Historically, American businesses used to have a hierarchy where young men and women aspired to climb the ranks to achieve a shot at the corner office. The corner office was always a symbol of power and success, and the nameplate usually read Chief Executive Officer or Chief Operating Officer. It was at the top of the pyramid until now.

The new ruler of maybe every aspect of American life, from Corporate America to Education, is DEI. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is the new poison destroying America’s heart and soul. No longer is America the Land of Opportunity for all. It is now slanted to those who satisfy the DEI parameters. There is no longer a place for straight white men or women at the top of any corporate structure.

Ironically, DEI is setting back Civil Rights and the Women’s Movement, and Blacks and Females never saw what hit them. When Joe Biden succumbed to the pressures of DEI and proclaimed his Vice President and Supreme Court Nominee would be Black Women, and then named Harris and Brown. These two women have shown they were not qualified for their respective positions and have sullied the prospects of future Black Candidates.

The appearance before Congress last week by Harvard President Claudine Gay was an embarrassment and pointed out her lack of preparedness for the position. Gay made many question her qualifications for the job, and many have made it very simplistic: she is Black and female. Rumors have surfaced that she plagiarized her Doctorate thesis, putting Harvard in an extremely precarious position. Over 700 Harvard faculty have signed a petition supporting Gay, but the calls for her resignation persist. After the U Penn President stepped down, the public pushed for the same from Harvard and MIT. 

Harvard has opted to stand behind their embattled president and say that her plagiarism has already been addressed, which means her actions are recognized and will go unpunished. Plagiarism used to be a significant offense in academics and writing, but under the new rules, you can use someone else’s words as your own and be President of Harvard or the United States. The fact that Harvard cannot move against President Gay is further proof of the power of DEI. Once you bend a knee to the movement, you can never flex your muscles again. This is a vast rabbit hole to slip into.

Hiring parameters currently used by Harvard to comply with their DEI Department are disgusting.

1. White, Asian, and Indian Men are given little consideration and considered overachievers and over-recognized
2. White women are not given the same consideration as their Black counterparts.
3. Black and Brown men and women are given high priority, as are transgender.

The old-school thinking of equal treatment for all, regardless of sex, race, or color, is obviously dead. It used to be that the discrimination of any person based on any parameter other than achievements was a civil rights violation. That thinking no longer has any merit, and having President Biden or Gavin Newsom specify their choices for political positions would be narrowed to Black females, shows how far the words of Martin Luther King Jr have been left behind us. We are no longer an individual but a label to pigeonhole us into a box.

 

The post CEOs and COOs Used To Rule, But Now Bend To The DEI appeared first on Granite Grok.

Ben Franklin is supposed to have said:

Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

A variant that I like better is:

Those who would trade liberty for safety will end up with neither.

As I watch self-described ‘libertarians’ scramble to move away from one coercion-based program (the current public school system) and towards another (school choice), because it will ‘provide better outcomes’, I can’t help thinking that Franklin’s maxim is just a particular case of a more general one:

Those who would trade general principles for specific outcomes will end up with neither. 

 

The post Franklin Revisited appeared first on Granite Grok.

The 640 professors who signed the letter in support of Claudine Gay are all professors at a University whose motto is “Veritas” — the Truth. “Veritas” is used in the mottos of a number of other educational institutions as well.

Who is Claudine Gay? This article below is eye-opening. If the allegations in it are true, then how far away from the truth were Harvard’s board willing to veer in order to appease political pressures from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights & affiliates pushing “DEI” — “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion”?

The truth is that Harvard would not consider anyone for Claudine Gay’s position who did not tick the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” boxes. A white male, a Jewish white male, would never have been under consideration for the position.

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

We could argue that making the decision not to consider anyone who didn’t fit the DEI criteria helped open up the pool to a wider arena of candidates. But Claudine Gay has a history of alleged plagiarism and fabricated data as well.

Plagiarism gets students disciplined at Harvard and elsewhere, but cheating when it comes to candidates for the Presidency of these educational organizations is excused.

Stanford University (Claudine Gay’s career includes a period at Stanford) hired Marc Tessier-Lavigne as President after he had used falsified images for a scientific research paper. Allegedly, the board knew this when they hired him. It was only when a first-year student journalist wrote about it in the Stanford Daily several years after he was hired and the article received national media attention that Stanford did anything. Marc Tessier-Lavigne stepped down.

“Veritas” should require the truth to be the guide on all campus decisions, including whether or not to fire or hire someone. It also must be the guide for those in charge of federal funds directed towards these campuses for research grants or other initiatives.

When the quest for truth in academia is replaced, we have to wonder why other forces become more important than the truth, especially when academic endorsements are relied upon to guide national think tanks and directives.

If those other forces continue to be more important than the truth, where are Harvard and other educational institutions headed? “Veritas” is minimized on the site of Harvard’s mission statement, which doesn’t mention the word “truth” anywhere on the page:

Do our nation’s educational institutions want to produce critical thinkers and leaders or lemmings? Lemmings are useful for political movements but they are useless when it comes to stating and arguing a case from a knowledgeable position. Claudine Gay was trained for her testimony in front of Congress by a law firm. Her answers cannot, therefore, be called “authentic” or even true to what she does or does not believe.

C. Bradley Thompson stated on X (formerly Twitter) that the Harvard Board is stuck between a rock and a hard place because to fire Claudine Gay would be to succumb to the “mob,” and not to fire her would be showing support of someone who has been accused of plagiarism and somebody who expressed herself to Congress in a way which contradicted sentiment in her own written statements to the Harvard community before she was hired. To quote from his post:

“650+ Harvard professors have signed a letter to the Harvard Corporation in support of President Claudine Gay.

@Harvard is now in crisis. The Harvard Board is now stuck between a rock & a hard place: if they fire Gay (also now accused of plagiarism) the faculty will be in revolt; if they keep her, the university will be saddled with a national disgrace. The faculty letter is also proof that the firing of Gay will have no effect on the moral-intellectual culture

@Harvard is gone. It cannot be saved. Harvard has a $50 billion endowment. It should never again receive a penny of taxpayer money. #defundHarvard”

C. Bradley Thompson labels himself: “Living without lies. Author: America’s Revolutionary Mind; The Redneck Intellectual.”

Alan Dershowitz has commented on Claudine Gay’s Double Standard of Freedom of Speech.

That double standard of Freedom of Speech has been in place since April 4th, 2011, when the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights introduced the “Dear Colleague” Title IX letter, which set out to change America forever. It deliberately set out to get rid of due process on campus and enabled a generation of activists who would profile by gender, race, and religion — thus upending not just Title IX, which forbids discrimination on the basis of sex, but also Title VI, which forbids discrimination on the basis of race & religion.

The question for Harvard and other academic institutions is: Does the truth matter? But it’s also a question for the Department of Education and Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women who were behind the “Dear Colleague” letter so vehemently harmful to free speech on campus.

If truth, “veritas” doesn’t matter, then what is Harvard, and what purpose does it serve?

 

 

The post Night Cap: Harvard’s Problem With the Truth appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you want to open your hearts and homes to kids that life has given a bad hand, you WILL be required to accept what the Biden administration and Democrats establishment’s State Religion: Transgenderism.

Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Pull Me Back In!

If you don’t, you’re just the same oppressors of children as the Parents from whom they were ripped.  After all, “Childism” (the bastard son of Critical Race Theory) DEMANDS that all Parents areoOppressors unless you discard your own personal religious beliefs and whole-hearted embrace this new Transgender State Religion whose High Priest is now Joe Biden (as it IS his Dept. of Health and Human Services monastery that has decreed thusly to be part of its Sacred Texts).

I brought this up there: Shot Across The Bow – Will NH DCYF Take a Knee To The Biden Administration? – that linked here: Lack of ‘Affirmation’ Is Child Abuse: New Biden Rule Applies Transgender Standard to Foster Care:

Transgender orthodoxy may soon become a litmus test for parenthood, according to the logic of a new policy working its way through the Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden.

