U.S.-India relations present a complex tapestry woven from the threads of shared interests and divergent values. While the two nations may not align perfectly in terms of values, there are compelling reasons to collaborate on common interests. The U.S., a mature liberal democracy, contrasts with India, an emerging second-world nation, fostering a relationship marked by both cooperation and contention.

We want to thank David M. Lovlien II for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
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India’s immense parliamentary body doesn’t guarantee equitable representation for all citizens, raising concerns about its commitment to pluralism. The nation’s ethno-nationalist tendencies have sparked human rights violations against its Muslim population, particularly near its border with Pakistan, warranting international attention.

India’s stance on global issues, like its silence on the Ukrainian crisis, raises eyebrows. Its reliance on Russian liquid natural gas does indirectly support Russia’s economy and its role in Ukraine. Furthermore, India’s participation in the BRICS banking system, alongside authoritarian regimes like Russia and China, potentially undermines the Western financial system’s stability.

While Western nations have shown cautious criticism of India, a more open and candid dialogue is imperative for cultivating a true alliance. Rather than condescension, the West should approach India with respectful advice, acknowledging India’s immense population and significance. However, India must also take steps to clarify its geopolitical stance, moving beyond neutrality towards a clear alignment with liberal democracies or authoritarian powers.

As both nations tread this intricate path, fostering friendly relations will require the U.S. to address India’s shortcomings while adjusting its communication style. India, on the other hand, needs to make a decisive choice, embracing a role that aligns with its aspirations rather than drifting in neutrality’s uncertain waters. The potential for a meaningful partnership is within reach, but it necessitates a delicate balance between shared interests and the pursuit of common values.

 

David M. Lovlien II is a Merrimack County Commissioner.

The post Navigating U.S.- India Relations: A Balancing Act of Interests and Values appeared first on Granite Grok.

As promised in the last Monday Memes, I have an overflow. My meme cup runneth over.  Let the mayhem, mockery, and ridicule resume:

 

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

 

 

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

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/15-minute-interview-1.mp4

 

15 minute cities ghettos.  More on that – repeating the below video.

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/chris-sky-on-toronto.mp4

 

Consider what he’s saying: they’ll tear down existing, presumably perfectly functioning buildings and replace them with new, custom-designed buildings that are a world-in-themselves.  That’s serious money, just for one city.  But don’t forget The Line (video).  That’s mega-serious money.  Around the world, we’ve gone to ludicrous speed (video) on how much money is being sunk into this rearrangement of all of human society.

And you seriously believe – with this level of money invested in this kind of thing, let alone the power it will give the Globalists – that you’re going to vote your way out?  Protest your way out?  Appeal to the better side of their nature to realize what they’re doing and repent?  Remember, these people truly believe they’re made from finer and purer clay than you.

 

 

If yes, you think you can get through this peacefully and change things – and please note, I am not advocating violence but merely observing I thing it’s inevitable (HT JFK Jr.) – I have some prime self-irrigated land in southern Louisiana to sell you.

 

 

I’d comment what I really think, but I’d get into trouble.  But… TINVOWOOT.  Time – past time – to find your inner steel.

Alas.

 

 

 

 

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

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

Know your enemy on the Left.

 

 

 

That Biden is a child-abusing pedo is obvious to anyone with even three brain cells that talk with each other.  So understand something, down to your core:

To the TDS Left, their hatred of “Orange Man Bad” is so strong, they prefer a child predator to Trump.

 

 

Recall that one of six Democrats said that had they known the laptop was real, that’d have changed their vote.  Think about that.  It means that for five out of six, that level of fetid corruption, let alone the drugs and sex and pedo sex – with more being exposed daily – is not enough to make them rethink.  So assimilate this to your core as well:

To the TDS Left, a man who auctions off his influence to the highest foreign bidder is their guy, so long as he beats Trump.

I hate Barackus for what he’s done to my America.  The same for The Potato.  But I don’t lock up in a spit-producing rictus grimace; I’ve seen libs I know do precisely that when I say I’m a Republican (well, technically – at least on my voter registration).  We’ve called TV “programming” for decades; that, plus maybe things in the food and the water?  IMHO they’ve been clearly messed with psychologically.  Nobody truly sane locks up in near-quivering rage like I’ve seen people do at the mere mention of Trump’s name in a positive light.

We may share the appellation of “American”.  We share legal citizenship in the same nation.  We share land-mass of residence.  But I have precisely nothing in common with them aside from being of a common species.

 

 

Along these lines, read this – and then understand that to this day there are those on the Left who say Alger Hiss was innocent:

The hunt in Red August, 1948: The case of Alger Hiss, Soviet spy | The Hill

 

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

 

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

— Winston Churchill

 

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

 

On the climate scam:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/climate-scam.mp4

 

Related:

You’ll Own Nothing and Be Happy: 14 U.S Cities Planning to Ban Meat, Dairy, Private Cars by 2030 (substack.com)

Get ready to be squeezed into a very small life.  See the above video, especially Chris Sky’s video.

The USDA’s War on Small Farms | Mises Wire

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was born in the city.  My heart resonates with the above meme.  In my soul, I belong in the country.

 

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

 

Specifically on Covid / medical – because it’s that important to highlight:

Vaccine mRNA-carrying lipid nanoparticles (LPNs) spread after injection throughout the body according to available animal studies & vaccine mRNA (naked or in LPNs or in natural exosomes) is found (substack.com)

This in particular reminds me of a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with a Covidiot.  I walked them through biodistribution especially to ovaries & testes (citing the Japanese study among others), microclotting (referencing Dr. Charles Hoff), asking what they think happens to ovaries (specifically) when they are deprived of oxygen & nutrient flow; I also mentioned the Barnhardt talk about testes and his comment about a woman not choosing a vaccinated man for pregnancy.  I mentioned the declining birth rates globally.  How the immune system ruthlessly attacks cells that manufacture non-human proteins including how CD8 killer T-cells kill infected cells and causing inflammation (at the least) while doing so.  Everything was laid out step-by-step, in an easy to grasp logical progression.  And they refused the end conclusion – that the Jabs are dangerous (in the first three months of the Pfizer trials, 1,223 people died from 42,086 participants per Pfizer document 5.3.6 page 7), and that they may have sterilized their children, or at the least shortened their lives, while thinking they were doing good for them.  And they walked away from me furious at me.  Not curious at the very least.  Not angry even at the possibility that I could be right despite – to the hypothetical objective observer – my having facts, figures, data, citations, and logic behind me.  Not angry at those who may have done this to them or their children.  Angry at me… because I overwhelmed them with facts, citations, and logic to drive them to a conclusion they cannot accept.

 

 

You can’t save these people.  Maybe nibbling around the edges?  Yes.  Onesie-twosie, yes.  But in the main, they cannot – CANNOT – make that final step because then it would mean their consciously understanding:

1. Their superior intellects got massively bamboozled, and by people they trusted implicitly.
2. They’ve potentially done enormous harm to their children, and possibly ended their bloodline.
3. And – possibly the worst in their eyes – that we, the deplorable antivaxers, were not just right, but in point of fact were more educated, aware, informed, and perceptive than their super-genius selves.

And #3 is why, once circumstances truly dictate that they do actually grasp it, their greatest fury will be with us.  Because we’re going to live.  Because our children will have our grandchildren.

 

Wile E Coyote, Super Genius

 

 

 

—

 

 

 

 

 

—

Shocking FOIA Results: $11 Million to Bribe OB-GYNs to Lie to Mothers About Safety of mRNA-Vaccines. – The Expose (expose-news.com)

Video interview with text loaded with good stuff.  Related:

Pfizer drip feeds data from its pregnancy trial of covid-19 vaccine (substack.com)

Even with the Lowest Distribution in 2023, COVID “Vaccines” are Still the Deadliest Vaccines Accounting for 70% of All Vaccine Deaths – Vaccine Impact

“VACCINES ARE SPREADING COVID-19” – Dr. Christina Parks Testimony For Michigan House Bill 4471 (rumble.com)

mRNA Vaccine Toxicity – Doctors for COVID Ethics (doctors4covidethics.org)

—

CDC Now Refusing New COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports in Its V-Safe Program ⋆ Brownstone Institute

How convenient they turn this off right as they’re ramping up for another Jab-a-thon drive.

—

Mask study published by NIH suggests N95 Covid masks may expose wearers to dangerous level of toxic compounds linked to seizures and cancer | Daily Mail Online

Don’t forget the fibers off the regular surgical masks getting into your lungs:

Study finds plastics found in masks present in patients’ lungs | Features | westernstandard.news

Understand that for the most part I view the kids – and obviously the small ones in particular – as innocents.  But I’d find it truly ironic, in a schadenfreude way, that in a few years those kids were having lung cancer from those inhaled chemicals.  And again, horrific for the kids and I’m certainly not wishing it on them, but can you imagine the faces and guilt the parents would have being told that it was the fibers and chemicals from the masks they made their kids wear that had done it?

—

 

 

I can’t help but think this will be the case for The Jab.  There are those who have been Jabbed that I will miss.  Family.  Friends.  And some… not so much.

