It’s now obvious, since our awakening to Fake News, that truth has been a stranger, an unknown that few recognize and few are willing to consider. This is the intended result of at least three generations of media preaching and academic lecturing against its ageless reliability.

This agenda has revised history and today’s events into their slanted versions, and it was a must since truth is inherently woven throughout our American Founding.

This coming election has the establishment doing flips in order to protect its authority and territory from Donald Trump’s publicly pledged threats, which in turn makes him a must target since he represents “the last man standing.”

This means he has the financial resources, love of country, personal knowledge, and stamina to challenge the status quo. Who is left that could cope with what Trump has dealt with? And this blends over into many of his former Presidential associates who are being legally harassed with the aim of incurring financial ruin. The message is clear, and it’s meant to be!

So, anything goes. Already, we’ve watched as lie after lie mounts without any public or judicial pushback. This is publicly insulting when the term “insurrection” is cast like confetti upon Trump and all those patriotic hostages from January 6th! As a result, America’s silence incriminates all of the silent, both citizens and public officials, but particularly the latter, who have sworn an oath to defend and uphold our Constitution.

Trump’s messaging is not only truthful but after his first four Presidential years, his campaign promises and word messaging have been both validated by action and with the public’s noticing of its truth. That last item, words of truth, reminds me of one of Mom’s sayings, “The truth hurts.” Trump’s bluntness originally offended, but in the end, he was only speaking the truth, what needed saying since it’s been absent for too long!

Once in office, the media ramped up accounts of his gruff and brutish style. Actually, it did seem gruff since again, the “brutal truth” had been buried for so long! It’s true; his talk is not of the career-minded and glib-talking politician, but that’s his appeal, which is reviving our American pulse.

Trump was more than successful in his prior years, so he need not follow the career politician’s urgency for voter appeal. Therefore, he was free to condemn America’s ongoing immigration issue, which sent alarms throughout the establishment. His 2016 republican opponents were shocked at the mere mention of this issue.

In reality, both political parties are content as cheap labor pleases one while building the voter base for the other. Not so with Trump’s 2016 messaging; his concern was for representing the “forgotten” American and for bettering the country that he loves! So yes, his bluntness was shocking, even gruff, but it had a beneficial purpose, and it was long overdue!

Remember when charges of “fake news” first started? Voters then began to notice and compare what was reported versus what they actually witnessed, especially when tuning into the latest Trump rally! As a result, his words again gained validation along with a positive recognition of their truth.

That “fake” moniker preceded another media truism: fake news is “the enemy of the people.” Immediately, the media grabbed onto it as the crazy rhetoric of a power-hungry dictator. However, as time passed, the stream of false reporting continued, which in itself validated his follow-up media blast.

His defiant march to “the Church of the Presidents” after its 2020 fire prompted the media’s ridicule when, in front of the church, he held the Bible up high. Contrary to press accounts, many were pleased and gratified with finally having a President who proudly exhibited his faith in public rather than referring to our Creator by saying, “You know, the thing.”

In his recent rally in Durham, New Hampshire, his words were blunt but necessary and well received. Trump’s messaging gruffly stated, in part, that Biden is the “worst, most incompetent, and most corrupt President in the history of our Country.” At this point of Biden’s term, who’s to argue?

It’s time that Americans shed their sensitive frailties for the preservation of our nation. Blunt and/or gruff language is often the most reliable and necessary backbone of leadership. Yes, truth is often hurtful, but it’s our most formidable and protective weapon against this evil, and thanks to a gruff-speaking leader, we are now fortunate to have this chance to welcome its return from those dark shadows!

The post Truth Can Be Hurtful But It Is Our Most Potent Weapon Against Evil appeared first on Granite Grok.

Tucker Carlson, who recently announced his own new media network, has been making the podcast rounds, talking to hosts of a variety of different ideological backgrounds.

An interview a few weeks ago with Dave Smith had a moment that went viral when both men proclaimed Bill Buckley as a great villain of the 20th Century. (Murray Rothbard would agree.) Recently a new clip with Glenn Greenwald made the social media rounds with Carlson claiming that “libertarian economics is a scam perpetrated by the beneficiaries of the economic system.”

Understandably, this quote made Carlson an immediate target for libertarians who frequently celebrate his takes on foreign policy but often cringe when he ventures into economic commentary. While the reaction to defend the label of “libertarian” is both understandable and important, particularly at a time where progressive-financed economic centers are seeking to launder economic interventionism as a “rightwing” cause, the reality is that Carlson’s critiques are not entirely invalid.

