The GOP lost another special election. It wasn’t just the candidate, it wasn’t Trump. It was the GOP establishment that lost the election. The Committee to Elect House Republicans (GOP in NH) created the candidate’s web page. The Issues section is so bland it could have been written about a Democrat.

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

“Serving our community priorities and Interests, Protecting our Constitutional Rights, Restoring the NH Way of Life, Supporting our Emergency Responders and Veterans, Lowering the cost of living.”

If I am a voter, this tells me nothing. It has no specifics, no reason to choose this candidate vs. the other guy.

The Republican State Leadership Committee (GOP in DC) ran a Facebook ad that screamed, “Don’t let Democrats take the State House!” but again gave voters no reason to support our guy. To anyone who took the effort to look closely, it complains about Illegal Immigration. Really? Is that what the DC GOP thinks is the biggest issue in NH?

The Committee to Elect House Republicans ran a Facebook ad urging voters to “Elect proven leader our guy” and “the other guy is a Radical.” It closed by saying that our guy is “committed to putting communities first, defending constitutional rights, and supporting emergency responders and veterans.”

Again, nothing but Motherhood and Apple Pie. Just another politician of the UniParty saying nothing.

By contrast, the Democrat’s Facebook page had specifics: He is for “lower property taxes, supporting public schools and teachers, trusting women to make decisions for their own reproductive health, protecting our environment and natural resources.” He does NOT want “to take away your guns, gas stoves, gas engine cars and trucks, or your rights” or “defunding the police or emergency services.”

And as icing on the cake, the Democrat and his wife have homeschooled their kids.

The GOP had no message. The Democrat had a message. We can’t fight something with nothing.

The post The GOP Establishment Failed Again appeared first on Granite Grok.

Anti-marriage propaganda is all over TikTok right now. The formula of the videos is almost always the same. A woman contemplating marriage and a family has a vision of the future in which she realizes that her husband will be simultaneously controlling and checked out. She sees the “burdens” this life could bring as children come into the mix and, ultimately, chooses to run away.

It’s meant to make marriage-aged women hate men and condition them to think their lives will still be lonely and loveless, even with a husband.

 

Another anti marriage propaganda Tiktok pic.twitter.com/1HbmbBy67D

— Nugs (@Nugjokes) September 19, 2023

 

But that, of course, isn’t real life. A husband is everything. He is the base on which a woman gets to build her life. Yes, a lousy husband creates a terrible home and a hurting wife. But a good husband is a blessing. Together, they create a home filled with passion and love. Not every marriage is a barren wasteland. Most are loving and filled with laughter.

If women want joyful marriages, they should look for men who understand that their purpose is to love and protect the family — first his wife and later his children too. He should want to keep his wife safe and treasured, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. Any attack on her is an attack on him. Marriages built like this last until that poetic last breath.

Women want to feel safe, but a husband is not some security accessory to have in case of a scary situation. They have just as important a role as men in keeping the divine balance of marriage. The wrong woman can cause the same destruction in a relationship as an abusive man. Honorable men deserve to be loved and cherished by their wives. (RELATED: ROOKE: Women Aren’t That Complex)

 

 

When women ignore their nature, it causes discontent. Denying that women are emotional creatures is disrespectful. This emotion is the greatest gift we bring into this world. We have the ability to deeply care for our friends, children, and husbands. When looking for a husband, a woman should choose a man who sees the value her emotions could bring to his family.

 

this is trending on tik tok

pretty crazy how mass adopted the psy ops are pic.twitter.com/YTPZnkFkp8

— GC (j/acc) (@GRITCULT) August 10, 2023

 

The key is the willingness of the husband to protect and the wife to honor. Marriage isn’t 50/50. There is no such thing as meeting halfway or only giving it 50 percent of your effort. Selfish people who value their “independence” can’t fathom the bond that forms when both of you give every ounce of yourself to creating a strong marriage.

A good man doesn’t want to enslave his wife. He supports her in the home so that her role is fulfilling. Protecting the family has its own hardships. Still, motherhood is the most critical and taxing job women perform. A husband who appreciates her will work to aid her on the hard days, like when all the kids are sick and the house is burning down around her. He sees the cracks forming and immediately goes to work fortifying her, loving her amid the chaos.

No, it’s not easy. Nothing worthwhile comes without hard work. But, gosh, it is a beautiful way to live your life. When the other option is empty sex and soul-crushing corporate culture, a messy house with loud children sounds like heaven. These videos want women to return to their lonely apartments like it’s some triumph over men. But it really only serves to destroy the path for women to find true happiness through a husband who adores her and children to nurture.

 

Mary Rooke | Daily Caller News Service

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

The post What’s The Point In A Husband Anyways? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Democrats cheat. Just ask Bernie Sanders. They’ve robbed him at least twice, and what did he get for it? Bernie Bros didn’t feel the Bern. Not at all. They moved on, embracing similar tactics to help the guy who robbed Bernie win an election. Tactics used by Democrats against another Democrat in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

 

The current mayor, Joe Ganim, has been in office since 1991. A felon, Ganim went on a seven-year hiatus beginning in 2003 to serve time in a federal correctional institution after being convicted of a slew of corruption charges. But in December 2015, he was sworn back into the mayor’s office.

Ganim is currently running for reelection to his eighth term as Bridgeport mayor. One week ago, in the Democrat mayoral primary, he eked out a win over challenger John Gomes by 251 votes. A few days later, the Gomes campaign released a video showing a Ganim supporter making numerous pre-dawn trips to the ballot box outside the Bridgeport government center:

(source) The video, which was posted to the Gomes campaign Facebook page, shows a woman dropping stacks of papers into an absentee ballot box outside the government center in Bridgeport, where the city’s registrar of voters office is located.

 

I’m not sure there’s anything here to see. After all, numerous examples of thoroughly documented Democrat mules stuffing ballot drop boxes in Dinesh D’Souza ‘s documentary didn’t mean anything. If you look up 2000 mules, Wikipedia, the Democrat’s online encyclopedia, says,

 

The film falsely claims unnamed nonprofit organizations supposedly associated with the Democratic Party paid “mules” to illegally collect and deposit ballots into drop boxes in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin during the 2020 presidential election.

 

A Democrat mule stuffing a ballot box in Bridgeport, CT, can’t be true either, certainly not to progressives who are beholden to the approved narrative on such matters, even if they’ve captured it on film. But here’s the Gomes campaign stepping off the Democrat plantation to suggest that a woman “recommended for criminal charges following an investigation into complaints about absentee ballot handling in Ganim’s tight 2019 primary against Sen. Marilyn Moore,” has illegally stuffed another ballot drop box.

