Friday • April 26 • 2024
Vol.XVI • No.XVII
Manchester, N.H.
The New York Fire Department recently reported that so far this year, there have been 108 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City, which have injured 66 people and killed 13. According to FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, “There is not a small amount of fire, it (the vehicle) literally explodes.” The resulting fire is “very difficult to extinguish, and so it is particularly dangerous.”
Last year there were more than 200 fires from batteries from e-bikes, EVs, and other devices.
A fire ignited at an e-bike shop and killed four people near midnight on the morning of June 20. Two individuals were left in critical condition. The fire commissioner has warned New Yorkers that such devices could be very dangerous and typically explode in such a way that renders escape impossible. (RELATED: SUZANNE DOWNING: Biden’s Climate Change Fantasies Are Infiltrating A Key Government Department)
FDNY also reports that in just three years, lithium-ion battery fires have surpassed those started by cooking and smoking as the most common causes of fatal fires in New York City. It’s happening all over the country as these blazes have become commonplace. Cars and e-bikes are randomly blowing up in driveways and garages.
Now let’s be honest: 13 deaths in a city the size of New York with some 8 million people is hardly an epidemic. Regulations should always be based on a cost versus benefit-calculation, or there would be no cars at all.
And yet the same scaremongers on the left who have zero tolerance and want bans for small risks when it comes to everything from swimming pool diving boards, gas stoves, plastic straws, vaping, fireworks and so on, have a surprisingly high pain threshold when it comes to people dying or suffering critical injured from “green” electric battery fires.
Or consider this: In 1965, Ralph Nader almost single-handedly helped ban the popular Chevrolet Corvair — famous for its engine placed in the back trunk of the car. Nader’s bestselling shock book “Unsafe at Any Speed” declared the car was deadly. But there was no real evidence of that claim, and to this day, there are no reliable statistics on how many passengers — if any — died in Corvairs from rear-end accidents.
What is indisputable is that EVs will cause far more deaths than Corvairs ever did.
One other example: There have been more fatalities in just one city in a single year from lithium-ion batteries in cars than all the people who died from the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident — which was zero.
Yet, after the accident, thanks to the environmentalists’ fear campaign (with the help of the blockbuster anti-nuke movie “The China Syndrome”), no domestic nuclear plants were built for three decades. That is despite the fact that nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases.
But with EVs, the greens are pushing aside any concerns about the collateral damage of deaths and injuries. Biden wants to mandate that nearly ALL new cars sold in the U.S. be EVs by 2032. If that happens, many thousands of Americans may die or will be inured from electric vehicle fires. (RELATED: DAVID BLACKMON: IRA Subsidies Are Driving Investment Decisions In A Dangerous Direction)
All this is especially hypocritical because once upon a time the left’s mantra was “no trading blood for oil.” Now they are willing to trade blood in exchange for getting Americans to stop using oil. An irony of all this is that because of all the energy needed to produce windmills, solar panels and electric batteries, new studies are showing that the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to this “net zero” transition is close to zero. It turns out, green energy causes some pollution, too.
For the record, I’m not in favor of the government banning EVs or e-bikes or just about anything. I just believe that we should make policy decisions based on real and factual risk assessments, not false scares and sensationalism.
As for the future of EVs, maybe it’s time for Ralph Nader to write a sequel to “Unsafe at Any Speed.”
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.”
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Stephen Moore | The Daily Caller News Service
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One of modern history’s fastest “refugee” relocations happened when a small plane of illegal aliens touched down on Martha’s Vineyard. Within 36 hours, give or take; they’d been frog-marched away from the exclusive New England Isle of the Rich and Famous. New York City isn’t as lucky.
The Big Crapple was already in a sad state after years of misrule by Mayor Bill de Blasio. Eric Adams hasn’t improved a thing, but he is the benefactor of years of Democrat Party open borders policy, though not by choice. If he had things his way, they’d have all stayed along the border where he likely thinks they belong.
But in the name of equity, border Governors have included cities like New York in the bounty of “immigrants” accumulating in their states. Bussing of flying them to places like Chicago, Washington DC, and New York City. With nowhere to put them – in between rants about what horrible people those governors are – the City and Mayor Adams have had to put them up at local hotels, which is crimping the City’s style.
In May, New York City Mayor Eric Adams complained that 50% of the city’s hotel rooms are now occupied by illegal migrants. This is a massive loss in tourism dollars for the city.
As if the crime, homelessness, and drug problem were not. A local government official issued a travel warning for NYC just a few years ago. That’s still a thing, but now they’ve got drugs, crime, and destruction of property in the hotels. It’s very New York, as is fine dining at swanky lib-run eateries. But the City isn’t paying restaurant owners to feed illegals (yet), and despite their liberal rhetoric, they are not doing their part.
Earlier this month, the Redbury Hotel, a Manhattan landmark that’s home to two restaurants owned by Danny Meyer, began housing asylum seekers in partnership with New York City. On Friday, Union Square Hospitality Group announced that nine-year-resident restaurant, Marta and Maialino (vicino) — the newly relocated spot that started in the Gramercy Park Hotel — will have their last service on August 25.
It’s a dramatic move that comes as the hotel is the latest Manhattan property repurposing as housing for asylum seekers. The city is struggling to address an influx of at least 90,000 migrants from the southern border since last spring.
Danny Meyer was reportedly all-in on the Pandemic response, requiring proof of vaccination to work or eat in his establishments.
He has donated at least 178,000 dollars to Democrat candidates in a baker’s dozen years so it is safe to say he is all in on a liberal agenda from which he’d mostly sanitized himself until the open border and sanctuary city policies drove him out of the Redbury Hotel.
He’s no doubt suffered a loss of business, revenue, and profit as like-minded progressives have chosen to hide from the human casualties of liberal immigration policy on display at the Redbuty Hotel – where Meyer isn’t the only New York Elitist who is displaced morally and physically by the influx. But he can pretend.
As tenants of the Redbury, our two restaurants, which occupy the lobby floor, have been eagerly anticipating the hotel’s full post-pandemic reopening. Now, as the Redbury partners with the City to house asylum seekers, it’s become clear that the timeline for that reopening has been extended indefinitely. While we admire and respect the Redbury’s decision, the viability of our business relies significantly on hotel-related F&B operations, including event venues and the lobby bar, spaces that are now unavailable for our use.
I doubt The Redbury has many choices, forced to fill the rooms with illegals at reduced rates set by the City – which could threaten all manner of code violations unless it agrees. A sort of “I am altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it further” arrangement. They play ball, or the City considers more aggressive measures to take over the hotel and fill it anyway.
But it is a deal that Meyer, suffering the effect of the policies he claims to support, can escape, moral posturing intact, freed, at least temporarily, from the teeming unwashed that washed up upon his shore. It is an increasingly common problem for the Libs, Progs, and Dems.
The one-percenters living on Martha’s Vineyard, liberal elite if not to the last than at least in the majority, came face-to-face with that when the plane landed. Still, they rallied quickly and relocated the huddled masses to someone else’s backyard (Maybe even to The Redbury Hotel in New York City.), for which the Boston Globe awarded them Bostonians of the Year.
That is, after all, how Left-Wing Morality works. It works for them, or it doesn’t work at all.
HT | TGP
The post Liberal Dem Donor Closes Businesses to Get Away from the By-Product of His Support for Open Borders appeared first on Granite Grok.
The saga of the Elizabeth Gurley Flynn state historical marker drags on. Flynn—a labor leader, feminist, founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and an avowed member and chairperson of the Communist Party USA—was recognized this spring with a historical highway marker in her hometown of Concord.
Related: Maybe We SHOULD Put Communist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s Historical Marker Back
Facing immediate backlash, the state removed “the rebel girl’s” marker soon after erecting it. The state now faces a lawsuit claiming it didn’t follow the rules for removal.
As state leaders debate whether or not to recognize a Communist who left the Granite State when she was about 10 years old, led the Communist Party USA, and received a Soviet state funeral in 1964, let’s not overlook the Concord capitalists who built companies and invented products that improved lives.
