Silicon Valley Bank took in deposits from businesses and households. It then loaned out some of the deposits. When a bank loans out deposits, it earns a return (profit), because the bank charges “interest” on the loans. All banks do this. But SVB made a big mistake.

We want to thank Pamela J. Brown, Ph.D. (Economics), for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.

It loaned out tens of Billions of Dollars by purchasing long-term U.S. Treasuries.

Yes, U.S. Treasuries are considered very safe for investing because the government has the coercive power to tax to refund the loan (a good thing for banks!).

But SVB bought Treasuries that were 1) long-term and 2) at that time, offered a very low-interest rate.

Recently, our monetary authority, the Fed, decided to RAISE interest rates. That means interest rates for any newly-loaned money, including money the govt. decides to borrow (via U.S. Treasuries) will now take place at a HIGHER rate.

So, SVB is holding investments promising a low-interest return in the future. To “equalize” the value of the low-return Treasuries they hold with today’s higher-return Treasuries, SVB must sell their Treasuries AT A LOWER PRICE if they want some cash.

When SVB customers such as Etsy (an online platform for small-business entrepreneurs) tried to withdraw funds to make monthly payments to their employees and platform users, SVB was forced to sell their Treasuries to return the money. This happened at a loss because of the interest rate difference in old-versus-new Treasuries in circulation.

Etsy just had to freeze all transactions because SVB’s balance sheet isn’t balanced: assets (the US Treasuries held) have not been sufficient to cover liabilities (customer deposits).

Now, SVB is closed.

One could say the Fed “tricked” SVB when it raised interest rates and made its investments of lesser value.

If interest rates had remained stable, the situation would not have arisen.

But SVB’s managers should know enough to avoid over-investing in long-term Treasuries. When price inflation rose to 9%, the Fed decided to raise interest rates to contract the money supply and lower prices. Changing government policies are just one of the risks that affect a bank. Financial institutions must be careful to diversify how they invest deposits.

Not all bank failures are caused by reckless government policies. During the Dust Bowl, loans made to farmers were not repaid in part due to prolonged drought, and deposits were lost. That’s life, and those are called supply shocks. But in this case, we can ‘thank’ continued mismanagement in Washington and the Federal Reserve’s jacking with interest rates to accommodate budget chaos for the chronic volatility we’re seeing.

SVB’s situation may cause more banks to fail.

Millions of people are wondering if their banks are over-invested in lower-value assets such as long-term Treasuries. If people develop concerns about their bank’s financial health, whether real or imagined, they will wonder if sufficient funds are available to depositors.

This may lead depositors to hurry in to retrieve their money, called a “run on the bank.” When millions do so, it’s called a “contagion.”

Any depositor with $250,000 (or less) in most US banks is protected with FDIC insurance. By law, they will see their money returned. The problem is that many had deposited MILLIONS in SVB – far exceeding the $250K insured amount.

“90% of SVB’s deposits [are] in financial limbo…that includes Roku, which said it has nearly $500 million with SVB.”

That was a risk that Roku took. I do not support the government (read: taxpayers) providing a bailout to SVB and its depositors.

Lesson learned: Do not deposit more than $250K in any one bank. If you are lucky enough to have more than $250K in cash someday, spread it around to a variety of banks and credit unions and keep the amounts you deposit below the $250K insured limit.

 

Pamela J. Brown, Ph.D. (Economics)

The post Silicon Valley Bank: What Happened… appeared first on Granite Grok.

“Science” has been struggling for credibility ever since Climate Scientism sold its soul for a few shackles. By few, we mean, many billions, and settled science has forever more been a thing.

I know. Piltdown man was (around) a 40-year embarrassment of settled science, but Global Warming is nearing that age and better funded, so science on a global scale has never been in such dire straights.

Science can never be settled.

Science is forever under the microscope, existing as the current thinking or theory until another science tips over Newton’s Apple cart. But science, like history, is written by the victors or, in the case of science, by those pandering to whoever signs the checks. From Foundations to governments, special interest has driven outcomes sold as fact for as long as people have paid others to tell their preferred truth.

The Wuhan lab leak is no different. Tony “Tiny Shoes” Fauci was funding experiments at the Wuhan Institue of Virology (WIV) – likely illegal gain of function – and when the Chinese Flu popped up nearby, he had a lot of incentive to squelch stories that it leaked (or was leaked) from the lab, and did.

 

In early 2020, Dr. Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Institute and Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane University notified former White House COVID adviser and National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Dr. Anthony Fauci that they took seriously suspicions that COVID first escaped from China’s embattled Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

“[O]ne has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” Andersen told Fauci on January 31, 2020. COVID’s genome, further, seemed “inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”

In March, however, both signed onto a paper entitled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” (Proximal Origin), which concluded the lab-leak hypothesis was not “plausible.” LifeSiteNews has previously reported that Fauci himself had previously unknown input into the final draft.

 

Not long after the paper went public, NIAID money began finding its way into the projects of  Dr. Kristian Andersen and Dr. Robert Garry.

 

“Since changing their tune and publicly dismissing a potential lab leak following secretive conversations with Anthony Fauci, Garry and Andersen have received tens of millions in new taxpayer funds from the NIAID for wasteful, deadly, and dangerous virus experiments on primates and other animals,”

 

Much like the growing COVID response apology tour, the weight of evidence has dragged the Wuhan lab leak cat out of the Wuhan bag. Multiple reports from inside and outside the Government have given credibility to the theory, and the cuckold media are repeating them.

Progs who accused you of disinformation have considered scrubbing their social media of evidence that they fell for another false narrative. No one is admitting that, which is why the piece in the Examiner is important.

Huge sums changed hands throughout the so-called pandemic. Billions were made on the lives of millions who didn’t need to die. Disinformation and conspiracy theories continue to rack up wins as the truth. Folks who helped hide the facts were not given immunity deals from harm. Maybe they say they were following orders, but the sword of Damocles is hanging over many who should have known better or did.

The matter of incomplete informed consent has to, at some point, come back to bite someone with or without legalized immunity. That provision is based on an honest communication of risk which was provided to no one.

And here we have Fauci holding secret meetings with Lab Leak supporters who, after changing their tune, got 25 million for research from a guy who had a lot to lose if it were true.

And after Fauci retired, the Lab Leak story grew legs and became the more likely explanation. But we’ll never get that money back unless the same Government that helped hie it freezes bank accounts belonging to the benefactors, and it has no incentive to do that.

Nor is there much interest in an insider-turning whistleblower. No one wants to end up hanging from a tree by a power cord with a “self-inflicted” shotgun wound in their chest.

And yes, we appear to have a government just like that.

 

The post Two COVID Lab-Leak Theory Scientists Scored 25 Million in Grants From Fauci After They Flipped appeared first on Granite Grok.

Joe Biden has not enjoyed favorable approval ratings, nor has his Vice President, Kamala Harris. The Real Clear Politics average has Joe at 44% and Kamala at 38.2%. Joe Biden has been as low as 37%. His low was immediately following the botched withdrawal in Afghanistan when we lost 13 young military members in a Taliban bomb attack. He picked up some momentum after the Mid-terms when Democrats outperformed expectations. He is poised for another dip.

There are two decisions before Biden, and indications are that one is sure to upset the Right, and the other will alienate him from his own party. Let’s look at both.

