One man stands above the crowd in an administration where incompetence and corruption are the criteria. Merrick Garland holds a position that we expect to be beyond reproach. As our Attorney General, Garland is the head of the Department of Justice and chief law enforcement officer of the Federal Government. The Attorney General represents the United States in legal matters and gives advice and opinions to the President and the heads of the executive departments of the Government when requested. The job description requires someone with a spotless reputation and the ability to interpret the law without regard for party affiliation. We do not have such a man with Merrick Garland. He has proven in two-plus years to be a tool of the Biden Administration.

The DOJ teamed with Randi Weingarten and the Teacher’s Union to target parents who dared to rise and speak up against their local school boards. It did not matter whether the issue was mask mandates, school reopening post-COVID, Critical Race Theory, Transgender issues, or the exclusion of parents from decisions about their children, anyone who dared to speak was labeled a Domestic Terrorist. These people who were only looking out for the best interest of their children were now potential targets of the FBI.

Garland used his power to slow walk anything to do with Hunter Biden in an effort to push investigations past the statute of limitations. He helped to disavow the Hunter Laptop so that it was not acknowledged before the 2020 election when it would have done irreparable harm to Biden and given a second term to Donald Trump. It appeared that the game plan worked until the plea bargain Hunter thought he would sign and start fresh blew up in a Delaware courtroom. Hunter and his legal team got greedy and sought immunity from future charges that may materialize for the First Son. Hunter is used to having his way with women until he stood before Maryellen Noreika, who tore him down to size.

As slow as Garland was with Hunter, he was lightning fast with Donald Trump. There have been three indictments to this point against the GOP front-runner for President. Each of these indictments would put Trump in prison for life, showing the overreach of the Justice Department to eliminate the threat of Donald Trump on the 2024 ballot. There is no hiding what Biden and Garland are doing with Trump, and the timing of these indictments has been to mask any negative instance that Biden may be experiencing. This corroboration between Biden and Garland may be the only transparent thing in the Biden White House.

As bad as Garland has been as Attorney General, it is comforting to realize that we dodged a bullet when Garland was nominated for the Supreme Court, and Mitch McConnell held up his approval process. We could have had this petty corrupt man in the Supreme Court for life. Garland and Mayorkas are in the sights of Republicans for impeachment inquiries and a possible impeachment trial in the Senate. Schumer will never allow the Senate to vote to impeach, but the procedure will showcase to the country the many sins of Merrick Garland.

 

The post Imagine Merrick Garland In A Black Robe appeared first on Granite Grok.

The way that democracies around the planet have been structured in the past centuries has allowed greater access to power, decentralization of authority, and an advancement of the human civilization. However, by and large, today’s systems, and in particular the American system, struggle based on one simple flaw— lack of highly experienced, intelligent brain trust.

Noam Chomsky, the esteemed Philadelphian intellectual, posited that the way US society, and many nations’ societies, work today is through the establishment of a class society, with an elite, governing a generally misled, misinformed, underinformed majority populace— a power elite and a proletariat. The power elite has served in much the same function as for all of human history under various names, including czar, duke, mandarin, praetor, and magistrate. The clear stratification of sociopolitical structures has created countless cults and elite cliques obsessed with guarding the reigns of power.

The tendency for power stratification was certainly true through antiquity, the agricultural and industrial revolutions, and into the 20th century. With the advent of information technology like the Internet and social media, there is great capacity and a pressing need for radical change. Similarly, great advances in health care and quality of life have ensured that humans live longer lives, with average lifespans having increased to over 70 in most societies on the planet, many over 90. The pyramidal stratification of power is no longer conducive to stable, prosperous societies. Regardless of whether a society is authoritarian or liberal, totalitarian or democratic, powerholders must vary to a greater degree.

The modern sociopolitical structure in the United States involves a group of people who have attained the highest rungs of the power ladder and then stayed there. Career politicians in Washington often are incentivized to sit in their positions for decades. This has created a structure known in the USA as the Deep State, the Uniparty, or the Establishment. Federal officials have no risk of being replaced in the typical election cycle. They are bureaucrats, infesting the organizations and industries in which they specialize with a corrosive influence that tends towards partisanship, graft, nepotism, and corporatism— especially with federal investigative bodies that do not pay close attention to monitoring and policing good governance within federal institutions.

This pyramidal structure, the old system, is envisioned by the Great Pyramid, often depicted in conspiratorial or symbolic ways, presenting the image of society with the ruling classes at the top in ever-narrowing levels. This is, naturally, an authoritarian and non-democratic model, tending towards exclusionary, stagnant, corrosive sociopolitical power structures. There are few leaders, and hence, few with leadership experience. The number of people who pass through the eye of leadership and give up the reigns of power is few. There is an incentive for individuals to cling to power in this system because the only other rungs are below the powerholders’ position.

Times have changed. Rather than a society of few leaders, we should strive to have one with many holding leadership experience— a magisterial emerati. Emeritus designates someone holding an honored position, such as a professor emeritus in academia. In this sense, a better way to depict the sociopolitical structure is by the illustration of an hourglass. The population is split into three general categories— those without leadership experience in the bottom conicular, those currently holding the reigns of power at the chokepoint of the hourglass, and the magisterial emerati in the top inverted conicular.

Through this way of approaching sociopolitical structure, consider the prevailing Great Pyramid system in context. The power holders in are at the chokepoint between the top and bottom, between those with leadership experience and those with none. Between the informed and sophisticated and the clueless masses. In the current paradigm, too many people get stuck at the chokepoint and seek to stay there. It is alluring to be in power— there are many seemingly great benefits of being in the limelight and having perceived control. But we should not, as societies, be encouraging, incentivizing, and allowing people to sit in these power positions for so long. It is dangerous, especially when there is not a strong ethical system and limited to no ethical oversight.

Any society is more strongly served by a larger group with leadership experience, a larger body if magisterial emerati. That top conicular of people who have held positions of power, have sat in that power chokepoint and then risen further, must be filled with equal or greater strength than the lower group of the non-experienced. When there are more magisterial emerati, the current powerholders receive better advice and feedback from the entire population. There is less pressure on them to make trivial decisions, and they are freed to consider more important issues. They are able to make better decisions when the entire society is more experienced in terms of leadership and how to use and acquire power. The brain trust of the society is larger and stronger, with increased dynamism. The society is better able to withstand external pressures and can react and respond with greater alacrity and awareness.

To achieve this large experienced group if the magisterial emerati, the sociocultural aim must incentivize sharing, compassion, cooperation, and collaboration. There must be a sense of altruism and willingness to help others. Individuals must know that once they have relinquished seats of power, they will still be able to maintain and increase their quality of life. In this way, once positions of power are achieved for an individual, they must want to allow others to gain that similar experience. In this way, the individual powerholder must become aware that there is honor in stepping aside to allow others to learn how to hold the reigns of power, so that they can be better citizens.

In a republic, which is the form of government in the majority of countries on the planet today, the more informed and intelligent a citizenry, the stronger the republic. This model of practicing powersharing is a great way to ensure more resilient, antifragile countries.

 

 

The post Considering Structures of Power: The Magisterial Emerati appeared first on Granite Grok.

Chinese influence operations in American Education have focused primarily on Colleges and Universities. For example, after years of warnings, UNH ended its Confucius Institute in 2021 (UNH is still getting CCP grant money through 2024). But China has also invested millions in public schools.

Parents Defending Education has released a lengthy article with links and details tying hundreds of schools to Chinese money through Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms.

