Oklahoma City voters approved a proposal for a new sales tax to fund a $1 billion downtown arena that will keep the NBA’s Thunder in that city through 2050.  Interesting. I’m sure Oklahomans who don’t care for basketball or sales taxes are less than pleased.

So, will the Thunder still leave in 25 years? And how long is an arena supposed to last?

The Thunder used to be the Seattle Supersonics. They played in several Seattle venues, including the Kingdome, which hosted the 1979 NBA Finals—won by the Sonics, led by future Celtic Dennis Johnson. Built for “only” $67 million, the Kingdome had around 60,000 seats and was also home to the MLB Mariners and the NFL Seahawks. Toronto Blue Jay—and future Celtic—Danny Ainge hit a couple of home runs there.

I actually saw some college basketball there in April of 1989 when Seattle hosted the NCAA Basketball Final Four. My seat was so far from the court that I watched the game on the giant video screen above the stands.

The giant edifice was demolished in 2000, only 25 years after it opened. Go figure.

Speaking of new NBA arenas, Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced plans to move the Wizards out of Washington, D.C., to a multi-billion sports and entertainment complex in Virginia that will also host the NHL Capitals.

(One wonders if the two new Virginia teams will still claim to be of Washington, D.C. But then the New York Giants and Jets play in New Jersey.)

The Washington Wizards used to be the Washington Bullets, but “Bullets” were seen as politically incorrect in a city plagued by gun violence—despite the nation’s toughest gun laws. So, the Bullet nickname went away. (Can you say “Redskins?”)  Political correctness is important in Washington. Of course.

The Washington Bullets used to be the Baltimore Bullets. After they switched their home arena from Baltimore to Landover, Md., they were also called the Capital Bullets for a while. The franchise had moved to Baltimore in 1963 from Chicago where they were known as the Zephyrs. They’d previously been the Chicago Packers, but they changed their name out of deference to a nearby NFL team.

There was another Baltimore Bullet NBA franchise in the 1950s, which didn’t move anywhere. It just folded.

Got it?

Anyway, one wonders how long these new arenas will last. Who’d have suspected that the Kingdome would be demolished only 25 years after it was built? Michigan’s Silverdome—once home to the Pontiac (nee Detroit) Lions—was similarly demolished, despite having hosted a Super Bowl in 1982.

When the Dallas Cowboys moved to Texas Stadium in 1971, fans probably thought that venue would be the eternal “Home of the Cowboys.” But America’s team now plays in Arlington, Texas, in a 100,000-seat palace known as the “AT&T Stadium.” Dallas owner Jerry Jones described the new Cowboy home as the greatest stadium ever built when the team started playing there in 2009.  But now the Rams and Chargers play in L.A’s $6 billion SoFi Stadium—the world’s grandest sports venue. Take THAT, Jerry Jones!

So, one wonders how long these giant sports temples will last. If the past is prologue, then someday “AT&T Stadium” and “SoFi Stadium” will be demolished—like the Kingdome, the Silverdome, and so many other sports venues. And citizens will vote for new taxes to build new edifices.

Consider that Rome’s Coliseum was constructed almost 2000 years ago without imposing any sales tax—although the Romans did use non-union slave labor. But despite being sacked by the Visigoths even worse than Giant QB Dan Jones was sacked by the Vikings, the Coliseum still stands—unlike the Kingdome, the Silverdome, et al.

We just don’t seem to build lasting sports arenas anymore.

Except for maybe Fenway Park?

 

The post Sales Taxes and Stadia appeared first on Granite Grok.

It’s been a good month for NH AG Formella. The week before Christmas, they reported a 700 million-dollar settlement with Google. Couch cushion money for Alphabet, but a decent haul for Jackpot Justice New Hampshire. Do we need a huge payoff to get the AG to chase everything?

Nope. He is still trying to get the Courts to let him police speech as a civil rights action as if by persisting, he can make the First Amendment go away. The AG’s office also chased down Deb Paul over a handful of political ads. Deb had to spend a bunch to defend herself and was ultimately fined $620.00, which is probably enough to cover a few minutes of the AG’s office time on this other case.

See! Money isn’t everything. I’m sure it was a matter of principle. But if that were true, why hasn’t the AG updated The People on the CD2 political mailer case?

 

The Democratic mail shop in Massachusetts that barraged Second Congressional District mailboxes with illegal ads, Reynolds Dewalt, has not been shut down. Nor has it been charged with a crime, despite its admission that it sent Democratic-funded mailers with no disclosures of any kind to voters during the 2022 GOP primary.

The anonymous mailers pushed GOP voters in the 2nd District away from moderate Keene Mayor George Hansel and toward MAGA Republican Bob Burns.

One piece featured a photo of Burns with a headline reading “I Stand With Trump” on one side and declaring him “100 Percent Pro-Trump” on the other. The mailer claimed Hansel was not. Another mailer asked, “Who Stands With Trump?” and made it clear the answer is Burns, not Hansel.

 

Even if you can only get – let’s say, $124.00 per violation, there were thousands of them. Political mail was sent to Republican primary voters by Democrat operatives, hoping to advance whom they thought would be a less desirable general election candidate against Ann Kuster. And it worked.

Whatever happened to equality of outcome? Shouldn’t the Governor’s Commission on Equity and Inclusion be putting pressure on the so-called Department of Justice to get this done?

The last NHDOJ presser I found (and I could have missed one) was Sept 2022. The NHGOP filed a complaint with the FEC a year ago, and what happened with that? 

 

Yet more than a year later, no charges have been filed, and no actions have been announced by New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella or any other law enforcement agency. And while the state Republican Party filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in September 2022, the agency declined to answer any questions about whether or not an investigation is even underway.

For all the talk of election integrity, what about election law accountability? Our taxpayer-funded organs have no interest in the serious pursuit of justice – unless it is some small-town thing unlikely to upset the rotten applecart. Deb Paul’s town newspaper or the odd double voter case – usually an out-of-state student or a senior who forgot they voted by mail – are the best the state’s top cop can do?

It’s almost as if they are feeding a narrative that while there is fraud, it is small potatoes and nothing like what some folks (like us, for example) have been saying for years.

Can we rename Formella’s office to the Department of Selective Justice because it’s not just him? Every AG going back to at least Kelly Ayotte in this century has failed to adequately or consistently enforce election law.

The New Hampshire Department of Selective Justice. The legislature should propose a bipartisan bill to rename it.

We ought to be able to get a bunch of BLM Democrats on board with that.

 

 

The post NH’s Department of Selective Justice – Election Law Division appeared first on Granite Grok.

Over two thousand years ago Three Wise Men followed a heavenly star that led them to the newborn baby Jesus. Today, billions of people around the world still celebrate his birth and follow his teachings. Teachings that are filled with love, joy, hope and peace.

Over two hundred years ago another group of Wise Men, known as our Founding Fathers, signed a Declaration of Independence that would ultimately lead to the birth of our Nation.

Most will agree that our Nation was founded by these Wise Men who believed in the same Judeo-Christian principles that Jesus taught.

Others may argue semantics, as they try to minimize the part God played in the founding of our Nation. However, God is imbedded in our Nation, and the naysayers will need a sandblaster and a history revisionist to remove him from our buildings, money, monuments and documents.

Like the Three Wise Men who sought out Jesus, our Founding Fathers left comfortable lives to pursue a dangerous journey in search of something bigger than themselves.

They risked everything to give the men and women of our future Nation a better life. A life rooted in something more valuable than material possessions or status. They sought to provide us all with a life free from government tyranny.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Most Americans have read or heard that first sentence of the second paragraph in The Declaration of Independence.

How many have heard or read the last sentence of that paragraph?

“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”

If you read the facts they then list, you may see some eerily similar injuries and usurpations being levied upon our country today.

The first fact they list, “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” This of course means that the King refused to accept our laws.

Sound familiar? Like the King of old, our current leaders refuse to accept, or enforce, our laws for the public good.

We watch silently as our “leaders” either ignore our laws, or selectively and unequally enforce them.

They blatantly refuse to secure our border to protect the American people.

They allow unvetted foreigners to invade our country, human traffickers to prosper, and drug cartels to poison our children.

They aid and abet law breaking criminals by allowing our failed justice department to simply release them back onto our streets.

As they let these violent criminals, rapists, murderers and the like free, they arrest, imprison and then zealously prosecute non-violent citizens who dare to question their King like behavior.

Our Founding Fathers refused to bow to tyranny, and In the last sentence of the Declaration, they put everything on the line.

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

This is where their words and their actions came together. They were willing to back up their words with their very lives.

Our current leaders take an oath, but unlike our Founding Fathers, they pledge nothing of real personal value. Their lives are pampered, not risked, their fortunes are increased, not put in peril, and their honor is often times compromised for personal or political gain.

Do we have any Wise, principled, independent leaders representing us in Washington, or are they all just “Rich Men North of Richmond”?

This Christmas, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, let us remember his life, his death and his resurrection as we look forward to his return.