Putting their own ingenuity to use, these inventors and entrepreneurs made a lasting impact on the New Hampshire and American economies. Comrade Gurley Flynn became a celebrity through her writing and organizing. These capitalists, on the other hand, received far less attention while helping to build the New Hampshire and U.S. economies, create jobs, and advance their fields.
Levi HutchinsIf you set an alarm to help wake up at a certain time this morning, you can thank Levi Hutchins. Born in 1761, Hutchins lived in Concord from 1772 to 1777 and 1780 to 1855. And it was in Concord where Hutchins invented the first American alarm clock.
Trained as clockmakers, Hutchins and his brother Abel opened their clockmaking shop on Main Street in Concord in 1786 and were successful businessmen. Hutchins understood the need for many to wake up on time for work, including himself. While alarm clocks were already in Europe, Hutchins was determined to bring one to America.
In 1787, Hutchins designed and built the first American alarm clock. It was constructed in a 29-inch by 14-inch wooden cabinet, and each clock could only be set for one specific time (in Hutchins’s case, 4 a.m.). Hutchins never bothered to patent his clock or mass-produce it. But he did wake up on time for the rest of his life and tinker his way into the history books.
Sylvester MarshA stalwart of New Hampshire’s significant tourist economy, the Mount Washington Cog Railway was the first of its kind in the world when Sylvester Marsh designed and built it.
Marsh was born in 1803 and lived in Concord for the last five years of his life. An American entrepreneur, Marsh’s inspiration for the railway came from his near-death experience hiking Mount Washington in 1852 during a storm. Locomotives at the time weren’t able to climb Washington’s steep incline, so Marsh had to invent a new railway—the cog rail.
Though some state lawmakers laughed at Marsh, the Legislature gave him exclusive rights to a Mount Washington railway in 1858. And since 1869, the Cog has made regular trips year-round to the top of the tallest mountain in the Northeast as one of the Granite State’s oldest, most popular attractions and a boon to its economy. (Marsh is mentioned in the Cog Railway’s historical marker in the White Mountains but doesn’t have one of his own.)
Benjamin Ames KimballNortheastern railroad giant and Concord resident from 1854 to 1920, Benjamin Ames Kimball, born in 1833, was a railroad engineer, mechanic, and manufacturer, as well as a consequential figure in railroad expansion in New England.
Starting as a draftsman in the shops of the Concord Railroad, Kimball worked his way up to designing locomotives and running the locomotive department. He left to found his own manufacturing company and later returned as a director of the Concord Railroad. In 1879, Kimball led the merger of the Concord Railroad with the Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad, forming the Concord and Montreal Railroad in 1889. Serving as its president from 1895 to 1920, the Concord and Montreal Railroad was the principal railroad in the state under Kimball’s leadership.
The leading railroad figure in New Hampshire, Kimball is credited with overseeing a booming system that accelerated the state’s economy and facilitated increased tourism to the Lakes Region and the White Mountains.
Benjamin HoltGo to any construction site in the country, and chances are you’ll see Caterpillar Inc. equipment on the job. The origins of both the company and the machinery can be traced back to one man: Benjamin Holt.
Born in 1849 in Concord, Holt was an inventor who owned more than 45 patents. He’s best known, however, for inventing in 1904 the first successful track-type tractor—called the “Caterpillar”—a product that Caterpillar Inc. still uses.
Determined to create a vehicle to help farmers, Holt and his company, Holt Manufacturing, designed a track-laying system that would allow heavy tractors to move over soft soil and mud. With his track-type tractor, Holt became the father of mechanized farming.
During World War I, Holt even supplied treads for U.S. and British tanks.
Holt Manufacturing later merged with a competitor to form Caterpillar Tractor Co., which eventually became Caterpillar Inc., the largest manufacturer of earth-moving equipment in the world.
Though Holt did not receive a state funeral in Moscow, he fed more Soviets than Concord-born Communist hero Gurley Flynn ever did. During the Great Depression, the Soviet government needed agricultural equipment that its socialist command economy couldn’t produce. So, they bought American tractors and combines from Caterpillar.
Mitchell Scacchi | The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy
The post Four Non-Communist Concord Capitalists Who Merit Historical Markers appeared first on Granite Grok.
Scanning the networks on Monday night to see what topics were getting attention, I was unlucky enough to catch Rachel Maddow and Hillary Clinton on MSNBC sharing a good chuckle about Trump’s fourth indictment. If there were two more repulsive women in politics today, they would also be on MSNBC or CNN.
These two cable networks are not about the news or the truth; they are also not about quality people. The people on these two flailing stations look through the lens of the cameras and into the soul of America and lie to them incessantly. This is the perfect environment for Hillary Clinton. She fits in seamlessly, and they treat her as superhuman. Besides being a First Lady, Hillary Clinton was a mediocre Senator and Secretary of State. Because of her time spent in Washington, Hillary felt entitled to be the first female President. It did not and will never happen. Hillary’s time has passed, but the Left still treats her with celebrity status. We on the Right see Hillary Clinton as the epitome of a Gaslighter. I think she is so delirious she believes everything she spouts.
On this night, Rachel Maddow was to give Hillary enough softball questions to allow Mrs. Clinton to showcase the highest level of hypocrisy she could muster, and there would never be a challenge from Maddow. They chuckled and scoffed at the plight of Donald Trump and the impact of the four indictments on the former President and the country. Here are two of the most powerful women on the Left having a friendly chat on National TV, and neither will admit the truth. Neither will entertain the possibility the four indictments of Donald Trump are purely a political play by Joe Biden and his weaponized Justice Department.
Clinton claimed she finds no joy seeing Trump put through the legal food processor. She does find satisfaction in seeing the system work. Are you serious? These comments from a woman and her husband, who have been the benefactors of a broken justice system for years. This is the woman who financed the bogus Russian Dossier used to impeach Donald Trump. This is the woman who bleached and took a sledgehammer to her illegal server to destroy all the emails and info subpoenaed by the FBI. This is from the woman who has denied her loss to Trump in 2016 and feels she was the actual President of the United States. Just like Stacey Abrams in Georgia, the two women claimed the election was tainted, and they were the winners. Trump is indicted for this in Georgia, but the system is working according to Hillary. Apparently, it wasn’t working for Hillary and Stacey. This is such a farce, and Hillary and Maddow are the best people to evaluate a farce.
What is wrong with people on the Left, not the politicians, but the everyday citizens who cannot see through this smoke and mirrors? Even if CNN and MSNBC are their primary source for news, can’t their logic and common sense let them see the light? It is sad how gullible and naive half of our country is that they will believe whatever their favorite talking head expounds, but that is what they prove every night, and that keeps CNN and MSNBC on a respirator.
The post No Shortage Of Gas With Hillary Clinton appeared first on Granite Grok.
I’m not sure this qualifies as man-made in the religious sense of climate change, but men made the powerlines that some locals captured on video—sparking, popping, followed by fire, which the high winds then took for a devastating ride.
(Maui News/AP) “I heard ‘buzz, buzz,’ “ the 49-year-old resort worker recounted. “It was almost like somebody lit a firework. It just ran straight up the hill to a bigger pile of grass, and then, with that high wind, that fire was blazing.”
Treu’s video and others captured the early moments of what would become the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. Now the footage has emerged as key evidence pointing to fallen utility lines as the possible cause. Hawaiian Electric Co. faces criticism for not shutting off the power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to topple.
It’s beginning to sound a bit like California’s Camp Fire.
(Bloomberg) It could take weeks or months to determine the cause of the blaze that destroyed the seaside Hawaiian town of Lahaina, one of the deadliest wildfires in US history. But attention is already focusing on whether power lines owned by Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. played a role, with the stock plunging more than 40% since the fire began. While many things could have provided the initial spark for the flames, which were fanned by high winds, electrical lines have a tragic history of triggering fires during wind storms.
The story is getting around, but back to Maui News.
