Friday • April 4 • 2025
Vol.XVII • No.XIV
Manchester, N.H.
Timing is everything … and the timing of Tucker Carlson’s exit from Fox does NOT support the various theories being disseminated to explain his exit. It was the Heritage speech on Saturday night that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Tucker had the courage to call out the American Left for being EVIL and that, apparently, was the final straw for the Murdochs.
Fox News is controlled opposition. The GOP Establishment is controlled opposition. Some things … no matter how true … can no longer be said. This, sadly, is the current state of America.
It’s okay to criticize America’s involvement in Ukraine … but only if the criticism is that the Biden-regime is not doing enough. It’s okay to go after Fauci … because that deflects from all the talking-heads on television who were pushing the “vaccine” that isn’t a vaccine, while their networks take in massive amounts of advertising revenue from Big Pharma. It’s okay to mock CNN and MSNBC for being regime-media … but don’t you dare even intimate that Jennifer Griffin is a shill for the Pentagon. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
America has become a police-state. An insidious police-state where the storm-troopers where expensive suits and fly private jets.
The post Tucker Carlson … Do You Get It Yet? … You Are Living In A Police State And Fox News Is Part Of The Controlled Opposition appeared first on Granite Grok.
John Fetterman has gotten a pass. We have been too kind to this man out of respect for his stroke and his bout with mental illness. We have avoided the core issue that this man is a perfect example of how the Left can get anyone elected to any office, regardless of credentials and quality of the individual. John Fetterman is the poster child for a corrupt system that anyone with a shred of decency and common sense can see exists in this country. This broken and abused system has given us Sandy Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and of course, Joe Biden. This organized mayhem is far more dangerous than any assault by an adversary, pandemic (natural or manufactured), or phony insurrection because this attack on America is by Americans. Maybe we have fallen so far that we need to classify these people working tirelessly to tear down America as something other than American. Traitor comes to mind.
To stay with Fetterman, he is a buffoon. We knew that before his stroke and hospital stay for depression. Fetterman should never have made it to an election with Mehmet Oz for a seat in the United States Senate. He did not have the credentials to sit in the Senate. The Senate was never a house of saints, but it was a group of intelligent individuals that could govern the country without destroying it from within. Those of us old enough remember when we respected that body of men and women. John Fetterman said it himself this week when he told NPR precisely what most of us knew:
From Fox News:
NPR spoke to Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., about returning to Congress after spending the first few months of his first Senate term in the hospital for depression.
In the exchange, the stroke survivor admitted that during his time away, he felt like he was “not the kind of senator” that his state deserved and that he was not the family man he should have been.
Do they deserve better? They knew what they were getting with Fetterman, an uneducated individual with a poor work ethic (as shown by his lack of effort as Lt. Governor), and only two goals-emptying state prisons and legalizing recreational marijuana. Did they get what they asked for, or did they get what the system fed them? It makes you wonder how so many people can be led like sheep, unaware or unconcerned about the ramifications of their actions. It is this lack of consciousness that will bring down this country.
I have written previously about Fetterman and his path to the Senate. What should concern us is his future. Fetterman, and his wife, who pushed him through the election when she should have been checking him in for rehab, are probably raising money for his re-election bid. The Left will invent some phobia to describe the people who want him out of the Senate. In the meantime, Pennsylvania will only have one active Senator representing them, but the Democrats will have Fetterman’s vote. He serves their purpose if they can prop him up and get him to vote Yeah or Nay on demand.
In addition to his interview with NPR, Fetterman tweeted a picture of himself holding a pro-marijuana flag acknowledging 4/20, an unofficial holiday dedicated to smoking and celebrating marijuana. “It’s 4:20 on 4/20. That’s the Tweet”. He also tweeted his support for unionizing marijuana workers. “You know what goes great with some weed? A Union.”
Fetterman is the person voters in the Keystone State put in the Senate, but this is also the state that gave us Scranton Joe. Maybe there is a pattern here.
The post Let’s Take The Gloves Off On Fetterman appeared first on Granite Grok.
A few weeks ago, we reported on a newly elected select board member over four months past due on their property taxes (still looks unpaid, by the way). We’ve got another board member in the same town, just elected, who lost their mind (on camera) in the middle of a board meeting yesterday, quit, and walked out.
Why?
Item number five on the meeting agenda. “RFP for Printing and Copying Services.” The details required for submitting a proposal. The paperwork. Jennifer Brown is not happy about it. She believes the Board Chair has targeted her, gets pissed, drops the F-bomb a few times, says she is F-ing done, and walks out.
Here’s the exchange leading up to the cursing, the adult language (alert!), and Brown’s departure.
If you’d like to look for more context, here is a link to the entire meeting. The ‘fun’ starts around 40 min and runs to about 45:25.
So, why all the drama? My local contact says, “She’s a printer and is upset her crony deal with the town is going to take more paperwork, so she quits.”
As in quits the board. And it looks like that from here. I’m done. I can’t work with her. Blah, blah, blah. And we don’t know if there’s any more backstory to that, but here’s what I found interesting. Jennifer Brown ran for office on a campaign to lead with civility and respect toward town employees.
Not for nothing, but dropping F-bombs in official public meetings is not precisely civil.
Maybe she didn’t mean civility and respect for town board members or other elected officials. Or, perhaps she was never civil but rode the civility banner like many Democrats do to get elected.
Popcorn worthy.
So? Will Ms. Brown refuse to complete those documents to get printing work from the town for her business?
Note: Local elections in NH are non-partisan, but we have it on good authority that Jennifer Brown is listed on the state voter checklist as a registered Democrat, as is Kary’ Late on her taxes’ Jencks (sitting to Jennifer Brown’s left) and the Chairwoman (Donna Momborquette) with whom Brown is arguing.
The post Democrat Politician Drops Successive F-Bombs Mid-Meeting and Walks Out appeared first on Granite Grok.
What the Greenies and their supporters in the mainstream media want you to see – and believe:
Are they lying? No, generally not. What they AREN’T including is what gives away the grift – Context:
And all that RE shortfall is pretty much made up of lots of natural gas, coal, and nukes.
Yet, we already know that our electrical grid is on shaky ground. Just look what happened to California last summer with the wildfires – lots of blackouts and brownouts to the point where Gov. Newsom declared that owners of EVs (Electric Vehicles) shouldn’t be recharging their cars to prevent the grid from failing altogether. There was just not enough juice to go around.