Let us also remember The Three Wise men who honored him and our wise Founding Fathers who risked everything to create this unique Nation that far too many Americans now take for granted.

Let us pray that our Nation is able to find wise, ethical, moral leaders who are worthy of the Nation our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us. Men and women who are willing to put the good of our Nation first, before themselves, their donors and their political parties.

Regardless of personal religious or political beliefs, let us all embrace the love, joy, hope and peace that Jesus gave to the world such a long time ago.

Merry Christmas and God Bless America.

 

The post Wise Men appeared first on Granite Grok.

Vivek Ramaswamy has been running ads in NH Since March, but his campaign just announced that it was shifting gears. It canceled all of its TV buys in Iowa and New Hampshire and intends to work its ground game in the remaining weeks. Team DeSantis is doing something similar.

 

“Never Back Down is laser focused on its core mission – running the most advanced grassroots and political caucus operation in this race and helping deliver the GOP nomination for Governor DeSantis who will deliver America from the disastrous policies of the Left,” Wagner said in the statement. “We are thrilled to have Fight Right and others covering the air for Governor DeSantis while we work the ground game in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and beyond.”

 

The DeSantis campaign has – or appears to have – been run on the Ad side by super PACs. It’s not illegal, but it hasn’t exactly worked. The DeSantis slide has been ongoing for nearly nine months with campaign shake-ups and now changes in PAC leadership. In other words, this new approach can’t hurt.

 

Taryn Fenske, a spokesperson for Fight Right, said in a statement to The Hill that the group will spend more than $2.5 million on ads before the caucuses start in the Hawkeye State.

Never Back Down has faced departures in the last few weeks, with the top strategist Jeff Roe, leaving in the wake of a detailed report published by The Washington Post.

Fenske said part of Fight Right’s $2.5 million plan includes a $1.3 million broadcast and cable reservation in Iowa, with one ad, scheduled to air Sunday, targeting Haley’s stance and record on China.

Meanwhile, another pro-DeSantis Super PAC has emerged. The group, called “Good Fight,” registered with the FEC on Wednesday and placed a $1.3 million reservation for an ad to run on broadcast and cable right before the Iowa caucuses, The Hill has learned.

 

I like Ron more than Nikki, but Haley has managed to corral the ‘anyone but the Trump’ crowd in a way that  – until now other candidates have failed to do. Her rise has forced the competition to change its plans, strategy, and tactics. All except Christie. I don’t think he can slow whatever passes for his role at this point if he tries. He’s got his lane. Bash Trump, which tells me his donors aren’t donating to get him elected. They are paying him to bash Trump.

He’s a good choice, so where does that put him on the Haley Team radar? What does Christie get out of it if he’s their hitman so that she can play the rise-above candidate? If I had to guess, AG in a Haley administration, which – to be honest -might be a hell of a lot of fun to watch. I don’t want a President Haley, but if you’ve ever watched what passed for Christie porn – when he was going up against unions as a new Governor of New Jersey, he can bring it. He’s still a RINO stooge and a GOPe meat puppet of the globalist elites, but sometimes you have to look for the ray of sunshine.

Anyway, Trump is still kicking butt nationally, but the nomination was always his to lose, and a lot of Republicans are working to make that happen. In a few weeks, we’ll know who did what was right and wrong. And if Haley can keep up, Super Tuesday will look a lot more interesting.

 

The post Night Cap: Vivek Bails on TV Ads in January, DeSantis PACs Shuffle Priorities appeared first on Granite Grok.

New Hampshire has at least ten proposed bills related to Electric Vehicles for the upcoming 2024 Session. We’ve also got legislation to prohibit parking gas vehicles in EV charging spaces or parking EVs in a parking garage, infrastructure, rebates, and state fleet use (or prohibition).

There are bills for EV scooters and bike rules, smart meters, grid resiliency, recovering lost gas tax revenue, and my favorite: phasing out the renewable portfolio standard. That last one is not an EV bill but is related to “renewable” electricity mandates I’ve wanted gone for ages.

Whatever your Net-Zero poison, the legislature likely has a bill for you to be for or against. Time permitting, we’ll take a closer look at some of these, but before the session starts and fence-sitters pick a side, does this inform the debate?

Nearly 1000 (soon to be former) US Buick Dealerships have taken a buyout from GM in exchange for dropping the brand. They had to choose between spending 300K for site upgrades to sell and repairing Buick EVs or giving up their right to sell them, and nearly half of US Dealers said, take it back; we don’t want the hassle. That’s a stunning gut punch as auto-makers decide how to meet Biden-Era EV mandates (or not).

 

The move comes as U.S. car dealers are so concerned with EV sales that they are urging Biden to abandon his EV mandates and carbon emission regulations that would effectively force all-electric cars on consumers.

“The reality, however, is that electric vehicle demand today is not keeping up with the large influx of [EVs] arriving at our dealerships prompted by the current regulations. [EVs] are stacking up on our lots,” the car dealers write:

With each passing day, it becomes more apparent that this attempted electric vehicle mandate is unrealistic based on current and forecasted customer demand. Already, electric vehicles are stacking up on our lots which is our best indicator of customer demand in the marketplace. [Emphasis added]

 

Another nail in the coffin?

We’ve noted the decline in EV car commercials for the holiday season, an alarming shift given how frequent they were in the months prior. We still saw plenty of car commercials, but they were for conventional vehicles. Car makers needed or wanted to sell cars people want and need.

Christmas 2023 has passed us by, but not the buying season, so we’ll keep seeing those car commercials, but will the EV ads make their way back, or have dealers sent a message that they can’t take anymore? If you ask the media, they’ll tell you how excited they are about the US breaking a million EVs sold in 2023. This represented 9% of all cars purchased. But how many of those are virtue signal mobiles?

The used EV Car Market is Collapsing.

Used EV car sales are further down the toilet than new EV sales. In China, where they made people buy them, the landscape has acquired a new feature. EV graveyards. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Electric Vehicles are piling up in fields across China. Metal, rubber, glass, technology, and lithium firetraps rusting away over no longer unusable land. And it makes sense. The only thing less desirable than a new EV is a used one. Those aged-out fleets of EV rentals to leases to government EV fleet vehicles will all need to go somewhere.

We can expect some enterprising individuals, propped up by taxpayers, will claim they can recycle these for a “small” handling fee, but more than likely – just like solar panels (or unrecyclable wind turbine blades – they will get buried somewhere so no one has to think about how bad an idea this was (or that you can’t crush a lithium power pack).

Cold Shoulder

From New York City to Oslo, to Duluth, Minneapolis, and St Paul, EVs continue to be an expensive failure. One could almost make the case that there was a conspiracy to mislead in the interest of hoovering up available tax dollars for Garbage Trucks and public buses that won’t run, get half the range, can’t climb hills, or are always broken down. Vehicles hampered by these green exercises in futility don’t run on time or at all, leaving cities with expensive paperweights they should not park indoors for fear of fire taking out the whole fleet.

Closer to home, Maine was expected to vote on a statewide EV mandate this past week, but it was canceled due to widespread power outages.

Green, they said.

New Hampshire doesn’t have any bills to address that, but neither has it addressed the more pressing matter of Solar Panel waste. Perhaps the unwanted EVs and scrapped solar can poison the earth together for eternity. Side by side. A new generation of superfund sites with lines of rusting cars framed behind a close-up photo of a sign that says, do not play on or around (written in whatever language is spoken by the local Africans who live nearby)

What, you don’t think they’ll offshore this mess, too?

 

The post Is Legislating EVs Like Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Chris “Sun-King” Sununu thinks he is the smartest person in the room … that his intellect is so far superior to the ordinary Volk that he can make them believe anything. He is NOT. He is a nincompoop. A Trump-deranged nincompoop.

For example, His Majesty thinks he can make you believe that our open borders are Trump’s fault, not Biden’s:

 

 

The truth is that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, the globalist/corporatist RINO leaders of the House and Senate (Mikey Graham would call them “traditional Republicans”) refused to fund a wall because they and their ilk, which includes His Majesty Sun-King Sununu, support open borders because they represent the GOP donor class, not GOP voters.

Sun-King’s claim that Biden would have been powerless to open the Southern border if The Wall had been completed before he took the oath of office is totally preposterous. Once Biden, with incidentally a major assist from RINO frauds like Sun-King Sununu, took the oath as President, he assumed total control of the border.

Here is more nonsensical bloviation. The Sun-King, who obviously is incapable of original thought or argument, pushing the neocon/globalist lie that their war against Russia is to save the world from Putin :

 

 

The truth of the matter is that Putin could take all of Ukraine if that were the goal. The Ukrainian Armed Forces has been decimated. Putin’s goal, obviously, is not to use Ukraine as a springboard to conquering all of Europe but to create a buffer zone against NATO. The peace deal he negotiated with Ukraine at the outset of military operations, which the Biden-Regime undermined, shows that.

