Sunday • January 12 • 2025
Vol.XVII • No.II
Manchester, N.H.
We won’t have exact numbers until next year, but Vermont had a significant number of homicides in 2023, many of them gun-related. Unless there is a late December holiday shoot-out, however, there will be fewer gun deaths in 2023 than in 2022. But Vermont didn’t get ‘safer.’
The State reported seven such deaths in 2021 and twenty in 2022. A 183% increase. This year, the number has climbed into the teens and should land at nearly double the 2021 total, but the year is not over and the State Police have not revealed their body count to date, but a majority of this crime is occurring in (you guessed it) Burlington.
Culture and Crime“Vermont is experiencing many drug-related issues. Fentanyl is a huge problem for this state and the country, for that matter,” said Birmingham. “Our overdose death rate is climbing every year, which is a problem and something that should be on everybody’s radar.”
Statewide, Vermont’s homicide rate last year was about 3.9 per 100,000, compared with Los Angeles at 3.1 and New York City at 2.3 per 100,000, Loan said. Burlington’s rate was 11.2 per 100,000, exceeding the rates in Philadelphia, Phoenix and Springfield, Massachusetts, according to Loan.
Democrat’s open borders policy combined with Vermont as a sanctuary state has shifted Burlington’s demographics. The city allows illegals to vote in municipal elections, while the city council fell all over itself in a rush to defund the police in 2020. They’ve “legalized” prostitution (it’s not legal, but you can’t prosecute it). The state and city engage in corrosive tax policy, anti-liberty agendas, and more onerous anti-gun laws. Increased spending. Decreased value.
You don’t need to be an expert on public policy, a fan of studying history, or even intellectually agile to understand how these policies evolve on the ground, in the real world. You get Burlington, which is on its way to being a tiny Vermont version of places like Chicago, Baltimore, Atlanta, and DC.
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Like its bigger Democrat-run brethren, it will forever struggle with drugs, crime, and violence. And you’d be right to think they knew what was coming because both the city and the State will use this predictable byproduct of their priorities as the reason to make matters worse. Budgets will continue to burst as services and safety decline. Schools turn out imbeciles who can barely read, which they will blame on white privilege, which is only overcome with fertility-destroying puberty blockers, cutting off sex parts, or burning down minority businesses in the name of minority rights. Probably all three.
Vermont Democrats will build on the success of 2023 (twice the gun deaths of 2021 but fewer than 2023) to impose more firearms restrictions, and like those other places I mentioned, assaults will rise (all types), more guns will be fired, and more people will be robbed, burgled, injured or die. More property will be stolen or damaged. Businesses will flee. Taxes will rise. Education outcomes will decline further.
None of this is difficult to predict, but the progressives will continue down the same path as if, this time, they’ll arrive at a different outcome but never do.
The only people who can slow or stop that decline are voters who, in the upcoming election (at least in Burlington), get to choose between a socialist and a Democrat socialist as their next mayor. Does anyone believe that will make things better for the citizens? Ideologically disabled democrats will and then act surprised when matters get worse, but no one else should be surprised.
The post Vermont Will Have Fewer Gun Deaths in 2023 But The State Did Not Get Safer appeared first on Granite Grok.
A guy in Massachusetts has been arrested for the mere possession of firearms without a license… at the same time, he was notified that his license had been revoked.
(“We know you had a license to possess and carry firearms, but we revoked it before coming here, so now you don’t have it, which means that the firearms that were legal yesterday are illegal today. Surprise!”)
Apparently, the license was revoked for no reason other than he was suspected of possessing some firearms, all of which appear to be in common use — no machine guns, no SBRs, nothing for which a federal tax stamp would be required — but some of which the Commonwealth doesn’t like.
Oh, and he had ‘thousands of rounds of ammunition’, which for many people seems really scary, but for some of us seems like a good weekend of recreational shooting.
Kudos to Justice Thomas for eliminating the second-class status of the Second Amendment, but I’d kind of like to slap him around a little for his ‘two-part test,’ i.e.,
Why not just stop after the first test? The second test encourages states like Massachusetts to simply ignore the first test… in much the same way that, for decades, states (and local jurisdictions) ignored the main clause of the Second Amendment by obsessing over the subordinate clause, mentioning a well-regulated militia.
So, instead of seeing rulings like
Is the defendant a person? Is the item in question an arm? The conviction is reversed, and the law is unconstitutional.
we’re seeing rulings like
There are historical analogs (from the 20th century… which isn’t that far from 1791, right?) for preventing people from carrying arms in ‘sensitive places,’ and while a public park doesn’t qualify as a ‘sensitive place,’ a playground does qualify. And we’ll get back to you on whether bus stops, train stations, movie theaters, and places like Times Square are sensitive enough.
I’m sure the Massachusetts legislature believes that there are similar analogs that would allow them to prevent people from owning even the most common types of firearms. And the Massachusetts Attorney General is happy to prosecute people under laws that are clearly unconstitutional by the Bruen standard.
Because, why not? In a world where words no longer really mean what they have for centuries, why pretend that laws, which are made of words, place any requirements on anyone, especially government officials?
By the way, everyone has more or less forgotten the Miller case, but we shouldn’t. In that case, SCOTUS sent the case back to the lower court because it couldn’t be sure that a short-barreled shotgun had a legitimate military use — the implication being that if any weapons are protected, it’s so-called ‘weapons of war’, and not ‘arms suitable for sporting use,’ as many politicians and pundits would have you believe.
It’s going to take a long time, and a lot of cases, for the Supreme Court to clean up the mess it’s made. In the meantime, people like this guy in Massachusetts are going to have their lives ruined by government officials who simply refuse to believe that a constitutional provision can mean what it says if it says something they don’t like.
The post After Bruen, How Does This Still Happen? appeared first on Granite Grok.
Bill Mahr and I disagree on a lot of things, and he wouldn’t know me from Adam, but we do agree on some. Free speech. That’s a big one. He’s no fan of so-called right-wingers, but he defends their right to disagree with him. We have a similar policy.
We think Progressives should talk a lot. Often. And be open and honest about their ideas and where that leads us. What does the evidence of those priorities look like in the long term? Few of them are or do dare to do that, but we’ll never suppress their speech or try to silence or censor them, regardless. We want them to speak. It’s good for business, and if you listen, it is great for the liberty side of everything.
Bill Maher is back, but he’s not here to talk about Free speech. He’s come to deliver a reality sandwich to his audience, which leans a bit left if you know what I mean. He’s done that very thing on speech, the transgender agenda, and now Israel and the Middle East.
A history lesson. A look at human interaction and conflict. It’s so damn good it should probably be required viewing for students, the Campus outrage crowd, and maybe everyone.
All wars end with negotiation, but it’s hard to negotiate when the other side’s bargaining position is “you all die and disappear.” pic.twitter.com/x72h9Zlqjy
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) December 16, 2023
The post Bill Maher’s Excellent History Lesson appeared first on Granite Grok.