 

BREAKING: Democrat Mayoral candidate John Gomes of Bridgeport, Connecticut has filed a lawsuit challenging his party’s primary results after a bombshell video showed a Democrat clerk inserting illegal ballots into a drop box

“On primary night our campaign was victorious at the… pic.twitter.com/vF8Yi2vBTR

— George (@BehizyTweets) September 18, 2023

 

Good luck with that; just remember what Democrats do to people (including Democrats) who dare to disapprove of their tactics. They treat them like Republicans.

 

HT | PJ Media

The post Democrats Stuffing Ballot Boxes to Steal Elections From Democrats appeared first on Granite Grok.

Do you remember Sun-King Sununu’s “Governor’s Economic Reopening Task Force”? A presumptuous and pretentious name for a bunch of political hacks who knew NOTHING about epidemiology, but issued all sort of “guidance” … a lovely euphemism for JUNK science … to “keep us safe from COVID.” For example, in May 2020 they recommended that Hampton Beach could “reopen” but parking lots could only operate at 50 percent capacity. There was and is no science behind that “guidance.” The 50 percent was a totally arbitrary number.

Another example is that walking on the beach was safe, but sunbathing was not. Restaurants could offer outdoor seating up to “50 percent” capacity … whatever the hell that means. I’m not kidding … check here if you think otherwise. Again … THERE WAS AND REMAINS NO SCIENCE behind any of the “Task Force” guidance … it was all an exercise in deception and control by Sun-King Sununu and his ilk.

Stated slightly differently, the “Task Force” intentionally deceived us … presenting their totally arbitrary and capricious recommendations as based in ‘the science.” All that the Sun-King’s COVID-scam accomplished was to hurt the local economy, drive real Republicans out of New Hampshire, attract Leftists to New Hampshire, AND … the ultimate purpose of it all … allow no-excuse absentee-voting in order to help Biden win the State’s electoral votes.

In a normal world, anyone who participated in this sham “Task Force” should be punished not rewarded. But New Hampshire is NOT a normal world. Instead, the Chair of the “Task Force,” D.J. Bettencourt, has been rewarded with a cushy government job. It pays … six-figures in fact … to have been one of the Sun-King’s COVID-hucksters.

The post Lock Us Down, Mask Us Up … In New Hampshire, Get Rewarded With A Cushy Government Job appeared first on Granite Grok.

Extinction Rebellion is a well-funded left0Wing direct Action environmental movement. From street theater, to pondering public suicides, to gluing themselves to things, its advocates are some of the dumbest, sorry, I meant to say fringist Climate Cult activists out there. They also kill fish to make a point.

 

Activists from the Extinction Rebellion movement have been accused of killing fish in the river and fountains of a French town with a bright green dye that they poured in the water to protest against a toxic waste project.

Éric Straumann, the mayor of Colmar, an Alsatian town whose waterside district is known as Little Venice, said dozens of dead fish were found floating on the surface after the protesters dumped drums of fluorescein in the River Lauch at the weekend.

“I witnessed the impact on the aquatic wildlife of this dye, which was dispersed in bulk and remained visible for 24 hours,” Straumann said.

 

Hey, it’s not easy being green.

 

According to Straumann, several neighbors told him that after the dye was spilled, a good number of fish appeared floating dead in the Lauch River. The mayor himself shared a message on social media in disapproval of the event and showing one of the dead fish floating in green waters.

 

Haut-Rhin : le maire de #Colmar accuse les militants écologistes d’Extinction Rebellion d’avoir tué des poissons avec du colorant vert fluo, déversé dans les eaux de la Lauch pour protester contre l’enfouissement de déchets toxiques. pic.twitter.com/U4OWxrAvu2

— Infos Françaises (@InfosFrancaises) September 18, 2023

 

The activist is reported to have dumped large quantities of fluorescein into the water to make it look green. Flourescein’s side effects in humans include (citations removed),

 

“.. nausea, vomiting, hives, acute hypotension, anaphylaxis, and related anaphylactoid reaction,  causing cardiac arrest and sudden death due to anaphylactic shock.

Intravenous use has the most reported adverse reactions, including sudden death, but this may reflect greater use rather than greater risk. Both oral and topical uses have been reported to cause anaphylaxis, including one case of anaphylaxis with cardiac arrest (resuscitated) following topical use in an eye drop.”

 

Sudden death in fish as well, it seems.

Anyone rebelling against extinction should consider reading the warnings on the label before engaging in this sort of direct action. Action over what? Ironically,

 

Extinction Rebellion shared the images on social media and explained that the act of vandalism was done to protest against the French government’s plan to store about 42,000 tons of toxic waste in the region. In an attempt to attract public attention, a man affiliated with the group poured several barrels of green dye into the Lauch River. He has since been arrested.

 

It was a mercy killing.

Rather than allow those poor fish to suffer a normal life with the looming possibility of slow poisoning from potentially leaky waste contamination, boom! Dead.

 

The post Extinction Rebellion is ‘Dyeing’ to Make a Point appeared first on Granite Grok.

Last year, punk rocker Johnny “Rotten” Lydon made waves when he was quoted saying, “I never thought I’d live to see the day when the right-wing would become the cool ones giving the middle finger to the establishment, and the left-wing becoming the sniveling self-righteous twatty ones going around shaming everyone.”

Elon Musk tweeted Rotten’s observation about contemporary politics. Conservative Twitter personality Robby Starbuck quickly emphasized the point by declaring, “The right is the new counter-culture now,” with numerous editorials since elucidating the idea.

If the right is the new counterculture, conservatives must embrace policies that enhance their ability to combat the entrenched establishment.

Historically, conservatives were instinctive institutionalists, emphasizing a desire to protect culture, traditions, and institutions. This was best personified by William F. Buckley’s ubiquitous description of a conservative as “someone who stands athwart history, yelling ‘Stop…’” Rebelling against this established order were the liberals raging against the machine.

In recent years, however, the right has been the most ardent critic of the established order. As conservatives increasingly find themselves at odds with the orthodoxies of the federal government, the media, public health bureaucracy, and academia, conservatives need robust privacy protections that ensure their ability to challenge the left’s dominance in society’s key institutions.

When challenging the regime’s narratives, the establishment will often leverage its vast resources to crush dissenters. A few examples illustrate the point.

During the American Revolutionary Era, Thomas Paine published “Common Sense,” a pamphlet articulating the case for American independence from Great Britain. Paine wrote under a pseudonym to protect his identity from royalists.

The revolutionary cause was still controversial as late as 1776, with many colonists still loyal to Great Britain. Divulging his identity in that polarizing climate would have threatened Paine’s revolutionary efforts and denied our Founding Fathers a powerful tool to shift public opinion towards independence.

Similarly, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the Jim Crow South, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously repudiated the state of Alabama’s attempt to forcibly disclose donors and members of the state’s NAACP chapter, an effort intended to target people who funded the movement’s disruptive campaigns.