What’s “nonsense” is to claim, as the Sun-King does, that unless you support continuing to pour hundreds of billions into the military-industrial complex under the pretext of defending Ukraine’s border (at the very time the UniParty is allowing an invasion at our Southern border),  you are an “isolationist” or “Putin’s puppet” or some other puerile neocon pejorative.

 

The post Chris “Sun-King” Sununu Is A Trump-Deranged Nincompoop appeared first on Granite Grok.

Pandemics, as it turns out, are incredible opportunities for profit. Trillions globally was dumped into the funding streams of states, local governments, and public health apparatuses – from pharma to hospitals. They are Sacred Cash Cows of the New World Order.

Money laundering on a global scale.

To get ahead of the next windfall, the German-based EU-Vaccelrate consortium asked its members to guess the pathogen responsible for the next global pandemic. Influenza was overwhelmingly the popular blonde at this party, followed by some unknown disease x. They were followed by two versions of SARS, EBOLA, MERS, ZIKA, and the rest. Here on Gilligan’s Isle!

It is unclear whether any of the participating experts in the Vaccelerate program called any of the “labs” sprinkled about the globe engaged in illegal germ warfare research in the interest of public health. Or if Tony Fauci got a call. You, Tony! Wassup! Quick question. What sort of biotech start-ups are you investing in these days?

I’m sure Bill Gates would have had some advice to give, but we do not know if he was consulted either, which is a real tragedy. If anyone has an idea about the next pandemic, it’s Gates. Something he’s bought or dropped a few million into, most likely either as a pathogen or its cure. Bill’s taken the blue screen of death to heart and wants to share it with yours.

Vaccelerate, by the way, is similarly handicapped by members with vested interests in both the likelihood of an outbreak and its treatment.

 

The Vaccelerate consortium is led by the Clinical Trial Unit of the German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF). The Clinical Trial Unit is based at the University of Cologne. The DZIF is a German public agency which partners with pharmaceutical companies in developing vaccines. One of the DZIF’s partners is none other than BioNTech. …

The head of the DZIF’s Product Development Unit is none other than Klaus Cichutek, who is at the same time the President of the German vaccine regulator, the PEI or Paul Ehrlich Institute (so-named for the German immunologist, not the American population control theorist).

It is this dual role of enabler and regulator which raises obvious questions about the impartiality of the PEI’s oversight of the BioNTech vaccine, and these questions are all the thornier given the leading role which, by Cichutek’s own admission, the PEI plays at the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

Oliver Cornely of the University of Cologne is both the Vaccelerate project leader and the coordinator of the DZIF’s Clinical Trial Unit.

 

These not at all disinterested experts and their colleagues have decided that the Flu will be the next global pandemic. We should take them at their word, especially since the cure to the last “pandemic” damaged millions, if not billions, of immune systems.

Starting another one ought to be child’s play. And this is guidance (theoretical or not) coming out of Germ-any. What more need we say?

 

The post The Next “Pathogen with Pandemic Potential” Winner Is? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Obama’s third term, which began in January 2021, a/k/a the Biden-Regime, has been a time of WAR. The Biden-Regime has waged war on Donald Trump, on MAGA-Republicans, on pro-lifers, and on Russia. The Biden-Regime has also been waging war on Elon Musk.

The Biden Regime has been waging war on Musk because Musk is NOT a communist like Obama and the Obama ilk running the Biden Regime. Rather, Musk is a believer in, not a hater of, Western Civilization. In practical terms, Musk is adamantly opposed to DEI and to censorship … the latter being necessary to impose the former … and refuses to have X (formerly Twitter) engage in censorship on behalf of the Biden-Regime like Facebook, Google, etc..

Perhaps Musk is the greatest threat to Obama’s dream of “transforming” America into his vision of a Brave New World. The following tweet summarizes how the Biden-Regime has been waging war on Musk. Click on it and check out the whole thread.

President Biden stood at a White House podium & stated that Elon Musk “is worth being looked at.”

When asked "How?", President Biden responded “There’s a lot of ways.”

There certainly are. The DOJ, FAA, FTC, NLRB, SDNY, & FWS have all taken action.

The FCC now joins them.

— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) December 13, 2023

The post The Biden-Regime’s War On Elon Musk appeared first on Granite Grok.

Hope everyone that celebrates it had a good Christmas!

Take heart – there will be a Friday Edition.  Last week’s Friday Edition.

Remember, ridicule and mockery are effective weapons:

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

 

Now, let the mockery and mayhem begin.

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

Assuming this is California, I see a full body cavity tax audit coming soon…

 

 

I am not a “religious fanatic” trying to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.  But there is value in having a woman at home raising your children your way.

 

 

Related:

 

 

In about one year more had cardiac arrests and died than in the 50 years prior.  I wonder what changed…

 

 

 

 

Except, likely not true.

Claims of a pregnant Ken doll originated on satirical website | Reuters

Now, it wouldn’t surprise me if they wanted to do this.  But this just proves that we must vet information, especially information that we want to be true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If this is “genocide”… then the Israelis really suck at it.

 

 

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

 

 

 

 

Things Fall Apart… With A New Cartoon “Getting Ready for the Spicy” – Granite Grok

Things Fall Apart 2 – Granite Grok

IMHO, alas, it’s only a matter of time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But… but… but we’ve been assured by our intellectual and moral superiors that there is no war on white men.

 

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

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

 

Start paying attention to the ingredients label, folks.

Cochineal: What is it and where is it used? (drugs.com)

And my understanding of the kosher rules is that insects are a no-no.  I wonder if this stuff is kosher-certified… will look the next time I’m at the store.  If it is, and it has this extract, I’ll write the certifying agency.

 

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

 

 

 

So many quotes exist regarding the destruction of a people by destroying its memory and its monuments to its past.

 

 

A rising population of Muslims in Gaza… but calamitously-large falls in Jewish populations in Arab countries.  So, tell me, just who is “ethnically cleansing”?

 

 

Better put out a statement, stat, that she’s neither depressed nor suicidal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Give it up, GOP.  The Potato could have deep fried a living infant and then the still-hot body on video and the enemedia would give him a pass.

 

 

 

Excellent book:

No More Wacos: What’s Wrong With Federal Law Enforcement and How to Fix It

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

By definition, since the original strain was man-made, all of them are.  But this seems to indicate that each and every one – individually – was made.

Czech Microbiologist #SonaPekova has claimed that the #coronavirus strain which caused the 2nd and 3rd wave was artificially engineered.

Related:

COVID Vaccines Integrate Into Human DNA, Study Finds (vigilantnews.com)

Boy do I hate being right all the time.

 

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

 

 

 

 

Very subtle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laughing in volcano…

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the post:

 

 

There are people who, for legitimate reasons, don’t like Trump.  That’s fair.  But let’s not pile falsehoods on the guy.

 

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

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

—

 

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

 

Come back Friday for another edition.  Same Meme Time.  Same Meme channel.

Please do consider buying me a coffee.

Buy Me a Coffee

 

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

 

The post Monday Memes on Wednesday appeared first on Granite Grok.

First question: Why do we even have a Climate Council at this point? Why have we ever had one? All these twenty-three (twenty-two, really, because the corrupt Speaker of the House has refused for over a year to appoint a representative from the Fuel Dealers as required by law) unelected, self-important bloviators do is sit in a circle and spew “woke” jargon at one another for a few hours each month in pointless exercises of mental masturbation. At, I should point out, considerable taxpayer expense.

Just a reminder of what the Climate Council is supposed to do per the Global Warming Solutions Act: “On or before December 1, 2021, adopt the Vermont Climate Action Plan…. The Plan shall set forth the specific initiatives, programs, and strategies that the State shall pursue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; achieve the State’s reduction requirements…[emphasis added].” They never actually did this.

The “Plan” they produced in December 2021 was not a list of specific recommendations or strategies that, if enacted, would achieve the state’s greenhouse gas reduction requirements. It was/is an a la carte menu of pretty much every climate-related boondoggle policy they could think of dropped into an Excel file with no cost analysis, timeline for implementation of programs, etc. Not a plan. It’s like if you hired a team of nutritionists to create a diet for you that would specifically help you lose twenty pounds and lower your cholesterol and your blood sugar levels by the end of the year, and they delivered you a copy of the Joy of Cooking. They are unwilling and/or incapable of making a decision.

This gets us to the latest farcical chapter in this bureaucratic clown car’s history.

The “Plan” delivered in 2021, for all its 200-plus pages, did not include any viable option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. A rather big omission, given that cars and trucks, are the source of about one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the state. The Council blames the official implosion of the Transportation Climate Initiative in November 2021 for their failure, but anybody with eyes attached to a functioning brain could have told them that TCI was never a truly viable plan. (See my own op-ed from January 2020, nearly two years before the Climate Action Plan was published, heralding the inevitable death of TCI, With TCI Imploding, a Worse Bill Is on the Horizon).

