Maine is in the news again after its secretary of state – a Trump-hating-partisan Democrat decided she had the authority to tell the Republican party (a private corporation) who could be on their primary ballot. That was the big news. Shenna Bellows. Trump kicked off Maine Ballot. Or, is he? No, he’s not!

After taking the Cable News Tour yesterday – to justify her decision to drop him (to the applause of the commentariat, ‘She’s so brave!’), Bellows bellowed again, renouncing her own decision. She recanted, retracted, she walked it back. Sehnna will leave Trump on the ballot pending a court review.

 

She immediately suspended her decision.

Meaning Trump stays on the ballot in Maine.

This is just for show. pic.twitter.com/Ac6haE4Kcy

— Midwest Iowa girl (@Maga4Justice) December 29, 2023

 

But will what the courts decide even matter? After getting all excited about the prospect of keeping Trump off an opposing party primary ballot, the Colorado Secretary of State agreed to “keep Trump on the Ballot.” The Colorado Supreme Court decision never technically removed him in a manner not inconsistent with the Maine Secretary of State’s 34 pages of bloviating before not removing Trump. It’s as if the exercise serves some other purpose.

Some liberal-leaning individual or body vents their spleen all over the 14th Amendment only to then say they will wait for someone else to tell them what it means.

The scuttlebutt suggests we’ll see a few more of these-perhaps before the year ends, all delivered to create headlines suggesting Trump’s ineligibility.

At some point, the Supremes down in DC will have a say. A decision likely to lean in Trump’s favor (which the purveyors already know) will then – as VermontGrok contributor Rob Roper notes, “set up a future line of attack to rally Democrat voters against the “conservative” US Supreme Court. After SCOTUS inevitably overrules Colorado, look for the Democrats to let loose a broadside accusing the conservative court – especially Trump’s appointees — of “deciding the election.” AKA – Democracy is under threat!”

It won’t be the partisan Secs-o-state of their courts who are meddling in the election; it will be SCOTUS—a strange tactic, to be honest. Partisan prosecutors have dragged the Trumpster to Court in an election year in multiple venues, an act that – had Trump done it to Biden or even his son, would have been marketed as election interference. Heck, mentioning Hillary’s illegal server got that treatment.

We shall soon see which way this blows, and the left may be crazy, but they are not stupid. They also have confidence in their ability to control the narrative. Distract us from Biden sh!t storm.

I wonder if they can get Chris Christie back on the Maine Ballot?

 

Update: Major media is still reporting that Trump is off the ballot, so I went to the Maine Sec. of State for clarification. I found it here – at the end of her “decision” claiming Trump was off the ballot.

“Given the compresed timeframe, the novel constitutional questions involved, the importance of this case, and impending ballot preparation deadlines, I will suspend the effect of my decision until the Superior Court rules on any appeal, or the time to appeal…”

 

HT | RedState

The post Trump is Back on the Ballot in Maine – Was Never Really Off it. Not Yet. appeared first on Granite Grok.

The United States, Israel, and other democracies have a huge stake in the success of the Iranian people to rid themselves of Islamic tyranny. This is not just a matter of geopolitical concern but a moral imperative rooted in the principles of democracy, human rights, and global stability. As I have continuously stated, the Mullahs are highly vulnerable.

And it is the Iranian people who continuously find themselves at the forefront of this enduring quest for freedom and justice.

A comprehensive political, moral, and economic measure by the United States and others offers the best chance of ending Mullah’s reign of terror and diffusing the existential threat it poses to the world.

We must fully engage in this great battle of hearts, minds, and ideas. Let us stop talking about unimportant issues and peripheral concerns. Let us concentrate our efforts on bringing down this foreign enemy in Iran, the Islamofascists.

The survival of the Iranian nation and its identity depends upon it. Human beings cannot create an ideal world of peace and tranquility under totalitarian, despotic, and tyrannical regimes, such as the Islamist regime in Iran. Individual freedoms would be brutally repressed. The individual would be at the mercy of the merciless despots. Based upon the general reaction among Iranian opposition groups, it is clear that the time has come to form a new brand of political opposition, a united force whose sole purpose will be a regime change in Iran and establishing the rule of law.

The moral dimension of this endeavor is underscored by the timeless wisdom embedded in the Biblical adage, “From those who are much given, much is demanded.” Perhaps it is for this reason that the people of the United States of America are again called upon to make huge sacrifices to defeat another tyranny. The United States, as a nation endowed with immense power and influence, carries the responsibility to stand against this tyranny and champion the cause of liberty.

This echoes a historical pattern where the United States has, at critical junctures, risen to the occasion to confront oppressive regimes and champion the aspirations of those yearning for freedom. It is important that this great nation stays the course and enlists its power in support of the freedom-loving Iranian people and help them topple these ruling, bloodthirsty Mullahs who are bent on wreaking death and destruction in the world.

As the spotlight shines on the vulnerabilities of the Mullahs, a crucial moment presents itself for the international community, particularly the United States, to undertake comprehensive political, moral, and economic measures. The strategic alliance of democracies, spearheaded by the United States and Israel, can only serve as a beacon of hope for the people of Iran who seek to break free from the chains of oppression.

By doing so, the world can bestow upon the Iranian people the support they need to overcome the oppressive regime and pave the way for a new era of freedom, dignity, and self-determination. Through diplomatic efforts, economic sanctions, and moral solidarity, these nations can create a formidable front against the tyrannical rule of the Mullahs.