—

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

The 10 BIGGEST and Most Dangerous Lies (They’ve told since early 2020) (bitchute.com)

Dr. Vernon Coleman

—

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/masks-and-particle-size.mp4

 

 

 

—

THEY LIED ABOUT EVERYTHING

They lied about the origins of Covid
They lied about covid death statistics
They lied that there was no treatment (go home and if you turn blue then go to hospital)
They lied about the ventilators & Remdesivir
They lied that the hospitals were overflowing (while they choreographed Tiktok dance routines)
They lied about the masks
They lied about the lockdowns
They lied to prevent family visiting dying relatives
They lied about outdoor transmission
They lied about Ivermectin, HCQ, Zinc & Vit D
They lied about the efficacy of the vaccines
They lied about the safety of the vaccines
They lied to try and hide their data for 75 years
They lied to hide the extent of the vaccine injuries
They lied by even calling the shots ‘vaccines’
They lied about the need for “vaccine passports”
They lied to try and justify human rights abusive vaccine mandates
They lied about the rates of myocarditis
They lied about the excess deaths

 

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

 

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic”

— (Carl Sagan)

 

Reminds me of what I wrote here about the invention of writing allowing knowledge to accumulate.

 

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

 

Microchip implants for payment becoming reality

 

 

Like so many things, sold as “convenient”.  Or “to fight crime”.

 

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

 

Government Files About “Remote Mind Control” | The Vigilant Citizen

I don’t want to go totally foil hat, but many of my friends and e-friends have commented that it sure seems like there’s a spate of “conveniently timed” mass shootings when there’s a desired push for gun control.  Among other things.

 

 

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

 

Pick of the post:

 

 

 

Very honored to have her autographed picture on my wall at home.

 

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

 

Collected links with commentary, no subjects (too much time in that):

Texas school tried to force mom to sign NDA to get on campus (nypost.com)

Wrap your mind around this.  I can’t.  And NDA to be able to visit your child’s school campus???  Maybe this kind of thing is why?

Radical “health” curriculum for all grades – coming to your school? (massresistance.org)

—

German Cabinet passes bill to make ‘deadnaming’ trans-identified people a criminal offense, $10,800 penalty | Human Events | humanevents.com

Basically, making not honoring mental illness a criminal offense.  Brings to mind this quote:

“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”

― Theodore Dalrymple

And also in Germany, a “fashion” show.  Warning: images are disturbing.  And let me make something crystal clear: I’m not a Christian, and I find this mocking of Christianity vile.

This 2023 Berlin Fashion Show Was All About Mocking Christianity in the Trashiest Way Possible | The Vigilant Citizen

And on this degeneracy in general:

EXCLUSIVE: Dildo ring toss, ‘pin the clit on the vulva,’ and ‘family friendly’ drag show featured at Ottawa’s Pride fest | The Post Millennial | thepostmillennial.com

What’s next?  “Family friendly” sex shows?

—

Something Economically Is Terribly Off In America With Poverty Spreading As Quickly As Stores All Across The Nation Are Experiencing Record Shoplifting And It’s About To Get Worse – Gazetteller

Entirely predictable.  And what’s more:

 

 

As I wrote here, humans crave stability.  Even a miserable existence is often tolerated when it’s uniform and predictable.  Humans hate uncertainty.  It’s one of the lessons I learned when studying quality professionally: people are far, far more sensitive to variation in performance than in the actual level of it.

—

U.S. Military Will Train Ukrainian Pilots to Fly F-16s at Arizona Base | The Gateway Pundit | by Anthony Scott

Pushing pushing pushing.  Sooner or later IT will start.  I can’t help but think that they’re pushing this hard to do two things:

First, hide the global corruption levels.  If cities are vaporizing nobody’s going to care about Biden’s bribes.  Or all the wealth that’s been siphoned off in general.

Second, hide the impending demographic collapse from the Jab.  Again, vaporizing cities takes precedence over “died suddenly” and “Susie can’t get pregnant”.  (And nukes, etc., plus the following privations, would be a handy excuse for both.)

—

Lowest Burn Acreage Of The Millennium | Real Climate Science

Inconvenient data.  From the same site:

Contaminating Good Data With Bad | Real Climate Science

—

Biden Allowed Major Donor to Hand Advanced Military Tech to China – Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish articles

Just like the Clintons.  See the book Year of the Rat.

—

Free Speech Suppressed Everywhere You Turn — Manhattan Contrarian

Control the information flow, control what people believe.

 

 

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

 

Full Gun Confiscation Illinois + NO Cash Bail September. Magazine Ban Loophole. ISP Registration.

 

 

 

How the ATF is Deceiving Media in their War on Gun Dealers (ammoland.com)

To this day I get asked why American Jews are so hostile to gun ownership.  This is a good answer:

The Shtetl Mentality (jpfo.org)

Part of it is that “the police will protect us”.  Uh huh.

 

 

Don’t forget how the police “protected” the kids at Uvalde.

And that American Jewish hostility towards guns is one lever for people to hate us.

 

 

But not all of us are Jewicidal Yidiots.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

And a few articles from there:

ATF’s director says the quiet part out loud and refers to inalienable rights as a ‘privilege’ (jpfo.org)

Lessons From The Ancients (jpfo.org)

Don’t forget:

Homepage | Jews Can Shoot

And from / through there:

Florida sheriff investigating racially-motivated Dollar General shooting challenges anti-gun narrative | Jews Can Shoot

The Torah and Self-Defense (Shmirat Ha Gouf) — David Kahn Krav Maga

The above reminded me of this paper by David Kopel:

The Torah and Self-defense (davekopel.org)

And lastly, on guns:

the munchkin wrangler.: why the gun is civilization.

This is a MUST READ.

When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m
looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only
persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid.

It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the
actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation… And
that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

 

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

 

Palate cleansers:

 

 

Serious too, but I LOLed!  So I put it here.

—

—

 

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

 

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

 

 

The post Memestream News: Wednesday Edition appeared first on Granite Grok.

There is a big difference between Governor DeSantis and Governor Sununu when it comes to improving public education.  Democrats will claim that Republicans do not care about public education because they are the party of tax and spend.

All of that spending hasn’t helped public education when you look at how the United States compares to the top-performing countries. You can scroll through the TIMSS results to see that.

What would it take to improve public education in America?

We know the recipe because we saw students in Massachusetts rise to the top of the nation when they developed high-quality academic standards and tests. That recipe also included teacher training that was focused on academic quality versus the low-quality training many teachers receive in professional development today.

All of that was done prior to the national movement during the Obama administration, where academic standards were dumbed down, and dumbed down workforce training began. (Competency Based Education)

Governor DeSantis took this failed model and turned it around. Not only did they develop higher quality academic standards in Florida, they also now use one of the best tests to determine if your child is learning quality academic content. This is how you improve public education. You don’t ignore what children are learning.

 

In New Hampshire, Governor Sununu was never in support of Common Core when he first ran. He even hired Commissioner Frank Edelblut to run the Department of Education. So what went wrong? Why, after Governor Sununu’s tenure, are we still saddled with Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards?  Why did Governor DeSantis prioritize public education while Governor Sununu ignored it? That’s a good question.

When Democrats in New Hampshire claim that Republicans do not care about our public schools, they have a point. How will Republicans claim they care about this important issue?

We did get some good legislation passed by some of our Republican legislators. Students must now pass a U.S. Civics test before they graduate high school. There was legislation highlighting the importance of cursive writing and multiplication tables. But all of this came from Republican legislators who were trying to do something while the Executive branch failed to prioritize the most important tasks in front of them. FIX the ACADEMIC STANDARDS and TESTS!

None of this is easy, but DeSantis got it done. DeSantis and the rest of the Republicans in Florida can make the argument that they care about the quality of education their students receive in their public schools.

Not only did Governor Sununu fail the kids in our public schools, but he also failed the rest of the Republicans in this state who could have taken those accomplishments and shown the rest of the country that the failing public schools created by Progressive policies were addressed and fixed.

I hope Republicans will learn a lesson from Governor DeSantis. He took a lot of hits on his education policies and legislation, but in the long run, he’s helping to return public schools to a focus on academic excellence versus dumbed-down indoctrination centers.

Republicans can take the issues in public education and WIN moms over across the country. They can make this issue a Republican success story. It takes leadership.

As Joan Jacobs wisely points out in her article, Death wish: Contempt for parents will destroy public ed: “Public schools are trouble. Trust is low. Enrollment is falling. Parents are embracing new alternatives.”

Democrats are now the party that is helping to destroy public schools across the country. They are the party that is hostile to parental rights. Their solution of funneling more tax dollars into a failed system has left us in trouble on the world’s stage.

When you have to wait months to see your doctor or your care in the hospital is of poor quality because there is a shortage of medical staff, remember who was okay with sticking with dumbed-down public schools and who fought to provide a better public education for those enrolled in our public schools.  We need highly educated graduates from our public schools, or we will suffer.  Don’t believe me? Jacobs also wrote in her article titled: The path to nursing starts in 9th grade: Girls from lower-income families all want to be nurses, the community college dean told me. Few make it. They fail the science and math pre-reqs.

The Democrats have been failing public schooled children for years. We now have an example of someone willing to fight those powerful forces to improve public education.  Hopefully, Republicans running for Governor in New Hampshire to replace Governor Sununu will learn from this failure. We already know that Democrats will do nothing to improve our public schools.