COVID Origination

Congress passed a bill with unanimous consent of members of each Chamber. A Congressional pay raise would probably not pass the Senate and House unanimously, but this COVID info bill managed to do the impossible.

The bill, which already passed the Senate, would require Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to declassify any information about links between the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the controversial viral research laboratory in the city where the SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged. The vote in the House was 419 to 0. 

You would think it would be a formality for a President to ink his signature on a bill that reaches his desk and does not have a single NAY vote attached from Congress. You would be right about a traditional Presidency, but we do not have normalcy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Chinese President Xi has made it known that he wants this information to stay classified and away from American eyes. So we have an apparent conundrum for Joe Biden. He can align with the wish of Congress and sign the bill, or assuage Xi and refuse to sign or VETO the legislation. His action will define his allegiance, and should he side with Xi, it will add more fodder to the belief that Biden is compromised and beholden to the Chinese.

The Willow Project

The other issue is the Willow Project in Alaska, where ConocoPhillips will be given permission to construct three drilling sites and a connecting pipeline on 16 Million acres of land in Northern Alaska above the Arctic Circle. This project will add thousands of high-paying jobs in Alaska, producing an estimated 180,000 barrels of oil daily. Biden was expected to sign this agreement on Monday. His signature will please the Right that has been urging Biden to ease restrictions and let America regain energy independence. The Left, especially the Green faction, will be apoplectic and fuel the argument that Biden has abandoned them for a more central position.

The Left already feels betrayed by two Biden decisions last week. Biden reversed course on the Washington, D.C. Crime Bill and refused to sign the controversial plan that would make D.C. a more dangerous place for citizens by being softer on crime. The 173 Democrats who voted NAY for the bill feel Biden double-crossed them. Biden has also said he would agree to hold illegal family units trying to enter the United States in Mexico.

These actions indicate a new erratic Biden that has cast confusion over his intentions. The Left cannot bank on his unfettered support, and the Right sees some room for compromise in Biden 2.0. This will make the next two years very exciting and cloud the President’s intention to run in 2024. Buckle up and stay tuned.

The post Biden is Upsetting Both Sides of the Aisle appeared first on Granite Grok.

As a child, I was insistent, persistent, and consistent that I was a boy. I have no doubt that if the option to take puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones had been available, I would have done everything I could to obtain them, including threatening suicide, especially if I had others encouraging me to threaten suicide as children are today.

Testimony for HB619: prohibiting gender transition procedures for minors – House Health, Human Services, & Elderly Affairs Committee

In the short term, I likely would have felt better.

Testosterone is a controlled substance. Like other controlled substances, it has high risks to health and well-being and has the potential for both addiction and abuse. Testosterone makes almost anyone who takes it initially feel a sense of euphoria. If I had taken it as a child, it would have allowed me to completely dissociate from myself as a girl and create a new persona, someone who could pretend that the horrible trauma that triggered my gender dysphoria didn’t happen to me.

When I first started taking it, it would have boosted my confidence and increased my energy, and most importantly, I would have felt safer.

If I took testosterone, it would have been so much easier to pretend that I was not the little girl who was brutally sexually assaulted. A little girl who became convinced at the moment of the assault that I was not safe being a girl. That the only way I could keep it from happening again was by becoming a boy.

Despite feeling better in the short term, in the long term taking testosterone would have been profoundly damaging, potentially even more damaging than the sexual assault. I can’t imagine the impact of being told by teachers, doctors, and other adults that I was born in the wrong body. That I was inherently flawed.

It would have reinforced all the mistaken beliefs I had that caused me to develop gender dysphoria in the first place:

That being a girl was bad.
That it was my fault that those men hurt me. That my body was a mistake.
That it was too dangerous be a girl.

If I had been medically transitioned, I wouldn’t have gotten the help I needed to work through my self-hatred and shame.

I never would have realized that my transgender identity was a coping mechanism.

I am so thankful that my school psychologist put me on a healing path.

I am grateful to other therapists who helped me understand that my transgender identity was a result of the sexual assault not because I was born in the wrong body.

I shudder to think at what my life would be like if I’d been encouraged to believe that I was a boy.

I would have lived my life hating myself.

Puberty blockers would have retarded my growth and development.

Cross-sex hormones would have caused my otherwise healthy body to become Dysfunctional.

The combination of both puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones would have left me sterile.

Children who says they feel better because of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are likely telling the truth.

In the short term, these interventions allow children to avoid the difficulties they are facing, whether that be grappling with internalized homophobia, struggling with autism, or trying to recover from a significant trauma.

We should not be giving children controlled substances in order to make them feel Better.

It is a horrible disservice encouraging them to dissociate, to run away from their feelings, to run away from themselves, and to take a drug that in the short term will help them to feel better by numbing their feelings but in the long term, permanently damage their bodies and in the long term, prevent them from getting the help that they need to understand the difficult feelings that they’re having in the first place.

It is natural for children to do what they can to shut down difficult feelings, which is why we work hard to stop children from using drugs and alcohol.

We know that encouraging children to run away from their pain and struggles is not the solution, even if it makes them feel better in the short term.

It is our job as adults to give children the message that no matter how intense and difficult their feelings are, they can work through them without dissociating from themselves to become a different person.

Because of loving, caring, and supportive therapists and teachers, I got the care I so desperately needed to process what happened to me.

Transgender activists often discount my story, saying I was never really transgender. They are right. I wasn’t. And that is the point.

Even though I was insistent, consistent, and persistent about being a boy, I wasn’t a boy. Yet gender doctors admit that the only diagnostic criteria used to determine if a child should get puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries is if the child is insistent, consistent, and persistent with gender confusion. It only takes one story like mine to show they are wrong. To show that children develop gender dysphoric feelings not because of being born in the wrong body, but as a coping mechanism.

The belief that a child can somehow be born in the wrong is a mystical view, not a medical view.

I have great respect for doctors. However, they have gotten it wrong in the past. We are still suffering from the consequences of the opioid epidemic, where doctors were told by pharmaceutical companies that treating pain with dangerous and addictive opioids was safe and effective.

How many thousands of people died because doctors were following guidelines for pain management written by those who were profiting from the sale of opioids? How many people have wrestled with serious addictions after well-meaning doctors prescribed medications that they had been told were safe and effective only to find out later that they were misled by pharmaceutical companies willing to put dollars ahead of human lives?

The so-called “treatments” for gender dysphoria that are being championed by activists will go down in history as being far worse than the opioid crisis unless regulations are passed to protect children from these experimental and harmful interventions.

The only treatment proven to help manage and resolve gender dysphoria is therapy combined with allowing children to naturally progress through puberty naturally. Children struggling with confusion about their identity need love and support. I got the gift of time to heal and I am so incredibly grateful.

The children who are struggling with gender dysphoria in New Hampshire deserve the same gift. Please support HB619-FN.

Thank you, Erin Brewer

 

House Health, Human Services, & Elderly Affairs Committee
Testimony for HB619: prohibiting gender transition procedures for minors
Erin Brewer

The post I Am A Former “Trans” Kid. … appeared first on Granite Grok.

Years ago, I had a “diet race” with DCE from Weekend Pundit (we live in the same town) and we both started out around 245. For weeks, every Monday, we’d put up that week’s weight loss results.  Yes, I won. The sad thing is that after a while, we both put it back on. Two years ago, I said that it was time, AGAIN, to lose the weight and I went from 257 lbs down to 187.  Pretty much have kept it off for a year (some ups, some down).  And that presents a problem for me as all the “easy weight” for me is already gone. To lose additional weight is going to get HARD to do.