Furthermore, empowering the Iranian people to shape their destiny is not just a geopolitical maneuver but an enduring commitment to human rights and the dignity of every individual on this planet.

In conclusion, the challenge posed by the Mullahs in Iran is not just a regional issue; it is a global concern that demands the collective efforts of democracies worldwide. The United States, with its historical commitment to liberty, is once again called upon to lead the charge against tyranny.

By standing firmly with the Iranian people, the world has the potential to witness the triumph of freedom over oppression, signaling a new chapter in the ongoing struggle for justice and human dignity. By offering support to those on the front lines of the struggle for freedom, the international community can reaffirm its dedication to fostering a world where justice, liberty, and democracy prevail.

The United States has, in secular and free Iranians, its best friends in the entire world. It is imperative for the U.S. to help these Iranians to dislodge the vicious doomsday Mullahs, not as an act of altruism, but as a prudent measure of enlightened self-interest.

The post America Must Stand With the People of Iran appeared first on Granite Grok.

If the Border Crisis were not so severe and negatively impacting every state in this country, the insane comments by Karine Jeanne-Pierre would be comical. KJP stands before dazed White House correspondents, bats her eyelashes (which is her tell that she is lying), points her finger, and goes into her forceful, condescending tone of authority.

She then proclaims that Joe Biden has done all he can from the White House to create a secure Border that treats all illegal aliens with respect and humanity and retains the safety of every American city. Wow. Where do we begin to refute every false word of her statement?

Let’s stipulate the only fact in her statement and get that out of the way. Joe Biden is President. That’s it. Everything else should be challenged, yet not a single person in the room raised a hand for a follow-up question. This lack of effort is the shame that is our news media. It is because of this deficiency that the Biden Administration is so comfortable lying to the American public.

To the Democrats, these actions are their ace in the hole for 2024. They have to keep up this facade and illusion that Biden, all the way down to Karine Jeanne-Pierre, has been perpetuating. To suddenly acknowledge  the obvious results would be to admit to failure. The Dems have to be complicit in this play or turn the White House and maybe the Senate over the MAGA crowd.

The President never has, nor will, do anything to curb the flow of illegals through our Southern Border and now also through the North. Biden sees it as more humanitarian to subject women and children to the brutality of the Cartel than to close the Border. As far as the safety of American cities, even the Liberal mayors of sanctuary cities like New York are turning on the President. Mayor Adams, who the President has ignored, is using the power of New York’s budget to rile up support. By cutting the budgets of Education and other critical departments to fund the cost of the alien influx, he is getting the attention of New Yorkers and the national media. Even the Mayor of Ultra-Liberal Chicago is sounding the alarm for help from Washington. These Mayors are doing this for their cities but more for self-preservation. They will not go down with him if Biden loses in November.

Secretary of State Blinkin and DHS Secretary Mayorkas went to Mexico this week for a photo-op to show that Biden is working on the Border issue. It is a sham visit. There is nothing Blinkin and Mayorkas can offer Mexico that will overcome the Cartel’s control over the Mexican Government. Biden’s disastrous policies, or lack of such, at the Border, have been a boom for the Cartel, and they have gained significant power over the last three years. We no longer have the bargaining power that Trump had to get cooperation from Mexico. So maybe KJP is right when she says Biden has done all he can. Biden has so damaged the balance of power at the Border, we may never be able to secure it without force.

The post Night Cap: ‘This’ President Has Done More Than Anyone Else … appeared first on Granite Grok.

In my 87 years of life,  one of the most important lessons I learned early, taught to me by my late brother who wasted the tremendous talent God blessed him with: It’s easy to become happy while you’re drinking, but New Year’s Day you wake up with the same problems and a headache.

So, have a blessed New Year, Senator Chandley and Merrimack State Legislators Notter, Boyd, Healey, Mooney, McGough, Thomas, Murphy, and Rung.

This upcoming legislative season may seem a bit like that to you all. Maybe a headache? But I have to keep hammering at you for what I believe to be important to our state and nation today, that will hopefully someday bear the fruit of liberty for posterity tomorrow.

One of the foundational pillars of liberty, given us by Solomon in Proverbs, that I believe is an integral part of the formula for liberty – so needed and so forgotten today is, “Righteousness exalts a nation, and sin is a reproach to any people.” It goes without saying that this includes both constitutes and public servants.

With all that said, I’d like to introduce to you a video on another vital ingredient to ensure liberty. A short video of how the state of New Mexico defied federal abuse of power with state Nullification (Less than ten minutes).

!function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src="https://rumble.com/embedJS/u359331"+(arguments[1].video?'.'+arguments[1].video:'')+"/?url="+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+"&args="+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, "script", "Rumble");

Rumble("play", {"video":"v3itvej","div":"rumble_v3itvej"});

I suggest that when you consider issues of federal abuse of power, always remember the states created the federal government. Thank God that our Founders have blessed the states with this power that has become like an endangered species, to limit federal abuse of power in the 2nd paragraph of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution:

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, …“

I have underlined your responsibilities as state legislators, bound to this supreme law of the land by oath, that any laws not made in pursuance of the U.S. Constitution are null and void and unconstitutional.

Rather than separation of parties, liberty demands both parties meet on the rock-solid foundation of liberty, within the limits of the Constitution based on Judaeo/Christian ethics  – the foundation of all civilized order.

You have an awesome responsibility to “we, the people” of NH. May God bless you in all your efforts to promote continued prosperity and ordered liberty in our state. 

Sincerely & Respectfully

The post Essentials for Liberty appeared first on Granite Grok.