 

In March, Parents Defending Education uncovered that a nonprofit linked to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology had received more than $1 million in financial aid from Chinese government-affiliated entities over the course of a decade.1

Further research reveals the People’s Republic of China fostered relationships with American K-12 schools through grants, sister school partnerships, and other programming since at least 2009. Parents Defending Education tracked affiliations in 143 schools across 34 states and Washington, D.C.—and at least seven are still active. Financial exchanges between K-12 schools and the Chinese government range from a few thousand dollars to, in Thomas Jefferson High School’s case, more than a million dollars. Disturbingly, the Chinese government’s ties appear to target school districts near 20 American military bases.  …

The Chinese government’s effort to forge ties with American schools through its Ministry of Education is one facet of the Chinese Communist Party’s broader soft-power strategy to influence policy in nations throughout the world. Expanding Confucius Classrooms in the United States has been a top priority for the Chinese government, the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found.3

The State Department designated Confucius Institutes a “foreign mission” of the Chinese Communist Party in 2020.4 As noted in the State Department’s report, these programs are funded in part by the Chinese government under guidance from the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, “the Chinese Communist Party’s overseas propaganda and influence operation.”

 

One of the operations assisting in this influence is the Asia Society which “tailor(s) Chinese culture and language immersion programs to U.S. school districts. They also collaborated on funding Confucius programs in universities and K-12 schools.” Asia Society gets lots of money from Asia, but also has support from  “Open Society, the Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation,” as well as” the Confucius Classroom Network with funding support from the Chinese International Education Foundation, an organization created by Hanban.”

 

2021 seems to be when these influence-peddling operations began to get noticed and cut, which suggests to me either victory on the part of China or they’ve found another avenue for influence. Before that happened, Keene High School accepted 10,000.00 dollars from the Asia Society, which advances the CCP goals as noted above.

 

 

 

Chinese Language Learning. Useful when the conquerors get here. Locals can identify the dissidents. I’m kidding, sort of. It was one grant and only one public school that the researchers identified in N.H. But China doesn’t give money away without an agenda. They invest in their geo-political and economic priorities.

Maybe we need a few classes on that, hmm?

 

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Karine Jean-Pierre is the worst press secretary ever to step behind the podium in the Brady Press Briefing Room. She insults the legacy of outstanding secretaries like Tony Snow, Dana Perino, James Brady, and even Jen Psaki. If not written in her binder, she is lost to find a coherent answer, and with the many scandals surrounding the Biden Administration, KJP has become creative in her non-answers. The Biden Justice Department has helped Karine considerably by prolonging investigations. As long as an inquiry is ongoing, she can refuse to answer any questions about it. How convenient, and to think Joe still contends he has no influence on the independent Justice Department….what a crock! This entire Presidency will go down in history as a crock of lies and deception.

KJP has had to field many questions about Hunter Biden and his almost daily escapades. On Wednesday, she addressed Hunter in her preface in an attempt to avoid any direct questions. You must listen to Karine carefully, as her words always have hidden meanings. An example is her line that Joe and Hunter never discussed Hunter’s business dealings is now Joe and Hunter have never been in business together. Subtle, but it makes all of her previous statements untrue. Wednesday, the First Son may have derailed the Biden White House and any chance at a reelection run. Karine would not touch Hunter’s activities in a Delaware courtroom, so her excuse this time was that Hunter was a private citizen and not a topic for the Briefing room. Hunter Biden is many things, but being a private citizen is not one of them.

Let’s look at a few examples of why Hunter is not a private citizen:

• On Wednesday, Hunter arrived at the courthouse in Delaware in a convoy of five vehicles. Most of the cars had Secret Service Agents as passengers. Private citizens do not get Secret Service protection.
• Hunter Biden had been living in the White House to avoid being served papers from an Arkansas court regarding the child support case involving the grandchild Joe Biden refuses to recognize.
• When Hunter was living in his beachfront home in Malibu, the Secret Service was spending $30,000 per month for a home nearby to house the agents guarding Hunter. Private? Not even close!
• When Hunter was escorting his father to Ukraine, China, and Russia to negotiate (extort is more appropriate) million-dollar bribes, he traveled on Air Force II. Private citizens fly commercial and not on Air Force II.
• When Hunter was negotiating a plea deal on gun and tax violations, he was not doing so as a private citizen. He was doing it as the son of Joe Biden, President of the United States, and that is why it was such a shock when this judge in Wilmington, DE held up her hand and said, stop, not so fast there, Mr Biden. This might be the first time anyone has ever said NO to Hunter. It was a beautiful move that restored our faith in the system, even for a fleeting moment.

So Karine, do not insult the American people unless you need more proof. Hunter is as much a part of the Administration as you are, and you both give the President a difficult road to a re-election bid.

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The Los Angeles Times published an op/ed Friday in which it perhaps unintentionally poses the central proposition of the mythical energy transition: “whether our expectations should evolve in the name of preventing climate catastrophe.”

The op/ed is appropriately titled, “Would an Occasional Blackout Help Solve Climate Change?” It is a headline that tacitly admits a truth about the transition that boosters of renewable energy have been careful not to publicize: That the notion that generation sources with extremely low energy density like wind and solar cannot hope to be viable alternatives to generation with extremely high energy density like natural gas, nuclear and coal. It is a notion that defies the laws of thermodynamics and physics, and those are laws, not suggestions that can be discarded as a matter of convenience or, as in this case, in pursuit of a hyper-political agenda.

This kind of propaganda is designed to condition readers to accept the lowering of their own living conditions in the name of saving the climate, or, as this writer poses is, “preventing climate catastrophe.” It is the kind of propaganda Americans and citizens around the world have been bombarded with as we have experienced the current hot summer. (RELATED: DAVID BLACKMON: A Backlash Against Net-Zero Policies Is Finally Beginning To Take Shape)

It is probably no accident that this piece in the Los Angeles Times comes just a few days after the New York Times published a piece by economist Paul Krugman titled, “Why We Should Politicize the Weather.” The theme of the propaganda is clear: Most of the legacy media has been following Krugman’s advice throughout this summer at the behest of boosters of climate alarmism.

Propaganda in the name of hyping a “climate catastrophe” (it was a mere “emergency” just a few years ago, mere climate “change” a few years before that) is widespread, indeed ubiquitous.

Meteorologists in Europe, Canada and other countries are now being encouraged to report land temperatures rather than the ambient air temperatures on which they’ve always based their reporting because the land measurements are usually several degrees warmer than the air we breathe. Many weather reporters in the EU countries have begun reporting temperatures in degrees F rather than degrees C because the Fahrenheit scale produces larger, more frightening numbers.

All in the name of hyping climate change. All in the name of politicizing weather and conditioning citizens to accept a downgraded quality of life. The bonus is that you get to feel good about yourself while you’re sweating and fanning yourself in your dark living room with the stench of rotting meat in your dead refrigerator because you are suffering all of this in the name of “doing something” about climate change.

It is a proposition about which the climate alarm movement has remained relatively quiet before this year. But the messaging began to shift in January as it becomes increasingly obvious that, even with all the billions in subsidies enacted by western governments, rising demand for energy is still outstripping the ability of renewables to displace fossil fuels and nuclear. Even as these governments in Europe, Canada and the U.S. force citizens to accept the steady deterioration of their grid reliability and quality of life, saddling future generations with mountains of debt in the process, governments in China, India and most other developing nations pursue national energy abundance and security.

This dynamic explains why, when U.S. Climate Czar John Kerry’s recent mission to China to try to kickstart moribund bilateral climate negotiations predictably ended in failure. China is going to do what is good for China, regardless of the propaganda of the climate alarm movement that Kerry amplifies at every opportunity.

Americans and Europeans and Canadians see this all happening and increasingly wonder why they must continue downgrading their standards of living when rising emissions from China alone far outstrip any reductions achieved by the west? This is a question to which the climate alarm movement has no good answer, other than to continue ramping up the fear tactics and propaganda.

That is why this previously quiet part of the energy transition agenda has been rising to the top of the alarmist message platform in 2023. No one should think the rhetoric will do anything other than keep ratcheting up from here.

