Category: America’s Heartland

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‘Will the last steelworker out of Pittsburgh please turn out the light?’

Shift change at the Clairton Works steel plant along the Monongahela River. (Salena Zito)

‘Will the last steelworker out of Pittsburgh please turn out the light?’

by Salena Zito, National Political Reporter

CLAIRTON, Pennsylvania — The first steel plant located here along the Monongahela River just over 20 miles south of Pittsburgh was built in 1901. By 1903, the borough of Clairton formed around the industry, and by 1904, U.S. Steel acquired the plant from St. Clair Steel, and the industrial base of America began its reign here in Western Pennsylvania.

U.S. Steel had been founded in 1901 by Andrew Carnegie, Charles Schwab, Elbert Gary, and J.P. Morgan, and when it launched that year, it was the largest business enterprise of its time, and by the end of its first year, the company supplied nearly 70% of all of the steel produced in the country.

Headquartered in Pittsburgh, where Carnegie made his mark in the industry after the Civil War, Clairton and dozens of other small river towns, such as Braddock, Pennsylvania, grew and expanded and became thriving cities thanks to U.S. Steel, with dozens of churches, business districts, schools, and fraternal clubs all popping up to serve the workers who settled around the plants.

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Shift change at the Clairton Works steel plant along the Monongahela River.
(Salena Zito)

The industry boomed for the next 40 years, throughout World War II, and in the growth years after the war, when the GIs came home and moved out of the cities and into the cutest little bedroom communities in the suburbs. Those communities’ roads and bridges were built by the men and women in the steel industry they often worked in.

Despite the slow decline steel was experiencing in the early 1960s, U.S. Steel broke ground for its own building in the city of Pittsburgh — originally designed to be the tallest building in the country, eclipsing both the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Empire State Building. Its outer structure, which looks like a rusty nail, was immediately iconic, and the “US STEEL” moniker on the top floor served as a proud advertisement for the steel industry, which had its center in Pittsburgh.

It continues to be the tallest building in Appalachia — except that the name on the top now reads UPMC, which earned its name at the top of the building in March 2008 when it made the U.S. Steel Tower its corporate headquarters. The name change exemplified the decline of the industry that began on Black Monday in 1977, when the Campbell Works in Youngstown, Ohio, suddenly shut its doors.

By 1983, Pittsburgh’s unemployment rate hit a whopping 18.2% as rounds of layoffs among thousands of steelworkers became a reality and as domestic steel production (crippled by automation, trade, union strife, inattention to emerging technology, and poor corporate leadership) collapsed, along with all of the industries that supported it.

Those combined circumstances created a deadly domino effect that intensified as U.S. Steel entered joint ventures with foreign partners and non-steel corporations in order to continue a profitable bottom line.

Sixty years ago, U.S. Steel peaked in employment (340,000) and output (35.8 million tons of steel). In 2022, it employed 15,000 (3,000 in the Pittsburgh area) and shipped 11 million tons of steel.

Yet despite all of the job losses, along with the closed barber shops, machine shops, churches, and schools, causing the death of boroughs such as Clairton and Braddock, if you think U.S. Steel, you think Pittsburgh. Our football team was (and still is) called the Steelers, and we are known as the Steel City.

That imagery may once again be about to change as U.S. Steel contemplates a sale, which would be a jolt to this region. The company is taking proposals from multiple bidders, including Ohio steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs as well as a rumored bid from a steelmaker based in Europe.

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PITTSBURGH — A construction worker stands on the steel tower in 1967.
(Carnegie Library)

The United Steelworkers Union supports a deal with Cleveland-Cliffs, which extended an offer of shares and cash worth $7.3 billion to buy U.S. Steel Corp. in July and promised to honor the steelworkers union contract, which expires in 2026.

The Cleveland-Cliffs CEO told the steelworkers last month in a letter to them, “I have your backs.”

The inevitability of the end of U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh has always been a rumor, but workers here two years ago knew the reality was near when a planned $1.5 billion renovation of the region’s blast furnaces evaporated under political pressure related to climate change.