While the most prominent libertarian of our era, Ron Paul, and many accomplished libertarian economists, many of whom are affiliated with the Mises Institute, have stayed committed to a rigorous defense of free markets, the unfortunate reality is many of the organizations that are most active in political policy have often failed to do so. For those who have spent most of their time in Washington, most of their experience with self-proclaimed libertarian policymakers will be at cocktail parties at the Cato Institute, AEI, or one of the many Koch-funded outlets.

If one gives Carlson the grace to understand his underlying concern, his larger criticism of alleged defenders of “free markets” becomes more palatable.

Though libertarians rightfully scoff at the notion that libertarian values have ever held any strong grip on DC policymakers, it is true that “economic liberalism” has become the default label of almost all economic policy think tanks. Particularly in a post-Cold War world, the idea of any serious person in Washington describing themselves as anything but an advocate for “capitalism” was alien prior to the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in 2016. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden both have proudly described themselves as “capitalists.”

While any definition of “capitalism” that can be claimed by any modern Democrat, or even the overwhelming majority of Republicans, could not at all be confused as “libertarian,” there has long been a class of “libertarian economist” who has maintained a general skepticism of direct government intervention while ignoring, or at sometimes cheering, one of the greatest drains on American prosperity: monetary policy.

The most obvious example is Milton Friedman. While numerous critiques of Friedman and his monetarist followers can be found by Austrian economists, one specific example of this blind spot is particularly worth noting: his advocacy of quantitative easing. Though Friedman passed in 2006, years before the Fed’s response to the financial crisis sparked by former Objectivist Alan Greenspan’s housing bubble, he explicitly advocated for Japan’s central bank to use money printing to buy government bonds as a way out of a financial crisis in the late 1990s. While Friedman would often voice skepticism of the wisdom of policymakers and central bankers, the unfortunate reality is that his economic views often helped provide useful intellectual cover to help justify new aggressive uses of their power. Ben Bernanke, a student of Friedman, brought this playbook to the Federal Reserve, making extensive use of Friedman’s recommendations.

It would be unfair to suggest that all Beltway “libertarian” economists actively advocate Bernanke’s moves. Given the gradual specialization of economics as a discipline, the reality is that many of the economists entrenched at various beltway organizations likely thought little about the larger consequences of the Fed. The problem, however, is that being blind to the broader economic distortions created by artificially-low interest rates, monetary inflation, and the ballooning of the Fed’s balance sheets makes it difficult to recognize the challenges they have created for Americans.

This has been on full display in recent years with the growing politicization of big business. Whether it is in the form of DEI and ESG requirements from large firms, the willingness to cooperate with the state for matters of censorship of Big Tech platforms, the weaponization of private employment as a means for policy enforcement over covid, the reflexive nature of “libertarians” to come to the defense of big business has created undeniable tension with a broader respect for individual liberty. As Carlson told Greenwald, “I think a smarter way to assess an economic system is by its results.”

Any libertarian economic thinking that results in a defense of the covid-regime, no matter how nuance is applied, is deserving of scorn by anyone who cares about the liberty for their families.

Similarly, the indifference of too many libertarian policy wonks towards monetary policies has led them to ignore many of the issues that concern individuals like Carlson. Reflexively defending the rights of increasingly activist big business ignores the role that Fed policy has played in corporate consolidation, effectively providing a subsidy to corporate America. While advocating tax cuts on those economic actors that have benefitted from the post-2008 Fed is certainly defensibly libertarian, the flip side is that their success has vastly outperformed the large percentage of Americans who have not benefited from this age of financialization.

One of Carlson’s go-to examples illustrating the failures of the modern American economy is the growth of dollar stores. While some libertarians may dismiss Carlson’s critiques of the “ugliness” of dollar stores, the reality is that the dollar store boom did coincide with the post-2008 economy. As wages for American workers stagnated while inflationary pressures continued, dollar stores came to “reign supreme” in retail. As Austrian economists have noted, one of the secondary consequences of the fiat money system has been the pressure it applies to middle and low-income consumers to make lower-quality substitutions in their spending habits. From 2008 to 2020, dollar stores saw an 89.7 percent increase in their grocery business.