 

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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.

| DCNS

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How many times do you hear a Democrat happily say “Sure, we can deep-six that tax. And do you want to kill another one?”. PERHAPS if they are looking to horse trade for something more valuable but only “if”.

So is San Francisco’s Democrat Mayor London Breed starting to see the wisdom of letting people keep their own money?

San Francisco Mayor: We Should ‘Get Rid of Most Taxes’ to Attract Businesses

During a portion of an interview with CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of “The Exchange,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed stated that if she could, she “would get rid of most taxes on the books” tomorrow in order to help attract business to the city. She argued that the tax system needs a complete overhaul so that it works for the city and businesses.

“Well, first of all, I would — if I could do it tomorrow morning, I would get rid of most taxes on the books. I want to also be clear that businesses need to pay their fair share. But not at the expense of losing business as a whole. So, I would completely reform the tax system to make it more fair, to make it more equitable, and to make it work for both the city and those businesses. I would also make sure that the streets and the city is clean and it’s safe, because we need to make sure that, as people come here on public transportation, as they move around the city using different modes of transportation, that they’re getting to work safe and they want to be here.”

“Not at the expense of losing business as a whole…and it’s safe”.

Well, she’s bitten off a lot, hasn’t she? San Fran used to be a destination city for high tech and tourism. Now, it’s a haven for crime, homeless, mentally ill, and crime gangs. Oh, and feces. LOTS of feces on SF streets and sidewalks. Oh, and carjacks and break ins. Defunding the police and having Soros lawyers (e.g., save the criminals and criminalize the victims) hasn’t helped, either.

Small list but big effort on execution.

The taxes – I didn’t expect to hear that from a Big City Democrat: get rid of them. Democrat history (and no small of Elitist Republicans to boot) is that they all see citizens and companies merely as ATMs ready for the plucking. Why?

Putting Government first.  It’s clear that with the results of the last few years on full display, the normal Narrative failed. Democrat policies failed. She’s now having to pick up the pieces (and feces). And lessen the filching – a realization that the Democrats (San Fran has been a Democrat bastion for a long, long time) have taken its residents for granted and NOT seeing things from their viewpoint. Only from a Progressive Government’s top-down approach.

Seriously – how often do you hear a Democrat taking ownership of Democrat policies and the negative results from them?  Methinks rarely.

Let’s see if the other SF Dems will allow it to happen. After all, it really is about lessening the power of Government – now think about that admission!

(H/T: Breitbart)

 

The post I Did NOT Have This On My Bingo Card: Democrat Mayor Wants To “Get Rid Of Most Taxes” appeared first on Granite Grok.

Have you been following the story of the cancellation of Nigel Farage by Coutts?  Coutts is an exclusive private bank owned by National Westminster Bank (NatWest). Farage was a driving force behind Brexit. He’s the British equivalent of Donald Trump.  Britain’s version of the deep state has never forgiven him.

We want to thank Marc Abear for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
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Coutts dumped Farage as a client, canceling his accounts.

But wait, it gets better.  Coutts then lied about the incident.  NatWest claimed the Farage cancellation was because he didn’t have enough money to qualify for their services.  That was false.  But wait, there’s more…

There have been articles about the financial attack in the British press.  The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)  is now following along.

The WSJ is reporting Coutts ditched Farage because of his pro-Brexit and anti-woke views.  It goes on to relate a story about a charity dinner where Alison Rose, chief executive of NatWest, sat next to the BBC’s business editor.  Ms. Rose told him Mr. Farage was axed because he wasn’t a profitable customer.  The journalist wrote that story citing a “trusted and senior source.”

Mr. Farage, for his part, acquired and shared from a 40-page Coutts document including a list of his political views the bank felt created “significant reputational risks of being associated with him.”  The document describes Farage’s views as “xenophobic and racist,” saying he was “considered by many to be a disingenuous grifter…”

The story mushroomed, causing Ms. Rose to resign from NatWest. The BBC has apologized for its incorrect report.

Again from the WSJ, An email laying out the decision… included in the document published by Farage—pointed to “controversial public statements which were felt to conflict with the bank’s purpose.”  The bank sensed the danger from axing [Farage]… it could face negative coverage if Farage decided to “go public…”

What should be readily apparent from this incident is the risk of banks cutting off customers for having the wrong political views. Make no mistake; this happened in the UK, but it can just as easily happen here.

A problem with acting on “reputational risk” is it is a one-way street.  Let’s do the same exercise with Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labor leader, as the object.  Mr. Corbyn is a notorious socialist and anti-Semite.  Have you ever heard of a company declining to do business with him because of damage to the company’s reputation?

Look, with Brexit, the issue enraging Leftists is Mr. Farage represented the majority of U.K. voters.  These Leftist banking executives are enforcing the will of the minority.

Most recently, Mr. Farage has gone on the offense.  He is demanding the entire NatWest board of directors resign while pledging to help others similarly injured by leftist prejudice in banking.

What’s your position on cancel culture?  Are you a win at all costs, there’s nothing too bad that can happen to the opposition kind of person.  What qualifies as sufficient reason to bar someone from the banking system?  Remember, we are really close to Central Bank Digital Currency and cancellation with the click of a mouse.

 

..

 

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Most people today have little to no familiarity with any of the principles that influenced the founders. Below, you’ll find six important resources hand-picked by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. You can also find links to each in this podcast episode – “The Founders’ Education.”

The government-run school system teaches virtually nothing about the principles of liberty – and natural rights. It teaches little to nothing about the founding principles underlying the Constitution.

This ignorance is a big part of why things have gone so far off the rails – and it shouldn’t be surprising, either. Jefferson put it this way:

“If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be.”

Understanding the Constitution requires much more than discussing what it takes to be eligible for president or reading charts with titles like “How a Bill Becomes a Law.” It requires that people know the foundations upon which the document was constructed – which benefited from ideas extending more than a thousand years.

Thankfully, we have some help from the founders themselves.

In 1783, a committee to the Confederation Congress put together a list of over 300 books considered crucial to the founding generation. The authors of the list included James Madison of Virginia, Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania, and Hugh Williamson of North Carolina. Plus, Thomas Jefferson also had a similar list at that time (the “1783 catalogue”) – and he was rooming at Madison’s boarding house, where they most certainly conversed on the subject of a reference library for Congress.

Years later, Madison and Jefferson worked together on another essential reading list as members of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors.

Here, Madison and Jefferson – along with George Loyall, John H. Cocke, and Joseph C. Cabell –   gave us six essential resources to understand “the general principles of liberty and the rights of man in nature and in society.”

Here they are – starting with two foundational books:

1. John Locke – An essay concerning the true original extent and end of civil government

You may be familiar with it under the name Two Treatises

Many of Locke’s ideas found their way into the Declaration of Independence, including the notion that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed.

“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”

Podcast – Illegitimate Government: John Locke on Tyranny

2. Algernon Sidney – Discourses on Government

Sidney is a guy that almost no one knows about today, but they should. This was on pretty much everyone’s list of essential books at the time of the founding – including Madison’s 1783 list, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams – and more.

Thomas Jefferson called it “the best elementary book of the principles of government, as founded in natural right, which has ever been published in any language.”

It’s hard for us to imagine a better endorsement.

Podcast – Jefferson’s Favorite Book on Government?

The board also recommended four sources for understanding “the distinctive principles of the government of our own state, and of that of the U.S.”

3. Declaration of Independence

First of these is the Declaration “as the fundamental act of union of these states.”

Podcast – Declaration of Independence: Usurpation is Treason

4. Federalist Papers

Next are the Federalist Papers, calling them “an authority to which appeal is habitually made by all.” They said these essays are “rarely declined or denied by any as evidence of the general opinion of those who framed, and of those who accepted the Constitution of the U.S. on questions as to its genuine meaning.”

5. Virginia Resolutions of 1798

The next source recommended by the board is the Virginia Resolutions of 1798. Passed in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts, these resolutions penned by Madison and passed by the Virginia legislature lay out the constitutional justification for “interposition.”