A new rule in HHS’ Administration for Children and Families would apply the idea that any lack of “affirmation” constitutes a form of child abuse to foster care placements. Once that idea takes root in foster care, child protective services agencies might start applying it more broadly.

I sent an email to DCYF and to NH DHHS Deputy Chief Legal Counsel John Martin back on 11/30/23. I’ve heard but crickets from him on this (I figured that if ANYONE would know, he would, being a Legal matter of great concern), but the other DCYF workers said that they hadn’t heard of this before and that they would start, informally, asking around. Thus far, they can’t find anyone that knows anything about this.

However, I was not the only one seeing this and not the only one negatively reacting to it. The Washington Examiner reported that 19 States Attorney Generals have decided that “This will not pass!”

Pushing back against the Biden administration’s radical identity politics, 19 state attorneys general and numerous conservative and religious organizations last week stood up for religious liberty and for long-standing, effective child adoption services. Good. The Biden proposal at issue is pernicious.

As succinctly put by Advancing American Freedom , a think tank founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, the proposal “would violate the religious freedom of foster care families and ultimately make the shortage of families working within the foster care system worse.” …

The regulation would put children in charge: No matter the child’s biology or anatomy, his or her “self-identified sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” would rule the day. Adoption and foster care organizations that do not agree to be “trained” — that is, refuse to be indoctrinated — to comply with the “name and pronouns that align with [children’s] gender identity,” no matter how fleeting or ill-considered, will be banned from providing services to homeless children labeled “LGBTQI+.” If readers cross-refer supporting documents cited for the proposed, it is clear that the required “support” presumes a bias in favor of chemical and surgical transitioning procedures.

One of the DCYF wonks told me that almost every Foster Parent family in the North Country would immediately quit. I said that we’d be among them. And yes, TMEW and I were first Foster Parents to the Grandson and THEN formally adopted him. If this new Rule were in place then (not even a Law, just a RULE made up by unassailable, unelected, and smug ideologically driven bureaucrats, who by the dint of receiving a Government paycheck, are making themselves our Overlords any time they wish),  we would have never have had the chance to have Fostered him much less Adopt him.

More:

As the attorneys general also write , the religious-liberty implications of the proposed rule are profound: “This proposed rule seeks to accomplish indirectly what the Supreme Court found unconstitutional just two years ago: remove faith-based providers from the foster care system if they will not conform their religious beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity.” And: “The proposed rule is unconstitutional because it discriminates against individuals and organizations of faith who want to serve children in the foster care system. The proposed rule also unconstitutionally forces [so-called gender-affirming] speech on foster providers.”

Since the article didn’t mention which ones, I asked Google’s Bard. I dryly note that since Gov. Sununu made “gender identity” a new protected class, New Hampshire is not one of them:

1. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall
2. Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor
3. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich
4. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge
5. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr
6. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita
7. Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt
8. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron
9. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry
10. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch
11. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey
12. Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen
13. Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers
14. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost
15. Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor
16. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson
17. South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg
18. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
19. Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes

So folks, yet another question to be asked of Kelly Ayotte, running for Governor AND a former NH AG: what would she do (WWKD?)!

Free Speech, anyone? These Trans-Authoritarians view it as an obstacle to be broken and shattered instead of a pre-existing Right from God and Nature’s God; something that should be held to be beyond them. However, as they are now considering themselves to be the moral descendants of the Divine Right of Kings, they merely “sniff” at such a legal and Constitutional rebuke to their actions.

Now, an earlier RTK put into Counselor Martin demanded the complete DCYF Organization Chart:

The complete organizational (hierarchical) structure of DCYF to include:

• Name of a given staff member
• Title of that staff member
• Name and title to whom they report (as applicable)
• Name and title of those staff members that report to that given staff member (as applicable).

He did respond, and I have looked at the information. However, I haven’t had, yet, the opportunity to use it.  Given the “crickets,” I guess I will be sending this out to a number of DCYF employees to stir up the nest.

The post State AGs Fight Back Against Feds Requiring Foster Parents To Be “Transgender Affirming” appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Left continues to do a number on minorities. After decades of insisting on segregation with fire and nooses, they pretended to oppose it (for votes, which worked), only to convince minorities to segregate themselves later. And they have. This dorm, this ghetto, this holiday party!

 

The Democratic mayor of Boston has sparked outrage after inviting city councilors to a holiday party intended only for ‘electeds of color.’

Michelle Wu’s invitation for the December 13 ‘Electeds of Color Holiday Party’ appeared to have been sent out to all councilors in error by her aide, Denise DosSantos.

DosSantos followed up the email 15 minutes later apologizing for the invite, clarifying that it was only meant for the city’s six councilors of color. The seven white council members were not welcome.

 

Personally, if you don’t want me at your party, I couldn’t care less about the reason. It might be because I’m Conservative, Christian, Heterosexual, Happily Married, a Parent, Outspoken, Scottish, Not Tall Enough, Wrong Eye Color, Caucasian, or that I just capitalize a bunch of words that didn’t need it. I might write a blog post about it and make fun of your posturing. The virtue signal. The tone-deafness. The party of unity and non-divisiveness BS.

That you tried to hide it and screwed that up so badly.

Anyway, the Wuville thing got caught in my mind, so I felt compelled to butcher some Dr. Seuess.

 

Every Wu Down in Wuville, They Postured a lot…
Pretend to be one thing when really they’re NOT!
They claim they’re not racists; to be one is treason.
But racists they are, no matter the season.
It could be their heads weren’t screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, that they’re just so uptight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all,
May have been their black hearts are two sizes too small.
Whatever the reason, and who has a clue,
The Wu’s hated white people more than the Jews.

 

Too much?

I admit it could use some work, but you get the idea. A little satire, a political parody. Quip, jest, jape. And it’s global news from which they find a way back, but not everyone will take it as well as I would, especially in a city that has been pasted, from time to time, as being racist.

 

‘I wanted to apologize for my previous email regarding a Holiday Party for tomorrow,’ DosSantos, a black woman, wrote. ‘I did send that to everyone by accident, and I apologize if my email may have offended or came across as so. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.’

There was no apology for actually planning to host a racially segregated party. Wu was slammed by outgoing City Councilor Frank Baker, who told the Boston Herald that it was ‘unfortunate and divisive.’

 

And it looks like it is.

 

The post Busted in Boston – All The Racist Wu’s Down in Wu-ville! appeared first on Granite Grok.

Overwhelming every system is necessary to topple the economy. Democrat Socialism is impossible without it. You have to break everything, but NYC Mayor Eric Adams seems to have thought that this did not include breaking him.

It is a mistake that all the useful idiots and water carriers make – that they will not be casualties in the necessary ruin.

 

Adams has projected that the migrant crisis will cost the city $12 billion by 2025 if the flow of new migrants remains the same. New York City has seen more than 150,000 migrants enter its homeless housing system since the spring of 2022, with 66,000 still in its care.

Federal assistance in the crisis has been minimal, with New York City only receiving $150 million so far. However, the White House has requested Congress approve another $1.4 billion in aid for sanctuary cities. …

“We did not walk out from D.C. with any level of optimism that anything is going to drastically change,” Adams said. “It is clear that for the time being, this crisis is going to be carried by the cities. We are at an untenable situation right now.”

 

Funny thing about that. You did this to yourself. New York Democrats made their city a sanctuary for illegal border jumpers. It required the city to find them housing and care for them. It donated to and elected Democrats to higher office who openly supported a borderless nation. Donors, supporters, and fellow elected officials that pilloried anyone who dared object for any reason, be it national security or the humanitarian crisis it would (and did) create.

You don’t deserve help. New Yorkers should carry this crisis alone, as should citizens in Boston, Chicago, and anywhere else. Democrats have ruled for decades, pandering to people about their largess (with other people’s money) and how that somehow made them compassionate. You asked for it. You pay for it.

And hey – they are still spending other people’s money, just closer to home. You’ll need to raise even higher taxes on the people they need to get re-elected. The folks bearing more than just the fiscal burden of the Democrat’s deliberate third-world invasion of America.

