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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This story originally appeared in the Eagle Times.

 

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

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

To be announced soon!

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

We would like to personally acknowledge the time and effort of the many Reps and volunteers in the Northwood/Nottingham special election. Despite the headwind we unknowingly faced, it is always great to see the team unite around a common goal.

A special thank you to candidate Jim Guzofski, for putting himself in the spotlight of a special election and his willingness to serve. We appreciate you.
We strongly reject the damaging and dangerous rhetoric that continues to take place against Jim on social media and in the press. There seems to be a culture taking hold that is incredibly unbecoming of Republicans. It does nothing to help grow our party or to keep the Granite State free and prosperous.

We do not support disparaging a good person to further the narrative of another. Let it be known that we will not stand for this type of behavior no matter who it comes from.

United in Liberty,

Rep Aidan Ankarberg
Rep Cyril Aures
Rep Mike Belcher
Rep Jacob Brouillard
Rep Matthew Coulon
Rep Leah Cushman
Rep Michael Granger
Rep JR Hoell
Hon Dawn Johnson
Rep Diane Kelley
Rep David Love
Rep Tom Mannion
Rep Lisa Mazur
Rep Nikki McCarter
Rep Kristin Noble
Rep Sandra Panek
Rep Kristine Perez
Rep Katy Peternel
Rep Emily Phillips
Rep Brandon Phinney
Rep Kelley Potenza
Rep Arlene Quaratiello
Rep Karen Reid
Rep Sheila Seidel
Rep Shane Sirois
Rep Julius Soti
Rep Scott Wallace

The post We Do Not Support Disparaging a Good Person to Further the Narrative of Another appeared first on Granite Grok.

Pennsylvania’s Communist Governor has issued a ukase that henceforth in his oblast there will be automatic voter registration. So Pennsylvania’s rigged elections will be even more rigged. More votes to harvest during election-month! But let’s pretend that all we need to do is nominate someone not named Trump and Pennsylvania will turn crimson red. Yup … it’s just that easy. Just listen to the proven winners … the people who elected President McCain and President Romney!

Automatic voter registration is one of the easiest ways to cheat – by registering kids to vote automatically when they turn 18 or get their drivers license, those interested in cheating now have registered voters who won’t go to the polls for years and they can vote in their… https://t.co/6OMEkXYhii

— Lara Logan (@laralogan) September 19, 2023

 

The post Congratulations To The Biden-Regime … They Just Won Pennsylvania And It’s Not Even 2024 Yet! appeared first on Granite Grok.

Are we making your mornings more interesting? We try, and sometimes that means bringing you something inspirational or amusing, from Lt. Gov. Robinson (inspirational) to Dr. Lanci Lindsey (informative). And we’re just getting started. Today, we are sharing something I thought was hilarious.

Scraped off X (still pronounced, Twitter), we have a video shared by James Woods of a young man (a kid) who did something called the Preschool Apprentice, and I hope that’s a wig on his head.

He does an amazing impression of President Trump talking about … Mac and Cheese.

If you’ve seen it, you know it’s worth watching again. If not, it’s a must-watch. I’ve seen it a handful of times now, and I still find it hard to believe that this voice came out of that kid.

 

 

The post The Preschool Apprentice – Kid Does Spot on Impression of Donald Trump appeared first on Granite Grok.

Transgender athletes are becoming increasingly more common in athletic competitions, and this has spurred a great deal of criticism from the right side of the political aisle. Their argument is simple: men have a distinct advantage when it comes to sports.

This point seems self-evident given the immense amount of success most trans athletes (typically male to female) experience when they decide to change gender. CeCé Telfer, Mary Gregory, and Rachel McKinnon are a few examples of this in that they were all mediocre male athletes who are now, put frankly, dominating in their respective fields and setting world records in hurdling, weightlifting, and cycling.

Despite the seemingly obvious biological benefits that come with being a male athlete, many on the left side of the aisle still deny there is a relevant difference. In an audio interview conducted by National Public Radio, host Scott Detrow spoke with established geneticist Dr. Eric Vilain, who believes that there simply isn’t enough evidence to suggest that men have a disproportionate competitive advantage in sports:

Well, on one hand, not having an indiscriminate ban suggests that the baseline for eligibility for all athletes, including trans athletes, should be inclusion. And I think that’s a good thing. And that’s actually what the International Olympic Committee has done in creating a framework for inclusion and fairness that’s based on the principle of no presumption of advantage. And if a category is going to be excluded, it needs to be based on evidence. The problem here with the exclusion on a case-by-case basis is that it is likely not to be based on evidence. Who’s going to undertake all the necessary research to demonstrate a disproportionate advantage, sport by sport, at so many different ages? Who will fund this? Likely not the school systems. . . .

The issue is we lack a lot of data, so we, in fact, know very little about advantages of trans girls and women athletes over their cisgender peers. That’s true in elite competitions. That’s true in school sports. . . .

I’ll end by saying that the larger question really goes beyond a simple competitive advantage. It’s whether there is a disproportionate competitive advantage between trans and cis athletes.

Aside from pushing a partisan narrative or reinforcing the party line, there is no good reason why Dr. Vilain, an accomplished geneticist, would say these things. The reason for this is that science has, in fact, provided quite a bit of evidence regarding the advantage male athletes have over their female counterparts.

What the research has shown is that men have a clear advantage when it comes to sports. For starters, men have larger and denser bones, which leads to an increased ability to support muscle mass, as well as an increased mechanical advantage, thus increasing their ability to perform tasks that require strength, speed, and power. Furthermore, men have a much higher VO2 max threshold. In other words, due to biological males having larger hearts than biological females, men’s bodies are much better when it comes to delivering oxygen to their muscles and tissues during exercise.

Now the reason these two disproportionate advantages are important to note is that neither has to do explicitly with testosterone, which is the typical go-to argument of antitrans activists. This is to say that, unlike testosterone, which can be increased or decreased via artificial means, bone density and heart size are not parts of the body that doctors can alter. In other words, they are clear-cut and, more importantly, unchangeable advantages that no amount of gender-confirming care can eliminate.

As this evidence shows, it is not fair for biological males to compete in female sports. With that said, however, more and more male-to-female transgender athletes seem to be making the decision to switch proverbial teams. In some states, this is being heralded as brave and heroic, while in others, it is leading to serious legislative crackdowns. So, what is the proper way to handle trans athletes while pleasing both sides?

Despite chess being a sport that no one really thinks about while discussing trans athletes, the International Chess Federation has recently found itself at the center of the debate by making the decision to “effectively stop allowing transgender women from participating in women’s competitions until ‘further analysis’ can be made.”