So where did that 1.5 billion investment money and jobs go? In modern mini steel mills in Arkansas.

Everything has an expiration date. U.S. Steel has had a good, albeit bumpy, 122-year run here in this region. It lifted up the working class so much that their children went to college on their wages, humble hunting camps were built, and so were new schools and churches. Machine shops, beauty salons, diners, hotels, hardware stores, dress shops, and communities thrived, all thanks to the hard work and innovation that came from the men and women who worked in the mills here.

The mills may go on, but it is likely they won’t be under the U.S. Steel banner — and while they haven’t been locally owned for over 100 years, U.S. Steel was Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh was U.S. Steel long after the glory days had passed. So much so, indeed, that generations of young people who have never walked into a mill continue to identify with the idea that when you did walk into that mill, you were part of something that was bigger than yourself: You were part of the building of America.

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Democrats beware: These Black voters are fed up, and looking for a political home.

Stop taking the Black vote for granted. PPG Photo

By SALENA ZITO
 
Democrats beware: These Black voters are fed up, and looking for a political home

DUQUESNE — Nine years ago Leo Beatty was in his early 30s and working for U.S. Steel when president Barack Obama came to the Mon Valley plant. The visit was a post-State of the Union opportunity to sign an executive order authorizing “myRA,” a new retirement savings option for people who lacked an employer-administered account.

Mr. Beatty, then a registered Democrat who voted for Mr. Obama twice, said it was a thrill: “I really liked him then so it was exciting,” even though his presidency wasn’t always what he had expected. “I still like him. I am just not sure how much he did for the middle class Black community, or middle class white community either for that matter.”

Today Mr. Beatty is no longer a Democrat, nor after thirteen years on the job does he work for U.S. Steel. And that “myRA” program was shuttered only three years later.

Mr. Beatty voted for Joe Biden in 2020, but that has become even more of a disappointment.

“Biden dropped the ball for me on inflation, so no I don’t think he’s doing a good job — not just because I don’t think he has the cognitive ability to do it effectively, but because he knows no one like us. And by that I mean middle-class America,” said Mr. Beatty, who is now a registered Independent.

When asked to expand about his problems with Mr. Biden’s presidency he said, “Well, how much time you got?”

Mr. Beatty said it is insulting for Mr. Biden and the Democrats to keep saying how great the economy is. “Maybe for his friends. It is about the rich getting richer and putting us working class people against each other instead of looking at the real problem. The real problem is the rich people against poor people. It’s more classism than racism,” he said.

Mr. Beatty, who has earned multiple degrees and certificates in the trades, criminal justice and leadership, said the media tries to divide people on the basis of skin color.

“But we have a lot more in common than we have different. All of us want to be safe. All of us want our kids safe. All of us want to live a decent life. That’s all we want.”

Mr. Beatty is one of six middle-class Black voters, including his wife Crystal, who sat with me for hours last Sunday discussing the state of politics. What was most interesting is their shared belief that neither party is listening to them, with the Democrats taking the brunt of their criticism for promising change that never comes and taking them for granted, while Republicans struggle — sometimes comically — to give them a reason to support the party.

Missing middle class

My interviewees are optimistic about their lives and their communities, but very disappointed in this administration. In their eyes, Mr. Biden and the Democrats have failed their children and grandchildren by overreaching on cultural issues and underperforming on the basics of governance. Specifically, they are very frustrated over how inflation and crime remain serious problems in their daily lives.

Image DescriptionDonna Lee of Wall re­tired from theAl­le­gheny County Health Depart­ment. She says her big­gest con­cerns are what chil­dren are be­ing taught in school and out-of-con­trol-crime.
Tap or slick for larger image.

Donna Lee said she doesn’t consider herself a member of either party. “But I do my civic duty and vote in every election,” the retired Allegheny County Health Department employee said.

Ms. Lee said locally she mostly votes Democrat, but won’t discuss her 2020 vote. “I’ll pass on that question,” she says smiling. The grandmother said she is frustrated with the Biden administration for challenging the removal of sexually explicit books in schools — so much so that she sent the president a letter about the affect these curricula are having on children.