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The post RDP and VPS Integration: Optimizing Remote Desktop and Virtual Private Servers appeared first on Granite Grok.
For nearly three years, former President Donald Trump has infamously touted how the 2020 election was rigged. He has discussed voter fraud, ballot tampering, and irregularities in the counting process — some combination of which he believes resulted in millions of fraudulent votes for Joe Biden.
While it truly beggars belief that Biden’s “Weekend at Bernie’s” campaign won him the most votes of any candidate in American history, the sad fact is that Democratic operatives didn’t need to tamper with ballots so brazenly. The election was rigged long before Election Day.
The Daily Caller’s latest documentary, “Rigged,” debuting this January, will explore the decades of election challenges and interference that brought the country to where it is today.
We will delve into the history of challenged elections and the ongoing effort to secure election integrity. From Al Gore to Stacey Abrams, claims of stolen elections are nothing new in American politics. But the establishment, corporate media, and all of our elite institutions only decided to care now that it’s Trump making the accusations. The sad irony is that all of those who joined the #Resistance to call Trump an illegitimate president immediately turned on a dime to decry anyone who questioned election outcomes.
Democrats may not have stuffed millions of ballots in the middle of the night, but the fact remains that 2020 was not a regular election — and many questions remain unanswered. Three wild abuses stand out, which together made it all but impossible for Democrats to lose the 2020 election.
How exactly did mail-in voting and other procedural irregularities build Democratic advantages into the system? How did widespread censorship and propaganda shape the way Americans voted? What would Democrats do to hold onto power — or better yet, what wouldn’t they do?
The three-step outline of how Democrats rigged the election is clear. But many details remain hidden or unclear. With the support of our dedicated Patriots subscribers, we will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of the truth.
First, Democrats secured changes to long-standing voting procedures in key battleground states that ensured a systemic advantage far before Election Day.
A 2018 study showed that increased voter turnout in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin would have been enough to shift the election in favor of Hillary Clinton. COVID-19 provided a convenient, if specious, excuse to change voting procedures in these states and others. Despite being constitutionally dubious, an army of well-funded Democrat lawyers ensured the changes held up in court. Wealthy Democrat donors then poured money into “election administration” to boost turn-out in Democratic districts. For voters who made “errors” casting their vote, officials went door-to-door “curing” their ballot after the fact. But in Pennsylvania, this was carried out disproportionately in Democratic districts.
The corporate media cast this as an effort to “expand voter access” or “fight voter suppression,” but it was no attempt to stimulate a more vibrant democracy. Rather, it was a cynical ploy to harvest votes from low-information voters who would not usually bother to cast a vote — all while making our elections less secure.
Having made voting virtually effortless, step two was to make it thoughtless as well. A barrage of corporate media propaganda framed the election as a battle between good and evil, making it clear there was only one legitimate choice in the 2020 election. Meanwhile, social media banned and censored conservatives en masse, aiming to delegitimize every conservative position from COVID to Hunter Biden’s laptop as disinformation. Corporations reinforced this through their virtue signaling and willingness to cancel anyone who stepped out of line.
In the run-up to the election, all of American society seemed to ask the question: “Do you want to brand yourself a hateful bigot, to destroy your reputation and career, to become an outsider in your own country? Or do you want to vote for Biden?” Those politically unequipped to see through the ploy can be forgiven for choosing the latter.
Media lies also set the stage for step three — the rolling left-wing riots that torched American cities for the months leading up to the election. Democrats and their allies unashamedly pushed the lie of systemic racism, providing a moral justification for the riots. This “Summer of Love” was not an organic protest against injustice but a heavily organized and orchestrated attempt to beat those still-undecided voters into submission — in some cases literally. It was effectively a state-sanctioned campaign of political violence meant to prove the country was ungovernable under President Trump.
Combined, all of this created a massive structural advantage for Biden, as Democrats consolidated their control over the election and made themselves the arbiters of legitimacy. The cost? Severe damage to trust in our elections, a loss of credibility among all our leading institutions, and a vicious polarization that has still yet to abate. More than ever, Democrats feel they have a right to rule.
That is why it’s so important to uncover the truth — we must find out exactly what happened in 2020 if there is a chance of preventing it again in 2024. Without answers, our elections will never be the same again.
Gage Klipper | Daily Caller
The post Daily Caller Movie ‘Rigged’ To Expose Fallout Of The 2020 Election appeared first on Granite Grok.
This Green Wave led by Biden, Kerry, Yellen, and anyone else who has bent at the waist in front of Xi Jinping is not only about taking our beloved gas-driven vehicles from us but more about controlling us like a good Border Collie controls sheep.
The environment is the reason they are using, but getting us into Electric Vehicles is their way of reversing a trend that has been in play since the end of WW II. They want Americans to leave the suburbs and return to the cities. If they can herd us back into the hubs our parents escaped, they can eliminate our freedom of mobility and confine us to urban life. This will allow them to control our homes, jobs, schools, and voting patterns. The land left behind will be annexed by the government and turned into massive solar farms. It is estimated that the land needed for solar farms to replace fossil fuel-generated electricity in the Country is the size of Texas. Since over 90% of land in America is privately owned, the government will have to buy it, take it by eminent domain, or scoop it up after we abandon it. Is the picture coming into focus yet?
Remember, it was Barack Obama who promised to fundamentally transform America, and in his third term using the puppet, Joe Biden, you can see it all coming to fruition.
Nothing has been done with the infrastructure to support EVs, even though Biden and Blue States have started the clock ticking to the end of gas vehicles. No effort can be seen to replace our favorite filling station with charging stations. Nobody has explained how the supply chain will survive ditching diesel-powered 18-wheelers and their 2,000-mile range with EV trucks that must be charged after 200 miles. Tell me who has articulated the conversion of giant agricultural vehicles or land movers. That silence is because there is no plan, and America is flying solo in this folly to be an EV country and economy in less than ten years. Imagine the size of the batteries necessary to get a jumbo jet across the ocean. Rest assured that Mayor Pete is in some basement bunker with a yellow pad working on the problem.
The entire Electronic Vehicle policy has been as knee-jerk as any of the other policies of this Administration that show no thought, plan, or endgame other than saving the planet. I do not understand why the policies on EVs, gas stoves, dishwashers, washing machines, etc., have not been challenged in court. Where in the Constitution is the President given the power to make such mandates? You will not find it. But that doesn’t stop this President. Just like the Student Loan Forgiveness, he keeps pushing. The Supreme Court ruled he did not have the authority, and he did it anyway. These unreasonable and ill-conceived policies must be thwarted.
The economy, not to mention our freedoms, are not to be abused, and that is exactly what Joe Biden is doing.
The post Night Cap: The Economy and Our Freedoms Are Not To Be Abused, but That’s Exactly What Joe Biden Is Doing appeared first on Granite Grok.