 

 

More recently, the Federal Election Commission long exempted the Socialist Workers Party from campaign finance disclosure requirements, because of Cold War era threats faced by their members. Acknowledging the hostility the party faced, the U.S. Supreme Court wrote, “We are not unmindful that the damage done by disclosure to the associational interests of the minor parties and their members and to supporters of independents could be significant… In some instances, fears of reprisal may deter contributions to the point where the movement cannot survive.”

Today, entrenched interests continue to take punitive actions against those who challenge the status quo. Last year, JPMorgan Chase closed the bank accounts of the National Committee for Religious Freedom and refused to restore access unless NCRF divulged their donors to the bank.

Fidelity Charitable, a division of Fidelity that advises clients on their philanthropic giving, blacklisted Alliance Defending Freedom, the religious liberties law firm that has secured several victories at the U.S. Supreme Court, refusing to refer donors to the organizations unless their giving is publicly disclosed.

When a fundraiser was launched to help support the legal defense of Kyle Rittenhouse, the crowdfunding app GoFundMe shut down the fundraiser, alleging an unspecified violation of its terms of service. Furthermore, those who were able to contribute were doxxed and faced harassment, including one Virginia law enforcement officer who was fired from his job for the offense of donating to the left’s most recent villain.

This is why Republicans in Congress must tread carefully when shining a light on the left’s use of nonprofit organizations: any response that empowers the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to take a more active role in policing the political activity of nonprofits would inevitably be used against conservatives seeking to disgorge entrenched power.

This was demonstrated when the IRS targeted Tea Party groups for extrajudicial scrutiny during the Obama administration, limiting the right’s ability to organize at the height of the 2012 presidential election.

Despite the various rationales for censorship given by the defenders of the status quo, the message is clear: if you dissent, you will be punished. Conservatives need to embrace all of what it means to be a countercultural force fighting against the status quo, which includes securing privacy protections that fuel the battle of ideas in this country.

As conservatives learn to rage against the machine, they will need all of the robust speech and privacy protections guaranteed by our Constitution because their opponents have many institutional tools at their disposal to weaponize against them.

Fortunately, the First Amendment exists to shield the counterculture from the censorious desires of the establishment.

Brian Hawkins is Senior Director of External Affairs of People for United Privacy.

 

Brian Hawkins | Daily Caller News Service

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

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

The post The Right Must Embrace The Counterculture appeared first on Granite Grok.

Given the direction of the culture, the next queen of England will probably be a man. Don’t scoff, it’s true. Until their foreign invaders take over, there is little to stop that trajectory; after all, the monarchy is just one more institution the communists need to undermine. Meanwhile, back in the colonies …

 

Oak Park High School students in Kansas City, Missouri just got sent a message loud and clear: boys are just better at things than girls are. Even at being a girl. Tristan Young, a male student who identifies as a female, was crowned the homecoming queen this week. He beat out four lovely female candidates because actually identifying as the gender that you are is like, sooo 2010.

It makes sense these days. A male dressed as a female (a transvestite) is colloquially referred to as a queen or drag queen. Who better to pick as your queen than a queen?

The students had four actual ladies (who never had a penis of their own) from which to choose, but they picked the guy because being the queen comes with a lot of responsibility so those big holders will help.

Actually, I suspect the majority was swayed by how it might feel if anyone found out they didn’t vote for the dude. What might the cultural Stasi do to you? There are plenty of examples of how non-conformists are treated. Wander off the plantation, and you get socially hobbled. Or was it a too many other choices thing? Had there been but one other girl to choose, she might have had a chance, the way the RGA pushed too many Republican governors into the ring to challenge Trump, and now they’ve bolloxed their scheme. Haley’s not winning South Carolina, Christie is not winning New Jersey, and even Ron DeSantis might not win Florida.

Somebody screwed up. Is that place run by teenagers or something?

Actual teenagers have to deal with being blamed for slavery, labeled as systemically racist and colonialist, and now they have to come home to a guy in a dress as your queen, or else!

It’s the new #MeToo stereotype—where women get screwed by men against their will, but this time by majority vote.

 

HT | LibTikTokk Tok

The post High School Puts the ‘Queen’ Back In Homecoming appeared first on Granite Grok.

Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona recently said that while he doesn’t have a problem with differences of opinion, he feels that things have changed regarding the tone of conversations about education.  In the past, he says,

 

There was civility. We could disagree. We could have healthy conversations around what’s best for kids.

 

Call me old-fashioned, but as I understand it, civility implies an absence of violence or even the threat of violence.

What Cardona is saying is that as long as he gets to take your money — under the threat of violence if you don’t fork it over — and use it the way he and his friends think it should be used, it’s fine for you to disagree, but you should be polite about it.

That’s a ‘healthy conversation’.  That’s ‘civility.’

This suggests that maybe we ought to revisit our statutes regarding robbery. If you wear a nice suit, speak politely, and give the person you’re robbing a chance to disagree about what’s best for the two of you (so long as you end up with his money), it’s not really a robbery.

It’s just the kind of civil, healthy conversation that our Secretary of Education says we should be engaging in.

 

 

 

The post By Civility, I Mean… appeared first on Granite Grok.

Would you be surprised to discover that a commission in Massachusetts might have devolved into a vindictive, self-enriching trainwreck with no transparency? Of course not; this is Massachusetts.

 

“Since its creation in 2017, The Cannabis Control Commission has faced what sometimes feels like an endless stream of scandals. The public deserves some accountability on why these issues have proven so hard to stamp out, and what long-term changes the agency is making to get its work done with more transparency and efficiency,” State Sen. Michael Moore said in a statement Monday.

 

The committee commissioner was suspended – but not for having “a pair of marijuana license cultivation applications, despite her position.” No one knows why she was put on paid leave, but she is still collecting her $182,000+/year salary.

 

Licensees have testified to legislative committees over retaliation by commission investigators and complained about transparency.

 

This reminds me of that time on GraniteGrok when I said letting the government control/manage the marijuana business might be a bad idea. How scrabbling for any semblance of permission to use cannabis would empower oppressive forces with an infusion of additional revenue. That it might not be worth the long-term pain and suffering, though you could – if needed – smoke some weed to try and forget about that for a while.

 

• Legal Weed in California Leads to More Marijuana Enforcement (not less).
• Lawsuit – Medical Marijuana Users Want to Keep Second Amendment Rights
• How About a 26% Tax on Marijuana Sales To Keep Prices “High”
• Support for Latest Marijuana Legalization Bill Not Worth The “Price”
• Study – 12% of Drug-Related Fatal Car Crashes Involved Marijuana
• Weed is Still Illegal in New Hampshire, so Why is Bud Barn in Vermont Advertising on Keene Radio [Update]
• Legal Weed is in Trouble – Will it Demand a Cartel and Law Enforcement Support to Protect It?
• Is Maine Building a ‘Budding’ Weed Cartel?
• A Public Service Reminder, NH – As HB639 Advances: You Can’t “Legally” Have Guns AND Weed

 

And as with all organs of the government, the apparent solution to whatever ails it is to request a massive budget increase.