Article – A Christmas Gift from James Madison: The Virginia Resolutions of 1798

6. George Washington’s Farewell Address

The final essential source is George Washington’s farewell address, or his “Valedictory Address,” as they called it. In this address, Washington covered topics including foreign policy, factions, and the danger of debt.

Podcast – Warnings Ignored: George Washington’s Farewell Address

Education Takes Work

Unlearning the government-school propaganda we’re fed from cradle to grave isn’t easy. And, as Abigail Adams wrote, “Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardour and attended to with diligence.”

But we have the tools. You can find a recent Path to Liberty podcast covering more of the “Founders’ Education” – plus links to all 6 of these recommended sources right here.

We hope this is a useful guide for you to continue your own education in support of the Constitution and liberty.

 

Michael Boldin | The Tenth Amendment Center

The post Six Must Read Sources from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison appeared first on Granite Grok.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) developed in the post-World War era in response to the growing militarization and solidification of the Soviet Union. That group of Central and Northern Asian countries centering around the Moscow power center believed that centralized, totalitarian administrations with heavy state control of economic and cultural life believed their style of feudal-style so-called communist governing systems to be the best. It was decidedly proven to be otherwise.

In this sense, NATO is a relic of a bygone era of a bipolar international order. Today’s planetary governing structure is much more dynamic, drawing its stability from a multipolarism built on the United Nations system. The recent war in Ukraine is evidence of the broken and anachronistic nature of the Atlantic alliance. Not that the EU and US do not share cultural values and strong political ties, but rather a unified vehicle for military relations must be intelligently purposed. Serving as an adversary to Russia is no longer appropriate.

In the latest conflict focused on Kyiv, Donbad, and Crimea, the specter of Russian aggression has been set against an equally aggressive expansionary policy by NATO. In many ways, the conflict was unnaturally constructed by a decade of politicking and subterfuge led by Washington. This sort of deviousness should not be supported by an institutionalized military organization. It is counterproductive to global development, peace, and the stability of our planetary civilization.

At NATO’s annual summit in Vilnius this past summer, Europeans were noted as downright melancholy. Why would they be happy about being forced to attend a conference where terms of power and relationships have largely been determined by people who do not identify as Europeans— namely Brits and Yanks? The United Kingdom has recently made a big stink about leaving the Brussels headquartered EU, while the United States is an ocean away in another hemisphere. While it is in these two nations’ power interests to foment a conflict on the border between Europe and Russia, it may not be in anyone’s interest to continuously kindle deadly conflicts between human nations.

This is where the 20th-century mentality must either evolve or be extinguished. Global peace is possible through a new avenue that was not a factor in previous eras— space exploration. A growing number of countries, including the UAE, Japan, China, India, and even North Korea, have developed space programs. There is a massive amount of untapped economic potential in the Sol star system, which is identifiable as the region between our star and the asteroid belts outside the orbit of Mars. That includes three entire planets and a belt of asteroids— small rocky bodies rich in mineral deposits. This is trillions upon trillions of dollars in resources waiting to be tapped.

NATO’s purpose as a conflict-creating organization should be transformed with this in mind. It should be turned towards planetary protection, away from a biased, Russophobic establishment. The Russophobes must be drawn out and converted or retired. There is already an excellent vehicle for planetary protection in the United Nations Peacekeeping system. This is another avenue for NATO engagement to be realized— its role as peacemakers and peacekeepers through the UN system. Many decry the nature of the UN, but its role as the premier forum for global governance in our present day and age is unquestionable and, to many around the world, highly respected. The UN’s main drawback is its lack of military power, so attaching NATO and then inviting similar military organizations from BRICS, the Group of 77, and ASEAN would help to nurture a sense of balance.

As we progress forward towards 2100, we must move away from purposefully created artificial conflicts and towards stronger planetary stability. NATO as a wing of the UN military structure would be most appropriate.

 

 

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The PR firm for mRNA Vaccines inc (most or all of the corporate media and most of at least one political party) continues to insist on efficacy and safety while badmouthing cheap well-tolerated treatments for the Wuhan Flu. Good for them, but time and science continue to prove otherwise.

Related: If NH Needs Proof The Vaccines Have Adverse Side Effects, Just Ask the CDC and FDA

 

“mRNA-1273 booster vaccination-associated elevation of markers of myocardial injury occurred in about one out of 35 persons (2.8%), a greater incidence than estimated in meta-analyses of hospitalized cases with myocarditis (estimated incidence 0.0035%) after the second vaccination,” the researchers wrote in the paper, published by the European Journal of Heart Failure.

In a generally healthy population, the level would be about 1 percent, the researchers said.

 

 

Myocardial injury is nothing to dismiss. While there’s no guarantee it will lead to heart failure, if you have this injury, it has the potential for lifelong complications that can significantly impact your quality of life.

 

“According to current knowledge, the cardiac muscle can’t regenerate, or only to a very limited degree at best. So it’s possible that repeated booster vaccinations every year could cause moderate damage to the heart muscle cells,” University Hospital Basel professor Christian Muller, a cardiologist and the lead researcher said in a statement.

 

Booster “boosters,” according to this research, are playing Russian roulette with your heart. It sounds like a song title or maybe the hook, and that’s an apt comparison. Myocarditis was written into the original lyrics of the dystopian list of side effects. No children’s rhymes about it yet, like ring around the rosies, a pocket full of posies, but I wonder what that would look like.

Line up for your vaccine; COVID’s “cure’s” a bad dream, jab me jab me, we all fall down.

Related: Post Vaxx – US Military Sees 151% Spike in Cases of Myocarditis

Distractions.

Let’s do some math. In the US, roughly 224 million people were “fully vaccinated.” One percent of that is 2.24 million. Some dropped dead in nursing homes, others after exerting themselves, without being informed of known risks before injection. This leaves at least two-plus million people in the US with potentially irreversible heart damage, some of whom may not yet know. Many got boosters and more than one, adding to the risk.

Two million could be the low end of the spectrum, given that the Swiss hospital reported this adverse event in 2.8% of recipients. There’s also another important detail from the linked study. The vaccine is bigoted – it seems to be able to tell the difference between men and women.

 

Twenty cases occurred in women (3.7% [95%CI, 2.3%–5.7%]), two in men (0.8% [95%CI, 0.1%–3.0%]).

Conclusion

mRNA-1273 vaccine-associated myocardial injury was more common than previously thought, being mild and transient, and more frequent in women versus men. The possible protective role of IFN-λ1(IL-29) and GM-CSF warrant further studies.

 

 

It must be noted that there were no long-term complications observed and why.

 

The group experiencing the adverse effects was followed for only 30 days, and half still had unusually high levels of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T, an indicator of subclinical heart damage, at follow-up.

The long-term implications of the study remain unclear as little research has tracked people over time with heart injury after messenger RNA vaccination, which is known to cause myocarditis and other forms of heart damage.

 

Not to worry. If you are a researcher, billions of potential candidates are available to explore the long-term impact of the ongoing mass experimental campaign doing business as the COVID vaccine. Good luck finding funding, but there is no shortage of suitable postulants.

 

 

HT | Epoch Times

The post 1 in 35 Healthcare Workers at This Hospital Had Signs of Heart Injury Associated With the mRNA Vaccine appeared first on Granite Grok.

What’s in a name? A great deal. Democracy, fascism, and communism represent different systems of government. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are also titles for other religious systems.

Whereas democracy is defined as the rule of the people, by the people, for the people, Islam is defined as the rule of Allah, by Allah and his emissaries, for the pleasure of Allah. And when people, out of concern for political correctness or ignorance, describe Islam as a religion of peace, they are, at the very least, guilty of misrepresenting it.