A class-action lawsuit has already been filed seeking to hold the company responsible for the deaths of more than 100 people. The suit cites the utility’s own documents showing it was aware that preemptive power shutoffs such as those used in California were an effective strategy to prevent wildfires but never adopted them.
This is starting to sound a lot like the Camp Fire.
When Governor Moonbeam (Brown) made stupid claims that the wildfires ravaging his state, yet again, were due to the “Climate Change” hoax, President Trump shot back an incendiary and burningly accurate tweet, igniting his own firestorm. …
First, we heard from Mercury News that the point of origin for the “Camp” fire was a remote road where fallen power lines had sparked a blaze that was fanned by 35mph “Santa Ana” winds into the rapidly spreading inferno, which consumed the small town of Paradise, CA, and its surroundings, …
Maui’s Fire Department then allegedly mishandled the fire allowing it to get worse. So, yes, ‘Men’ were involved, but Climate Change had nothing to do with it, and that’s a problem. Pursuing lawsuits for wrongdoing is a greater good than pretending someone’s SUV is Skokie is to blame. They’ll still lay that blame, but it won’t be able to keep its head above the rising waters of litigation.
HT | Epoch Times
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People who profit from prostitution are typically its boosters. They call it sex work, describe it as a right, and dress it up as a noble calling. That sounds great, but what legalized sex work actually looks like is slavery, trafficking, and sexual assault.
And we don’t have to look far to see the truth.
From 1980 to 2009, prostitution in Rhode Island was decriminalized. Prostitution was not prohibited or regulated by law if it was performed indoors. The lack of laws or regulations created a unique and permissive legal, economic, and cultural environment for the growth of sex businesses. Although a few counties in Nevada have legalized prostitution, no other state or county has decriminalized prostitution in recent decades. During the twenty-nine-year period from 1980 to 2009, sexual exploitation and violence against women and girls were integrated into the economic development of Rhode IslandÕs urban areas.
It might take you an hour to read the research paper, but it’s worth the time if the topic is of interest (a summary can be found here), and it should be. Last year the people of Burlington voted to “bar the city council from regulating sex work.” It’s not legal, but they are prohibited from enforcing any laws or imposing any regulatory or public health controls.
Hands off is how I read it, and that’s very bad news for girls and women, which the Rhode Island study bears out.
From the summary.
The Burlington law does not prohibit State or Federal investigations, arrests, or prosecutions, so it is different from the RI issue, which the state legislature corrected in 2009 after nearly three decades of crime, human trafficking, sexual assault, and abuse.
In a separate Study, another female researcher investigated Legalized Prostitution in New Zealand, the Netherlands, and elsewhere with similar results. Women are trafficked, poorly housed and treated, and moved around from brotherly to brothel. But the second study looks into the politics as well as the groups that advocate for “sex workers.”
The names of organizations advocating legalized prostitution are another source of confusion. Sex industry apologists calculatedly appropriate the titles of human rights or public health organizations. Although theirHuman Trafficking names are similar, the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW) promotes prostitution as sex work, while the Coalition Against Traf-fickinginWomen (CATW) works for the abolition of prostitution and other forms of discrimination against women. Other organizations that accept or promote prostitution as a reasonable job for poor women include the Dutch Foundation for Women (STV); Coordination for Action Research on AIDS and Mobility (CARAM/Cambodia); European Network for HIV/STD Prevention in Europe (EUROPAP); Transnational AIDS/STD Prevention among Migrant Prostitutes (TAMPEP; Netherlands, Italy, Ger-many, and Austria); CARE International; North American TaskForce on Prostitution; Anti-Slavery International; Human RightsWatch; Amnesty International (USA); Amnesty for Women, Hamburg; Rights of Entertainers in Asia to Combat HumanOppression and Unjust Treatment, Hong Kong (REACH OUT); Bangladesh Women’s Health Coalition; Medecins sans Frontieres; From Our Streets with Dignity (FROST’D), NewYork; Coalition Against Slavery and Trafficking (CAST), Los Angeles; Prostitution Alternatives Counseling and Education (PACE), Vancouver, Canada; Nueva Era en Salud, Panama.
United Nations organizations such as the WHO, UN/AIDS, and the International Labor Organization (ILO) have also supported the legalization of prostitution and have generally regarded prostitution as work (Lim,1998; South African Press Association, 2001).In 2001, Gilles Poumerol, WHO’s Southeast Asian advisor on sexually transmitted infections, promoted the decriminalization of prostitution in Asia (Deutsche Press-Agentur, 2001). Unfortunately, names cannot be trusted to tell the whole story.
These groups all have a vested interest in the byproduct of sex work, which makes them – for lack of a better term, pimps. In some cases the pimp is the state.
Prostitution has been proposed as a development policy for newly industrializing and developing countries. Often, those promoting prostitution are sex industry businessmen and government officials. Sex businesses such as escort prostitution, mas-sage brothels, strip clubs, phone sex businesses, and Internet prostitution have been described by Lim (1998)as the sex sector of a state’s economy. In some countries, profits from the sex sector are included in estimates of its economic activity.
For example, int he Netherlands, the sex industry constitutes 5% of the GDP (Daley, 2001). Women in Dutch prostitution tell us that although legalization of prostitution was promoted as a way to improve their lives, they view it primarily as a way for the State to tax their earnings (Schippers, 2002). Often they do not think that their health has benefited or that they are offered more protection under legalized or decriminalized prostitution.
In almost every case where prostitution was legalized as sex work, the girls were beaten, abused, raped, or otherwise harmed, while crime increased in the neighborhoods where sex work was practiced.
I’ve not looked, and perhaps it is too soon, but the sanctuary city of Burlington, in the sanctuary State of Vermont, is likely home to an increasing number of trafficked immigrant girls or will be. Organized crime and less organized gangs will be drawn to the income opportunities of unregulated sex work, and the women -some of who will live like slaves – will pay the price for what a bunch of dim-witted progressives thought was a liberty or privacy issue.
The post Hey, Burlington, VT: Prostitution was “Legal” in Rhode Island for 29 Years – It DID NOT Go Well For the “Sex Workers” appeared first on Granite Grok.
The most destructive natural disasters are never 100 percent natural. Human choices, land use, and government policies play a big role in how harmful hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, flash floods, and wildfires are to the affected communities.
And after catastrophes like the wildfire that destroyed much of the historic Hawaiian city of Lahaina last week, it’s worth taking stock of how much of the disaster was the result not of natural or accidental factors, but of policies and institutions that can be changed.
Though details are still emerging, it’s becoming clear that government failure did much to make this disaster worse—and possibly even started it. While the so-called experts are blaming climate change—and in the process demanding that government grab even more power and authority ostensibly to someday give us better weather—the destructiveness this fire was the product of an all-powerful and all-incompetent régime.
The specific origins of the fire are still being investigated, but there is much we already know. The city of Lahaina sits on the west coast of Maui, Hawaii’s second-largest island. It is surrounded by grassland, much of which the state owns.
Nearly a decade ago the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a research nonprofit, warned the Hawaiian government that the area around Lahaina was extremely fire-prone due to frequent downslope winds, steep terrain, and dry grass. Little was done to address these risks. A subsequent report in 2020 added that an invasive species of exceptionally flammable grass was prevalent in the surrounding fields and that passing hurricanes created strong winds known to fuel wildfires on the islands.
Early last week, Hurricane Dora crossed the ocean south of Hawaii. By early Tuesday morning, August 8, winds as fast as sixty miles per hour were blowing down the slopes of the West Maui Mountains into Lahaina. Around sunrise, a large fault was detected in the power grid, indicating a downed power line. Twenty minutes later, the first reports of fire came in from the area around Lahainaluna Road, uphill and upwind from the city.
The area where flames were first spotted is full of electrical infrastructure, mostly operated by Hawaiian Electric, the state’s monopoly electricity supplier. This included a substation and a multitude of power lines. Most of the land in the area is owned by the State of Hawaii except for a parcel belonging to the estate of one of Hawaii’s last princesses. This parcel housed a solar farm supplying electricity to the Hawaiian Electric substation. Early last year, NPR published a glowing article about the solar project, praising it the direct result of government regulation crafted to help transition Hawaii to 100 percent renewable power by 2045.