NH has had enough to to face that problem – but just barely. And now, even with these known issues, the Biden Energy Totalitarians who only believe that top chart (wink, wink) are now going to make electricity even MORE expensive and harder to get and use. And they will do so because Congress gave away its Legislative Powers to the Executive Branch by allowing the latter to create “Rules”:
Biden admin preparing major crackdown on power plants that fuel nation’s grid
Expected power plant rule is ‘latest in President Biden’s anti-fossil fuels agendaThe Biden administration is reportedly finalizing a proposal that would force fossil fuel-fired power plants to substantially curb emissions or utilize costly carbon capture technology.
The proposal — which will soon be released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — is expected to require coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to cut or capture the vast majority of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2040, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing officials briefed on a draft of the plan. The regulation, if finalized, would represent the first-ever federal action curbing power plant emissions.
…Overall, there are 3,393 fossil fuel-fired power plants nationwide, the majority of which are natural gas plants, according to the most recent federal data. Those plants generate more than 60% of the nation’s electricity, compared to the roughly 14% of electricity generated by wind and solar projects.
A 52% total emission drop by 2030 (in seven years??) and 100% by 2035? This is a forced suicide pact.
So just like the Obama Administration forced coal plants to shut down (along with cheaper and more efficient nat gas generation), Biden is going to force a lot of our current generation capacity down because of how expensive upgrades will be. They won’t OFFICIALLY shut them down, just regulate them out of existence.
You see, the Executive Branch has become so powerful that it can ignore Congress and practice Economic Fascism – you don’t have to own the means of Production in order to control it. In this, they are no different than the Italian Mussolini, German Hitler, or Soviet Administrations (and no, I am not breaking Godwin’s Law).
The issue is that even while Biden is screaming, “ELECTRIFY EVERYTHING,” they know that this last bit is going to keep that from happening. We, peons, will just have to do with nothing. It’s part of their WEF (World Economic Forum) compatible process.
So, the Feds own the healthcare industry (Medicare, Medicaid, Tri-Care, Indian healthcare), they are taking control of the electrical generation market (buh-BYE!) and doing the same via regulation, the transportation system. YOUR transportation – your personal vehicle. And they have decided who will have a car and who will not just on price AND by skewing numbers that auto manufacturers can make (don’t sell enough EVs, you can’t make that up by selling gas cars).
It comes down to this: “We will own nothing and be happy.”
Some links:
“Whatever their reason for caving in to White House demands,” we observed at the time, “the fact is that carmakers have just handed over their businesses lock, wheel, and engine to the dictates of government bureaucrats and global warming enthusiasts.”…We also predict that none of these automakers will have the stones to argue that this entire socialistic campaign is horribly misguided. That it is a vast overreach of government power. That it is an affront to our basic liberties. That it will cost consumers a fortune. That it will be massively disruptive. And that, even if the EPA gets its way, it will achieve nothing climate-wise.
The rules, you see, are for people like you and me; people who don’t have the means to spend a fortune working around the system imposed on us.
Rules – not legislation dutifully passed by our elected Representatives. Mere bureaucrats on an electrified power trip that throws us under their bus.
[The math on this is amusing too, especially on oil savings. We currently use 20 million barrels of oil a day. That would amount to a savings of 1,000 days’ worth of oil in a 25-year period. That’s a savings of roughly 11% of expected use, which is not *insignificant* but is hardly a blockbuster or a sign of complete independence from foreign sources either. One has to imagine that we could achieve the same outcome by just innovating and improving on internal-combustion engineering. — Ed]
More to the point, while it’s entirely inappropriate for the government to make such mandates, it also may hinder future progress on E.V. technology.
It’s all about the power. They — and I mean Democrats — want to shove it down our throats. That’s what makes it all worthwhile to them. Every day we move closer to the announcement that from now on underwear must be worn on the outside. Silence! It’s all about the climate…
The Administrative State is moving faster to cement its totalitarian rule over the United States of America than we can to keep pace.
They are doing this because they realize the majority of our people oppose their wishes, but if they are able to impose them by fiat before that opposition forms and reacts, most people will eventually go along. Unfortunately, it’s human nature for many.
(H/T: Powerline)
The post Energy Propaganda v. Energy Reality and the EPAs War on Mobility appeared first on Granite Grok.
The Left’s rainbow soldiers took over another State legislature. This time it was Montana … yes, Montana. Just like Mao’s Red Guards, America’s rainbow soldiers use public shaming, public ridicule, the threat of violence, and actual violence (e.g. the attacks by BLM and Antifa) to achieve their political aims.
Meanwhile, the GOP just keeps its collective head buried in the dirt … “these are our friends; our fellow Americans; you don’t judge the apple tree by a few bad apples.” The Left is EVIL and the GOP is too gutless, too bought-and-paid-for, too LOW-T to do anything about it. Where is John Dutton?
BREAKING: The Montana House of Representatives has been overrun by left-wing “protesters” after the censure of transgender Democrat Zooey Zephyr for telling Republican colleagues they have "blood on their hands" for passing anti-child mutilation bills. pic.twitter.com/ifVOrsJrHR
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) April 24, 2023
The post And In Other News … There Was An Insurrection In Montana Yesterday appeared first on Granite Grok.
Mayor Donchess and I rarely align on issues, but one thing we agree on is justice is not served in Judge Temple’s Courtroom. The Mayor has been expounding in his many public forums about Judge Temple’s ruling in favor of some of my Right-to-Know cases. He believes the Judge is picking on the City as the City has provided “hundreds of thousands of pages of documents” to this “individual” who is retaliating against the City. He is speaking of me.
In listening to the Mayor’s Ward 7 town hall forum, he was asked by a citizen about the Right to Know problems in Nashua. The Mayor carried on for over 6 minutes (far more than we get for public input) with his conscious twist of the facts shirking responsibility. In the eyes of the Mayor, this is the result of an overbearing citizen and unjust court. A dissection of the Mayor’s remarks is the writing of another day.
I agree with Mayor Donchess that the Judge Temple runs an unjust courtroom, but my reasons differ completely from the Mayor’s assessment. Judge Temple treats Right-to-Know cases like criminal trials. This has driven up the costs for both the City and the citizen, but the City makes out much better with this process. The City has the deep pockets of the taxpayers and happily runs up the legal bills on citizens. Ultimately, the City wins by losing slowly and justice is never served for the Citizen. The Judge does not appear to want these cases, so due process is squashed by staggering legal bills, and so goes access to public information.
