Remember how fun it was in grade school playing the game of musical chairs? You’d circle around the chairs to music and when the music stopped everyone had to grab a chair.  But, they were one short. Out went the kid who didn’t get the seat. It was a frantic, fun game that honed kids’ listening, social and problem-solving skills.

The Nashua Board of Aldermen engaged in that game in their chamber recently. The Board of Alderman gallery had a press table in the back.  We all remember the time when press was attending governmental meetings and then, once COVID hit, the press was gone. Nashua’s press table, which had two seats, was sadly empty.

As often a lone attendee at Board of Alderman meetings, typically, I’d bring my computer to sit at the unoccupied press table, work, capture my thoughts, and sometimes contribute to public comment. I’m not a popular person with my city government, so they became irritated.

Initially, I was asked not to sit there. When I questioned the Board President on why that would be a problem, she explained it was a press table and I was not press. The idea that nobody was sitting there did not resonate with her. She was having none of that!

Ignoring the silly comment, I came to the next meeting and sat at the unoccupied press table. I received glaring looks of disapproval and frustration from the Board.

At the next meeting, the two chairs were removed, and only the “press” table remained. The game of musical chairs had begun.

As a woman who knows how to fix a problem, I inquired about the chairs and unsurprisingly learned that the Board President requested the chairs be taken away.

As a creative problem-solver, likely honed from my elementary school musical chairs days, I took a chair from the hallway right outside the chamber and carried it into the gallery, quietly placed it at the table and took my seat. Whoa, I had crossed the line! The President and others moved beyond glares and verbalized their disapproval of my boldness.

All of this was giving me a chuckle. How silly! How childish! But musical chairs is a child’s game.

Well, at the next meeting, the Board of Aldermen upped their game. Not only would the chairs remain missing at the ‘press’ table but the chairs at the public table in the hallway were mysteriously missing as well. The President harshly verbalized that if you’re not a member of the press, you cannot sit at the press table. Mind you, it was never labeled a press table. 

In a brief history, Nashua had a senior woman in her 80s who came to meetings for years and sat at that table when the press wasn’t there. She was a terrific participant in her local government. Would the Board President object if the Mayor had wanted to sit at the table?

As a creative problem-solver, at the next meeting, I carried my own chair to the chamber, quietly unfolded it at the back “press” table, took a seat with my computer, and began my listening and working. That earned me a harsh tongue-lashing for my bold and brazen move and “lack of decorum” in the chamber. They hollered, “you’re not ‘the press’. YOU can’t sit at that table”.

Again, as a creative problem-solver, I reached out to Granite Grok to request a press pass as I’ve written articles for the paper. Alas, I would have those essential and critical press credentials necessary to entitle me to a seat at the “press table”. I sent a letter to the Board of Alderman, I was official, I had a press pass. The table’s official use had been restored!

Excited, I appeared at the next meeting with my press badge prominently displayed. But the Board President and Alderman one-upped me. This time, they removed the table! And the space in the back was now an empty hole.

The adrenaline-fun-filled game of musical chairs in Nashua had ended. I lost—a fitting ending illustrating the Board’s welcoming of the public. Corporation Counsel for Nashua announced he might like to put a legal library in that back area. This never came to fruition. Perhaps a few books on 1st Amendment Rights and the Right to Know Law might be helpful in the gallery of the Board of Aldermen chamber.

Pay attention to your local governments. Sometimes, they’re really a hoot.

The post Musical Chairs appeared first on Granite Grok.

I’ve been telling stories to my grandkids since they were born.  They’re always the main characters in the stories.

In one story, they captured a ghost, which they were exploiting for money (e.g., by putting it on television shows). They kept the ghost in a Ziplock bag.

The group PETS (People for the Ethical Treatment of Spirits) responded to this by obtaining a court order to ‘release the ghost from the bag.’

Hoping to teach them something about the difference between the letter and the spirit of the law, I had planned to surprise them by saying that they let the ghost out of the bag… inside a larger bag.