This decision, though from an unlikely source, may have exposed an answer to this debate that will make all of this trans athlete stuff, effectively, a nonissue. The reason for this is that chess has a unique aspect that most sports do not share. This aspect is an “open” section, which is a category in tournaments that allows both men and women to compete against each other.

Per the International Chess Federation’s decision, trans chess players will still be allowed to compete in these open sections, thus allowing them to continue competing despite their decision to transition.

Could this be the answer America has been looking for? Think about it.

People on the left argue that trans people are far more common than the average person realizes. More specifically, they say that the research suggests that 1.3–5 percent of the US population identifies as a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth and that this number is likely higher, but due to underreporting, those people are still not being accounted for.

Of course, people on the right have and will continue to deny these statistics/assumptions, but they don’t want trans athletes competing anyway, so as far as the left is concerned, who cares, right?

Assuming that this argument is valid and there truly are this many trans people out there in the populace, well, when it comes to sports, why not just create open leagues? Wouldn’t this give the Right what they want, biological men and women competing with biological men and women? Wouldn’t it also give the left what they want: a safe and inclusive place for trans athletes to compete?

The answer as to why we do not have open leagues is probably that there are not enough trans people to fill the ranks of these divisions, though the left will never admit it. But to be honest, this is an irrelevant and unconstitutional criticism of open leagues. You see, at the end of the day, the Constitution is all about protecting individual rights and free market principles. This, among other things, means protecting the right of women, who are disproportionately affected by trans athletes, to have fair and safe spaces. In addition to this, a free market operates via supply and demand. Therefore, if there are not enough trans athletes to support open sports leagues, well, then that is just, unfortunately, the way it is, and you don’t get to infringe upon women’s rights to remedy this.

In closing, sports are all about meritocracy. In a way, they are a perfect example of how a free market should work. This is to say that sports are driven by a supply of talented athletes who meet the demands of the population’s viewing preferences. Because of this, sports are highly competitive. This is why you don’t see five-foot-two people competing in the National Basketball Association or overweight people competing in the one-hundred-meter dash. So, if the integrity of sports is to be upheld while also protecting women’s constitutional rights, which would mean not allowing athletes who are born male to use their inherent biological advantages against athletes who were born female, the only logical solution is to leave things up to the free market by making a separate place for trans athletes to freely compete against one another. If you think this isn’t a feasible idea, well, chess did it.

 

Alexander Oakes is a Marine Corps combat veteran who is currently pursuing his PhD in Clinical Psychology at Arizona State University. He also hosts Nobody’s News Show on Youtube.com and is preparing to publish his first book, “How To Get Out Of Work: A framework for manipulation, deception, and misdirection” to be released later this year.

Alexander Oakes | Mises Wire

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

 

The post Chess, Trans Athletes, and Free Markets in Sports appeared first on Granite Grok.

My new “income” situation is poised to begin in a week, and there are a lot of questions that no amount of time poking around at the IRS website has managed to resolve. I’m still in the dark about my responsibility to help the IRS steal from me, and I’m looking for some free expert advice or, lacking that, a bit of direction.

The last thing I want to do is screw up how I pay taxes under these new circumstances. I’ve had freelance, gig economy-like income in the past, but not in any significant sum. I could just declare it as additional income alongside my regular work income. Beginning in October, the majority of my income will be from donations passed through GraniteGrok (or GiveSendGo), and how, when, and how much gets reported matters.

Taxes will need (should be) paid quarterly, I get that. Fees and fines are not in my budget, so I want to avoid those. The nature of the relationship between the funding (donors), GraniteGrok, and myself (as a part-owner) needs to be explained from a tax perspective so we understand who reports and pays what, why, and when.

I will add that whoever helps us navigate this successfully could get hired to do Grok’s taxes. Skip has been doing them, but we are in a situation where things are getting too complex, and we are probably not reporting allowed deductions to taxable income; I feel certain we’re paying more taxes than we should, helping the IRS steal more from us.

If you have experience wrestling with the current IRS code and are willing to offer a few minutes of pro-bono help working out the details of my new income arrangement, it would be greatly appreciated. I am willing to offer some free advertising space on GraniteGrok in exchange for that assistance if you are doing this professionally.

You can email me at steve@granitegrok.com.

Thanks!

The post Looking for Some Free Tax Advice … appeared first on Granite Grok.

You might already be familiar with my recent article, the open letter to Councilor Wheeler. Please refer to it for a list of some of his key transgressions against the will of his constituents and against NH. Today, one more thing can be added to his rap sheet.

He voted the wrong way on the political patronage appointment of DJ Bettencourt. Again, see my earlier article on why rejecting it was the right thing to do. And as much as I hate the thought of praising a member of the enemy camp, kudos to Warmington for being the lone dissenting vote!

I should add that Kenney, similar to the Edwards judgeship hearing, offered some half-measure of lip service about a concern with a potential conflict of interest involving the Salem Town Council. It was addressed, and a 4-1 vote was quickly taken while I held up a sign from the 2nd row saying, “say no to political patronage.” I packed up and left the venue in disgust after that. At least I didn’t have to wait several hours for that vote as though it was October 13, 2021, all over again.

I know there are Wheeler loyalists, Beth Scaer, Colton, and JR, for example. Even Karen Testerman once said, “oh he’s not THAT bad, considering all 5 of them.” And I almost forgot that Cornerstone Attorney Ian Huyett, who claims Wheeler is one of the most conservative guys in NH. I certainly welcome polite discourse from them, but to them, I ask how many more times does Wheeler have to vote the wrong way before loyalty to him is reexamined?

With Anne Copp now in Florida and Clegg sadly on the wrong side of the grass, and my knowledge of previous primaries limited to just them, I consider myself like that Saturday Night Live guy lecturing the youngsters in their living room about living in a van down by the river. For the love of all that’s holy, will someone electable PLEASE primary him!

I forsee another routine NH higher office election where a mediocre politician has us all over a barrel because under no circumstances do we want the opponent(in this case, Alderman Kelly) to get elected. The Damn Emperor’s last 2 elections were secured by an unhinged despicable November opponent(Feltes and Dr Sherman). Now I see Kelly Ayotte being the next governor only because we don’t want NH to become a “statewide Manchester.” Something has to change!

I will leave you with a Plato quote. “If you don’t take interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.” We are already there, my friends!

The post Wheeler is On Notice (not that he wasn’t already) appeared first on Granite Grok.

Like the return of the Pumpkin Latte every Fall, the New York City Council convenes, and their first challenge to focus on is which statues need to be removed from the city.