But on the morning of August 8, as winds hammered the old wooden utility poles, this highly electrified area in the dry grasses above Lahaina was quickly becoming dangerous. Yet no formal procedure was in place to shut off sections of the grid in the face of severe fire risks. As a result, twenty-nine fully energized poles fell across West Maui that day.
But even with downed poles in the way, the first firefighters on the scene met with some early success. Around 9 a.m., the county fire department declared the fire “100 percent contained.” But the message to residents included an ominous request. The county’s water pumps were powered by electricity, much of which was frantically being turned off to deactivate the downed lines. Officials asked the public to conserve water to preserve water pressure.
But by midafternoon, a flare-up brought the fire back to life on the Lahaina Bypass, a major road that heads straight into town. The flames moved swiftly into Lahaina at 4:46 p.m., one minute after the county government finally sent out an alert to warn the city’s population, largely without power, about the flare-up that had occurred over an hour before.
To make matters worse, county officials failed to activate emergency sirens, leaving residents unaware of the danger bearing down on them. And as firefighters heroically rushed toward the flames to try and save their community, they found that there was little to no water pressure in the fire hydrants, which quickly ran dry.
With a single backed-up highway leading out of the city, many residents of Lahaina had nowhere to go. Some scrambled into the ocean to escape the smoke and flames. But in the end, many couldn’t get out. At least ninety-nine people have been confirmed dead at this writing, making this the deadliest American wildfire in over a century. In addition, 2,207 buildings were destroyed, with property damages expected to reach $5.5 billion.
To review, a power company shielded from competition by the state placed electrical infrastructure among highly flammable state-owned grass fields above the historic city of Lahaina, which the government was twice warned were highly susceptible to fire. And once a fire broke out, a combination of defective water infrastructure, terrible communication by government officials, and only one escape route doomed the people of Lahaina to the worst wildfire experienced in this country in over a hundred years.
This was government failure through and through. In Human Action, Ludwig von Mises explains that on the market, the ultimate source of profits is foresight—the ability to anticipate future conditions. And economic loss occurs when market actors fail to anticipate the future. This possibility of riches if one succeeds and the guarantee of painful failures if one doesn’t force producers and service providers on the market to constantly weigh risks and opportunities.
Government immunizes itself from the profit and loss system and, therefore, from much of the need to weigh risk. Sure, some county officials may resign because of this. And the share price of Hawaiian Electric may dip. But the people of Maui will be forced to keep compensating the very organizations that have failed them. And there’s nothing natural about that disaster.
Connor O’Keefe | The Mises Wire
Author: Connor O’Keeffe produces media and content at the Mises Institute. He has a master’s in economics and a bachelor’s in geology.
Mises Wire We heartily encourage reprints and shares of Mises Wire articles. If you wish to reproduce an article in your blog, magazine, radio show, newspaper column, classroom material, textbook, discussion group, website, or any other venue, please do so. The original publication source must be included in an appropriate place.The post Thanks to Government, Maui’s Lahaina Fire Became a Deadly Conflagration appeared first on Granite Grok.
The DeSantis Super PAC has an ad attacking Trump for attacking Republican Governors, one of whom is his excellency, Chris Sununu. The ad even says, “The way you win as Republicans is to unite Republicans.” Is it? Then why are you attacking one?
Related: If They Really Want Donald Trump to Lose the Primary’ Kiss-of-Death’ Chris Sununu Should Endorse Him
By the way, I think they should attack Trump. He’s not perfect. He made mistakes. And this process is messy. The Founders went at each other like wet cats in a burlap sack. It is in the best interest of the electorate for their fighter to actually fight. The Big Ring in DC is not for mild manners or polite people. And down there, they don’t stick to issues or leave their opponents’ families out of it.
When Democrats lose an election, they invest all their resources and time into destroying or undermining the winner. When they win an election, they commit all of their resources and time toward advancing their agenda while trying to destroy viable opponents in the next one.
They send the FBI to your home at 5 am. When they indict you, it’s not election interference. And you think saying Trump was mean will move the needle?
Two words. Peaceful protest.
The Dems send mobs after you; they try to get you to abandon your rights. Try to leave town; there’s no escape. They’ll burn down black businesses and neighborhoods in the name of black folks. Leave disarmed citizens with no police protection. They literally disarmed them with the promise of security, then bitched about needing to gut the police force for their protection, and crime shot through the roof.
And let’s be honest. The Republican party has a lot of progressive policy sympathizers in it (and cowards), one of whom happens to be Chris Sununu. He’s done some good things, he was better than any Democrat and more than a few Republicans, but he’s done some terrible things because he is a by-product of a ruling-class political family that thinks it knows better than the voters the DeSantis PAC is trying to court.
Luckily for DeSantis, many of those voters don’t know that, so there is an opportunity to make Trump look mean, but defending Sununu isn’t going to get the undeclared voter off the couch to vote in a GOP primary in February unless it is for Donald Trump. And if you want that vote, you need to be stronger on the issues and better at pushing back against the very sort of Republican Chris Sununu is just in DC.
What the hell are you going to do about China? How about the out-of-control ‘pubic’ schools, the border, the illegals in the country, the weaponized intelligence agencies, the Neocons, the debt, Ukraine, domestic energy security, foreign drugs and gangs, the FBI – and are you mean enough and tough enough to stop the jackbooted bureaucracy from crushing the states whose primaries you’d like to win?
Everyone down there is going to hate that agenda, so if you win, being mean to Republicans will be a requirement, and the primary voters know Trump is not faking it. When he says he’s fighting for us against them, he means against all of them.
ICYMI – Slippery Meet Slope: Woman Asks for Help with Suicidal Ideation, Her ‘Therapist’ Recommends Euthanasia
If you can’t sell that, you’d be better off attacking Chris Christie – he’s the one that’s actually sucking your polling air out of New Hampshire. Trump is at 49%. No one else is close. All combined, they still lose by almost ten points. And you don’t think his voters know what Trump is like.
Too bad DeSantis can’t fire those PAC guys. What’s next, mentioning the indictments? Trump will be up by 60 points.
Get a clue.
HT | NHJ
The post DeSantis PAC Defending Sununu Is NOT Going To Win Him Republican Primary Support in NH, and Here’s Why? appeared first on Granite Grok.
We are just over a week away from the first Republican primary debate, and Donald Trump was out there bragging how he’ll thrash Joe Biden this time. Candidate Nikki Haley is waving the flag that the real opponent they’re all running against is Vice President Kamala Harris, as Biden is likely to drop dead early-second term.
Respectfully, both are going after the wrong targets.
I’m going to veer away from Vermont politics for a moment and make an observation/prediction about the U.S. presidential election: Joe Biden is not going to be – and was never intended to be — the Democrats’ nominee for president in 2024. So why is he there? To keep Kamala Harris, and perhaps some others, from being able to run at all, and to allow a small group of far-left elites to hand-pick the next President of the United States.
Everybody knows Joe Biden is no longer mentally with it (if he ever was). He’s clearly not capable of being president. The Obama cabal is running the White House, and while Biden has been a useful puppet for the extreme Left, they know he’ll be a terrible candidate in 2024. Another run against Trump is a crapshoot at best, and if a different Republican wins the nomination, Biden will lose to a fresh face/fresh start candidate for sure. There’s only one possible choice worse than he is: his vice president.
Harris has even lower poll numbers than Biden. She is annoying. Confusing. Incompetent. People don’t like her. She’s associated with the unpopular Biden. And she got blown out of the 2020 primary after garnering about one percent in the polls. She doesn’t have the excuse for gaffs that she’s 138 years old. But as the sitting vice president, in a primary, she would be a presumptive nominee, and as a Black woman, the Democrats denying her that spot would look, well, kinda racist and sexist at the same time. Rock/Hard Place.