But the older one beat me to it.  She literally said:  ‘I know — we open it inside a bigger bag!’

She was four years old at the time.

I was reminded of this recently because — as many of you know — Texas has been putting razor wire in the Rio Grande to stop the influx of illegal immigrants across its border.

And SCOTUS has said that the US Border Patrol can cut the wire.

But what SCOTUS didn’t say was that Texas can’t keep replacing the wire that gets cut!

So, as far as I know, that’s the plan:  let the Border Patrol cut the wire (so the state is not ‘defying the Supreme Court’, as many have claimed), then replace it with new wire.  Repeat as necessary.

So this is the state of things in our country:  We have seventy-year-old judges ‘interpreting’ the law by issuing orders that even four-year-old children could see how to get around.

I can hardly wait to see what happens next.

The post Texas: The Art of the Loophole appeared first on Granite Grok.

Jeff Chidester, Mike Rogers, and I had our share of time to fill on radio row – with opinion, commentary, speculation, and observation. Events like the First in the Nation Primary are opportunities to leverage those debates, hopefully with people aspiring to run the country, but do they even know what the nation needs?

A recent Rasmussen poll suggests that what Angelo Codevilla documented in 2014 was no better and perhaps worse today than ten years prior. Codevilla called it the Ruling Class and the Country Class. Pundits referencing the Rasmussen poll are more succinct, but there is no difference between the two. It’s US vs Them.

Among the 1,000 elites surveyed, 73% of the elites were Democrats, and 14% were Republicans. The study also examined adults who attended either Ivy League colleges or “elite private schools, including Northwestern, Duke, Stanford, and the University of Chicago.”

Jeff, Mike, and I discuss this below, but first, a few more snippets.

• Financial Well-being: Nearly three-quarters of the elites surveyed believe they are better off now financially than they were when Joe Biden entered the White House. Less than 20% of ordinary Americans feel the same way.
• Individual Freedom: Elites are three times more likely than all Americans to say there is too much individual freedom in the country. Astonishingly, almost half of the elites and almost 6 of 10 ivy leaguers say there is too much freedom.
• Climate Change: An astonishing 72% of the elites — including 81% of the elites who graduated from the top universities — favor banning gas cars. The majority of elites would ban gas stoves, nonessential air travel, SUVs, and private air conditioning. That means no air travel with the kids to Disney World.
• Education: Most elites think that teachers unions and school administrators should control the agenda of schools. Most mainstream Americans think that parents should make these decisions.

The people who would rule us have no clue what it is like for those I’ve often referred to as the peasants, and based on this poll, I’d say from the perspective of the elites, I’ve got their interpretation correct. Here are a few minutes of that conversation (recorded Jan 21st – Manchester, New Hampshire).

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Michelle Obama once said, “If They go low, we’ll go high.” So what does the Democrat’s favorite First Lady have to say about the Biden/Harris Administration putting their reelection campaign on a one-horse pony: abortion? Silence. The Obamas are sending mixed signals on the 2024 election.

They are making suggestions to the Bidens and all Democrats on what needs to be done for reelection, while Michelle is signaling that she is ready to take the baton from Joe. They know that Joe is too old to finish the race and are waiting for him to gasp for air. The Democrats are a dysfunctional, confused group with no unifying goal except abortion.

The Democrats have also signaled that they cannot win on the accomplishments of Biden’s first term. Bidenomics is a non-starter as inflation is outpacing wages, and credit is beating the hell out of savings. Education is failing our children, which leaves only one option: make it free. Don’t worry that the students from 10 years ago or those to come will pay for their education. We’ll forgive the loans of those who will vote for us now. On the day of the New Hampshire Primary, which Joe Biden rendered irrelevant, Biden was nowhere to be seen in the Granite State. He has not been to New Hampshire in over two years. The President, who claimed to be the great unifier, said that New Hampshire was too white to give it relevance. On Tuesday, Biden joined his even less popular Vice President Kamala Harris in Virginia, hosting a Reproductive Rights support group. Biden and Harris recognize that the only subject they can connect with the voters today is abortion.