So, what’s the challenge this time? Tom Murray from the Government Integrity Project and I are challenging each other to lose weight because we need to do so. Each of us has chosen our own target weight and the goal is to get there safely.  That means no starving oneself for days – not only because it isn’t healthy but doing so also puts the weight right back on when you stop dieting and neither of us is looking for that to happen.

Who knows, maybe there should be a following challenge to keep the weight off so as to have our bodies do a more complete “reset”?  Not clear on this yet (mostly because I just thought of it).

Rules:

• Every Monday, get on the scale first thing.
• And then, to show accountability, report into the other what their current weight is that morning.
• I’ve got a spread sheet to track the changes and to calculate the percentage to the starting, target, current, and total weights for each of us. Compute the total percentage towards the target goal.

Sidenote: yes, we are losing different amounts of weight so to “normalize” the results. I’ve already lost most of my “easy” weight so my target is 178 lbs – a little bit more than when I was in college decades ago so my “drop” is 17.6 lbs.  Tom’s starting weight is much higher but as he gets going (which he has promised to do), he’ll be dropping a LOT higher poundage in the beginning (because that’s generally what happens). But that’s where doing the achievement percentage will help as Tom’s target is just a tad below 70 lbs.

• HOW we lose the weight is up to us individually. Me? I’ll just cut down on my ice cream eating and my other portions (soup for lunch works very well for me). Tom says he’ll be working out and eating a bit less.
• I’ll put up two thermometers to show our progress (or lack thereof)!
• As the weeks go by, older updates will just slide down this page (so a lot of “bumping” of this post to each new Monday).
• First one to target weight, however, gets a steak dinner at a nice place, courtesy of the other.

I’m hoping that the ‘Grok readership will spur us on and keep up going. We started last Monday so today is the first result:

My amount this week may be a “best” as I’m expecting that my loss amount will go downward after this first week (I’m just continuing a present diet and not starting from scratch). Egads, if I start to fall behind, maybe I’ll have to even exercise, too!

 

 

 

The post It’sss BAAAACK – The Weight Loss Challenge. Yep, the Thermometers are Back! appeared first on Granite Grok.

Silicon Valley Bank, a regional bank in California, was placed in receivership on Friday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC). This takeover was in reaction to a run on the bank by unsettled depositors in fear of the safety of their cash. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) specializes in tech start-ups.

In the last week, SVB stock prices plummeted when the bank announced on Wednesday that they had sold many securities at a loss to cover withdrawals. Stock value was down 40% on Thursday and 60% by Friday when trading in SVB shares was halted. California regulators intervened, shutting the bank down and placing it in receivership under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The situation was dire two weeks ago, and that is when SVB executives did what should be investigated, and both should be held accountable. SVB CEO and President Gregory Becker sold over 12,000 shares for $3,578,652.31 on February 26, while CFO Beck sold $575,180 in stocks in a separate transaction on the same day. Both saw what the future held for the bank, used insider information, and cashed in while many customers found their assets in jeopardy.

The other activity that needs to be investigated is employees were given bonuses on Friday, just hours before the bank was padlocked. Officers and employees went home with cash in hand while questions arose about customers’ deposits. Deposits for customers are insured up to $250,000, but any balances above that limit are in jeopardy.

The failure of SVB had ripple effects, and the Market saw back-to-back dips of 500 points on Thursday and Friday. There is a concern for Monday on Wall Street, and regional banks are bracing for considerable withdrawals as nervous customers move their cash from smaller to larger and safer institutions. The Markets, already confused by the Biden Economy and activity by the Fed to play with interest rates, are set for more losses in the next session.

The issue with SVB that brought on its demise was the practice of investing in Securities. When the economy softened due to Biden’s poor economic policies and the Fed raised interest rates, those Securities lost value. SVB had to sell Securities at a loss to raise needed capital, and those losses sounded alarms for investors. They started pulling cash, and the downward spiral brought us to last week.

As I am writing this article on Sunday afternoon, there are dozens of people waiting in the rain outside of Republic National Bank in Studio City to be able to withdraw funds on Monday morning. It is estimated that over 100,000 investors nationwide will be looking to remove their deposits on Monday. Most are insured, but many do not want to absorb the risk. We should know by midweek how far the contagion from SVB has spread.

It is not just the banks, but the website ETSY delayed payments to its sellers on Friday out of concern about the volatility in the banking sector. There are three critical takeaways from SVB. The issues were self-inflicted with bad policy decisions, Joe Biden’s economy was the trigger that began the run on SVB, and this will not be the last ban we will focus on down the road. And, by the way, somebody at SVB must be held accountable for their poor management decisions and insider trading.

 

 

The post Bank Collapses, Employees Cash Bonus Checks appeared first on Granite Grok.

At Meet the Candidates Day in Croydon, one resident kept asking each candidate: Yes, or No, do you support the Free State movement? Do you support public education? Do you support the United States Constitution?

Here are three more questions that each of them should have been asked: Yes or No. Do you believe that people should respect the property and autonomy of others? Do you believe that people should pay for the services they use? Do you believe that people should be allowed to decide for themselves which charities to support and how much support to offer?

Because if you answer Yes to all three of these, then you do support the Free State movement, even if you don’t realize that. (Like Monsieur Jourdain, in Moliere’s play The Bourgeois Gentleman, who is surprised to discover in his forties that he’s been speaking prose his whole life.)

And if you answer No to at least one of them, then maybe it’s you — rather than those awful Free Staters — that people should be afraid of.

Anyway, there were a lot of candidates for a lot of offices, so there wasn’t really time to ask the candidates for school board (the incumbent, Jody Underwood, and the leader of the Stand Up movement,  Angi Beaulieu) a number of other questions that voters deserved to hear the answer to, including:

• Can you cite the particular sections of the state and federal constitutions that authorize taking money from people who don’t want to give it to you, in order to spend it on people who could afford to get along without it?

 

• Angi, you were recently featured in a documentary, standing next to what seemed to be a boat that belongs to you.  If you sold that boat, you could have used the money to pay to send your kids to school, lessening the tax burden on the town. By letting the town pay for their schooling, didn’t you have the town effectively pay for that boat?  That being the case, shouldn’t we all be able to come over and use it?

 

•  The central tenets of Marxism are that we should take money from people who have more, just because they have it, and we should give that money to people who have less, just because they say they need it. Do you support either or both of those tenets? If so, then as a Marxist, in what sense do you ‘support’ the Constitution, as you said a moment ago?  If not, then why did you put so much effort into the Stand Up campaign?

 

• The 377 people who voted Yes at the special meeting could have pooled the money they weren’t going to be paying in taxes and donated it to parents who needed help with tuition — as opposed to giving it to parents who could already afford to pay much or all of the cost for their own kids, who would then use the money to pay for things like boats, or extra real estate. Did you never consider that option, or did you consider it and deliberately reject it?  If you never considered it, isn’t that the kind of failure of imagination that we can’t afford to have in our school board members?  If you rejected it, what were your reasons?

 

• What is ‘your fair share’ of someone else’s property or money?  And what is the process for determining that amount?

 

• Do you believe, as it says in the Declaration of Independence, that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed?  If so, why did you convene a special meeting whose purpose was to use government to take money from people without their consent?