“Oh he wrote me back alright, about immigration,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air.

Image DescriptionChester Harper of Duquesne, afa­cil­i­ties man­ager at a uni­ver­sity in Oak­land, says he is a reg­is­teredDem­o­crat but con­sid­ers him­selfin­de­pen­dent.
Tap or slick for larger image.

Dressed in a dark navy suit, Chester Harper cuts a dapper figure all the way down to his leather briefcase. A lifelong Democrat and facilities manager at Carnegie Mellon University, Mr. Harper grew up in McKeesport and now calls Duquesne home. He says he voted for Mr. Biden — then makes a face and shakes his head when asked to give his assessment.

“He is not looking out for the needs of the common man. He has this agenda that is out of sorts with the average voter. He says all the time he knows middle class voters and he has their back — but no, he doesn’t, because he hasn’t been out there. He’s not in our world and [he hasn’t] listened to us,” Mr. Harper said.

Out of touch

Crystal Beatty, Leo’s wife, said she is a registered Democrat, but that doesn’t determine her votes. “Truly I’m more of an Independent because I want to vote for the person who’s most like me — and not necessarily the color of my skin, but the values I believe in,” she said.

Ms. Beatty cringes at the reminder of Mr. Biden telling a Black radio host in 2020 that Black voters torn between voting for him and President Trump “ain’t Black.” “Let me put it this way, so I am not rude, the person who most represents my values wouldn’t even consider thinking that, let alone saying it out loud,” she said.

As for local Democrats U.S. Rep. Summer Lee and U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, she is unimpressed with them as well. “Have you seen Braddock, it’s like you have proof of what you’re not doing and how much you care,” she said of Mr. Fetterman, who lives there, and Ms. Lee, who represented it in the state house.

Image DescriptionWini­fred Wash­ing­ton, a reg­is­tered Dem­o­crat, said she is dis­ap­pointed in Joe Biden. She be­lieves if he came to her neigh­bor­hood he wouldn’t un­der­stand the prob­lems it is fac­ing.
Tap or slick for larger image.

Winifred Washington said localism is something Democratic politicians have forgotten to focus on. “Take something as simple as Duquesne High School. That school was the center of the community and children attending school in their hometown are a visual reminder that our future will be better,” she said.

In 2007 the state Department of Education split Duquesne’s high school students between West Mifflin and East Allegheny high schools. It was a move that fractured the community and took away a storied football program that drew people together.

“It is not that I expect that Joe Biden would understand or deal with that kind of displacement and the impact it would have. His problem is he doesn’t know how to relate to anyone who has had that happen to their community,” she explained.

“Democrats used to be all about this kind of situation — they used to fight for it— now they have turned to fight for things I often don’t understand.”

She voted for Mr. Biden. Is she happy about it? “No,” she said. “Its just sad, he’s too old and he is out of touch.”

Image DescriptionArdell Mar­tin of Duquesne says the Demo­cratic Party has taken Blackvot­ers for granted for too long and no lon­ger rep­resents mid­dle class Black peo­ple; she is un­happy with Joe Biden and has no in­ter­est in Don­ald Trump.(Salena Zito)

Pathetic president

Ardell Martin, who spent most of her career working for community newspapers, said she even looking at Mr. Biden makes her so uncomfortable. “I think he’s pathetic. In a way, I feel bad for him. I really do. I think he’s lost.”

Her problem with him is the problem she has with all politicians, “You may say I’m cynical, but I don’t think they care. They don’t care about anybody. A lot of them are in it for the pension plan that they’re going to get after their terms are up. Some of them, it’s an ego thing.”

Still she says she dutifully votes, “I honor my obligations. I wish that they would remember that they’re working for us people I think they have lost empathy for.”

North Side native Salena Zito is a national political reporter for The Washington Examiner, a New York Post columnist and co-author of “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics”

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Yes, Virginia it was a good shoot. You don’t drive forward towards the Police Officer.