If you cannot talk about safety and security at home with a porous Southern Border, the Middle East is on fire on multiple fronts, and Zelenskyy comes to Washington monthly to refill his piggy bank. That bank is one-of-a-kind with the tagline: 10% of your tax dollars that go to Ukraine is sent to “The Big Guy.” They cannot talk about Bidenomics because everyone knows it is not working. They cannot speak about Fentanyl as we are still losing 100,000 lives per year to drug poisoning. They cannot claim an improved infrastructure as commercial passenger jets are catching fire and losing doors in mid-flight. No, there is nothing about Biden’s policy that this Administration can point to as a success, so they will fall back on a proven winner to get votes: abortion. Until every state offers free abortions to every person with a uterus up until the time of delivery, they will keep using abortion as a campaign slogan and blame the Republicans for putting every woman’s life in jeopardy. It is a horrid purpose and a gross hyperbole, but it works for Democrats.

So this is how the Democrats go high. Let’s not work on the issue of unwanted pregnancies, but let’s disregard the life of the unborn as if it is simply human tissue, kill it, and set the woman free of any responsibility. To Democrats, abortion has nothing to do with reproductive freedom but freedom from responsibility. But if you do not care about human trafficking across the Border, Fentanyl deaths, or millions of homeless Americans, then what is a few thousand dead fetuses?

The post Forget Prosperity, We Have Abortion For All appeared first on Granite Grok.

Dear Ms. Stanley,

I came to the State House to testify at the hearing on SB573 which is an act relative to parental consent for medical care. SB573 would add a new RSA by adding a new Chapter, Parental Consent to Medical and Mental Health Care.

Within SB573 there is the following language on consent for mental healthcare:

IV. Soliciting to perform arranging for the performance of, or performing mental health practice, as defined in RSA 330-A-2, VI, on a child.
170-1:1 Parental Consent to medical and Mental Health Care Required.

Unfortunately, I could not stay for the hearing since it ran late. I did go back to listen to your testimony (23:00) and decided to reach out to you based on what you presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Since you are the Executive Director of National Association of Social Workers NH, I was concerned by some of the statements you made regarding school social workers who are servicing students in our public schools.

In your testimony, you mentioned that students in our public schools who are receiving mental health services from social workers have consent from their parents through their IEPs, 504 plans, etc. That was good to hear. But then you said that this Bill would have a chilling effect on the Social Workers in our schools. You went on to explain that a child may come to a social worker wanting to talk to them. That the social worker may want to conduct an assessment on that child or make a referral as part of their job.

Under federal law, Every Student Succeeds Act ESSA, Sec. 4002 General Provisions:

“(a) Parental Consent.–

“(1) In general.–

“(A) Informed written consent.—A State, local educational agency, or other entity receiving funds under this title shall obtain prior written, informed consent from the parent of each child who is under 18 years of age to participate in any mental-health assessment or service that is funded under this title and conducted in connection with an elementary school or secondary school under this title.

(ESSA) was signed by President Obama on December 10, 2015, with bi-partisan support from Senator Shaheen and Congresswoman Annie Kuster.

I’m confused by your testimony. Are you saying that social workers in our schools are assessing and providing mental health services without parental consent? And if SB573 were to pass, only then would school social workers have to seek parental consent under the conditions you listed.

If that is the case, it sounds like our school social workers are violating federal law.  I am copying New Hampshire Senators and Commissioner Edelblut on this email to alert them to the possibility that social workers in our public schools are currently violating federal law.

I support SB573 for the very reason that you seem to have admitted during the hearing. The mental health counselors working in our schools are either not aware of this federal statute or they are ignoring it. Maybe if SB573 were signed into law, this would clear up any confusion that currently exists.

SB573 would essentially require parental consent for mental care, which is currently required under federal law. Based on your testimony, I’m now very concerned that school social workers around the state are violating federal law. This tells me that the passage of SB573 is even more important to pass.

If you were not aware of the parental consent provision in ESSA, I hope that you will make sure that school social workers are better informed.

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