[Follow-up]  If you believe that majority rule is the same as consent, how do you square that with Article V of the federal constitution, which says that no state shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent?  Also, if you believe that majority rule is the same as consent, how large a majority should suffice to make you give up one of your kidneys, if you wanted to keep it?

 

•  If any individual uses the threat of force to take money from another individual against his will, you would say that he should be prosecuted.  But when 377 people use the threat of force to take money from 300 other people, you say that it should be celebrated.  So it would seem that there is some number between 1 and 377 at which robbery is transformed into democracy.  What is that number?

[Follow-up]   If such a number exists, what is your advice to people who would like to raise their children to believe that taking something from someone who doesn’t want to give it to you is wrong?  How should they help those children understand that what is wrong for a person is okay for a large enough gang of people?

 

• If you had to choose between (1) the system we have now, in which well under half of students learn to read and do math at even the most basic level of proficiency, but have lots of opportunities to engage in hobbies and job training at public expense, and (2) some other system, in which nearly all students learn to read and do math with high proficiency, but have to engage in hobbies and job training at private expense, which would you pursue as a matter of school board policy?  And why?  No weaseling about how we can ‘do it all’, please, as half a century of experience shows that this is clearly not the case.

[Follow-up]   If you prefer the latter, why did you put so much effort into convening a special meeting to fund the former?

 

• Twenty years ago, the state supreme court said that the justification for publicly funding education is to ensure the preservation of a free government, and so it is the state’s responsibility to provide each educable child with the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and learning necessary to participate intelligently in the American political, economic, and social systems of a free government.  Others in the Stand Up movement have denounced this as a ‘crazy Free Stater idea’, have claimed that it ‘represents too narrow a view of public education’, have said that it is ‘detrimental to society’, and so on.  Do you agree with the court — which, many would say, is the same as agreeing with the state constitution — or with those who reject the court’s view?

The post Questions That Didn’t Get Asked at Meet the Candidates Day in Croydon appeared first on Granite Grok.

Well, well, it seems that Thad Riley isn’t enjoying the attention we have given him as this NH GOP Executive Board member (Assistant Secretary) since he decided that being a “Republican Role Model” isn’t part of the job description.  Or that he can do what he wants given the “So what, what are they going to do to me?”. While NH GOP Chair Chris Ager (who needs this and his Vice-Chair’s “stance kerfuffle” and the Belknap County Delegation incompetence in following the Law when it comes to meetings like multiple holes in his head from a PR perspective) has said that TECHNICALLY Thad Riley was just within the NH GOP ByLaw stating that NH GOP elected officials can’t endorse a Democrat in a race where a Republican is also running.

And in the Brentwood Selectman race, Thad endorsed a Democrat over the Republican.  So all we can do is point it out over and over again for being a Republican hypocrite (at worst) but certainly flaunting his office’s name in doing so.  Well, expect for one small little detail…slander?

Slander – slăn′dər   noun

• Oral communication of false and malicious statements that damage the reputation of another.
• A false and malicious statement or report about someone.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

Ayup, here what is being reported to us by those who are rather upset that Riley is trading in on his office.  We ALL know that in this hyper-partisan time we live in, the “non-partisan” local races are certainly that!

Sidenote – Doubt me? I’d  give it a 95-98% chance that at your polling place, the “poll standers” outside will have one party on one side and the other on in their grouping and nary do the groups yak.

So here’s what’s being reported to us:

“Granite Grok is a group of right wing Liars“.

Thad Riely full leftist turn. He is a poison pill willing to inflict harm upon the NH GOP & Grok

So he’s attacking our reputation from his high political perch.  Wonderful! But can he prove it?  Calling us liars isn’t an opinion – he needs backup proof that he’s right and we do deserve that label.  No, it’s not libel as we were told he spoke those above words and didn’t write them.  but if someone knows of such kind of writing, send that along as well (see Bleg, below).

I sent this over to Steve with a rather broad smile and asked “shall we”?  His response:

If he wants to dance, we’ll dance.

Thanks, Thad; now you REALLY have brought us upon yourself.  Streisand Effect to be served with a side dish of snark.  Did you think this through?

So, a BLEG (a blogosphere “ask”) of you all – if you see him, ask him about our reporting.  Ask him what we have lied about.  Ask him where we have gone off a cliff in showing what he did. Ask him why we SHOULDN’T have reported what we did. Ask him if we supposed to leave him alone and ignore him simply by dint of his latest political elevation?

Then report back to us if you believe, like we do, that if you are a high level official within the NH GOP, there should be standards for political behavior that should not be broken.

And if you know where he might be in advance, let us know. Perhaps we’ll show up with cameras and mics to ask those same questions – and more.

Thad, you really have proof that we lied about something?  By calling us “right wing” you’ve just separated yourself from the Conservative / Libertarian wing of the Party. You’ve told us that you are solidly in the Elitist section of the Establishment. And yes, there are and have been certain folks in that wing of the Party that have shown more kinship to Democrats than to folks like us.

Ride that broken horse as long as you can, Thad.

Game on.

The post Part 3 – Attention NH GOP Chair Chris Ager: NH GOP E-Board Member Thad Riley Endorses a Democrat over a Republican – The Slander Edition, Thad? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Belknap County’s NH State Representative Attendance through March 9:

The median attendance of all Reps is actually 100%.

Anyone with attendance below 84% is in the bottom 20% of all Reps.

• St. Clair is in the worst 10%.
• O’Hara and Trottier are in the worst 5% of all Reps

Some details:

• Beaudoin missed all of 2/23.
• Bordes missed 2/22 after 12 pm, except for one vote late in the day, then had a weird voting record on 3/9 (details below).
• Dumais was out on 2/14 after 3:30 pm, and out all of 2/23.
• Nagel missed all of 2/14.
• St. Clair was out all of 3/9.
• O’Hara was out on 2/14 after 3:30 pm, all of 2/22 and 2/23, and on 3/9 after 3:40 pm.
• Trottier was out on 2/14 after 3:30 pm, on 2/22 after 12 pm, all of 2/23 and on 3/9 after 3:40 pm.

I mentioned the above to someone that I talked with early today and the response was “O’Hara and Trottier have such similar attendance that I wonder if they car pool.”

And Mike Bordes has a very strange voting record – even when he shows up, he’s not showing up:

Will have to go back and see which bills he skipped out on. Out of 29 votes, he took a walk on 35% of them.

Congratulations, Citizens for Belknap PAC, for giving up SUCH illustriative Reps…and I dryly note that those that this Democrat started, funded, and led Political Action Committee targeted to lose in November’s elections are showing up FAR better than those they supported:

Like Mike Sylvia, Norm Silber, and others? Was this on purpose?

 

The post Belknap County Delegation – Attendance Record So Far. Why Aren’t Belmont Residents Up In Arms Over Their Poor Representation? appeared first on Granite Grok.

At a recent meeting of the Tri-County Republicans, I learned that if Harry Bean, a State Representative from Gilford and Chair of the Belknap County Delegation, does not post three public meetings for the delegation (state reps from Belknap County), taxpayers are in danger of a 35% increase in county taxes.

We want to thank Hal Shurtleff for this Op-Ed. Please submit yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.

Mr. Bean had a legal duty to post the budget meetings, and at a meeting on March 6, he was informed of this important duty. However, he and seven other Delegation members voted to approve the commissioners’ budget. Do they really care about taxpayers when they vote this way, especially when we have been hit with the highest inflation in decades?