It would, of course, be mistaken to place monetary policy as the sole reason for the success of Carlson’s hated dollar stores. From personal experience, their smaller nature can make them more convenient for simple purchases than larger outlets and perhaps for some they serve a purpose closer to a suburban convenience store rather than a dehumanizing symbol of neoliberal conquest. Still, Carlson’s concern about what their growth means for average Americans is not without merit as an illustration of how Washington policymakers are ripping Americans off.

The real problem with Carlson’s economic views is not his willingness to be overly broad with the label “libertarian,” but the trap of embracing a form of economic denialism due to his understandable disillusionment of our failed economic expert class. While Carlson may find attempts to clarify the best labels to apply to the modern economic system as “boring conversations,” valid critiques of what exists now should not result in dismissing capitalism’s virtues.

Further, it is noteworthy that modern economic nationalists who delight in cheering on Carlson’s attacks on libertarians as a way of promoting their own interventionist dreams are just as blind as the worst “libertarian economist” on the real cancer of our economic system. As I noted earlier this year, American Compass, one of the institutions that has benefited from progressive deep pockets, managed to create an entire policy document without any meaningful reference to the “Federal Reserve” or “monetary policy,” even though it has a chapter dedicated to “financialization.” Carlson, to his credit, has shown more interest in that topic.

This is precisely why Austrian economists have an important role in the current world. While the economic ideas of Milton Friedman have some culpability in the creation of the global economic mess in which we find ourselves, Austrian economic theories bear no responsibility. While too many libertarians cheered on alleged policy victories such as “Reaganomics” or NAFTA, libertarians like Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell joined with paleoconservatives in their concerns for the consequences these policies would have for the economy as a whole.

Tho Bishop is Editorial and Content Manager for the Mises Institute, and can assist with questions from the press. Prior to working for the Mises Institute, he served as Deputy Communications Director for the House Financial Services Committee. His articles have been featured in The Federalist, the Daily Caller, Business Insider, The Washington Times, and The Rush Limbaugh Show.

Tho Bishop | Mises Wire

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It feels like Electric Vehicle buyers get about as much information as COVID vaccine recipients, which is not much. Like the side effects of ownership. Loss of value, high insurance costs, pricey repairs for minor accident damage, loss of range in the cold of winter.

It’s not pretty.

 

Cold temperatures dramatically reduce an electric car’s range.

The colder it is, the more a car’s range will suffer.

18 popular EV models analyzed lost an average of ~30% of their range in freezing conditions.https://t.co/giOJfui1ps pic.twitter.com/i0dKvGty3j

— Brian Gitt (@BrianGitt) December 17, 2023

 

The cold affects fuel and combustion vehicles, but not anything like this, and when you need more fuel, it takes a few minutes, and off you go. EVs, even at superchargers, take from 15-30 minutes to many hours, depending on how much of your money you invested in the vehicle purchase by the look of it.

Add to this the odds – increased during winter – of long delays on highways surrounded by idling vehicles with no chargers in sight.

If you want an EV, there’s a lot to think about, not the least of which is that the emissions aren’t reduced; they are just offshored. You are not helping the planet, you are just feeding a false narrative. And you are welcome to it if you are spending your money, but that’s not how it is. From components to finished products, the government has meddled in the marketplace with other people’s money.

Add to this the increased pressure on the grid, which can or will drive up rates for everyone, and we’re all paying for this monumental mistake. So why not help your neighbors afford to heat their homes and just buy a conventional vehicle? You won’t regret it. It’ll last longer, be cheaper to fix, and get repaired faster, and when you get low on charge (fuel), there’s no shortage of places to “fill up.”

 

The post Are You “De-Ranged” Enough to Drive an EV in the Winter? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The CDC’s new model for public schools will be called community schools. In this model, public schools will offer mental health and medical services to students. This has already begun with the infusion of the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), which is SEL-Social and Emotional Learning.

What does this mean for students in a public school? They are now subjected to pseudo-psychology instead of learning how to read and write.

As schools begin shifting to this model, we are already finding serious problems:

1) Two young NH children were vaccinated this year even though their parents sent strict instructions that they did not want their children to receive the vaccine.

2) A parent in Maine was surprised to find out that his daughter was given a bag of Zoloft pills at the School-Based Health Clinics without his knowledge or consent.  (SBHC)  The side effects of Zoloft include suicidal thoughts. After addressing this with school administrators and withdrawing his daughter from the school, he was visited by Child Protective Services. Eventually cleared by CPS, many now question if this was retaliation.