If only she listened. Credit: Blendon Township Police Department

Yes, Virginia it was a good shoot. You don’t drive forward towards the Police Officer. Sadly, a mother of two and pregnant for some reason would not listen to numerous requests from the police officer.

The policeman was notified by a store employee that a woman had committed a theft. What the officer didn’t know was that the person had put back the stolen items. How could they?

The woman then puts the car in gear and hits the accelerator. The police officer directly in front of the vehicle is hit and staggers for several feet. He fires and the rest is history.

 

WATCH: This former police chief breaks down what happened.

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Oberlin College Lacrosse Coach Under Attack by Woke Administrators for Defending Women’s Sports.

Hate from the leftists. Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Oberlin College Lacrosse Coach Under Attack by Woke Administrators for Defending Women’s Sports.

The head coach of Oberlin College’s lacrosse team says she was called “transphobic” and “unsafe,” and investigated by the woke college after questioning transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological male, winning last year in the NCAA. “It is scientific that, biologically, males and females are different,” the lacrosse coach added. “I don’t believe biological males should be in women’s locker rooms. Where is the MeToo movement now? What happened to that?”

“I was blown away that a male was allowed to compete with women in NCAA swimming,” Oberlin College lacrosse coach Kim Russell said in an eight-minute video documentary shared by the Independent Women’s Forum.

Watch Below.

“When Lia Thomas won, I reposted a post that said, ‘Congratulations to Emma Weyant, the real woman who won the NCAA 500-yard freestyle event.’ One of my own players took that post and sent it in an email to my athletic director,” Russell explained.

Oberlin College Women's Lacrosse Coach Kim Russell

Oberlin College Women’s Lacrosse Coach Kim Russell

School administrators responded to the complaint by calling Russell into their offices for a series of disciplinary meetings, and the lacrosse coach recorded each one.

In one instance, Natalie Winkelfoos, Associate VP for Athletics, can be heard telling Russell, “Unfortunately, you fall into a category of people that are kind of filled with hate in the world.”

 

 

“It’s acceptable to have your own opinions, but when they go against, you know, Oberlin College’s beliefs, it’s a problem, for your employment,” Creg Jantz, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, told Russell in another instance.

Russell said school administrators later demanded that she write a letter of apology to the team, and to the Department of Athletics.

“I hope you feel remorse for it,” Winkelfoos said in another audio recording.

The lacrosse coach said she began to write her apology letter, but then stopped herself from doing so.

“I’m not writing a letter of apology, I’m not sorry,” Russell said in the documentary. “I really believe that women should be competing against other biological females.”

 

 

Russell, who has been coaching for 27 years, said she was then told that she had to attend a meeting with her entire team, the athletic director, the Title IX director for the Athletics Department, the head of the department’s Diversity, equity, and inclusion (D.E.I.) office, and the Title IX and director of D.E.I. for the entire college.

“There was a very dark energy,” Russell explained of the meeting. “Chairs were set up in a huge circle, I felt like I was burned at the stake.”

“It was, what I would call the ‘mob mentality,’ where a few people on the team spoke about how much they were upset with what I had posted, and how dare I post that,” the coach said. “I love these kids, and to have many of them say all these things that, to me, were attacking who I was as a person, it made me sad.”

The documentary also featured several audio clips of student lacrosse players lecturing Russell.

 

 

“Everyone has their views,” one student said. “But what the focus should be here isn’t what the view is, it should be the impact that that caused, the impact that that post had,” one student could be heard preaching in an audio clip.

“I still feel like we’re just kind of, like, justifying your actions a little, instead of, like, a true apology,” another student lectured. “Especially at Oberlin, where there is such a high, like, LGBTQ+ population, I just feel like I would like a little more accountability.”

“It’s not good enough just to work for, like, women’s issues or white feminism, you know? It has to, like, your feminism, has to be inclusive for everybody,” another said.

 

 

During the meeting, Russell felt that nobody was really listening to what she had to say. After that, when the season was finished, Russell was called in for yet another meeting, where she was given a letter that informed her she had damaged her credibility and would need to change her behavior immediately.

