Plus, we celebrate the 1-Year Anniversary Friday at Four! Please like, follow, or subscribe to The ‘Grok on Rumble and YouTube and check for Replays of Granite State Live, GrokTALK! and Right Side Up…

## Manch Talk 03/19/25 TIt’s Sunshine Week, so the focus is on open government. What’s happening with the Right-to-Know Ombudman’s Office? Why did the Union Leader have to sue for information about a 2022 riot at the Sununu Youth Center? And what’s up with the latest JFK release? Please like, follow, or subscribe to The ‘Grok on Rumble and YouTube and check for Replays of Granite State Live, GrokTALK! and Right Side Up, or follow these links to their podcast pages. Our Current Local Podcast Lineup * ( Monday) Right Side Up * (Tuesday) Granite State Live * (Wednesday) Justice 4 All * (Thursday) GrokTALK! * (Friday) Manch Talk * (Saturday) The New England Take * (Sunday) VDCTV ## Author * Manch Talk View all posts XFacebookTelegramShare

This week, on GrokTALK! The end of USAID delivered reality sandwiches, some laughs, and important facts about government and “NGOs,” and this conintues, a year after the demolition of that progressive laundromat. And… the online left thinks Trump staged another attempted assassination, but it is progressive culture that is built around disingenuity, fakery, and fraud. Chapters [transcrit below] Introduction [break] The Overpaid Nonprofit Executive The Struggles of Former USAID Workers The Waste and Mismanagement of USAID The Value of Providing Real Content [break] The Staged Assault Debate The Left’s Relationship with Violence Hoaxes and Fake Hate Crimes The Impact of Fake Narratives Conclusion and Call to Action _“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” – Gustav Mahler_ **Watch on the ‘Grok Rumble Channel if the embedded video does not load.** Links: * https://x.com/GraniteGrok/status/2047427325415895551 * https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/shattered-terrariums-friday-april * https://granitegrok.com/blog/2013/08/a-collection-of-recent-hate-crime-hoaxes * https://granitegrok.com/?s=Fake * http://fakehatecrimes.org/ _**Authors’ and Speakers’ opinions are their own and may not represent those of**_ _**GraniteGrok.com’s**_ _sponsors, readers, authors, or advertisers._ More GrokTALK! Here! Check out all of our podcasts. **Get More Morning Update Here!** – Or watch it where you hang out on Spotify, TikTok, Rumble, YouTube, Instagram/Reels, and Steve’s Substack. **Follow ‘Grok on X****–****Rumble****–****Facebook****–****YouTube****–****Signal****–****Telegram** WE ARE READER-FUNDED – PLEASE DONATE * * * Transcript [lightly edited]: Welcome back to your April 27th, 2026, edition of Grok Talk brought to you by granitegrok.com and Grok Media LLC. Earlier today, the morning update was about the accusations of the staged assault on the president in front of a room full of media people. We’re gonna talk about that a little bit. But before that, it’s been a year since USAID was dissolved and reincorporated in a much smaller fashion into the Department of State, where it probably belongs, at least in a Republican administration. ⁓ And so funny things happened. People are whining and complaining about their job situation. And I had some thoughts about that. We’re going to talk about that, and then we’re going to talk about left-wing fakery, which is epidemic and has been forever when Grok Talk continues in less than 60 seconds. [break] Okay, we’re back with a diversion into a story that I commented on earlier in the week, last week, and then found a great article about it the next day. Here’s the tweet. Sheryl Cowan, 57, was making $272,000 a year as a senior VP at a USAID-funded nonprofit when she was let go at the end of March 2025. Last month, she had an online interview for a $ 19-an-hour job managing a Penzey’s Spices store in Falls Church, Virginia. This is a New York Times story. I responded, the words nonprofit and making $272,000 a year really don’t go together. And they really don’t. The kind of fraud and abuse that was used or that just existed under the cover of USAID was enormous. They had tens of billions of dollars a year, and they were laundering it into garbage. It was being wasted. Just like human potential wasted, somebody else’s money was robbed from them, in some cases, debt that our children and grandchildren would have to pay interest on, plus the debt for what? Somebody else’s idea of a good thing, which included enriching people for no positive benefit. I feel bad for Sheryl, but I don’t feel bad for Sheryl because if she was making $272,000 a year, and for how long I don’t know, what did she do with all that money? Did she waste it like USAID did? I bet she did. And now she’s struggling. If I made $272,000 in one year, I wouldn’t need to work for five years. That’s how easily I manage to live on the money I make. So I find it a little insulting when people who are overpaid complain about how much money they make. It really kind of bugs me. And I’m not a class