Mr. Bean says he wants unity, yet when selecting the budget committee members, he voted to put freshmen representatives on this important committee. Due to this, we have five budget committee members with little experience in the county budgetary process and are witnessing the consequences of this action. In the best interest of Belknap taxpayers, some experienced members should have been appointed to help those who are new and inexperienced in the process.

Mr. Bean needs to adhere to the law, and re-schedule the meetings to discuss the budget, and it should be done sooner than later.

The post Belknap County Delegation – “We’re suffering the consequences of inexperience in county delegation” appeared first on Granite Grok.

Democrats love them a peaceful protest, and to their credit, at least in New Hampshire, things have not gotten out of control. Not even during the BLM Summer of Love. But will Ron DeSantis coming to the Granite State be too big of a trigger for them to resist?

We’re excited to announce that our 2023 Amos Tuck Dinner keynote speaker is special guest Florida Governor Ron DeSantis!

This will be our biggest and most exciting Amos Tuck Dinner to date, and will be an event that you won’t want to miss out on. Tickets will sell out fast so be sure to purchase your ticket today!

The NHGOP is excited to welcome Governor DeSantis as a special guest for his first trip to the Granite State and we hope you can join us. Secure your dinner ticket today!

 

Nothing puts the fun in fundraisers like Democrats chanting lies that have been disproven to a likely national media presence of which I suspect we will be a part. I can’t be there – I have a previous engagement I am not allowed to skip – but I forwarded the event to Skip and asked him if he could score a few presses passes so we’ll have some local coverage.

As for Democrat protesters, we expect they will make their angry-narrow-minded presence known.

We chant the thing. We chant the thing.

I expect Don’t Say Gay to make an appearance even though the bill that inspired it says nothing about being gay, among others.

Gov. DeSantis has obviously accepted the offer to speak because of all the chatter about him running in 2024, and while DeSantis may not be your pick for President, he sends Libs, and Progs, off the deep end with a smile.

There’s value in that.

Anything that makes Democrats cry and whine and should and pout has value, so we look forward to the circus outside and in and hope to have some unfiltered coverage for you while it’s happening and after it is over.

 

Exit Question: How is potential 2024 candidate Chris Sununu taking this? DeSantis is killing him in early polling. Did they seek Gov. Sununu’s permission, or did the NHGOP and Chairman Ager just go and get Ron DeSantis? I can ask Chris, or he might tell me, but we’ll save that for later.

 

The post NH Dems Will Get to Protest – Ron DeSantis to Keynote April NHGOP Amos Tuck Dinner appeared first on Granite Grok.

Remember, ridicule and mockery are effective weapons:

1. Ridicule cannot easily be fought
2. Ridicule makes the enemy angry, and angry people make mistakes
3. For those in the “squishy middle” a Thought Splinter (and Part II and Part III and Part IV) can often be hidden inside humor.

Now, let the mockery and mayhem begin.

 

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

 

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

 

Work is still swamping me.  I missed the PREP Edition yesterday but need to at least get something out there.  So, here, just a meme dump without comments.

 

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

 

WARNING! You NEED To See What’s Going On In Europe Right NOW!

 

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

Pick of the post:

 

 

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

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

—

 

 

 

The post MONDAY MEMES appeared first on Granite Grok.

Joe Biden is late in proposing his budget for 2023, but that may be because it took a lot of time to add so many more ways to control our lives. Although the budget is a staggering $6.8 Trillion, the real story is how Biden and Democrats feel they need to be more involved in our lives.

This wing of our government does not think that people can make their own decisions. The Democrats want the power to control your life from the cradle to the grave. That is not freedom. That is not living as free people. That is living as puppets living by the whims of the ruling class. The Democrats may have avoided a red wave in 2022, but if they adopt this thinking, they may get drowned by a tsunami in 2024.

Biden’s focal point of his proposal is the bundle of new taxes aimed at the wealthiest people in America that he claims will bring in $5 Trillion over the next ten years and save Social Security and Medicare from insolvency. Below is a list of new taxes from Biden’s plan:

Proposed Tax Change10-Year Revenue in Billions of Dollars

Corporate and International Tax Proposals

Increase the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent $1,325.8 

– Increase taxes on foreign fossil fuel income $1,160.6

Quadruple the stock buyback tax implemented in the Inflation Reduction Act from 1 percent to 4 percent $237.9

Increase energy taxes, including repeal of expensing for intangible drilling costs, percentage depletion for oil and gas wells, and a new 30 percent tax on electricity used for digital asset mining $36.5

Misc. business tax proposals $130.2

Individual and Pass-Through Business Tax Proposals

Raise the top statutory tax rate on individual income to 39.6 percent for single filers earning over $400,000 and joint filers earning over $450,000 $235.3

Create a 25 percent “billionaire minimum tax” to tax unrealized capital gains of high-net-worth taxpayers $436.6

Expand the base of the Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT) to apply to active pass-through business income above $400,000 and increase the NIIT and Health Insurance (HI) tax rates from 3.8 percent to 5 percent above $400,000 $650.3

Restrict contributions to IRAs for taxpayers with incomes above $400,000 $22.7

Make permanent the pass-through business loss limitation $71.3

Tax carried interest as ordinary income $6.5

Misc. individual tax proposals $24.5

Capital Gains, Estate, and Gift Tax, and IRS Proposals

Repeal like-kind exchanges for deferred gain worth over $500,000 for single taxpayers and $1 million for joint taxpayers $18.6

Tax capital gains at ordinary income tax rates for taxpayers with income over $1 million $213.9

Change cryptocurrency tax rules $31.6

Modify estate and gift tax rules including for valuations and trusts $77.5

Increase tax compliance and enforcement $13.7

Subtotal (Tax Increases) $4,693.6

Expanded Tax Credits and Other Provisions

Extend the ARPA Child Tax Credit expansion for one year, make the CTC fully refundable on a permanent basis, and create a monthly payment option -$429.2

Permanently extend the ARPA enhanced premium tax credits (PTCs) after they are scheduled to expire in 2026 -$183.0

Permanently expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for workers without qualifying children -$156.0

Expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and create a tax credit for rehabilitating homes in high-poverty neighborhoods -$103.8

Make the New Markets Tax Credit permanent and expand various tax provisions for work, education, and childcare -$23.4

Subtotal (Tax Credits) -$895.4

Net Revenue Increase  $3,798.2

Source: Tax Foundation compilation from the President’s FY 2024 budget, The White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/.

Biden has not learned the lessons of the past. Taxing the wealthy will put the brakes on business growth, send businesses back overseas, cut employment, and possibly send a portion of this wealth into overseas accounts where it cannot be taxed.

This budget proposal is dead before presented, but it points out how little Biden thinks of Americans and success. He is setting up a fight with Congress, but to what end. It will point out to Americans the stark difference between Democrats and big government and the Republicans who believe in people and the freedom they want and deserve.

The post Biden Budget is Not About the Money appeared first on Granite Grok.

Not much good can be said about the publication Newsweek, but for reasons not yet clear, it has allowed an opinion piece by Scott Atlas to appear under its banner. Something of an almost apology, apology.

As opinion, Newsweek can distance itself editorially but also lay claim to the perception of balance. Look what we printed. And why not? Admitting there were mistakes surrounding the pandemic has become hip and stylish the way carbon offsets purchased from doggy offsetters allow you to emit massive amounts of CO2 and pretend you care for the planet.