In early October, we alerted you to a service request from a New Hampshire legislator for a proposed Assisted suicide bill. Marjorie Smith was fishing for co-sponsors for her “ACT relative to end-of-life options,” and she found some.
The bill includes protections for everyone involved and details an extensive list of rules for qualifications, including mental capacity and a terminal condition with six or fewer months to live. If you wanted to step onto the slippery slope, this is what you’d use to do that. Legislation focused on end-of-life care (compassion) with many guardrails that can, over time, be taken down as they have in every State or country where Medically Assisted Dying has become law.
The LSR has been given bill number HB1283.
SPONSORS: Rep. M. Smith, Straf. 10; Rep. Dutzy, Hills. 6; Rep. D. Paige, Carr. 1; Rep. Haskins, Rock. 11; Rep. Woodcock, Carr. 1; Rep. Phillips, Rock. 7; Rep. Lynn, Rock. 17; Rep. Wolf, Merr. 7; Rep. Bolton, Graf. 8; Sen. Altschiller, Dist 24
This bill establishes a procedure for an individual with terminal illness to receive medical assistance in dying through the self administration of medication. The bill establishes criteria for the prescription of such medication and establishes reporting requirements and penalties for misuse or noncompliance.
And so it begins.
The final version appears different from the draft we shared previously, but it still includes stipulations to which I’ve previously objected.
137-M:9 Prohibited Acts.
I. Nothing in the chapter shall be construed to authorize a physician or any other person to end an individual’s life by lethal injection, mercy killing, or euthanasia. Actions taken in accordance with this chapter shall not be construed, for any purpose, to constitute suicide, assisted suicide, euthanasia, mercy killing, homicide, or adult abuse under the law.
In my previous piece, I noted that the,
“…prohibition against designating this death as assisted suicide – an affectation that, in years to come, could protect the State from having to accept its role in the rising number of deaths resulting from the inevitable widening of permissions that may result in the state assisting people toward “medically assisted suicide.”
They did nix a suggested preamble (you can read it here). And it is still a felony to ‘interfere with, or prevent a qualified individual’s death against the qualified individual’s wishes,” including,
(a) Altering, forging, concealing, or destroying a request for a terminal prescription without the qualified individual’s authorization.
(b) Concealing or destroying a withdrawal or rescission of a request for a terminal prescription without the qualified individual’s authorization.
(c) Concealing or destroying a qualified individual’s terminal prescription without the qualified individual’s authorization, or preventing a qualified individual from self-administering the terminal prescription.
(d) Coercing or exerting undue influence on a qualified individual to request or to self-administer a terminal prescription for the purpose of ending the qualified individual’s life.
(e) Coercing or exerting undue influence on a qualified individual to prevent the qualified individual from requesting or self-administering a terminal prescription.
My objections here are also the same. Item (e) can easily be misconstrued. “Loved ones who object are likely to do so in a manner that could be mistaken for a violation. Neither undue influence nor coercion for the purpose of the legislation is defined, leaving it open to abuse, not that describing it would not do the same.” Though I suspect these terms are defined elsewhere in statute or law, abuse seems likely, especially from a government that seeks to euthanize its citizens as outlined in one or more of my previous outings on the subject of Medically Assisted dying.
I advise the General Court to assist in the quick legislative death of HB1283.
It is not uncompassionate to accept that this slippery slope inevitably leads to misuse and abuse to cull populations within a society. And this might sound crass, but the terminally ill are still free to find painless ways to end their lives by other means if that is their desperate wish.
I’m not saying it would be neater or cleaner, but what if the terminally ill could commit suicide without the help of the government or the public health apparatus and retain by law at least a minimum of death benefits from their insurance company when they might otherwise have been denied? It would keep the state from getting involved in an act that recent history assures us will be a justifiable end to a growing list of ‘conditions,’ including those resulting almost entirely from direct government action (as policy).
I don’t want New Hampshire on that slippery slope. If you agree that this abuse is inevitable, the only sure way to prevent that is to kill HB1283.
The post NH’s “Assisted Suicide” Bill is Alive. ALIVE! appeared first on Granite Grok.
During the tour around the state to gain support for HB229 (Defend the Guard Act), I spoke in front of the State Veterans Advisory Committee. The chair heard my criticism of the US foreign policy with regard to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and linked me up with Catie Foertsch, the director of a new documentary film entitled “What I Want You to Know.”
She gave me a private screener, and I was blown away.
Veterans from both wars, across all the branches and from lowly enlisted to high-ranking officers, gave their perspective of the conflicts in a sobering way that resonated with me on a deeply personal level. As a two-time Iraq war veteran, I could relate to the stories the men and women told –from going through the motions day to day to keep yourselves and your squad mates alive to how there was no clear mission besides feelgood slogans like “win hearts and minds,” whatever that meant.
I’m honored to work with the director to bring this movie to New Hampshire!
I have secured a public screener for this amazing film and am hosting it this Thursday, December 21st, at 6:30 pm at 8025 South Willow Street, suite 205, Manchester. There will be a short discussion afterward about three bills I’m sponsored on that granite staters can rally behind to ensure the next generation does not live through the mistakes of the last:
HB229 – Relative to requiring an official declaration of war for the activation of the New Hampshire National Guard. (Defend the Guard )
HB1247 – Relative to requiring the display of certain information concerning Selective Service registration. (Transparency in military recruiting)
HB1338 – Relative to New Hampshire’s enforcement of the Military Selective Service Act. (Selective Service Sanctuary.)
Tickets are free but limited. Please RSVP here at Eventbrite.
Here is the Teaser Trailer:
Tom Mannion
State Representative
Hillsborough 1 – Pelham
The post See “What I Want You to Know” – Free Documentary Screening This Week! appeared first on Granite Grok.
I don’t mind air travel, but I do mind what’s been done to it. What was once an exciting adventure in the previous century has evolved into a cluster **** of systemic inconveniences. Wait times, canceled flights, and the risk that your “vaccinated” pilot might drop dead after takeoff. Oh, and the TSA!
There is no shortage of problems that need solving, so Southwest Airlines, attuned as they are to systemic failures and customer concerns, has decided to give away free seats to people who are too big to fit in just one.
A decision that, as David Strom points out at HotAir, “is good for those (oversized) people and great for the unlucky middle seaters who would have been squeezed by a neighbor whose body encroached into their personal space.” At the same time, the cost burden of lost fares will ultimately be borne by every passenger. All of which you can explore here, but you’d be right to wonder how long it will be before someone who is not calorically challenged or burdened with some sort of systemic disorder claims fat privilege to get a free extra seat.
Aircraft cabins are cramped and stuffed with the unwashed masses (unless you can afford First Class). Our culture has also embraced, mostly for ill, the idea that any one of us can pretend to be things we are not, and everyone else has to play along. Men can claim to be women. Old men can claim to be young women. Democrats can pretend to care about women. Why not claim to be obese (at least in your mind) and scream discrimination when Southwest is less than enthusiastic about giving you a free second seat?