The word “Islam” is derived from the Arabic “aslama,” or “Tasleem” which means ‘surrender.’ The word for peace is not “tasleem,” but it is “solh.” Hence, when radical Muslims behave violently barbarically, they only do so in obedience to the dictates of their creed. They are surrendering and sacrificing anything and everything in service to the will and pleasure of Allah, as they see it. In saying that Islam means peace, Islamic apologists are simply indulging in wordplay in order to put as positive a spin on things as they can. It is an attempt to argue that Islam promotes non-violence. In other words, they are lying.

Of course, not every Muslim surrenders entirely to the will of Allah. The great majority of Muslims are only partial Muslims. They may say their daily obligatory prayers, tithe some, and keep the fast occasionally. Yet, they may also have a few drinks now and then and do many things they are not supposed to do.

But Islam can be a “forgiving” religion, specifically for the male. If you neglect to say your prayers or don’t want to, you can hire someone, preferably an imam or a mullah, to pray on your behalf. Going to the Hajj is too onerous and takes you away from the pleasures and comforts of your life. You can deputize someone else to go in your stead. You have a few drinks of the forbidden brew, and it is time to say your prayer. Rinse your mouth and go ahead with praying. But, always remember the will of Allah and serve him. Do your duties to vanquish the unbelievers, promote the rule of the Shari’a, and make the earth Allah’s.

If only the masses of Muslims arise and carry out the orders of Allah, then we would have the promised paradise of Islam on earth as exemplified by such rules as that of the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and of course, the Shiite nirvana of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In these model Islamic societies, freedom of expression, worship, and assembly are taken away. Women are treated as chattel. Young girls are subjected to barbaric genital mutilation, making them sex slaves and birth channels without the ability to enjoy intercourse. Minors are executed, adulterers are stoned to death, thieves have amputated limbs and much more. Isn’t that everyone’s idea of paradise?

This misogynist religion of Allah is custom-made for the savage male. A faithful follower of Allah is allowed to have as many as four permanent wives – and replace any of them at any time he wants- and an unlimited number of one-night or one-hour-standers that he can afford to rent. But, woe unto a woman if she even has a single love affair with another man. Nothing less than death by stoning is her just punishment.

The partial Muslims are seemingly harmless, may appear normal, and are under the radar. What gets our attention is the die-hard, the real Muslims, who are a small minority. Yet this virulent combative minority is campaigning simultaneously on two major fronts. It works to herd the partial-Muslim majority into its fold and vanquish all other non-believers by any means.

It is prudent to remember that all critical events in the history of humanity have been instigated by either an individual or a small group. These individuals or groups have been the sheepdogs that have directed the movements and activities of the masses, the sheep.

This is precisely what the real Muslims, the Islamists, do today. It is suicidal to dismiss the Islamists as a bunch of zealots without consequences or as a fringe group that will burn itself out. Sadly enough, the bulk of the Muslims that pundits portray as “peaceful” is either irrelevant or often serve as an instrument in the hands of the Islamists. A couple of examples from recent history conclusively prove the point that it is the fanatical minorities that launch and implement campaigns that inflict immense suffering on the larger society.

In the 1930s, very few Germans were Nazis, but many basked in the resurgence of German pride, and many others were too busy with their own lives to care. Thus, Germany presented a wide-open, unchallenged opportunity for the Nazis to push forward their agenda and gather power to the point that it was too late for any other force to stem their tide.

And we all know what suffering this gang of radical supremacists inflicted on millions before their demise.

The Khomeinism of Iran was started by a band of Shiite fanatics who rode the tide of opposition to the rule of the Shah and promised the masses Islamic nirvana—no sooner had the Khomeinists ascended to power than they made the entire nation captive by murdering tens of thousands of the complacent and the late-to-awaken opposition, imprisoning and torturing untold thousands more, and creating a state of Islamic menace that threatens the entire free world.

The fact is that too many die-hard Islamists continue leaving the failed Islamic states and settling in the lands of the Kafir. These new arrivals bring with them the deeply engrained hatred of the infidels and believe that they are indeed the rightful owner of the entire earth. All other non-Muslims are mere squatters who must be subjugated or eliminated altogether.

In this relentless campaign, the Islamists have a vast cadre of “experts,” “talking heads,” and for-purchase politicians who keep endlessly broadcasting the false mantra that Islam is a religion of peace. This latter bunch is criminally complicit in making the populace complacent and furthering the work of the Islamists.

Islam may be a religion of peace. It is the kind of peace embedded in its very name: Surrender. The Islamist savages shouldn’t be cow-free people and should take into account their accomplices who are shamelessly deceiving the public regarding the true nature of Islam. And what should we do? We should articulate a fair and fearless critique of Islam. We must expose Islam as it is and then identify moderate voices calling for a complete reformation.

Islam demands the unconditional surrender of all that free people cherish and hold sacred. Islam is a pathological doctrine and a vestige of long-ago barbarism that must surrender to the wholesome principles of freedom and free people.

The post Islam Demands Unconditional Surrender appeared first on Granite Grok.

I overheard a conversation between two high school English teachers concerning one of their students’ written journals on class discussions and reflection. The student had voiced in writing pro-Trump remarks decrying socialist and Marxist ideologies that he claimed were virulent in American political ideologies. 

Especially among leftists and Democrats— the big-D signifying party members, as opposed to the small-d variant that promotes – at least on the surface – actual democracy. One of these teachers exclaimed that Marxism isn’t even a real thing. Well, this illustrates the total cluelessness of the common educator in the United States and, more broadly, in the global West.

Of course, Marxism is a very real thing.

Karl Marx was an economist and is often cited today as a revolutionary figure and father of communism. The leaders of our world, whether they acknowledge it publicly or not, are mostly all Marxists. Some may not even know it. How has this come to be, and what exactly is Marxism?

It is an ideology based on the writings of Marx and Engels and their ideological offspring, of which there are many hailing from all parts of the world— many in France, Russia, and, most prominently, China. In fact, it is possible to receive advanced academic degrees, including postgraduate degrees, in the field of Marxist Thought, which means, essentially, totalitarian one-party socialism. This is a nefarious form of government that totally centralizes power and authority in a defined group that inevitably becomes a higher, wealthier class and dominates national society intergenerationally.

Today at the planetary level, an international communist collective exists— these are people who are proponents of whatever keeps them in power, and they are happy to wield ideas alongside weapons with no holds barred. They infest a collective of organizations, including the Trilateral Commission, the WEF, WHO, UN, IMF, and a bevy of international organizations. Their champions are folks like Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, and George Soros. They subvert anything to continue to enrich themselves and their network, with little or no concern for anyone else who does not sycophantly fall in line with their worldview and ideas.

Marxism itself, as a term, is evidence of its subversive nature. Marx, like John Meynard Keynes, was a political economist whose life’s work has been manipulated in a way so that his name has largely disassociated with the scope of his collected magnum opus. Marx wrote widely on the nature of many aspects of how markets, governments, and corporations interact. His treatise Das Kapital, a tome of ramblings about how money works in an economy, is a fascinating and titanic text on capitalism— the study and practice of building and deploying capital. Of course, he usually is not well known for this text. He is more broadly associated with his later piece, The Communist Manifesto, one of the most misunderstood and abused texts in recent human history.

The Communist Manifesto, which became nearly required reading for American high schoolers in the latter half of the twentieth century, is a text about a prediction common among European intellectuals, sociologists, and political economists concerning the forecast for class relations in national societies worldwide following the industrial revolution of the 19th century. That era saw the increasing dominance of corporatized manufacturing and the emergence of the factory as the main workplace. Marx et al. theorized correctly that the working class would revolt and overthrow the capitalists, establishing what they envisioned to be a communist state.

Of course, this was written at a time when the republic was not a widespread form of government. Most states were autocracies. The Westphalian model had not yet taken hold worldwide, and national borders were not set in the way they became following the 1945 armistice establishing a post-World War peace. Since then, most countries have adopted legislative or parliamentary-style governments modeled after the United States and United Kingdom’s examples. Democracy has flourished and is practiced in some form or another on every highly inhabited continent. The Communist Manifesto is not exactly relevant today.