 

 

The post DeSantis vs. Sununu on Public Education appeared first on Granite Grok.

At an Aug. 14 news conference, NASA and other experts proclaimed that, according to “clear science,” current record-high temperatures are attributable to human activity. Yet NASA did not present any scientific evidence to demonstrate a connection between current warm temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions and ignored the massive non-anthropomorphic impact of last year’s record-breaking under-ocean volcano.

Related: NASA: Water Vapor from Massive 2022 Underwater Eruption Could Warm Earth’s Surface for Years

Is NASA just another Biden/Harris social justice agency spewing unscientific climate fears to accrue more power.

A press release made plain the agency’s position: “NASA data confirms what billions around the world literally felt: temperatures in July 2023 made it the hottest month on record. In every corner of the country, Americans are right now experiencing firsthand the effects of the climate crisis, underscoring the urgency of President Biden’s historic climate agenda,’ said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. ‘The science is clear. We must act now to protect our communities and planet.’”

The same release incorporated a similar conclusion by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director Gavin Schmidt: “This July was not just warmer than any previous July – it was the warmest month in our record, which goes back to 1880. The science is clear this isn’t normal. Alarming warming around the world is driven primarily by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.”

These two statements share an obfuscation: The science is very much not “clear.” They both rely on a presumption that all planetary warming is caused by anthropomorphic climate change and thus violate the fundamental scientific-statistical maxim that “connection does not prove causation.” No scientific evidence suggests that there is an anthropomorphic connection between this heat wave and climate change — let alone proof of causation.

NASA in Political Lockstep

There is a pattern of labeling fuzzy climate-crisis claims as “clear” science. If temperatures dropped to record lows this winter and some conservatives pointed to that as evidence against climate change, the left would dismiss it as an aberration. Now there is a heat wave, and the left screams that the sky is burning. This double standard of extrapolating anecdotal evidence to conjure broad ideological certainties — while impugning the credibility of anyone who does so in chilly times — is evident in NASA’s current posture.

The lockstep dogmatic coordination between Joe Biden and Bill Nelson has been consistent since the president appointed him to make over the polluting NASA into a magic climate-solution techno-agency. Over-specialized technocrats and out-of-touch academics have overtaken common sense and accountability, and NASA, too, has fallen.

Right out of the political gate, in April 2021, NASA gushed about its environmental prowess and what a savior of the world the Biden/Harris team had become. It praised POTUS for specific policies, which include adding NASA to his White House Climate Task Force, committing to the Artemis program (staying on schedule for moon landings in 2024 and 2025 despite the heat), putting a person of color on the moon, and displaying a moon rock at the Oval Office. But what does this have to do with the (environmental) price of tea in China? How does polluting the ecosystem with more moon landings save the universe from global warming?

NASA claims it seeks “green aerospace technology,” and that its observations from space will assist in responding to global warming. Yet it is hard to imagine a solar-powered rocket launch to the moon. What is NASA’s expertise and strategy to reduce warming or pollution, and what is the carbon footprint of the Artemis program?

Volcano Impact

 

Tonga underwater volcanic eruption water vapor plume

 

It seems plausible the cause of current heat records is a record-setting under-ocean 2022 volcano eruption that NASA tracked as environmentally impactful but now excludes from any scientific consideration in the latest “clear, incredible science” that informs the agency’s “critical policymaking decisions.” If NASA is to credibly speak to planetary warming, surely it must express a clear scientific opinion about not only record-breaking heat waves but also record-breaking volcanoes. Yet it seems to have completely ignored a momentous meteorological event in its recent claims of an anthropomorphic climate crisis: Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai.

In August 2022, NASA reported that the eruption “blasted an unprecedented amount of water into the atmosphere”:

“When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, it sent a tsunami racing around the world and set off a sonic boom that circled the globe twice. The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The sheer amount of water vapor could be enough to temporarily affect Earth’s global average temperature.

“Th[is] not only injected ash into the stratosphere but also large amounts of water vapor, breaking all records for direct injection of water vapor, by a volcano or otherwise, in the satellite era … The excess water vapor injected by the Tonga volcano … could remain in the stratosphere for several years. This extra water vapor could influence atmospheric chemistry, boosting certain chemical reactions that could temporarily worsen depletion of the ozone layer. It could also influence surface temperatures … since water vapor traps heat [emphasis added].”

However, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai was many times more powerful than NASA assessed. One study concluded: “[D]ue to extreme altitude reach of the eruption, volcanic plume circumnavigated the Earth in only one week and dispersed nearly pole-to-pole in three months. The observations provide evidence for an unprecedented increase in the global stratospheric water mass by 13% as compared to climatological levels … The unique nature and magnitude of the global stratospheric perturbation by the Hunga eruption rank it among the most remarkable climatic events in the modern observation era.”

These clear scientific facts don’t align with NASA’s unequivocal attribution of current warming events to anthropomorphic causes. The agency watched an epic volcano with negligible climate comment, then raised a histrionic ruckus over a heat wave as human-caused without weighing the possible impact of Hunga Tonga. So much for “clear, awe-inspiring science.” Hunga Tonga’s absence from NASA’s assessment suggests the agency is not as good at looking down at the planet as it is looking up to ideologues for direction.

 

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

The post Is NASA Just Another Biden/Harris Social Justice Agency? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The number of outdoor out-of-control fires set by arsonists worldwide could lead you to believe that there was a coordinated global eco-terrorist strategy to forcefully advance a false agenda about climate change. Man-made, sure, by arsonists.

Related: Yeah, So … About Those Wildfires (Revisited)

Eco-Arson has resulted in considerable damage in the US, Australia, the Amazon, Canada, Italy, Sicily, and now Greece, where at least 20 people have died.

 

Greece has strongly condemned the actions of “arsonist scum” after the police apprehended 79 individuals suspected of arson in connection with the devastating wildfires sweeping the country. Vassilis Kikilias, the Civil Protection Minister, revealed that there have been multiple attempts by arsonists to ignite fresh fires on Mount Parnitha, located northwest of Athens. The nation is currently grappling with hundreds of wildfires that have tragically claimed the lives of at least 20 people this week.

Eco-arsonists are becoming a bigger threat than lone-wolf military-aged Muslim mass shooters. It could also put a crimp in the eco-terrorist’s direct action to advance climate change policy. The optics in Greece are terrible.

 

Tragically, the bodies of 19 people believed to be migrants, including children, were found in the Evros region earlier this week. Additionally, a shepherd lost his life in the fires in the Boeotia region on Monday.

 

You killed migrant children. That’s a bad look, and it’s murder, not that eco-terrorist mind a bit of depopulation from direct action. But it should twist the panties of climate cultists yanking either the climate justice or climate refugee claim. You say they were displaced by man-made warming only to die as a result of man-made wildfires.

On the flip side, all that particulate matter released into the atmosphere as a result of the arson could have a counter-effect to the warming created by the water vapor ejected into the atmosphere by the Tonga undersea eruption. Arson as direct action could help lower the global average temperature, which has not been rising as advertised.

Despite the media-presented perception, the global average temperature, even using their rigged data stations, has been flat for the past seven or eight years.

 

 

The 2023 US burn average is also at historic lows despite the very wet winter priming the southwest and west for the massive wild grass fires that have inspired arsonists in other countries.

 

This suggests we need a new category and tracking for fires and burn average, much the way a death might be reclassified as murder after new evidence comes to light. These are not wildfires. They may run wild after being set by arsonists, but the cause is arson, not lighting or Westerners driving SUVs. It isn’t even an unintentional act like a campfire not properly extinguished or a lit cigarette flung from a passing motor vehicle.

Deliberate forest and grass fires need their own classification, and while eco-terrorism works for me, I think that needs to be institutionalized as a criminal designation and reported accordingly alongside or as a factor of charts like total burn acreage.

But I’m not holding my breath.

 

 

 

The post Are They Really “Wildfires” if You Arrested 79 Arsonists for Starting Them? appeared first on Granite Grok.

I am not ready to hop on the DeSantis train, but he drew a clear contrast this week of what a President and a leader should look like. I am not referring to the outward appearance of a young, vibrant DeSantis standing next to his beautiful wife versus the mumbling Joe Biden forced to wear soft-soled shoes to remain upright standing next to his elder-abuser wife with the dresses that remind me of Nana’s old curtains. Before anyone accuses me of taking a cheap shot at the First Lady, let me call a spade a spade. Anyone who lets their aging spouse embarrass himself daily abuses their loved one.

I am looking at the places these men choose to visit, the message they deliver, and the connection they have with their audience. Ron DeSantis’ state of Florida is facing an assault from a potential Category 4 Hurricane this week. He could have chosen to go to the beach for vacation or maybe to the mountains, but instead, he pulled himself from the campaign trail to be in Florida, where he could react as needed to the storm and its damage. When a town in Hawaii was burning to the ground, our President first went to the Delaware shore for some beach time and then to Lake Tahoe for some quality time with his son, Hunter, in a $13 million mansion owned by a donor. Joe and Hunter had a whole week to discuss the weather—such quality family time.