Are you not as entitled to just as much elbow room despite your lack of girth as someone who is “super fat” (a term coined by fat activist Jae-lynn Chaney)?
Stroll your scrawny white beta male ass up to the counter and demand to be treated like an obese woman of color. Two seats for the price of one, and don’t you dare tell me I’m not what I think I am even though I might be something else tomorrow (meaning anything but a mental patient). That’s where we are. To suggest otherwise is to discriminate against the foundations of the worldview that justifies grown men sharing locker rooms with little girls.
The post Southwest Airlines and ‘Fat Privilege’ appeared first on Granite Grok.
Now and again, we get a message asking us why we’ve stopped sending someone the Daily Grok! Newsletter. For those unfamiliar, it is a digest of most of the past days’ new content, and there is some suspicion that Gmail may be hiding it from you.
We’ve never dropped anyone from the list, so it is a concern if you are not getting it. If you have Gmail and are subscribed to the Daily Grok, are you getting your daily Grok? If you use Gmail and are not subscribed, could you please sign up so we can further test this suspicion?
Most, if not all, of the people who have reached out over the years, are using Gmail. Whenever we look, our WordPress newsletter plugin – it’s all automated – says it is sending to these addresses daily, but they are not receiving them.
A recent issue was resolved when the recipient who wasn’t getting the newsletter signed up with a non-Gmail account, and they got it the next day.
If Google is censoring the content, it might be nice to know. If it is a more isolated issue with an ISP or some other snafu, we’d like to work that out as well.
Many of our readers use the newsletter as a vehicle to reach us, and we want to ensure all of you who have signed up are getting it every day.
If you are a Gmail user and not receiving it, try signing up again, then let us know if you don’t get it – you won’t get (or not get) it twice. The automation filters out duplicates. If you have Gmail but have not used it to sign up for the newsletter, can you sign up as part of this test? You can unsubscribe from that mail account after the test or keep receiving the newsletter (assuming you get it), whatever suits your inbox fancy.
The system launches the distribution at 4 PM ET daily and releases a few hundred every hour until late evening. Email me at steve@granitegrok.com (give it a few days) if it doesn’t work.
And thanks in advance to everyone who helps out!
Note: yes, I understand that those who signed up but don’t get it and have not noticed will not be participating. That can’t be helped.
The post Gmail Users – Are You Getting Your ‘Daily Grok!’? appeared first on Granite Grok.
A few weeks ago parents in Stratham received a permission slip so that their 1st grade children could attend a field trip at the high school. The field trip indicated that the purpose was to learn about political activism.
Parents began questioning the purpose of learning about political activism in 1st grade, and why chaperones would not be needed.
Not long after the permission slip came home, the district issued another communication to parents.
Some of this appears to be teaching children academic content that needs to be covered in a social studies class, but many people were left wondering why 1st-grade children needed to learn how to become political activists. Given the left-leaning positions by teachers and administrators in SAU16, what kind of message would the young children be receiving?
You can see from this document their goal is to create change-makers, not to educate the children. You can also see that if students pass their competencies, they have not mastered or learned quality academic content in this important subject. I’ve seen the term “change agents” referenced by political activists when identifying the people who will be the disrupters of change.
Curriculum Document RTK AMB
Once again, we see the flawed move towards Competency-Based Education in New Hampshire. Academic content is marginalized while skills replace knowledge. In this case, 1st graders won’t even be learning workforce skills, they will be trained on how to become political activists.
What should 1st grade social studies cover in class? You can find that information here. Download the sequence for k-8 and scroll down to 1st grade History and Geography:
History and Geography
World history and Geography
I. Geography
A. SpatialSense
B. Geographical terms and features
II. Early World Civilizations
A. Mesopotamia:the“cradleofcivilization”
B. Ancient Egypt
C. History of World Religions
III. Modern Civilization and Culture: Mexico
A. Geography
B. Culture
American history and Geography
I. Early People and Civilizations
A. TheEarliestPeople:HuntersandNomads
B. Early American Civilizations
II. Early Exploration and Settlement
A. Columbus
B. The Conquistadors
C. English SettlersIII. From Colonies to Independence: The American Revolution
IV. Early Exploration of the American West
V. Symbols and Figures
These are the topics that should be covered in 1st grade. There is nothing about the need to teach 1st-grade children how they should become political activists. The focus k-12 should be learning the academic content and when they are older, how to debate in a persuasive and respectful manner.
Public schools have an opportunity to educate students, so if students have concerns, they can take their opinions to the places that will make a difference. Too many students have no idea about the subject they are protesting, which makes them illiterate protesters. Taking high school students on a field trip to the State House might be a better use of their time. Then, they can see respectful dialogue that brings about real change.
SAU16 continues to brush aside teaching children the academic content in an effort to push a political narrative on children. This isn’t good for public education, and it certainly is not good for the students enrolled in the public school.
This is why alternative schools and home-schooling are growing in popularity–parents are demanding better for their children. Education lobbying organizations will oppose school choice options but, at the same time, refuse to acknowledge what is driving parents to seek alternatives for their children. Enrollment numbers in our public schools continue to decline while alternatives see an increase in demand. This isn’t rocket science, parents want their children educated.
You can see from the emails below that I obtained from the district that a quality education for children in SAU16 is not their goal. But until more parents demand better from the people they employ in their district, they are only denying their children a quality education that opens a world of options. Just think if they spent their time focused on making sure the students were proficient in math, reading, science, and all of the core academic subjects!!
There is a lot of money spent in SAU16; parents should expect better than this.
The post The Continued Downfall in SAU16–Exeter appeared first on Granite Grok.
And so another week begins…
Take heart – there will be both a Wednesday and Friday Edition. Last week’s Friday Edition.
Remember, ridicule and mockery are effective weapons:
Now, let the mockery and mayhem begin.
*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***
>>>>>=====<<<<<
That’s funny right there…
I want to say it was Eisenhower who said something to the effect that before you pass a law giving you more power, try to imagine what your political opponents would do with such a law. But that requires thought, and IMHO a deep sense of honor – neither of which are Leftist strong suits. Remember how The Turtle warned Schumer about switching to a pure majority vote on judicial nominees? A warning that went unheeded… until Trump came in, and Mitch – for all his RINO allegiance – pushed through many judges that would not otherwise have gotten in?
IMHO if you’re a three-time offender, you get deported into the Gulf of Mexico… Pinochet-style. Sharks have to eat too. And after that the recidivism rate is zero.
You have to read that twice, but then… powerful when you get it.
Don’t forget to bring your insulated bucket so you can walk to someone’s home to get a bucket of electrons…
Are there many elections in the US for which this is not a sufficient margin to flip things?