“I believe that there are so many people who are afraid of losing their jobs that they are just going to do what they have to do to keep working,” Russell said in the documentary. “It is my job to be a voice for everyone who is too afraid, who needs to keep their job.”

“It is scientific that, biologically, males and females are different,” the lacrosse coach added. “I don’t believe biological males should be in women’s locker rooms. Where is the MeToo movement now? What happened to that?”

“Do I believe I’m at risk of being fired, of having a storm hit me?” Russell said. “Yes. Am I ready for the storm? Yes.”

Russell is not the first person Oberlin College has attacked.

As Breitbart News previously reported, the leftist school had to pay $36.59 million in court-ordered defamation damages to a mom-and-pop bakery it slandered as racist — after previously fighting desperately to avoid paying the judgment.

In 2019, Meredith Raimondo, now an ex-dean, had orchestrated a woke mob into slandering the family that runs Gibson’s Bakery as racists for calling the police on three black students for allegedly shoplifting a bottle of wine.

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Our Disinfo-nation: the new censorship is here to stay

The list of topics on which the government and mass media feel called to protect us from ‘disinformation’ is very long.

Written By: Peter W. Wood for The Spectator Sept 2023 issue

Lying is the great American pastime. We’ve been at it ever since some of the Pilgrim fathers shined on some of the folks back home with tales of the Eden they had found on the barren coast of Massachusetts:

For fish and fowl, we have great abundance; fresh cod in the summer is but coarse meat with us; our bay is full of lobsters all the summer and affordeth variety of other fish; in September, we can take a hogshead of eels in a night, with small labor, and can dig them out of their beds all the winter; we have mussels; and …

As the American Socrates, P.T. Barnum, may once have said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Or he may not have said. The Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel in 1894 said he said it, but P.T. denied it. Whom are we going to believe: the lying liar of Fiji Mermaid fame or the dissembling deceivers of the Sentinel?

Relax. We don’t have to choose. Men were deceivers ever.

Combatting disinfo is one of the hottest trends on campus these days.

Time’s up. Stop relaxing. We’ve been summoned by our betters to purge America of the scourge of “disinformation.” Or at least the spreaders thereof. A whole new academic discipline has emerged for spotting and discrediting said disinformation. Professor Robert Beckman at the School of Media Studies at the New School, for example, teaches “Fighting Disinformation: A News Media Literacy Video Series.” Beckman is far from alone in this academic quest. “Syracuse University Professors Seek Solutions to the Plague of Disinformation,” declares one headline. Two profs at that institution scored a $600,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security for that little venture. In fact, combatting disinfo is one of the hottest trends on campus these days.

Of course, the academy is only one part of the battlefield. Ever since federal judge Terry Doughty filed an order in the Western District of Louisiana declaring that government officials couldn’t treat Twitter, Meta and other social media companies as their personal playthings, the progressive establishment has been aghast. If Judge Doughty’s order stands, it would mean the moral guardians who protect us from “disinformation” would have to let Americans decide for themselves whom and what to believe. They would no longer be able to set up shop in the offices of Elon Musk’s little enterprise, the New York Times or even the Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel.

People left to their own devices might fall prey to disinformation about China, Ukraine, or Iran. They might prove susceptible to the idea that America is not systemically racist. They might wonder if there are only two sexes. They might believe the legal availability of firearms drives the murder rate and prompts mass shootings.

When we stop to think about it, the list of topics on which the government and mass media feel called to protect us from “disinformation” is very long. Merely by printing some lists on which damnable forms of disinformation circulate, I may be triggering some readers. The only safe response is to avert your gaze and hum a Taylor Swift song. There is no doubt in bringing these matters up; however, I have already revealed myself as one who indulges in nefarious opinions. Not that I endorse all the heterodoxies hinted at above.

This is a glorious moment for us denialists. Not only has Judge Doughty flung open the windows to let the sunshine in, but Congress has also decided that the time has come to reveal the memos hidden away by the deep state censors, demand the testimony of the agency decepta-crats, and ask some really tough questions.