It’s as if Newsweek has laundered an apology by proxy for bad behavior that it probably has no intention of changing.

 

Almost all of America’s leaders have gradually pulled back their COVID mandates, requirements, and closures—even in states like California, which had imposed the most stringent and longest-lasting restrictions on the public. At the same time, the media has been gradually acknowledging the ongoing release of studies that totally refute the purported reasons behind those restrictions. This overt reversal is falsely portrayed as “learned” or “new evidence.” Little acknowledgement of error is to be found.

 

His point is that the revelations they reluctantly share can be found (backed by experts’ commentary or actual research) on websites like this one from April or May of 2020 onward, depending on when the media and public health went to war with whatever it was. The distancing scam, the masking fraud, assaults on the first and fourth amendments, Hydroxychloriquine, mRNA vaccination mandates, passports, pandemics of the vaccinated, Ivermectin, sudden deaths, and so on.

The press and the public health industrial complex labeled most or all of it as misinformation or disinformation, with some politicians ready to fine or jail anyone who had a way around the Big Gov/Big Tech collusion firewalls built to prevent folks from seeing or hearing any of it.

Someone has decided that truth is far enough in the rearview to hazard some narrative building whose purpose is to create a historical backstop. Look, we published this thing about the thing (which we might as well call COVID narrative offsets). So, what else did they allow Scott Atals to say in such proximity to their masthead?

 

Here are the 10 biggest falsehoods—known for years to be false, not recently learned or proven to be so—promoted by America’s public health leaders, elected and unelected officials, and now-discredited academics:

1. SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has a far higher fatality rate than the flu by several orders of magnitude.

2. Everyone is at significant risk to die from this virus.

3. No one has any immunological protection, because this virus is completely new.

4. Asymptomatic people are major drivers of the spread.

5. Locking down—closing schools and businesses, confining people to their homes, stopping non-COVID medical care, and eliminating travel—will stop or eliminate the virus.

6. Masks will protect everyone and stop the spread.

7. The virus is known to be naturally occurring, and claiming it originated in a lab is a conspiracy theory.

8. Teachers are at especially high risk.

9. COVID vaccines stop the spread of the infection.

10. Immune protection only comes from a vaccine.

Dr. Atlas has the sense to call for investigations while admitting the likelihood they will not themselves be virtue signaling is low.

What benefit can we gain from the growth of this investment in covid narrative offsets besides a healthy I told you so? Almost no one appears in danger of judicial complications from the mRNA vaccine debacle though I still hold out hope the absence of proper informed consent has legal legs. That leaves us with the ammo dump of media rants, social and mainstream, by politicians and activists.

Bad judgment is not a sin, but when it endangers fundamental rights and lives while contradicting available truths, it could slow or stop political aspirations if appropriately directed and timely. Let’s call it Keeping Local Karens from Public Office.

Can we hope for more? Atlas calls for investigations, but Newsweek publishing that is not an admission but a bunker in which they wish to hide in hopes this will pass them by, but it can’t. The harms they aided and abetted could be with us for generations.

Can anyone say COVID reparations?

 

HT | Igor Chudov

The post Newsweek Publishes COVID Almost Apology – Apology appeared first on Granite Grok.

Once again, the operative question: Who Watches the Watchers?  We know who our “Watchers” are – our readers. Smart, opinionated, know all the pertinent facts/issues – if we screw up, they’ll let us know.

And I am actually happy about that as we can’t know everything, and we readily admit it. We do know a lot, but there’s no way we can do it all.  We welcome it (unless you are like Thad Riley and Jeanne Dietsch, who just make stuff up because we are, at times, their ‘Watchers”) as they can’t seem to prove their verbiage that we are liars.

While most Groksters are registered Republicans, we do look at Republicans and hold them to account more often, and with much more rigor than Democrats (who seldom have only 1) your money is the Govt’s, 2) Unborn babies can be murdered with wild abandon, 3) Govt allocates “rights” when it feels like it, 4) none of you should own a gun because 5) we hate the Constitution and avoid it whenever possible. Sure, there’s other stuff, but those seem to be the main ones.

And yes, when Republicans start to sound and act like Democrats, and we find out about it, we are all good on applying the precepts of Accountability.

Politics is about keeping score. And since we’re here for the principles, not just the party, it behooves us to report on elected officials registered as Republicans who refuse to act like them. Republicans should protect free speech, association, and its public exercise. And yet there are those who will not.

-Steve Mac Donald (“Eleven NH Republicans Join Democrats To Protect Unconstitutional Buffer Zone Law“).

So thanks to Ed for quoting Steve and to both for winding me up for a quick post after getting that “trackback” that another site is using Ed’s post.  Go read both of them even if they are four years old (that’s what I get for searching on GraniteGrok – you never know what pops up now and then).

Note:

And yes, MANY THANKS to those who contributed to our February Fundraiser.  I have no idea what the final number is, but I DO know that one of the projects we’ve started is looking for a better search engine.  We’re talking with our webmistress, who brought up JetPack. I’ve done an afternoon eval, and it may work “good enough” to be far better than the basic WordPress one, so we may have her install the free version to get a feel for it and then go to the professional version if it works out.

 

HT | Ed Mosca – “Meet the GOP Fascists“

The post Notable Quote – Steve Mac Donald on Principles vs Party appeared first on Granite Grok.

On this day in 1677, Massachusetts gained title to Maine for $6,000. The Uncle Sam cartoon figure debuted in the New York Lantern weekly (1852). And the US Senate began Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial (1868).

In 1877 American Chester Greenwood patented earmuffs after inventing them at age 15. Tsar Alexander II was assassinated (1881), the US Adopted Standard Time (1884), in 1960, the Chicago Cardinals moved to St Louis, and in 1970 Digital Equipment Corp introduced the PDP-11 minicomputer.

In 1986 Microsoft had its Initial public offering, and the Blizzard of 1993 struck the Northeast US.

March 13th is K-9 Veterans Day. It is also Napping (day), Girls Win Day (depending on what you mean by ‘girl,’ I suppose), and good samaritan day. You could also celebrate L. Ron Hubbard, Ken (as in Barbie), being smart and Sexy, or opening umbrellas indoors.

 

The Morning Mail

 

Obscure Word of the Day

Obloquy – state of disgrace resulting from public abuse

Quote of the Day

“It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”
― Lewis Carroll

Silicon Valley Bank

• Silicon Valley Bank meltdown sparks contagion fears: ‘We found our Enron’ – The Burning Platform.
• Silicon Valley Bank CEO Allegedly Sold $3.5 Million in Stock in Last Two Weeks – The Gateway Pundit.
• Cops Called to Silicon Valley Bank Manhattan Branch After Group of Investors Try to Pull Out Cash  -Substack.
• Jim Cramer Urged Investors to Buy Silicon Valley Bank Stock One Month Before Regulators Shut it Down – Gateway Pundit.
• Silicon Valley Bank branches closed by regulator in biggest bank failure since Washington Mutual – Market Watch.
• CEO of collapsed Silicon Valley Bank successfully lobbied Congress to avoid imposing extra scrutiny – Daily Mail
• Fallout from SVB Collapse Begins Sending Twitches Through Tech Sector, While Congress Meets With Treasury – Treehouse
• SVB had NO head of ‘risk assessment’ for nine months before it collapsed… as woke boss was busy organizing a month-long Pride campaign and a ‘Lesbian Visibility Day – Daily Mail
• Yellen Says Government Will Help SVB Depositors But “No Bailout” … – ZeroHedge
• Elon Musk Claims He Is ‘Open to the Idea’ of Buying Silicon Valley Bank – Breitbart
• Swedish Retirement Pension was SVD’s 4th Largest Shareholder – PI Online