Reminds me of this one:
How many times does the world have to run the “Socialism” experiment and have it fail each and every time before people grasp that it just doesn’t work. Brings to mind this Bill Whittle video:
Each post I’m including several of these. It makes me wonder – just how many people have to “die suddenly” before it creates a mass, preference-cascade awakening to the harm that’s been done?
>>>>>=====<<<<<
(Link to AZ Quotes per their policy)
Echoes Truman:
“You can’t get rich in politics unless you’re a crook. – Harry S. Truman”
― Harry S. Truman
I remember, growing up in the “Peoples’ Republic of Cambridge, Marxachusetts”, hearing all sorts of bad things about Goldwater. But then I stumbled on Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing Speech” – and not only did I come away awestruck at Reagan’s delivery, but the power of what he said:
“A Time for Choosing” by Ronald Reagan
And I’ve come to realize two things:
On point 2:
Understand, this is how “in the tank” the MSM is for the Left.
Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.
Jim Morrison
Consider this:
The Deception Campaign: Dispatches – Liberty’s Torch (libertystorch.info)
And the embedded link to another critical essay on the enemedia’s controlling the information flow “for the public good”:
“The Responsibility to Not Report”: Irish Journalist Defends Suppressing Stories for the Public Good – JONATHAN TURLEY
And
Al Gore Says People Having Access to Non-Mainstream Information ‘Threatens Democracy’ – modernity
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Talk about a lack of thought…
I just heard on the radio tonight (Sunday) that the GOP had to have multiple members get their arms twisted to vote just for an impeachment inquiry, with the expectation that many would fall away were there to be an actual vote on an actual impeachment.
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PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA
Even though I’ve filled out religious exemption forms for my kids, this is a fear (yes, yes, if it were possible I’d homeschool – there’s a marital dynamic here). At least my kids are old enough to say NO – DADDY SAID NO. Tell your kids – DADDY AND MOMMY SAID TO SAY NO!
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There is enormous danger in monoculture crops.
Crop diversity loss threatens global food security, as the world’s human population depends on a diminishing number of varieties of a diminishing number of crop species. Crops are increasingly grown in monoculture, meaning that if, as in the historic Irish Potato Famine, a single disease overcomes a variety’s resistance, it may destroy an entire harvest, or as in the case of the ‘Gros Michel’ banana, may cause the commercial extinction of an entire variety. With the help of seed banks, international organizations are working to preserve crop diversity.
Not just Hunter. Who remembers the outright fan-boy attitude towards Barackus?
MHO, a short drop and sudden stop would suit him even better.
A GOP Presidential candidate would do wonders in my book if he committed to rolling this back, and also undoing the MPG mandates.
I loved Blazing Saddles. But there is one line in there that I did – recently – see to which I now object. It’s where they’re talking and Gene Wilder is describing the townsfolk as simple people… salt of the earth… you know, morons. A laugh line for the chattering / uber-intellectual class.
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Pick of the post:
First, MHO of course, it’s waaaaay too late to prevent that now. But even if it were theoretically possible, the political will to make those hard decisions and take the necessary actions does not exist.
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Palate Cleansers:
I met someone recently who talked about being at the gym at 5:30 AM. OOH, good for them. OTOH, how in the heck do they get up that early? That’s when my alarm goes off.
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Come back Wednesday for another edition. Same Meme Time. Same Meme channel.
Please do consider buying me a coffee.
Buy Me a Coffee
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It is no secret that I think Nikki Haley is a Constitutional threat. And you won’t find many, if any, authors here who support her bid. That’s not to say we should not have some op-eds that support here. But so far, that’s not what people are sending me.
This particular content does not provide any actual evidence or proof of its claims, but it is amusing, especially if you agree with the idea that Haley appears to be an establishment meat-puppet backed by globalists and the military-industrial complex. Her donors and her supporters (like Chris Sununu) tend to be your classic inside-the-beltway types. She’d have a hard time selling herself as an outsider or a disruptor, nor has she tried.
Prove she is or prove she isn’t. Pick a side and have a go. Just be nice about it—no personal attacks or threats. Defend the candidate or defend the video (or pick some ground in between).
And please feel free to send in op-eds for or against any of the candidates. It’s good for debate, and that’s good for the ‘Grok! and our readers.
Latest NH Poll: Trump 45, Haley 18, Christie 14, DeSantis 11, Ramaswamy 10, Hutchinson 0
Latest National poll: Trump 67, DeSantis 11, Haley 10, Ramaswamy 3, Christie 3, Hutchinson, Burgum
Note: Some browsers will block this video (‘cuz Facebook), so you may also be able to view it here.
The post Pick a Side: Is Nikki Haley an Establishment Meat Puppet? appeared first on Granite Grok.
Born and raised in the US, I married into Australia in 1980 and stayed there for most of 38 years. The Australian government recently asked for public submissions concerning “the Covid response.” Here I quote parts of my reply, verbatim, dated December 12, 2013, re-arranged with numbering for GraniteGrok.com:
1. What about the fact that the whole pandemic fakery was intended to lead to a police state with loss of freedom of speech, surrender of property rights, and humiliation of everyone? What about the unjustified lockdowns and loss of small businesses? What about Australia’s worldwide loss of reputation? Can it be regained? It sure can. Let Oz be the leader in the jailing of ministers, bureaucrats, medical traitors, and judges. Remove Australia’s signature right now from the UN Charter and all its pomps and all its works. Throw the globalists out. Or reinvent Port Arthur jail to hold them.
How is it possible, after so many facts have come to light, that the Australian government still doesn’t acknowledge that the Covid illness was planned? It was a bioweapon (similar to many previous ones, such as AIDS and polio). US Senator Rand Paul has shown that certain American persons interacted with Chinese persons in Wuhan to make Covid-19 “jump.”
2. I quote from the 2023 book, “Wuhan Cover-Up,” by Robert F Kennedy, Jr, Chapter 38:
“The CIA’s cutout USAID invested $64 million in bioweapons research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV] and, with NIAID, funneled all their grants to WIV through EcoHealth Alliance, which the evidence suggests was functioning as a CIA front after December 2015. Sir Jeremy Farrar, who masterminded the coverup with Dr. Fauci, [Francis] Collins, and [Peter] Daszak, is the Director of Wellcome Trust, an organization with deep ties to MI5….
“In May 2021, President Biden asked US intelligence agencies [oh, please] to conduct an investigation of Covid’s origins…. In August…they told the White House they were unable to determine whether the Covid bug originated in the Wuhan lab. Then … a current CIA officer told Congress that CIA officers had bribed officials on that team … with ‘significant monetary incentive’ to change their position from that [the virus] originated in the Wuhan lab to ‘unable to determine.’ …” Congress then “detailed those charges in a letter to FBI Director William Burns.”
No Law enforcement action by Attorney General Merrick Garland has followed.