 

“Considering the 23% funding increase the CCC requested during FY24 budget negotiations, it is now more critical than ever that we make sure this agency has a plan to right the ship. Millions of our tax dollars are at stake – I am hopeful the Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy will schedule a hearing to get answers from the top brass at the CCC,” Moore said.

 

If it makes anyone feel better, several members of the Massachusetts Legislature sent a letter to the joint committee overseeing the regulators on the cannabis commission. They are concerned about the problems, abuse, and secrecy. Maybe they are all just becoming paranoid. Marijuana can do that to you, and while I do think private citizens should be free to grow a little or have a little for their use without the state harassing them, so far, state management has not gone well.

The solution in Massachusetts will likely be another commission stuffed with connected, overpaid, make-work zombies to oversee the commission that oversees cannabis, and that’s what they should call it.

The Commission to Control the Cannabis Control Commission. And they, of course, will need some oversight as well. The Commission to Control the COmmission Controlling the Cannabis Control Commission. And you have to pay them more than the commissioners whom they oversee and give them larger budgets, and It’ll be glorious, comrade!

If you want to afford the cannabis you worked so hard to deregulate or decriminalize, you’ll have to buy it on the black market, which the state will then need to police to protect its monopoly.

Legal Weed as a path to a police state. And let’s not pretend we didn’t see that coming.

 

HT | Boston Herald

The post The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission is … Out of Control appeared first on Granite Grok.

Let’s start with what DeSantis needs to do next. Abandon New Hampshire … IMMEDIATELY. And say why … BECAUSE NEW HAMPSHIRE REPUBLICANS ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF REPUBLICANS NATIONALLY; they are much more liberal than Republicans nationally, and I am NOT a good fit. Then focus on Iowa and South Carolina … reducing expectations for both, AND … fix his dysfunctional campaign.

OBVIOUSLY, DeSantis was NOT a good fit for New Hampshire … one of the most pro-abortion, pro-woke, pro-COVID-authoritarianism States in the country. The idea that the face of anti-COVID-authoritarianism would resonate with New Hampshire’s lock-us-down, mask-us-up, vax-us-up voters was and remains IDIOTIC. But it is even worse than that.

DeSantis has been trying to simultaneously appeal to the donor class and Republican voters … which CANNOT BE DONE. In order to please the donor class, his campaign has tried to recast him as some Koch-fueled JUST “cut taxes,’ “cut regulations,” blah, blah, blah, focus on the fiscal issues… which he obviously is NOT.

The beginning of DeSantis’ demise was, in my opinion, when he chose to walk back the correct answer he gave Tucker about the War-in-Ukraine and spewed the same Putin-is-Hitler pablum as the Establishment IN ORDER TO PLACATE THE DONOR-CLASS. He looked weak and NOT his own man.

And it has gone from bad to worse as the campaign turned his descent into a free-fall. He is NOT a retail campaigner. He is NOT a Koch-bot. To use a sports analogy, the DeSantis campaign’s approach is like a coach telling Kevin McHale, one of the greatest post-up players in NBA history, to just shoot jump shots from the top of the key.

Just let DeSantis be DeSantis. And that starts with recognizing he has NO CHANCE in Blue Hampshire and pulling the plug on the Granite State.

 

The post How DeSantis Lost The New Hampshire Primary … And What He Needs To Do Next appeared first on Granite Grok.

Yesterday’s preschool apprentice was a riot, and we’ve got more funny for you today –  this time tinged with a bit of irony. A parody on mandatory masking, which – as we get closer to 2024  – could be coming soon to a fearmongering community near you (conspiracy theory!).

It is not, of course, a conspiracy to think masks are coming back becasue they already have. The chatter alone has some in the public, putting them back on in public. How long before we again see people, alone in their EVs, masked?

Whether this uptick is the first drop of rain in a storm meant to promote stuffable ballot drop boxes and tampered with vote-by-mail remains to be seen, but Democrats cheat each other in elections to win races, so there’s that.

While we wait, this young lady has chosen to amuse us about people who wear them and why.

 

 

I love this woman. She’s the best. pic.twitter.com/Mpdgx1QlMM

— UltraMJTruth (@MJTruthUltra) September 20, 2023

 

The post Let’s Poke Fun at People Wearing Masks … appeared first on Granite Grok.

The strength of your character is far less important than the color of your skin. That is the belief of the Democrat Party, and for a group of people who love to apply labels, you are a flaming bunch of racists. The Democrats, specifically the Progressives, know this election is slipping away. The Biden policies are failing the American people, and the polls continue to point toward a disastrous 2024.

If people are neutral about his policies, most voters know that Biden is unfit for office today, and the numbers grow when looking at a Biden reelection bid. As bad as Biden’s numbers are, Kamala’s are even worse. What do you do when facing a situation stacked against you and there is no chance of turning it in your favor? You pull out the race card, and in this case, you threaten the DNC that you will forfeit the Black vote if you remove Kamala Harris from the 2024 ballot.

The irony of this threat is the Democrats may have already lost the Brown and Black votes. Black and Hispanic votes have always been considered automatic for the Democrats. That is no longer the case, as people of color have opened their eyes and seen how Democrat policies are hurting them and their children.

This new thinking may have been triggered by COVID and the Summer of “Love.” The isolation, exposure to the damage caused by the Education System, the rioting, and the destruction of inner cities hurt people of color the most. The disaster at the Border is also having the most significant impact on inner cities.

Thousands of illegals moving into major cities across the country are impacting housing, wages, social services, drugs, crime, and overcrowded schools. So many people are spreading throughout the country that the impact is flowing into the suburbs. No city or town is exempt. And all caused by the intentional destruction of our Border by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. We have been watching this destruction of our country for three years, and it is not the result of bad policies but policies designed to take down this great land intentionally.

We have been alarmed to watch the impacts at home and abroad by this bumbling President. Still, with each passing day, we can see with our own eyes the irreparable damage inflicted on America and Americans. It has taken three years, but the Progressive mainstream media has finally awakened and is calling out Joe Biden for his inept handling of his job.