Moreover, a long, open primary could get ugly and unpredictable. There would be debates flush with fringy candidates reminding voters of all the crackpot policies that have destroyed blue states/cities and the country as a whole. Even worse, from a Leftist perspective, a moderate like Joe Manchin could emerge as the front-runner. Can’t have that!
But as long as Biden is the declared nominee, neither Harris, Manchin, nor anybody else who might be taken seriously (sorry, RFK Jr.) can begin to build a real campaign. Can’t make speeches about how you’d lead the nation, raise money, hire a campaign team, etc. That would run contrary to etiquette.
Instead, Biden’s fake run sets up a late-game “bait and switch” that will allow a small group of elites to hand-pick the next President of the United States. No presumptive nominees. No real primary. Not even a campaign for the candidate; just for the dark money super PACs who will pick (have already picked?) the winner. It’s basically a repeat of The Basement Strategy that worked so well in 2020, but this time I’m guessing, California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Here’s the mass-psychological game I think the Democrats are playing….
The national electorate is dreading an inevitable rematch between Biden and Trump. Except for a small minority of hard-core Trump supporters who want to see a revenge rematch, voters are looking forward to this about as much as opening day for the Broadway musical version of the movie Ishtar. (Not really a thing, thank God, but given recent theater history, you never know.)
An Economist/YouGov poll conducted June 10-13 found 59 percent of voters don’t want Biden to seek reelection, with only 26 percent favoring a run for a second term. Similarly, 56 percent don’t want Trump to run again, with just 33 percent in favor. Independents came in with 64 percent against Biden and 59 percent against Trump. Nobody wants this.
The first party to break that sense of impending doom, which will only get more frustrating and intense as time goes on, by putting up someone credible who is not one of the two above-mentioned political versions of microwaved leftover fish from last week is going to be rewarded at the ballot box.
So, at some point, probably in the summer of 2024, Joe Biden will withdraw from the race for health reasons, or if the charges against Hunter get too hot, maybe citing the legal distractions as being not good for the country or some such thing. The point is he’ll be gone, off eating ice cream and shaking hands with invisible ambassadors in a closet somewhere. The Democrats will “scramble” to find a replacement. “Oh no, what shall we ever do? Who will save us?” A majority of voters will breathe a collective sigh of relief that election day is no longer a political Sophie’s Choice.
It won’t matter that Newsom (or whomever the Dems put forward, but I’m betting Newsom) has destroyed his state with a litany of inane woke policies. Yes, housing costs in California may be through the roof, homelessness out of control, crime is riddling the state’s cities, there’s an app telling pedestrians where all the human excrement is on the sidewalks, rolling blackouts are a thing, and taxpaying/law-abiding citizens are fleeing to other states mostly run by Republicans. The late bait and switch guarantees a campaign so short none of this has time to get out – and that’s the point — especially with a complicit press running interference.
Newsom (or whoever) will simply be the none-of-the-above option that spared the average, not-very-political voter from having to hold their nose and cast a ballot for one of two octogenarian re-treads facing criminal charges they didn’t like the first time around. That’s the trap being set, at least as I see it. The question for the debates is, will Republicans step into it?
Media Note: Rob Roper will be on The Morning Drive (AM620, FM96.3, or streaming at https://listen.streamon.fm/wvmtam) Wednesday, August 23 at 8 am. Tune in/call in!
Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics including three years service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free market think tank.
The post Biden Won’t, and Was Never Going to, Be the Democrats’ Nominee appeared first on Granite Grok.
Another day … another indictment of President Trump. But there is one thing that NeverTrump and MAGA seem to agree on … they think that it’s all somehow going to go back to normal. NeverTrump would have you believe that all that we need to do is put them back in charge of the GOP … and that somehow “their” nominee is going to prevail in all those “swing-States” where elections are rigged. It’s almost a religion. Just move on past Trump and the magically … election-month, Zuckerbucks, drop-boxes, mail-in-voting, Regime-media and Big-Tech censorship, Deep State interference – all go POOF! It all just disappears and we go back to “normal.” Delusional. Totally delusional.
Of course the leaders of NeverTrump know better. They’re content with being “controlled opposition.” Just give us back our grift!
MAGA is equally delusional. If the “opposition” is willing to imprison its main political opponent in order to hold on to power, what won’t it do to hold on to power? The first step in solving any problem is admitting and understanding the problem. Polls are meaningless when the Communists Democrats control the narrative and, in addition, have the ability to generate millions of votes from people who aren’t getting polled … ask Dr. Oz how that works.
Rome went from republic to dictatorship. But that just can’t happen here? It’s happening before your very eyes,
People like to knowingly say “it’s always been this way,” but it really hasn’t. Taken together w/the DOJ/FBI role in the Russia hoax, their coverup of Clinton’s textbook obstruction of justice rap (if smashing hard drives w/hammers after they’ve been subpoenaed isn’t obstruction,… https://t.co/5t1ayEfWE9
— Martyr Made (@martyrmade) August 15, 2023
DOJ has so far arrested and charged more than 1,100 American citizens on bogus charges for protesting Joe Biden’s bogus election more than 2 1/2 years ago. DC US Atty Matt Graves, a Biden apparatchik, STILL arresting people every week.
Yes republic. https://t.co/e2UGpJ5Q6w
— Julie Kelly (@julie_kelly2) August 15, 2023
The post This Is The End appeared first on Granite Grok.
We live in a world where elite capture by the Chinese Communist Party is a growing national security threat to America. One of their many tells is claiming something is a threat to The Demcoracy. We hear it from The Left all the time, but how about from Jonah Goldberg?
Goldberg was a reliable defender of Federalism and an opponent of smiley-faced left-wing fascism. That is how it seemed. I mean, I bought the books, and they were great. But when Donald Trump won the nomination of the Republican Party in 2016, one of the “institutions” he exposed as a fraud and water carrier for the progressive project was National Review. Trump just had to be Trump, and they did the rest.
Sure, they still do some good work, but their stable of authors has since gone down the Never Trump rabbit hole, including Goldberg, and while this probably helps his Deep State street cred, no one living outside that circle will be impressed.
“Large donors actually have a strategic view about moderation, who can win, and who can’t. Small donors are really just venting their spleen with their credit card.”
CNN’s Jonah Goldberg: “Large donors actually have a strategic view about moderation, who can win, and who can’t. Small donors are really just venting their spleen with their credit card.”
pic.twitter.com/JLOXRVMf4G
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 10, 2023
It’s a direct attack on Trump who, despite having less money than someone like Ron DeSantis, Trump got most of his form small donors. DeSantis got his from the GOP donor class, whom Goldberg informs us, has a strategic view. Of what? The path to globalization and the end of individual liberty? I agree. The monied elite are all-in on the UN, WHO, Digital Currency, social credit world that just happens to be the thing that China wants.
Remember them? Sworn enemy of the United States with whom they admit being at war for decades? Check this out, donor class.
WASHINGTON — The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party announced last week a significant breakthrough in the CCP’s decades-long “unrestricted warfare” against America. The panel will investigate two companies that at the forefront of Wall Street’s long-running and concerted efforts to help our mortal enemy weaponize U.S. investors’ money against them — and the rest of our country.
Following important testimony recently by former Reagan National Security Council Senior Director for International Economics Roger Robinson, the Committee’s bipartisan leadership declared that: “As a direct result of decisions made by [BlackRock and MSCI], these Americans are now unwittingly funding PRC companies that develop and build weapons for the People’s Liberation Army…
I’m sure Goldberg has thoughts on that as well and thinks it’s all bunk but this guy just told us that.the very thing that makes Democracy .. Democracy, is bad for Democracy.
Let it not be lost on any reader who has donated a portion of your paycheck to a political campaign that, unless you are a member of the top 1% of the 1% who is a billionaire (there are only about 800 such people in the United States), Jonah Goldberg is calling you the “biggest problem for democracy.” … [which] serves as the crystallization of how the ruling class (with CNN as its mouthpiece) views the peasantry it presides over in American “democracy” — which, in fact, is a façade for reasons I have elaborated on elsewhere.