We want to thank Dr. Mary Maxwell for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
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Fraud vitiates everything it touches. Everything about Covid is fraudulent. Just the fact that no one got arrested after the above whistleblower’s revelations is enough to tell you the US government is hopelessly corrupt. UK, too. From Kennedy’s book again, page 360:
“[British epidemiologist] Neil Ferguson made a professional career using crooked modeling to sow panic in a series of concocted pandemics…. In 2001, Ferguson’s wildly exaggerated projections about … foot-and-mouth disease sparked the British government’s culling of eleven million sheep and cattle.” (Bet they knew…. Bet it was economic sabotage.)
3. My expertise in the matter at hand can be seen in my 2013 book “Consider the Lilies” and such parts of my 2011 book “Prosecution for Treason” that deal with disease as a bioweapon and describe how traitors can and do avoid the law.
In 2020, as soon as President Trump ordered Operation WarpSpeed to attain a vaccine for Covid, I was in US district court and later in First Circuit Court of Appeals to seek a restraining order against the mandating of any vax. My appeal brief, in Maxwell v US Department of Defense, quoted from Questions asked in the Australian Parliament, published in Hansard 1 June 2021 and 5 February 2021. My purpose was to show the irresponsibility of various governments and the absurdity of the pandemic:
In Parliament, Tony Zappia, MP, asked John Skerritt, Deputy Secretary of Health Products Regulation. “Once you get vaccinated, will you have to be vaccinated in, say, 12 months’ time?” Dr Skerritt replied: “If you know the answer to that, could you tell us? That’s the $64 billion question. And that, of course, is one of the primary questions that people following this epidemic are asking. We hope not. There are two possibilities: either the current vaccines don’t provide long-term protection per se, or there is antigenic or virus strain drift.”
Senator Malcolm Roberts asked (thinking of ivermectin?): “The vaccine only has provisional approval. Is it true that provisional approval is only possible where there are no approved pharmaceutical treatments available?” Mr Edwards replied: “The provisional approval is possible where there is not a similar treatment available in that, for that group of patients.”
Fiona Martin, Ph.D., MP, asked about the inconsistency between states as to vaccinating children up to age four years. Dr Murphy replied: “We are spending well over $23 million, I think, on a comms campaign, which is in three phases. The first phase is to get people confident about the registration process. They feature gentlemen in white coats and other people to assure people that our registration processes are as rigorous as anywhere in the world….”
Tony Zappia, MP, asked, “Have there been any concerns raised in respect to pregnancy and the vaccine?” Dr Skerritt replied: “Again, it’s more a lack of data rather than any evidence of miscarriages and the like. … Some clinical groups are recommending that, if you’re not in a high-risk or high-exposure group and if you’re pregnant, you hold off until you have the kid.. …There hasn’t been any evidence—and I’ll check with Dr Cook that my statement is correct—of ill effects in pregnancy. It was more that, in clinical trials, it’s normal to exclude pregnant people.”
Mike Freelander, MD, MP, asked about providing vaccines to our Pacific neighbors. Dr Murphy replied: the “Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have invested over half a billion dollars in a vaccine for the Pacific.” Dr Skerritt said, [Our funding] will cover the full population of East Timor, Papua New Guinea and all the Pacific islands, …and a lower percentage targeted at vulnerable groups—in countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, we hope, and the Philippines.” [Poor things.] — end of Hansard quotes
4. Shame, shame on Australia for always licking the boots of the US and the UK. And shame on America for throwing away its birthright. I can show you that the autism epidemic and the tragedy of Thalidomide were deliberately caused. And now you are asking citizens to weigh in on the COVID response. Here is my best advice: Round up all Australians, here or abroad, who played any part in the production or dispensing of Covid and the vaccine. Who approved of the false PCR testing? Who mandated masking and social distancing? Who made a fortune with taxpayers’ money on the testing and ventilating? Was there genocidal intent?
If so, you can get them for the crime of genocide. You can also get them for war crimes, although that has to be in the context of war. Is killing thousands of citizens and injuring millions a war situation? Probably, but we need not go that far. Ordinary crimes of homicide and assault will do. Grievous bodily harm. Terrorism. Funding terrorists (I mean paying our terrorists in office). Perjury. Theft of public funds. What about the ‘theft’ that occurred when people were dismissed from their jobs and lost their income based on refusal to be assaulted by the vaccine?
5. Honor to the first man who will take charge! Admiration to new heroes! If you’re going to die for your country, don’t do it by taking a stupid vax. Do it with truth guts, and energy…. Come on, it’s late. Hurry! — end of quotes from my submission to pmc.gov.au.
Dear Grokkers, There is a little problem with my publishing at GraniteGrok.com. Namely, Disqus has canceled me. Thus, if readers challenge me in Comments — as I hope they will — I may be unable to reply.
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Londonderry Times publisher Deb Paul has been dragged through the court system thanks to detractors around town who are less than enthusiastic about her refusal to toe their line. This Wednesday, a judge will decide how effective their campaign against her has been.
Deb has been found guilty of not knowing that while the words don’t explicitly make her responsible, she must ensure that politicians who advertise in her publication send her artwork and copy that satisfies state election law. The secretary of state does not pay Deb Paul. She is not on the payroll at the AG’s office or any other enforcement authority. Yet, according to a judge (to the applause of the scoundrels that reported her as the state does not police the practice unless notified), it is her job to know every nuance of this bit of election law text and enforce it – in her spare time.
The Union Leader Editorial Page put it like this.
She spent the day before Thanksgiving standing trial over political ads purchased in her newspaper. She will now spend a day the week before Christmas finding out her sentence for failing to use what reporter Damien Fisher, writing for InDepthNH, termed “the magic words.”
The New Hampshire campaign finance law specifies a number of requirements for political advertising. It does not say who is responsible for a failure to meet those requirements. Attorney General John Formella’s office insisted that Deb Paul was responsible and not the campaigns or candidates. Judge Kerry Steckowych, presented with a one plus one equals two case, decided that yes, the ads in question did not contain the “magic words.” Somehow, even without the magic words labeling the ads in question as “paid political advertisement,” witnesses in the case easily identified them as the political ads they obviously were.
The UL further suggests that Deb Paul has paid enough. A trip through the court system is not inexpensive in either time or actual money. She is not likely to make the same mistake again, and we agree. No one was harmed. Not even the detractors in the political cesspit of Londonderry on whom she reports. Individuals whose cabal deserves the appropriate and necessary sting of the free press.
Hers and ours.
Regardless of what punishment the judge decides is fair, and we think a warning will do, the free press and independent media are more important to the liberty of the nation, the state, and the town of Londonderry than the “magic words.” We feel obligated to rise in support of Deb Paul and her newspaper. To share more of its content with our audience who, and this may not come as a surprise, agree that the town has become a stink-hole of political insiders. A swamp of its own that needs draining.