Nikki Haley is in some hot water because she didn’t say that the cause of the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, as it’s called in some parts of the country) was slavery. Looking to score some points, Joe Biden chimed in on social media, saying ‘It was about slavery.’

But if anyone knew what the Civil War was about, it was Abraham Lincoln, right?  After all, it was his war.

In a letter to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, here’s what Lincoln himself said (in 1862) that the war was about:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

Lincoln is often held up as an example of clear communication, and I don’t think he has ever said anything more clearly than what he said here:  The Civil War was not about slavery.

If people need to restrict themselves to one-word explanations, the proper one is this:  It was about secession.

 

The post Who Should You Believe? Nikki Haley, Joe Biden, or Abe Lincoln? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released her Christmas message, and she would have been better served to sit this one out. Cortez always tries to sound intelligent, but once you get past the gesticulations when she is orating on the house floor or dig into the words she has chosen on her online posts, her thinking is inaccurate or more emotional than factual.

Cortez went to X for this year’s message, and it reads:

“In the story of Christmas, Christ was born in modern-day Palestine under the threat of a government engaged in the mass genocide of innocents,” she wrote. “Thousands of years later, right-wing forces are violently occupying Bethlehem as similar stories unfold for today’s Palestinians, so much so that the Christian community in Bethlehem has canceled this year’s Christmas Eve celebrations both out of safety and respect.”

The entire story of Christmas and Christ himself is about standing with the poor and powerless, the marginalized and the maligned, the refugees and the immigrants, the outcast and misunderstood, without exception,” she wrote. “This high Christian holiday is about the precious sanctity of a family that, if the story were to unfold today, would be Jewish Palestinians.”

I cannot condemn Cortez for her lack of knowledge about the birth of Jesus or the difference between a Jewish and Palestinian person because religion was probably not a very common topic for discussion at Boston University or the bars where Cortez worked pouring beers. But as a U.S. Representative, you have an obligation to vet your comments and social media posts for accuracy. Obviously, Cortez has her staff prepare her statements and then applies her talents to reading them. It might help if she understood the words she is reading.

Mike Huckabee, the former Governor of Arkansas and ordained minister, did an excellent job of dissecting Cortez’s comments and exposing the misinformation involved.

• Jesus was a Jew
• The term Palestinian people meant Jewish people until 1962 when Arafat took the term and created a nation.
• She claims Bethlehem is preventing Christians from celebrating Christmas. Still, she fails to recognize that just forty years ago, Bethlehem was 80% Christians, and today, the region has flipped and is 80% Muslim and 20% other religions.

Cortez has shown in her two paragraphs that she lacks an understanding of the history of the Middle East, Jesus, the Jewish people, the State of Israel, or just about anything else that is a part of this story. The problem with that misuse of information is that Miss Cortez has 8.4 Million followers on Instagram, and many are easily influenced and believe everything elected officials say is, by default, the truth. Congresswoman Cortez may represent 170,000 people in New York, but she impacts millions. That influence makes content creators or users of X, Instagram, and TikTok dangerous. People with a significant online social presence are more potent than our politicians, and in the case of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they are one and the same.

The post The Real Story of Christmas, by Sandy Cortez … appeared first on Granite Grok.

Back in the day, when Dems were insurrecting left and right because some dude named Donald had won the office of the Presidency, progressive factions coalesced under the idea that they were the resistance. They were a resistance … to the people resisting the establishment’s tyranny.

Voters chose Trump to disrupt that movement, while the Left’s revolution was to protect the status quo of Obamaism. The weaponization of the IRS, FBI, Education, Energy, all of it, against the people to whom it was meant to answer. It wanted open borders, a stunted economy, and favored America’s declining influence in the world—oh, and speech policing. There was a lot of that.

Mr. Trump was the true new way and the mainstream everything wanted nothing to do with that or the people who supported it.

Trump turned out to be a speed bump whose effect, while startling, passed quickly. Obama’s meat puppet – Joe Biden, was installed, and Barry’s court got back to business, erasing the progress of making America great again. Part of that planned decline included his super-sized surveillance state, which used COVID to expand establishment power to silence dissent.

Many people who should have known better took up arms, masks, distancing, and mandates in the fight against natural rights and free speech.

Not us, no sir, but we enjoy any opportunity to discuss that subject, and there’s been no shortage of those. When it comes to the Left, anything that dares contest their monopoly on narrative is hate speech, disinformation, misinformation, or malformation. Anyone carrying that dissenting water is anti-science, anti-government, anti-climate, anti-democracy, this, that, or the other thing. They suffer from white fragility, supremacy, or they are a Nazi, even if they are black or Jewish.

Nazis.

Nazis are National Socialists whose societal model is based on genetic superiority and despotic rule. They are better than everyone else, and intimidation and violence are reasonable tools to make sure everyone understands. It is a worldview where the party defines success at its pleasure and almost nowhere else. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that sounds a lot like the modern-day globalist elites to me. That superior stock of people who think and act correctly and in line with the approved agenda. The very folks that the Left’s so-called resistance worked to restore to power when the Deplorables mistakenly elected Donald Trump in 2016.

Ideologically, National Socialism is a kissing cousin to Democrat Socialism, rubbing elbows with Communism on the totalitarian side of the political Spectrum—a tyranny of the elite whose power requires a police state on word, thought, and deed. Dissent is not permitted, questions are ill-advised, and the answers are almost always lies.

Opposing this is our mission, part of which requires us to accept speech from every corner, including the elites and their kissing cousin tyrants who think the world needs National Socialism.