warfare guy. Lots of people deserve the money they make. They earned it. They created wealth for other people. Opportunities. Sheryl didn’t do any of those things. She was helping the US government rob from you to launder money to herself. A non-profit that pays her $272,000 a year just as a VP? How much did the president make? Anyway, as offensive as that is, Jeff Childers, Friday, Coffee and COVID. By the way, if you don’t read it, go to Substack and sign up. It’s great stuff. He’s a great guy. He’s funny as hell. And he deserves our support for this work that he does. Quote: _Yesterday’s New York Times brought one of April’s most unintentionally hilarious story headlines._ _A year after USAID’s death, fired workers find few jobs and much loss. So this is about the people who actually worked at USAID, who laundered the kind of money that allowed the nonprofit to pay a VP $272,000 a year, and she clearly didn’t deserve it because she can’t even get a $19 an hour job. Hmm, interesting._ _Not just federal workers in general mind, do USAID workers for some reason, they in particular are struggling to find productive private sector employment. Quote, former USAID workers, the Times began estimate that less than half have found full-time work. Being fired once has apparently left them permanently scarred. A full year later, the Times explained many said they were still dealing with mental trauma and a loss of confidence in their professional abilities._ _Welcome to the world, morons._ Again, Sheryl, I’m sorry you lost your job, but you are overpaid and under-skilled. That’s not my fault. To continue, _They felt privileged. The Times explained that USAID workers thought of themselves as ambassadors for American soft power. Meaning leftist regime change and are still burning from President Trump’s characterization of them as radical left lunatics._ _Burn baby burn. In the Times’ view, the real victim was not the taxpayer, but the United States Agency for International Development, infamously known as USAID. For years, USAID was in charge of distributing roughly 35 billion a year. You might assume this money went to things like food, medicine, teaching people how to build wells._ _And some of it probably did, but as the Times quietly admitted, the New York Times quietly admitted, in paragraph 47 of its story, much of the 35 billion actually went to Washington insiders._ The pull quote, _Others acknowledged that there was bloat and waste in the agency and a need for reform. Much of the 35 billion it managed in 2024 went to Washington-based contractors, not directly to people in need overseas. The success of many projects was hard to measure._ Once again, we see the template. The government expands budgets, bloats spending. Taxes follow. For one purpose only. To employ and fund, and in many cases make wealthy, Democrat voters. That’s it. Some of that money comes back to them. Some of those people go out, and they walk the street, hold signs, and help people run for office. Democrats, your money to fund the Democrat machine. USAID was but one of many examples. To continue. _Apart from that, the story was packed with unintentionally hysterical personal interest anecdotes. When the music stopped and the agency was dismantled, roughly 16,000 federal employees and a staggering 280,000 contractors worldwide suddenly found themselves facing their most terrifying assignment yet. The private sector._ _For instance, Amy Uccello earned a generous salary of $175,000 a year at USAID. The Times didn’t offer her title or job description. She just did it. Whatever it was. Now she can’t work. She can’t find work doing it. Katherine Baker, 36, made $127,000 a year as a USAID contractor who helped start up USAID projects. Whatever that means. I assume that means putting coins in the laundromat. Now she works nine hours a week as an adult babysitter._ Clearly, those were her skills. That’s her skill set. She was overpaid, wasting your money on herself, in her salary, and whoever she was helping start USAID projects. _Adrian Mathura, 55, who described himself as a queer brown immigrant, was involuntarily retired._ love that term. It’s like decruitment. _From his job as a senior USAID advisor in global health. A queer brown immigrant would be a good name for a punk rock band, but nevermind that now. The Times offered no context as to what a senior advisor in global health actually does at work. Whom did he advise? The Globe. Does the Globe listen?