Whether it is George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, we must purge our parks and plazas of these monuments that remind us of what an evil, oppressive country we are, is the rationale of the Council. This year, there are two new twists as this Council wants to show how progressive and forward-thinking they are. If one of our historical pieces survives a removal vote, it will be forever adorned with a plaque explaining how the man immortalized sinned against humanity.

In a final move to show how numb these people are to reality, they are considering reparations being paid to New Yorkers impacted by these deplorable forefathers over two hundred years ago. This mission to cleanse the city of New York of the heinous reminders of our past comes during a time when 5-star hotels, city parks, shelters, and sidewalks are overrun with illegal immigrants. Mayor Eric Adams has been in the daily news pleading for help from the Federal Government, and specifically, Joe Biden, to stem the flow of illegals and to provide financial assistance to cities that are absorbing the high cost of these thousands of people.

Mayor Adams claims the current surge of immigrants to New York City will cost the city $12 Billion over three fiscal years. This unplanned expenditure will financially cripple New York City. Adams does not appear to be getting the attention of the White House. President Biden is in New York City this week to attend and address the United Nations. Adams has asked for time with the President to handle the situation face-to-face. Biden and his team have ignored the Mayor. Any streets the President travels while in the city are sterilized of any homeless, immigrants, or their encampments to prevent the possibility of visuals showing the President and these deplorable conditions. This effort by the President’s staff is consistent with keeping the President and the Vice President away from the Southern Border. It would be damaging to the Democrat narrative to have any images connecting the President to the broken Border and its impact on major metropolitan cities.

The Border has never been more porous. At the current rate of people crossing the Border, we will see 2.4 Million illegals this year. We will probably be upwards of 8 to 10 Million in one Biden term. This insanity must be stopped, and no one knows how this will be corrected. Many of the people crossing in this wave are from Venezuela and Haiti. They are primarily single young males and now travel by freight train to make the trek through Mexico faster.

The women and children that cross will very possibly end up in the sex trade or illegal labor force. Both are modern-day versions of slavery, and Joe Biden facilitates this process. So leave the historical monuments intact and tear down the modern-day proponents of slavery-President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

The post Leave George And Tom Alone, Tear Down Joe appeared first on Granite Grok.

When Obama was elected in 2008, Valerie Jarrett and David Pouffle were credited for helping him beat out Hillary Clinton, the female candidate who had vastly more experience than he did. His campaign succeeded in reaching a 17–25 year old demographic using social media.

Once harnessed, this demographic had to be kept engaged, and thus, the White House and its PR teams started to work with college-aged and recent graduates to create narratives that would keep the momentum going.

Obama became pals with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, who’d built his brand after hacking into Harvard’s computers to compare female headshots to each other and to rate them on how “hot” they were. It was literally turning women into sex objects. Obama became “the Facebook” president.

The Obama administration, Facebook, and Google were going to target and use women and girls for election purposes behind a veneer of caring about them. It was false. Anita Dunn (Obama’s director of communications who went on to join political PR firm SKDK), Valerie Jarrett (Obama’s Chief of Staff), and Tina Tchen (Michele Obama’s Chief of Staff) had a whole other agenda — using women to profiteer and fundraise from.

The administration started working with S. Daniel Carter, who recruited two women, Angela Rose of PAVE and Laura L. Dunn, to work with the Department of Education’s Russlynn Ali and Lyn Rosenthal/Susan Carbon of the Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women for the “Campus Survivor Movement”. Angela Rose (aka Angela Bartucci) got a Wikipedia page just a few days after Obama was elected. She was from Illinois but had attended the University of Wisconsin, where she promoted her non-profit “Promoting Awareness Victims Empowerment” www.shatteringthesilence.org. This organization (and its affiliates) was called out as 100% lies by Melinda Coleman on Facebook in September 2020.

Interning for Angela Rose was Laura L Dunn, who, according to her, was persuaded by S. Daniel Carter to file a Title IX lawsuit against the school for failure to handle her complaints of alleged sexual assault by two male students with whom she’d got blind drunk with before being “raped.” Ironically, S. Daniel Carter told me I shouldn’t believe everything I read about Laura L. Dunn!

Nevertheless, Laura L. Dunn recounted the story on NPR in 2010 as part of an initiative between the White House and NPR to bring awareness to campus sexual assault as an issue. The only problem was NPR (Center for Public Integrity) never read the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights response to her complaint, which greatly differed from her own account on the radio program. NPR corrected it five years later, but by that time, the damage was done. The political stunt was well on its way:

Women were “victims,” “survivors” who were viciously raped while drunk & unable to consent to sex by entitled males at “elite” campuses. Women were weak and lacked agency to make their own decisions. Men were behind the feminist activists like Laura L. Dunn and Angela Rose pushing this narrative. Men were also behind the narratives profiling and stereotyping of males on campus.

Judging by the males close to the Obamas, Clintons, and Bidens (Harvey Weinstein, Ed Buck, Jeffrey Epstein), they had a skewed idea that does not reflect the general population. Women and female interns were to be used. Monica Lewinsky was ridiculed and shamed. Now, they were going recruit interns like her and use them to make money, turning the narrative that caused her to be slut-shamed on its head. Projection was everything.

Laura L. Dunn and Angela Rose called around the country to find girls who could be recruited and used for their campaign. They worked for males: S.Daniel Carter, President Barrack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and Attorney General Eric Holder. The women who they worked with directly: Valerie Jarrett (Obama’s Chief of Staff), Russlynn Ali (DOE OCR), Catherine Lhamon (DOE OCR), and Lyn Rosenthal (DOJ OVW), all had male bosses.

(Catherine Lhamon later went to work for Gavin Newsom, who had an affair with his campaign manager’s wife; Lyn Rosenthal went to work for Joe Biden’s foundation.)

S. Daniel Carter proposed bills & acts for the campus rape agenda and was communicating directly with Russlynn Ali, who then used his endorsement of the “Dear Colleague” letter to validate it. He had a business to grow — SurvJustice with Laura L Dunn was his “mentee.” What were these women really doing? They were being used by the men in charge to go out, recruit, and create narratives for the “Campus Survivor Movement” that led to the propaganda documentary “The Hunting Ground,” which was distributed by sex predator and thug Harvey Weinstein (a friend of President Obama, the Clintons, and Hunter Biden- the son of Vice President Joe Biden). Disgraced attorney Tom Girardi received a special thanks for it.

Viewers of “The Hunting Ground,” which covered campus rape, were asked to take the “Its on Us” pledge. “It’s On Us” is a non-profit launched by President Obama in September 2014. The campaign for “It’s On Us” was run by Blue Crab Strategies PR headed by Jason Waskey, who is a Democratic strategist who worked on the 2008 Obama campaign.