CNN and MSNBC are now covering events detrimental to the Administration, such as Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appearance this week before Congress. The questioning was divided, with Republicans attacking the AG and the President for using the Justice Department to shelter Hunter and Joe Biden’s illegal money laundering scheme. The Democrats defended the AG and praised the President’s work, but to the objective observer, the facts spoke for themselves. Jim Jordan and those on the Right are mounting an unquestionable case that our President is corrupt and using his office and all its trappings to collect millions from our foes worldwide,

We cannot wait for the election to remove Biden and Harris. The damage will be too significant and irreversible. Biden is not only fulfilling the promise of Barack Obama to transform our country but to destroy it, and he is acting without the consent of Congress and in defiance of the Supreme Court. There are not three equal branches of government today, but someone must step up and stop this President and his actions.

This mess created by Biden is not about Race or even Climate Change, and to call it so is a distraction. The Progressives are trying to use the Race card, but they have drawn the Joker, and the dealer is not smiling. Congress has to grow a spine and say enough, and we must push them to do so.

 

The post Kamala Stays Or Lose The Black Vote appeared first on Granite Grok.

As with all things environmental, climate alarmists conclude that current wildfires are more evidence of greenhouse gas warming. This must be clarified, as human activities other than driving cars or rearing cows impact these terrible disasters. Appropriate preventive policies are dependent on an accurate diagnosis of cause. The knee-jerk “the sky is falling” pathos furthers the monetary interests of purveyors of polluting.

America’s deadliest wildfires occurred over a century ago, when climate change cultism had not eclipsed common sense. Massive fires across the Midwest frontier were the product of vast forests, sloppy logging practices that accumulated debris, and wooden homes that made quick tinder. Some 800 people died in an October 1871 wildfire in Peshtigo, WI, and more than 400 people were killed in fires in Minnesota in 1894 and again in 1918. These were attributed to logging practices.

Anthropomorphic Wildfires? Such catastrophes were not wild at all but anthropomorphic. The sensible response was to improve logging practices using the knowledge gained, build homes with brick or stone, enact building codes, and implement firefighting practices that extinguish flames promptly in extensive forests. For a time, this was effective, augmented by the timber industry’s decline. Yet this human strategy also carried flaws – extinguishing blazes immediately reduced wildfires in the short term but caused an accumulation of undergrowth as well as a false sense of safety, leading to more homebuilding in fire-prone regions.

It may be that weather changes – human-caused or not – are impacting the frequency or degree of wildfires, but how is that correctly determined if other potential causes are excluded a priori from consideration? Climate alarmists employ a one-issue ideological lens that looks increasingly silly when viewing the kaleidoscope of other potential causes. Do Americans wish to heed Smokey the Bear and prevent forest fires, or increase them recklessly to serve a climate alarmist power grab?

Climate “warriors” do not want to prevent wildfires, as scary fires are the George Floyd counterpart to climate alarmist histrionics. Just as blaming heavy rains and localized heat waves on climate change avoids consideration of the profound impacts of an unprecedented 2022 undersea volcano that more likely explains these disruptions, blaming human-generated greenhouse gases for massive wildfires ducks analysis of other, more likely, anthropomorphic sources. There will be no change in logging and forest management practices or humans risking their lives by building tinderboxes in Hades if the culprit is misidentified as carbon dioxide. In Greece, where some 80 arsonists have been arrested for lighting massive, deadly infernos, arson deniers still seek to label climate change as the primary cause. No firestorm could be more anthropomorphic than one sparked by pyromania. Yet, that cause is an inconvenient truth to those employing even natural fires as a convenient lie about climate change.

Impacts of Rewilding

Indeed, ill-conceived climate alarmist policies like rewilding (allowing large areas of cleared land to regrow) are doubly foolhardy. Rewilding will increase forest areas to resemble the Midwest a century ago. Human incursions into the wilderness will continue as forests and human habitations expand. Farmland sacrificed to forest growth will require food to be shipped further distances, increasing fossil fuel use and supposed greenhouse effects. Most ludicrous of all, well-managed grasslands sequester far more carbon dioxide than forests – rewilding thus increases greenhouse gas emissions while amplifying the likelihood of more massive blazes. This will then be presented as proof of why more rewilding, not improved forestry practices, is warranted.

A more sensible policy would be to restore confined dairy and beef cows to rotationally graze pastures instead of rewilding them. The extra grass-fed (renewable solar energy) meat could be dispatched to the Amazon to supply farmers with meat so they will stop burning forests there. Of course, farmers clearing lands with anthropomorphic wildfires in Brazil are doing so to survive and to eat: America’s wildfires are surely aggravated by neglect and poor management, then used to further a globalist power-grab that seeks to control all food in the name of climate change.

Effectively Reducing Future Wildfires

Smokey the Bear would wisely say stop stoking wildfires by ignoring best forest management practices and building death-trap houses on the edge of risky areas. Smokey would point out the moral hazards of such human behaviors, akin to building one’s house in a flood zone and then screaming climate change when the seas break in. Rewilding would likely induce Smokey to roll his eyes and repeat the frustrated refrain: “Remember, only you can prevent forest fires!”

Wildfires will decline in frequency and intensity when their true anthropomorphic causes are addressed, not by banning cows for their flatulence, interrupting tennis matches, or gluing hands to famous artworks. Alarmists cultishly fiddle as Rome burns. Not even arsonists deter them from incinerating sensible science.

 

John Klar is an Attorney, farmer, and author. Mostly farmer… And a regular contributor to GraniteGrok and VermontGrok.

 

The post Wildfires and Climate Change: What the Alarmists Aren’t Doing – And What They Aren’t Telling Us. appeared first on Granite Grok.

Boston University (BU) has dropped the hammer on its (anti)racial darling, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (Ibram Henry Rogers). Staffing has been slashed as BU investigates his Center for Antiracist Research over accusations of retaliation, discrimination, and “an underwhelming output of research.”

 

Multiple former staff members allege that a mismanagement of funds, high turnover rate and general disorganization have plagued the Center since its inception.

The $43 million, according to 2021 budget records obtained by The Daily Free Press, includes general support, such as the $10 million from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, as well as donations for specific projects. ..

A week after the layoffs, BU announced Wednesday that they received complaints “focused on the center’s culture and its grant management practices.” …

The complaint detailed multiple high-level employees leaving suddenly and allegations of a workplace culture that included fear of retaliation and discrimination.

 

According to the report, nothing was done about the complaints. It also notes that “Boston University and Dr. Kendi believe strongly in the Center’s mission, and … he takes strong exception to the allegations made in recent complaints and media reports.” What mission might that be?

 

“My hope is that it becomes a premier research center for researchers and for practitioners to really solve these intractable racial problems of our time,” Kendi said to BU Today. “Not only will the center seek to make that level of impact, but also work to transform how racial research is done.”

 

That was three years ago, and as noted above, the Center has mismanaged grant funding and produced little to nothing with it. Is that becasue the intractable problem of our time is Ibram Kendi, CRT, and the systemic division of the American People since the elevation of Barack Obama to the Presidency – The black man who destroyed decades of progress on race on purpose?