Ron DeSantis went to Jacksonville to address the senseless gun violence that shook that city over the weekend. The Governor was booed loudly by angry residents who blamed DeSantis for the loss of life. To his credit, he did not acknowledge the jeers and spoke right over the yelling. Joe Biden was asked recently for his thoughts on the unfortunate wildfire that leveled Lahaina, to which he replied, “No comment.” One hundred confirmed dead, images of people leaping into the sea to avoid the flames, and still over 1,000 souls unaccounted for, and our President has no words of comfort, just no comment. This must be why he has not gone to the Border and East Palestine. He just couldn’t find the right words.

There is no stereotype for what our President should look like. He could look like Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, or Donald Trump, but not Joe Biden. Our President must exude strength and inspire a country, not trip up the stairs of Air Force One, not once, but three times, or check his watch as he receives flag-draped coffins of fallen military heroes.

77% of Americans think Joe Biden is too old to serve as President. The fact is, he is not too old. He is too aged. His mental acuity has deteriorated, and it will not improve six years from now. Obviously, Joe Biden is a puppet President. He visited a grammar school on Monday and told the kids how hard it is to return to work after two months off. Joe just came from an entire summer off, and on his first day back, the only item on his agenda is a trip to a grammar school. He is not working at being President. Yet, the Democrats want to return Joe to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for another four years. Not because they like Joe but because they hate Trump. Joe Biden is not the image of America, and we need to hold him accountable for the damage he has done to America and send him to jail or Delaware Beach for a permanent vacation.

 

The post What Does A President Look Like appeared first on Granite Grok.

Lahaina is a small part of Maui, and while the devastation and loss of life were epic and tragic, the remainder of Maui is open for business, but there’s a problem. No one is showing up, and the tourism-reliant economy is collapsing.

Related: Maui Sues Hawaiian Electric for Negligence Leading to Lahaina Fire When it Should Probably Sue Itself

“…nearly three weeks after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, the sharp drop-off in visitors is sowing a different kind of fear across an island where tourism dominates the economy. In recent days, officials and others have started to sound alarm bells, begging visitors to return to other parts of Maui.

“Maui update. South Maui resorts (Lahaina is West Maui) NEED visitors. Furloughs and layoffs starting because people think the whole island is closed. It is not,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) posted Thursday on the social media platform X. “If you are planning a trip to Wailea or Kihei, don’t cancel. If you want to come to Hawaii pls consider South Maui.”

 

While I’m sure there are loads of good-paying green jobs waiting to be created, the locals can’t rely on the island, the State, or the Feds to bail them out. They need something that could attract people now, and the observations in my last piece on Maui inspired me—introducing Incompetent Government Tours (IGT).

 

Tour the wreckage left by inept and bumbling bureaucrats, bungling oversight. Witness a reenactment of their poor planning, inadequate response, and the absence of follow-up. From bad policy to poor leadership, we’ve got it all, even a scapegoat – the power company your government oversees and regulates. It’s their fault they didn’t remind us to keep crawling all over them like ants on a pineapple.

Wait, sorry, not a pineapple. Maui’s pineapple business bailed in 2009, leading, in part, to the kinds of landscape responsible for the dry, invasive wild grass that burned so well when the climate gods’ power lines sparked the fire. Then, explore how Maui could sue them instead; when the government gets it wrong, the cure is always more government, and you need “revenue” to finance that.

 

I’m sure an anti-government approach would bring in planes or boatloads of MAGA supporters who are much better tippers than the Dems and progs who preach about little people, poverty, and the environment but leave little behind them but litter and waste. Maui IGT could also get free advertising from the Southen Poverty Law Center, which will gleefully add them to their Hate Map as agitators for rights and liberty.

And don’t limit yourself to Lahaina, which you may not even be able to access. The same incompetence responsible for that lurks across Maui and the Islands. You could employ a lot of folks all over with this plan an maybe – just maybe – encourage the locals to vote for new “management.” Preferably in something other than blue.

 

 

The post Maui is Screaming for Tourists. May I Make a Suggestion? appeared first on Granite Grok.

In this week’s column, I’d like to continue discussing Graham Priest’s unusual book Capitalism: Its Nature and Its Replacement. Priest uses ideas he gets from Marxism and Buddhism to criticize capitalism. Last week, I said that Priest has interesting things to say about Marxism but I avoided Buddhism.

This time I won’t avoid it, because the account of human personality he gets from it is crucial to his rejection of libertarianism.

Priest is an eminent logician, and he is quick to cut through nonsense. He says about historical materialism:

Marx and Engels . . . draw a distinction between the base and the superstructure of a society. The base comprises the means and relations of production: the superstructure comprises the consciousness of people. And the base determines the superstructure. . . .

The view is, frankly, incredible. It is clear that ideas can have enormous impact on people. Merely consider the effects of the teachings of Christ, Mohammed, or the Buddha, and their disciples. Moreover, such ideas can have an enormous impact on the economic base itself. . . .

It is unsurprising, then, to find Engels, at least, backtracking. . . .

Engels is clearly prevaricating. He says that the base determines the superstructure “in the last instance,” but he has no explanation of what that means . . . it becomes the banality that the economic activity is necessary for whatever else to happen.

Our author also makes an incisive criticism of Marx’s endorsement of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Marx said that after a socialist revolution, a new state controlled by the workers was needed to smash the remnants of capitalism and the bourgeois class that supported it. After doing so, the state was supposed to “wither away,” but for Priest this naively ignores what we know about the psychology of power:

It is clear, however, that Marx endorsed a centralized state in some form after the demise of capitalism: something that had the power to enforce new social relations. True, Marx and Engels claimed it would eventually “wither away.” . . .

However, Marx and Engels gave no reason for, or mechanism for, the disappearance of the state.

The points were forcefully made by [the anarchist Mikhail] Bakunin . . . [who] got it right. Once the Bolsheviks were able to take power away from the relatively democratic soviets and worker’s councils, and place it in their own top-down power structure, the rest was all downhill. . . .

The lesson, then, is a quite general one. Top-down power structures do not dismantle themselves. For whatever reason they arise, they start to run things for their own benefit. Such is the fate of all bureaucracies, be they of the major kind of the Soviet nomenklatura or the minor kind of bureaucracies that have taken over Australian universities.

Why won’t people give up power? Priest answers by invoking Buddhist psychology. The self is transitory, but people cannot accept this and engage in a futile quest for permanence. Getting and holding power is one way some people try to achieve this:

Buddhist psychology provides an acute analysis of what is going on here. There is no such thing as a determinate self, yet we try to construct one. . . .

Everything is impermanent. Moreover, it is clear that we all have a sense of this, much as we might try to suppress it. . . . Now, it is clearly natural to suppose that things like wealth and power are means to control these vicissitudes, and thus protecting ourselves from them. Desires for these things are, therefore, eminently explicable by our inchoate grasp of impermanence.

It is here that I part company with Priest. He is right that people have a sense of impermanence. As the French proverb says, “Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe.” He is also right that people seek power as a means to cope with this sense of impermanence. But to dismiss the self as an illusion goes too far and is inimical to liberty.

You can retain the wisdom of Priest’s account of power without denying the existence of a determinate self. He says, “As the nineteenth-century British politician Lord Acton noted: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Acton had this insight without taking a Buddhist view of the self. (By the way, Priest has slightly misquoted Acton, though he gives the correct quotation in a footnote; and Acton is much better described as a historian than a politician.)

Why do I claim that Priest’s denial of the self is inimical to liberty? He says:

In short, a post-capitalist society, if it is to work, must be organized in a bottom-up fashion, as endorsed by many anarchists. I note that nearly all those who do or did endorse such a kind of structure, argue for it on the basis of the value of liberty and its role in human flourishing. As is clear, we are approaching matters from a very different direction. It is Buddhist ethics that is driving the picture, not libertarianism.

In Priest’s Buddhist view, if I have understood it, oppression is bad because it is a form of suffering. You might now ask, “Why don’t people try to detach themselves from the suffering that oppression causes?” Priest’s answer is that human evolution has made it very difficult to do this. People should be compassionate and thus try to lessen oppression, but doing this isn’t based on the false view that persons are separate.

Priest has no use for the libertarian account of human rights, which impedes solidarity:

People are essentially interdependent from birth. Society is not a configuration formed to enforce pre-existing interests, but a pre-existing matrix, which forms such interests and provides for the needs of its members. In other words, this aspect of the [capitalist] ideology [i.e., Priest’s claim that supporters of the social contract view people as social atoms] serves to cover over the essential interconnectedness of people. Hence it can deliver those us/them attitudes which undermine solidarity. (emphasis in original)

Libertarians don’t in fact deny that people depend on one another. Priest’s accusation of “social atomism” is misplaced, as he himself seems to recognize elsewhere in the book: “For the most part, those who espoused social contract theory . . . did not regard the situation before the contract as an historical reality. It was simply a conceptual framework aimed at justifying a certain set of social relations.” Libertarians do, though, insist that people have inherent rights that other people cannot override, and this Priest cannot abide.

Priest supports democratic decision-making. People should be able to listen to each other in order to arrive at a common viewpoint, and doing this is especially important at the local level. If you disagree with the group’s decision, the others will certainly listen to you, and take into account the suffering you may undergo because your standpoint hasn’t won approval, but there isn’t a sphere in which the group has to defer to you, where your decision about what is to be done to your person and property is final.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Priest takes a favorable view of the “bottom-up democratic decision-making” of Communist Cuba, though, to his credit, he acknowledges that the Cuban Communist Party “wields a good deal of top-down de facto power.” Cuba has in fact been an oppressive dictatorship since 1959, but evidently this does not trouble Priest.