At the heart of the crusade against “disinformation” are lies and deception tenderly cultivated in our schools and urgently — often solemnly, sometimes indignantly — amplified by compliant news readers, sciencey-sounding researchers, and dignified officials.

What a wonder it is that many Americans take all this in — and just laugh. We know that the establishment is lying to us even if we can’t prove it. There’s just something about the preacher with his pants around his ankles that tips us off. That’s not to say that we so-called “conspiracists” lack solid evidence and compelling arguments. Often, that evidence is as naked as Hunter’s laptop, as heart-breaking as myocarditis among young, vaccinated athletes, and as conspicuous as Lia Thomas at a women’s swim meet.

But we also know that we will get into trouble if we press the point. Castigating us when we refuse to go along with the mandated delusions is the sport of our betters, but every time they do it, we grow more certain that those who guard against “disinformation” are really just guarding their own paychecks and privileges.

Finding new allies

We are, however, finding new allies. Journalist Michael Shellenberger testified to Congress recently about how the anti-disinformation crowd had come together to form what he calls the “Censorship Industrial Complex,” that combination of interest groups that seek to sanitize public life from all those gadfly opinions. Government agencies, social media, and university professors are the three legs of this complex. Shellenberger comes to this topic with the fame and credibility of being one of the journalists entrusted by Elon Musk to review the previously secret Twitter Files that exposed the deep involvement of the FBI and other government agencies in censoring public commentary.

Shellenberger’s fifty-three-page Congressional testimony isn’t the first serious effort to synthesize a picture of how the parts of the censorship regime mesh their gears. Before there was Shellenberger, we had Martin Gurri and Mattias Desmet — neither a household name, but both powerful interpreters of our current situation.

Gurri is a former CIA analyst, noted for his 2016 book, The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium, in which he describes “the slow-motion collision of two modes of organizing life: one hierarchical, industrial and top-down, the other networked, egalitarian, bottom-up.” In a recent essay for City Journal, Gurri offers some observations on Shellenberger’s testimony. “The Republicans,” he writes, “are caught in a circular dilemma: they need the presidency to be heard above the censorship, yet the censorship radically diminishes their chances of getting to the White House.” He also observes that “the establishment Left… can’t survive politically without control of the web — and it dwells in a dim institutional bubble where self-interest is forever confused with the salvation of democracy.”

Mattias Desmet is a Belgian professor of clinical psychology and at first glance too offshore to be a likely source of wisdom on America’s censorial conflicts on disinformation. But his work, especially his book The Psychology of Totalitarianism, has found an eager audience in the States. He is an exponent of the idea of “mass formation” as a kind of collective hypnosis in which the public is manipulated via technology. Our fears become the lever by which government accrues more and more power.

Shellenberger’s testimony is richly detailed, but it is more than a heap of facts. He has his eye on the history of the government’s programs of disinformation-justified-as-combatting-disinformation going back to Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell address, in which he warned of the converging self-interest of government contractors and the Department of Defense. In Shellenberger’s view, the new censorship has roots in the post-9/11 War on Terror, but what drove it over the edge into a kind of government insanity were the fateful events of 2016: Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. These were both popular revolts against the security state’s perceived self-interest.

I have said more than enough about Shellenberger’s remarks, which deserve to be read in full. But let me not leave the topic of prevarication in our national life without tipping my hat to some of the other spelunkers in the Great Mammoth Cave of Deceit. I’ve been reading up on the topic, and I will mention three recent works: Aja Raden’s The Truth About Lies, Robert W. Malone’s Lies My Gov’t Told Me and Rod Dreher’s Live Not by Lies. These are works which, apart from the titles, have little in common. Raden is a jeweler, who headed the auction division of an estate jeweler and became a respected jewelry designer as well as an accomplished writer. Her book attempts to explain how and why we deceive ourselves, and her background suggests that she knows a thing or two about how we assist others down that path.