Free Speech lawyer Ken White recently spoke to the issue after Substack tried to explain why it would not censor or deplatform Nazis in its webspace. He fisked their response, exploring branding, value judgments, tropes, and various nuances of Substack’s reaction. He also broaches the question of platform policing and policy, practically and as a reflection of the brand.

 

Site moderation is a big bundle of choices. As a writer and reader, I decide what’s important to me when I choose a site. Sometimes it’s about content I want to consume or avoid and fellow-travelers whose society I crave or despise. But sometimes it’s an ethos I want to endorse, or be seen as endorsing. Do I want to go on Twitter to signify that I am not a snowflake and that I am open to discussions of how the Jews created polio? Do I want to go on Mastodon to signify that I believe human perfection can be achieved through scolding? Do I want to go on LinkedIn and talk exclusively to people who hope to monetize my existence in their quest to be Deputy Assistant Regional Manager? Do I really only care if the app works on an iPad? It’s up to me and my array of values.

Site managers make choices too. What ethos do we want to signal, and what crowd will that attract, and how much money can we make from them? If we moderate content, will it turn into an expensive, thankless, all-consuming task? Will moderating some people (like Nazis) result in constant demands that we moderate a huge array of things that make people angry (like, say, posts that are either too supportive or not supportive enough of Palestinians)? Will it attract more people than it alienates? If we don’t moderate will the place turn into a notorious sewer? What’s our moderation brand?

 

Every individual will have some sense of what a concept like free speech means to them. In many cases, it goes something like this. Everything I have to share is free speech. If you edit it or block it, you are a censorious authoritarian bastard whose interference with the open exchange of ideas will bring about the end of liberty as we know it.

Our approach is simple and aligns with the general interpretation of the First Amendment itself. Just about everything is reasonable except true incitement, explicit threats, and acts of violence toward individuals or groups. And while nudity, pornography, and vulgarity are generally protected speech where matters of public indecency are not in play, there are limited practical reasons for it here outside the vectors of the transgender agenda and groomer lit in public schools. Hence, we are inclined to edit it out or block it outside legitimate debate along those lines.

Everything else is allowed (except trolls who are not engaging to add value or interest), with my position being that what is otherwise deemed inappropriate or offensive (all the gray areas) can and should be worked out by the commenting community.

That’s our brand, and I think it allows us to control the chaos while encouraging that open exchange of ideas. I hope you agree but welcome contrary analysis. The goal is to build the commenting community, and I am looking at ideas to improve engagement. Yours are also welcome, assuming it’s not more nudity or allowing incitement or explicit threats.

We won’t be doing that.

We will, however, continue pushing back against the establishment in all its faces and forms, and we look forward to your help.

 

The post Trolls, Cranks, and Nazis, Oh My! appeared first on Granite Grok.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Israel: Memes and Commentary – Granite Grok

Israel: Memes and Commentary – Granite Grok

With some Israel-related materials here:

Meme Overflow – Granite Grok

 

 

Tel Dan stele – Wikipedia

 

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

 

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Holocaust

 

 

Understand that I’m no historian and certainly not knowledgeable on this topic, but… this link below, related to the above video, is fascinating:

The Smoking Gun: The Auschwitz Blueprints and The Mufti – Geller Report

I have read – but don’t have the citation – that Hitler “merely” wanted to banish all Jews from Europe, but the Mufti allegedly said “Burn them” (there’s a lot of discussion and disputation of this).  The above article would implicitly corroborate that.  Remember, Jew hatred is hard-coded into the Koran itself.

Jew-Hate in the Muslim World | Frontpage Mag

Islamic Jew-Hatred – a religious mandate – Geller Report

Antisemitism in the Qur’an – Winds of Jihad (sheikyermami.com)

Related to that:

 

Amir Tsarfati: Waking Up to the Illusion (No Peace, No Two State Solution) @beholdisrael

 

 

You cannot coexist with someone who wants to kill you.  Nice screen background on a Gaza iPad:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/gaza-teenage-girls-ipad-opening-screen.mp4

 

And one more thing, related on history in general, a translated from Arabic essay (original Arabic piece here):

Where is Al-Aqsa Mosque located?

An argument against the significance of the mosque on the temple mount.  At least, that’s how I take it.  Related to the above:

 

 

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

 

TOP OF THE FOLD

 

Lucy Aharish, the first Muslim Arabic TV presenter and Israeli tv anchor, gives a powerful monologue

 

 

—

Arab woman tells the truth… (rumble.com)

Video at my channel.  Apparently she’s getting death threats.

—

 

A Bedouin woman in Israel:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/bedouin-woman-and-others.mp4

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/girl-was-in-a-hospital-with-arabs.mp4

 

Some apartheid.  More – video link only:

Not Apartheid (rumble.com)

Remember these videos:

A Black South African on Israel and Apartheid (youtube.com)

Does Israel Discriminate Against Arabs? (youtube.com)

And since when does an apartheid state permit those of the oppressed group into its military?

An Arab Muslim in the Israeli Army (youtube.com)

—

Tel Aviv in 1923:

 

 

Wow.  Some thriving Arab community.  Not.  Remember, the Arab influx came in because of the Jewish influx:

Were the Arabs Indigenous to Mandatory Palestine? :: Middle East Quarterly (meforum.org)

 

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

 

Copied directly from this post on Telegram.

The IDF spokesman releases to the foreign media a recording of a conversation in Arabic between an IDF officer and a resident of Gaza regarding the aid entering the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing: food, drink, medical equipment, diesel and gas.