Nevertheless, since December 2021, the Climate Council has had another two full years to come up with an alternative to TCI. And for two full years they had come up with zip, zero, nada recommendations. Lots of jabber. Endless clips of Liz Miller rolling her eyes and lamenting the evaporation of TCI, but no plan. So, big decision, they created a Transportation Task Force to finally tackle the issue, and that task force recently released its long-awaited decision. Drumroll, please … Blast of trumpets…

…. The Transportation Task Force of the Vermont Climate Council’s recommendation regarding a policy plan to replace TCI for the transportation sector of the Climate Action Plan is… to hire an independent consulting firm to come up with a recommendation to replace TCI for the transportation sector of the Climate Action Plan.

Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. But you will, taxpayers, have to pay for it.

This gets back to my original question. Why does this useless committee, the government equivalent of an inflamed appendix, exist? If we’re going to hire an independent consultant to make the recommendations the Council is paid to make, why can’t the Agency of Natural Resources just do that? Or one of the legislative committees of jurisdiction? Maybe, lawmakers, it’s time — past time — to scrap the Climate Council.

Better yet, just scrap the whole Global Warming Solutions Act because Vermonters don’t want and can’t afford ANY plan to levy a carbon tax on gasoline and diesel fuels anyway, which is what any recommendation in this area comes down to.

In fact, what the Climate Council specifically wants this independent consultant to do is look at whether or not Vermont should join New York Cap & Invest, a program that does not yet exist and is probably about as viable as TCI or The Western Climate Initiative, a non-profit organization that handles the logistics of auctioning off “carbon credits” (aka carbon taxes) for the states of California and Washington as well as a couple of Canadian provinces. It is essentially a West Coast TCI. And, like TCI, most of the original “observer” states willing to consider the concept ultimately declined to participate. The difference being that California, unlike Massachusetts, was big enough to go it alone.

And here’s what Vermonters should be concerned about regarding potential participation in WCI. According to AAA, the state with the most expensive gasoline in the country is Hawaii because it is way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The next two most expensive states after that? California and Washington. The two WCI states. By a lot. California’s average gas price today is $4.60 a gallon. Compared to its neighboring states, that’s 69 cents higher than Nevada, 75 cents higher than Oregon, $1.41 higher than Arizona, and $1.52 above the national average. Do Vermonters really want to sign up for that?

If the recent Campaign for Vermont poll is remotely accurate, the answer is not just no, but HELL NO! 71 percent of Vermonters oppose any carbon tax/fee/surcharge on gasoline and diesel, and 59 percent strongly oppose it. So, lawmakers, how about you listen to your constituents for a change? Save the taxpayers several hundred thousand dollars and forget about paying extra to study a policy nobody wants, save several million dollars by scrapping the Vermont Climate Council that doesn’t do anything, and save us hundreds of millions by abandoning any thoughts of putting a carbon tax on our motor fuels that we can’t afford.

Just a suggestion.

 

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

The post Climate Council Can’t Decide Which Tax It Likes Best appeared first on Granite Grok.

On the 2020 Presidential campaign trail – what of it there was – Joe Biden promised to end fossil fuels. True to form, Whoever is Running the Biden Administration has – since day one – acted toward that end. Joe’s administration has been US history’s most hostile to affordable energy.

COP28, which ended a few weeks ago, was focused on getting other nations to join them in this madness. Led by John “Lurch” Kerry, the private-jet-setting US Ambassador to mass delusion, America got promises from many but then did this.

 

Barely a week after its representatives committed the United States to a COP28 agreement pledging to “transition away” from fossil fuels – oil, natural gas and coal – the Biden government held its first significant auction of offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday. It was not just any old lease sale, mind you, but the most massive one since 2015 with more than 72 million acres up for lease.

 

That sounds hypocritical, and I Was quick to judge, but not so fast.” Without Congressional intervention, this is the final lease sale until at least 2025.” There are no more plans for this presidency. The next president will decide the question moving forward, and if that president is a Democrat, the keep-it-in-the-ground coalition will likely get its way.

We can’t afford that.

Energy prices are unstable, and while motor fuel has dipped a bit in price, it is significantly more expensive than when Obiden was anointed. Nikki, Ron, or Donald would open up our mineral deposits on Day One for different reasons. DeSantis and Trump to unshackle the economy and take price pressure off everyday Americans, Nikki ‘cuz her war machine buddies need it, though, regardless of who is the CIC, the US Military will need fossil fuels to do anything.

So does most of America.

Public transportation, infrastructure, buildings, roads – heck, you can’t even make any of the garbage labeled “green energy” without coal, gas, and oil. There is no future without it, but here we are. They are promising to end our existence as a functioning modern economy to feed the lie of climate socialism.

Name one socialist nation that isn’t burning everything in sight to fuel itself. They are all major “global” polluters alongside every other second or third-world tyrant and despot.

If you give them what they want, the ruling class led by Democrats, or you let them take it without any resistance, that regime will inevitably remove every protection except those that keep them in power.

 

 

The post Biden Admin Follows COP28 Promise to End Fossil Fuels With Massive Oil/Gas Lease Sale appeared first on Granite Grok.

The “insurrectionist” clause of the 14th Amendment says, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” Enacted after the Civil War, and ratified by the states in 1868, Congress wanted to prevent officeholders who joined the Confederacy from holding office.

Four of the seven Democrat-appointed Colorado Supreme Court justices ruled this clause prevents former President Donald Trump from appearing on that state’s primary ballot. The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected this argument, and the Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed a similar lawsuit. But several more states have pending lawsuits based on the insurrection clause. (RELATED: ALAN DERSHOWITZ: The Ridiculous Colorado Ruling To Keep Trump Off The Ballot Will Create Disarray In US Electoral System)

Despite Democrats having appointed all seven Colorado Supreme justices, three dissented. Trump vowed to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where six of three justices were Republican nominees. It is practically a foregone conclusion that the Colorado case will be overturned, and the Supreme Court’s ruling could even be unanimous. Also, note that while Trump faces three federal conspiracy counts and one count of obstructing an official proceeding, the special counsel DID NOT charge the former president with “insurrection.”

In its 200-page majority decision, the Colorado Supreme Court said that on Jan. 6 Trump told supporters to “walk down to the Capitol” and “fight like hell” and “take back our country.” Not mentioned is that Trump also said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the capital building to peacefully and patriotically. Make your voices heard.”

The Colorado Court found “substantial evidence” the Trump was “laying the groundwork for a claim that the election was rigged” before the November 2020 election and before the Jan. 6 riot. But does not Trump, or for that matter, any politician have a First Amendment right to complain, however unjustifiably, about the integrity of an election?

Hillary Clinton frequently called the 2016 election “stolen” and President Trump “illegitimate.” Never mind that former President Barack Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson testified that there was no evidence that the Russians succeeded in changing a single vote tally. As to the effect of the Russian interference, Johnson said there was no way of knowing whether it affected public opinion or altered the election. But Democrats believe otherwise. A 2018 YouGov poll found that 66% of Democrats believe the Russians, to elect Trump, changed vote tallies. A 2018 Gallup poll found that 78% of Democrats believe the Russian interference “changed the outcome of the election.” But the media do not call Democrats “election deniers.” (RELATED: LARRY ELDER: The Feminist Movement Is Nowhere To Be Found After Hamas Brutalizes Jewish Women)

About the 2020 presidential election, a Quinnipiac University poll found that “seventy-six percent” of Republicans believed there was “widespread voter fraud.” Republicans, although slightly less likely to call 2020 stolen than Democrats about 2016, are, of course, “election deniers.”

Finally, the anti-Trump media accuses Trump of peddling “the Big Lie” about 2020 voter fraud, irregularities or illegality. After all, there is supposedly no evidence to justify the assertions. John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer who argued that state legislatures and Vice President Mike Pence possess the legal authority to reject certification, now faces disbarment. The California Bar Association asked this once respected and courtly former dean and law professor at Chapman University School of Law for evidence about 2020 election-altering widespread fraud. Eastman turned in over 80,000 pages of documents. In an hourlong speech available for viewing on Rumble, Eastman spoke in detail about just some of what he considered substantial election irregularities. It’s called “Taking a Stand Against a Weaponized Justice System.” I urge the most ardent believer in the “Trump promoted baseless conspiracy theories” narrative to watch the speech. Be prepared for discomfort.

Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an “Elderado,” visit www.LarryElder.com. Follow Larry on Twitter @larryelder. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

 

Larry Elder | Daily Caller

COPYRIGHT 2023 LAURENCE A. ELDER

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

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The post If Donald Trump Is An ‘Insurrectionist’ For Criticizing An Election, What Does That Make Hillary? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The People’s Republic of Vermont banned fluorescent light bulbs. Not all, but the most common and practical home and office use varies. That is bad news for Vermonters but good news, maybe great news, for New Hampshire retailers.

 

Starting January 1, a new state law will prohibit the sale of specific mercury-containing fluorescent lightbulbs in Vermont, the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation said.

