweek pulled from the linked docs. Again, not a client list but a list of known associates or persons of interest of either Epstein or Maxwell that turned up at trial. We leave the rest up to you, dear reader, with more speculation on this, most certainly to follow. There are 90 lines, but four were redacted – which leaves us with  86 named.

 

1. Ghislaine Maxwell
2. Virginia Lee Roberts Giuffre
3. Kathy Alexander
4. Miles Alexander
5. James Michael Austrich
6. Philip Barden
7. REDACTED
8. Cate Blanchett
9. David Boies
10. Laura Boothe
11. Evelyn Boulet
12. Rebecca Boylan
13. Joshua Bunner
14. Naomi Campbell
15. Carolyn Casey
16. Paul Cassell
17. Sharon Churcher
18. Bill Clinton
19. David Copperfield
20. Alexandra Cousteau
21. Cameron Diaz
22. Leonardo DiCaprio
23. Alan Dershowitz
24. Dr. Mona Devanesan
25. REDACTED
26. Bradley Edwards
27. Amanda Ellison
28. Cimberly Espinosa
29. Jeffrey Epstein
30. Annie Farmer
31. Marie Farmer
32. Alexandra Fekkai
33. Crystal Figueroa
34. Anthony Figueroa
35. Louis Freeh
36. Eric Gany
37. Meg Garvin
38. Sheridan Gibson-Butte
39. Robert Giuffre
40. Al Gore
41. Ross Gow
42. Fred Graff
43. Philip Guderyon
44. REDACTED
45. Shannon Harrison
46. Stephen Hawking
47. Victoria Hazel
48. Brittany Henderson
49. Brett Jaffe
50. Michael Jackson
51. Carol Roberts Kess
52. Dr. Karen Kutikoff
53. Peter Listerman
54. George Lucas
55. Tony Lyons
56. Bob Meister
57. Jamie A. Melanson
58. Lynn Miller
59. Marvin Minsky
60. REDACTED
61. David Mullen
62. Joe Pagano
63. Mary Paluga
64. J. Stanley Pottinger
65. Joseph Recarey
66. Michael Reiter
67. Jason Richards
68. Bill Richardson
69. Sky Roberts
70. Scott Rothstein
71. Forest Sawyer
72. Doug Schoetlle
73. Kevin Spacey
74. Cecilia Stein
75. Mark Tafoya
76. Brent Tindall
77. Kevin Thompson
78. Donald Trump
79. Ed Tuttle
80. Emma Vaghan
81. Kimberly Vaughan-Edwards
82. Cresenda Valdes
83. Anthony Valladares
84. Maritza Vazquez
85. Vicky Ward
86. Jarred Weisfeld
87. Courtney Wild
88. Bruce Willis
89. Daniel Wilson
90. Andrew Albert Christian Edwards, Duke of York

Do ‘Grok Commenters Have More Fun? – Join the conversation and find out. You could win free stuff!

 

HT | Newsweek

The post The First 86 Names Linked to Ghislane Maxwell Trial Doc Dump appeared first on Granite Grok.

We learned that today was the first of two days this week that the House will determine the fate of around 66 bills that were retained from last year. We voted on 37 of those bills today.

We also learned that the majority of Democrats attended the House session today wearing face masks as if they pined for the old COVID days in the UNH athletic arena. Rep. Eric Gallager (D-Concord) still wears a bandana on his face, bank-robber style. Maybe it’s all just become some sort of fashion statement…Or maybe just some cult thing?

We learned that first out of the gate was HB185 – a bill having to do with shared parenting coming out of Children and Family Law, passed with 202-172. Apparently, some changes in language will clear up ambiguities for judges when it comes to visitation and parenting rights.

We learned that HB645-FN will allow the establishment of “Decentralized Autonomous Organizations” (DAOs) in NH. Similar to legal entities like LLCs and corporations, this allows people to pursue coordinated projects using predefined rules (codified in software) deployed on public blockchain networks. A DAO allows participants to govern themselves directly over a decentralized computer network. This bill will allow a DAO to register with the NH Secretary of States office, and will make NH a leader in this new technology. Some people say it’s really cool and cutting-edge. I say it’s much better understood by the folks in the Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee. Chairman John Hunt (R-Rindge) was absolutely thrilled at the passage of this bill 340-33, citing it as one of the most thrilling bills to come out of Commerce in a very long time.

We learned that the House killed HB113 with a vote of 195 No-178 Yes (on OTP motion) and finally a voice vote of ITL. That bill would have eliminated the physical fitness requirements for certified law enforcement officers. So, those requirements will remain in statute. The argument for removing them was that it was an impediment to hiring and that it didn’t need to be in NH statute now anyway because many police agencies and municipalities have their own physical fitness requirements. 195 members of the House felt that we need to keep physical fitness requirements on the books. We can’t have criminals being more healthy, active, and agile than our police officers now, can we?