Judge Temple’s process and the Courts; Clerk willful disregard of the Administration Orders of the Court in handling civil cases, send a powerful message that citizens have no business in the Nashua Court. Take your Petition elsewhere.
Nonsensically, every motion within a Petition requires a hearing. Why? Some of the issues are minor with little to say, but hearings are scheduled with no apparent purpose, other than to delay the outcome and run up the bills.
My observation based on my three years of Court experience and historical research is that Judges, carrying little interest in these types of citizen cases, get the ruling right about 30% of the time. So, do citizens justice and embrace your lousy records and stop ringing up our legal bills to produce incomplete, partially-correct rulings. The harassment, burden and financial ruin associated with Right-to-Know records Petitions must stop.
A lack of Transparency is a symptom of dishonesty
The post My Rare Alignment with Mayor Donchess. appeared first on Granite Grok.
Once again, I take great delight to remind you all of NH Governor Chris Sununu’s own words about running for President:
Hangover: An “Evergreen” statement by Sununu himself on low-rated wannabes:
Mr. Sununu also warned minor candidates not to carve up the field.
“I think there’s a lot of hope and opportunity for good candidates to get in, drive the message where it needs to be,” he said. “But the discipline is getting out, too. The discipline and saying, ‘Look, you’re only polling at 5%, you got to get out.’ We don’t want a crowded field here.”
So last week, Sununu stood at 0.5% over at RealClearPolitics polling. One would think with his attention veering towards facing the north end of any TV camera available that his rating, with his “genial and upbeat” demeanor would be making an impact (except ticking on a large population percentage Primary voters as he’s ransacking Trump for being too old and being a Loser) in bettering his standing in the polls.
‘Fraid not – not at all:
In fact, he dropped a tenth of a point: 0.4%. There he is – rightmost column which means dead last. I dryly note that Vivek Ramaswamy, who is getting a good looking at by those on the Right, went up: from 0.9 to 1.4%.
Sidenote: he was here in NH last week but being sick/taking care of sick family, I missed him.
True, not in the troposphere level of Trump and DeSantis. Vivek is making the same kinds of round that Sununu is but seems to be a better ROI than Chris.
Doesn’t hurt to think that perhaps (heh!) it was Vivek’s go-round with Don Lemon part of Lemon’s firing today from his CNN gig.
Watch the latest video at foxnews.com
(H/T: Fox News)
The post Chris Sununu Poll Watch – week of 4/2/23 appeared first on Granite Grok.
If you dare to question election integrity, the Left will brand you with a scarlet letter and pretend nothing else you say can be taken seriously. Does that apply to Democrats, too?
From Rasmussen, last week.
Dems have been milking the issue full-time for three years. None of the reported irregularities in the 2020 election was evidence of anything suspicious. Anyone who disagrees is anti-democracy, a racist, and doesn’t want college kids to vote. Pick any angle. They’ve worked them all.
Their media homonculi have dutifully tossed anyone under the bus who dares to suggest that either the process or the results were suspect: any method, any result. Even reliable RINOS, those useful Republican idiots, have carried their poisoned water. To what end?
Nearly half of Democrats think the 2022 election outcomes are the product of cheating, as in the absence of election integrity.
And why not? When Trump won in 2016, election denying was a patriotic act. It was the resistance. It kindled a handful of movements to launder money that rode every rumor, a fake dossier paid for by the Clintons, and even riots. The illegitimacy narrative was systemic, even sacrosanct, much like the lie the Left still tells about how the Courts elected Bush over Gore in 2000.
And here we are, at the beginning of the 2024 roadshow, and 48% of Democrats are convinced that cheating wins elections.
Is that good or bad?
I have thought for some time that elections are just another institution the Left needs to destroy.
The modern Democrat party is all-in on the revolution. “The only form of revolution beneficial to the people is one which destroys the entire State to the roots and exterminates all the state traditions, institutions, and classes… Our task is terrible, total, universal, and merciless destruction.”
Sergey Nechayev’s Revolutionary Catechism inspired Marxists from Vladimir Lenin to Saul Alinsky to our manifold of Modern Leftists. It is the objective of Cloward-Piven. It is the goal of rampant inflation and the rising cost of water, electricity, and energy. The open border. Medicine and Public Health Policy since Wuhan. To break every institution, including the government, by wrecking them from within or making them unreliable to those who rely on them.
When it comes to elections, you can’t offer alternatives until voter confidence is so low that almost anything seems like a solution to the problem, real or imagined. I think the same can be said for Congress, which consistently has some of the lowest approval ratings of anything polled every year after year. It is another institution that must be remade in the Marxist Utopian Image. And elections make that impossible, so they need to go.
The Electoral College isn’t racist or outdated. It’s in the way. They’ve been working at that for years even though its absence would deny millions of people a voice in the so-called Democracy.
So, the question before us is whether a poll suggesting 6 out of 10 Americans (and nearly half the Democrats) think that elections are rigged is good or bad for America. Do half the Democrats step up and demand tighter controls, secured chains of custody, and strict observance of state and federal election laws, including poll closing times and the end of vote by mail and ballot harvesting that would improve election integrity and voter confidence? Are they willing to vote for candidates who at least pretend there is a problem they intend to fix?
Or are they just concerned that Republicans stole a few seats to cling to a sliver of a majority that is preventing their party from “fixing” the nation for good?
HT | Just the News
The post Nearly Half of Democrats Think Cheating Affected the 2022 Midterm Election Results appeared first on Granite Grok.
Now THIS is a dog toy!
Owner made his dog a trebuchet.. pic.twitter.com/sgChR2RApp
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) April 19, 2023
Throw and fetch all by hissself!
And they definitely are not smart enough to go to the next level (scroll down to see):
The post Palate Cleanser – I Wish My Dogs Were This Trainable appeared first on Granite Grok.
By hiking interest rates, the Federal Reserve has pulled some of its monetary stimulus out of the economy. While the Fed hasn’t done nearly enough to put the inflationary fire it lit with more than a decade of easy money, cooling consumer price index (CPI) indicates that this has put a modest dent in price inflation — for now. But the federal government has opened the fiscal stimulus spigot even wider and government spending is mucking up the inflation fight. In fact, unless the federal government reins in spending, there is no way inflation will lose this fight.
And that’s not going to happen.