Malone is the physician who invented the first mRNA vaccine in the 1980s but then argued vociferously against the use of mRNA vaccines during the COVID-19 epidemic. His warnings only succeeded in getting him targeted as one of the prime spreaders of dangerous “disinformation.” His book comes with a foreword by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; twelve of its thirty-six chapters are written by others, including one by Mattias Desmet.

Dreher’s Live Not by Lies, subtitled “A Manual for Christian Dissidents,” takes up the topic of progressive attempts “to marginalize conservatives.” Dreher sees the technology-enabled “surveillance state” as part of the new “soft totalitarianism.” His answer to this threat is pietist: stand firm. Refuse to affirm the lies. Learn to live under persecution because that’s what’s coming.

It would be nice if I could conclude with the cheery thought that the Rule of the Censors is itself about to be buffeted by the chilly winds of truth-telling. Perfect candor will never be our lot, but couldn’t we find our way a little north of the line — the one that lies beyond the boundaries of Washington, DC — that separates orchestrated deceit from Barnumesque rodomontade?

Alas, looking at a recent poll of college students, the answer is maybe no. We have raised a generation of students who believe (by a 74 percent plurality) that using official power to silence those with whom you disagree is just fine.

Let’s hope that some of them were lying to the pollsters.

Proofread for grammar by TPR

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Sunday Strip: Extremists from the Other Side of the World.

Malone funnies.

If you have a picture or mime, or gif, post it.

ROBERT W MALONE MD, MS

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Why we don’t need Wind and Solar as a major supplier of energy. Power plant at landfill updated.

Coal that will be burned to generate electricity moves down a conveyor belt at the American Electric Power Co. (AEP) coal-fired John E. Amos Power Plant in Winfield, West Virginia, U.S., on Wednesday, July 18, 2018. American Electric Power Co., Duke Energy Corp., and others say they can't recoup money they spent to meet requirements to cut mercury and other air toxics from their facilities and therefore want the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to retain the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule as is. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Why we don’t need Wind and Solar as a major supplier of energy. Power plant at landfill updated.

EDL, a global energy producer, and project stakeholders including Republic Services have started operations at the Carbon Limestone Renewable Natural Gas Facility near Youngstown.

EDL owns and operates a portfolio of 97 power stations in North America, Australia and Europe. It has upgraded an existing landfill gas-to-energy power plant to a renewable natural gas facility near Republic Services’ Carbon Limestone Landfill. It is said to be one of the largest plants of its kind in North America.

Renewable natural gas is biogas that has been upgraded and placed in the conventional natural gas system.

Partners in the venture are NW Natural Renewables and Pennant Midwest. A goal of the project, those involved said, is decarbonizing their energy system across North America and reaching climate goals.

The new facility is designed to process and condition landfill gas — a by-product of naturally decomposing materials in the Carbon Limestone Landfill — and is expected to ramp up to 1.7 million British thermal units of pipeline-quality renewable natural gas in 2024.

Richard M. DiGia, EDL chief executive officer-North America, said EDL is proud to leverage its waste-to-clean energy expertise to drive development and construction of the Carbon Limestone project.

“The limestone facility is one of the largest plants of its kind in North America. It captures landfill gas that would otherwise be wasted and converts it into renewable natural gas that is a clean fuel source for powering vehicles, heating homes through the natural gas system, or electricity generation,” DiGia said.

“This facility is designed to produce volumes of RNG comparable to removing the emissions from 13,170 passenger vehicles from our roads each year. … We’re pleased to be assisting a key customer to progress toward their goal of decarbonizing through renewable natural gas supply.”

Republic Services Inc. provides customers with services such as recycling, solid waste, special waste, hazardous waste, container rental and field services. Republic Services said it has set ambitious sustainability goals to reduce emissions and increase the beneficial reuse of biogas by 2030.

“At Republic Services, our vision is to partner with customers to create a more sustainable world now and for future generations,” Republic Services Area President Chris Nie said.

“Through our partnership with EDL, we are capturing gas that is created by decomposing waste in our landfill. This project allows us to convert that gas into a lower-carbon fuel source that reduces greenhouse gas emissions.”