The poisoned fruit they themselves sowed.

I guess the question now is, will they do something different or keep electing Democrats? Have they figured out that the Left’s change they can believe in is for the worst, and it is time to pick someone else to run the city, the state, and the country?

 

 

The post DC Hands Eric Adams Another Socialism S***! Sandwich to Feed to New Yorkers appeared first on Granite Grok.

At this point, any honest and serious discussion about the 2020 election is about HOW rigged it was, not whether it was rigged. And now we have evidence that the scale of mail-in voting fraud was massive … 20 PERCENT of mail-in votes were fraudulent.

So, if you were wondering how Biden did better in New Hampshire than Hillary, now you know. The Biden regime likely owes its “winning” New Hampshire to NeverTrumper Chris Sun-King Sununu and his loyal wingman Gordon MacDonald, who came up with the scheme to allow no-excuse mail-in voting.

Footnote: MacDonald’s reward for helping to rig the election? He was made Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

 

WHOA: Heartland/Rasmussen Poll: One-in-Five Mail-In Voters Admit to Committing at Least One Kind of Voter Fraud During 2020 Election
–17% of mail-in voters admit that in 2020 they voted in a state where they are “no longer a permanent resident”
–21% of mail-in voters admitted…

— Peter Schweizer (@peterschweizer) December 12, 2023

The post And Yet MORE Evidence That The 2020 Election Was Thoroughly RIGGED appeared first on Granite Grok.

I just finished listening to a webinar by the School Funding Fairness Project. Their whole approach to ‘funding’ (which focuses on fairness in spending while totally ignoring fairness in education) is based on two misconceptions.

The first misconception is that the state constitution requires the state to provide each student with an adequate education.

The second is that the state constitution requires ‘uniform taxation.’

The first misconception, I’ve written about elsewhere, but to recap:

Article 83, which is the basis for the Claremont decisions and for the recent Conval decision, says that seminaries and public schools are to be ‘cherished.’  So if the state can’t fund, operate, or regulate seminaries, it can’t do those things for public schools either. Which is to say, the state has no financial responsibility to do anything about public schools, and, in fact, is prohibited from pretending that it does. That’s the sort of thing a fifth-grader can figure out but which routinely escapes law school graduates.

Also, Article 83 says that ‘Free and fair competition in the trades and industries is an inherent and essential right of the people and should be protected against all monopolies and conspiracies which tend to hinder or destroy it.’  The courts have decided that this means it’s the state’s job to fund, operate, and regulate a monopoly to destroy competition in the industry of education.

The second misconception is perhaps even more insidious. You can verify for yourself that the word ‘uniform’ appears nowhere in the state constitution, whether in reference to taxes or anything else. And note that even if the constitution did require taxes to be uniform, that just means that everyone pays the same amount.

But the court (1) pretends that there is a requirement for uniformity and (2) conflates a uniform tax with a uniform tax rate.  Here’s the difference.

Consider three citizens: Manny, Moe, and Jack.  They own properties worth $100 thousand, $1 million, and $10 million, respectively. Now imagine that there is a need to raise $3,000 by taxing them.

Under a uniform tax, each of them would pay $1,000.

Under a uniform tax rate, Manny would pay about $27, Moe would pay about $270, and Jack would pay about $2700.   This is practically the opposite of a ‘uniform tax.’  (It is, in fact, Marxism. Remember back when that was something to be fought?)

So, to sum up. The courts have invented a fictional right to an education and elevated it above an actual right to free and fair competition; they have decided that the best way to protect people against monopolies is to set one up;  they have invented a fictional requirement for uniform taxes; and then decided that this requires uniform tax rates.

I got started in public speaking (and writing) by asking (a variant of) this question:

If the courts aren’t going to take the state constitution seriously, why should any of us — especially those of us who are serving in the legislature — take the courts seriously?

Shenanigans like this illustrate clearly and dramatically why we shouldn’t. And situations like this provide a perfect opportunity for the legislature to remind the courts that the branches are co-equal.  The judicial branch is not, like the pigs at Animal Farm, more equal than the other branches.

A phrase you often hear among siblings is:  You’re not the boss of me.  This is exactly what the legislature needs to say to the courts.  If you agree with me, contact your representatives and let them know that they have your support to tell the courts that the state constitution means what it says, not whatever the courts want it to.

The webinar ended with a plea for sympathetic listeners to ‘harass your representatives’ on this issue, specifically to do whatever the courts tell them to.  So you know your representatives will be hearing from them.  They need to hear from you, too.

The post Uniform Nonsense appeared first on Granite Grok.

As promised in Monday Memes, I have an overflow. Friday is guaranteed – at least from a stockpile of memes POV.

Let the mayhem, mockery, and ridicule resume:

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

Ordering a Pizza in 202?:

– Hello! Gordon’s pizza?

– No sir it’s Google’s pizza.

– So it’s a wrong number?

– No sir, Google bought it.

– OK. Take my order please ..

– Well sir, you want the usual?

– The usual? You know me?

– According to our caller ID, in the last 12 times, you ordered pizza with cheeses, sausage, thick crust

– OK! This is it

– May I suggest to you this time ricotta, arugula with dry tomato?

– No, I hate vegetables

– But your cholesterol is not good

– How do you know?

– Through the subscribers guide. We have the result of your blood tests for the last 7 years

– Okay, but I do not want this pizza, I already take medicine

– You have not taken the medicine regularly, 4 months ago, you only purchased a box with 30 tablets at Drugsale Network

– I bought more from another drugstore

– It’s not showing on your credit card

– I paid in cash

– But you did not withdraw that much cash according to your bank statement

– I have other source of cash

– This is not showing as per you last Tax form unless you got it from undeclared income source

-WHAT THE HELL? Enough! I’m sick of Google, Facebook, twitter, WhatsApp. I’m going to an Island without internet,where there is no cell phone line and no one to spy on me

– I understand sir, but you need to renew your passport as it has expired 5 weeks ago..

Welcome to the future

 

Coming a lot sooner than you think.  Consider this bit of news from Dubai:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/dubai-in-2024.mp4

 

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

 

 

 

Not a problem.  IMHO it’s crap anyway.

 

 

 

Brings to mind this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No matter how many times I see graphs like this – assuming they’re true of course – that show just how interconnected they all are, I’m still surprised.  Even though I shouldn’t be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the Post:

 

 

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

 

Palate cleansers:

 

 

If I have to have this make me stay up at night, so do you.

—

 

That’s a week on the couch for sure.

—

 

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

 

Come back on Friday for more memes.  Same meme time.  Same meme channel.

 

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

 

The post Meme Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

Governor Chris Sununu has decided to kill the presidential aspirations of Nikki Haley, not that she hasn’t tried to do that herself. Sununu endorsed her as his pick for President this week, just six weeks before New Hampshire’s First in the Nation Primary.

 

 

I’m confident that the Sununu homers think Haley is just dreamy. She has that DC political elite insider vibe. Darling Nikki also has the Neocon donor class money, but I’m unsure how many Sununu homers have already picked someone else. Not everyone waited that long, and Chris Christi is getting his support from somewhere. He has passed DeSantis in at least one poll.

(Related: Night Cap: Why Nikki Haley Is The Neoliberals’ Favorite Republican)

Trafalgar Group, with whom I’m unfamiliar, released a sampling yesterday showing Trump still way ahead at 45%, Haley at 18, Christie at 14, DeSantis at 11, Ramaswamy at 10, and Hutchinson at 0%.

Haley could do well here if Independents buy in on the Sununu Schtick, but while we’re on the subject.

 

Haley and Sununu are milking the moment, but Sununu slipped up. As he rambles down the list of everyone who needs to vote for Haley, he starts to say ‘Democrats,’ then catches himself. Too late.