Yet, communism remains popular, and many people support it. But what is it exactly?

Communism is based on the idea of the commune, best exemplified by a monastic community, such as that practiced by a Buddhist or Christian order. In such communities, there are social hierarchies that are totally separate from political and economic responsibilities, which are typically shared. Labor, productive tasks like gardening, farming, cooking, and cleaning, rotate ny an often ad hoc and continuously fluxed system. Who is in charge of cleaning one week might be in charge of office duties the next and tasked to maintain food supplies the following. The system balances naturally without highly formalized or institutionalized economic controls. It is an attractive model for the relatively easy and adaptable day-to-day lifestyle of the community’s members. The aim of communists is to apply this model to the national state level.

As it so happens, the application of small-scale monastic communism to the state is all but impossible. This is almost entirely due to the nature of sociopolitics in larger groups. Without a widely agreed upon and understood designed system, the law is that of the jungle. The strongest win and consolidates power, and only by power can they be replaced. Such is always the tendency of large civilizations, cory-states, and societies, and defining the nature of how power shifts from group to group and by what means is inherently difficult to theorize and understand fully. That is why communism as an ideology has been easily appropriated and weaponized against civil society in today’s age.

Today, Marxism is considered a revolutionary ideology. In practice, it has evolved from Marx’s theory of class struggle. Today, it is an ideology of political blocs. It requires its practitioners— who are typically highly educated, well-connected, well-networked, and well-financed— to create, amplify and take advantage of identity blocs within society. This is very remotely connected with economics, production, trade, and manufacturing. It has everything to do with how people identify and how those people are manipulated to give political support to political figures. This ideology seeks to create and force political change in order to lift the leaders of its movement into positions of power. It does not serve any other purpose. And that is the long-term problem.

Marxist communism has no real solutions to most issues that plague societies, particularly to building and nurturing prosperity for the citizens of a society. It is thus easy for Marxist leaders to find themselves in positions of power and bring total catastrophe to their country. They typically are so selfishly pursuing their own personal power and that of their network that they hold a conflictive stance towards their own countrymen and countrywomen. Look no further than the modern US Democrat Party, who decry and demean their Republican opponents in every way conceivable in order to maintain their power, yet they do not seem able to address or even comprehend the scale of inadequacy and degradation of the economic landscape in their own country.

In the years since Biden and the US Democrats took power, homelessness and crime have skyrocketed, illegal immigration is unchecked at record levels, the US manufacturing base has been crippled, and US industry is sinking quickly with little hope of innovation. Like typical socialists, they propose all sorts of solutions. But since they only know how to manipulate people in order to solidify their own personal power, they have no grasp of how to build a prosperous society. They only know how to destroy a society in order to empower themselves.

This is the essential understanding conveyed by Frederick Hayek in his Road to Serfdom, which posits that socialist leaders inevitably slip towards authoritarian and totalitarian political and economic systems until they collapse or are replaced.

Socialists, of whom Marxist communists are a unique breed, attempt chiefly to redistribute societal wealth from the economically successful— that is, the capitalists who have served the market most appropriately— to everyone else, especially and foremost themselves and their connections. Anyone who does not politically support the socialists is sh!t out of luck.

A country can best, most peacefully, be saved from such a fate if it has institutionalized a republic as its form of government. Only then can the country have a chance to peacefully transition to a different government, ideally one with a more capitalist understanding of the world, that can bring the country back toward prosperity.

The post What Exactly is Marxism? appeared first on Granite Grok.

To all those who are sending in memes, thank you!  Keep them coming please, as it helps me gather weaponry to fight the Left.  Please do share this post, and if you share an individual meme, consider mentioning you saw it on the Grok!

Speaking of, from this week, Monday Memes and Meme Overflow.

 

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

 

 

I’ll be disappointed if I find out I’m not on one.  Or more.  More broadly, though, do not think you can “grey man” your way through this.  Time to pick sides, and start planning.  And while I certainly would weep at this being necessary, I do like the idea:

 

 

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

 

Deep Fakes are About to Change Everything

 

 

I’ve been talking about this for some time.  As technology improved, with pictures, then videos, we went from pure word-of-mouth to things that could travel.  Then, be broadcast.  Because we understood, at least in principle, that these were images of real things, we trusted – even back when we had some glimmer of understanding that things could be “spun”.

Deep Fakes are a game-changer.  We can no longer believe our own eyes unless we’re actually there, or hear it from someone whom we truly trust who was there.

And… what if holograms, etc., become good enough that we can’t tell them from faked things?

All of a sudden our “circle of trusted information” – which has grown over decades and centuries – is about to collapse to almost nothing.

 

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

 

 

They really do think this way.  It reminds me of “Who will you believe, me or your lying eyes”?

 

 

Now, read the excerpt from the lib – short snip here:

The Democrats should pursue policies that crush rural voters and make rural life as miserable as possible. Things like refusing federal flood insurance to rural areas, leaving rural roads wanting for federal dollars, not using federal money to build bridges or expand electric or sewer, ending federal ethanol subsidies and other farm subsidies, etc. – all of that can make rural life even less attractive than it already is and force that population of irredeemables into the cities where they can be reeducated and turned into citizens with something to contribute. With Trump, they let the mask drop and all of the country can now see: there is no reason for the United States to ever spend another dime on rural America, and the sooner rural America is just a memory, the better.

So small towns will come back. But the rural areas that are Trump country are going to face long term consequences for that and they should.

So, where on this 1-10 step are we?  I’d make a claim for at least STAGE FOUR.  And I can make a good case for being close to STAGE SIX too.

 

 

Do not forget this warning either:

They also believed that their immediate responsibility would be to protect against what they called the counter revolution and they felt that this counter revolution could best be guarded against by creating and establishing reeducation centers in the Southwest where would take all the people who needed to be reeducated into the new way of thinking and teach them how things were going to be.

I asked, well, what is going to happen to those people that we can’t reeducate that are diehard capitalists and the reply was that they’d have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further they estimated that they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers. And when I say eliminate I mean kill – 25 million people.

I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people most of which have graduate degrees from Columbia and other well known educational centers and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people and they were dead serious.”

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

When we arrived in Dubai for an overnight layover we went through customs and immigration.  What was surprising was the facial scan – which, being a foreign country, I had precious little ability to refuse.  (If it had been me alone, I’d have camped out in the airport for the overnight rather than have it done.)  Anyway, I’m guessing this was an iris scan.  Apparently I’m squinty-eyed and they had to scan me multiple times, sans glasses.

This is coming here.  And it will be, of course, sold as conveeeeenient.  And for security, of course.

CEO of Company that Wants to Scan Your Irises: ‘World ID’ Is Coming ‘Whether You Like It or Not’ (breitbart.com)

Already being trialed, not just at airports:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/iris-readers.mp4

 

Eurostar officially launches SmartCheck biometric gates | Biometric Update

Dubai had these too for check-in.  But since we had kids, we did it the old-fashioned way.

But here’s the kicker.  In Boston there was a huge line to get through immigration control, but despite many of the lanes being CLOSED it moved quickly.  That’s because there was no actual questioning or even looking at passports.  Everyone just got scanned… scanned, and through.  No customs forms or examinations either (I thought that was odd; normally they hand those out on the plane prior to landing), though I did notice one woman having her luggage getting a good going-through.  My guess is that she was someone through the non-US citizen line, judging by her appearance from a glance.

So this begs the question: how did my scan get connected with my ID?  The only place I was scanned in a way that could be connected to me was Dubai.  Was that data shared with the US?  Logically, it had to have been – for the only way that my citizenship data could have been connected to my scan was if the UAE had passed that info onward.

I’m on the grid.  Dammit.