3) Michael King from the Massachusetts Family Institute reported that a 16-year-old girl was implanted with a birth control device in her arm without her parent’s knowledge or consent.  The implant required the girl to undergo a medical procedure in order to place the implant in her arm. This was done at the SBHC.

4) Students in New Hampshire who’ve visited their school counselor have had their personal mental health information shared with vendors hired to report to the federal government on the MTSS-B.

If all of this wasn’t bad enough, now we have NH Republican Senators proposing legislation that allows school districts to contract with a healthcare provider, health system, or community partner to establish a school-based health center for the purpose of providing services to students beyond the scope of school nursing services.  Since when is it the goal of Republicans in the Senate to set up the CDC’s School Based Health Clinics?

This proposed legislation does include a provision that requires parental consent, but this does not guarantee parents will be notified or have to consent. It is possible they will ask parents to sign a blanket permission slip at the beginning of the school year without realizing that they are handing their children over for treatment they would not approve of. Parents are required to sign a lot of paperwork at the beginning of the school year. Some may believe that this would simply allow their children to be seen if they are running a fever or for a stomach ache.

According to the SBHC in Maine, they do not need parental consent to treat a child because they receive funding from the federal government.

How far can this go? In East Stroudsburg, PA, 6th-grade girls were forced to undergo a gynecological exam without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Some people are willing to go that far, believing parents should have no part in these medical decisions for their children.

Since hospitals struggle to keep hospitals staffed, does it make sense to pull staff from these medical facilities? Schools already provide nursing services to their students. Can you imagine requiring more of these medical professionals to staff these SBHCs?

There is no respect for parental authority by those who promote the CDC’s Community Schools. While this legislation includes parental consent, even with consent, mistakes have already happened in New Hampshire. When you remove parents from their children when receiving medical care, you can expect more of that.

It is shocking to see these sponsors on SB343: SPONSORS: Sen. Innis, Dist 7; Sen. Gray, Dist 6; Sen. Carson, Dist 14; Sen. Murphy, Dist 16; Rep. Wolf, Merr. 7 It is important that you act now.

Contact the Republicans in The New Hampshire Senate and demand that they kill Senate Bill 343.  If you can, MAKE a PHONE CALL!

Call these Senators AND send them an email asking them to KILL SB343.
We do NOT want the CDC model in our public schools.

Carrie.Gendreau@leg.state.nh.us
Timothy.Lang@leg.state.nh.us
Jeb.Bradley@leg.state.nh.us
James.Gray@leg.state.nh.us
Daniel.Innis@leg.state.nh.us
Ruth.Ward@leg.state.nh.us
Denise.Ricciardi@leg.state.nh.us
Kevin.Avard@leg.state.nh.us
Sharon.Carson@leg.state.nh.us
Keith.Murphy@leg.state.nh.us
Howard.Pearl@leg.state.nh.us
Regina.Birdsell@leg.state.nh.us
Daryl.Abbas@leg.state.nh.us
William.Gannon@leg.state.nh.us

 

 

 

 

The post NH’s Most Dangerous Bill This Year Comes from Republicans in the Senate appeared first on Granite Grok.

Globalists and, closer to home, the Bidenistas have turned the bullish!t up to eleven in an effort to break the world. They are itchin’ for a fight, like an angry drunk poking you in the chest until you get mad enough to take a swing.

But what if they fall down and pass out before things get that far? Victims of their own excess.

The green machine (at least in America) has been printing record-setting sums of fiat money, handing it out like candy at a parade. Piles of it have gone to feed their other green machine: the climate cult—lots of prop-ups, handouts, gimmes. Use the allure of free or easy money (it is neither) to force the Climate agenda down everyone’s throat, but they’ve run into a problem. The printing press prop-ups have created inflation and generational debt, which impacts the cost of everything.

You can only steal so much from so many – most of them not yet born – before the thing falls down. And I get that this is the point. Cloward Piven. Collapse everything. But the Climate scam wasn’t supposed to go so soon.

Falling Down

One of the big green jewels in the UK’s “end functional modernity” crown can’t COP a break. It has announced its impending insolvency.

 

AMTE had a long history in developing lithium cells, making some of the first examples in the 1990s. Recently, AMTE said it tested cells that can be charged fully in six minutes in a breakthrough for charging technology.

However, it has been making a loss. It did not get the firm orders it needed from carmakers and other potential customers, or a patient investor that could fuel an expansion in production.

AMTE’s fate mirrors that of Britishvolt, another would-be independent UK gigafactory.