An oligarchy of wealthy elites (can we call them the nobility?) is best suited to manage the democratic process. A way of thinking that leads to what? The end of Democracy actually and the Republic with it.
How far you have fallen, Jonah Goldberg.
The post I Didn’t Think Jonah Goldberg Could Fall Any Further, but He Has appeared first on Granite Grok.
As promised in the last Monday Memes, I have an overflow. My meme cup runneth over. Fairly certain about a Friday Overflow-Overflow.
Let the mayhem, mockery, and ridicule resume:
*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***
>>>>>=====<<<<<
TRUTH about the 2nd Amendment – Forgotten History
Owned. Damn, that had to hurt! And don’t forget this bit of history about using guns for resistance:
Smuggled arms into Warsaw ghetto | Jews Can Shoot
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I remember these two bicycle riders who went to Tajikistan because they truly believed we were all the same and loved one another and other kum ba ya carp:
D.C. Couple Killed In Tajikistan Attack Were Biking Around The World Together : NPR
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PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA
Total electronic censorship is nigh.
BEWARE the Digital Platform Commission Act – Adam Townsend
“We are Restricting Freedom … for the Common Good”: Irish Green Party Calls For Limiting Free Speech – JONATHAN TURLEY
The UN Human Rights Council demands the death of free speech | Washington Examiner
The “Free-Speech Twitter” PSYOP – CJ Hopkins (substack.com)
X CEO Linda Yaccarino: “Lawful But Awful” Content To Be Hidden (reclaimthenet.org)
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BOMBSHELL: FDA Admits Guidance on Ivermectin was Illegal, Invokes ‘Sovereign Immunity’ for Misleading Statements (& Crimes Against Humanity) (2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com)
One of the reasons I got from my local pharmacy about why they wouldn’t give Ivermectin to me for Covid-related purposes was that it was an “off label” use. First, as though doctors have never, ever, evah prescribed things off-label before (end sarcasm); side note: I’ve had multiple times when I’ve had a scrip for “off label” use. But it gets better. Without the backstory – and no, I don’t have it! – scabies is a mite infestation and is, apparently, really a bad thing. So what does the CDC say about that, and treatment?
That’s right, the CDC says that off-label use of Ivermectin should be considered under some circumstances. So the CDC recommends off-label use of Ivermectin for one thing, but pans it for another. I wonder why…
And now there’s evidence – not proof, but evidence – that Ivermectin plus another medication is highly effective against cancer. Wait, a pennies-per-dose drug combo that’s a cancer killer? Look for the scorning disapproval from the bought-off pharma shills medical experts any minute now.
And links related to Covid:
Dr. Ryan Cole Blows The Whole COVID-19 Propaganda Away (rumble.com)
I Published An Op-Ed in USA Today On The Excess Mortality In Young People Across The World (substack.com)
I was listening to Howie Carr discussing this, and the follow-up piece, and how the plain fact is that if they’d specifically called out The Jab, it’d never have been published at all. Better to get at least that out, than never have it see the light of day at all.
Boosters studies from Israel that the US FDA relied upon were COMPLETELY WRONG (substack.com)
Maine Hospital Fired Nurses for Refusing COVID Shots — Now It’s Begging Them to Come Back • Children’s Health Defense (childrenshealthdefense.org)
Apple Valley Village Health Care Center saw >10X higher COVID death rates after COVID vax rollout. Isn’t it supposed to decrease rates? (kirschsubstack.com)
Don’t forget this classic bus broadside from – IIRC – the UK, before the Jabs were approved for kids:
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The Road to Hell…
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IMHO – speaking as a psychology & human nature amateur student – people don’t want truth when that truth undermines their view of themselves as good, intelligent, noble people.
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Good Stuff about “Climate Change” – links
Climate Beliefs Can’t Change The Power Of Power Density – Climate Change Dispatch
The Power Of Power Density – Robert Bryce (substack.com)
Wind and solar have their place, e.g., in remote areas. I have a friend with a cabin waaaaay off grid. He has a solar set up. But you can’t power a civilization off that.
Scientist Admits to Spreading Alarm About Climate Change: “It’s a Manufactured Consensus” – The Daily Sceptic
>>>>>=====<<<<<
Pick of the post:
I’ve written about, and bemoaned, the general lack of curiosity – not just about science in general. Something indescribably precious is being destroyed in our youth.
>>>>>=====<<<<<
I’d mentioned Efrat Fenigson in the last meme one; here’s one by her on CBDC:
Soon Your Money Won’t Be Money, and It Won’t Be Yours (substack.com)
>>>>>=====<<<<<
Palate cleansers:
—
—
The post Meme Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.
Capitalizing on the smashing success of another month of pride the crypto-fascists at Black Rock have excitedly announced they will be sponsoring Greed Month this coming December. With the heavily commercialized holiday season (formerly Christmas) now a staple for churning out fiscal butter for the acquisition class the big players on Wall Street are certain they have a winner.
Spokespersons for the month will be co-chaired by media darling Oprah Winfrey and her island jet-setting pal Bill Gates, both of who have been gobbling up land like the San Andreas Fault. We all have our faults, however some of us actually own them.
Expected in January will be Sloth Month for which we are still waiting to hear back from the long list of proposed sponsors. Calls, texts and emails have all gone out to the following candidates:
We have yet to hear back from any of them and haven’t been able to leave messages because their inboxes are full, but we are hopeful the four month timeline to respond will be ample.
Lust Month will kick-off in February thanks to Valentine’s Day now including essentially every mammal on dry land. The kind people at Disney have generously offered a grant to fund both libraries and parades appropriately themed for all ages, races, sexes, genders and species wanting to participate. Also adjoining themselves to the celebration will be the rubber-barons over at Trojan who have worked out a cooperative crossover deal with the clan at K-Y Jelly in an effort to grease the skids for this highly controversial event. One insider tells us the campaign will use the tag-line “Why celebrate Lust Month? Answer: K-Y not?” Sassy!
March will replace St. Patrick’s Day and in favor of turning green with Envy Month. Participants in this year’s semi-exclusive soiree’s will have several entertainment options from which they will likely struggle to choose due to fear of loss. Area theater’s will be playing Fatal Attraction, the Magnificent Amberson’s, Bridesmaids and Mean Girls on rotation for the entire month. The festivities will culminate with the Envypaloooza concert series featuring Raising Cain, the Killers, Fall Out Boy and a posthumous performance of “My Best Friend’s Girl” by the Cars has been made a possibility thanks to A.I. hologram technology. Get your ticket’s now as they are going faster than your neighbor’s Tesla compared to your silly little Prius.
Next up we will see Wrath Month being spread out over April to May where April showers will bring God’s glower as Vermont will no doubt be flooded again and again until it stops supporting pedophiles, baby-killers, criminals and socialists. Fire’s will be expected to rage against the machine known as California, food manufacturing plants will continue to spontaneously combust, earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars will continue to mount like a debutante on her favorite stallion while other animals will rebel against mankind from sheer disgust at what we’ve become. Thankfully sponsors Raytheon, Halliburton, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin have incredibly deep pockets and have offered to fund both the devastation and clean up efforts for a reasonable fee.
Finally we can satiate our exhausted bodies with a big ol’ heap of Gluttony Month in May. Chik Fil-A, McDonald’s, Burger King and Taco Bell will be offering all you can eat menus. The Mars Company has generously taken up the call to provide Super Deluxe King Size Ginormous Bars and other snacks, while Starbucks will offer the GluMo Ultra-Mega Venti with 7-11 matching the call to corporate corpulence with the 144 oz. Painfully Big Gulp to slake those slovenly thirsts. Schools will echo the spirit by teaching children fat is fun and body shaming is a hate crime so don’t be one of those white supremacist fitness freaks or you’ll end up like your uncle Jimmy who likes to flash his abs at Trump rallies. If you want to show your body parts in public you’ll have to wait til next month like the rest of us.