Restrictions include the sale of general purpose, indoor/outdoor, residential, and business mercury-containing four-foot linear, compact fluorescent, and twist-based fluorescent lightbulbs. Twist-based (GU-24) Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) are also restricted from sale.

If your home or business currently uses these fluorescent bulbs, you will not be able to buy more after January 1. If your business sells these bulbs online or in a store, you will not be able to do so next year.

 

Vermont is correct about a few things. Many states have moved away from the Mercury bulbs, as have manufacturers. Alternatives are available that use less electricity and they are becoming more affordable. There are even 4 ft tube style LED bulbs to replace the old versions and this particular prohibition focuses on the standard 4-foot tubes you find in homes, warehouses, workshops, offices, and other professional workspaces.

 

Fluorescent lamps. Beginning on January 1, 2024, no four-foot linear fluorescent lamp may be offered for final sale, sold at final sale, or distributed in Vermont as a new manufactured product.

 

The old standard is not illegal to own or use. You simply cannot sell them in Vermont or transport them into the state for sale after the first of the year. And since the LED equivalents are still a lot more expensive, you can buy the banned versions in New Hampshire and drive them back to your home or workspace.

And to be clear, I am not suggesting you ignore any other requirements of handling. It is less of a hardship to make the time to recycle them properly than to drive over the border to buy them, so do that. But feel free to buy them in New Hampshire, and while you are here, get some beer, liquor, cigarettes, gas, fireworks, or anything else you might want to buy that is cheaper or can be purchased without paying any sales tax.

We won’t stop you doing that, either.

 

 

The post Night Cap: NH Border Stores Should Stock Up on Fluorescent Light Bulbs – Vermont Ban Begins Jan 1 appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Colorado Supreme Court, acting as supplicants for the enemies of Donald Trump seeking the most extreme remedy for driving the former president into the ditch, may have just unwittingly gifted the former president a Rocky Mountain high – in the polls.

This time, four left-wing Colorado justices attempting to kneecap Trump were not even going to wait on due process – the very foundation of law – to effectively declare Trump guilty of insurrection, a crime for which he has not, repeat not, even been charged. After believing their attempts to wipe Trump off the ballot would be a knockout punch, it is the left that is about to get walloped to the canvas with a right hook.

But how, you say, is this good news for Trump? Let us count the ways. First, we know that every time he has been targeted and indicted based on novel legal theories never before applied, his popularity has only increased. Second, this decision provides him with yet more valuable and indisputable evidence – perhaps the best yet – supporting his claim of persecution by the establishment left. He can enjoy that benefit without the liability of actually being banned from the ballot once the U.S. Supreme Court likely shoots down the Colorado ruling, thus bringing similar efforts in other states to a halt.

But there’s more. Third on the list of how the left is hurting its own cause with its lawfare crusade against Trump is its whole argument that Trump threatens “democracy” as never before. That assertion hardly stands up when it boots Trump off the ballot: “This is hands-down the most anti-democratic opinion I have seen in my lifetime,” said famed constitutional attorney Jonathan Turley.

A subset of democracy is reason number four: election interference. Even after its constitutionally dubious changes to election law on the fly in key swing states in 2020 that undoubtedly handed the election to Joe Biden, the left has crowed from the rooftops that Trump is an election denier intent on interfering with the electoral process. Now that they are trying to remove him from the ballot, what are they going to say? This is textbook election interference, though of a kind rarely, if ever, witnessed before.

Fifth, even Trump’s primary opponents – Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Ron DeSantis – have again had little choice but to jump to the defense of their rival despite his overwhelming lead, further strengthening Trump’s candidacy and all but ending the Republican presidential primary, if it wasn’t over already.

Leftists constantly indicting Trump have actually gotten the reaction they envisioned: forcing the GOP to support Trump. The idea was that Biden would then sail to another term against a convicted criminal sure to repel the American electorate in the end. The strategy has turned into the most classic backfire we have witnessed in some time.

The Persecution of Donald Trump

For starters, Democrats led by Hillary Clinton concocted a phony scandal to drive Trump out of the 2016 presidential race and then out of the Oval Office for treason. Then they impeached him. Then they impeached him again. Then, they raided his home. Then they indicted him. Then they indicted him again, and again, and again. Now, in a widespread effort to make sure no one will even have the opportunity to vote for him, Colorado is just one of more than a dozen states joining the effort to disqualify Trump. The first five states attempting to remove Trump were shot down in court. But cases in 13 more states remain to be litigated, and they will certainly be influenced by the Colorado ruling and any subsequent decision by the high court. But the Rocky Mountain State will stand in infamy as the first to pull the legal trigger on the most extreme measure available to generate a desired outcome, knowing if it succeeds, it will be open season on Trump throughout the country.

Democrats’ obsession with Trump has featured one overarching theme: They cannot leave well enough alone. Until they started throwing the book at Trump with one untested stretch of legal theory after another, their man Biden was running ahead of Trump. But with each successive indictment, Trump has risen further to the point of now holding a solid, if not commanding, three-point lead according to the RealClearPolitics Average. Who knows where polling would stand if the left had actually allowed the voters to process Jan. 6 for themselves? That infamous day takes on a fresh context with the removal of Trump from the ballot. Overkill?

At the same time, you must give the nihilistic Swampocracy in Washington credit for persistence and ingenuity, if nothing else. It has seemingly done everything that popped into its deranged mind to be sure, dead certain, guaranteed, that Trump will never again become president. How infuriating it must be to see every one of its attempts backfire. Rest assured, Colorado will be the latest. We can’t afford to take a chance on the voters’ judgment, screams the terrified left. Does this not sound like the plan cooked up in 2016 to make sure Trump would never be elected in the first place?

Rocky Mountain Low: Colorado Justice

The decision in this purple-turned-blue state begs many obvious questions for everyone from political junkies to disinterested voters. The Jan. 6 rally-turned-protest-turned-riot falls so far short of an act of insurrection as to make a mockery of the term. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, cited in the Colorado decision, was ratified for one purpose: to prevent Confederate soldiers from seeking national office following the Civil War. An insurrection requires an organized plan to overthrow the government – which did not exist on that dark January day in 2021. If there is not enough evidence to even indict Trump for insurrection, then how can he possibly be removed from a presidential ballot on that basis?

Like virtually every one of the 91 charges pinned on him in four venues, this is the first time a court has ever ruled on the basis of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. It is not dissimilar to the argument about another section of the 14th Amendment regarding so-called birthright citizenship: It was written and intended for the distinct purpose of making slaves citizens but is now employed successfully by immigration activists to confer upon anyone born even an inch inside our border permanent citizenship, even if they entered the country and remain here illegally.

Though it would appear highly unlikely, think what it would mean if the U.S. Supreme Court either refuses to act or affirms the Colorado ruling. Not only would many other states with similar lawfare suits trying to get Trump wiped off the ballot be emboldened, but it also opens wide the door for any reason – or no reason – to remove any candidate from a ballot going forward based on the personal opinions of judges. This from a party that has been screaming about democracy dying in the darkness of Trump.

Do we not base our republic first and foremost on the ability of voters – not courts – to cast their ballots for the person they choose? Despite no such constitutional provision, there could perhaps be a quasi-legitimate argument that a convicted felon should be removed from the presidential ballot, but to do so before justice has been served and due process granted tells you everything you need to know about those willing to go to the ends of the earth to stop the man now favored to become the next president. It is stuff not of a constitutional republic but a banana republic. The left’s failure to recognize all the flashing red lights they have set off with their single-minded persecution of Donald Trump will, one expects, come back to haunt them in the end.

 

Tim Donner is senior political analyst at LibertyNation.com. He is a former candidate for the U.S. Senate, entrepreneur, and founder of the nonprofit One Generation Away.

 

Tim Donner | RealClear Wire

The post Why Trump Should Love the Colorado Ruling appeared first on Granite Grok.

Al Gore famously launched the climate-carbon crisis campaign with his alarmist proclamations of “inconvenient truths” about human warming of the planet. His repeated gaffes have since undermined his credibility, making “the boy who cried climate wolf” howl ever louder.

Most recently, against the latest global climate summit.  Gore says COP28, which ended this week, was “on the verge of complete failure” because of conflicts of interest of “petrostates” that have not agreed to ban all fossil fuels. But other conflicts go unmentioned.

Climate-Binary Gore

Gore employed divisive “us versus them” language to coerce adherence to his demands, portraying all people as either saviors or enemies:

“There are 24 hours left to show whose side the world is on: the side that wants to protect humanity’s future by kickstarting the orderly phase out of fossil fuels or the side of the petrostates and the leaders of the oil and gas companies that are fueling the historic climate catastrophe. In order to prevent COP28 from being the most embarrassing and dismal failure in 28 years of international climate negotiations, the final text must include clear language on phasing out fossil fuels. Anything else is a massive step backwards from where the world needs to be.”