 

Nikki Haley and Chris Sununu are bringing a whole new meaning to the term ‘Republican in Name Only,’ by encouraging Democrat voters and Democrat donors to help decide the Republican nominee. Chris Sununu knows Democrats can’t vote in the Republican primary—it’s illegal! Granite… pic.twitter.com/WmPT0fJZh2

— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) December 13, 2023

 

Democrats meddling in NH primaries is a contentious topic, so take that however you’d like, but the point Sununu is trying to make is this. Haley can’t win the Republican nomination with Republicans. She needs anyone with a heartbeat to make it to the polls.

What’s next, Chris? Asking out-of-state tuition-paying college kids to vote for Haley? It’s not like you’ve tried to prevent them from meddling in our elections. Maybe start an edibles for Haley get out the vote drive. You will have to compete with Dems trying to get them to write in Biden. They should write in Hunter Biden, but let’s not get lost on that point again.

Don’t expect much. Haley’s base is shared with Christie and DeSantis to a much smaller degree. Ramaswamy isn’t so much a not-Trump. Vivek has been working the DC outsider lane, picking up people who like the idea of Trump (disruptor) but can’t yet openly support the real thing.

The fun begins in Iowa in five weeks and in New Hampshire the week after, and it will likely be over on paper by early March.

I expect Chris Sununu to be disappointed, but he stuck to his promise (for a change) and refused to endorse Trump, which I’ve said would have done more to advance his goal than picking anyone else.

The primary clock is ticking.

 

The post His Excellency Endorses Constitutional Threat, Nikki Haley for President appeared first on Granite Grok.

Similar to President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu has become an irritant to the globalist brigade. How dare he call for not only victory but one which includes the last dead Hamas butcher when victory is now considered passé? It’s just no longer the objective!

Ever wonder why America settled for less in Korea and Vietnam when the latter even lacked a navy or an air force? From the victorious ashes of WWII, a different purpose of war emerged in which a more practical conclusion won out over the finality of a traditional victory.

Talk of eliminating the threat source is not now a possibility within certain circles. Aside from the military or national security angle, there is the more commanding “bottom line,” which, from a practical angle, more than justifies it since eliminating the threat equates with eliminating future business potential. With the globalist mindset, threat potentials can be business tools but can also represent an additional asset for gaining, even controlling, the public’s attention.

This craze for “civilian safety, which formerly was termed “collateral damage,” may now be the clarion call for playing fair in war! In addition, public heartstrings need plucking to the point that it’s now viewed as a life-saving (humanitarian) exercise. Conveniently, no mention that it effectively stymies Israel’s military assault from annihilating Hamas since the capabilities of the terrorists are limited to “first strike” or “hit and run” tactics.

We want to thank Jim Bowman for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
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Returning to Israel’s protector, Netanyahu, his intention would end any future Hamas danger while proving to the world the merits of achieving a victory. Lastly, from a military perspective, this cease-fire only offers an opportunity for Hamas to regroup and refortify.

Here at home, America’s uproar once again can be found on her campuses. It’s a replay of the sixties when condemning the war was the rage on campus. This time, their misdirected angst unbelievably centers upon the forces that are justifiably retaliating against those who attacked without cause, ravaged and killed the innocent and helpless.

With this misdirected rerun, America’s next crop of leaders is being once again instilled with the same American hatred that has been proven to last a lifetime since today’s reckless and, in some cases, treasonous leaders were the voices of protest from a few decades ago.

So, with this system now providing its worth, not only will it become engrained into the campus experience, but it will also guarantee the preservation of the tools for violence, which translates into business and influence. With such staying power, all that is missing is UN recognition!

Is it any wonder that this web, which today’s evildoers are re-weaving, would target the nationalism of Trump and Netanyahu? Hence, love of country is targeted, while global profits and its future control remain alive.

As events unfold, there is a smugness appearing from Israeli’s bending to this humanitarian outcry, which is nothing more than the global repackaging of blackmail mixed with public intimidation. This sad drama should be a lesson to our American military as far as their potential abuse from no-win confrontations.

In to this state of affairs, the necessity for loyalty and proven leadership once again becomes substantiated as an essential quality in any candidate running for our American Presidency. This was the norm before the revisionists, and silver-tongued orators arrived, of which their natural or more appropriate venue has always been those sawdust-laden carnivals. Their cotton candy pitching is no match for dealing with the world’s evil regimes.

Was Patton politically correct or mild-mannered? Today’s enemy is not only ruthless and brutal but business-driven and directed. There’s only one leader with a capable and proven track record, and he’s gruff and convincing enough to prevail in this cruel and greedy global arena!

 

The post The Concept of Victory appeared first on Granite Grok.

From “the things we already knew” file, Consumer Reports has found that “Electric vehicle owners continue to report far more problems with their vehicles than owners of conventional cars or hybrids, according to their newly released annual car reliability survey.”

 

The survey reveals that, on average, EVs from the past three model years had 79 percent more problems than conventional cars. Based on owner responses on more than 330,000 vehicles, the survey covers 20 potential problem areas, including engine, transmission, electric motors, leaks, and infotainment systems.

“Most electric cars today are being manufactured by either legacy automakers that are new to EV technology, or by companies like Rivian that are new to making cars,” says Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports. “It’s not surprising that they’re having growing pains and need some time to work out the bugs.” Fisher says some of the most common problems EV owners report are issues with electric drive motors, charging, and EV batteries.

 

Consumer Reports is, for the record, focused on the vehicles themselves and notes that owners did not report issues with home chargers but the cars and their batteries. Nor was it their mission or perhaps even their remit to get lost on the esoteric issues like lifetime emissions reductions that fail to account for the electric source or the vehicle’s beginning or end of life.

EVs are not great for the Environment.

We won’t revisit those here, but you can sift the 240-plus far-from-flattering articles we’ve published on EVs if a trip down memory lane suits you.

Hybrids came out as the winners in this report. Owners reported fewer problems than their combustion-only equivalents. I’m not advocating any vehicle with a lithium battery fire-trap in it, but the transportation transition folks should have stuck with those. Hybrids cost less to make than EVs, augment existing technology, and even manage to get better gas mileage than their gas-only counterparts. Not all. Not all the time. Some fuel-powered vehicles get outstanding mileage without any risks to the planet or the owner associated with a lithium power pack of that size.

I drive a Honda that can get 50+ MPG on the highway, and others do that and better, though they are much smaller, lighter, and offer much less protection in a collision. You can’t tow or haul with them, and that might have been an excellent place to do a Hybrid instead of an EV. Trucks. EV trucks are little more than a virtue signal driveway ornament for people who want to drive a truck but don’t need one. A Hybrid pickup is more practical as a transition innovation, but none of that mattered to the politicians and activists, and we know why.

They aren’t trying to get us all to drive EVs. They are trying to get us all riding bikes or public transport. Car makers only ventured down this path because of government-enforced fleet range mandates and financial incentives. But at the end of the day, the dealer has to manage the unruly customer, reliability issues, and the real problem of working on damaged EVs, which are an enormous fire risk and whose repair costs a small fortune.

One positive outcome, we can hope, is that people who were not paying attention but who read consumer reports (and who might be herded into thinking an EV was a good idea) will avoid EVs altogether. That market is already soft as startups collapse, investment in EV technology wanes, and legacy car makers announce a shift toward more conventional combustion vehicles.

They should leave the market to TESLA and work on improving mileage and emissions technology. It might also be in their best interest, especially the auto workers and their unions, to stop voting for Democrats. They want to end the car industry, and the sooner you work that out and vote for someone else, the longer you’ll get to keep your good-paying American job.

 

The post Consumer Reports: EV Owners Say Their Cars are Unreliable appeared first on Granite Grok.

(Concord, NH Dec 11, 2023) New Hampshire Right to Life (NHRTL) issues the below comments on ads run by Democratic Presidential Candidate Terrisa Bukovinac that portray the reality of late-term abortion set to air tonight [0,1].

Jason Hennessey, President of NH Right to Life, said: “Many Democrats like Bukovinac are disgusted by the extreme push of their party leaders to legalize abortion through birth. We share the horror at seeing the reality of these violent and dangerous acts against mothers and their children.”