The post Banana’s: Pride Month To Expand To Seven-Deadly Season appeared first on Granite Grok.
The blind spot on the issue of state-sanctioned assisted suicide just grew exponentially and in the very direction that we have long suggested it would. A 37-year-old woman seeking help for chronic suicidal thoughts was asked if she’d ever considered medically assisted suicide.
Related: Gov. Run Health Care Lesson from Canada – Won’t Pay for Treatment, Will Pay for Assisted Suicide
[Kathrin] Mentler was then told by the counselor that the mental health system was “completely overwhelmed,” that there were no available beds, and the earliest that she could talk with an available psychiatrist was November.
[Michelle Gamage reporting for The Tyee] reports what happened next:
‘It was pretty disheartening and made me feel helpless,’ Mentler says. ‘I’m coming here because I’m looking for help, and you’re telling me there is no help.’
That’s when the counsellor asked Mentler if she’d ever considered medically assisted suicide.
Mentler says she was ‘shocked’ and ‘sickened’ because she came to the Access and Assessment Centre for help, ‘not for recommendations on how to kill myself.’
Mental health “professionals” are certified, licensed, and regulated by the government. In New Hampshire, there are a lot of hoops through which you must jump, including exams for different aspects of the treatment you must complete and pass before the state will license you for the privilege. Canada’s gatekeeping appears equally or more exhaustive. There’s nothing wrong with that, but when we say mental health and whose “health” do we mean?
In a centrally planned society or one headed that way like a runaway train, the needs of the state come before all else. In that scenario, it will reflexively encourage the path of least resistance – the one with the lowest overhead. Even after (or because) it has engaged in policy actions that can increase the number of people experiencing mental health issues. Canadian health care is already socialized. The progs and Libs and Dems )oh, my!) like to remark on its affordability. Opponents point out things like wait times, poor service, and bad outcomes, for which we get pushback, but how do you justify this?
[Kathrin] Mentler was then told by the counselor that the mental health system was “completely overwhelmed.
And what is the solution to this woman’s chronic suicidal ideation? Just do it. Kill yourself. We’ll help.
‘That made me feel like my life was worthless or a problem that could be solved if I chose MAiD,’ Mentler says.
To the socialist society, it is worthless, which is the danger. And it is “painless”— for you and them, and not a new idea. In 2019, we reported on a story out of Canada involving the public health system. The cost of treatment was high, so the health professionals suggested assisted suicide, you know, to keep things affordable for the rest of them.
Related: “The Noxious Notion That Killing Is an Acceptable Answer to Human Suffering,”
So-called ethicists have hinted that euthanasia might be a reasonable solution for the economically disadvantaged (who are what, more likely to make things less affordable?).
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, where this sort of thing has been around for years, they are euthanizing the autistic.
Clinicians with similar ideological inclinations to the ruling class have already hinted that their political opponents might suffer from a mental health crisis. Are the Clinton’s paying them to say that? Talk about simplifying the “or else” in politics.
But that will never happen, Steve.
Yes, it damn well will! China has been doing it for years and harvesting the organs after, something that’s happening in Canada already – minus the democide (give them time).
HT | LifeSite News
The post Slippery Meet Slope: Woman Asks for Help with Suicidal Ideation, Her ‘Therapist’ Recommends Euthanasia appeared first on Granite Grok.
Randall’s Island in New York is a park used by many residents, young and old, for recreation and soccer games. The New York City Park website claims: An oasis in the middle of New York City, Randall’s Island Park comprises most of an island in the East River, between East Harlem, the South Bronx, and Astoria, Queens.
Randall’s Island is no longer accessible to New York residents because it is now the latest valuable piece of property converted to a facility to house illegal immigrants descending on the sanctuary city. The “shelter” will cost the city $20 million monthly, which is $10,000 per immigrant. Mayor Adams pleads for financial help from Joe Biden and the Federal Government. The people of New York City should be up in arms and throwing Tea into the Hudson for the waste of their tax dollars and the disgusting mess this illegal immigration made of their city. How much is too much for these citizens to accept?
Randall’s Island is just one of the recent events the Biden Administration cannot defend. This weekend, Joe Biden and his Press Secretary, Karine Jeanne-Pierre, looked idiotic regarding Maui’s tragedy. This is the most deadly natural disaster in history, and when reporters asked the President on Monday for his reaction to the fires in Hawaii, his heartfelt words were, “No Comment.” This callous human being just spent 14 days on the Delaware beach, returned to Washington for four days and then returned to the beach for a long weekend.
He was the Vice President for Obama, who called Hawaii home, and when asked for a comment, that was the best he could do. As for KJP, Townhall.com called her the most stupid Press Secretary in history. Who can argue with Townhall? When KJP was asked to comment on Biden’s lack of concern, she told the Press Corps about the call from Hawaii’s Senator Hereeno to President Biden and how thankful he was for the President’s response. The problem here is the Senator is Mazie Hirono, and he is a she. Excellent job on doing your prep work, KJP! You are an embarrassment to the country.
We talked about Biden’s hostage deal with Iran yesterday, so we will not rehash it today, but how about him writing another check for Ukraine? On Thursday, as he was leaving for his long weekend, he had time to ask Congress to give more of our money for Ukraine-not for Hawaii but for his good friend Volodymyr Zelenskyy. You know he is getting a kickback on every dollar he sends to fight the cause for Democracy. The amazing thing about the reporting of this request is how bad the reporting is. The New York Times reported $24 Billion, the Washington Post $20 Billion, PBS was at $45 Billion, and Politico was at $40 Billion. Did these entities have separate briefings where they were purposely given different numbers, or are they just making it up as they go?
You could say that Biden had a bad few days, but this is just another week for our aged and incompetent President. Check that. He is not incompetent but rather treasonous. Every week under Joe Biden’s Presidency is a bad week for America.
The post Every Week Under Joe Biden’s Presidency Is a Bad Week for America appeared first on Granite Grok.
The US military is one of the few institutions in America the left has not infiltrated and undermined completely, but that process is ongoing and in danger of escalating if Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles “C.Q.” Brown (nominated) becomes the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Brown has a long history of supporting the #woke agenda during his tenure as the head of the US Air Force.
Notably, he has called for selecting and promoting officers, not based on their abilities and performance as warriors, but according to arbitrary quotas determined by the color of their skin or their ethnicity. He sees compelling female personnel to bunk and shower with biological males who “identify as females” as nothing more than a problem of managing discomfort levels. And under his leadership, the Air Force Academy has become a school for ensuring the next generation of that service’s leadership are fully indoctrinated with the radical left’s “woke” agenda.
Such priorities fracture vital unit-cohesion, demoralize those in uniform, discourage recruitment and undermine readiness. America needs commanders who oppose, not promote, these sorts of policies. That is especially true at present, when we may soon find ourselves in a shooting war initiated by the Chinese Communist Party. Consequently, every Senator should vote against Gen. Brown’s nomination.
If you’ve got the time, this webinar goes into detail about the issue and the danger associated with it.
Of particular concern is the prospect that these problems, and their increasingly adverse effect on our armed forces, will be exacerbated if the Senate confirms as the nation’s top military officer a general like CQ Brown. His record, in particular as Air Force Chief of Staff, indicates that he is committed to the critical race doctrine that whites are unalterably racist oppressors of blacks and other minorities and must be limited to some arbitrary quotas among the officer corps. He takes pride in embracing: “diversity” hires and promotions; making servicewomen “comfortable” with bunking and showering with intact males who profess to identify as females; and “woke” indoctrination at the Air Force Academy and elsewhere, including Defense Department schools for military dependents.
This CPDC webinar examines the implications of this cultural Marxist assault on the U.S. military, in particular at a moment when the Chinese Communist Party seems ever-more-intent on complementing its long-running, pre-kinetic “unrestricted warfare” with a shooting war. A panel of brilliant thought-leaders who happen to be black, afford an opportunity to do so in an objective way, free of racist sentiments.