Author: David Gordon is Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute and editor of the Mises Review.

 

David Gordon | 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.

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No data exists, but that doesn’t stop the government from striving for power as the Blue states begin to roll out restrictions on all Americans. Over 100 colleges and universities, no reason to specify them as Blue, have placed mask mandates on students and faculty and are disenrolling students who are not vaccinated and boosted.

Some school districts are already shutting down just days into the new school year. These districts cite trends, but two days do not constitute a trend line for consideration. These schools at all levels act without adequate data or facts to justify their actions. They do not pinpoint the cause of the absenteeism trend. They claim students are contracting a new strain of COVID-19, Strep, and the Flu.

Joe Biden was asked about the new strain of COVID over the weekend. He responded that he had asked Congress for funding for a vaccine
that, in his words, would work. That was an obvious implication that the vaccines for the first round of COVID were ineffective. He also stated that the new vaccine should be mandatory for adults and children, even if previously vaccinated. Obviously, the government is looking to speed through testing another vaccine, and we will be ignorant of the side effects for years. We are seeing strong, young, and athletic men stricken by heart issues, some fatal. We will not know for years what we have done to the reproduction process for young women, yet we have a President who is clear he will insist on every American taking the shot. This is wrong, and we need to resist. Many states and local governments will use these Presidential mandates to control their residents. Let’s be clear. This situation and reactions are purely political and may be the foundation of the Left’s plan to replicate 2020 and how COVID and restrictions greatly impacted our elections. This effort by every entity on the Left is definitely election manipulation.

There was a report on FOXNews Monday morning about the health hazards of masks. The same masks the government wants us to wear may be causing more harm than the germs we are protecting ourselves from. They talked about the chemicals used in the production of paper masks and how it is good practice to let a new mask air out for thirty minutes before placing it over your nose and mouth. Have you ever seen anyone let a mask breathe before wearing it? Of course not.

This is a perfect distraction for Biden. The more he can get the media to focus on COVID, masks, and vaccines, the less we will have to understand the crime family that is the Biden’s. The case is building against Hunter and more details and evidence are pointing to Joe Biden for being the head of the cartel. Nobody with an iota of logic and commerce sense can look at the evidence and deny Joe Biden was complicit in the actions of his crime family.

Congress is scheduled to reconvene on September 6. You can expect Kevin McCarthy to open an impeachment inquiry before the sun sets that day.That same sun is setting quickly on the Biden Presidency and no mask or mandate can stop it.

 

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Given that we can share the unvarnished truth ‘cuz America, I was (sort of, kind of) expecting our traffic to take a bit of a hit when the EU’s new censorship regime went into effect. Nothing yet, but we should note the globalists see this as a template for the world.

Emphasis in the original.

 

More than a dozen of the world’s biggest tech companies face unprecedented legal scrutiny, as the European Union’s sweeping Digital Services Act (DSA) imposes new rules on content moderation*, user privacy and transparency.

From Friday, a host of internet giants – including Meta’s (META.O) Facebook and Instagram platforms, Apple’s online App Store, and a handful of Google (GOOGL.O) services – will face new obligations in the EU, including preventing harmful content from spreading, banning or limiting certain user-targeting practices, and sharing some internal data with regulators and associated researchers…

 

We do not get much traffic from social media in general, so there is no loss there, but any filtering of search results could cut into our EU traffic. Depending on the month, there are typically a few European Countries in our top ten for daily traffic. Today, for example, the UK is number four, the Netherlands is seventh, and Germany is tenth.

By the way, China is consistently in the top three, as is Canada, and both are unfriendly to free speech.

And if you care, Pakistan, Australia, and India are also in the top ten for the past 30 days, and again, I have no idea why except when the majority language is the same, but I suppose Google translate has gotten better so that’s less of a limitation than it once was.

As for the EU thing

 

The overarching goal of the DSA is to foster safer online environments. Under the new rules, online platforms must implement ways to prevent and remove posts containing illegal goods, services, or content while simultaneously giving users the means to report this type of content.

Additionally, the DSA bans targeted advertising based on a person’s sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or political beliefs and puts restrictions on targeting ads to children. It also requires online platforms to provide more transparency on how their algorithms work.

 

And then this.

 

The EU is seen as the global leader in tech regulation, with more wide-ranging pieces of legislation – such as the Digital Markets Act and the AI Act – on the way. The bloc’s success in implementing such laws will influence the introduction of similar rules around the world.

 

The EU is leading the way on censorship with more than a foot in the door. They encourage member states to impose monarchical speech standards where the government approves it. If you dare to challenge that, you might end up like this guy.

 

This is about a Norwegian man named Trond Harald Haaland. He has long been outspoken about things like the World Economic Forum, climate change and vaccine passports. He has posted a lot about the excess death rates we have been seeing after the roll out of the mRNA vaccines.

In other words, this is a man who does not believe the mainstream media narrative. He thinks for himself. And he has been actively criticizing the Norwegian health system for what happened during the pandemic. …

Now someone had anonymously reported him to the police for being “mentally unstable”. We have no idea who it was. Could be anyone. It could be some antifa extremist that had reported him for all we know.

Then the police contacted the health system based on this anonymous tip.

That is all that was needed for two “health care workers” together with two uniformed police officers to arrive at his door and forcibly haul the man away and lock him up in a phsyciatric ward.

 

Before the response to COVID, we’d consider this extreme, but no more.

Now add the growing political embrace of assisted suicide and its proposed use on the poor and mental health patients, and we can see a path from state-sanctioned censorship to medical execution.

The EU’s new law is currently directed primarily at ad content and large platforms, but they have the totalitarian itch, and mission creep will expand the reach under the guise of limiting content they deem harmful, especially when it contradicts their politics and policy.

The law itself will become the harmful content, and the people of Europe will be the ones that suffer.

 

 

HT | PJ Media

 

The post EU Censorship Laws (To Prevent the Spread of ‘Harmful Content’) Went Into Effect Last Friday appeared first on Granite Grok.

Of the many silly arguments the NeverTrump grifters bloviate, one of the silliest is that their candidates, unlike Trump, are electable. These NeverTrump grifters are, at best, delusional or, at worst, simply lying. Polls consistently show that GOP voters no longer support forever-wars … voters are savvy enough to understand that it’s Mitch McConnell’s inflation as much as Joe Biden’s … and to understand that you can’t end the “weaponization” of government when Kevin McCarthy’s House GOP fully funds the corrupt government agencies that are a far, far greater threat to “our democracy” than Xi and Putin and every other bad foreign actor combined.

A poll from Rasmussen ranking the issues. And what, for example, is Nikki Haley talking about? Well Field Marshall Haley is going to “take the fight to China”:

Which of the following issues is most important to you when it comes to deciding who to support for the 2024 election?
23% Inflation
20% Government corruption
17% The border
13% Government spending & debt
5% Climate change
4% Job market
4% Crime
3% Russia
2% China
9% Not sure https://t.co/MSxxtULddG

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) August 27, 2023

It speaks volumes about the state of the GOP that Bobby Kennedy, a Democrat, is more in tune with actual voters (read the entire thread to see what I mean) than the non-Trump GOP Presidential candidates:

The #GOPDebate last night was out of sync with the mood of the country. It began with a request for comment on Oliver Anthony’s @AintGottaDollar song, “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 24, 2023

The post Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is More In Tune With GOP Voters Than The Non-Trump Presidential Candidates appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you want to know what the Left would do to America, pay attention to what it is doing to Minnesota. The Gopher State went into the 2023 legislative session with a forecast budget surplus of $18 billion for the 2024-2025 biennium. Given November’s election results, most observers expected some mix of spending increases and tax cuts.

Instead, not only did the DFL ‘trifecta’ spend almost all of that surplus, it also raised taxes and fees by $10 billion over the next four years.

Minnesota’s state government spending will be 33 percent higher in 2027 than it was in 2022. This includes, among other things, new spending on welfare via refundable tax credits – rebranded “tax cuts” by the state’s biased media – free college tuition for children of families making less than $80,000 annually, and free healthcare, the latter two available to illegal immigrants. State employment will swell by thousands just as a new, higher pay deal has been agreed with state employees, and a brand new payroll tax will fund a generous paid family and medical leave scheme, although nobody actually knows how much this will cost. (STONE WASHINGTON: Minority-Owned Businesses Suffer A Second Pandemic Of Crime As Local Governments Handcuff The Police)

To pay for all this the DFL raised a range of taxes, including sales and gas tax, imposed new ones, such as on home deliveries and newly legalized marijuana, and hiked a range of fees on things like cars and boats. Primarily, they relied on hikes in pro-cyclical taxes such as ‘global intangible low-taxed income taxation’ and a new net investment income tax. As Mark Haveman of the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence notes, “Minnesota is replacing the least volatile sources of state income tax revenue—salaries, wages, and Social Security income—with the most volatile sources.” If the economy hits trouble, so will the state’s budget.

All of this will exacerbate one of Minnesota’s persistent problems: the flight of residents to other parts of the United States, with Ron DeSantis’ Florida being the top destination. Indeed, the last two years have seen record numbers of Minnesotans fleeing the state. We are hemorrhaging residents, on net, in five of the six categories the IRS reports – including those under 26 – and in every income category above $25,000 annually.