A 2022 Harvard/Harris poll showed that 90% of Americans disagree with legalized abortion through birth[2].

NH Right to Life is New Hampshire’s largest and longest-standing organization dedicated to the pro-life cause.

0: https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/11/pro-life-democrat-running-biden-will-air-graphic-explicit-pro-life-ad-nbc/

1: https://granitegrok.com/blog/2023/12/breaking-dem-presidential-candidate-to-run-graphic-anti-abortion-ads-tonight-on-nbc

2: Page 41, https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/HHP_June2022_KeyResults.pdf

Contact:
Jason Hennessey
New Hampshire Right to Life
(603) 230-8136
life@nhrtl.org
https://nhrtl.org

The post NH Right to Life Responds To Presidential Ads Portraying the Reality of Late Term Abortion appeared first on Granite Grok.

In today’s global economy, understanding and adhering to international tax regulations is paramount for businesses operating across borders. Complex and ever-changing tax laws can pose significant challenges, but they also offer strategic financial planning and growth opportunities. This article breaks down six crucial aspects of navigating global tax regulations, providing insights and strategies for businesses to optimize their international operations. Each section aims to unravel a piece of the global tax puzzle, helping businesses stay compliant and competitive.

Understanding Different Tax Jurisdictions

The first step in navigating global tax regulations is understanding the tax laws of each country in which your business operates. Each jurisdiction has its own set of tax rules, rates, and compliance requirements. Businesses must stay informed about these differences to avoid penalties and maximize tax efficiency. This includes understanding corporate tax rates, sales taxes, withholding taxes, and any other local tax obligations. Staying updated with the latest tax regulations in each jurisdiction ensures informed decision-making and strategic planning.

Leveraging International Tax Treaties

Many countries have tax treaties with other nations to avoid double taxation and encourage cross-border trade. Understanding and leveraging these treaties can significantly improve business compliance and tax efficiency. These treaties typically outline reduced tax rates and exemptions available to businesses operating in the signatory countries. By effectively utilizing the benefits of these treaties, businesses can minimize their tax liabilities and enhance their competitive edge in international markets. Businesses must consult with tax professionals who are well-versed in these treaties to ensure they fully benefit from the available provisions.

Outsourced Accounting Services Are the Solution for Managing Global Tax Compliance

As businesses expand globally, managing tax compliance across multiple jurisdictions becomes increasingly complex. One effective solution is to utilize outsourced accounting services. These services offer expertise in international tax law, ensuring that businesses remain compliant with the tax regulations of each country they operate in. Outsourced accounting services can handle various tasks, from preparing and filing tax returns to advising on cross-border transactions and transfer pricing. They keep abreast of the latest tax law changes, providing businesses with up-to-date advice and strategies for minimizing tax liabilities. By outsourcing these complex and time-consuming tasks, businesses can focus on their main operations, secure in the knowledge that experts are handling their tax affairs.

Transfer Pricing and its Implications

Transfer pricing, which is the practice of setting prices for transactions between companies within the same corporate group, is a critical element in international taxation. Incorrect transfer pricing can lead to significant tax penalties and damage a company’s reputation. Businesses must ensure that their transfer pricing policies comply with the arm’s length principle, meaning that the prices are consistent with those that would be charged between independent enterprises. Developing a robust transfer pricing strategy involves thorough documentation and a deep understanding of the regulations in each jurisdiction, helping to avoid disputes with tax authorities.

Tax Planning for Digital Operations

The digital economy has introduced new challenges in international taxation. Digital services often transcend traditional borders, raising questions about which country has taxing rights. This has led to the introduction of various digital services taxes and changes in international tax rules. Businesses need to stay ahead of these developments to ensure compliance as well as optimize their tax positions. As the saying goes, “Everybody wants to rule the tax world,” but navigating the digital taxation landscape requires careful planning and an understanding of the evolving international tax environment.

Staying Ahead of Tax Law Changes

The international tax landscape is continuously evolving, with frequent changes in laws and regulations. Staying informed about these changes is crucial for businesses to remain compliant and competitive. This involves regular monitoring of tax developments in all jurisdictions where the business operates. Companies can leverage technology, professional networks, and external advisories to keep up-to-date with these changes. Proactive adaptation to new tax laws can prevent compliance issues and enable businesses to take advantage of emerging tax opportunities.

From understanding different tax jurisdictions to leveraging international tax treaties and from managing transfer pricing to adapting to digital taxation, businesses must be well-equipped to handle these challenges. Outsourcing accounting services can provide the expertise needed for managing global tax compliance, allowing businesses to focus on growth and innovation. Staying informed and proactive in tax planning is not just about compliance; it’s a strategic business decision that can lead to significant competitive advantages in the global market.

The post Navigating the Complexities of Global Tax Regulations appeared first on Granite Grok.

Amid the mind-rape called the COVID-vaccine rollout, a “coalition” of ‘partners’ – people on the profitable end of the COVID-19-cash money laundering list, created a website called Healthy 603 Coalition.org. Its mission was to launder approved narratives into enabling legislation.

 

The Healthy 603 Coalition is a non-partisan group of Granite State small business leaders, health care professionals, advocates and activists. All with the common goal of providing fair and accurate information to help create a healthier, safer New Hampshire.

 

I can’t speak to its success. There was so much institutional political and media support fed by the same pool of money that adding this alleged .org seems like a waste of time and resources, which it must have been. They’ve not updated it in a very long time. Their Facts vs. Myths page is…a little out of date.

 

 

This one is by far the most interesting. First, the vaccine wasn’t rushed (they had it already), but the safety and testing process barriers were. No one denies this. Operation Warp Speed was about getting a mass-produced “cure” into human arms with as little safety monitoring as possible. The complete initial list of side effects was not released to the public as part of ensuring informed consent from Myocarditis to Pericarditis and COVID-19 until long after the needle-in-every-arm folks had 50-70% compliance (and the reality could not be ignored). They still tried to ignore it while pillorying anyone who said, “But look?”

From before Day 1, this thing was unsafe and ineffective, and they knew it might not prevent infection or spread, all of which proved true. Because of these lies, the vaccinated, with their damaged or weakened immune systems, became super-spreaders.

The institutional safety monitoring apparatus ignored, hid, or buried safety signals visible to anyone who stopped listening to the propaganda and looked. And that’s just the beginning of everything wrong with this claim.

 

 

The crap in the mRNA gets into cells by design to create spike proteins that travel all over the body and into organs. Some recipients never stop making spike proteins, and there has been a rise in out-of-control cell growths nicknamed turbo cancers. Children are getting them. This appears to be a product of IgG4 antibodies whose release is exacerbated by the mRNA COVID vaccine. While you may still be able to say the mRNA isn’t rewriting DNA, it is stimulating cellular response to such a degree that healthy people, healthy kids – who were never at risk from COVID but were lined up and injected anyway – are watching their body attack itself until they die.

 

 

There is no COVID-19 vaccine per se, but as noted above (getting COVID-19 is a known side-effect of the vaccine), since admitted by national health organizations and demonstrated in peer-reviewed research, the COVID-19 vaccine makes you more susceptible to COVID-19, and the vaccinated have proven this to be true. It never prevented infection or spread; it made the potential for it worse. Actual public policy ensured that the vaccinated would get infected and spread COVID.

From a pre-vaccine launch FDA presentation, COVID-19 disease is the first Adverse Event of Special interest.

 

 

More recent research has also uncovered how mRNA,  “in addition to the toxic “spike protein,” mRNA vaccines have a weakness that introduces “read errors,” making vaccinated individuals produce nearly random proteins with unknown and unpredictable effects.”

We also have more news out of New Zealand, where thousands of public health officials were granted exemptions from the COVID Vaccie mandate, potentially because of a 2019 paper in an Oncology Journal that reported on how,

 

“…gene therapy has been caught in a vicious cycle for nearly two decades owing to immune response, insertional mutagenesis, viral tropism, off-target activity, unwanted clinical outcomes (ranging from illness to death of participants in clinical trials), and patchy regulations.”

Gene Therapy?