In just the first six months of fiscal 2023, the U.S. government ran a $1.1 trillion budget deficit.
To put that into perspective, the Obama administration ran its biggest deficit in 2009 during the depth of the Great Recession. That was a mere $1.4 trillion – in an entire year.
Ironically, President Joe Biden keeps bragging about how his team has lowered the deficit. But that’s just because he’s comparing it to the massive $3.1 trillion deficit the government ran in 2020 during the pandemic. In fiscal 2022, the Biden administration piled up a $1.3 trillion budget shortfall despite strong receipts to the U.S. Treasury. That was bigger than three of the four largest deficits Obama ran during the stimulus years after the Great Recession.
This is not to let Republicans off the hook.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to deal with the skyrocketing national debt. In fact, he said he could take care of it “fairly quickly.” But during his four years in office, he didn’t even pay lip service to reining in spending, instead, approving bigger outlays for both military and domestic spending.
Most people blame the coronavirus for the surging deficits in the final years of Trump’s presidency. Pandemic-related spending certainly exacerbated the situation, but Uncle Sam had a spending problem long before the coronavirus reared its ugly head. In FY2019, the Trump administration ran a $984 billion deficit. At the time, it was the fifth-largest deficit in history. Through the first two months of fiscal 2020, the deficit was already 12 percent over 2019’s huge Obama-like number and was on track to eclipse $1 trillion.
The bottom line is the U.S. government has a spending problem, and it doesn’t matter who is sitting in the Oval Office.
The March 2023 Deficit
According to the latest U.S. Treasury report, the March budget deficit came in at just over $378 billion. Other than last September when the Treasury recognized some of the cost of Biden’s student loan bailout, it was the largest deficit month since March 2021 when Biden signed the last COVID bailout package.
The problem is the U.S. government faces a double-whammy of falling receipts and increasing spending. Through the first six months of fiscal 2023, tax receipts and other federal revenues are down 3.5 percent while spending is up 12.9 percent.
There has clearly been a shift in federal receipts. The federal government enjoyed a revenue windfall in fiscal 2022. According to a Tax Foundation analysis of Congressional Budget Office data, federal tax collections were up 21 percent. Tax collections also came in at a multi-decade high of 19.6 percent as a share of GDP. But CBO analysts warned it won’t last. And government tax revenue will decline even faster if the economy spins into a recession.
But the real problem is on the spending side of the ledger. The Biden administration is blowing through roughly a half-trillion dollars every single month. In March alone, the U.S. government spent $691.3 billion.
And there is no indication that the spending freight train will slow down any time soon. Congress passed a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill for 2023 that increased outlays by about $1.5 billion over fiscal 2022.
Of course, this is only one component of federal expenditures. The U.S. government is still handing out COVID stimulus money, and in March 2021, Congress approved $1.9 trillion in spending to address the pandemic. Last year, it passed the euphemistically named “Inflation Reduction Act.” Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to shower money on Ukraine and other countries around the world. All of that spending will pile on top of this most recent allocation of funding.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by another 25 basis points in March. That will add to the quickly ballooning interest cost.
According to an analysis by the New York Times, net interest costs rose by 41 percent in 2022. According to the Peterson Foundation, the jump in interest expense was larger than the biggest increase in interest costs in any single fiscal year, dating back to 1962.
The U.S. government has already spent over $300 billion servicing the interest on the national debt in fiscal 2023. At this rate, interest expense alone will cost Uncle Sam in the neighborhood of $600 billion this fiscal year. If interest rates remain elevated or continue rising, interest expenses could climb rapidly into the top three federal expenses. (You can read a more in-depth analysis of the national debt HERE.)
Mucking Up the Inflation Fight
This massive level of government spending creates two big problems for the Federal Reserve in its battle against price inflation.
In the first place, higher interest rates mean higher borrowing costs for the government. As already discussed, the trajectory of interest payments already looks unsustainable over the long term. Unless it cuts spending, the federal government will need interest rates to come down in order to borrow money cheaply and sustain its spending levels.
In the second place, the Fed will end up having to monetize at least some of this debt.
The only reason the U.S. government can borrow and spend to the extent that it does is because the Fed keeps its big fat thumb on the bond market. The federal government needs the central bank to buy Treasuries to prop up demand. Without the Fed’s intervention in the bond market, prices will tank, driving interest rates on U.S. debt even higher. But debt monetization means money creation. The Fed buys Treasuries with money created out of thin air. This is – by definition – inflation.
Right now, the Fed gets a little wiggle room because the US government has run up against the debt ceiling. It can’t borrow money right now, and it’s currently running “extraordinary measures” to fund government spending But as soon as the fake debt ceiling fight ends, the US Treasury will need to sell a large number of bonds to catch up to the ballooning deficit.
This isn’t merely speculation on my part. A paper published by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank acknowledged that the central bank can’t slay inflation unless the US government gets its spending under control. In a nutshell, the authors argue that the Fed can’t control inflation alone. U.S. government fiscal policy contributes to inflationary pressure and makes it impossible for the Fed to do its job.
Trend inflation is fully controlled by the monetary authority only when public debt can be successfully stabilized by credible future fiscal plans. When the fiscal authority is not perceived as fully responsible for covering the existing fiscal imbalances, the private sector expects that inflation will rise to ensure sustainability of national debt. As a result, a large fiscal imbalance combined with a weakening fiscal credibility may lead trend inflation to drift away from the long-run target chosen by the monetary authority.”
This clearly isn’t in the cards.
Something has to give. The Fed can’t simultaneously fight inflation and prop up Uncle Sam’s spending spree. Either the government will have to cut spending or the Fed will eventually have to go back to creating money out of thin air in order to monetize the debt.
You can decide which is more likely.
Mike Maharrey | The Tenth Amendment Center
The post Here’s How the Federal Government Is Mucking Up the Inflation Fight appeared first on Granite Grok.
American citizens left behind in Sudan may have to accept that to Joe Biden, they are a lot like military hardware in Afghanistan. They were left behind to be sold to China or “used” by the locals.
Biden’s administration made a hasty exit from the country, airlifting about 70 Embassy personnel out of Sudan as the security situation deteriorated.
US troops carried out the operation as fighting between two armed Sudanese commanders —which has killed more than 400, put the nation at risk of collapse, and could have consequences far beyond its borders—moved into a second week.
There are reported to be another 16,000 US citizens in Sudan, and no immediate plan to get them out.