Gov. Walz admits that this is a problem but, while research has clearly found that taxes play a role in where people choose to live and work, his administration has hiked them. The DFL is gambling that it can offset the ‘push’ factor of higher taxes with the ‘pull’ factor of left-wing social policies – culture over economics.

 

 

NBC hailed “protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana and restricting gun access” as the trifecta’s key achievements, noting that “they have signaled their plans to take on issues like…providing legal refuge to trans youths whose access to gender-affirming and other medical care has been restricted elsewhere.” The Daily Beast celebrated “a wide range of progressive reforms” including “a bill making 55,000 felons eligible to vote” and “a measure allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver’s license.” Will this attract enough people to reverse Minnesota’s historic outflows? The research here is somewhat thin. (RELATED: HUNTER TOWER: Dem Governors Buy Union Backing — Just Like Biden)

Fifty years ago, Time magazine famously branded Minnesota ‘The State That Works.’ That claim rested on a thriving urban center, strong economy, low crime, clean politics, and exceptional education. In 2023, Minnesota can offer none of that. Minneapolis is now a ghost town, the state’s serious crime rate is higher than the national average, the largest fraud in the United States stemming from payments made during the COVID-19 pandemic occurred here, and our preK-12 ranks 22nd, down from 8th as recently as 2017. The legislative “triumphs” heralded by the national media will do nothing to improve any of those.

This matters beyond Minnesota. As Democrats search for an alternative to the ailing President Biden for 2024, some have offered Gov. Walz. The Daily Beast has branded him “the anti-DeSantis,” a comparison Walz has invited but which DeSantis would surely relish. The New Republic argues that Minnesota shows “What Democrats Can Accomplish When They Control a Whole State.” Sadly, we would not disagree. Pay attention

 

John Phelan is an economist at the nonprofit Center for the American Experiment. He previously worked as an economist for Capital Economics in London, where he wrote reports ranging from the impact of Brexit on the British economy to the effect of regulation on cell phone coverage. He holds an MSc from the London School of Economics.

 

John Phelan | 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.

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This week at the Republican Primary Debate, Nikki Haley referred to Donald Trump as the “most disliked politician in America”, apparently missing the irony of the moment given he didn’t attend the event because his popularity among the American voter is off the charts relative to her and the rest of the field.  Despite being ridiculed for running since day one – late-night hosts mocked him, politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Lindsay Graham guaranteed he’d lose, A-list celebrities like George Cooney superciliously dismissed the notion, and the media scoffed right up until the moment he was elected – Donald Trump’s popularity grew.

In his four years in office, the overwhelming narrative from the establishment class (coastal city, Ivy League graduate, upper-class income, etc.) was Donald Trump and his supporters are deplorable and bad for the future.  Before he could even start his term in office Rashida Tlaib vowed “We’re going to impeach the m*****f****r”.  Quickly, he was described as a racist, white supremacist, inveterate lying, misogynist, and xenophobic bigot – minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.  Clearly, this life-long showman had pulled a fast one on the slow-witted American people and the erudite class were duty-bound to make us wise to the scam.

The only problem was it wasn’t working.

No matter how vitriolic the charges, the people knew who and what they voted for and, thanks to the internet and to the chagrin of his detractors, were able to see the man and the results for themselves.

They voted to protect the border, he promised to build a wall, and he did.  They wanted more jobs for Americans, and he delivered manufacturing plants to the states.  They wanted to get out of endless wars, and he refused to start any.  They wanted fewer taxes, and so he cut them.

Though he was pilloried as an arch-white supremacist, misogynist, and racist, he somehow managed to create an economy where more black female entrepreneurs succeeded than at any time in history. He freed black prisoners and guaranteed funding to Historically Black Colleges ten times longer than America’s first black president, Harvard’s very own Barack Obama.  CNN’s own black analyst, Van Jones even had to tip his hat to Trump’s victories for black Americans.

We wondered about NATO spending, so he took the member countries to task.  We didn’t want to suffer the economic disaster of the climate change accords in Paris, so he withdrew us from them.  We were tired of fearing Middle Eastern terrorists like ISIS, so he took them out, and we were even more tired of funding them by buying their oil, so he opened up our pipelines and made us energy-independent.

All the while, the media tried to convince us he was perhaps the worst person on the planet.

It just wasn’t adding up.

Making good on Tlaib’s prophetic promise to impeach, the Democrat majority drafted the articles claiming Trump colluded with Russia, only to find out the evidence was bought and paid for by his vanquished presidential competitor Hillary Clinton.  This was followed by an exodus from the Democrat party.  The Walk Away campaign, founded by a gay man, suddenly exploded in numbers of loyal leftists seeing through the façade and walking away from what they knew to be lies.  The black community began to rally around Trump, giving thanks for using his office to support their needs.  The iconic Kanye West sought to work with Donald Trump and was castigated by white and black elite as crazy, even suggesting he was no longer black.  Suddenly, blackness was a political position, not an immutable characteristic.

Another prophetic prediction from soon-to-be media darling and establishment elite member Anthony Fauci warned Trump would be facing a breakout virus.  How he knew this is unclear, yet he stated it with the certainty of someone with insider information.  Suddenly, the pandemic came, and what followed was a cascade of government overreach and abuses both in America and worldwide the likes of which we had never seen.  No matter what Trump did, even pushing for their sacred vaccines, he was credited only with the disasters.  Once his predecessor, Joe Biden, took over, the media winds shifted 180 degrees.

It’s as if these people cannot see what they’re doing enough to realize Americans see right through it.  Their behavior is that of narcissists who cannot be told they might be wrong and are practiced at the art of projection and gaslighting.  Shrouding themselves in self-righteousness, they believe the object of their scorn should be the object of everyone’s scorn.  You must hate what they hate, believe what they believe, and practice what they practice.

The party of tolerance not only didn’t show any for Trump or his supporters but actively promoted violence toward them.

History is littered with examples of this social dynamic, perhaps never more so clearly as what we read in the Bible, a book the establishment likewise disregard as comfort for imbeciles.  Rather than read it and see the parallels, they can’t be bothered.  So they won’t see how uncanny their behavior is to the political and religious leaders in first-century Israel.  Like the Romans, Pharisees, and Sadducees they have constructed a mountain of rules and regulations, approved gods and behaviors offering them power over the plebes who suddenly were listening to a low-life saying he had come to make Israel great again.  However, the powers that be only heard the ramblings of someone who was exposing their corruption and how wrong they were despite their painstaking attempts to appear righteous.

You may be thinking I’m lionizing Donald Trump and comparing him to Jesus, but like them, you’d be missing my point.  Rather, what we are witnessing is a man beleaguered by an elite guard who have convinced themselves of their superiority and even god-like ability to rule the world.  They feign being champions of freedom as they pile burden after burden on the commoners.

If anything, Trump is more like David or perhaps his womanizing son Solomon, both of whom were demonstrably broken human beings, failing in the same ways we see Trump fail.  David suffered similar persecution by King Saul for much of his political life, and Solomon came clean with us that he chased women and built palaces and monuments not much different than the New York real estate developer who plasters his name on nearly everything he makes.

Trump, despite his own narcissistic tendencies, has repeatedly pointed us to the Creator in his humbler moments.  This is what the deplorable class love about him.  He reminds us of the broken heroes of old, exposed for their weaknesses and failings but with the courage and conviction to take on the powers who will oppress us for, as they see it, our own good.

Trump’s appeal is not him.  It’s his willingness to call out the phonies, the industry of liars, and the brutal honesty of a man who’s benefited by the system.  His promise is tied to America’s promise to its citizens – you were made to be free to pursue lives of happiness and prosperity, not be ruled by tyrants.

He is loved because he understands America, unlike those who are hell-bent on fundamentally transforming it until it is no more.

 

The post Why the Establishment Can’t Solve the Trump “Problem” appeared first on Granite Grok.

One of my favorite Dalrymple quotes is (paraphrased) that misery will always rise to meet the government subsidies created to alleviate it. And so it is with residential solar. The number of installs near my home has exploded, as has another interesting habit.

Related: Biden’s Green Future Makes Solar Panels More Dangerous to You and the Environment

We have had, for years, a handful of homes nearby with solar on them, several of which appeared to be bad decisions. Limited sun exposure or obstructions make them of minimal, if any, benefit. That’s not uncommon in a state like New Hampshire, which is in a neighborhood of 90% forested. We’ve got a lot of trees. Tract neighborhoods have fewer as do homes in cities – the few we have – but there are a lot of homes surrounded by oak, maple, and white pine, to name a few. They block the sun, and solar is already inefficient and unreliable in the Northeast, so the solution to that problem is simple. Remove the trees.

Oh, the irony.

We need solar because of CO2, but to have solar, we need to remove CO2 syncs so the solar companies get paid, the tree people get paid, and someone else pays for cut wood, not that we don’t have plenty of that already without the solar installs.

But it happens – the tree removal. I’ve seen “neighbors” clear their yard of trees for no apparent reason, only to (a few weeks or months later) find their roofs littered with a new solar installation. It’s not just existing solar installs but pre-installs.