We can’t promise anything will be drained. The kind of politicians who attack the media by any means necessary to silence them are not the sort to go quietly. The general public’s tendency to sit on their hands and ignore what goes on in plain sight is likewise a persistent problem, but they are the laxatives needed to move the bowels, so to speak. And quite often, you only need a hundred voters who never showed up to vote in a local election before to show up once. Sometimes fewer, and on occasion more.
Deb has been working on encouraging this for years, and we’d like to help.
Wouldn’t it be something if the attention brought upon the town by self-proclaimed doyens attempting to silence independent media was a breeze that brought much-needed winds of change?
It would.
The post Let Londonderry Times Publisher Deb Paul Go … With a Warning appeared first on Granite Grok.
There are questions about Hunter Biden and his prior acts in the public arena. To the extent his actions have a bearing on his dad, they may be worthy of note. Those questions include but are not limited to:
· Did the federal bureaucracy act differently in cases involving Hunter Biden than they otherwise would have?
· Did Hunter Biden receive special treatment in interviewing?
· Was he given preferential treatment in the form of alleged felonies being allowed to expire?
· Did he receive warnings about planned federal raids?
· Did he receive any sweetheart deals?
Something we know is that President Biden enlisted White House staff to push challenged accounts of Hunter’s conduct. Something else we know is the White House staff was used to attack the House Republicans’ investigative process.
It appears now that the White House may have given House Republicans another avenue of investigation. This time, it may bear on the formal impeachment inquiry into the President rather than the criminal charges against Hunter Biden.
We want to thank Marc Abear for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
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Hunter Biden defied a congressional subpoena. That act opens him up to another criminal prosecution. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the first son’s decision. She told reporters President Biden “was certainly familiar with what his son was going to say.”
The comment suggests Mr. Joseph Biden knew in advance that his son would defy Congress. It seems to imply father and son had discussed it beforehand. Is that true? And if that is true, it is almost certainly a mistake both legally and politically. Doesn’t it imply the President obstructed a Congressional investigation?
If it is true the president was speaking with his son about committing a potentially criminal act, don’t we need to know how the president may have supported his son’s effort to commit a felony?
Jean-Pierre has since declined to clarify her remarks about what may have gone on between the Bidens, father and son. Clearly, multiple sources reported Joe Biden knew about Hunter’s planned speech on Capitol Hill.
Will the Justice Department prosecute Hunter Biden for contempt of Congress? Merrick Garland and his DOJ had no issues prosecuting Steve Bannon when he defied a subpoena for the Jan. 6 committee two years ago.
President Biden has stated any individual who defies Congress should be criminally prosecuted. We shall see if that applies to everyone.
Will House investigators probe Joe Biden’s role in Hunter’s defiance of a congressional investigation? It seems like the White House has admitted to that.
Stay tuned for another episode of “As the Crackhead Turns.” Who will he bring down with him?
The post How Will Hunter Bring Dad Down? appeared first on Granite Grok.
President Biden recently repeated the claim that high prices are caused by greedy businesses. Biden is not alone in trying to gaslight the people into thinking price inflation is rooted in the actions of private individuals and not the fiat money system Americans have lived under since 1971.
In the media, we see excessive consumer spending on luxury items, for example, being blamed for continued price inflation. The fact is that increased consumer demand can only cause prices to rise in those sectors of the economy subject to the increased demand. Prices increasing across the economy are always the result of the Federal Reserve’s conduct of monetary policy.
Trying to minimize the harm of inflation, some people in government and media will insist that, while many prices for goods are higher than they were pre-lockdown, they are still lower than were prices in the 1990s when you consider that the quality of these goods has increased. The argument is that buyers are getting higher value today than 30 years ago. Of course, any increased quality is because of market-driven innovation. If America had a free-market monetary system instead of central bank-controlled fiat currency, prices would drop as quality increases.
It is also important not to ignore the fact that the Federal Reserve’s devaluation of the dollar’s purchasing power creates an incentive for individuals to spend money as soon as they receive it and a disincentive for them to save. This is because the dollar will have less value a year from now than today. Therefore, high levels of spending are a rational response to an irrational fiat money system.
High prices and supply shortages were inevitable after the lockdowns. However, prices would have adjusted back more if the Federal Reserve had not pushed interest rates to zero. While the Fed has raised interest rates, it has not raised rates to anywhere near where they would likely be in a free market. In fact, rates are not at historically high levels, yet many worry the Fed’s rate increases are pushing the economy toward a recession. This shows how addicted Americans are to the Fed’s “easy money,”
When the dollar’s purchasing power erodes, workers will seek higher wages. This is why periods of high price inflation are accompanied by strikes and other types of union activity aimed at increasing wages. This has made unions another popular scapegoat for price inflation when the truth is that Fed-caused price increases are the real reasons behind labor unrest.
Sadly, the increase in nominal wages gained by the recent series of strikes is unlikely to keep up with the declining real wages resulting from the Federal Reserve’s assault on the dollar’s value. This is why, contrary to the claims of many progressives, working people are the victims, not the beneficiaries, of price inflation. As a Texas union official once told me, “Gold has always been the friend of the worker.” This makes sense because gold is money whose value cannot be manipulated by the central bank.
Inflation is the act of money creation by the Fed, and high prices are a symptom of inflation, not a cause, and not the fault of greedy businesses, consumers, and unions. The Federal Reserve is also the engine of the welfare-warfare state. Therefore, to restore a system of limited government, individual liberty, and free markets, Congress must cut spending and audit, then end the Fed.
Ron Paul | Ron Paul Institute
Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.The post Night Cap: Biden, Media Gaslight People about Inflation appeared first on Granite Grok.
HB1291 reduces the power of our consistently anti-liberty zoning boards to write anti-liberty rules where there is no basis. A typical town’s 1.8-acre minimum lot size has been justified by the scarcity of water and septic capacity and was adopted in an era of poorer understanding and technology.
HB1291 simply limits the ability of town zoning to impose this restriction when water and sewer are not an issue. The previous bill freed lots that are on town water and sewer; the current bill frees those lots, plus lots for which engineering ensures adequate water and septic capacity. That is not exactly “HB44 on steroids,” as the Coalition of NH Taxpayers claimed here on Saturday.
I did check the bill’s sponsors, as that article requested. One is my own Representative, Josh Yokela, rated 100% and Legislator of the Year by the NH Liberty Alliance. Another is nearby Scott Wallace (93.8%, grade A), for whom I have voted. Even prime sponsor Ellen Read (27.1%) is not quite rated a Constitutional Threat.
The text of the bill, as introduced, is available on the General Court website. That version does not permit minimum-acreage lots to be “chopped up” into four lots, as the CNHT article states. It permits one “accessory dwelling unit” as a matter of right and one more subject to the usual restrictions for subdivisions, including “aesthetic standards,” but only as applied to ordinary lots.