_ Nobody listened at USAID and nobody’s listening now. That dude needs a job and apparently, Being a queer brown immigrant who is an advisor in global health isn’t even enough to get you hired by the WHO. _It is truly shocking that the government would stop paying someone to advise the globe. Isn’t it though? Anyway, Adrian now spends his days trying to get paid for being retired. The queer brown immigrant has never faced something nearly every American without a government sinecure has endured, being fired. Adrian called it betrayal of the darkest character. I never even once imagined I would be so betrayed by my government, he whined. Try being a taxpayer who learned what USAID does. talk about betrayal._ Anyway. _Sheryl Cowan, 57_. Sheryl, hey, hey, she shows up. I didn’t read down far enough in prep. _$272,000 a year as a senior vice president at USAID-funded nonprofit, not even USAID itself. When she got fired at the end of March 2025 last month, The Times reported Sheryl endured an online interview for a $19 an hour job._ You already know that story. She’s hoping they’ll make her a senior vice president of Sriracha, but her prospects aren’t great. Apparently, the skill of being a senior vice president of a thing funded by a different thing does not translate well into retail management. Sheryl has applied for 60 jobs. That should keep the unemployment monitors off her back for a while. Anyway, he keeps going. So. So what? So what? I have to. I have to ask people to support GraniteGrok to help pay for all of this stuff. And that’s just part of the gig. And if I don’t provide value to them, they just don’t. And that’s fine. That’s how it works. I have to provide value. I have to create something of a productive and informative nature that makes my readers say, ” Hey, that’s worth five bucks a month, ” or ” Wow, this is awesome. I wouldn’t have heard this anywhere else, or I wouldn’t have heard it that way. Here’s $10. Here’s, you know, some people more money, some people less, some people none, and we’re free. The website’s free. We don’t have article limits. So, I mean, you can click on all the articles you want, and you’re not gonna come up against a paywall or registration wall. And while we considered doing a VIP thing, we scrapped it. I just decided I want people to get the content. It’s more important that they get the message and share it than that we find a way to make money on it. And I don’t know, maybe that’s a great pitch for people to toss us a couple bucks. And if that’s how you feel, please do. If not, just read it, share it, learn from it, debate it, and challenge us on it. That’s what we want. The people at USAID, they didn’t have to do any of that. And they were wasting your money, $35 billion a year of it, under the umbrella of we’re doing good around the world. Well, let’s talk about SPLC for a second. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars paying so-called informants inside hate groups and Nothing came of that. They were just laundering money. Same deal. And now they have to address the situation with their donors on one side and, of course, all the illegal banking activity they used to engage in this process, which, of course, is a massive federal crime, multiple counts, 11 indictments. Odds are pretty good. They’re finished. They will go the way of USAID, except nobody in the State Department is going to adopt the actual useful parts of whatever SPLC did, if there were any at all. Of course, to the left, they were very useful. The SPLC was a very well-funded headline creator, and it appeared to have served no other purpose than to enrich the people inside the SPLC, just like USAID. We should not be sad that they’re gone. But, on the bright side, Maybe somebody useful will arise to replace them who will do the actual work and provide real value. That’s what the free market is all about. That’s what capitalism is. That’s why they hate it so much. All right, quick break. Be back after this. [Break] The attempted assassination of the president, whether you think it is staged or not, well, we’re going to talk about that. Could it have been staged? I mean, they really do want to get that ballroom finished, and a ballroom would have better security than a hotel in Washington, DC, which is where they normally have the White House Correspondents’ Dinner after the little security fubar the other day, Saturday evening, which of course, I mean, it… It worked, right? The guy tried to charge through security. He shot an agent who had a vest on and they tackled him. And instead of killing as many people as possible, as he said, to get to the president, he ended up stripped, with his face in the carpet, which is pretty much where he belongs. So the question was, was it staged? Well, coming from the left, Anything they say, it’s almost always exactly the opposite. As I mentioned this morning, everything about the Democrat Party is fake. It’s all staged. It has to be. If they told you the truth, you’d never vote for them. And since everyone they know is like them, they just assume that the shooting was staged because that’s what they do. Well, we’ve got some examples. Of course, I shared some this morning. The Steele dossier and the Russia collusion hoax was all fake and everything around it was staged. George Floyd died of an overdose in police custody, and everything that followed was staged to manipulate public opinion. The Duke lacrosse rape story, the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax, Michael Brown’s ” hands up, don’t shoot, the Covington kids hoax, Elizabeth Warren, who is herself a hoax, Joe Biden’s 81 million votes, the J-6 insurrection, which was instigated very much and very likely by the federal government. The Trump impeachments were all staged fake stuff.