In the conversation, the resident clarifies that Hamas has a hand in everything. It completely controls the aid administered by UNRWA – the UN Refugee Agency.

The friendly officer asks Gazati: Didn’t you try to talk to the UNRA people about Hamas taking over the aid?

Then, at minute 01:31 into the recording, Dazati says a key phrase that should resonate with everyone in Israel and abroad:

Ya sir, the agency employees are Hamas

Sir, UNRA officials are Hamas

For those who follow what is happening in Gaza, this is not surprising, but it is definitely a testimony that needs to be echoed. Many UNRA personnel are Hamas personnel. They are UN officials, receive a salary from the UN and take care of Hamas’ interests using European money.

The truth must be told. Here she is heard firsthand.

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/recorded-call-idf-and-gaza-resident.mp4

 

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

 

WAR & WHEN WILL IT END?

 

 

Understand something clearly: I don’t want violence, but to have peace both sides have to want it.  And when the other side wants violence and death – violence on you, and your deaths – this quote comes to mind:

War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Another quote by him:

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

And one related that I’ve posted before:

If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.

Curtis LeMay

—

Hamas uses hospitals for terror purposes, Gaza hospital director admits – The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)

Kamaal Aduan Hospital head Ahmad Kahlot of Jabliya in Gaza has confessed to the Shin Bet that Hamas took over his hospital as a military operations center, it was revealed on Tuesday.

Kahlot told his interrogators that he joined Hamas in 2010 at the equivalent rank of a brigadier-general.

…

Next, he said that many of the hospital staff doubled as members of Hamas’s az-al-adin al-Qasam brigades. These include doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other staff.

Related:

Findings prove Gaza hospital’s link to October 7 massacre (israelnationalnews.com)

—

Hamas hates Palestinians, hoards millions while Gaza suffers (nypost.com)

Except, per this Muslim who escaped Gaza and is now a Jew – video at my Rumble channel:

Gaza Muslim – a convert to Judaism – discusses Gazan support of terror (rumble.com)

Note how he opines about the relative percentage of Gazans who want peace with Jews… versus wanting Jews in pieces.

—

 

 

—

 

Pat Condell: No Peace in the Middle East? Blame Israel – תרגום לעברית

 

 

 

ISLAM: PRACTICES, HISTORY, AND MENTALITY

Hamas rockets target Tel Aviv area for first time in a week – JNS.org

Remember, in Islam, any non-Muslim is – by definition – a soldier against Islam and therefore not a civilian.

—

‘Where do you think Israel is going?’ Bill Maher quips in viral eight-minute clip – JNS.org

“History is brutal, and humans are not good people,” he continued. “Nobody was a bigger colonizer than the Muslim army that swept out of the Arabian desert and took over much of the world in a single century.”

“They didn’t do it by asking,” he said. “There’s a reason Saudi Arabia’s flag is a sword.”

…

He noted that Israel, which has the “world’s second-largest tech sector after Silicon Valley” and reportedly nuclear weapons, isn’t going to negotiate with an opponent whose bargaining position is “you all die and disappear.”

Shockingly Good: Bill Maher Throws Down – Explains Reality of the Genocidal “From the River to the Sea” Chant | The Gateway Pundit | by Margaret Flavin

Let’s look at Arab colonialism:

 

 

From Medina to Tours in 110 years.  I once used a mapping program and it works out to something like 41-odd miles per year, every year, relentlessly.  And related is this video about the relentless hammering of the spreading Arabs, and the Crusade responses:

 

Bill Warner, PhD: Jihad vs Crusades

 

 

 

ATROCITIES

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/hiding-ammo-in-incubators.mp4

 

Hiding ammo in incubators.

—

Links only to images and videos – October 7 murder victims.  Graphic, so be warned.

Dead in a bedroom

Dead in the laundry room

—

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

Related – more about schools in Gaza:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/school-in-gaza-has-a-tunnel.mp4

 

Also on my Rumble channel:

School in Gaza has a tunnel entrance (rumble.com)

Also, a baby’s room:

IDF finds tunnel entrance in baby’s room (rumble.com)

—

Women murdered by Hamas at the music festival Oct 7 (rumble.com)

Video montage.

—

I Saw the Children Hamas Beheaded With My Own Eyes. Shame on Queen Rania | Opinion (newsweek.com)

Grisly descriptions of eye-witnessed horrors – not for the faint of heart.

 

 

ON INTERSECTIONALITY / LEFTIST SUPPORT

The Real Reason So Many American University Students Hate Israel | Frontpage Mag

The Left’s Long March Through the Institutions has been a resounding success. Most of our nation’s colleges and universities, including — indeed, especially — those who enjoy an outsize influence on American politics and culture, have long ago ceased to be centers of higher learning and have become centers of far-Left indoctrination. Marxist sloganeering and agitprop masquerades as genuine intellectual inquiry, and so it’s no wonder that once American youth graduate from their once-renowned institutions, they happily take jobs in government or social media that involve stripping free speech and self-defense rights from Americans. They have been trained to be cogs in the machine. Their hatred of Israel is just one aspect of that indoctrination.

Back in college I participated in a protest.  But what I observed was fascinating.  The leaders got the chant going – a simple, rhyming chant – but once it took hold, they stopped and let it continue on its own… and observed the crowd they’d riled up.  Now, consider this short clip: College campus short: Israel is worse than Nazi Germany (rumble.com)

Now, if Israel is worse than Nazi Germany, and it’s already been compared with apartheid South Africa, then naturally “good people” need to join together to destroy it, right?  Here’s another clueless college student; supports “From the river to the sea…” and doesn’t even know what river or what sea:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/clueless-millenial.mp4

 

—

How does any feminist support Islam?