Watch: At What Cost ‘Woke’?: The Marxist Takedown of America’s Military
Please contact your US Senator or (if yours are like mine) any other US Senator that might listen. Oppose the nomination of Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles “C.Q.” Brown as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
HT | Center for Security Policy
The post Action Alert: Stop the Nomination of Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles “C.Q.” Brown appeared first on Granite Grok.
Someone shared some nsight with me, second hand from Howe Carr so bear with me. He was (so I am told) talking about Donald Trump and something he did for us that doesn’t get enough (or any air). Exposing the level of perfidy to which the political elite would go to protect their dirty secrets.
To paraphrase,
Donald Trump, like most people, didn’t understand what was hiding behind the mask in part because, for years, he was one of them or at least part of their cabal.
He was friends w Hillary and Bill Clinton, for example, and many of the connected wealth and political insiders. He knew them; they knew him. So when he ran for office, he felt certain that he knew who these people were. That he could work with them, doing what he always does: making deals (which is how he succeeded in NYC).
We can see today that this was a mistake.
But I don’t think it was because in doing this, he fully revealed what we’ve got to deal with now, and THAT is the prize. We can solve nothing if we don’t SEE IT.
In my opinion, people are missing what the prize really was. WE SEE and we are here today because we didn’t !!
That’s my paraphrase of the reader’s paraphrase with the comment of whatever Howie Carr was talking about. And I must agree. Who else would have tipped their hand so clearly, exposing the length and depth to which they would go to undermine and unseat anyone, including a duly elected President?
Some of that was backlash at the unexpected rejection of Hillary by The People and their failure to plan for the potential loss to prevent it. What followed was the Democrat Party and the DC Swamp the way they truly are. To quote the reader: “What Donald did was a brutal exercise to open eyes about the reality of just how far down they’ve taken us. We are here because we didn’t get it- we were duped.”
Trump fought back hard, and they used it against him. Then they used it against us. And that’s not stopping unless someone who has seen behind the mask, under the tent flap, and understands what must be done.
Looking at the perspective 2024 Republican Primary field, the list of those likely or capable is thin. And while I’d be fine if DeSantis were also that guy, I’ve not yet seen enough to say that. That leaves Trump. But he’s not electable, you say, which sounds like something someone else’s candidate might say. And it might be true. The people poisoned by the left who have, in turn, poisoned our country will be over-activated to oppose Trump. No one has done anything substantive to prevent a repeat of the bizarre antics of Election night(s) and day(s) 2020. Democrats control elections in key states.
Electability is moot.
We need a freight train, landslide, or tidal wave, no matter who the nominee is. If you’re not capable of that and carrying it up and down the ticket, that means the soap box and ballot box are no longer options.
Prepare yourself accordingly.
The post That Other Thing Trump Did appeared first on Granite Grok.
A lightbulb (the kind banned by Mr. Bluster Biden) went off in my mind, and the purpose of Bluster Biden’s Dystopian America became perfectly clear. Let’s put the pieces of the puzzle together:
We want to thank Charles Bradley for this Op-Ed. If you have an Op-Ed or LTE
you would like us to consider; please submit it to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
There is more, but if one cannot put these puzzle pieces together, I cannot help. As I tell my children and grandchildren, you cannot cure stupid! Unfortunately, stupidity may cause the loss of our Democracy.
The post Biden’s Dystopian America appeared first on Granite Grok.
Russia is anathema to the Globalists. Regime-change is necessary to allow “investment” … i.e., CONTROL … by Blackrock, State Street, etc., etc. etc.. Every country must submit. There can be no exceptions. There can be no counter-examples to the Globalist world-order.
America is fighting a proxy-war against Russia on behalf of the Globalists.
The agenda is to destroy Russia. Why?
Globalists want to replace Putin because he presides over the last major power in Europe that has a national identity, a national language, a national culture that rests on the foundation of orthodox Christianity.pic.twitter.com/L3USrcrPFp
— Douglas Macgregor (@DougAMacgregor) August 11, 2023
The post Speaking Truth To Power … Why “Putin Is Hitler” … Douglas McGregor Explains, In Two Minutes, Why We Are Fighting A Proxy-War Against Russia appeared first on Granite Grok.
One of the fun things about conspiracy theories isn’t so much the ideas themselves but the left’s conspiracy theories, ‘conspiracy theory.’ They label everything like that now. Even something as benign as yoga can be a breeding ground for right-wing extremists.
And not just yoga. Meditation, wellness, gym and personal trainers, and fitness in general, possibly even foodies and nutritionists, if they happen to think the wrong thoughts. It is all a bubbling wellspring for Qanon anti-vaxxers. That’s the conclusion of beta-male Guardian scribbler James Ball. People who think the wrong things or Gasp! keep their minds open to the possibility that the government is full of sh!t at least once in a while … have to be fascists.
I didn’t look, but does JB have any on-ramp-content to the false civility narrative circa 2020? The one where we can all get along – the kumbayah BS the American left sold to get that bag of China-bribed bones doing business as Joe Biden behind the Resolute Desk or a near enough facsimile? A civility narrative sold by a group that had been as uncivil and impossible to get along with every day of the previous president’s tenure – to him and anyone who may have voted the guy into an election they said was stolen? I bet he does. He was probably one of many uncivil civility hacks pontificating from the UK, but let’s not derail our train of thought.
Personal trainers, people whose life work is health and fitness, might be unvaccinated and oppose mandatory covid vaccination. The not-so-secret term for them, regardless of any other injections they’ve received, is an anti-vaxxer. Anti-vaxxers don’t think covid is real, which is silly. We all know it was created in a lab in Wuhan, China, where the pesky thing snuck out in some janitor’s leftover bat-sushi to infect the world, but only after they had to admit it. Before that, this was also a conspiracy (in theory). One with so much kick that the entire global public health Matrix abandoned hundreds of years of protocol by refusing to call it the Wuhan Flu. It was COVID. SARS CoV2, which, after much hand-wringing and the release of some documents showing it WAS released from a lab in Wuhan, China (that the same people yelling conspiracy didn’t want public), became SARS CoV2-WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology).
A result of a Chinese bio-weapons program and illegal gain of function research off-shored and funded by Tony ‘The Tiger’ Fauci and the NIH – another conspiracy (in theory) that turned out to be true. One of many, as it turns out, but stop that, you conspiracy theorist theorist. Jay Ball has first-hand stories for us from victims of anti-maskers (masks still don’t against viruses), anti-lockdowns (also debunked as useless and likely to have made matters worse), as well as other policy responses that time and actual science have revealed as flawed, dangerous, or even deadly. It’s as if J-Ball is trapped in a Summer of Love time warp where the only safe spaces for maskless communal activity are looting and arson by anti-semitic black race fascists and communists.
In theory.
To J-Ball, Qanon is a pandemic, and the fitness movement in many, if not all, of its manifestations, has had its watering holes poisoned. Not that this should be a problem – if true. No one is making you do yoga, train with groups or instructors. No one has to hire a chef or nutritionist to feed them (OMG, is that why the Obamas Chef was Drowned off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard?).
That’s the thing about the people you are calling conspirators. They don’t care if you sprinkle mRNA on your Kashi Whole Wheat Biscuit Cinnamon Harvest Cereal or put two drops in each eye before bed. Wear a mask or don’t—distance or don’t. They mostly want to be left alone to their lives and opinions and whatever consequences come of them, even if fitness means fit-n-ess whole meat-lovers pizza in their mouth.
But?
Whiney left-wing journalists, much like their audience and the politicians they keep electing, don’t live that way. The notion of civility hinges on you agreeing with them, and only by refusing to do so is there strife and division. Your repeated failure to get in line drives the totalitarian backlash against bodily autonomy and free speech. If you’d just think and talk like them, they wouldn’t have to embrace the hyperbolic use of excessive government force to shut you up.
After all, everything you say is just a conspiracy, including the government’s abuse of power to silence dissent or liberal consent to it.
They’re just trying to protect mob rule Democracy, and enough with the conspiracy theories already.
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