“The Hunting Ground” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2015 in a slot sponsored by George Soros’ Open Societies. I was there. I witnessed the audience manipulation first hand, and I, like most others in the room, fell for it. My daughters were about to enter middle and high school. I was the perfect audience.

It promulgated stories of rape which turned out to be false, and promoted statistics from Dr. David Lisak — an associate professor, who debunked the numbers himself. But the filmmakers of “The Hunting Ground” never corrected them, and nor did anyone in the DoE, DoJ, or the White House. There was no need: the narrative was working. They were engaging and recruiting females on campus who could become “victims” of sexual encounters, which they were shamed into believing was rape. These girls & women could then be molded to become “survivors” with the full support of the White House and its PR strategists’ machine behind it.

One of these PR strategists was Dan Hill of Hillimpact.com — a condescending, arrogant misogynist who has attacked me for figuring it out and who promoted a salacious propaganda memoir for his client Chessy Prout, who was recruited by Laura L Dunn in 2014/15. He doesn’t like women who think for themselves. But he likes to speak at the World Economic Forum about Women’s leadership. He knows nothing. He knows how to manipulate the public with false tales, help censor media for his clients, and help them get Government contracts to the tune of $21+ billion dollars with propaganda. I’ve also been attacked by Alexander Prout, Chessy Prout’s father, who is on the board of PAVE & Vital Voices Solidarity — a non-profit tied to the Clintons & Clinton Global Foundation. The Prouts, of course, were pretty silent on the suicide of Melinda Coleman’s daughter, Daisy Coleman, who’d been recruited by Angela Rose for the documentary “Audrie & Daisy”. PAVE used her funeral as a fundraiser for themselves and went silent on the news that at the time she was suicided she was being stalked by a sex trafficker. “Audrie & Daisy” had the backing of Ted Waitt behind it — a Clinton Foundation donor who was Ghislaine Maxwell’s date to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding.

Under Jason Waskey at Blue Crab Strategies, which pushed the #ItsOnUs campaign are Amanda Aguirre and Rebecca Dane, who worked on Obama’s 2012 campaign and for his 2013 inaugural committee. It is around this time that the fake campus rape narrative really kicked in. A massive special ops initiative that would be used for the 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020 elections …until Tara Reade accused Joe Biden of digital penetration.

Jessica Loya, another employee of Blue Crab Strategies, worked for the Obama White House’s Office of Environmental Quality’s Office of Public Engagement. Amanda Nguyen worked as an intern for the Office of Public Engagement in 2012. She reported to Valerie Jarrett and Tina Tchen. But in the fall of 2014, when the campus survivor movement was the hottest ticket, she stated she had been raped at Harvard in 2013. She rose quickly through the White House ranks, winning accolade after accolade. An entrepreneur who used the campus survivor movement to such success that she was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

Between December 2010 and February 2011, an unregulated federal directive was composed with the help of S. Daniel Carter, his protege Laura L Dunn, Stanford Law Professor Michele Dauber, and Obama’s inner circle. Michele Dauber had been close friends with Russlynn Ali at Northwestern Law School in Illinois, just next to Chicago. Her husband, Ken Dauber, was a useful tool. He had been among the first dozen hired by Google, and he was an expert in AI & crowd behavior. He got hired as a consultant by Russlynn Ali for the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights and paid $26,000 between 2009 and 2012. Around the time that he co-authored a research paper on AI & crowd behavior for Google (2007), the “like” clicks were introduced on social media, which, tied with the # became currency for the political PR companies working with the Obama, Clinton and Biden campaigns.

Students on campus were the target. They could be engaged with a subject (sexual assault, rape) that would help Obama’s, the DNC’s, Hillary Clinton’s, the 2018 midterm and 2020 Biden campaign. Replacing “bodice ripper” stories which could make airport trash novels fly off the shelves, were stories of horrendous gang rapes and similar on campus.

Sex sells — especially to teenagers and young adults. Google knew this as well — sexploitation of children easily found on its pages, pushed to the forefront by algorithms. JP Morgan knew it, too. They invested in Mindgeek, the parent company of PornHub. So did Cornell University.

In 2013, Obama essentially repealed an act that had been introduced in 1948 (Smith Mundt) to prevent Government backing or creation of propaganda. It was a clever move. The White House, via non-profits, social media & media “influencers,” could scare monger everyone into a fear of rape on campus while recruiting for their cause. They promised that they were going to eradicate rape on campus, but they needed you & your daughters to join their campaign.

Logically speaking, if you thought your daughter had a 20% plus chance of being raped on campus, would you fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars to send her to an Ivy League or similar where she was going to get an education as long as she could put up with being drunk, raped, abused, shamed and being a victim of systemic cover-ups of sexual abuse? The answer is — you would not. But logic was set aside. Political PR campaigns that had successfully helped Obama win the presidency over a woman, Hillary Clinton, were there to help Obama get re-elected and potentially sabotage Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election.

Women and girls became pawns for male political operatives. All the progress that women made in the last 100 years was cast aside. Suddenly, we were damsels in distress who needed Vice President Uncle Joe Biden to speak up for us — to say “Believe women”.

Not only does Joe Biden not respect women, but he thinks he can violate them too: he puts his hands everywhere on women and on young girls. He doesn’t respect boundaries. By any standards, he is inappropriate. He had an affair with Jill while she was married to another man, and his son, Hunter Biden, fills his laptop up with images of child sex abuse while remaining a board member of a non-profit that protects against sexual violence against children.

Nevertheless, the impressionable and ambitious Laura L. Dunn had photos of herself brimming from ear to ear while Joe Biden (a good 40+ years older than her) had his arm around her ribs. S. Daniel Carter had his hand around her friend Angela Rose in a December 2010 photo from Capitol Hill. So thrilled was Laura Dunn about being introduced to all of this by S. Daniel Carter that she wrote a gushing email to Russlynn Ali on Christmas Day 2010. Soon after, she became part of the inner circle of the White House with Joe Biden and Barrack Obama, who were only too happy to have all these attractive young women recruiters around them.

In March 2011, Vice President Joe Biden was asked to sign off on the unregulated “Dear Colleague” Title IX letter. His office wanted to know why it was necessary to replace due process with preponderance of evidence standards in Title IX campus sex discrimination/sexual assault investigations. An argument was written up to convince him: “Preponderance of evidence” was used in criminal sentencing — was the defendant a first-time offender, were they likely to commit a crime again? His office bought the argument, failing to register that preceding a sentencing, constitutional due process historically regulates criminal investigations and trials — at least it had since the English Star Chamber system of the 17th century was replaced. But in 2011, we went right back to pre-Independence. There would be no need for procedural fairness, just a jump to a conclusion of guilt, triggering a success for Civic Nation, aka “The United States of Women,” aka “Its On Us,” aka Blue Crab Strategies, Jason Wasky, Obama, the DNC, and Biden.