 

 Typically, DNA, mRNA, siRNA, miRNA, and anti-sense oligonucleotides are the genetic materials used for therapeutic delivery into a defective target cell or tissue to restore a specific gene function or turn off a gene responsible for disease or disorder development (35).

 

Perhaps it is time to take this ridiculous website down because we know that you know you cannot now tell the truth. If you saw the data or admitted you’d seen it, you would have to stop pimping these things and admit they are counterproductive, debilitating, and deadly.

Exit Question: Did your state our county have one of these, and is it still up and lying to the public?

 

The post Night Cap: Healthy603Coalition Needs to Update Its Lyin’ Pro-COVID-Vaccine Website, or Take It Down. appeared first on Granite Grok.

One of the ongoing tensions embedded throughout the years of efforts by mainly Western governments to subsidize their desired energy transition into existence has been the tension between these desires of the ruling class versus the demands of the global energy market.

Past efforts by governments in the West or any other part of the world to intercede in energy markets to produce desired outcomes have pretty much always resulted in epic failures and energy crises, and the prospects for this current multi-trillion-dollar charade do not appear to be shaping up any differently. (RELATED: Leaked Docs Show Arab Petrostate Wanted To Use Climate Summit To Strike Fossil Fuel Deals)

This reality set the writer of a special preview of Fortune’s CEO Weekly Europe Newsletter off on a bit of a rant this week, one that left him admittedly “wistful for the bygone era of state-owned energy companies.” The central conundrum at hand is that the biggest oil companies in Europe do not appear to be conforming their business priorities with the stated policy positions of the central planners at the European Union and of various European governments.

The stated policy positions by the EU and countries like Germany and the U.K. — and obviously preferred by Fortune’s writer — advocate that these big oil companies should be focusing their future capital investments on buying up and developing wind farms, solar arrays, building batteries and engaging in other “green” energy projects. Yet these big companies — the writer cites Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies as examples — insist upon continuing to allocate the great majority of their capital budgets to invest in the things in which oil companies tend to invest, like drilling wells, finding new reserves and transporting and refining oil and natural gas-related products.

Matter of fact, all three of those companies announced significant strategic shifts in 2023 in which they pledged to invest an even larger percentage of their capital budgets in their core oil and gas businesses for two simple reasons: 1) to meet rapidly rising global demand for oil and gas products, and 2) because those core business projects are so much more profitable than spending billions of euros on buying wind farms and solar arrays.

Go figure.

Fortune’s writer laments this disconnect between government edict and companies pursuing actual profits in this remarkable paragraph:

“This situation is problematic because the following two things cannot be true at the same time: that Europe pursues a policy of rapid decarbonization, betting that this creates prosperity for its people and that its largest companies continue investing in fossil fuels for the sake of their stakeholders.” (RELATED: STEPHEN MOORE: Climate Change Is Taking Over Common Sense)

What the writer ignores is what the central planners also studiously ignore, which is the fact that companies like Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies are not charitable organizations. They exist in the first place for one driving reason, which is to generate profits for their shareholders by producing products that are desired and needed by the public at large.

If European governments wish to convert Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies into renewable energy companies, then the task at hand for the central planners is to find a way to create a situation in which investing billions of euros in capital generates higher profits than investing the same capital in those companies’ core business enterprises.

Obviously, just enacting hundreds of billions of euros and British pounds in tax breaks and subsidies for the preferred kinds of energy projects hasn’t done the trick, has it? Nor have efforts by central planners to render the finding and producing of oil and gas and their related products increasingly difficult and costly via overbearing regulation managed to tip the scales.

The problem there is that oil companies tend to be quite nimble and adaptive by nature and always seem to find ways to continue doing their business despite the regulatory state’s best efforts. Quite inconvenient, that.

Thus, in the end, we invariably arrive at the admission by this writer that he longs for the return of state-owned energy companies. Because, surely, the central planners can do a far better job of running and managing companies and better provide the needs of billions of human beings for affordable and reliable energy than the market can provide.

This writer at Fortune was just saying the quiet part of and driving philosophy behind this energy transition out loud.

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.

 

David Blackmon | Daily Caller

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.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The post Saying The Quiet Part About This Utopian Green Energy Transition Out Loud appeared first on Granite Grok.

In late October, to scare people right before Halloween, Pfizer issued a press release reminding recipients of its COVID-19 vaccines that there was an increased risk of heart injury after injection. No Sh!t, Really?

 

Pfizer issued a press release Friday afternoon stating definitively that mRNA covid vaccines “show increased risks” of myocarditis + pericarditis. pic.twitter.com/BQ70xDIhJ0

— Antonio Sabato Jr (@AntonioSabatoJr) October 23, 2023

 

This has, of course, been fact-checked, and guess what? The fact check insists Pfizer has warned us about the risk of heart damage since 2021. And you could say that’s accurate. Before Emergency Use Authorization, the FDA knew about the risk of injury or death, including complications from Myocarditis and Pericarditis, but they pretended the risk of death from COVID was greater. (Related: New Research Suggests Evidence of Permanent Heart Damage to Some Adolescents Who Got COVID-19 Vaxx).

Long before the Vaxx-push, we knew that was not the case. A sliver of the population was at risk of Hospitalization or death, and those under 20 had nearly zero risk of even getting the virus or spreading it. What followed was a fear campaign pushing mandates and ostracizing anyone who opted out, and we don’t need that fact-checked. We lived it.

That press release isn’t telling us anything new. It is not an admission of wrongdoing. I’d go so far as to say it isn’t a definitive admission in any new sense. They admitted the thing was crap, and it could kill you from go. There was no informed consent. If you’d known, you’d have likely said no, and you’d have certainly not jabbed your kids or disowned relatives over, or been relieved of your job. No one in their right mind, at least. The left mind is another matter.

What would be new is if COVID-19 apologists admitted that these details were hidden from the public. Admit the level of deception, from safe and effective to incomplete package inserts to health risks from COVID or the vaccine. The fraud was systemic and institutional, and millions were harmed and many killed as a result.

That would be something, but it’s not anything we should expect from anyone who received money to pander to the lies in the approved narrative. And there were a lot of them.

 

 

The post When Pfizer Reminded Us That their Thing Could Damage Your Heart appeared first on Granite Grok.

Here’s what we know so far: Harvard President Claudine Gay has been accused of plagiarism by copying the work of others, inserting it into her Ph.D. thesis, and not acknowledging it.

This is called “academic fraud”.

If anyone else had done this and had been discovered, they would have had their Ph.D. revoked, and their academic record would indicate that they cheated.  If they were in a position of leadership and responsibility in a large multi-billion dollar company, they would probably be transferred somewhere out of the limelight and then quietly “let go.”

But not Ms. Gay.

I won’t speculate on why she isn’t being punished for stealing ideas at a university and calling them her own.  Nor will I speculate on why she’s being given a chance to “correct the record” and “modify” her Ph.D. accordingly (which is a tacit admission that her Ph.D. should never have been granted in the first place).

It seems like Ms. Gay is being treated with “kid gloves.”  I won’t speculate on why (he wrote, feigning naivete).

But the sad part of this episode is that it now confirms the fact that Harvard both approves and encourages falsifying academic papers.

So now, the question is: “How many other Harvard graduates received Ph. D.s for work that wasn’t their own?”

As they say, if there’s smoke, there’s fire.  Ms. Gay’s actions were the fire, and the Harvard Corporation (the BOD) decided to allow the fire to burn in an uncontrolled manner.

It may not happen now.  It may take years.  But Harvard’s action in not disciplining Ms. Gay for obvious and provable academic fraud calls into question whether a Harvard degree – at any level – is worth the paper it’s printed on.

 

The post Academic Fraud is Now APPROVED at Harvard appeared first on Granite Grok.

Trouble has followed Sara Catherine Jones since she married into the Biden family almost three decades ago. Not long after her 1995 wedding to Jim Biden, she took a job with one of his brother Joe’s Senate donors, who later accused her of “fraud” and “unjust enrichment,” according to court records reviewed by RealClearInvestigations.