⁓ the entire Biden presidency for the most part, and climate change, and you know, as you go through these things, you find you don’t have to look very far. And of course, there are fakers on both sides. I’m not gonna say there aren’t, that’s very true, but the preponderance of such things comes from the left, just like the political violence. So, of course, the first thing they have to say after somebody allegedly attempts to shoot the president and anybody else who gets in his way is that it’s a both-sides problem. And of course it’s not a both sides problem. But if they say it often enough, remember it becomes true. And of course, they just keep saying it, and then the politicians say it, and then everybody feeds off each other, and that story just becomes fact. So this is from Batya Ungar Sargon over on Substack, and I apologize for butchering your name. _Democrat politicians and their loyal followers in the media have greeted the news of a third assassination attempt on President Trump’s life with a usual anodyne denunciation of political violence on both sides. But it’s not coming from both sides. It’s coming from one side. It’s coming from their side._ _A recent YouGov poll says it all. 25 % of very liberal Americans consider political violence justified compared to 3 % of very conservative Americans. Another 17 % of liberal Americans say it’s justified compared to 6 % of conservatives._ _The more liberal you get, the more likely you are to justify political violence, whereas the opposite is true on the right._ And of course, we know this. I’ve repeatedly shared it. will continue to repeatedly share it just in the hope that it begins to bleed out into the middle of the debate. You cannot have what the Democrat Party wants without violence. Violence before, during, and after. It is a system of command and control. Human beings like to convince themselves that they can let somebody else take care of them, but in reality, that means poverty, subsistence living, tyranny, and that’s where all these experiments go. There is no right way to do communism. Communism done right is extremely violent. And if you look at the communists who started the entire thing over a hundred years ago, they will tell you, and they have that, that’s what’s required. You have to destroy everything. You have to break a lot of eggs to make that horrible, unavailable, tasteless omelet. So, violence on the left is a given. It is inevitable. And the statistics show that. The history shows that. And as the rhetoric begins to get funneled into these tiny little internet venues where everybody consumes the exact same thing over and over again until they’re so mad. And that’s on the left mostly. There are people who are mad on the right. Don’t get me wrong. And no, I don’t think neo-Nazis and white supremacists are on the right. I think they are on the left because they are violent, because what they want by its nature must suppress the rights of certain human beings. That’s a left-wing thing, not a right-wing thing. We believe in freedom for everybody. don’t care who you worship, who you love, as long as it’s not children, unless they’re your children and it’s just parental love, not that other kind. No couch games, please. ⁓ And so by its nature, the violence makes it, I mean, and those are the two points. It’s violent, and it deliberately restricts the rights of say blacks or Jews or whoever. right? The Nazi movement was a left-wing movement, National Socialism. Nazis in America are still National Socialists. What they want will suppress by its nature the rights of certain individuals. American Republic, conservatism, exactly the opposite. Everybody gets the same rights. There’s no such thing as trans rights because they already have human rights. I’m babbling. So, we’re gonna talk about some hoaxes because hoaxism is a big thing on the political left. ⁓ I have a list from a post from GraniteGrok from a few years ago. And then I went to the website where that came from, and they’ve been, they’re still doing it. They still have all these fake hate crimes. So, we’re gonna reach back in time to 2004. Claremont Professor Kerri Dunn slashed her own tires, broke her own windows, and vandalized her own car with anti-Semitic messages. An activist who constantly invades against the hate she had been seen vandalizing her own car by two random people in the parking lot, ended up being sentenced to a year in prison for insurance fraud and was forced to repay $19,000. 2005, Alicia Hardin terrorized fellow black students at Trinity International University with threatening anonymous notes, possibly in an attempt to convince her parents to let her transfer to another school. She was convicted and sentenced to probation. 