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/do-you-want-your-daughters-to-be-free.mp4

 

In Sharia Law – boiled down to its essence – has women as having two functions in society.  First, sex providers (and secondarily keeping house), and second, as baby factories.  “Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen”.  A term and idea derided by feminists… except for when it’s Islam.

—

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Rabbi-Alon-on-Palestine-Supporters.mp4

 

This Rabbi’s lectures are growing on me.

 

 

PALLYWOOD, THE INFORMATION WAR, AND MEDIA IN GENERAL

 

 

Somehow, being #3 and #8 on the world obesity list does not comport in my mind with being an “open air concentration camp”.  But the media systematically believes without skepticism:

Is There Really a ‘Disproportionate Death Rate’ Among Gazans? – Geller Report

—

How CNN crafted a new blood libel that Israel is attacking civilians with “dumb bombs” ~ Elder Of Ziyon – Israel News

CNN could have done what I just did. They have access to far more resources than I do. But they chose to frame the story to make Israel look monstrous, when the facts show quite the opposite. They could have quoted the US officials who said they believe Israel is using the dumb bombs in responsible ways before extensively quoting the “experts” who are literally paid to find dirt on Israel. This article tells us much more about CNN’s desire to demonize Israel than it does about Israel’s supposed lack of concern for civilian lives.

—

Even If (Most Of) What Detractors Say About The Founding Of Israel Were True …(Andrew Pessin) (Part 1 of 2) ~ Elder Of Ziyon – Israel News

Good arguments, I think.  From the same site:

Belgian MP claims Israeli rabbis call for the rape of Palestinian women ~ Elder Of Ziyon – Israel News

Look at the name of this MP.

—

This article is from a few years ago.

An AFP photographer depicts “a young girl fleeing Israeli fire” in Gaza

People fleeing in terror from “Israeli fire”:

 

 

Or are they in any danger at all.  Look at a bigger picture – would people under fire be relaxed like this new perspective reveals?

 

 

So not only is a show being put on for the media… the media are actively complicit in the deception.  And read the whole thing – some interesting notes about a restaurant and other scenes & information about “Concentration Camp Gaza”.

Two other sidebar articles on the same site – years old.  Pallywood is a long-standing tradition:

Israeli Retaliation on Gaza: The Palestinian Lie of the Bombed ‘Water Tower’

Palestinian children killed: How AFP disseminates Hamas propaganda

—

This video was made to show the horrible destruction of Gaza.  But it inadvertently – in the “before” part – shows that this is not an “open air concentration camp”.  Flowers on the porch balcony, a pristine beach, cars on a good-looking road, people strolling along…

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/gaza-balcony-view-before-and-after.mp4

 

Also uploaded to my Rumble channel:

Gaza beach – before and after… and accidental reveal (rumble.com)

—

 

 

 

 

TERROR COMING HERE?

Here… and ready to advance and conquer.

 

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

 

—

This article dates from 2020:

Anti-Semitism On and Off Campus – Tablet Magazine

Jewishness, did not cease, even as the classroom was replaced with the Zoom call. The controversies and scandals kept coming, from California to Massachusetts. Designated terrorists were invited to virtual lectures. Zionism was denounced as racism in official organization statements. And the harassment campaign against Jewish students persisted—only now, the harassers were behind screens.

“Anti-Zionism” on college campuses is not a political disagreement confined to the boundaries of academic discussion in the classroom. It is an obsession. It is an insistence on making Jews feel uncomfortable—or worse—wherever, whenever, under whatever conditions. And this hatred does not disappear when you walk off campus and into the real world. It is finding its way into American political discourse and our most cherished democratic institutions.

Speaking of college campuses, this is chilling:

 

Would College Students Donate to Support the Killing of Jews?

 

 

—

Jewish woman attacked in London… for being Jewish:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/jewish-woman-attacked-in-london.mp4

 

And calls for genocide in NYC:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/march-in-nyc-in-favor-of-genocide.mp4

 

And in France:

The Fall of France | Frontpage Mag

These assailants were Arabs speaking in Arabic about hitting the “gwer” — the Arabic pejorative for white people. This was no ordinary assault, but a hate crime — the hate Muslims are taught to feel for non-Muslims, “the most vile of created beings.” They started the attack by falsely accusing the Frenchman of “hitting” one of them, and despite his apology — for something he had not done — these four or five assailants smashed a bottle over his head, and knocked him to the ground, where they continued to beat and to stab him nine times. By pure luck he survived. The attack is similar to others that in recent years have been reported from across France, where gangs of Muslims assault Infidels, often not even to rob, but just to enjoy the fun of beating up or stabbing a “gwer.”

October 7 Coming to America? | Frontpage Mag

Muslim Mob Terrorizes Christmas Shoppers in Small, Peaceful Tennessee City (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila

NY and LA: Jihad Terrorists Shut Down Entrances To JFK and LAX Airports Causing Travel Nightmare – Geller Report

Islamist Terror Cell Plotted Numerous Attacks in Cologne, Vienna, and Madrid – Christmas Church Services Targeted | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

And yet, despite this, 1200 Rabbis call for unlimited refugee migration to the US:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1200-rabbis-1.mp4

 

Jewicidal Yidiots.

An Open Letter to Pro-Migration / SJW Jews – Urban Scoop

 

 

TREADING ON THE POLITICAL

Biden will betray Israel on Obama’s command (wnd.com)

Yes, he will.