 

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

 

 

The more I learn about vaccines and how they’re approved, the more firm I am in my decisions to become anti-vax.  Totally anti-vax.

 

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

 

Aaron Russo – Womens Lib created to tax women and break up families

 

 

Do I want women “barefoot and pregnant”, amd actual captives in their homes?  No.  But any thought I’d had of being anything supportive of feminism has died, totally.

Fortunately, my wife comes from a very family-oriented culture and for – I’d guess – the first 8-9 years, while she did work, one of us was always there.  Her family, alas, cannot support us with help, being overseas.  Both my parents are gone.  My older surviving sister lives far away, most of my family lives far away… and virtually all are libs if not outright Leftists.

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Per the request of Bryan W. here are two more recipes from My Tree in Israel:

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the Post:

 

 

And that’s what we’re up against.  People who simply WILL NOT BELIEVE that government would do that.  No matter how often they have done that.  We have:

A Crisis of Trust – Urban Scoop

 

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

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

—

 

 

The post Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

Portsmouth is celebrating its 400th anniversary (1623-2023), and part of that was a tall-ships flotilla scheduled for Thursday, July 27th. But the mere threat of thunderstorms canceled it, as it turns out, for no good reason. I was there, on the water, and I saw the tall ships and the weather.

The storm clouds looked impressive, some “cool-looking” lightning off in the distance, but the seas were never rough, and it rained for all of ten minutes on the river. By the time 6 pm rolled around when the event was to start, there were even calmer waters, no rain, bleeding into a beautiful sunset (pics of that below as well).

In other words, there was no good reason to move the flotilla to the 29th.

Captain Jack Kimball invited me, my wife, and a few others, and we were on the water when the cancelation (delay) was announced. It was okay. We had a great day and took pictures.

There were to be four of five tall ships. We saw five, and I got decent pictures of a few; only one under sail, sadly, but all very cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And some different views…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And… the sunset. Lots of those – all taken from the Riverhouse Restaurant ‘Dock’ in Portsmouth. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forgot this… (video of the wake … boat wake).

 



 

Note: The original version referenced Thursday, July 28th. It should be on the 27th. This was corrected after publication.

The post Portsmouth Tall Ships Flotilla Got Canceled/Re-Scheduled But Not for Me … And I Took Pics appeared first on Granite Grok.

June was a bust, and July is not helping if you NOAA what I mean. Hurricane activity so far – considering all the hyperbolic ranting about global warming and super-heated oceans, has been sparse. A handful of ‘disturbances,’ no hurricanes, and only two tropical storms, neither of which has amounted to anything.

Cindy barely managed to rise to a tropical storm (TS) before petering north of the Dominican. Don drifted in circles around the central Atlantic and then petered out (sorry, Peter). None of the four named “cells” have been name-worthy, but if you don’t name a few, you’ll never get to use the names. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make a list and check it twice, share it with the press, and make lousy predictions to go with it.

They need something to happen. We wouldn’t want to wade into September with Arlene, which I never saw (by the way), or Bret, who died before he escaped the West Coast of Africa.

Given all the uncontrollable chest pounding about how hot the globe is, the Carribean should look like a conga line of storms waiting to deliver Gaia’s revenge for all these decades of easy Western living. Cheap gas and affordable electricity, along with all the comfort and prosperity it can create. People lifted from poverty—global commerce. To borrow from Saint Greta of the broken planet, “How dare you?”.

Over in the Pacific, TS Clavin took a stroll across the south side of the Hawaiian Islands. You might not have noticed with all the Canadian wood smoke sent as revenge for the alleged acid rain in the 1990s, which suggests that it does rain in Canada, just not anymore. All the rain stops at the border, which is better than I can say for illegals coming the other way. Northern New England knows about rain, and global warming is to blame for some, too much and not enough. It is also responsible for AIDS, toenail fungus, myocarditis, COVID, ED, snow, no snow, and perhaps Joe Biden. All man-made disasters that have nothing at all to do with CO2 or the weather.

As for hurricanes, peak season doesn’t arrive until mid-August, so there is still time for the Left to cry wolf. And we do have a new disturbance with some promise.

 

 

It only takes one decent storm to set them off, as you know, even though the number and frequency have shown resistance to the hyperbolic ranting of grant-wielding climate whores swearing your emissions are making the weather more dangerous—a claim with a caveat with an addendum (emphasis in the original).

 

Alarmists admit there’s no upward trend in hurricane frequency but argue that greenhouse gases are causing more extreme category 4 and 5 hurricanes. However, any examination of the path where hurricanes intensify, begs the question: if a warming ocean drives more intense hurricanes, why are most hurricanes low intensity tropical storms while over warm tropical surface waters, but intensify as they migrate northward to cooler surface waters?

 

Researchers published in Nature – not known for its right-wing conspiracy theories or publishing anything people accused of being right-wing tend to think, disagree.

 

We find that recorded century-scale increases in Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency, and associated decrease in USA hurricanes strike fraction, are consistent with changes in observing practices and not likely a true climate trend. After homogenization, increases in basin-wide hurricane and major hurricane activity since the 1970s are not part of a century-scale increase but a recovery from a deep minimum in the 1960s–1980s.

 

 

 

The Party of Science, its grant-wielding scientistas, and climate-cult-funded scientism aren’t interested in it if it does not advance their partisan economic and political agenda.

There has been a rise in troublesome storms, but they are not in the Atlantic. Look inside the DC beltway and far too many state capitals to find the cyclone of waste, fraud, and abuse doing business as climate mitigation. The process of robbing you to pay their allies to peddle questionable theories for which theirs are the only cure with a predictable outcome. All of their other “wars” (drugs, poverty, discrimination, racism) have made matters worse; this one is no different unless by different you mean the net worth of the pimps working them, in which case it’s the same.

 

 

 

The post It’s Almost August and The Hurricane Forecast is in Trouble appeared first on Granite Grok.

I know. You’re not supposed to ask questions. Especially awkward questions. But I live in the past, the America that celebrated rebels and rule-breakers … a long-gone and (by too many) forgotten America where Americans were NOT sheep who wore their useless masks like badges of honor and didn’t queue to be shot up with an at best unnecessary experimental drug.

So … I’ll ask. Would Gubernatorial nominee Kelly Ayotte support Presidential nominee Donald Trump, or would she bail on Trump like she did in 2016? According to WMUR:

This time around, Ayotte said she will support the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, no matter who it is.

But would she? There are going to be lots and lots of “October surprises” from the Biden Regime (or the Newsom Regime) and the Deep State. Can Ayotte really be counted on not to bail in 2024 in response to one or more of these “surprises”  like she bailed in 2016? In other words, is her pledge to support the nominee just something one says to get past a primary dominated by Trump voters, or is she really going to be a team player this time? Acknowledging what she did in 2016 was wrong would provide a clue.

The post Does Gubernatorial Nominee Kelly Ayotte Support Presidential Nominee Donald Trump … Or Is She Writing In Mike Pence Again? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The last thing I would like to see come to fruition is the impeachment of President Joe Biden, not because I support the President, nothing could be further from the truth. Joe Biden is the most corrupt politician of my lifetime, but the thought of President Harris sitting behind the resolute desk laughing her way through the brief of the nuclear codes?

I’d never let me sleep soundly again.

The Democrats had the foresight to see the Biden Cartel crumble, and Vice President Kamala Harris is their insurance policy to prevent the removal of Joe Biden. Nobody, not even most Democrats, wants to see Harris become the first woman President. It would help if you looked no further than her approval ratings to see what the country thinks of our Vice President. Only 36% of Americans have a favorable outlook on our VP, while 53% are negative on Harris.