This sounds more like a unilateral demand by an un-elected ideologue than a reasoned appeal. For Gore, this “sky is falling” heated rhetoric is old wine in new bottles. He claimed in 2009 that there was a 75% chance that Arctic ice would be gone within five to seven years, which Politico fact-checked to conclude that Gore “misrepresented the details of the research.”  In his 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” he claimed global sea levels could rise 20 feet “in the near future”: Sea levels rose less than four inches between 1993 and 2021 (it would take an estimated 1,136 years at that rate to rise 20 feet). The former vice president also seems to have conveniently forgotten his 2006 assertion that unless “drastic measures” were implemented by 2016, there would be “no solving” climate change.

It is not surprising to see un-elected officials elbowing one another for the exalted position of world climate czar, but Gore’s bluster against a climate summit in the oil-producing Arabian desert raises some critical points for consideration – though perhaps not as he intends. One of Gore’s more challenging declarations was directed explicitly at UAE Sultan Ahmed al Jaber:

“[H]e’s charged by his sovereign … and the company that he heads, with a massive expansion of fossil fuels. They have got a plan to expand production of both oil and gas by an enormous amount, starting the minute the gavel bangs to end this conference.

“And that’s a direct conflict of interest. And it’s not a nitpicking thing to point that out. The people of our world deserve to have some confidence that this process has integrity. And we have been seeing the fossil fuel polluters try to manipulate this process for a long time, and the world’s running out of patience, because this is so serious now.”

Gore unintentionally raises two very important questions for the people of the world he claims to represent: conflicts of interest with China and with renewable energy manufacturers.

China and the UAE

The charge leveled by Gore against an oil magnate sultan invites a tangential question about China. How is the “world” looking to this summit to transform the climate when signatory China constructs hundreds of coal-fired power plants and manufactures the bulk of the world’s materials for solar panels and EV cars? Demanding commitments to eliminate all fossil fuels is folly when those fuels are necessary to construct the climate rescue mission. If “petrostates” are to be vilified for pumping the oil used to manufacture EVs, solar panels, and a bevy of US-consumed products, isn’t China a presumed offender for its use of coal?

It could be that, in the interests of at least feigning a democratic process, the globalist organizers of COP28 deemed it wise to include oil-producing and coal-burning nations (without whose cooperation all hope is lost) at the table. Persuading these nations to commit their resources to combat climate change necessarily involves both their consent and their resources.

Renewable Energy Pollution

Gore raises another conflict of interest that quite rightly should be addressed: Renewable energy manufacturers and food conglomerates have “tried to manipulate this process for a long time,” swaying governments to pour astronomical sums into technologies that pollute the planet every bit as much as those “conflicted” oil magnates. Burning Chinese coal to make silicon for solar arrays and smelt aluminum for EVs, the monied interests that once controlled the oil industry are now “stakeholders” in the renewable energy manufacturing gold rush.

Gore merits credit for challenging the odd bedfellows of UAE oil interests and global climate warriors. More integrity would be displayed by challenging the odd connection of Chinese coal plants to silicon production or solar panel (and EV) manufacturers to the low-income taxpayers who finance their production. These are inconvenient truths to self-anointed town criers like Gore.

 

John Klar is an Attorney, farmer, and author. Mostly farmer… And Regular Contributor to GraniteGrok and VermontGrok.

The post Hypocrisy and Conflicts of Interest Flowed Freely … appeared first on Granite Grok.

A proposed national minimum wage hike to $17 per hour by 2029 would come at an estimated cost of 700,000 American jobs, according to the nation’s Congressional Budget Office.

The bill is S.2488 – Raise the Wage Act of 2023. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the listed sponsor. It has been introduced, but it hasn’t been passed by either chamber of Congress yet.

Sanders was on social media on Monday railing against the wealthy elite.

“Corporate greed is Mark Zuckerberg becoming $3.4 billion richer TODAY while building a $100 million mansion in Hawaii with 30 bathrooms and an underground bunker. Meanwhile, a record-breaking 653,000 Americans are homeless & over 60% of our workers live paycheck to paycheck,” he wrote on X.

Some stats in the report support Sanders’ effort. This includes that an estimated 8.9 million workers with wages under $17 per hour could be affected. It is estimated that 400,000 could be lifted out of poverty by such increases.

The full report can be read here.

The report also notes that anytime wages are raised, the cost of the goods or services will rise accordingly.

“Higher prices for goods and services—stemming from the higher wages of workers who are paid at or near the minimum wage (such as workers who provide long-term health care)—would contribute to increases in federal spending.”

Another part of the report states more about how much would be gained in wages versus lost in jobs.

It states, “Those gains in earnings would be larger than the aggregate earnings losses from higher rates of joblessness. Thus, the income of families with low-wage workers would increase, on average, and the number of families below the FPL [Federal Poverty Level] would decrease. Higher-income families would experience a decline in purchasing power because prices for goods and services would increase.”

It continues that there will be other economic impacts. For example, with 700,000 new unemployed that means the cost of unemployment benefits will go up. The report also suggests that the of programs like food stamps will go down.

“The largest spending increases would be for the government’s major health care programs and unemployment compensation; the largest revenue decreases would be from income taxes,” the report states.

Sanders doesn’t like tipping?

Another component of the bill would be to do away with tipping. The report addresses this aspect as well.

“It would boost the earnings of most of those workers through higher wages but also reduce the earnings of some through higher rates of joblessness. Part of the increase in earnings through higher wages would be offset by lower income from tips,” it states.

Interest rates would go up

Another assessment from the report is that interest rates go up.

“In CBO’s assessment, the Raise the Wage Act of 2023 would cause interest rates to be slightly higher than they otherwise would have been over the 2024–2033 period. The Federal Reserve would adjust short-term interest rates to counteract the increase in overall demand and inflation stemming from the rising minimum wage.”

Been tried before

Over the years mandates in other states to aggressively bump up minimum wage have shown that the net impacts are sometimes unfavorable to the very people it is intended to help.

TrueNorthReports noted one such study that took place in Seattle.

“A 2017 study of Seattle’s wage increase by the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that ‘the second wage increase to $13 reduced hours worked in low-wage jobs by around 9 percent, while hourly wages in such jobs increased by around 3 percent.’”

 

 

Michael Bielawski | Vermont Daily Chronicle

The post Sanders’ Minimum Wage Law Would Cost 700,000 Jobs appeared first on Granite Grok.

Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) recently announced it would no longer include New Hampshire House Rep. Travis O’Hara as part of its Hazlitt Coalition of Liberty Legislators.

For those not in the know,

The Hazlitt Coalition is a growing network of 300+ liberty legislators from nearly 40 states supported by full-time YAL staff advocating for principled policies that free markets, protect civil liberties, and promote peace. Our experienced mentors train legislators to effectively work with stakeholders and constituents to craft the strongest policies that solve society’s most pressing problems.

O’Hara has been dumped, but why? [Forwarded from a reader. The original email from Matthew Soss is dated Dec 21st.]

 

I am writing to inform you that we removed Representative Travis O’Hara from YAL’s Hazlitt Coalition of liberty legislators.

O’Hara was removed due to consistently poor voting record, missing key votes, and consistently poor New Hampshire Liberty Alliance ratings.

As a reminder, I’m here as a resource for you to help you work through tough votes and to get you in touch with experts who can assist so certainly don’t hesitate to reach out with questions and concerns.

Thank you to each of you for your continued dedication to the cause and to the coalition.

I’m excited to see the progress made over the past few months with candidate surveys, legislative preparation, fundraising, events, and much more.

I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish together in 2024!

 

I looked at Travis’ ratings. Liberty and HRA. They are not terrible, but his attendance could be better, and he likely missed several critical votes. To put that into context, the Republican majority is razor-thin. Every vote seems vital, but some more than others. The HRA scorecard only tracks votes on bills fundamental to the Republican platform or agenda. Travis missed 42% of those.

Rep. Travis O’Hara was also endorsed and supported by the progressive Citizens for Belknap (if I recall), which would naturally oppose any key Republican priorities. Show up and vote the “right” way enough to keep a respectable rating, but no-show on these other bills. I can see someone having that conversation.

It might have happened like that. Or, perhaps, O’Hara simply isn’t the candidate his citizens need to do what you elect a Republican representative to do. Show up. Vote for fewer and lower taxes. Keep the bureaucrats jackboots off their necks. Advance liberty.

YAL has had enough. Will voters kick Travis to the curb in November, or is this rejection by YAL a meaningless gesture?

Is Travis proud to have been excommunicated form their ranks?

 

The post Young American’s for Liberty Dumps Rep. Travis O’Hara from Its Hazlitt Coalition appeared first on Granite Grok.

Claudine Gay was celebrated as the first black woman president of Harvard. She is not the first black woman to have reached the giddy heights of leadership in the US however. Before she came along there were several notable ambitious and brilliant black women: Condoleezza Rice, Jennifer Rubin, Shirley Chisholm to name a few.