Britishvolt was the brainchild of former investment banker Orral Nadjari, who saw the looming demand for batteries from carmakers in the UK and a gap in the market for an independent producer, planning a £3.8bn factory in Blyth, Northumberland.

But it ran out of funding after borrowing became more expensive.

 

As reported earlier, automakers are spending less time promoting EVs because there’s no way to make money back, let alone profit, in the current economy, even with fiat money handouts. As such, many are dialing back EV builds, which has a ripple effect in the other propped-up divisions necessary to reach the climate utopia. They can’t afford to operate as is, either.

Take Phoenix Solar. A solar company based in one of the sunniest places in the US. It has filed for bankruptcy.

 

The Nov. 9 WARN filing contained a letter from Erus CEO Abraham Sabbagh to Erus Energy employees, which was obtained by Phoenix Business Journal on Dec. 8. The letter stated that the company was ceasing operations and laying off workers on Nov. 3, citing challenging conditions in the residential solar industry including elevated interest rates, utility permitting delays and lower installation rates.

“Over the past six months, the company has pursued a number of restructuring initiatives while also actively pursuing a sale, but those efforts have not been successful despite best efforts,” Sabbagh wrote. “It has become clear after discussions with the company’s secured lender and a prospective purchaser that a sale as a going concern is impossible.”

 

Not even China wanted to buy it? That’s got to be concerning to the Leftopians. Meanwhile, the legal community, bouncing about brokenly in the sidecar of this rickety-energy-transition, has also failed to provide judicial support for their nonsense. A court in Oregon just tossed the State’s illegal Climate Protection Program.

 

The court’s decision focused on a clear disclosure requirements of the statute – the failure of the Environmental Quality Commission to meet disclosure requirements. This focus on procedural integrity is crucial. It ensures that any significant regulatory changes, especially those impacting major industries and the economy, are made transparently and with due diligence. The court rightly prioritized the rule of law over the substance of the program itself, much to the chagrin of the end justifies the means activists. …

The court rightly noted that “substantial compliance” is not sufficient. Actual compliance with statutory requirements is non-negotiable, especially when it comes to regulations that have far-reaching implications for industries and consumers alike.

 

Also, from the left Coast,

 

The PCFFA, under the representation of Sher Edling, filed a lawsuit alleging catastrophic impacts of climate change on their crab fishing grounds. However, when the legal battle was moved to federal court, the association abruptly dropped the case. This raises questions about the actual substance and intent behind such lawsuits. Was this lawsuit genuinely seeking justice, or was it another example of using the legal system for publicity and political posturing?

 

We’d agree that it was the latter, and that seems to be the case. Flooding the zone with headline-grabbing lawsuits attracts the wandering internet mind long enough to make an impression upon which no one is expected to follow up. In the case of the PCFFA case, the tactic should have been blatantly obvious.

 

The internal discord within the PCFFA and skepticism about the lawsuit’s validity were evident from the outset. Some members of the association themselves pointed out the irony of suing fossil fuel companies while relying on their products for their fishing operations.

“How do we run our engines without oil? How do we fish without oil? Electricity? I’m a small vessel. I’m only 68 tons and my God, I don’t know how that would work.’” (emphasis added)

How indeed. Boats and planes share the battery size and weight problem (as would heavy equipment). To get even moderate amounts or range, you need a capacity that makes float or flite improbable, if not impossible. Lithium packs in vehicles represent a significant increase in total weight whose impact on infrastructure is missing from most if not all, total carbon footprint calculations for EVs.

Are we giving up seafood, ocean, and airline freight, not to mention cruises and passenger air? Yes. If you read the New Green Deal, that’s precisely true. Only an elite few would retain access to transportation above the technological level of a bicycle, which is a sacrifice no one outside the first world is stupid enough to consider.

If you don’t understand why, take 7 minutes to watch the video at the end of this post. It not only doesn’t work, isn’t affordable, and doesn’t green the planet – “It”being any or all of their supposed solutions – the people doing the most emitting without whose sacrifice this exercise is pointless – aren’t going to play along. Neither, it seems, are an increasing number of Westerners (even those who have tried), as the cost of a government-forced energy transition is undermined by the reality of the shoddy and irresponsible economic policy required to force it into being.

I’m sure they’ll keep going. The goal is to break everything. But it has not been a good few months for the Climate Cult.

Merry Christmas to us. For now.

 

The post The Climate Cult’s Horrible, Terrible, Past Few Weeks appeared first on Granite Grok.