It’s as if Solar companies, catalyzed by government meddling in the marketplace, are the Once-ler from The Lorax. Solar is the Thneed that everyone needs, and the only way to get that is to cut down the Trufula trees—Seussian prophecy, not at the hands of the irresponsible capitalist Once-ler but so-called environmentally conscious solar companies.

Related: Michael Moore’s Green Energy Documentary Admits “Solar and Wind are Not Going to Save Us”

It is not as awful a thing as clearing an acre or two for a solar farm or, absent that clearing, the devastation to everything else that was there when they dug up the land to install the footings and structure for the panels, which will keep the sun from reaching the ground. But it still strikes me as ridiculous and, at the same time, very much in keeping with the politics of the party pushing solar.

It’s like offshore wind saving the planet, but not for endangered whales or sea birds. But if government money is available, an industry or two will rise to ensure it gets spent on them, no matter what the other “costs.”

 

 

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Don’t believe me?  Try this one on for size (reformatted, emphasis mine):

In a turn of events, Shannon revealed after 14 years of marriage, her husband met someone online who led him through a “medical transition.” Her husband also lost interest in partaking in certain activities with their children that he previously enjoyed doing. Furthermore, Shannon explained how gender ideology destroys the family unit. She shared:

“I think that gender is a lie. I don’t think that anybody can ever accomplish the goal of completely becoming the opposite sex. I believe it’s fraudulent therapy and fraudulent medicine. And it creates a lot of problems, not just the destruction of a family, which is serious enough. [But also] the erasure of fathers.”

Shannon added, “There’s this idea that runs through our society with this in other areas that adult fulfillment is more important than the family, more important than the marriage, more important than commitment. And that is why it’s harming families.”

Shannon also said her husband’s transition felt as hurtful as an “affair.”

She’s right, you know. Being one’s “authentic self” puts themselves FIRST above all other committments including one’s vow to their spouse and to their children. Doing what this “husband / father did” is a total rejection of what a husband and father is supposed to be – a Servant / Leader. While being the leader of a household (and yes, I believe in the traditional and Biblical ordering of a family, it means service to your wife FIRST and service to your children NEXT.  You’re supposed to be last.

This narcissist put himself FIRST and in doing so, willfully destroyed his wife, destroyed his children, and the family unit he had made a sacramental vow to protect. He was all happy-dappy to have “an affair” with himself.

How much more selfish could he have made himself.

Certainly, couldn’t get any more gullible, could he?

(H/T: IJR)

 

 

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Electric vehicles cost more to insure. Minor accidents can result in damage that makes the vehicle unsafe or unrepairable. A parking lot fender bender could “total” your so-called green vehicle. But that’s not the only insurance cost driving up the price of EV ownership.

There have been multiple reports in recent years of freight ships catching fire.

 

Four hundred ninety-eight electric vehicles (EVs) and over 3,200 other vehicles, including 350 Mercedes Benzes, were bound for Egypt on the Fremantle Highway when one or more of the EVs caught fire, costing at least one seaman his life and injuring several others. Curiously, the Dutch coast guard had initially reported that only 25 of the vehicles were battery-electric models.

At last report, the Dutch coast guard admitted that it has been unable to put out the fire and that the ship has taken on water and is “listing” and on a trajectory toward a capsize. Should the ship sink, the total loss would also threaten the Frisian island of Ameland, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is home to over 10,000 aquatic and terrestrial species and located near one of the world’s most important migratory-bird habitats.

 

No worries. I’m sure all that front-end carbon to build all that and then all the emissions from burning plastic and electronics – including the rare earth metals and toxins (plus the ship), can be offset. Someone just needs to pay for a few indulgences. More than one someone, I suppose. That’s only one of several such fires. And if you recall, Havila Shipping, a self-proclaimed green Norweigen business, banned EVs from all its ships. The risk of EV fires was a threat to passengers, cargo, and crew—and, more likely than that, their insurance costs.

It has become the red-headed stepchild of the ocean freight industry, like child sexual assault in public schools. Everyone knows, but no one is supposed to talk about it, not outside the confines of the local community. Schools are trying to normalize it (grooming), but freight companies can’t do that. They either assume the risk and pay more to insure freight – which adds to the costs paid by consumers – or they refuse to ship them.

 

Just a year ago, the “Felicity Ace” sank as it was being towed from the site where 13 days earlier a fire had broken out on board. That ship, too, was transporting EVs and internal-combustion vehicles – including 15 Lamborghini Aventador LP 780-4 Ultimae supercars valued at half a million dollars apiece. Also lost were 1,117 Porches, 1,944 Audis, 561 Volkswagens, 189 Bentleys, and 70 other Lamborghinis.

And just a month ago, two firefighters died battling flames that broke out on another roll-on, roll-off (RORO) cargo ship docked at Port Newark in New Jersey. Firefighters arrived at the scene when just five to seven vehicles on the 10th floor of the ship were on fire, but the fire quickly spread to the 11th and 12th floors.

 

We’re talking about hundreds of millions in freight lost, plus the cost of the ship and the injury or death of crewmembers. It can’t be cheap or getting cheaper to cover the risk, which had me thinking along another vein. Having been Hazmat certified to ship lithium batteries in, with, or separate from electronic equipment, I’ve some small sense of the hurdles you must leap before you can ship or carry such material.

Cargo is no different. Every country has rules, plus the UN international rules. In the US, we have the UN and DOT, and no one seems to have resolved this recurring safety issue. The hoops one must jump to ship a tablet with a battery cannot be greater than massive EV batteries in assembled vehicles.

So what’s with the fires?

It’s a common question these days with Arson-induced wildfires in Australia, the US, and Canada—electrical fires in California in Maui. Deliberately set fires, all of which are impacting another green industry – carbon offsets. Companies and individuals “pay” third parties so they can emit like it’s 1979. These indulgences assuage their guilt, but as we’ve reported previously, are often scams.

 

The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.

 

According to tecent research published by The American Association For The Advancement Of Science (AAAS),

 

Thales West and colleagues evaluated 26 REDD+ projects in 6 countries worldwide and used synthetic control methods to estimate how much deforestation the projects prevented. West et al. found that most projects did not substantially reduce deforestation, and that the few that did reduced it much less than had been claimed. Furthermore, the authors show that a subset of 18 REDD+ projects have generated 62 million carbon-offset credits – 14.6 million of which have already been used by entities around the world to offset their carbon emissions. According to the study’s estimates, these projects have been used to offset nearly 3 times more carbon than their actual contributions to climate change mitigation.

 

When eco-terrorists or other actors set blazes or cause them, through inaction or inadequate action, to get out of control, they may have set fire to someone’s offset while releasing even more carbon and emissions into the biosphere. Just like peaceful protesters burning down black-owned businesses, the whole thing stinks like yesterday’s burneded up EVs.

 

 

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Parents Defending Education has a summary of the 1,040 School Districts in which School Boards have abused their Powers (Government has Powers, Individuals have Rights) in forcing their staff members, including teachers, to lie to Parents concerning the transgender/gender dysphoria of their children when asked (either tangentially or directly).

Here is the New Hampshire part of their list:

• Alton School District
• Barnstead School District
• Barrington School District
• Brentwood School District
• Claremont School District
• Dresden School District
• East Kingston School District
• Epping School District
• Errol Consolidated School District
• Exeter Region Cooperative
• Hanover School District
• Kensington School District
• Manchester School District
• Milford School District
• Monroe Consolidated Schools
• Newfields School District
• Pittsfield Schools
• Sanborn Regional School District
• Stratham School District
• School Administrative Unit 23
• Wakefield School District
• Windham School District

(Links to each school District are on the Parents Defending Education page)

I happily see that, after a two-and-a-half-year struggle, SAU73-Gilford School District is no longer listed in this, which shows that one person (with help!) can make a difference if courage and persistence are brought to the fore.

I also have a Right To Know outstanding to a school district in the Exeter Region Cooperative concerning this nasty issue.

Note that the Newfields School District is on this list – NH Governor Chris Sununu’s hometown. I suppose that he is just FINE with this, given that he gave the Left the Green Light when he signed the bill making gender identity a “protected class,” forcing normal Parents with normal children to start a years-long fight to protect them against the Trans-Authoritarians.

And even though NH State Rep Mike Bordes (R- Laconia) isn’t Transgender (that I know of), he certainly is a card-carrying member of the Trans-Authoritarian Club as he has avidly voted, with his RINO posse, against the Parent’s Bill of Rights this year and last (HB272) along with introducing (I think at the Democrat and teachers unions behest), amendments that gutted the bill.  I summarized his stance thusly:

Effectively, NH State Rep Mike Bordes is SCREAMING:

PARENTS – Your children belong to Government!!  SCREW YOU, PARENTS!

The above School Districts (the School Boards and their Superintendents) are fine and dandy in giving you all the Middle Finger.  THEY have your children – and you don’t.

So what ARE you going to do about them deliberately keeping secrets from you?

Let me finish this post with this from the Fordham Institute (reformatted):

…It is not possible to overstate the level of distrust, even contempt, reflected in the practice of excluding parents from discussions about their child’s gender preference, even deceiving them if students claim their parents are unsupportive.

Moreover, such policies, typically justified as protecting students from harm, are wholly unnecessary. Teachers are “mandated reporters” in every U.S. state. If they have reason to believe children are unsafe at home, they are required by law to alert local child protective services.