In the years since, she and her husband have been accused of reneging on debts and failing to pay their taxes, court and property records show. Like their nephew, first son Hunter Biden, they have reportedly sold the promise of access to their powerful relative to companies, several of which have gone bankrupt, some of which are tied to foreign countries hostile to the United States.

Now, Sara Jones Biden has emerged as a key figure in the mushrooming Biden foreign influence-peddling scandal.

GOP lawmakers seek to question the 64-year-old licensed attorney as part of their investigation of President Biden for possible impeachable offenses, including bribery. They are especially interested in subpoenaed bank records that include almost a quarter million dollars in checks Sara Biden wrote to her brother-in-law Joe, conspicuously marking them as “loan repayment.” Republicans want to ask her about the origin of those loans and whether checks “were funded by Biden influence-peddling schemes with China.”

“The Committees require you to provide details of these payments and other related matters,” the chairmen of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees said in a joint letter they sent to her last month demanding she make herself available for a transcribed interview. In addition, they sent a subpoena to her husband for testimony and information.

Although Hunter and Jim Biden’s questionable business dealings – and their possible blessing from the president – are drawing increasing scrutiny, Sara Biden has drawn little attention until now. But court records and other documents show she has been a central player in the Biden family business for decades. They show how her and her husband’s desire for a lifestyle they could not quite afford has repeatedly led them to form relationships with shady figures and enterprises that often ended in lawsuits and even criminal investigations.

Looming over it all is Joe Biden. Documents recently obtained by government watchdog America First Legal, under a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal that Sara and Jim’s main business, the Lion Hall Group, shows up in more than 3,735 emails generated by the former Vice President Biden’s office. The sheer volume of communications concerning his brother and sister-in-law’s business appears to contradict Biden’s repeated claims over the years that he was never involved in, or even aware of, his family’s business dealings.

A Match Made in Kentucky

Sara Biden’s links to Joe Biden date back to the early 1990s, when she landed a committee job with his close personal friend, Sen. Wendell Ford, a Kentucky Democrat.

“Sen. Ford has been an important part of our family for a long time,” Joe Biden said after Ford died in 2015. “He gave Sara Jones Biden, from Owensboro, Ky., her first job on the Hill when she graduated from Duke Law School, and that’s how she met my brother Jimmy.”

Jimmy and Sara weren’t just sweethearts; they were also business partners – with a taste for high living.

In 1997, Sara and Jim Biden formed the consulting firm Lion Hall Group with the help of Joe Biden’s old law partner, David Walsh, who acted as their registered agent, according to incorporation records they filed with the Delaware Department of State.

That same year, they bought an expensive home in the Philadelphia suburbs and struggled to make payments on the $650,000 mortgage, records show, even though a longtime Democratic fundraiser for then-Sen. Biden, Joel Boyarsky, loaned them as much as $200,000. In 1998, the IRS filed its first lien against their home to collect $145,000 in unpaid taxes.

In 2000, they borrowed $353,000 from another Biden donor – Leonard Barrack, a Philadelphia attorney who a few years earlier had agreed to hire Sara Biden at Jim’s urging for $300,000 per year, according to court and other records. Barrack would soon regret helping them out.

According to a lawsuit he filed against Sara Biden four years later, Barrack said Jim had convinced him that by hiring Sara as a partner, the Bidens would be able to attract clients to his law firm through their political connections.

“Jim Biden assured Barrack that he would be able to generate business for the Barrack Law Firm through his family name and his resemblance to his brother, United States Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware,” according to the 2004 complaint filed in Philadelphia County, Pa.

Instead, the document said, Sara Biden developed business opportunities for Lion Hall Group, where she served as president, a potential conflict of interest she allegedly never disclosed to Barrack.

The law firm, also known as Barrack, Rodos & Bacine, further alleged that she used its resources, including a travel budget, for personal benefit. The lawsuit said Sara Biden spent almost $250,000 to travel with her husband to Hawaii and Alaska and across Europe, including England, Ireland, France, and Italy. They even brought their son, Nicholas (now 26), and a nanny on some of the “lavish” trips.

“Contrary to Sara Biden’s representations, none of the foregoing trips generated any business for the Barrack Law Firm,” the suit stated. “The Bidens never intended to generate business opportunities for the Barrack Law Firm during their travels, using the trips instead for personal pleasure and to develop opportunities for Lion Hall.”

The couple also allegedly received a total of $500,000 in loans before Sara left the firm in 2003. These salary advances were never repaid, according to the legal complaint. The case, which charged Sara and Lion Hall Group with “fraud,” “unjust enrichment,” and “breach of contract,” was eventually settled. The terms are undisclosed.

Sara Biden did not respond to requests for comment. However, in a law publication profile, she asserted that she “co-founded” the Barrack law firm’s “institutional development and claims monitoring program.” Barrack apparently was unaware she was pursuing other outside interests while allegedly looting his firm.

In 2000, then-Vice President Al Gore and HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo announced a new $2 million partnership with NorthPoint Communications to help “bridge the digital divide” by providing broadband Internet access to more than 800 low-income urban neighborhoods.

Looking for political juice to help it win the licenses needed from the FCC for telecom development, NorthPoint invited Sara Biden to join its board, along with Hunter Biden. At the time, Hunter served as executive director of e-commerce policy at the Commerce Department, a Clinton-appointed position. It’s not known if his Aunt Sara did any lobbying for Northpoint, but Federal Election Commission records show that in 2000, she gave $1,200 to Northpoint’s PAC – People for Digital Competition.

Sara Biden does not appear in federal lobbying disclosure records as a registered lobbyist. Northpoint filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

Several years later, another Biden donor retained her and Lion Hall Group to lobby Sen. Biden and other senators for passage of a bill to help resolve tobacco-related medical claims. Although the bill, which Joe Biden supported, died in the Senate, the donor who pushed it – famous Mississippi trial attorney Dickie Scruggs – introduced Sara Biden to two associates, also Biden donors, who proposed bringing her into a potentially lucrative venture, according to legal documents.

Mississippi lawyers Steve Patterson and Timothy Balducci were looking to build a Democratic lobbying firm in Washington with global reach, and offered to make Sara a partner in the firm, which they planned to call “Patterson Balducci & Biden.” But the deal fell apart when Balducci and Patterson were indicted on federal bribery charges in an investigation that also ensnared Scruggs. After all three men went to federal prison, Biden was forced to return their donations.

Sara and her husband had more trouble with the IRS in 2013 when the agency slapped them with another lien for unpaid taxes, this one totaling $589,000. They also faced state and local tax liens, property records show.

The couple had just purchased a $2.5 million luxury vacation home in Naples, Fla., which the entire Biden clan, including Joe, used. But they racked up debt renovating the home – dubbed the “Biden Bungalow” – and went in search of more bailout money.

Owing a combined $700,000 in tax and vendor liens, they quickly found another Joe Biden supporter to rescue them. Over the next few years, millionaire car magnate and major Biden donor John Hynansky of Delaware floated Sara and Jim Biden “loans” totaling $900,000, records show.

During this same period, as then-Vice President Biden was the point person for U.S. policy in Ukraine, a federal lending agency – OPIC – authorized loans Hynansky’s company used to build a 7,300-square-foot Porsche dealership along the highway that connects downtown Kyiv to the Boryspil International Airport.

Mortgage records initially reported Jim and Sara Biden’s lender as “1018 PL, LLC,” obscuring Hynansky as the source of the loans. But the corporate entity is controlled by Hynansky, a 2018 document would later reveal.

The Bidens sold the waterfront house for a loss in 2018, and Hynansky released his lien on the property. However, Hynansky did not acknowledge full payment and satisfaction of the loans, according to the details laid out in documents recorded in Collier County, Fla.

Hynansky wasn’t their only white knight.