Culture

• The feminization of the American university is all but complete – City Journal
• ‘Queer, Non-Binary,’ Sharia-Adherent State Rep Hid Trans Activist Who Assaulted Cop – PJM
• Nikki Fried Accidentally Admits There’s Porn in Schools to Own Ron DeSantis -PJ Media
• ‘Object Sexuality’: At the Intersection of LGBTQ+++ Ideology and Autism – PJ Media
• Canada rules that flipping the middle finger is a ‘God-given’ right – NPR
• Eugene 4J School under fire after ‘sexual fantasy’ school assignment – Register Guard

 

Bills We Shouldn’t Need

• West Virginia governor signs law to protect religious freedom from government interference – LifeSite
• House passes bill to protect free speech from government interference, 206 Democrats oppose – Just the News

 

Another J6 Narrative Wrecked

Jacob Chansley, the Qanon Shaman, reads Trump Tweet telling everyone to go home.

The post The Morning Mail – March 13th, 2023 (Special Silicon Valley Bank Links Edition!) appeared first on Granite Grok.

So I read this press release from Chris Ager congratulating the House NHGOP for playing defense. In fairness, they did expand … ever so slightly … EFAs, which is not playing defense. BUT the NHGOP should be playing offense … because once Chris Pappas becomes Governor in 2024 they won’t be able to play offense.

What they could and should do is remove DEI from public education. More specifically, eliminate the DEI bureaucracy. The response, I’m sure, is: can’t do that because LOCAL CONTROL. My response to that: “local control” should not be used as a shield for anti-white racism, even when it is euphemistically described as Diversity-Equity-Inclusion. Additionally, DEI in reality is not a manifestation of local control. It is a manifestation of a permanent bureaucracy that is unaccountable and serves itself, not students and parents. In other words, DEI demonstrates that in reality there is no local control of public education in New Hampshire … just bureaucratic control.

 

The post Hey, House NHGOP … How About Playing Offense – Abolish DEI appeared first on Granite Grok.

I recently had an email from a person that stated Ryan Terrell was against HB591 Fetal Heartbeat bill, which I am a co-sponsor of and is in the Judiciary committee now. His stance is against the NHGOP Platform, which I have a snippet of below.

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

 

 

If the vice chair will not follow the GOP Platform and is speaking for the NHGOP, why is he allowed to stay VC? As a representative, I am being stabbed in the back trying to save lives, and Ryan and the NHGOP are doing just the opposite.

Please let me know what you find out, and thank you in advance.

We believe that life is sacred, from conception to natural death, and that we cannot diminish the value of one category of human life without diminishing the value of all human life.

Thanks,

John Sellers
Representative, Grafton 18
Alexandria, Bridgewater, Bristol, Canaan, Dorchester, Enfield, Grafton, Groton, Hebron, Orange

 

Editors note: We have including Chairman Ager’s Response:

 

Your note is appreciated. I have communicated to the VC about his roll and support to the platform on this issue. The NHGOP supports the platform and our legislative leaders’ priorities.

Thank you.

Chris

The post If the Vice Chair Will Not Follow the GOP Platform… Why Is He Allowed to Stay VC? appeared first on Granite Grok.

A redo of the tainted results of the illegal Budget Review Subcommittee meetings due to them not being properly noticed at ALL as demanded by NH’s Open Meeting Law, RSA 91-A.

Sorry, dudes, dudettes, and duds, no can do. We on the Gilford Budget Committee accidentally did that a couple times over the almost ten years I was on it.  Both were truly accidental – and they were “Budget subcommittee” meetings as well in dealing with either the Municipal or School District budgets. Having recognized that mistake, what was the remedy that the Gilford Budget Committee came up with?

A complete do-over to ensure that we kept the Trust of our fellow townfolks and not be sued for doing the right things but doing them wrongly. We started from scratch as if those improperly noticed meetings had never happened. Everything was thrown out, new meetings scheduled and properly noticed, and apologies to the relevant department heads. It was called “Doing the Right Thing and Not Cutting Corners” even though we were under really tight deadlines. We made it happen and we made it work.

However, it looks like the Delegation is only concerned with meeting their deadlines and not Doing the Right Things, and it appears that they are willing To Cut Corners from a procedural basis to say “See, we did it!”.  Again I got this email several different ways and note that she BCC’d everyone this time instead of her previous practice of just doing a CC so that we, the Public, could tell who was in on this:

———- Forwarded message ———
From: Debra A. Shackett <dshackett@belknapcounty.gov>
Date: Tue, Mar 7, 2023, 3:55 PM
Subject: Budget Review Committee
To: Debra A. Shackett <dshackett@belknapcounty.gov>

The Budget Review Committee will meet on Monday, March 13th at 7:00 pm to ratify action taken at their previous meetings.

Debra

Debra A. Shackett,
County Administrator & HR Director
34 County Dr.
Laconia, NH 03246
(603) 729-1286
dshackett@belknapcounty.gov  (new email address!)

A “re-do”.  Sorry, you can’t do a “ratify” over materials and decisions that were not made in public session.  It was already declared that all of those Budget Review SubCommittee meetings were illegal:

From: Debra A. Shackett <dshackett@belknapcounty.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, March 7, 2023 10:54 AM
To: Barbara Comtois <bcomtois2016@gmail.com>; Charlie St. Clair <bogart8321@icloud.com>; David Huot (dhuot03246@yahoo.com) < dhuot03246@yahoo.com>; dnagel59@yahoo.com; doug.wmstc@metrocast.net; Harry Bean <froggytouttaint@aol.com>; Juliet Harvey-Bolia <jharveybolia@gmail.com>; Matt Coker <mattformeredith@gmail.com>; Mike Bordes < mikebordes@gmail.com>; nikkimc1973@protonmail.com; Paul Terry <revpaul51@verizon.net>; Peter Varney <pvarney@atsnh.com>; rbbmere25@aol.com; Russ Dumais <sundeedumais@metrocast.net>; sayyes2smart@yahoo.com; stbogert@gmail.com; Tom Ploszaj <tom.ploszaj@gmail.com>; Travis O’Hara <travis.oas@gmail.com>
Cc: Glen Waring <gwaring.bcnh@gmail.com>; Peter Spanos <peterjspanos@gmail.com>; Steve Hodges (1steve7301@atlanticbb.net) < 1steve7301@atlanticbb.net>
Subject: meeting
Good morning,

Because the Budget Review Committee meetings were not publicly posted, the Committee will have to schedule a properly posted meeting to ratify the action taken at the previous meetings. This should be done with enough time remaining in March to properly notice a Delegation meeting to follow through with last night’s agenda.

Once the respective chairmen set the meeting dates/times, you will be notified.

Debra

And not being publicly noted, those meetings WERE illegal.  So who made this decision to “ratify”?  Methinks it would have been Chair Harry Bean – he IS in charge, right?

This might well be the time to state that the NH Attorney General’s office has been contacted.  This oughta be amusing!