In no other conceivable instances is there any justification for excluding parents from profoundly life-altering decisions about their own children. If schools insist on inserting themselves between parents and their children, they do so not because they are compelled to, but because they choose to.

The Supreme Court has recognized for over a century, going back to Pierce v. Society of Sisters, that “the child is not the mere creature of the state.” Keeping a child’s gender switch a secret from parents as a “best practice” is the state saying, in effect, “Oh, yes he (or she) is.”

And now School Districts ARE ignoring what SCOTUS has made plain: these Districts DO believe that children should, first and foremost, always be considered to be the legal wards of the State.  Parents are not. This is “Childism” – the bastard offshoot of Critical Race Theory (“ALL Whites are Oppressors, ALL Minorities are Oppressed by them) that has inverted the loving relationship between Parents and their children:

ALL Parents Oppress their children, and School Districts must save them because, being unloved, they are now OUR Children

School Districts have decided that ALL Parents are the enemies of their children. And in how much contempt do teachers view Parents:

…It is not news that Americans’ trust in major institutions has been in freefall for some time. In the case of public education, it’s a two-way street. A December 2021 poll conducted for EdChoice showed that only about a third of teachers (36 percent) say they trust parents, a level below their confidence in their principals, union leaders, and the U.S. Department of Education. This level of institutional disregard creates ripe conditions for public school personnel to assume that their judgment is superior to a child’s parents. And that’s exactly what appears to be happening.

So, anytime a Parent steps into a school, 2/3rds of the teachers looking back at those Parents find them contemptible.

And you’re going to put up with this?

 

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The leaders of China, Russia, India and Brazil met to discuss common interests with dozens of dignitaries in South Africa.  The meeting was a three-day summit seeking to cobble together currently unaligned powers who would counter Western influence worldwide.

Russian President Putin joined the conference virtually – there is an active warrant for his arrest by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.  As it turns out, South Africa is a member of the International Criminal Court. Prudence dictates Putin minimize his exposure, but 67 other countries participated. That amounts to about one-third of the nations on earth.

The gathering in Johannesburg is the 15th annual BRICS summit.

 

[Photos] Arrival of Heads of State
His Excellency President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China arrives at the OR Tambo International Airport in South Africa for the XV #BRICSSummit2023 #BRICSza pic.twitter.com/vrGWVNmfsg

— @SAgovnews (@SAgovnews) August 22, 2023

South African President Ramaphosa welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and a number of other leaders. Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East sent representatives.

 

The Russian Federation has just arrived#BRICSSummit2023 #BetterAfricaBetterWorld pic.twitter.com/OE1lT1o93a

— ATHI GELEBA (@AthiGeleba) August 22, 2023

 

Leaders are discussing expanding the organization’s membership with more than 40 countries wanting to join BRICS, including Ethiopia, Iran, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia.  This bears watching because of the size and the makeup of nations interested in not having trade disrupted by western sanctions.

There is animus about the harm done as a result of those sanctions. Many nations feel Western sanctions impinge their sovereignty and have a growing interest in forming a second international trade clearing system and a currency to rival the U.S. dollar.

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A nation’s leader just wanting his nation to stay neutral regarding a war undertaken against another nation by the United States government can set in motion a US government effort to boot that leader from office. A previously secret Pakistan government document disclosed in a Wednesday in-depth The Intercept article suggests that such a removal effort is just what the US government successfully accomplished in Pakistan in the early days of the Ukraine War.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had been steadfast in supporting keeping his country out of the Ukraine War, in which the United States and other nations have been using the Ukraine government and military as a proxy to fight against Russia. An indication of Khan’s approach to the matter is provided in this relating in The Intercept article of comments he made on March 6, 2022 — the day before the meeting between US and Pakistan officials detailed in the newly revealed Pakistan cable:

The day before the meeting, Khan addressed a rally and responded directly to European calls that Pakistan rally behind Ukraine. “Are we your slaves?” Khan thundered to the crowd. “What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and that we will do whatever you ask of us?” he asked. “We are friends of Russia, and we are also friends of the United States. We are friends of China and Europe. We are not part of any alliance.”

That type of foreign policy approach is as American as apple pie or George Washington. But, its expression by a foreign government leader to justify opting out of supporting US empire is sure to bring contemporary American uber-interventionists to rage.

The US interventionists got their way. The Intercept article relates:

One month after the meeting with U.S. officials documented in the leaked Pakistani government document, a no-confidence vote was held in Parliament, leading to Khan’s removal from power. The vote is believed to have been organized with the backing of Pakistan’s powerful military. Since that time, Khan and his supporters have been engaged in a struggle with the military and its civilian allies, whom Khan claims engineered his removal from power at the request of the U.S.

And Khan’s expressed policy of keeping his country free of Ukraine War involvement and international alliances has gone by the wayside in Pakistan foreign policy:

Pakistan’s foreign policy has changed significantly since Khan’s removal, with Pakistan tilting more clearly toward the U.S. and European side in the Ukraine conflict. Abandoning its posture of neutrality, Pakistan has now emerged as a supplier of arms to the Ukrainian military; images of Pakistan-produced shells and ammunition regularly turn up on battlefield footage. In an interview earlier this year, a European Union official confirmed Pakistani military backing to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign minister traveled to Pakistan this July in a visit widely presumed to be about military cooperation, but publicly described as focusing on trade, education, and environmental issues.

This realignment toward the U.S. has appeared to provide dividends to the Pakistani military. On August 3, a Pakistani newspaper reported that Parliament had approved the signing of a defense pact with the U.S. covering “joint exercises, operations, training, basing and equipment.” The agreement was intended to replace a previous 15-year deal between the two countries that expired in 2020.

But that’s not all. This month, Khan was imprisoned in Pakistan and barred from holding office for the next five years.

Another win for USA.

 

Adam Dick | The Ron Paul Institue

Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

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I came across a fascinating book review this week. The book is “The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes” by Nancy Pearcey.  It is loaded with insight, some of which you may have seen. The debunked point about Christian men being demeaning toward women comes from Pearcey’s research.

 

Pearcey then challenges one of the common stereotypes about conservative Christian men: that they are demeaning towards women and that their theology justifies mistreatment of women. Pearcey documents this claim’s frequency in pop culture and mainstream media, but then marshals extensive social science research to show that “evangelical Protestant men who attend church regularly are the least likely of any group to commit domestic violence.” It is nominally Christian men, those who claim Christianity as a label but rarely if ever attend church, who have the highest rates of divorce and domestic violence. All of this means that “any statistic that blends together both committed and nominal Christian men will be misleading” (37).

Pearcey then offers her perspective on why this divergence between nominal and committed Christian men emerges when it comes to metrics of family flourishing.

It seems that many nominal men hang around the fringes of the Christian world just enough to hear the language of headship and submission but not enough to learn the biblical meaning of those terms…. They cherry-pick verses from the Bible and read them through a grid of male superiority and entitlement that they have absorbed from the secular guy code for the “Real” Man. (37)

After laying this groundwork, Pearcey then goes on to trace the trajectory of masculinity through several centuries, starting roughly in the colonial era. But there is one shift that was particularly definitive in changing the role of men and the conception of home, work, and family that still has us reeling today, and continues to form much of our patterns of thinking and living.

I’m going to buy this book. The snippets on how the Industrial Revolution changed male and female roles are fascinating, as is an observation along similar lines about Darwinism (per the title of this post).

 

Darwinism’s Impact on Masculinity

Pearcey traces Darwinism’s impact on masculinity—how it became an excuse for sexual infidelity, aggressiveness, and survival of the fittest behavior in men, and how in more recent forms of evolutionary psychology, it painted men as needing to be tamed by women and marriage. Against Darwinian conceptions of masculinity, Pearcey argues, “men do not have to sacrifice their essential identity in order to marry and raise a family” (169).

 

Combined with the cultural change brought about by the Industrial Revolution,

 

For most of human history, life was structured much differently than what we presume as normal for industrial and post-industrial societies. For one, most adults—men or women—didn’t go to work in the way we conceive of it today. Economic productivity in prior times was much more connected to one’s home and family, and it ebbed and flowed naturally with the seasons. Mother and father spent more time with their children in the warp and woof of pre-industrial life, and their educational and economic ventures were joint projects. There was “an integration of life and labor,” Pearcey notes. “Husband and wife were engaged in a common enterprise (though not necessarily identical tasks). They worked side by side, suffering common defeats and rejoicing in common victories. A husband/father was the head of a small commonwealth—a semi-independent economic unit” (72).

Industrialization, however, drove a wedge between home and work, family and father. Pearcey laments, “because men were gone from home most of the day, they began losing out on dimensions of their personality that were no longer being fostered by deep relationships within the family” (92). Work increasingly became man’s domain, separate from women and children and, as such, a new set of self-interested and utilitarian principles came to dominate in the workplace.

 

The Review itself is loaded with insights worth further exploration I can only get by reading the book so I’ll add it to my queue and will share more as I find things I think worthy of your attention.

Or, you can read it and share yours with me, and I’ll share those with our readers. I’m good either way.

 

Note: We are not receiving any compensation from purchases of the book described in this article.

 

HT | Salvo Mag

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