Looking back on women’s rights and women’s agency since 2008, I am upset that women have been used by men in power to undo everything we’ve fought for. So focused on the campus rape narrative and MeToo were these people that they forgot all about the vulnerability of Roe v Wade.

Emily’s List & the Enough Voter Movement used the campus rape and MeToo narratives to get women democrats elected. . Many of those elected were attorneys with law degrees who could have had their teams scrutinize Roe v Wade to figure out what bills to introduce in order to ratify it. But they didn’t. They all wore white to the State of the Union and read the Emily Doe victim’s impact statement to shallowly express their support of women. They were trophy wives being used by men or by women working for men. Congresswoman Ann Kuster stated, “We are all Emily Doe.” No, we are not. We don’t lobby for Rohypnol — a date rape drug for which she lobbied, and we don’t jump on the bandwagon of being survivors (as she did) because it’s as hot as being pregnant and smoking in the 1950s.

We and our daughters have been used by the Obama and Biden administrations in an experiment run by men in Government, heading NGOs and Social Media companies.

How can we ever forget that while the Obama administration was busy telling us women that they had our back, they and the CIA were meeting with Jeffrey Epstein? Or that Larry Page of Google had, on average, two meetings per week with the Obama White House on strategy, is wanted by the US VI in connection to his association with Jeffrey Epstein? Bill Gates called Epstein his financial guru while having extramarital affairs with young bridge players he fancied. Noam Chomsky tells us it is none of our business to know what was going on between him and Jeffrey Epstein. Jamie Dimon pretended he was unaware — a statement which should render him incompetent to run a leading world bank, JP Morgan. Klaus Schwab hides behind his daughter’s Gender Equality Project (formed in 2009) while secretly entertaining overpaid male CEOs of global corporations who visit Davos only to spend thousands on private escorts. 51 intelligence agents signed a letter dismissing the Hunter Biden Laptop as Russian disinformation. I believe they were all male.

Michele Dauber, the feminist activist from Stanford, worked under John Hennessy, the President of Stanford and “Godfather of Google.” His replacement, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, got away with falsified imagery on scientific research papers and met with Prince Harry & Meghan Markle in their new-founded 2020 state of “victimhood” (created it appears on the 20th January 2020 — a convenient narrative for the WEF and its gender equity agenda). They too, became willing tools because it was lucrative.

Next time one of these sham organizations such as End Rape on Campus, Its On Us, SurvJustice, Know Your IX, I Have The Right To, PAVE, I Have The Right To, RAINN go asking for money, take a look at who is really behind them. RAINN is run by Scott Berkowicz who has also been accused of a toxic sexual environment but that Department of Defense contract is too valuable. The Prout family are ambassadors for RAINN of course as well. Follow the money. In the end that is what this is all about and its driven by men.

This is not the path forward for women’s leadership, female empowerment or victims rights. Women don’t have to be tools. We don’t have to be denied agency. If we are capable enough to drive a car, get into college, vote, run our own businesses, then we are capable enough to be critical thinkers and to distinguish between regretted sexual encounters and rape. We are also capable of smelling bs when we see it. So why do victims rights activists & political PR companies tied to the Obama/Biden administrations think that we aren’t? Because it’s useful for the men in charge.

The post The Campus Survivor and #MeToo Movements are Politically backed Special Operations Exercises appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Deep State Stenographers at USSA Today published something with this ridiculous headline. “Why the conspiracy theory that Biden will use COVID to rig election is spreading unchecked.”

It has nothing to do with that “free speech” clause thing in the First Amendment or how the government got caught censoring Americans in violation of it and can’t censor them the way they’d like. That would at least be honest reporting.

“Ideas we don’t like or disagree with run rampant because it is illegal to silence them.” That’s a much more accurate headline. USSA Today could even go on to talk about why they disagree. Instead, get research cited to justify their ridiculous headline from a partisan group USSA insists is non-partisan.

1) This is USSA Today, and 2) they need you to believe the same party that would rig its primary elections against Democrats wouldn’t do the same thing to Republicans, so this has to be conspiratorial rubbish.

And so it begins.

 

It’s a false, but rising, conspiracy theory: as COVID-19 rates climb later this year, the Biden administration will reinstate pandemic restrictions and push mail-in ballots to influence the next election. And some social media platforms are now allowing it to spread openly.

That’s the finding of a new study from Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan research agency, which warns that in spite of a rapidly escalating number of posts about COVID and mail-in ballots, social platforms are generally not removing the claims or labeling them with fact-check warnings.

 

We can stop there because everything that follows is based on the idea that Advance Democracy (by which I feel confident he means mob rule) is a non-partisan research agency, which it is not. Daniel Jones runs Advance Democracy.

 

A nonprofit group run by a former top aide for Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein who has pushed debunked claims about a secret back channel between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank spent the post-2016 era funneling millions to Christopher Steele’s company and the opposition research firm Fusion GPS.

Daniel Jones, lead author of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s interrogation program, founded the Democracy Integrity Project in January 2017. Tax records show he funded Steele, Fusion, and others, keeping a web of groups working and donor money flowing to the tune of millions of dollars for years, helping the groups continue their Russia-related research into 2020.

 

Jones’s role pays him over $398,000.00 a year for his work, funded in part by “the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a left-leaning foundation funded by some of the biggest names in the technology industry and Silicon Valley.”

 

Daniel J. Jones is a former Teach for America alum who joined the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence under then-Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) as an investigator after completing his master’s degree in policy and working for the FBI for four years as an investigator. Jones is most famous for his work leading a seven-year investigation into allegations of torture by the U.S. government after 9/11. He published a report in December 2014 that detailed acts of torture committed by the CIA. 2

After leaving the U.S. Senate, Jones founded Advance Democracy Inc. in January 2018, four days after Jones was identified as a partner of Fusion GPS and its investigation of the Trump-Russia collusion claims. 3

 

And by biggest names, whom might they mean?

 

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has donated nearly $2 billion in his company’s stock to SVCF since 2010, according to Forbes, including $214 million in November 2018. Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey contributed $21 million in Square stock in 2015, and Netflix founder Reed Hastings gave $100 million in 2016. Google co-founder Sergey Brin gave $10 million in 2015.

Starbucks founder and potential 2020 presidential candidate Howard Schultz gave $1 million in 2014. J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, gave $605,000 in 2016 through his family foundation, according to Forbes, which pulled donor information from Security Exchange Commission filings.