The White House has said it has no immediate plans for a government-coordinated evacuation of American citizens trapped in war-torn Sudan as Africa’s third-largest country descends into civil war. An estimated 16,000 private U.S. citizens are registered with the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum.
I’m guessing Aid workers, doctors without borders, missionaries, Habitat for Humanity folks, and at least a few Americans with family there.
Biden said he was receiving regular reports from his team on efforts to assist those remaining Americans in Sudan “to the extent possible.”
I’m sorry, I don’t think Joe Biden is getting regular updates about anything except when to take his meds, nap time, what words to say, in which direction was supposed to walk, and when he can expect his next scoop of ice cream. That’s not to say there isn’t someone else doing that, but using Democrat administrations as a guide, if you have the financial means, might I suggest you find someone with the skills (it won’t be cheap) to get them out yourself.
And yes, we can point you to someone that does this if needed.
The post Biden Airlifts 70 Government Workers Out of Sudan, Leaves 16,000 ‘other’ Americans Behind appeared first on Granite Grok.
Cash is king, at least until our “overlords” at the Federal Reserve and the Totalitarians that have infested the Executive Branch decided to make our paper (actually made of a special cloth) dollars digital – just PERFECT for tracking everything we’d do).
Anyways, this from Instapundit that should remind you to keep cash handy for when our modern society gets a hiccup (emphasis mine):
SO, SHOPPING AT THE FRESH MARKET TONIGHT, we were among the very few to buy groceries, because their computer network was down and they couldn’t process credit or debit cards. They couldn’t even accept checks because those are run through an ACH payment system rather than deposited in the old way. We, however, were able to pay and get out, something only a couple of other customers could do. (One older guy, and a couple of teenaged girls who said “we rock it old schoool with cash,” which I thought was hilarious.) Most people didn’t carry enough cash for groceries.
Two lessons: (1) The “cashless society” is less robust than cash; and (2) Always carry enough cash to buy groceries, a meal out, and a tank of gas. Just in case.
Flashback: Amy Langfield on the handiness of a stack of small bills in the New York blackout, when nobody could process credit cards. Though with inflation today, “small bills” probably includes twenties, and possibly fifties.
Debit and credit cards are nice, quick, and easy to use (and over use as well). However, when things go south/sideways in small (like the farmer’s market above) or worse (a blackout), having sufficient liquidity is a big plus. At least, at those places where they look at the cash in your hand (that could be theirs) and their dead Point Of Service terminal and they choose your cash over a no-sale. It is clear from the above that the farmers were a lot more nimble in creating a backup system (paper and pencil) than most stores would be, so who knows?
But you never know what will happen when that next EMP event is going to happen, do we?
The post Remember, Cash is King! appeared first on Granite Grok.
If you search any variation of “Bud Light Sales down,” the results will look like a drunk guy peeing in an alley, as in, all over the place. Down 30%, 69%, and 80%. You will find fact-checks by major media outlets whose relationship with the truth is spotty at best. But are they wrong?
The center-right is taking a victory lap, claiming scalps in the culture war, but if you look at BUD’s numbers, there’s not much to cheer about. Sure, the initial outrage coincided with a dip in both the stock price and market cap, but Anheuser Busch (AB) is a massive global company with, as I noted here, a lot of moving parts.
The first casualty (for the sake of appearances, IMO) is Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing. She is credited with the decision to pick a man to represent women. Alissa (a woman who identifies as a woman) is on a leave of absence but not for the Mulvaney thing, exactly. She was “dismissive” of the product’s customer base and whatever this is.
“I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light. It was, this brand is in decline, it’s been in decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light,” she said.
The brand overhaul she was driving, she said, would require “having a campaign that’s truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter and different and appeals to women and to men.”
Instead of building a new customer base, she pissed off the old one. How about you use up some of that vacation time you’ve been banking, Alissa?
BUD has also asked a guy who identifies as a guy “who oversees marketing for Anheuser-Busch’s mainstream brands” to step away. Daniel Blake will be using up some of his vacation time as well, so no one is going without pay or benefits. And if either needs to change jobs, this will look great on a resume at any number of #woke corporations.
But why are they stepping away?
The initial reports were that AB had lost up to 5 billion in market Cap in the first few weeks of the “controversy,” but that is no longer true. BUD’s Cap was at 132.38 billion when the outrage began. The stock price was 66.92. Before the Bell rang Monday, April 24th, Market Cap was back to 130 (129.72), and the stock closed on Friday at 65.52.
Past 30 days 6 Months
The off Hours trading had it opening at 66.08 (and it did). And while a 2.5 billion shift in Market Cap is not “nothing” – on this playing field, it looks like nothing.
So, what about the reports from bar owners and beverage distributors that there is a glut of products on the shelves that people are not buying? I bet some of that is true but a handful of anecdotal reports from neighborhood bars are not changing the big picture.
And so we are clear, I’m not saying you should not vote with your feet. If you like Blight and want to stand up for real women, do that. Drink PBR, Stroh’s, Keystone, Natural, Milwaukee’s Best, Rolling Rock, Narragansett, Old Milwaukee, and Schlitz; there are plenty of weak American beers to replace it with (Rainier, Lone Stare, Ultra Deluxe Yellow Dog Water, etc.). Some are not terrible if you are already drunk on good beer, and for the price of a four-pack of something worth drinking, you can get 18 or 24 of those.
Keep the party going!
And assuming none of those are brewed by BUD or have fallen into the CEI trap (your due diligence is required), have at it. Free markets are only free if you choose the products and services yourself for reasons entirely your own. But before you knee-jerk share-re-share or promote a headline about how far mighty BUD hath fallen, understand that they have not.
Not yet.
Stumbled might be a better word. And the difference might be a matter of March Madness ending and the NHL and NBA playoffs beginning.
Sure, a few Bud Light ad peeps tripped over Mulvaney’s swelling social following as part of a lighter and brighter campaign that appeals to … men who act like women, but Human Rights Campaign was (I’m sure) happy with the effort and fundraising off of the protesting beer-drinkers response.
So, what if Mulvaney appeals to a sliver of confused ‘youtes’ who aren’t old enough to drink legally and a few rubberneckers who don’t care what gets pitched on that feed? He’s a social media influencer, and if you want to appeal to women who are not sure what shitty beer to drink, a man in a dress who behaves like a shallow caricature of a woman – might be a mistake.