Nothing that happens at the Center for Antiracist Research is likely to produce unifying revelations becasue transforming racial research has happened, and the result is racism as the default setting. The conversation is no longer, as Dr. King would have it – about content and character. It is about the systemic inculcation of groupthink: that reverse racism is not racism unless you mean the people using the term who are most certainly fragile white racists.

It is a ridiculous argument that trips over its own shoelaces every time it targets people of color who refuse to accept the distinction. Black, brown, red, yellow, green, blue, it makes no difference. The transformation of racial research is in the same vein as the political concepts of diversity and equity. Diversity is a room full of people who appear different but think exactly the same things. Equity is an act of force that redistributes rights, wealth, or property from the people who think differently.

Dr. Kendi’s accomplishments to date are dividing people and working to ensure they stay divided, a path that leads not to liberation, be you black, white, or anything in between, but back to slavery, this time to the national government and its puppets perched in complicit state capitols across the increasingly fruitless plain.

Put another way, and I know we say this a lot: they are using you, and you will be discarded when that use ceases to have value or be necessary, and neither your gender nor your skin color will protect you.

 

The post Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research Accused of “Fear of Retaliation and Discrimination” appeared first on Granite Grok.

Oil prices are soaring, and, as always, we read in many articles that OPEC and Russia are to blame. However, if OPEC and its allies were almighty and the drivers of oil prices, why have Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude plummeted in 2022? OPEC only reacts to demand, but it is not a price-setter. It is a price-taker.

WTI is up 13% year-to-date, but it only started bouncing in May. WTI is only up 6% in the past year. At $90.7/barrel, it is still far away from the June 2022 high of $122/barrel and barely reaching the levels of November 2022.

What made oil prices plummet from their June ’22 highs? Rate hikes and monetary contraction sent the entire commodity complex down to pre-Ukraine invasion levels despite production cuts, geopolitical risk, and the Chinese re-opening. Commodity prices are driven by monetary factors, and the hawkish stance of global central banks accelerated the decline despite supply chain challenges and limits to production. Added to the decline in the money supply and rate hikes, the United States and non-OPEC production offset the negative impact of Russia and OPEC limits on some exports. Competition works. Finally, oil prices stumbled as Asian demand ended up being weaker than estimated, with global industrial production declining, particularly in developed economies.

The weakness in crude was a combination of monetary factors, increased United States supply, and weaker global demand. Those three factors have now reversed at the same time.

We cannot blame OPEC when prices rise and ignore them when prices fall.

The biggest challenge for the oil market in developed economies in the next five years is self-inflicted.

Governments and financial institutions all over the world declared war on investment in fossil fuels under the misguided view that supply and prices would not be affected. According to JP Morgan, there is a chronic underinvestment in the oil and gas complex that exceeds $600 billion per year. In 2022, with oil prices rising to the previously mentioned $122/barrel, companies all over the world continued to reduce investment in exploration and production. Development capital expenditure was kept to a bare minimum, and even some European oil and gas giants started selling their “net zero emissions” strategy, ignoring the global energy reality. Total oil and gas investment came below depreciation for the sixth year in a row, according to Goldman Sachs.

The energy transition cannot happen through ideological imposition. It requires technology and competition. Destroying the incentives to invest in oil and gas and imposing an ideological, not industrial, view of energy has made developed economies more dependent on fossil fuels.

When politicians decide, they willingly ignore economic calculations because they believe that the political world dictates prices, not supply and demand. Economic analysis has been abandoned, and the result is an exceedingly negative scenario.

Developed economies have destroyed all incentives to invest in diversification and security of supply of oil and gas driven by an ideological view of the world without having a feasible, abundant, and flexible alternative. Thus, when the United States administration imposes more restrictions on oil and gas investment, and the European Union decides to reduce nuclear capacity and ban the development of domestic resources, all they have done is make their economies more dependent on foreign suppliers.

Western governments now demand that OPEC produce more while, at the same time, saying that their nations will not use fossil fuels in ten years. This is the imaginary deal that we, in the West, offer to oil and gas-producing nations: “Dear oil and gas producers, you have to produce as much as we demand and sell it cheap, investing billions of dollars in development, but we will not use your product in ten years”. I imagine there is no rush to sign such a deal.

It is hard to believe that the global emerging market producers will be thrilled about the prospect of eliminating their energy exports only to import more “energy transition” engineering from developed nations.

According to OPEC sources, there could be a two-million barrel-per-day supply shock in the winter of 2023. Other analysts are more prudent but still see a market that is tight today and may be getting worse as the underinvestment toll becomes more apparent.

The entire bounce in oil prices since May is driven by the rushed decision of central banks to stop the monetary tightening before the inflation battle has ended and by the misguided decision to limit investments in domestic resources in the middle of a geopolitical battle without a clear alternative. Governments have created their own supply shock by placing ideological views in the energy industry. The alternatives are not evident yet; technology and availability have not been fully developed, but politicians have already decided when the transition must be completed.

Crude oil did not replace whale oil due to the decisions of environmentalists or politicians. Crude oil displaced other sources of energy because it was easier to store, produce, and transport. Crude oil and natural gas proved to be abundant, easy to manage, and economically efficient. This is the first time in human history that the energy transition has been decided by politicians without allowing technology, competition, or human ingenuity to come up with a better, more flexible, and more economical alternative. Renewables are great, but they are intermittent and volatile. We need to allow the world to produce alternatives when they can truly replace the current energy resources without destroying our lifestyle and economy.

We may blame OPEC for rising oil prices, but the fact is that they only react to weak demand and low prices. OPEC may increase production at its next meeting, but the reality is that the energy supply issues have been created by Western governments and may persist. Instead of allowing all sources of energy to compete and allocation of capital to generate the investments needed for security of supply and energy transition, what has happened is that we may have created an energy crisis by political design. The alternatives are not ready, and the domestic resources that could limit prices have been banned or severely limited.

The irony is that anyone who understands energy knows that there is no successful energy transition without natural gas and nuclear, and this requires incentives to invest in energy security. Governments will not back down, and they will prefer a decline in energy prices coming from a deep recession to an improvement coming from diversification and investment.

This may be yet another energy crisis created by political design. Unfortunately, instead of learning and changing, many developed nations’ policymakers will prefer to impose restrictions on consumers. Ultimately, the incorrect planning of this energy transition is not a question of energy sovereignty or climate change but a way to control citizens. That is why many governments prefer to see soaring energy prices because that will allow them to impose restrictions on consumers.

Daniel Lacalle, Ph.D., economist, and fund manager, is the author of the bestselling books Freedom or Equality (2020), Escape from the Central Bank Trap (2017), The Energy World Is Flat (2015), and Life in the Financial Markets (2014).

He is a professor of global economy at IE Business School in Madrid.