As the Bidens struggled to find money to pay contractors for hurricane-related repairs on their beach home and find a buyer for it, they went back to Joe’s old cronies from Mississippi. One of them, Mississippi lawyer Joey Langston, who had been sentenced to three years in federal prison for improperly trying to influence a judge, introduced them to the founder of Americore Health, who needed money to aggressively expand his chain of rural hospitals. Jim invoked his brother’s influence and said they had the political clout to drum up investment money, according to court documents and published reports. Impressed, Americore not only hired Lion Hall Group but loaned Jim and Sara Biden $650,000 for their personal use, even as the company hemorrhaged cash. The funds could have been used to help the company’s failing hospitals, which had to lay off hundreds of employees after Americore failed.

As soon as the couple received their loan payment, however, they stepped back from the venture, and the promised investments never materialized, according to a lawsuit filed against Jim Biden and Lion Hall Group by Americore’s medical partners after it went bankrupt in 2019. In a declaration, one plaintiff described Jim Biden as a con man who repeatedly made false promises “on the Biden’s [sic] family name.” According to a recent court filing, Diverse Medical Management and Azzam Medical Services, which hoped to manage Americore hospitals, claimed “Biden and his wife, Sara Biden,” made false assurances during a dinner they held at their home near Philadelphia that funding for the venture was forthcoming.

Meanwhile, Americore trustees have tried to claw back the $650,000 from the Bidens in bankruptcy court. An attorney for Jim Biden maintains that his client recently repaid Americore half the amount to settle the dispute.

After rural hospitals were forced to close their doors in Pennsylvania and other states, the FBI stepped in to investigate the Americore debacle as part of a criminal fraud investigation. While agents have questioned witnesses about Jim Biden’s role in the collapse, according to multiple reports, it’s unclear if his wife has been questioned. She did not reply to inquiries.

Around the same time the couple was raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from the crooked hospital deal, Hunter Biden was sending hundreds of thousands more to his Uncle Jim and Aunt Sara – and impeachment investigators on the Hill hope to question Sara about the origin and flow of these funds.

Starting in the summer of 2017, Hunter began sending large wire transfers to Sara and Jim’s Lion Hall Group – some of which ended up in Joe Biden’s bank account. The source of the funds was CEFC China Energy, a Chinese conglomerate tied to Chinese military intelligence. After a year, Lion Hall had received $1.4 million from Hunter Biden.

On Aug. 14, 2017, Hunter Biden wired $150,000 to Lion Hall after receiving $400,000 from a joint account he held with CEFC. On Aug. 28, 2017, Sara Biden withdrew $50,000 in cash from Lion Hall’s account. Later the same day, she deposited it into her and Jim Biden’s personal checking account, according to bank records subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee. On Sept. 3, 2017, Sara Biden wrote a check to Joe Biden for $40,000 for a “loan repayment,” exactly 10% of the $400,000 – matching a “10 held by H for the big guy” arrangement Hunter had made for Joe in the Chinese venture that was discovered in emails from his abandoned laptop.

Another personal check to Joe made out in Sara’s handwriting, this one for $200,000, was cut on March 1, 2018 – the same day Jim Biden got an equal amount from Americore. “Loan repayment” was also filled in for the memo line of the check.

If there were in fact loans between Joe Biden and his sister-in-law, the White House has not explained the reason for them or provided any details about their terms, such as the interest rates charged. A White House spokesman has only said that the release of the bank records is part of “a smear campaign against the president” by Republican investigators.

“There is nothing more to these transactions,” said Paul Fishman, a lawyer representing Jim Biden, “and there is nothing wrong with them.”

However, the wire transfers raised red flags with Hunter’s bank, Wells Fargo, which asked about their “purpose” and also questioned the recipient, the Lion Hall Group. The bank noted the owner, Sara Biden, is a “relative [and] the address appears to be a residential address,” adding, “What is the business type?”

Unsatisfied with Hunter’s explanations, the bank flagged the transactions as potential financial crimes, including money laundering, prompting the U.S. Treasury Department to issue a series of suspicious activity reports.

When her bank asked Sara Biden about the large transfers, she claimed the payments were for international consulting work (neither she nor her husband is registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents). However, she refused to provide any supporting documentation. The bank, in turn, closed the Lion Hall account, according to a 2020 Senate report.

Impeachment investigators tell RCI that they have subpoenaed related bank records from Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, and Cathay Bank, in addition to Wells Fargo.

The Senate report noted that Jim and Sara Biden also benefitted from a $100,000 line of credit a CEFC executive opened for Hunter Biden in September 2017. After credit cards were issued to Hunter, as well as his uncle and aunt, they went on “an extravagant global shopping spree.” Records show Hunter, Jim, and Sara Biden used the cards for plane tickets, hotel rooms, and electronic devices, among other things.

House impeachment investigators tell RCI that Sara Biden, who acted as an apparent financial conduit, may hold answers to whether the president also benefitted from the Chinese largesse as part of a “foreign influence-peddling scheme,” which they say could “compromise his decision-making and threaten national security.” They also seek to find out how much interaction Biden has had with her business, the Lion Hall Group, while in office.

Congressional investigators suspect that Lion Hall, which was incorporated by Joe Biden’s old law partner, was set up to act as a pass-through vehicle to launder possible bribes to Joe Biden. They point out that Biden’s Mississippi donor pal, Joey Langston, pumped almost $200,000 into Lion Hall for unspecified services while Biden was vice president. According to subpoenaed Lion Hall bank records, Langston Law Firm Consulting Inc. began wiring money to Lion Hall within weeks of Langston losing his appeal in February 2016 to have his conviction for bribing a judge thrown out. A federal judge also turned down his petition to have his criminal record cleared. Records show that between March 2016 and October 2016, Langston made four payments to Lion Hall totaling $187,000. Investigators have asked Langston to come in for questioning and explain the nature of the payments. Attempts to reach Langston for comment were unsuccessful.

 

Paul Sperry | RealClear Wire

 

The post Who Is Sara Biden? Joe’s In-Law Emerges as Central Figure in Foreign Cash Deals appeared first on Granite Grok.

Former US Senator Kelly Ayotte left DC after one term to land on the boards of a bunch of different companies, including “BAE Systems, Caterpillar, Bloom Energy, Blackstone Group, News Corp., Boston Properties, and Blink Health, as well as the advisory boards of Microsoft, Chubb Insurance and Cirtronics.”

No one would be surprised to find people with deep pockets who happen to have an interest in or are part of the companies supporting her run for Governor of New Hampshire. Not because there is value in a small state governor. Ayotte was and continues to be groomed for much higher office, and I don’t mean the US Senate.

As a one-term US Senator, she was managed by the likes of John McCain and Lindsey Graham as a future GOPe standard bearer. With only a few years in office, her name was dropped as a potential vice president pick. When she lost her re-election by a handful of votes rather than contest it and get back into the US Senate in support of a president the Deep State GOPe didn’t like, she gracefully conceded.

Ayotte became the popular rhetorical blonde, landing on large corporate boards where she was made familiar with an even wider range of insider interests and individuals.

The thinking behind this seems evident to me.

Kelly is not running for Governor to keep New Hampshire ‘New Hampshire.’ She is running at the behest of her sponsors because a governor makes for a much more appealing VP candidate in 2028 than some one-time Senate candidate. A governor also makes for a much better Presidential candidate in 2028 or 2032 (assuming we’re still electing them by then).

Yes, there’s a story to be told about all the outside money, but it is impossible to run for higher office in a small state without it. Almost no one can run and win at any level above the NH House on local money alone. But the outside money is not the story. It is what that cash is trying to buy.

Yes, it wants to elect a governor, but not so it can influence a governor. That money wants future access to the Oval Office, and Ayotte is on somebody’s list for a future campaign as either a donor-directed VP or a candidate for President.

And yeah, the same crowd will take Nikki Haley this time around if you are curious.

That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

 

 

Disclosure: A majority of the board of the 603 Alliance endorsed Chuck Morse for Governor of New Hampshire, and I am a voting member on that board.

The post Why Kelly Ayotte’s Pile of Campaign Cash Has Nothing to Do with Her Running for Governor (Not Exactly) appeared first on Granite Grok.