But it should come with a higher price than a few Execs getting paid vacation time to burnish their resumes, so we need to be realistic about the problem and the solution – and relentless about the response. The situation on the Right has always been stamina. The Right can muster the numbers but rarely for the long haul, and the Left knows that. They wait us out or beat us down to speed up the process.
If the brand was already a damsel with a prostate in distress, just excise Bud Light from your lives.
Drink something else (please), and don’t go back. Ever. Don’t serve it at your house or bring it to a friend. If they offer, politely pass. Life is too short to drink Blight, and you deserve better than that. As I said here, “Mulvaney thinks he’s a girl. Bud Light thinks it’s a beer. A guy who thinks he is a girl drinking Bud Light should be the perfect fit.”
Whatever is happening hasn’t made much of a difference for the beverage giant, but it could. It might take months or years, but this is Bud Light. It shouldn’t be hard to give that stuff up.
The post Despite Hyperbolic “Bud-Light-Sales-Are-Down Headlines” BUD Looks Fine… appeared first on Granite Grok.
Tucker Carlson keynoted the recent Heritage 50th anniversary event. Every NHGOP State Rep, State Senator, etc. etc. etc. should have to listen to his speech. My words, not his: We are NOT engaged in a battle of ideas with the NH-Democrats; we do NOT share common goals with the NH-Democrats but differ on the means to get there; they are NOT our “friends;” they do NOT share … indeed they despise … our values. To cut to the chase, the NH-Democrats are EVIL.
And, NHGOP, every day that you maintain the charade that the NH-Democrats are “good people” that we share “common ground” with and our differences are about the means, not the ends (presumably because some “insider,” some “operative,” etc. who has NEVER won anything tells you that “this is the way” to get the white women in Bedford back in the fold) … they get stronger and you get weaker.
Tucker Carlson During Speech At @Heritage Explains How To Understand What The People Wrecking Our Country Are Doing
"None of this makes sense in conventional political terms."
"When people. . .decide that the goal is to destroy things, destruction for its own sake, 'hey let's… pic.twitter.com/qFZOZtjAvg
— The Columbia Bugle (@ColumbiaBugle) April 22, 2023
The post Tucker Carlson Gets It … The Low-T NHGOP Doesn’t … The Communists (aka NH-Democrats) Are EVIL appeared first on Granite Grok.
Update at the bottom and sets up “context” for this sordid Mulvaney marketing fiasco: especially his bankroll and his lust for fame. I am a bit behind on this topic, but it’s clear that the Trans-Authoritarian crowd was having a field day with the rise of Mulvaney and his “365 days of Womanhood” celebration.
And the large sponsorships showered upon him by large corporations looking to boost their Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index standing by being pro-LGBT. Including Anheuser-Busch thinking, they could ride that Transgender Train for millions more in sales.
And hit the proverbial broken bottle in the road by alienating its normal customer base, who generally don’t like Culture War / Virtue Signaling rammed down their throats by having an “influencer” that is about as 180 degrees from them as possible.
And A-B is surprised at the massive backlash for condoning the misogynist behavior of this LGBT “star” (pretend “starlet) in pretending to be something that he can never be in portraying a skewed version of what a woman really is. And can’t even play the part right.
Twerp full of derp.
And I have thoughts…
Remember, it was the Marketing Director for Bud Light, Alissa Heinerscheid, who believed that Bud Light’s customer base, mostly blue collar works, needed a shakeup. Of course she did, bless her heart. So, instead of those workaday folks doing the jobs that she never would (or could – see Dirty Jobs), she decided to hire LGBT TransFace “influencer” Mulvaney. She sure did change the “marketing buzz”. Bud Light now has a new nickname: “Tranny Fluid“ (and for those who have decided that following the LGBT culture scene because they don’t believe it affects them, it’s a play off “genderfluid” – a term that basically means “I can be any sexual being I want, anytime I want, and if you don’t like it SHUT UP!”). And with that, with a snap of her fingers, Heinerscheid lost her audience in an attempt to win the 0.01% customer share that transgender (or, as I am starting to see more and more, a return by many to the older adjective, transvestite) drinkers).
One of her biggest problems is that we who are NOT of the Trans / DIE persuasions, the word used by those folks and their sympathizers, “inclusive“, actually translates to “not YOU folks, just ours”. They say they are inclusive but we really know it’s a bastardization of the definition of “exclusive” as in “you’re not our types because you won’t accept what we tell you to accept”. Thus, the resulting pics and vids of Mulvaney prancing around like the roleplaying little girl wannabee have resulted in deep losses of marketshare, dollar losses, volume shipment losses, and a tarnished reputation:
Bud Light posted a 7 percent decline in off-premise dollar sales, a 10.7 percent decline in volume, and a 3.7 percent decline in dollar shares, he wrote. The company saw a 1.6 percent decline in dollar sales, a 6.4 percent decline in volume, and a 0.7 percent decline in dollar shares for the prior week.
And A-B has lost, reportedly, $6 Billion in market capitalization (stock value). Changes? Ayup:
Breaking: Woke Bud Light marketing chief takes leave of absence after transgender influencer disaster
Alissa Heinerscheid, the marketing director of Bud Light, has taken a leave of absence and has been replaced after a damaging marketing disaster promoting the transgender agenda. The development was first reported by Beer Business Daily. Heinerscheid will be replaced by Todd Allen, the global marketing VP for Budweiser, the company confirmed to Ad Age.
“A leave of absense” is code for “we forced her out”. Now, I don’t drink alcohol so I don’t have a direct “dog in this fight” from that aspect. I could care less about Budweiser other than it was the beer that my Dad used to drink (constantly). I DO have a dog in this fight in that it is part of the Culture War that is working to “transform” us to their image instead of just selling beer. Doubt me?
Another Budweiser marketing exec was also quoted (and I’m trying to re-find it) that because of Budweiser’s clout (paraphrasing here) and involvement in Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity (heh! -> DIE), it has the perfect ability to “lead its customers” towards those goals. As if it was Bud’s purpose to re-educate and get Borg’d into their acceptance of Woke culture, one Bud at a time. I HAD the post, somewhere, so I’ll update this when I can find it.
But image the gall of Budweiser, believe that their mission is no longer to just make beer but to “transform” their customers without revealing that.