Daniel Lacalle | Mises Wire

Mises Wire

We heartily encourage reprints and shares of Mises Wire articles. If you wish to reproduce an article in your blog, magazine, radio show, newspaper column, classroom material, textbook, discussion group, website, or any other venue, please do so. The original publication source must be included in an appropriate place.

The post The Oil-Price Shock Is a Direct Consequence of Interventionism. appeared first on Granite Grok.

The first order of business on the agenda for the Renewable Energy Standard Working Group’s September 20 meeting was “Conflict of Interest – Discussion & Clarity.” This should be interesting, I thought to myself. What it turned out to be was ironic.

The discussion that took place was over the hired moderator for the committee, Jennifer Knauer. She is married to Tom Knauer, a policy director for the Vermont Public Utilities Commission (PUC), a fact that had apparently not been vetted during the hiring process. Furrowed brows and chin rubbing ensued.

Of course, the usual tropes about Vermont being a small state, and how everybody wears a lot of hats, and is married or related to someone with a real or perceived conflict of interest is inevitable came up. The furrowed brows quickly dissolved into chuckles, and none on the committee ultimately dismissed any idea that they would have any problems working with Knauer in her moderator role.

The only person to raise an issue with this was Chris Pearson, a former Chittenden County senator now working for the Sierra Club, who cautioned, “If we’re all saying we’re comfortable with this around the table, but there are many other observers who are now sort of going to be convinced rightly or wrongly that this is rigged, I think that’s a real problem here….”

“Rigged” is the right word, but not because of Knauer’s presence as moderator. The irony of this mini-inquest is not the subject but the inquisitors.

The Committee, charged with working to shape Vermont’s energy policy (specifically the renewable energy agenda to achieve 100% renewables by 2030) is made up of two senators, Chris Bray (D-Addison) and Anne Watson (D-Washington), two Representatives, Amy Sheldon (D-Middlebury) and Laura Sibilia (I-Dover), so no Republicans.

The non-elected members consist of Jeffrey Cram of Global Foundries, William Driscoll of Associated Industries of Vermont, Michael Lazorchak of Stowe Electric, Shana Louiselle of Vermont Electric, Brian Evans-Mongeon of Village of Hyde Park, Candace Morgan of Green Mountain Power, Ken Nolan of Vermont Public Power Supply Authority, Louis Porter of Washington Electric, Darren Springer of Burlington Electric, and Rebecca Town of Vermont Electric Co-op.

While the expertise of these people is certainly critical to understanding the issue, there is absolutely no denying that they all have a very serious conflict of interest regarding how this public policy is shaped.

But it gets much worse.

Other members of the committee include Ben Edgerly Walsh of VPIRG, Peter Sterling of Renewable Energy Vermont, Chase Whiting of the Conservation Law Foundation, and Pearson himself with his Sierra Club connection. These are all just lobbyists for ideological special interest groups with ties to and in many cases funding from renewable energy producers.

These are the most egregious conflicts of interest on the committee, and you can count on them to shape policy in ways that funnel money to their doners through mandates and subsidies.

Just look at some of the folks pulling the strings at VPIRG on their board of directors. Marianne Barton, VPIRG’s treasurer is founder of Catalyst Clean Energy Finance, LLC, a company that provides “financial advisory and strategic planning services to the solar, energy efficiency and performance contracting industries.” Duane Peterson of SunCommon. Wind developer Matthew Rubin. Their employer/employee relationship with voting committee member Ben Walsh should be of far more concern as a conflict of interest that the spousal relationship of the committee’s moderator with a member of the PUC.

Or Renewable Energy Vermont, whose board includes Chad Farrell, founder of Encore Renewable Energy, and Paul Lesure president of Green Mountain Solar. Do you think these folks have a special conflict of interest when it comes to a 100% renewable energy policy for the state? How do you think these directors are directing their employee Peter Sterling to act on this committee? With the best interests of the public in mind? Pardon my laughter.

So, yes, Chris Pearson, as one of the many other observers paying attention to what you all are up to, I am convinced – and I’m confident rightly, not wrongly — that “this is rigged.” And yes, that’s a real problem here.

 

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 Conflicts of Interest in the Renewable Energy Standard Working Group appeared first on Granite Grok.

Kamala Harris, the Czar of Czars, has all the answers. She has solved why today’s young parents resist having children. You would think it has to do with economics or that today’s offspring will be the first generation of Americans to have a lower quality of life than their parents.

However, according to Kamala, the climate gives parents pause when deciding to have children. There is no limit to what the Progressives will try to link to their climate theory. One thing that will surely curb the rising temperatures is taking the microphone away from any politician who blows nothing but hot air when they speak. There is no one with an iota of common sense who shares the Vice President’s ludicrous theory.

Contrary to Harris’ remarks, parents cite many reasons for not having children, and most are the result of decisions and policies of the Biden administration in just a few short years. The number one reason is economics. With the runaway Bidenflation, most couples live paycheck to paycheck, and no money is left in the pot for another mouth to feed. Apartments are in short supply, and rents are at all-time highs.

With the rising cost of living and incomes not keeping pace, both parents must work. If you can find adequate daycare, the price is so high that it consumes nearly one of the incomes. This conundrum puts you back at square one. The sheer cost of a child will thwart your future. Homeownership will be impossible, with supply driving up prices and mortgage rates pushing 8%. The American dream of owning a home has been changed forever. The plight of today’s married couples is not a concern for Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, or any of the elite, for they have theirs, and to hell with you.

That was just the numbers side of the issue. Good people don’t want to bring an innocent child into this world and put them through the indoctrination factories of our broken education system. They don’t want them to face the temptation and threats of a drug-riddled America. They can’t bear the thought of their young child facing gangs and a society that has abandoned morality and the rule of law because the Progressives see accountability for one’s actions as oppression. The good have given up their God-given rights and surrendered them to those who would steal them otherwise.

No, Kamala, the temperature has nothing to do with the decision to procreate. It is people like you and Joe who have deceived the American people into thinking you were acting in their best interests. It is you, Kamala, who has taken this great country and set it on a downward trajectory in three short years to its eventual death. Gaslighting is what you do best, but the light is growing dim. Your light will be out in fifteen months, and you will soon be a footnote in history. You had a chance to be a heroic figure, but that chance was squandered. But don’t be too hard on yourself. You never deserved the opportunity in the first place.

The post Kamala Explains The Climate Anxiety Theory appeared first on Granite Grok.

In 2018, the people of New Hampshire amended their State Constitution. They added “[Art.] 2-b. [Right of Privacy.] An individual’s right to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information is natural, essential, and inherent.”

In the face of looming US Supreme Court rulings that Moderates and progressives thought might end the state’s ability to terminate pregnancies, they gathered together and proposed what became Article 2-b. A constitutional right to privacy. No shadows, no penumbras. It’s right there in black and white.