—

Going woke has endangered American Jews – JNS.org

But the fact that 67% of participants ages 18 to 24 responded that Jews are “oppressors” is deeply shocking though hardly surprising. If that proves an accurate assessment of opinion among generations that will lead the nation in the future, then it also means that the assumption on the part of many Jews that “it can’t happen here”—based on the idea of American exceptionalism setting it apart from other Western nations—will be proven wrong.

Too many Jews in America have Stability Privilege, and the will respond with some form of Oh, that’s just not possible to any claxon alarm.

The ‘Progressive Left’ Has Abandoned Israel – Geller Report

—

 

 

The violent animals on the left who support Hamas – Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman

—

Salena Zito: For many, own­ing a gun was ta­boo. Now they’re buy­ing them. | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A quarter-million Israeli gun applicants prove the necessity of our Second Amendment | Jews Can Shoot

Good.  What was it Kahane said?  Every Jew a .22?  Though I’d recommend something larger.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

Jews Can Shoot

—

 

 

Related:

Report: Biden Administration Spying on Israel to Determine War Crimes (breitbart.com)

The curious case of the Biden administration and Hamas – JNS.org

By accusing Israel, falsely, of “indiscriminate bombing,” Biden is parroting the bogus accusations made by Israel’s fiercest enemies around the world, such as Hamas and Iran’s mullahs, who are trying to stop Israel from defeating a terrorist organization akin to Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.

Did anyone call for a ceasefire when the United States was routing ISIS in Syria and Iraq, or demand that Washington end its military campaign by a certain date?

Always “Israel Double-Standard Time”.  More on that from this Telegram post:

 

 

500,000 killed in Syria?
380,000 killed in Yemen?
240,000 killed in Afghanistan?
500,000 killed in Sudan?
300,000 killed in Iraq?
It’s fine. No “Doctors Against Genocide”

Israel defends itself against Hamas?
“Doctors Against Genocide” is formed!

Note when it was founded.  And who it discusses and about whom it is silent.

—

Biden Regime Refuses Israeli Request for Vital Apache Attack Helicopters – Geller Report

Hamstringing Israel.

 

 

MISCELLANEOUS

Jewish Voices for Hate – Tablet Magazine

These last few weeks, many American Jews seem to be having a rude awakening similar to the one my former friend, the judge, captured in his email. They’ve watched the presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT testify before Congress and refuse to unequivocally state that calling for genocide of Jews violated the university’s code of conduct, and they asked themselves how the campuses that hold themselves out as educating the next generation of leaders are instead becoming a breeding ground for antisemitism.

…

Numerous Jewish organizations partnered with groups such as Black Lives Matter, which from its earliest days perpetuated the falsehood that Israel is an apartheid state. Others, like J Street, consistently hosted anti-Zionist speakers who advocated for boycotting Israel; last week, the organization “demanded” that Israel change its conduct in the war against Hamas.

If all Jewish organizations, rabbis, and community leaders had taken a stronger stand against the delegitimization of Israel—by condemning groups like JVP, IfNotNow, Bend the Arc, and other organizations that claim to be “Jewish” yet ignore history and promote anti-Israel vitriol—then perhaps such lies and disinformation would not have spread among some in our community, let alone in our country.

From the same site:

Our False Partners – Tablet Magazine

—

Shouting Fire! | Gates of Vienna

I’d known the KGB was involved in helping to shift the narrative from BIG ARAB STATES against TINY ISRAEL to BIG ISRAEL against TINY PALESTINIANS but I hadn’t realized the true extent of it.

And up front is an echo of a theory I’ve had for a while about why rulers hate Jews so much:

Western Civilization was defined by a ‘context’, but it was a context that our academic elites did not like. That context — the Torah (Ten Commandments) — undermined their authority by placing a God over all. Marxists [or anyone aspiring to power] do not like gods (which they cannot control); they prefer to set up dictators (gods they can control).

So, too, with presidents of Ivy League universities who like to control those contexts (knowledge of good and evil) for themselves within their domains.

As far as I know, we Jews were the first to tell rulers – who in those days truly considered themselves deities – that NO, there is One above you who rules eternally… and will judge you.  Such rulers have never forgiven us for that.

—

The Road To October 7 | MEMRI

Video, over 40 minutes.  More – and some repeats – what they teach their kids on my Rumble channel:

Hamas Schools Teaching Kids to Hate (rumble.com)

UNWRA lessons for kids (rumble.com)

Palestinian kids being interviewed (rumble.com)

 

 

GIVING SUPPORT TO ISRAEL

You can’t go wrong with a donation here:

Connections Israel

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

Also, if you’re willing:

Buy Me a Coffee

 

A CONCLUDING THOUGHT FOR THIS POST

 

 

Thousands flee as war reaches Sudan’s second-largest city | Conflict News | Al Jazeera

Far be it from me to diminish the cataclysm that has befallen Israel, or the (few) Gazans who are innocent, but there are wars and refugees everywhere.  And isn’t this interesting – just who is attacking the Sudanese?