Claudine Gay has had a privileged education — the accusations of plagiarism raise the awkward question — what are the morals of a privileged education? She graduated from private prep school Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire — the same school that Mark Zuckerberg once attended. He later went on to hack into Harvard’s computer system to steal photos of female students to line up alongside each other to judge who was “hot” and who was not for FaceMash, the precursor to Facebook.

President Obama (a Harvard graduate himself) became the “Facebook” president. His administration focused on college & high school students and how to manipulate them using social media and grants from the Department of Justice for movements that could be used for groupthink and activism for politics.

NH Senator Maggie Hassan’s husband, Tom Hassan, was principal of Phillips Exeter Academy when it was investigated for cover-ups of sexual assault in the middle of the Obama administration’s campus rape survivor “It’s On Us” recruitment frenzy. The NH Attorney General (who owed his position to then-Governor Maggie Hassan) declined to prosecute. Had he charged administrators at the school, one wonders if Maggie Hassan would have ever made it into the Senate at all? Her champions, who were also pushing the campus rape survivor narrative, Senator Jeanne Shaheen & Congresswoman Ann Kuster, were silent about the Hassans and the Exeter scandal.

Meanwhile, they were busy collecting federal grants for New Hampshire from the Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women and promoting a privileged student (Chessy Prout) from St. Paul’s School as a “survivor” of “rape” by the son of “working class” parents (Owen Labrie). Labrie, by contrast, was a student on full scholarship who should have gone to Harvard (on a full scholarship) but was denied that privilege as a result of a political show trial from which New Hampshire and his recruited accuser made millions using his face as the image they wanted to portray white male privilege.

Defense attorneys asked Chessy Prout under cross-examination where she’d acquired the language she used for her “under oath” testimony. At one point, she admitted, “I try not to lie too much.” Government Affairs PR “expert” Daniel Hill of hillimpact.com came on board to promote her as a “survivor,” complete with contracts for ads with Target (of course). Wouldn’t want a movement without an opportunity to turn it into a multi-billion dollar retail industry, would they? Dan Hill preached the power of feminism at the World Economic Forum in Davos while advertising for unpaid interns.

Claudine Gay was a professor at Stanford University whose most recent President, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, resigned after a first-year student documented his use of falsified imagery in scientific research papers.

It is believed by some that the board of trustees for Stanford knew about the problems with Tessier-Lavigne’s research when he was hired as president. Was it the fact that he was from Pfizer that this was overlooked?

Liz Magill, who resigned as President of UPenn after her testimony in front of Congress a few weeks ago, was Dean of Stanford Law School before taking up her position as President of UPenn. Under her were Barbara Fried, Joseph Bankman, Pamela Karlan, and Michele Dauber, among others. All of these have had serious ethical violations exposed in the last couple of years.

Michele Dauber was behind the framing of 19-year-old Brock Turner and the interference with his sexual assault trial and sentencing to cause the recall of Judge Aaron Persky. A commemorative bench was put up on the site where his alleged digital penetration of 22-year-old Chanel Miller (a friend of Michele Dauber’s) took place. It included a quote from the celebrated “Emily Doe” victim impact statement, which NH Congresswoman Ann Kuster, ACLU Ambassador Amber Heard, and others read to audiences on Capital Hill and at awards shows in 2016. There’s just one slight issue — the Emily Doe quote on the bench at Stanford was very likely not written by Chanel Miller but by Michele Dauber herself or an activist working with her. Dauber had discovered — according to one of her public statements — that the issue of domestic & sexual violence brought women out to vote “in droves.” She was a Dem Caucus rep raising money for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election and the midterms in 2018. The issue of potential plagiarism seems to have been dismissed by Stanford.

Ironically, integrity in research is also dismissed by Rebecca Richman Cohen, a Harvard lecturer who made the documentary “Recall Reframed” about the recall of Judge Persky in the wake of the Brock Turner trial. Cohen’s research for her documentary wouldn’t even qualify as minimal— a cursory Google search proves that statements made by interviewees in her film contradict their own original statements in previous media records.

When I questioned Rebecca Richman Cohen in a Q&A following an online screening of “Recall Reframed” it was clear that not only had she not done her research but that the film itself was an attempt to gloss over a gross abuse of the criminal justice system by a Stanford law professor who used the trial for Democratic party political advancement. Cohen tried to claim that Professor Dauber was not a “carceral feminist” contradicting Dauber’s own statements about managing to get California minimum sentencing increased for the Democratic party. Cohen apparently didn’t even look at her own University’s Law Review on the subject. So what value is Ms. Cohen as an expert on anything to any student at Harvard?

Feminist Scripts for Punishment

President Obama allegedly lobbied for Claudine Gay to be Harvard’s president. Penny Pritzker is in the spotlight for heading the Harvard Corporation’s decision to hire attorneys to threaten the New York post with a defamation suit before any research had been done to verify or refute the Post’s claims.

Claudine Gay is “Teflon” just like Michele Dauber at Stanford Law School. Obama’s “czar” in the Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women, Lynn Rosenthal, did say in 2014 (at the Dartmouth College Sexual Assault Summit) that the administration focused on campuses in order to influence generations to come and she worked closely with Russlynn Ali, Dauber’s friend in the Department of Education. Russlynn Ali now works at XQ Institute which advertises “DEI” and “Reimagining Education”. Page 79 of 838 pages in a FOIA email dump obtained by K.C. Johnson (after he had to sue the DoE to get it) reads:

“Finally, you asked for a contact to work with you over the next couple of weeks to assist the State Department in the government’s efforts to support the Muslim community.”

The email is dated November 2nd, 2010 and was sent by a Sunil Mansukhani to a redacted name with a cc to Russlynn Ali, Richardo Soto and Lilian Dorka all with Government email addresses.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/were-making-the-same-title-ix-mistakes-again

Supporting the Muslim community but no other communities? Why did the Obama administration’s Department of Education ignore Title VI designed to prevent discrimination or promotion of one race or religion over another?

DEI might have worked as a calling card for Claudine Gay to fail her way upwards using other people’s work as a crutch to get her into the ivory towers of Stanford and Harvard. But if she plagiarized in her 1997 dissertation and it was approved by the examiners then it begs the question as to what really is the moral value of an “elite” education.

Shamus Khan, a professor at Columbia University, has made himself into an expert on “privilege”. He wrote a whole book on it: “Privilege- the making of an adolescent elite at St Paul’s School”. One of the comments from a buyer by the name of “Chekov is not Czech” on the Amazon page reads:

1.0 out of 5 stars Khan’s book is a single sentence of Bourdieu’s Distinction (i.e., n o t an original insight)

“What very few readers/researchers/Americans see when reading Khan’s book is that Khan has taken his theme/thesis/hypothesis/argument entirely out of Pierre Bourdieu’s famous work, Distinction (Harvard, 1984). Read Distinction, and then read Privilege as a nice “interview” of what Bourdieu is the master of (in fact, Bourdieu himself has many such “interviews” in Distinction, but simply a few pages long, not an entire book to be purchased. You could easily and simply read the book reviews that Khan has posted on his wordpress website (connected to his profession as Sociologist at Columbia U) to ‘understand’ the book, in conjunction with page 311 of Bourdieu’s Distinction (copied below). Bourdieu would have been very impressed by Khan’s posting the reviews of Privilege, from political left to political right (it’s truly admirable), for Bourdieu would have seen the social structure via the reviews, just as Bourdieu himself gives us a glimpse of in Distinction. However, hands down, and I would hope Khan would admit this readily: Bourdieu is the master; Khan is just a follower, an acolyte of sorts. Privilege, perhaps if it wasn’t the work of a 26 year old, might have been much better if it had just focused on Khan’s main theme, that is, meritocracy and its euphemized, misrecognizable American form (and function) in today’s America. Instead, he brought to bear all his unbearable U of Wisconsin gender and race seminar junk.”

Would Shamus Khan receive the millions of dollars in grants for his research papers if he hadn’t attended St. Paul’s School, had his book not been published by the Princeton University Press nor he ended up with a job at another of the Ivies, Columbia University? Unlikely. The US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, treats him as some kind of guru in the campus sexual assault, privilege and DEI space. He has spent his life in academia not in the real world where the 99% don’t have the time or resources to pontificate on any of his ideological and flawed research.

American Prep Schools, Ivy Leagues, Stanford, MIT are among the most expensive educational institutions in the world. What exactly does a student get for their financial investment? Certainly not a moral compass nor accreditation in original & critical thought.

Activism-led education is an extortion racket and a disaster. When the cracks in the campus “survivor” & #MeToo movements started to show, these activist academics flocked to Critical Race Theory. When these didn’t work and the quacks Ibram X Kendi (what was wrong with Ibram Henry Rogers?) and Robin Diangelo (“White Fragility”) could no longer profiteer from their shams, DEI replaced CRT.