 

Nothing Jones touches could be non-partisan. Inconvenient truths I found on the internet in fewer than five minutes if the folks at USSA today are looking for any non-partisan freelance fact-checkers to improve the veracity of the rubbish they publish.

 

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, prominent right-wing figures continue to promote Trump’s claims. Several referenced the Infowars article or related allegations, according to Advance Democracy.

“The prevalence of this conspiracy theory, which has remained largely unaddressed on social media platforms, suggests that purposeful disinformation from far-right actors will continue to grow as the election draws near,” Daniel Jones, president of Advance Democracy, told USA TODAY.

 

The piece rambles endlessly – the way a liar can’t shut up – in defense of vote by mail and how important it is to social justice (or something), all while attacking social media companies for letting people who disagree with them … disagree.

Why can’t Advance Democracy, with its 4.7 million dollars in financial support (2021, they only reported 4.3 million in 2020) and a CEO who works 25 hours a week and gets paid 398,000 dollars, find a way to compete in the arena of ideas with ideas?

Oh, wait – they did, thanks to USSA Today and who knows what else. Jones did work with the FBI and Fusion GPS and had connections to the debunked Steele Dossier and the treason associated with using it to interfere with an election and a presidency.

The non-partisan guy running the non-partisan research group.

Right.

 

The post USA Today Pretends A Former Feinstien Aide and Fusion GPS Guy is Non-Partisan appeared first on Granite Grok.

Well … okay … maybe there is. Mitch and his ilk want to drive us even further into debt by deficit-funding the military-industrial complex’s proxy-war against Russia at an even higher level than the Biden-Regime. But, generally speaking, Mitch had his ilk have been RUBBER-STAMPS for the Biden-Regime … either by voting for the inflationary deficit-spending or by turning a blind-eye to the open border, the political persecution of pro-life, the political persecution of Trump-supporters, the Biden-corruption, etc., etc., etc..

These “traditional” … a lovely euphemism for RINO … Republicans endlessly lecture us about needing to FOCUS ON THE FISCAL ISSUES. But they are every bit as much profligate spenders as the Biden-Regime. The only difference is that the Biden-Regime hates America and everything they do is to “transform” … a lovely euphemism for destroy … America, while Mitch and his ilk are focused on padding their pockets.

Mollie Hemingway: No Difference In What McConnell Wants To Spend And What Schumer Wants, There Is No Battle https://t.co/P52DvM68Hl

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 20, 2023

The post There Is ZERO Difference Between Mitch McConnell And His GOP Senate … And The Biden-Regime … But Just Keep Pretending There Is appeared first on Granite Grok.

Is it still a secret that states and nations collected years of data showing that children were never a vector for infection or the spread of SARS-CoV2? It was evident after the first two weeks of tyranny in March/April 2020 and confirmed by mountains of evidence since, but there has been one change.

Kids became a vector for infection and spread if they got The Jab. The vaccine made them more susceptible, erasing their natural immunity.

Pfizer, which hasn’t exactly admitted this or any other failure (despite all the doc dumps and evidence in them), recently funded research to analyze “records from Kaiser Permanente Southern California [that] included patients who tested for COVID-19 at an emergency department, urgent care, or outpatient setting, along with being diagnosed with acute respiratory infection.”

 

Children were only counted as vaccinated if they received a second or third shot two or more weeks before being exposed to COVID-19. Children were excluded if they only received one dose, received any doses from a different company, or did not follow the recommended dosing schedule.

After adjusting for factors such as age and sex, researchers estimated just 12 percent effectiveness against medically-attended encounters for children who completed the three-dose primary series.

Confidence intervals crossed well over one, indicating that the effectiveness might actually be worse or even negative.

 

Pfizer’s conclusion? “Updated vaccines will likely be needed to maintain protection against contemporary Omicron strains in young children,” they wrote.”

I’m no virologist, chemist, or pharmaceutical engineer, but I can read, and New Hampshire’s data was no different than any other state I’ve reviewed. Until the vaccines were stuck into kids, few ever had to be hospitalized, and none died. These initial details denied to parents have since made children more likely to catch co-variants or the flu, to which we can add heart problems and an increased risk of cancer.

But is this research, while not great news for kiddie-jabbing enthusiasts, even telling the whole truth? The Pfizer/Kaiser Permanente research has been panned by experts outside the Public Health Industrial Complex, including Dr. Malone and Dr. Bhattacharya.

 

The newly reported results are based on a test-negative design, which is inappropriate for measuring effectiveness, said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of health policy at Stanford University.

“The design starts with children who are already seeing a doctor and then makes strong and unsupportable statistical assumptions to derive the probability of seeing a doctor for vaccinated and unvaccinated children,” Dr. Bhattacharya, who was not involved in the research, told The Epoch Times via email.

There are other flaws, it seems, which is not surprising. Even in failure, Pfizer fails, not that it matters. The solution is always the same these days. Get another shot and listen to them lie about the risks, with doctors, the media, and the Pfederal government hand in hand.

 

HT | Epoch Times

The post Pfizer Pfunded Research Shows COVID “Vaccine” Was Useless in Children 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 and Wednesday.

 

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

 

Note that Monday is Yom Kippur, so I will not have a post for Monday – back on Wednesday.  I’ve also resumed work on the next Survival Sunday, so expect to have one for next weekend.  FYI here’s the last one.

 

 

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

 

I know people have not been fond of videos and lots of comments, but IMHO this is a must-see one if you haven’t already.

Dr. Laibow Exposing the Depopulation Agenda (bitchute.com)

It’s about an hour, with a lot of history that I hadn’t known; her knowledge is encyclopedic and she cites chapter and verse.  (In parallel, do recall that from these two books, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning and The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left, I’ve learned just how kissing-cousins the early Progressives in the 20th century were with the ascending Nazis.)  This video interview is absolutely worth the time.

Two things that I really perked up at:

1. Just how long this Globalist / depopulation project has been in the works.  I’ve guessed at a century but reading between the lines of what Dr. Rima says, it’s even longer than that.  And massively well-funded.  Rockefeller is mentioned; the Rothschilds are surely in there too.  She mentions a woman of royalty (not the Queen of England but wouldn’t surprise me if they’re in the mix too).  Virtually limitless money behind this plan.  Money and a True Belief that this project is their manifest destiny.

2. Her comment about psychopaths like this being essentially invisible.  All these things are out in the open.  And yet none see them, because they don’t want to believe people could actually do this to humanity.  As this meme which I’ve posted before goes:

 

 

Reprising my recent Depopulation Speculations.