Sudan refugees detail second wave of ethnic purge by Arab forces (reuters.com)

Wait, ARAB forces did you say?  And from just a day or so before the Hamas attack on Israel:

Turkish airstrikes kill at least 11 in northern Syria, Kurdish security forces say | CNN

Turkey hits 71 targets in Iraq, Syria in retaliation for soldiers’ deaths | Conflict News | Al Jazeera

So, Turkey can strike at those who attack Turkish soldiers, but Israel cannot take action against those who rape and murder Israeli civilians?  And what of Turkish soldiers shooting Kurdish women (link to graphic vide0 just below – graphic!)… but I need to note that this video has no source and I have not been able to specifically confirm the situation or timing:

Video of Turkish soldiers shooting Kurdish women

Next time Erdogan is speaking of cruelty and the killing of innocents – remind him this!
Turkish soldiers kill young Kurdish women…
Will there be protests against Turkey?
Will they boycott Turkish products?
Will anyone care about this news?

Where is the BBC or Al Jazeera….?

Another atrocity, from here (bolding added):

Nigeria – New photos from within a church where at Christmas Christians were massacred in the name of Allah. Around 150 are confirmed dead so far, properties & farms were looted and burned. This is on par with what Hamas did, but the MSM & dancing Western Hamas fans ignore.

(Warning, gruesome picture):  Blood on the floor.  More from Nigeria:

 

 

Yesterday 140 Christians were killed in 20 villages in Nigeria.
In one village only two toddlers were left alive.

Anyone cares about the massacre? Any protests in European cities? Any UN condemnation? Nobody cares.

GENOCIDE: Muslims Slaughter Another 160 Christians Preparing for Church Christmas Programs in Nigeria – Geller Report

All these things, all over.  Horrors worldwide.  So why, then, the sole focus on Israel?  I think it’s psychological.  From this rather lengthy post by a Dr. Sanity, a psychologist, comes this term: DISPLACEMENT:

The entire purpose of displacement is to gain control over a conflict that otherwise feels out of control.

Displacement | Psychology Today

More from Dr. Sanity (italics replaced by underlining):

By focusing on something you have some control over, the psyche is much less threatened. After all, you can always fire your therapist; you can express your animosity unreservedly; and there will not be the consequences if that emotion were directed toward the real object of emotional conflict.

So… does anyone think that the Turks bombing or shooting Kurds at point-blank care one whit about western opinion?  Does anyone think that the Arab forces driving millions of Sudanese from their homes have any greater concern for the vapors someone in the US or Europe might have?  How about the Muslims slaughtering Christians in Nigeria?  Are they concerned with Western opinion?

Of. Course. Not.

But by obsessing over Israel, even though Israel arguably could have carpet-bombed Gaza into powder within 72 hours or so – but didn’t – they “solve” their angst over the world situation by focusing on the one place in the world they can affect.  Displacement.  It’s like the kid whose parent physically abuses them for no reason at all… but the kid starts displacing to themselves.  “Maybe if I cleaned my room better…” or “I wasn’t quiet enough when they came home and disturbed their nap…”  Nothing actually matters, of course – the parent is a monster.  But this way the child gains some sense of control over the situation, even if totally illusory.

Dr. Sanity goes on with more about the anti-Semitism in the Arab world (note that, per my readings, provocation by Muslims is typical, but then they use the inevitable response as justification to attack “in self defense”; bolding added):

At its most primitive, anti-semitism is a form of psychological projection (just as all racism is).

We see this infantile defense used repeatedly in the Arab/Islamic world. They seem unable to appreciate the irony of their labelling of Islam as a “religion of peace”, for example, and dismiss the barbarism done in the name of Islam as misunderstandings or the actions of only “a few.” In other words, they dismiss their own aggression in toto; asserting that it is the Jews who are always the aggressors; that it is the Jews who are out to destroy them; and that they are the poor, helpless victims of the Jews. By distancing themselves from their own aggression and projecting it onto Israel and the Jews; they have retained their honor as the peace-loving people they assert themselves to be.

It is essential to the success of the defense that they portray themselves as the victims and be seen as the victims in the eyes of the world. Even when their own behavior is responsible for the deaths of innocents, it is rationalized away and ultimately also blamed on the Jews.

An example:

Algerian newspaper: The Mossad murdered Detroit synagogue president because she was anti-Zionist (she wasn’t) ~ Elder Of Ziyon – Israel News

And more (bolding added):

Historically, the Jews have been the offical scapegoat (object of displacement) for many societies. If only the Jews were gone, then all would be well. The world would be perfect.

…

[I]f only the world put a halt once an for all to Israeli aggression, then the Middle East would be at peace.

When it comes to anti-semitism, you are witnessing possibly the clearest possible case of “blaming the victim” that you are ever likely to see. It is far too threatening to blame the real aggressor in the Middle East; the real source of hatred and genocidal intent; the real entity that is incapable of being rationally dealt with or deterred.

This real aggressor repeatedly states its intentions clearly and unambiguously. Yet, for some curious reason, those in the West to whom it is stated refuse to believe them! Their words are dismissed, and the actions that logically derive from their words are minimized or ignored.

In a perverse way, this defensive maneuver on the part of the West is understandable. No truly rational person is able to deal easily with persons or culures (sic) that glory in suicidal victimhood to a degree unparalleled in human history; and who scream “god is great”– even as he blows you and himself up in a nihilistic frenzy.

To say the least, this sort of behavior is truly and incredibly frightening and completely inexplicable for the modern human to psychologically metabolize. Thus, it is only natural that it’s unacceptable reality must be defended against and prevented from being digested and analyzed.

…

Denial and displacement give you the illusion that you are in control of the situation and that the solution is simple.

Thus, the obsession over Israel, and ignoring of other – larger and/or equally-horrifying – situations is completely explicable by examining psychology.  There is no doubt that, around the world, there are horrors and horrors.  But by focusing on Israel, minds can be distracted.

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

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

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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.