2007, Case Western Reserve Statistics Prof. Ramaini Sri Pilla mailed hate letters to herself, and then falsely accused her coworkers to the FBI, apparently in an attempt to bolster a racial discrimination lawsuit she was bringing against her university. She got six months in prison and had to pay $66,000. 2007, Colorado University student, Alta Rae Merkling, claimed to have been attacked by a group of men who cut an X into her face, shouting, X marks the faggot. She was later charged with filing a false report. I wonder what happened to her face, though. How did she do? She did that. She would have had to do it or, ⁓ God, these people. Anything for attention. And this is before the craziest part of the internet, which is now people do anything for attention, like, I don’t know, a political podcast. Anyway, In 2008, Elmhurst College student Safiya Jelani claimed to have been attacked in a bathroom by a masked gunman and to have had her locker marked with a swastika, both because of her Islamic faith. Her report caused a campus lockdown, and she was later indicted for making a false report. 2011 UNC Chapel Hill freshman Quinn Matney claimed to have been branded with a hot object by someone who called him an anti-gay slur. In fact, the wound was self-inflicted. When friends noticed it, he made up a story out of embarrassment to explain the injury. 2011-2012, Khalilah Ford was expelled from the University of Wisconsin Parkside for an especially frightening hoax that reportedly prompted some students to drop out of school from fear. She circulated an anonymously penned list of black students with the threat that they’d be dead soon, including herself on this hit list. A second student was also expelled for writing a racial epithet on a whiteboard as part of the hoax. Both hoaxers got off easy. They were issued tickets for $400. In 2012, Alexandra Pennell, a student at Central Connecticut State University, claimed to have received threatening anti-gay messages when it was discovered she’d sent them to herself. She was expelled and barred from all state universities for five years. Olivia McRae and Tanasia Linton two students at Montclair State University in New Jersey, reported that racist graffiti had been scrawled on their door by them. They didn’t say that at first, obviously. 2012, Amy White Church and Kristel Conklin threatened themselves by painting their home with anti-gay graffiti and hanging a noose on their door. They got off the hook with 12 months of probation and community service. A little closer to our current timeline, 2012, Montana Man admitted he’d made up a story about being attacked because he was gay. He was embarrassed that he’d heard himself doing a backflip outside a Missoula bar, so he made up the attack. Award-winning liberal blogger and 28-year-old University of Wyoming student Meg Lanker-Simons goes to trial, which would have been in October of 2013, for allegedly anonymously threatening herself with rape on Facebook and then lying to the police about it. In 2021, a black woman was accused of posing as a KKK member, leaving threatening notes for her neighbors. Black residents received numerous notes in their mailboxes from the KKK for 11 months. The letter said they were gonna burn their houses down. Turns out it was the black lady sending them. 2024, Black Muslims knife allegation against Jewish roommate falls apart. Law enforcement in the University of Washington dismissed a black Muslim students claim that her Jewish roommate threatened her with a knife. The Muslim student also claimed her roommate made a face. People are fragile, aren’t they? ⁓ A woman accused of leaving a noose on her own desk at Allentown City Hall, A story about a black student terrorized by white classmates in Texas as a hoax. The allegation with white middle schoolers in Plano, Texas, viciously tortured. Samarian Humphrey, their black classmate, forcing him to drink their urine at a sleepover as they shot him with BB guns. Not true. So there are lots of these stories. They are everywhere. [Montage] I linked to this website so that you could see ⁓ any and you can look them all up. And there are a lot of them. And there’s a growing number of fake anti-Semitism claims, especially since October 7th, I imagine. Anti-Semitism has been used to suppress legitimate speech, and it will continue to do so. It’s a problem. Okay, there’s lots of fake stuff. All the fraud, every I mean, how many times do I have to say it, everything the Democrat Party promises ends up being the exact opposite of what they claim. And they can’t run on what they really want to do, which is suppress your speech, control your life, tell you what to eat, where to go, how much water in your toilet, how much water can come through your shower head. How much electricity you’re allowed to use, how much it’s gonna cost, where it’s gonna come from, there’s no limit to what they want to control. And so you have to wonder, well, how do I live my life the way I want to in an environment where