UPDATE: Found it! Emphasis mine:
Though it is finally cooling, lingering effects are still seen with the cultural furor surrounding the beer brand Bud Light. There were a number of missteps regarding the poor decision to involve transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, and one of the aspects that have come to light is how those in charge of the brand have been engaging in corporate woke culture.
Many have seen the video of Alissa Heinerscheid, the VP of Bud Light, laying out her intentions for the beer brand to use a lexicon of woke culture and insult her out-of-touch customer base. But she is not alone. Also involved in things was Anheuser-Busch’s vice president of communications, Jennifer Morris. In a prior interview, she laid out some of the goals for the company as she envisioned things:
Anheuser-Busch is in a unique position to bring attention to DE&I issues in a way that brings consumers along on the journey to drive positive change and create a more equitable world…we can leverage our scale and resources to further conversations around DE&I and help consumers understand the difference they can make as individuals.
As I said above, WHO THE HECK ARE THESE PEOPLE TO BELIEVE THEY CAN “bring consumers along on the journey” on DIE?
It’s obvious that this whole Wokeness has infested everything and everyone “in charge” now must be missionaries. It’s almost that they have forgotten their primary mission which, in this case, is to sell product (e.g., beer). Instead, they are turning around to use their product merely as a delivery mechanism so as to “save the unwashed, infidels, and heretics”.
And if you missed my drift, that means both you and I.
THIS is much worse than some goofy guy prancing around…
Tangent: I DO so much love “prancing” with respect to Mulvaney. Especially in his ad for Nike for their sports bra which is flatter than most pre-teen girls’ training bras. It just fits (the prancing bit – there’s nothing to fit inside the bra).
…in alienating Bud’s customers.
And now I know that I haven’t been cynical enough about things…
The post Skip’s Sauntering Snippets – This Bud’s Not for Me Edition appeared first on Granite Grok.
Fox News and Tucker Carlson had a quickie divorce over the weekend. Carlson’s top-rated show will no longer air on the network beginning immediately.
“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” the company wrote in a statement.
…
While the reason for Carlson’s departure from Fox is unknown, many conservatives have observed that his on-air coverage often appeared to be at odds with the headquarters and other media divisions within the firm. For example, there have been long-standing tensions between Carlson and 26-year Fox veteran and network CEO Suzanne Scott, Mediate reported. However, Carlson’s show continually landed at the top of the charts, raking in viewers and high ratings.
This is a massive loss for cable news and Americans who liked the content but can’t figure out how to get information anywhere but newspapers and the idiot box. Carlson, who founded The Daily Caller, has other means of delivering content at his immediate disposal so I don’t expect he’ll be away from video for long. Whether he creates a Glenn Beck-Like Blaze TV (another former FOX host shown the door) remains to be seen.
It’s only been a few hours since the announcement, but it will be a day remembered for lying libs and whiney rhinos across the ideological swamps of DC. They are glad to see him gone.
Unrelated and nowhere near the seismic a change as Carlson’s departure represents, CNN has announced that the troublesome Don Lemon has worn out his race card.
“I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN,” Lemon said in a statement posted to Twitter. “I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network.”
Lemon had a show on CNN but got demoted to the third wheel on a morning show that didn’t need him. I don’t expect they will be looking for a replacement unless someone else misbehaves.
As for Lemon, maybe MSNBC has room for him on their sh!t wagon.
The post Breaking – No More Tucker Carlson on FOX NEWS; CNN Fires Don Lemon appeared first on Granite Grok.
They’re flying so thick and fast it is amazing. Take heart – there will be a Meme Overflow and almost certainly a Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow. Last week’s Overflow-Overflow.
Remember, ridicule and mockery are effective weapons:
Now, let the mockery and mayhem begin.
Just the other day I saw plane after plane with looooong trails that persisted. I address chemtrails in the Thought Splinters 4 essay, link above.
*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***
Remember that other expression, “To take no action, is an action”?
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Senator Cruz slammed Senator Jeanne Shaheen for not letting Dem.Nominee to answer questions #shorts
Shaheen is, IMHO, such a POS Commie stooge.
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I love his anti-Jab activism and now, as I have become an anti-vaxxer – and proudly- his skepticism on vaccines in general. But he’s also a climate change doom monger as I understand it. Still better than The Potato of course.
Now, having said this… OOH, RFK Jr. will rile things up on the Left. Good. Confusion and distraction and infighting amongst our enemies. OTOH, in general, I dislike political family dynasties. And his one ad I’ve seen leverages the heck out of his father and uncle. Having former relatives in office is not a qualifier IMHO. (I had the same objection to “W” actually.)
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Data Scientist DESTROYS Racist Police Narrative with Real Data | The Larry Elder Show
I am very honored to have Larry Elder’s autographed-to-me picture framed and on the wall of my office. I also have the late Walter E. Williams:
Williams had multiple good books. He sent me this one during the course of our very limited correspondence:
American Contempt for Liberty
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This is an excellent Prager video:
Why Isn’t Communism as Hated as Nazism?
Also, not mentioned, the starvation of the Kazakhs. Good site here:
Victims of Communism | Keep the flame of liberty alive
And don’t forget the grim history of Islam either:
The Greatest Murder Machine in History – American Thinker
Both Communism and Islam put The State (whether secular or religious) above the individual. That’s why they’re natural – albeit unlikely – allies.
Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left
United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror
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Look, I don’t approve of the whole LGBTQ+ crap. But I acknowledge the right of people to be so if they, as consenting adults, choose to participate in such activities. That’s their business, and is between them and Hashem when they die.
My objections to all this really started when they decided to start pushing this into kids’ minds and targeting kids s*xually.
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Pick of the post:
As if there’s any doubt what their reaction would be.
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You Must Be Crazy: Election Fraud Claims Debunked with Democratic Media Bunk
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Palate Cleansers:
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The post MONDAY MEMES appeared first on Granite Grok.
OK, a month and a half in. My expected loss, due to illness last week, showed up. However, now I’ve been stuck at that weight for a few days now no matter what I eat – or don’t. I’m feeling better to the point of feeling normal (TMEW and the Grandson are still suffering the lingering effects, though) but getting “stuck” is a bit worrisome. Seems like my body has done the “reset” I knew would happen – just a few pounds too soon! And all I can think of is going out for a nice Chinese dinner (sheesh! Stop already!).
Tom is continuing on and broke a milestone weight for him – congrats! I’m hoping that it will put a hop in his step and the determination to “beat Skip!”.