On the other hand, Impeachment inquiry hearings are essential at this time. The Oversight and Judiciary Committees are excellently laying out the case against Hunter and Joe Biden, but here is the hook. Less than half of American voters know what is happening in Washington, specifically the White House. Half the country is in the dark about the corruption at the core of our First Family. The mainstream media has worked tirelessly to shield the Bidens from the American people and vice versa. Except for the New York Post, Washington Examiner, and FOX NEWS, the American print, broadcast, and internet news media have called a blackout on any negative news on the Bidens. Our forefathers assured Freedom of the Press because they saw a need for a watchdog to protect America from its politicians and government. Today’s media has flipped that role and now protects the President and his Administration from the people. The media is as corrupt and complicit with the Biden Family’s sins.

Should Speaker Kevin McCarthy direct the House to begin Impeachment Inquiry Hearings, the mainstream media will have no choice but to cover the proceedings. The readers and viewers of the mainstream will be shocked to hear of an inquiry as they know nothing of the events that led us to this point. As they say, the msm has some explaining to do. The hearings will expose the sins of the Bidens but also the dereliction of duty by the media. The Impeachment process will be the light to bring most of America out of the darkness.

With a split Congress, this President will never be impeached, but an Inquiry will force the House and Senate to go on the record to show if their allegiance is to the people or a corrupt President and his crime family. The Inquiry could be the tool the Republicans have been searching for to out the Bidens, who we know have been building a corrupt empire for decades. Unlike the fabricated “crimes” used to impeach Donald Trump, the Biden crimes are real. And as hard as the family worked to hide the money trails, they are being uncovered, and the dirt is filled with Hunter and Joe Biden’s crimes.

May the light shine bright and enlighten all of America to the real man who has been using America for over five decades to enhance his family’s wealth. His tax issues are bad enough, but his bribery, extortion, and treasonous activities jeopardized the security of our country and need to be atoned for, sooner than later.

The post Is Impeachment The Light We Need appeared first on Granite Grok.

Very interesting…

It’s now on: the marathon-length sprint to the second stage finish line (Primaries). Candidates have weighed their options on “Can I? Should I?”, staffing, strategy, media coverage (earned and unearned/paid), travel teams, destinations & events, and their policies. And in the early States, endorsers and volunteers.

And EVERYTHING is turned into a race – the aforementioned endorsers and volunteers but also money. I can’t tell you how often I’m pitched for the “end of week | month | quarter” so-called “deadlines” by which my paltry amount would make or break the campaign. It’s DIRE time and I’m the magic key that unlocks the “win vault”. It’s all nonsense but staffers and candidates boast about their total hauls – and this number:

It’s one measure (of course, it can be gamed to a certain degree but that’s another post about how it’s counted) for grassroots engagement – while no candidate will turn away large donations (for the most part – some donors may be “toxic” for one reason or another for a given candidate) and large makes it “easy money” to spend, touting your small donor numbers is an expression of that support.  As Sundance puts it “Main Street vs Wall Street”.

I’m not surprised about Donald Trump’s numbers. If he really wanted to, I’d bet he could do a lot of self-financing. That said, his entire career was built on using other people’s money. And you have to admit, a lot of ordinary people still adore him because his policies, when you really look at them, benefited them in the aggregate.

However, #2 is rather surprising. I picked Vivek Ramaswamy as my dark horse for this presidential cycle. Sundance all but ignores that data point and only concentrates on Trump vs DeSantis. I’m not understanding why but I’m beginning to wonder if we may be seeing a repeat of the 1978 campaign when a relatively unknown (at the national level) peanut farmer (yes, a former Georgia Governor starting 1970) beat a bunch of much better-known contenders.

Is Vivek the political reincarnation of Jimmah at least in this respect (CERTAINLY a conservative version of Progressive (for that era) Carter? He’s working his butt off, earning lots of media interviews, seemingly everywhere all the time, and doing the social media play much better than his rivals. He’s Wicked Smaht, driven, hitting all the right points (for me, anyway), eloquent, and there’s a lot of buzz that he’s created for himself around the blogosphere.

No, no one’s perfect and I have some issues that I’m wrestling with (lack of a voting record against which to evaluate, going for the Brass Ring right off the bat (although, see driven, above)). But who else is capturing all the attention in a way that ISN’T Trump-style?

No one. And that number above should be seen as a powerful signal.

(H/T: Conservative Treehouse)

The post Data Point: 2024 Presidential Campaign – the Small Donor Race appeared first on Granite Grok.

I recommend to the reader, all concerned citizens, and State Representatives to contact Joanna Martin, Publius Huldah, at publiushuldah@gmail.com.  (I apologize for leaving the “h” off in my last week’s OP-ED headlined Publius Huldah Warning).

We want to thank Russ Payne for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
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To get the complete picture of how the “tidal wave of truth” throughout our nation over the past year has finally turned the tide against the false claims and assurances of Convention of State COS lobbyists, attempting to convince State legislators to make State Applications for an Article V Constitutional Convention.

The scoreboard, according to Publius Huldah, is as follows:

“So far this year 20 States (Red States & Blue States): Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii,  Indiana, Minnesota, Utah, Texas, Virginia, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas, Iowa, New Hampshire, Kentucky, New Mexico, Maryland, Vermont and Washington State have rejected the “COS” and/or “term limits” application for Congress to call an Article V Convention. No State has passed the “COS” application this year.”

Surely false claims and assurances have certainly contributed to their defeat. For these falsehoods  have boomeranged back at COS are: “fake emails & petitions to claim the false image of wide support and smearing those who oppose them.” Here in NH in 2016, smears at the John Birch Society accused us of attempting to bribe a Committee  Chairman. Again, I suggest concerned State Representatives and citizens who seek a 50-state perspective on the tactics and defeats of COS, to contact Joanna Martin at Publius Huldah at PubliusHuldah@gmail.com.

The post Convention of State Scoreboard of Defeat appeared first on Granite Grok.

You’ll have noticed – I hope – that Vermont is something of a train wreck and that the Demcorats here, as they do everywhere, want that for us in New Hampshire. VermontGrok is focused on documenting that ongoing partisan derailment.

But not everything published there will appear here. Most of it will not. VermontGrok is for Vermont. We want them to build the audience with news, issues, and opinion about Vermont, for Vermont. There will be exceptions, but we think you should visit it, if not daily, a few times a week.

Lessons can be learned. We can see how policy affects the state and the people in real time and work to prevent that here or wherever you live. Maybe even in Vermont!

Rob Roper is already contributing. If you missed his bio, he is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics, including three years of service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free-market think tank.

John Klar is about to join us any day. John is an attorney, author, and farmer residing in Brookfield and the former pastor of the First Congregational Church of Westfield. He has also run for public office, among other credits.

We are also expecting content beginning next month from Michael Bielawski, who has “written freelance stories for a wide range of newspapers, magazines, and websites while living in the New York City area, Seoul, South Korea, upstate New York, and here in Vermont where I’ve been since August 2014.”

Johnny Bananas frequently writes satire about Vermont and will continue to do that. Grok contributor Aaron Warner is a Vermont resident who will also be adding his voice on local issues there. And I’ve been known, from time to time, to write a word or two about the not-so-slow-motion trainwreck to our geographic and political left.

In time we hope to ad local Op-Eds as we have here and encourage a few more brave Vermonters to become regular contributors, almost all of which have a bearing on New Hampshire and New England; we share an energy grid, Vermont is a sanctuary state, and we get “migrants” and “refugees” crossing the Connecticut River – both citizen and non-citizen, alike.

What happens there matters here. Their influence can and does poison our well. So, please visit VermontGrok to catch the inside scoop from a few folks who still have enough sense to see where things are going and how badly they’ve turned out.

And no, the page isn’t finalized. We have to add the updated graphics and add an archive link so you can get to stories that have scrolled off the home page. It’s coming! Until then, click on the author’s name on any of their posts to see their content library.

Thanks for Reading; we hope to see more of you here and VermontGrok.

 

The post Observing a Poster Child For Democrat Decline in Real Time … appeared first on Granite Grok.