somebody with all the guns, because they don’t want you to have those either, is in control and is making those decisions at great and significant expense to you? That’s the whole goal, control. So the fakeness is all part of it we will continue to see lots of fakery ⁓ coming from the left. And of course, that’s exactly why this gentleman Cole something, Cole Allen, is that his name? That’s why he tried to kill the president. Everything in his manifesto is pretty much fake, but it’s fake that he has been fed endlessly by who? Elected Democrat leaders, people who listen to them, and the reporters who support them. So we could go a long way by saying stop voting for fake people. Stop voting for fake ideas. None of the things they promise is going to come true, especially if you elect them into office. Thanks for tuning in. We will talk to you next week. ## Author * GrokTALK! GrokTALK! has been the eponymous podcasting vehicle of Granitegrok.com since its inception in 2011/2012 (before podcasting was PODCASTING). Several iterations of the program have begun and ended, including a three-year continuous run of nearly 200 weekly two-hour episodes. Several attempts at a remote version happened, but it wasn't until late 2024 that owner and editor Steve MacDonald rebooted it as a weekly podcast. Note: if you find an old episode you want to hear or watch and the audio or video is not available, email steve@graniteGrok.com and he will dig it out of the archive and reattach it to its post page. View all posts XFacebookTelegramShare

As an update to my comments on this week’s GrokTALK!, memes are getting a more thorough vetting, but we’re still sharing them. And since it’s Wednesday, and with few exceptions, meme makers want them shared, here we go! But first… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ## Author * Steve MacDonald Steve is a long-time New Hampshire resident, award-winning blogger, and a member of the Board of Directors of The 603 Alliance. He is the owner of Grok Media LLC and the Managing Editor, Executive Editor, assistant editor, Editor, content curator, complaint department, Op-ed editor, gatekeeper (most likely to miss typos because he has no editor), and contributor at GraniteGrok.com. Steve is also a former board member of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, The Republican Volunteer Coalition, has worked for or with many state and local campaigns and grassroots groups, and is a past contributor to the Franklin Center for Public Policy. View all posts XFacebookTelegramShare

This week, my guest is Phil Kerpen, the President of American Commitment. The topic is taxes, tax reform, and securing the 2017 Trump tax cuts before they expire. We also talk about messaging on both sides, a potential Republican cave to an age-old and dishonest Democrat narrative, and the economic consequences for everyday Americans if Republicans don’t get this done. Please like, follow, or subscribe to The ‘Grok on Rumble and YouTube for early access to new episodes of GrokTALK!, Right Side Up, and Replays of Granite State Live. Follow these links for current and past content for the entire podcast lineup. * ( Monday) Right Side Up * (Tuesday) Granite State Live * (Wednesday) Justice 4 All * (Thursday) GrokTALK! * (Friday) Manch Talk * (Saturday) The New England Take * (Sunday) VDCTV Together We Make a Difference**. Please donate to the ‘Grok to keep the content coming.** ## Author * GrokTALK! View all posts XFacebookTelegramShare

This week, we discuss the passage of H454, the education bill, some actions of the Trump Administration, and “winners and losers” in Vermont. Please like, follow, or subscribe to The ‘Grok on Rumble and YouTube for early access to new episodes of GrokTALK!, Right Side Up, and Replays of Granite State Live. Follow these links for current and past content for the entire podcast lineup. * ( Monday) Right Side Up * (Tuesday) Granite State Live * (Wednesday) Justice 4 All * (Thursday) GrokTALK! * (Friday) Manch Talk * (Saturday) The New England Take * (Sunday) VDCTV ## Author * Right Side Up View all posts XFacebookTelegramShare

Reactions to Lt. Gov. John Rodgers trashing President Trump, RKF jr ally says ‘reckoning’ is coming for Covid era rules. Please like, follow, or subscribe to The ‘Grok on Rumble and YouTube for early access to new episodes of GrokTALK!, Right Side Up, and Replays of Granite State Live. Follow these links for current and past content for the entire podcast lineup. * ( Monday) Right Side Up * (Tuesday) Granite State Live * (Wednesday) Justice 4 All * (Thursday) GrokTALK! * (Friday) Manch Talk * (Saturday) The New England Take * (Sunday) VDCTV _As a reminder, authors’ opinions are their own and may not represent those of Grok Media, LLC,GraniteGrok.com, its sponsors, readers, authors, or advertisers. _**_Submit Op-Eds tosteve@granitegrok.com_** Together We Make a Difference**. Please donate to the ‘Grok to keep the content coming.** ## Author * VDCTV View all posts XFacebookTelegramShare