Two more – just to look at the nudging:

How behavioural scientists are enabling the ‘elite’ to rule the world – PANDA (pandata.org)

And my own essay on nudging:

The Fly on the Urinal – Urban Scoop

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at the date of when they knew about all these potential adverse events.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nice country you have.  Be a shame if my people that you imported start being upset with your people if you don’t do what I want.

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the post:

 

IMHO we have a tie.

 

 

 

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

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

—

 

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

 

 

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

Whale deaths have spiked, and their beached bodies continue to appear on American shores. The people who claim to care about the whales are some of the same folks who love offshore wind, and unfortunately for the whales, Wind Machines can launder a lot more money than marine mammals.

But the political Left still pretends to care about “the oceans,” and the target they’ve chosen to freeze and isolate (and beat to death with the main-stream-media hammer) is single-use plastics. Let’s forget for a moment that their replacements are much more carbon-intensive at birth and death.

 

• Paper Straws Require More Energy and Carbon Emissions to Make Than Plastic and …
• Replacing Single-Use Plastic with Single-Use Paper Is Worse for The Planet
• Single-use plastic Bags Are Still Safer and Better for the Environment
• NH Democrat’s Regulations on Plastics and Styrene Are Worse Than Doing Nothing
• Proposed Plastic Bans – When the ‘Solution’ is Worse Than the “Problem”

 

That’s just niggling over inconvenient science.

Or that the majority of plastic, the preponderance of ocean waste, comes from places other than America (as do emissions).

 

 

Or that another ban on something everyone else – especially our enemies – is committed ot using more of won’t make even a tiny little dimple of a dent in the “problem,”  even if it were a problem.

And let’s ignore how these meaningless exercises increase inconvenience and raise the cost of everything they touch, diverting fiscal resources away from everything else, including … real problems.

Forget all of that.

 

Monday morning, the governor (Maura Healey) announced at The Clinton Global Initiative in New York City that she will be banning state agencies from purchasing single-use plastic bottles because climate change demands it.

“We know that plastic waste, plastic production are among the leading threats to our oceans, our climate, and environmental justice. In government, we have an obligation — we also have an opportunity — to not only stop contributing to this damage but to chart a better path forward,” Healey said.

 

Is Healey short for Helium (Healeyum) becasue your head would have to be filled with it to think this was anything other than a virtue signal? And an expensive one, at that.

 

On Monday, Healey also told the crowd at CGI, “In our coastal state, we know climate change is our biggest threat. We also believe that taking action is our greatest opportunity, an opportunity to secure a safe, prosperous, and sustainable future.”

 

The Clinton Global Initiative is a far more significant threat to (women, children, and the planet) than single-use plastic, but we can’t expect jet-setting progs who show up to things like this to concern themselves with that. The CGI, like the Wind Power industry, is another captured interest that diverts grant money for political favors or political favors for real money.

And that’s the only thing green about any of this. But hey, Massachusetts bureaucrats, enjoy your plastic bottle ban. I’m sure you’ve earned the inconvenience.

 

HT | The Daily Wire

The post Virtue Signaling Mass Gov. Bans State Agencies from Purchasing Single-Use Plastic Bottles appeared first on Granite Grok.

Are you good with spending U.S. tax dollars for drone strikes in Sudan? There was a specialized drone operated in the African country of Sudan. It turns out that Special Forces from Ukraine might be the ones pulling the trigger on those strikes.

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A drone that has been seen frequently in Ukraine but not outside that theater of war. Well, not up until now. CNN is reporting those drones were actually operated by Ukrainians in Sudan.  Yes, Ukrainians are operating killer drones in Sudan. And why would they do that?

They want to target the Russian paramilitary operation operating in Sudan called the Wagner Group. The Wagner Group operates in African countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Sudan.  Wagner agrees to provide military services to these countries, and in exchange, Wagner gets gold, diamonds, oil, and some cash.

The Ukrainians are rumored to be taking their fight against those Russians. If they can bog down the Wagner Group or the Russians in Africa, then Moscow might have to send more fighters there instead of sending them to the front lines in Ukraine.

CNN has some great video of Ukrainian racing drones blowing up some of Wagner’s allies in Sudan. The dead are part of a rebel group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The Sudanese Army originally took credit for those drone strikes on some RSF positions, but we now have a bit more color to the story. Maybe the credit should be spread around a little bit to include some Ukrainian Special Forces operators.

What does that mean, and why should we care? The War in Ukraine just took a very interesting and dangerous turn as Ukrainian President Zelensky is traveling to New York and Washington DC.

He spoke yesterday at the United Nations. Today and tomorrow, he will meet with Biden and Congress. He’s expected to ask for another $24B on top of the $66B we have already given to him. This is all deficit spending.

So what do you think? Should we be doing more deficit spending for a proxy war with Russia in Africa? What do you think the Mayor of New York and the Governor of Massachusetts have to say about this? We have an open border and have welcomed over 7 million illegals, whom we cannot afford to house, feed, clothe, educate, and provide healthcare.

We cannot take care of the people here… in America. And we are spending tens of billions in Ukraine at a clip? …So they can expand the Biden proxy war from Ukraine to Africa? Hey, just asking… Common sense says this is questionable decision-making. Tell me again, Joe, why did we get out of Afghanistan?

The post Tell Me Again Joe, Which Wars Are Good Wars? appeared first on Granite Grok.

You have probably heard by now that those COVID injections, the boosters, the bivalents, and likely the new and not-at-all-improved Jab 2023 have some unpleasant side effects (that’s sarcasm).

Pain at the injection site, sudden heart failure, dropping dead. There are a few hundred more in between, but these truths still feel like they’ve failed to reach escape velocity.

Tens of thousands of pages have been pried from Pfizer and the Pfeds, but with an ongoing media blackout, the folks who think they can still eke out some unbiased reporting from the government-captured media are unaware. Newsflash. Not reporting is biased, too.

We do what we can, providing alternative opinions, research, and science. Today’s installment is a video from a South Carolina Senate hearing. The speaker is Dr. Janci Lindsay (don’t stop me if you’ve seen it). She has some things to say about vaccine safety signals (deaths, hello!), human trials, contaminated vaccines (plasmids), bait-and-switch injection, latent cancers from DNA treatments (like the mRNA), and how your gut could become a perpetual spike (protein) factory if you got the thing, and why that’s never good news.

Coming from a medical expert whom I can only assume has since been punished for daring to question the Public Health Industrial Complex, we felt it was news you could use to keep the dream alive. The one where, through brute force, expert testimony eventually breaks through someone’s wall of separation between the narrative and the truth. A light goes on. They begin to question the government’s message and motives, which, like a virus, spreads to other issues and actions until everything is suspect.

The duty, the obligation, to question authority. You never know what will get someone started on that path.