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The conflict between zoning and liberty plays out across the state. I hung out with some sign carriers outside the polls a couple of years ago and was astonished to be arguing for liberty AGAINST my comrades. You see, a landowner here is planning a huge subdivision of riverfront condos. (“He’s not even from New Hampshire,” my homies whisper.) The development will have a drastic impact on traffic and on our “rural character,” as development always does. So the goal of local “conservatives” is to use our gunpoint apparatus to shut the flatlander down: to deny him his preferred use of what is his land, no matter if he recently bought it to develop it.
New Hampshire’s unaffordable housing is legend and is caused by insufficient supply to meet demand, driving up home prices and rents. The key reason we can’t meet demand is municipal regulation. HB1291 limits this regulation in cases where it is clearly senseless. It is a dainty amendment of RSA 674:71. I would instead have taken a chainsaw to a power originally granted to protect against contaminating adjacent water but now corrupted to let town busybodies dictate “aesthetic standards.”
And lack of “affordable workforce housing” has been deemed a “crisis,” and towns are now required to ensure that they provide a suitable amount, now written into law (RSA 674:58). That’s a big-government solution to the problem. HB1291 is a small-government solution.
Preserving the “rural character” of a town is a value. It’s not everyone’s value. My town has a board that uses tax money to achieve “conservation” – and another board tasked to lure new business. A politician’s “vision” for a town or the state should always face a key question: Do we have to make this decision as a collective? Do we have to have a single “vision” and use the threat of armed force to restrain nonconformists?
And how does restraining town zoning boards become a key issue for a “taxpayer coalition” at all? Ah yes, the newcomers, certainly illegals from Brazil with twelve kids apiece, will burden our government schools. But this is a consequence of New Hampshire providing free instruction as an entitlement. Declaring something a right, with its price set to zero, results in overuse and calls to and by conservatives to regulate unrelated things that might drive up the cost of providing that “right” – just as “free health care” gave Washington a rationale to punish unhealthy lifestyles.
Who should decide? In this case, the landowner should decide. That is the essence and the huge benefit of having private property.
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Man Made Global Climate disasters have an annoying habit of not happening. The predictions of experts never come to pass. And that’s great for blogging. One sad tale of demise we are particularly fond of is the disappearing beaches.
In 1995, 2500 experts got together and decided they could make a comfortable living if they said things like in 25 years, “most of the beaches on the East Coast would be gone.”
Tony Heller uses Jones Beach on Long Island as his example, showing satellite photos from 1994 and 2023. The beach looks bigger today than before the doomsday predictions. We prefer the shoreline closer to home. Hampton Beach is a top-shelf, well-maintained strip of sand. It’s clean, and it’s still there. It hasn’t shrunk at all, not since 1995 or, as we showed here, 1950.
Hampton Beach, NH shoreline 1950 Hampton Beach High Tide 2020 For educational use only
My wife made a few trips this past summer and assures me it’s the same beach she’s been visiting since she was a child. The prediction wasn’t just bad or wrong; we’re three years past the end of East Coast beaches, and there’s not only no there there, but there might be more there than in 1995. A result common when considering the armageddon predicted by those who – predictably – have a fiscal interest in precipitated fear.
We also spent a lot of time boating over Portsmouth Way and out into the ocean, and high tide or low, and there is zero evidence of the apocalypse predicted by the Climate Cult or the myriad globalist beneficiaries of those fears.
It’s a scam. An expensive one. And it is not going away unless we make it so.
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Power-hungry, lawless and steadfast in its pursuit of authoritarian powers, the government does not voluntarily relinquish those powers once it acquires, uses and inevitably abuses them.
Likewise, any presidential candidate who promises to be a dictator on day one, if elected, will be a dictator-in-chief for life.
Then again, the president is already a dictator with permanent powers: imperial, unaccountable and unconstitutional thanks to a relatively obscure directive (National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20), part of the country’s Continuity of Government (COG) plan, which gives unchecked executive, legislative and judicial power to the president in the event of a “national emergency.”
That national emergency can take any form, can be manipulated for any purpose and can be used to justify any end goal—all on the say so of the president.
It doesn’t even matter what the nature of the crisis might be—civil unrest, the national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters”—as long as it allows the government to justify all manner of government tyranny in the name of so-called national security.
The country would then be subjected to martial law by default, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be suspended.
For all intents and purposes, the Constitution has long been suspended, and we’ve been operating in a state of martial law for some time now.
The emergency powers that we know about which presidents might claim during such states of emergency are vast, ranging from imposing martial law and suspending habeas corpus to shutting down all forms of communications, including implementing an internet kill switch, and restricting travel.
Yet according to documents obtained by the Brennan Center, there may be many more secret powers that presidents may institute in times of so-called crisis without oversight from Congress, the courts, or the public.
Deploying the same strategy it used with 9/11 to acquire greater powers under the USA Patriot Act, the police state—a.k.a. the shadow government, a.k.a. the Deep State—has been planning and preparing for such crises for years now, quietly assembling a wish list of presidential lockdown powers that could be trotted out and approved at a moment’s notice.
We’re talking about lockdown powers (at both the federal and state level): the ability to suspend the Constitution, indefinitely detain American citizens, bypass the courts, quarantine whole communities or segments of the population, override the First Amendment by outlawing religious gatherings and assemblies of more than a few people, shut down entire industries and manipulate the economy, muzzle dissidents, “stop and seize any plane, train or automobile to stymie the spread of contagious disease,” reshape financial markets, create a digital currency (and thus further restrict the use of cash), determine who should live or die.
Mind you, the police state with the president at its helm has been riding roughshod over the rule of law for years now without any pretense of being reined in or restricted in its power grabs by Congress, the courts or the citizenry.
Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents have claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill.
The powers amassed by each successive president through the negligence of Congress and the courts—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whoever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability.
All of the imperial powers amassed by past presidents—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to operate a shadow government, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were passed from Clinton to Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden and will be passed along to the next president.
These presidential powers—acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president—enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.
These are the powers that continue to be passed along to each successive heir to the Oval Office, the Constitution be damned.
The war on disinformation, the war on electoral corruption, the war on COVID-19, the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration: all of these countermeasures have become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.
This is what you might call a stealthy, creeping, silent, slow-motion coup d’état.
If we continue down this road, there can be no surprise about what awaits us at the end.
After all, it is a tale that has been told time and again throughout history about how easy it is for freedom to fall and tyranny to rise.
What we desperately need is a concerted, collective commitment to the Constitution’s principles of limited government, a system of checks and balances, and a recognition that they—the president, Congress, the courts, the military, the police, the technocrats and plutocrats and bureaucrats—answer to and are accountable to “we the people.”
We must recalibrate the balance of power.
Congress must also put an end to the use of presidential executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements as a means of getting around Congress and the courts.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely—no matter which party holds office.
The process of unseating a dictator and limiting the powers of the presidency is far from simple but at a minimum, it must start with “we the people.”
Make the government play by the rules of the Constitution.
John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute
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