Shiny DEI office plaques were put up on campuses throughout the nation advertising their new quackery. More administrators were hired who were so adept at their jobs that they used AI to write support letters for students in shock after campus shootings in Michigan. One wasted a visiting 5th Circuit judge’s time with an “Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?” diatribe about which Liz MaGill’s replacement as Dean at Stanford Law (Jenny Martinez) wrote an absurdly long apology. “Sorry” is too simple and too lowly for “academics”. “Ethics” would put them all out of a job and rightfully so. It would save students a ton in fees to cover administrative bloat too.

These academic institutions are the recruitment centers for Big Government, Big Tech, Big Law, Multi-national corporations — some of which have paid out between tens and hundreds of millions for unethical practices and violations of US federal laws: Enron, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan come to mind. Cheating — whether it is for the the Enron Scandal, 1MDB scandal or for Jeffrey Epstein belongs to those who graduate from the nation’s so-called finest. Jeffrey Skilling who went to prison in the Enron Scandal is a graduate of Harvard Business School. Jamie Dimon lied about his knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein. He is also an alum of Harvard. Gary Gensler of the SEC has been keeping a low profile since his relationship with Sam Bankman-Fried received scrutiny. He is a graduate of UPenn. Joseph Bankman, a tax law professor at and graduate of Stanford Law School, “recruited” Daniel Friedberg of Ultimate Bet online Poker Ponzi scheme for Alameda Research. It is only when they get caught that they profess to have made unwitting mistakes. What is taught at the nation’s top high schools, law schools, business schools, in political science courses or at liberal arts colleges? How to get ahead as a cheat or “It’s not what you know but who you know”?

For those who didn’t make it into the school or college that would cost their families a life-time of savings just for the label, consider that Elvis Costello (“Brilliant Mistake”) never finished high school. According to Wikipedia:

“His mother told a journalist that, when Costello was 11 years old, his school entered him into a writing contest held by the Times of London intended for people aged 16 to 25, for which he won a prize. As he finished secondary school, he earned one A-level, in English, despite having made a firm decision to pursue a career in music a few months earlier and putting little effort into his final months of school.”

He thought he was the King of America
Where they pour Coca Cola just like vintage wine
Now I try hard not to become hysterical
But I’m not sure if I am laughing or crying
I wish that I could push a button
And talk in the past and not the present tense
And watch this hurtin’ feeling disappear
Like it was common sense
It was a fine idea at the time
Now it’s a brilliant mistake

She said that she was working for the ABC News
It was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use
Her perfume was unspeakable
It lingered in the air
Like her artificial laughter
Her mementos of affairs
“Oh” I said “I see you know him”
“Isn’t that very fortunate for you”
And she showed me his calling card
He came third or fourth and there were more than one or two
He was a fine idea at the time
Now he’s a brilliant mistake

He thought he was the King of America
But it was just a boulevard of broken dreams
A trick they do with mirrors and with chemicals
The words of love in whispers
And the axe of love in screams
I wish that I could push a button
And talk in the past and not the present tense
And watch this lovin’ feeling disappear
Like it was common sense
I was a fine idea at the time
Now I’m a brilliant mistake

The Ivies and adjacent “Elite” Schools might consider offering a course in Ethics, Empathy, Inclusion, Brilliant Mistakes and High School Drop Outs. Would that be worth upwards of $70,000 a year for the privilege? No, but apparently a course in Taylor Swift is.

The post Claudine Gay, Plagiarism & the DEI Lie. appeared first on Granite Grok.

Canada represents the cutting edge of progressive thinking where socialized health care meets socialized mass murder under the guise of your having asked for it. An agenda hidden behind the dubious ramblings of social engineers mumbling about empathy and dignity.

Medically assisted dying cries about compassion while simultaneously making people confined by the public health apparatus miserable enough to want to kill themselves. Canada, for its part, has proven that the safeguards it promised would prevent abuse are meaningless as serial killers doing business as medical professionals come out of the public health woodwork to call the locals to their deathbeds.

The Pied Pipers of a socialized public health care scheme that increasingly leaves them with no other choice.

 

Assessing patients for assisted death when they really need other support is frightfully common (in Canada). In a study of “MAiD” assessments on 54 patients who didn’t have terminal illnesses, two-thirds had concurrent mental illness, a fifth had difficulty finding treatment for their afflictions, and over a third were simply not offered treatments.

 

Not even the economically prudent pain pill, which is more amenable to the budget than a procedure they can’t get for six to twelve months or at all because experts, boards, or commissions denied them a treatment (remember how the left said death panels were a conspiracy theory). They are abandoned to a life of government-managed discomfort, waiting to die, by a system that might then ask if perhaps now would be better than later.

Related: Slippery Meet Slope: Wait Six Months to Get Health Care or … They Can Help You ‘Kill Yourself’ Next Week!

As with all such things, mission creep sets in, expanding the meaning to encompass more conditions.

 

[I]n seminars conducted by leading euthanasia providers in Canada, providers have admitted that patients are indeed citing poverty as their driving factor for requesting euthanasia. One woman requested assisted death because she could not afford the vitamins, special diet, and physiotherapy that would relieve the symptoms of her non-terminal illnesses. Other patients with chronic pain, diabetes, cardiac issues, anxiety, and depression have requested assisted death simply because they could not find housing. The provider in charge of these cases stated that these people have “no other options,” as referrals will get them “not very much, and certainly not very fast.” The provider also made no mention that these applications were being discouraged or denied.

 

Make them miserable enough, and they will beg you to let them die in a framework with too many willing to find a way to make it happen.

 

Although physicians are required to have a second practitioner sign off on assisted death requests, the law allows them to ask as many physicians as they like until they find someone who agrees with them. Since providers have varying opinions on what qualifies one for assisted death, as well as what justifies cognitive ability to choose assisted death, it isn’t difficult to find a provider who will agree to kill a patient. [Ellen] Wiebe, for example, stated that she would consider a patient on a five-year waitlist for an effective treatment to have “irremediable suffering.”

 

How large of a leap is it to enable a scheme like this and then ensure the circumstances by which an increasing number of people, handicapped in any number of ways by deliberate government policy, pursue assisted suicide to escape the tyranny of low expectations in a State that once existed to do nothing more than preserve and protect their natural rights and – in the case of US States and the Nation itself – “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Canada is well down the path, as are Hawaii and Oregon. Vermont has had its feet on the road to death for years, and New Hampshire has a bill proposing we line up behind them. Who among us will stand up and make the case that while there is nothing wrong with compassion, there is when you pretend it can come from a government that has admitted there are too many of us in this world and they’d be okay if a few billion just dropped dead.

And then asks if -out of compassion – they can help.

 

The post Slippery Meet Slope: More Evidence The System Will Try To Convince You to Kill Yourself appeared first on Granite Grok.

I am a Granite Stater to the bone, but I have fallen in love with Maine over the last few years. My partner and I have deep roots in the Pine Tree State as she was born in Maine and spent much of her childhood in Central Maine. I enjoyed many vacations camping along the rocky coast, and three years ago, we found our summer home on Bear Pond.

The Pond is a magical spot because of its beauty and serenity, but more for the people we have met and now call best friends. The People of the Pond, as we call them, are the true gem.

Having a vested interest and spending four months of the year in Maine is a blessing and a source of frustration. Seeing the dysfunctional state of Maine politics but having no say as non-residents is a complex and challenging position. Writing this blog is my way of spreading the story of what the Liberal-leaning politicians of Maine are doing to harm this beautiful state.

Maine is a vast state with demographics that are very similar to many states in the Northeast. The population concentration in the major cities is very Left-thinking and, therefore, dominates the politics and policy of the less populated rural areas. The Conservative folks in Central and Northern Maine are the victims of the policies from Portland, Auburn/Lewiston, and Augusta. We share the frustration of the good people of Western and Northern Maine.

I have written a few times about the ultra-liberal Marijuana and absurd Abortion laws in my Conservative View From New Hampshire blog, and I am sure we will touch on them again. Today, I want to discuss a current movement to remove Donald Trump from the Maine Primary Ballot in 2024. This tactic has been debated in many states, and Colorado was the first state to remove the former President. The Maine Legislature held an 8-hour hearing last week to allow both sides to present their case on removing Trump, and the Secretary of State was to have decided by last Friday. Because of the Colorado decision, Maine has delayed action until both sides can provide additional testimony before a decision is made.

Delaying a decision based on that of another state compounds the lousy decision to consider the issue in the first place. Proponents of removing Trump are citing the 14th Amendment and claim that Trump was involved in perpetuating the January 6th assault on the Capitol. If true, these people say that Trump is ineligible to hold the office of President. Trump has never been charged with insurrection and, therefore, never found guilty. It is a fundamentally bogus claim with no reason for the contemplated action. Mainers should be monitoring this story as it develops in Augusta as the Legislature attempts to meddle in the election. Voters deserve to vote for their candidate, and the Legislature has no right to filter and prevent candidates from the ballot.

The post Bear Pond Conservative Chronicles: A Look At The Mess That Is Maine Politics appeared first on Granite Grok.