Start at one minute and forty seconds. You can hear here after that (and won’t miss anything vital), so jump there to 1:40 to get started.

 



 

The post Dr. Janci Lindsey on COVID Vaccines – “You Could Be a Perpetual Spike Factory…” appeared first on Granite Grok.

On August 9, the Federal Bureau of Investigation killed Craig Robertson, a seventy-four-year-old Utah man, during a raid on his home.

The man had posted numerous online threats, saying he wanted several state officials dead and had the means to make that happen. The authorities took his declarations at face value, although he was a near octogenarian dependent upon a cane to walk and was described as being “frail of health” by his neighbors.

Something is off and for a variety of reasons. First, if this man really was a great threat to the life of multiple officials, as the state believed, why was he not addressed earlier? After all, there were a variety of threats against multiple people that are now being deemed “credible” to justify the state’s actions, so why was he only addressed now? One might respond with the fact that President Joe Biden was going to be speaking a mere hour away from the man’s residence in Salt Lake City, whereas he hadn’t been there before. Even if we were to assume that this justifies a raid on a disabled, unhealthy seventy-four-year-old, the question still remains: why now? Jill Biden visited Salt Lake City in 2021, only a few months after the infamous desecration of democracy on January 6, and the “threat” was deemed acceptable, evidenced by the fact that the man remained alive for a couple more years. Moreover, some of the threats were against Gavin Newsom, who resided just a day’s drive away from Mr. Robertson. If we are to assume, as the state did, that Robertson would somehow surmount his physical impairments to carry out some plot, a few hours of travel to reach Newsom would not be much more than the hour of travel it would’ve taken for him to even get near Biden during his Salt Lake City visit.

To summarize the issue that many people, including the man’s neighbors, found immediately, Robertson’s threats were unactionable and unserious. So why was he targeted and killed? He had spoken in this grandiose manner for a while, and no one thought that any of it was credible. A defender of the state’s action might point out here that he broke a law by threatening the president.

Robertson is far from the only boomer to issue these threats online. In fact, anyone who has spent even a cursory amount of time in conversation with a very political American above the age of sixty has probably heard threats directed at all sorts of politicians and officials. One could easily go looking for that demographic (and younger) on any social media platform and find threats in abundance. Actually, one could find a series of high-profile threats, also issued against presidents, by individuals much more able to execute a plot.

So why was Robertson targeted by the state while actionable (or potentially actionable) threats go unanswered? Asking a similar question, why those present for the January 6 demonstrations got the harshest application of the law possible while rioters in 2020 largely went unpunished, yields the same answer. Robertson and the majority of the protestors on January 6 were normal people who otherwise had not done anything wrong. The persecution of both began just after major violations of the same laws had taken place by much more destructive or much more able people who had escaped punishment. The state selectively enforced its laws for two reasons.

The first reason lies in a concept known as anarchotyranny, or at least part of it. As a matter of efficiency, it is easier for the state to ignore larger, more violent lawbreakers in favor of harshly patrolling normal people. Taking on the greater lawbreakers would require a will that most, if not all, appendages of the state do not currently possess, fancifully assuming that they would even want that will to begin with. Tackling those worse offenders would also require a larger expenditure of resources while facing a greater chance of casualty. It is simply much safer and more profitable to target a disabled seventy-four-year-old in a quiet town or a bunch of normal people who showed up once at the Capitol for a protest than it is to equally enforce the law on wealthy and connected celebrities or rioters with a history of violence.

The second reason lies in narratives and their effect on the legitimacy of the state. Large swathes of the media in the United States, alongside various parts of the state and academia, have been crafting and operating under a narrative that yokel red staters with guns and unmoderated peasants sharing their opinions on social media are out to destroy American democracy. Though it has been long in the making, this narrative intensified around the 2016 election, again in the interim and 2020 election, and then became dominant after January 6, 2021. The narrative is very powerful, being as it is the state’s direct refutation against the populism that menaces it so. If populism can be defeated in this manner of brute media force, selective legal penalties, and crass academic reinterpretation, the state as it currently exists can freely keep expanding and enriching its own at the expense of normal people.

How does this narrative, or any narrative for that matter, help the state? The narrative strengthens the most critical factor of the state’s existence: legitimacy. As Murray Rothbard puts it, “Thus, ideological support being vital to the State, it must unceasingly try to impress the public with its ‘legitimacy,’ to distinguish its activities from those of mere brigands.” This is the case because

in order to continue in office, any government . . . must have the support of the majority of its subjects. This support . . . need not be active enthusiasm; it may well be passive resignation as if to an inevitable law of nature. But support in the sense of acceptance of some sort it must be; else the minority of State rulers would eventually be outweighed by the active resistance of the majority of the public.

The state works to justify its existence in the minds of enough of the population, securing its legitimacy by crafting narratives. In the narratives mentioned above, like the red staters destroying American democracy, the state’s existence is justified because it must defend democracy and its supporters from those backward red staters and dangerous seventy-four-year-olds. If a demonstration at the Capitol needs to be dispersed or a Trumpist Republican needs to be shot in his home to do this, all the better. By dispersing the protestors or shooting the man, the state is fulfilling its function under the given narrative and further justifying its existence. After all, what if the state and its operators hadn’t been there to vigilantly protect the sacred temples of American democracy and its loyal adherents?

As for Robertson, whether the man’s threats were serious or actionable has no bearing on the reasoning of the state and its foot soldiers. The man did not believe in the current state’s legitimacy, and he was vocal about it. According to the state’s narrative, people who do not believe in the legitimacy of the current state are hardly people; they are dangerous, unsound, and usually evil. “Having” to kill someone in that category may, to the state, be unfortunate, but the benefit it provides in the form of strengthening the narrative and bolstering the state’s legitimacy is very valuable.

At least, that’s how it works in theory. While the narrative against the red staters was strengthened, with every major media organization rearticulating it in some form when running the story, whether the population still accepts the narrative is a different issue. Social media websites like Twitter saw widespread outrage at the occurrence, even from people who normally support the state and its current leaders.

General outrage and the desynchronization of the population from the state’s narrative is where our hope lies. If in the pursuit of reinforcing its position, the state makes itself increasingly illegitimate in the minds of the public, then the state is at its weakest. Any mistakes and miscalculations on the part of the state, like the killing of a normal person in his own home not playing well with the public, must be ruthlessly punished by opponents of the state. In doing so, the opponents of the state will assist in dispelling the state’s legitimacy from the minds of more and more of the population, paving the way for the eventual destruction of the state and the reclamation of liberty that it once extinguished.

Ryan Turnipseed is an undergraduate in economics and entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University.

Ryan Turnipseed | Mises Wire

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