What is the legal rational for doing “a ratify”? WHO said it was legit to make believe that any results were still legal even as the meetings weren’t? Is there a new addendum Clause that was added to RSA 91-A called “We Can Ignore Parts Of the Law Because We’re Stupid And A Sham Is Better Than Doing It Right” when I wasn’t looking? That “slapdash” is now the standard we should expect from our County elected Representatives?

Did that “legal advice” come from County Attorney Andrew Livernois who previously (and publicly) couldn’t keep RSA 24:9-d from being mashed up with RSA 91-A by Chair Harry Bean simply to get a desired political result (throwing off a conservative Commissioner the Gunstock Area Commission to replace him with a wild eyed Progressive Feminist)? Methinks he KNEW his opinion was wrong when I challenged Livernois on it, he stopped responding in trying to justify his work/written advice (IMHO, at about the same level of rigor of “Dr.” Jill Biden’s Education doctorate thesis  that most academicians were “commenting” on it when it became a topic. I started to read it and realized how poor it was and gave up).

Who else were Harry Bean’s advisors?  We’ve heard this tactic recently from former Gunstock Area Commissioner Gary Kiedaisch when he said he was on firm legal ground because “attorneys” said he was – and then never revealed who they were.  Open and Transparent.  Oh yeah, like NH State Rep Steven Bogert just did, too.

What is this – the tactic du jour by embattled politicians?

I’m afraid they are going to get a rude awakening.

Oh, and if you are looking to attend tomorrow night to demand that the Delegation DO THE RIGHT THING IN FOLLOWING THE LAW but know that we’re getting a “lingering N’oreaster” starting tomorrow night, consult the BelknapCounty.gov front page first. It is showing that the meeting is still on but that might change.

The post Belknap County Delegation – So What Do They Expect to Accomplish at Tomorrow Night’s Meeting? appeared first on Granite Grok.

So, I got a very strangely worded response from NH State Rep Steven Bogert to my Right To Know to him:

—— Original Message ——

From “Steven Bogert” <Steven.Bogert@leg.state.nh.us>

To “Skip” <Skip@granitegrok.com>; “Harry Bean” <froggytouttaint@aol.com>; “Debra A. Shackett” <dshackett@belknapcounty.gov>; “Sherman Packard” <Sherman.Packard@leg.state.nh.us>
Cc “Mike Bordes” <Mike.Bordes@leg.state.nh.us>; “Travis O’Hara” <travis@ohara4nh.com>; “tom@tomploszaj.com” <tom@tomploszaj.com>; “mattformeredith@gmail.com” <mattformeredith@gmail.com>; “sayyes2smart@yahoo.com” <sayyes2smart@yahoo.com>; “jharveybolia@gmail.com” <jharveybolia@gmail.com>; “rbbmere25@aol.com” <rbbmere25@aol.com>; “David Nagel” <davidnagelmd@gmail.com>; “Barbara Comtois” <Barbara.Comtois@leg.state.nh.us>; “Paul Terry” <Paul.Terry@leg.state.nh.us>; “Peter Varney” <pvarney@atsnh.com>; “Nikki McCarter” <Nikki.McCarter@leg.state.nh.us>; “Douglas Trottier” <douglastrottier1@gmail.com>

Date 3/11/2023 9:32:02 AM

Subject Re: Right To Know demand for Belknap Delegation emails – NH State Rep Steven Bogart statement to use BCC feature of emails to hide email addresses

In reviewing of the Right to Know request:

After review of Rep Steven Bogert email accounts, it was determined that there was no sent or received emails that matched your Right to Know request, to the best of Rep Steven Bogert knowledge.

Steven T. Bogert
NH House Representative (D5)
Laconia, Belknap
Public Works and Highways
steven.bogert@leg.state.nh.us

Referring to oneself in the third person?  So the Belknap Delegation Chair of the Budget Review Committee who is the progenitor of the tactic to hide who he is communicating with via email concerning Public Information? Hasn’t Delegation Chair Harry Bean instructed these new folks on RSA 91-A strictures on what is or isn’t permissible.  Oh wait, HE doesn’t know either…

So of course I had a response – first by email and then, considering how egregious this antic is, a special edition of Skip’s Sauntering Snippets

—— Forwarded Message ——
From “Skip” <Skip@granitegrok.com>
To “Steven Bogert” <Steven.Bogert@leg.state.nh.us>; “Harry Bean” <froggytouttaint@aol.com>; “Debra A. Shackett” <dshackett@belknapcounty.gov>; “Sherman Packard” <Sherman.Packard@leg.state.nh.us>
Cc “Mike Bordes” <Mike.Bordes@leg.state.nh.us>; “Travis O’Hara” <travis@ohara4nh.com>; “tom@tomploszaj.com” <tom@tomploszaj.com>; “mattformeredith@gmail.com” <mattformeredith@gmail.com>; “sayyes2smart@yahoo.com” <sayyes2smart@yahoo.com>; “jharveybolia@gmail.com” <jharveybolia@gmail.com>; “rbbmere25@aol.com” <rbbmere25@aol.com>; “David Nagel” <davidnagelmd@gmail.com>; “Barbara Comtois” <Barbara.Comtois@leg.state.nh.us>; “Paul Terry” <Paul.Terry@leg.state.nh.us>; “Peter Varney” <pvarney@atsnh.com>; “Nikki McCarter” <Nikki.McCarter@leg.state.nh.us>; “Douglas Trottier” <douglastrottier1@gmail.com>
Date 3/11/2023 11:13:37 AM
Subject Re[2]: Right To Know demand for Belknap Delegation emails – NH State Rep Steven Bogart statement to use BCC feature of emails to hide email addresses

So who are the “Appropriate people that you stated that hiding the names of our public officials using the Blind Carbon Copy feature of emails?  You never stated, for the record, who they were.  We have no way to check the functioning of our Public Body with that tactic (and it violates a different part of 91-A).

How can the Public know that your “Appropriate People” are even  credible in this area?  Simply stating that phrase doesn’t make it credible.  So who are they?

Given the other issue Monday night, that the Chair, the Clerk, the County Administrator, and the Commissioner ALL said that the Delegation Budget Review meetings HAD been publicly notice but my Right To Know of Tuesday morning PROVED they lied (at worst) and misled everyone (at best), you should understand my reluctance to blithely show absolute faith and quell my suspicions floating around your statement.

I find it highly amusing that while Chair Harry Bean was excoriating NH State Rep Barbara Comtois during the meeting, attempting to make the issues her fault instead of his as Chair, she was proven 100% correct and he was wrong.  How do I tell, as a member of the Public, that this is not a second instance of the same tactic?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? 

Trust can take years to build; it can be lost in an instance (or during a meeting).  Are the four enumurated officials going to apologize to the public? Especially the Chair and the Clerk who rudely attempted to “punish” State Rep Comtois for asking the questions you didn’t like, and for which she was EXACTLY correct?

NH State Rep Bogert, she read you the Law in showing the intent of the Law – are you still holding her to be wrong?  If so, tell us who the “Appropriate People” are so we, the Public, can verify your assertion.

-Skip

Trust – such an ephemeral thing, a fleeting thing. So a special edition



 

The post NH State Rep Stephen Bogert at the Belknap County Delegation Meetings – Use of Email BCC feature vs RSA 91-A (NH’s Right To Know Law) – Two Responses appeared first on Granite Grok.