There are any number of things the state has done since that likely violate it, how could it not, to which we should add the growing movement to introduce a national digital currency. An electronic central ‘dollar’ would allow regulators doing business as police state spies to observe your transactions and, in more extreme cases, limit what you could buy, how much, or how often.

Some would scoff at such an idea, but these are many of the same people who didn’t ask why the IRS needs to know when you spend more than 300.00 (later changed to 600.00) on anything. That government would use big banking and big tech to run algorithms to detect spending habits down to the dollar, which would raise flags that might trigger alerts. A CBDC makes every penny traceable.

While the bank you chose to do business with could monitor it for fraud protection, it would be illegal in New Hampshire to cough it up to any local, state, or national government without a warrant, at least technically, becasue of Articel 2-b.

That’s not to say they wouldn’t do that anyway and not tell you. Shadow warrants are a lot more common than you think. The State violates you privacy all the time and with far too little objection from the Judicial branch, happy to cash its government paycheck while letting them spy on yours.

The difference with digital currency is everything is trackable in real-time, and in New Hampshire, the government should not be able to save or store any transition data that occurs within New Hampshire’s political borders until they have a warrant.

If a State is serious about its Constitution, it will not allow violations by third parties, especially the Pfederal Government.

Sadly, one of the problems that persists among elected officials in the Live Free or Die State is a failure to understand their role as defenders of our rights, regardless of who seeks to violate them. That the State Constitution they swear an oath to uphold is the measuring stick.

To my knowledge, we’ve yet to see anyone bring a case based on a violation of 2-b, but if CBDC continues on its current path, it seems impossible to avoid.

 

The post A Government Run Digital Currency Wouldn’t be Unconstitutional in New Hampshire but Spying on Transactions Could appeared first on Granite Grok.

Prior installments of this series have demonstrated that state and national standardized test scores in New Hampshire and Vermont were poor and declining before the COVID pandemic school shutdown. We became curious about the so-called “COVID learning loss” narrative after Principal Nicole Lackie of the Croydon Village School blamed it for her students’ poor performance on standardized reading tests. Because she also said that schools no longer knew how to teach reading, we also researched the methods used to teach reading by local elementary schools.

In addition to the Croydon Village School, we’ve also looked at the elementary schools in Killington, VT, and Washington, NH. We now report on the Albert Bridge School (ABS) in Brownsville, VT.

Assessing this school is challenging because there is very little in the way of standardized test scores to determine whether it was affected by the pandemic shutdown or how it fared over time. Nonetheless, there is some data that shows test scores were falling years before COVID came on the scene.

While the number of students in this school has recently been too small for Vermont to release school-level scores from its Smarter Balanced assessment, its scores were published in 2016 and 2017. In 2016, 64% of students in the Albert Bridge School tested proficient or above in reading. That number dropped dramatically to 37% in 2017.

Jenifer Aldrich has been the principal at the Albert Bridge School (ABS) for ten years. She is a multi-age education specialist. This K-6 school averages 65-70 students per year. It has one class per grade and combines grades to balance the student-teacher ratio. She couldn’t explain the drop in SBAC scores from 2016 and 2017.

When asked how the students have done since the pandemic, Aldrich said that Albert Bridge has focused on community and social-emotional learning (SEL) and has cut back on academics. She said that students can’t pay attention to reading and math until they feel safe, have predictable routines, and have a “sense of agency.” She pointed out that most students had not had a traditional education during these last few years.

The school now asks about a child’s growth rather than what the standards say a child should know. Aldrich said the school meets students where they are, as gauged by a few diagnostic assessments, including Track My Progress, Fountas & Pinnell, DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), and PNOA (Primary Number and Operations Assessment). The school administers these tests three times a year. Aldrich said most of the students are now progressing beyond a third of a year in a third of a year’s time. Still, Aldrich is concerned about the students who are below proficiency.

ABS switched to the Amplify reading curriculum this year. Amplify is built on research from the science of reading. Since 2015, ABS has used, and continues to use, Fountas & Pinnell, along with supplements to close the gaps. As pointed out in prior installments of this series, the science of reading research has shown that the Fountas & Pinnell “cueing” approach is misguided and might harm children, even when used with other methods.

The “science of reading” is based on decades of research about how students become proficient in reading and writing and why some of them have difficulty. Using brain scans and eye-tracking technology, they found that good readers process virtually every letter in every word as they read. Some children catch on quickly, others need to be taught how to do it. Learning to read is not as natural as learning to talk. This research is summarized in an engaging podcast series called “Sold a Story,” produced by Emily Hanford, an investigative education journalist at American Public Media.

ABS is instituting another change this year to improve academic performance. Students are being grouped with other students at the same performance level. That is, all 3rd-6th grade students will work on reading at the same time, split into cross-grade groups of students who read at the same level. The same goes for students in grades K-2. If students need to cross into the other group (for example, if a 2nd-grade student is reading at a 5th-grade level), the staff will create a specialized plan.

While sympathetic about the difficulties the pandemic brought, Principal Aldrich said she was grateful that the pandemic happened now as opposed to 15 or 20 years ago because of all that has been learned over about trauma and how the brain and academic performance work.

— This story is part of a series in which we show how the pandemic shutdowns in Vermont and New Hampshire affected student performance on state and national standardized tests. We’re also taking a look at how some elementary schools in our area teach reading. Next, we’ll take a look at test scores and reading instruction at the Grantham Village School in New Hampshire. Prior installments in this series were published in the Eagle Times on September 9, 12, 14, 16, and 19 and can be easily found on Jody Underwood’s Granite Grok author page.

This story originally appeared in the Eagle Times.

 

The post Social-Emotional Learning Replaces Academics as Focus (Pandemic Shutdown & Reading, part 6 of 8) appeared first on Granite Grok.

Groktoberfest is deep into the planning stages. The event is October 28th from 1-4 pm at the Londonderry Fish and Game Club. We are working on having beer, food, music, a comedian, and a list of local and national speakers…

To be announced soon!

We will have vendor tables for local and national groups to promote their thing. We’re also considering a Joe Biden Dunk Tank, an accordion player (maybe), and recorded messages from high-profile folks we’ll announce when we’ve confirmed them.

A gun raffle also seems likely, again – waiting on confirmation.

While you wait for tickets to go live (this week!), we are open to suggestions for food and beverage vendors who are friendly to the cause of free speech and independent media and can do their thing remotely. Beer, food, heck, if you have a band who will play for (actual) popcorn and free publicity, we’re interested in that too.

We are working on our own lists, but more names are good but don’t wait to share; we want to lock things down soon.

And remember, October 28th. We hope to see you there!

 

The post Join us October 28th for Groktoberfest! </br>[Update Number 2] appeared first on Granite Grok.