Reminder that while we both have differing weight loss goals, we’re competing on percentage loss in trying to “normalize” things – it was clear that I could never lose as much as Tom just on pounds but we both knew that it’s going to be harder for me to lose that lesser weight as my “easy” weight started a couple of years ago.
As least my wallet is safe for a little while longer. I had promised myself a brand new wardrobe once I broke 185 and which I have now done. I’ve noticed that the double chin I once had has disappeared and my belts are no longer holding up my pants – I need all new belts as I’m on the last hole on all of them and they are still “wiggly”. That said, I’m going to put off that spending spree until this contest is over which will probably take a few more weeks.
The post The Skip & Tom Weight Challenge – Week 7 appeared first on Granite Grok.
The entertainment industry is filled with Winston Smiths. Those tasked with – obsessed with – reimaging details to fit a BIPOC worldview in the name of social justice. A world where the color of the skin matters more than anything else.
Ironically, this is a considerable step backward: race, religion, skin color, and ethnicity have defined people for millennia. And we’d made good progress getting away from that – at least in America – until Barry Obama systematized the modern race war in the name of social justice. Everything has become about race, and the progressive entertainment industry, whose gig is to play house or make-believe in exchange for money, had taken this cue as an opportunity.
In the name of undoing a past injustice with which most of the people currently alive had nothing to do, they are balancing the scales no matter who they piss off. NETFLIX, a leader in the trend, has an ongoing docuseries that “educate(s) audiences on the fearless, captivating lives of [African] queens who were likely not part of their Western academic curriculum.” Do you know what else wasn’t part of the Western academic curriculum? A black Cleopatra.
And to be frank, I don’t care. As the actress chosen to portray Cleopatra reminds us, if you don’t like the casting, don’t watch, but won’t that harm my social credit score? Approved versions of history will be required viewing in the New World Order. One that, for now, has Egyptians annoyed.
Adele James, who is black, is cast as Cleopatra. She’s a fine actress, and I’m sure she’ll do the role justice, but is it social justice? According to “Zahi Hawass, a prominent Egyptologist, and former antiquities minister, … “This is completely fake. Cleopatra was Greek, meaning that she was light-skinned, not black.”
Mr Hawass said the only rulers of Egypt known to have been black were the Kushite kings of the 25th Dynasty (747-656 BC).
“Netflix is trying to provoke confusion by spreading false and deceptive facts that the origin of the Egyptian civilisation is black,” he added and called on Egyptians to take a stand against the streaming giant.
NETFLIX has been color-washing history for years. And not just human history but fiction as well. And again, I don’t care. HBOs House of the Dragon has prominent roles described as fair-skinned in the source material with incredibly light hair portrayed by blacks, and I think they did a fantastic job. Top-shelf. I’m sure Adele James will do an excellent job as well. But Cleopatra is a historical person whose story is an integral part of the national culture, and you’re messing with it.
NETFLIX is projecting its liberal guilt onto the heritage of another nation. Or is that the point? Greeks should have never been there in the first place. Or they are as stupid as the average corporate media reporter. Egypt is part of the African Continent, so Cleopatra has to be black.” You know, to make up for all the white or light-skinned women who played a role in the past. This is a pendulum swing in the other direction to balance the scales.
I have no issue with that if the parts played are fictional, even if the fictional character would have likely had a different skin color from the actor portraying the role. But they either can’t help it or – like Anheuser Buch – there’ are some Soros-funded fanatics at a supposedly non-governmental organization who will give them a bad “score” if they don’t colorize or genderize everything.
And now the Netflix Series – independent of the acting – is not about the “captivating lives of [African] queens who were likely not part of their Western academic curriculum.” It is reimaging how history should be taught in Western curricula, which is undoubtedly what they were always after.
Exit question: Does the Netflix Docuseries on African Queens delve into that continent’s extensive history of slavery, or did they Netflixwash that too?
The post How About Some More Netflixwashing of History appeared first on Granite Grok.
I have painfully slogged through a number of Right-to-Know Court challenges and the process should have been much easier. Most Judges do not like citizen Right-to-Know cases as they are boring and burdensome.
But the only recourse is to seek the remedy through the Court. (The newly opened Ombudsman Office is starting up, but bringing Nashua’s mess into a start-up operation is a bad idea.) The Attorney General’s Office will not offer any assistance for matters involving municipal issues. Citizens have to stay within the Court system, and the Nashua Court system is a trainwreck lacking in due process.
My intentions through all of my work were to try to improve records access for the public and hold the government accountable. I failed miserably at this. The Mayor, the Legal Office, and the Board of Alderman have taken no responsibility to correct record deficits and process. The Mayor bellows out a cadenced-public message openly blaming me for employee departures, staffing increases to handle Right-to-Know matters, and increased costs to the taxpayers. In truth, his process has destroyed reasonable records access for all citizens. The Mayor publicly denounces Judge Temple’s ruling in my favor calling the orders unfair and claiming the Court is picking on the City. The one thing I have come to learn about this Mayor and legal office, they cannot permit the “enemy” to experience a single victory.
In Nashua, questioning the government is considered an act of hostility. Attorney Donchess and Attorney Bolton take challenges very personally, which prevents any effective negotiation. My work started off as a “mind my own business” effort. I wanted to fix our bad property assessment. I won that effort, but the Mayor started a war.
The Mayor is extremely effective in picking his Board of Alderman, funding and campaigning for his candidates. He has held a stacked single-party chamber for 8 years. When he engages in a war, he is, for the most part, effective and uniting his Board and State Representatives behind him. From his leadership position, he leads in establishing confirmation bias that is almost impossible to overcome.
But, if you go to City Hall and walk around, it is no longer a public building. The offices are locked, signs are posted “by appointment only,” and phone numbers are listed that ring to nowhere or, more typically, no one answers. People are still working remotely on a COVID protocol. Citizens, particularly those in opposition to the City, can no longer go to city hall and speak to folks in a department about records. We should all be concerned when such a basic right to access our public information and understand what our government is doing is being so easily taken away.
I cannot recall a single executive order or memorandum from the Mayor that would improve public access to information for citizens and recognize the need for change. The Mayor is the master of blame.
So, after more than three years, what did my sincere efforts bring? I lost my reputation and my freedom, all to accomplish nothing. Please reflect on your rights being taken away from you.
A lack of transparency is a symptom of dishonesty.
The post No Good Deed goes Unpunished appeared first on Granite Grok.