We learned that 9 out of 12 education bills were tabled. I guess they just weren’t worth talking about, so they were tossed on the table. The three that were debated were: HB354, which passed 190-177 and would allow charter schools to be eligible for state school building aid, HB628-FN which died 195-178 and would have required homeschooling parents (teaching their own kids) to get a background check if they were getting Education Freedom Account money, and SB151-FN which died 186-183 and would have included mental health education in adequate education standards (yet another unfunded mandate in NH curriculum). Now to tackle the 100+ bills coming to their committee in the coming months! Those committee members will be camping out at the State House.

We learned that the House would prefer state primary elections be held on the 3rd Tuesday in August according to the OTP 281 Yes – 82 No vote on HB115. Is anyone even around to vote in August?

We learned that 2 Ranked Choice Voting bills went down in flames. HB345-FN (RCV for state party primary and municipal elections) was killed 207-170 with a roll call vote… and HB350 (RCV for federal and state offices) was killed 248-128, also on a roll call vote. Ranked Choice voting has been an utter mess in Maine and Alaska. Why would we ever want to bring that crazy mess here? If you can’t make up your mind who to vote for then RCV is for you. You rank your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice from the candidates, and then the computer algorithm decides who the winner is… umm yeah, that’s transparent and somehow translates into the “consent of the governed”… BIG NOPE! I’m glad the NH House still has some sense and rejected this, although it would have been interesting to see how it would have come out if we somehow ranked choice voted these bills (wink).

We learned that the House passed HB463-FN with 195 Yes-172 No. This bill allows the Secretary of State to establish an online election information portal to make voter registration easier and available online for updates and corrections. Now let’s see what the Senate does with this and if they have any concerns about election security, voter fraud, file hacking, and a host of other problems, this portal might invite.

We learned that HB369, establishing an energy task force to provide energy relief for farms, was voted down 187-186. That was the first real close vote of the day. It ended up being tabled 322-54. The majority did not want to spend $100,000 to give UNH an FTE/person to run a program to help farmers find federal grant money to help them with energy use improvement on a farm. It was claimed by opponents that there are places they can already get assistance, and also, the program should not just be for farmers… but should include businesses and individuals.

We also learned that HB602-FN, yet another landfill siting bill, passed 226-145. This bill ended up being an entire rewrite of the original legislation that was submitted last year and would allow the Department of Environmental Services to come up with a two-step process or preliminary checklist for a landfill permit application. Proponents claim this will avoid applicants and DES investing time and resources in a site that would ultimately be deemed unsuitable for a landfill. Just wait… there are 17 more landfill-related bills coming in 2024! The House is not done talking trash!

We learned that the establishment of a new state retirement plan group (Group 3 – changing to a defined contribution plan for newly hired employees) proposed in HB559-FN died 192-181 and was then indefinitely postponed with a vote of 201-174. This bill would have created a third tier for all new employees in the state retirement system, allowing them to take their contributions with them should they leave state employment (like most companies do these days). Proponents of this bill know that people don’t stay decades at any one job anymore. Now, this topic can’t be discussed again until 2025.

We learned that HB601-FN-Local was killed 189-188. One vote mattered as this bill which would have required the Department of Education to obtain direct certification with Medicaid such that any student on Medicaid would automatically be signed up for free and reduced meals. There’s a reason why families don’t want to sign up for free and reduced meals, and there are privacy issues of their family information involved too… so why do proponents want to automatically enroll them and make them participate? Umm… probably because they know school districts will get more state money (differential aid) based on how many kids get free and reduced meals. Relieving food insecurity?? Nah… Follow the education dollars involved.

We learned that HB620-FN died 188-185. This bill would have established a division of early learning in the Department of Education. It basically would have revived the failed federal Head Start program in NH. Thank goodness three more people in the NH House understood this to be an unwise educational investment.

We learned that SB239-FN was sent to Interim Study by a vote of 186-185. This bill would have amended the Governor’s Commission on Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Prevention, serving as an advisory capacity to the governor and general court, to include drug misuse prevention and harm reduction. Drug misuse prevention and harm reduction could literally mean a lot of things. Rep. Ken Weyler (R- Kingston) said this legislation needs to be studied more, narrowed down, and set some well-defined limits to any proposals. That was the wisest string of words spoken during the day.

Finally, we learned, as Scarlett O’Hara once said, “Tomorrow is another day.” Stay tuned as we finish up what is left on our legislative plate on Jan 4th…. And then it will be a whirlwind of committee hearings until we see you in February!

 

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