NW Natural Renewables, a competitive RNG business, has agreements in place for a 20-year supply of RNG produced by the facility. NW Natural Renewables Holdings said it is committed to leading in the energy transition and providing renewable fuels to support decarbonization in the utility, commercial, industrial and transportation sectors.

“We’re excited for this project to begin operations and start providing renewable natural gas to NW Natural Renewables and its customers,” said Mike Kotyk, president of NW Natural Renewables. “We believe renewable natural gas will play a critical role in decarbonizing our energy system across North America and helping us reach our collective climate goals.”

Pennant will transport up to 6,000 cubic feet of RNG per day through its existing system from the landfill, redelivering the gas to EDL’s downstream markets. Pennant is a wholly owned subsidiary of UGI Energy Services

Pennant Midstream operates both wet and dry gas and natural gas liquid gathering pipelines in Mercer and Lawrence counties, Pa.; and Mahoning and Columbiana counties in Ohio. Pennant operates a giant natural gas processing plant located near New Middletown.

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Oklahoma Building $2 Billion Theme Park That Rivals Magic Kingdom

Going after Disney?

Oklahoma Building $2 Billion Theme Park That Rivals Magic Kingdom. Disney is the King of the hill when it comes to theme parks. But a new player has arrived.

This from Gateway Pundit.

The House of Mouse is getting some competition.

It was announced Wednesday that over $2 billion will be spent to open American Heartland Theme Park and Resort in northeast Oklahoma.

The proposed 125-acre park is comparable to Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, located in Orlando, Florida, and Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

“The park will feature an Americana-themed environment with a variety of entertaining rides, live shows, family attractions, waterways as well as restaurant-quality food and beverage offerings,” the release said.

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Ohio More than Doubles Budget for Pregnancy Resource Centers

Looking out for the mother and baby. Nic Coury for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Ohio More than Doubles Budget for Pregnancy Resource Centers.

By ELAINE MALLON

 

Available funding for pregnancy resource centers in Ohio has more than doubled for the next two years.

Gov. Mike DeWine signed the state’s budget in late June, allocating $14 million for the Department of Job and Family Services’ Parenting and Pregnancy Program, which distributes grants to nonprofits that assist families, moms, and babies — including pregnancy resource centers, WDNT reported. The state’s new budget for pregnancy resource centers is up by $8 million. 

Services provided by pregnancy resource centers include offering pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, clothing and baby supplies, as well as referrals, medical support, maternity housing, and state assistance programs. Their mission is to encourage women to choose life for their child. 

“The majority of women who have abortions report that they did it because they lacked resources and they lacked community,” Beth Vanderkooi, executive director of the Greater Columbus Right to Life, told NBC 4. “They’re alone – they don’t have a partner; they don’t have a family; they don’t have that support. Pregnancy centers are there to walk with women.”

The move comes as the state’s six week abortion ban has been blocked by a judge since October. 

With more than 200 pregnancy resource centers across the state, a 2021 study by Ohio State University found one in seven women of reproductive age have visited a pregnancy resource center.  

However, many on the left mischaracterize pregnancy resource centers as “fake clinics” that “spread misinformation.”

State Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D) called this budget appropriation meant to help women “unfortunate.”
“It’s unfortunate that we are spending quite significantly – any public money – towards health care that is not trusting women to make their own decisions and get all of the information that they need,” Sweeney said.

Other states have even gone as far as to ban funding for pregnancy resource centers. In April, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed “$2 million in state funding into a program to promote childbirth for unplanned pregnancies,” the Kansas Reflector reported.

 

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America's Heartland Biden Pandemic Corruption COVID Faked news

The Amish Died of COVID at a Rate 90 Times LOWER Than the Rest of America

 

FROM THE VIGILANT FOX

“I did the calculation,” testified Steve Kirsch in front of the Pennsylvania State Senate.

Given that five Amish people died in Lancaster County, PA, “the Amish died at a rate 90 times lower than the infection fatality rate of the United States of America.”

“Now, how is that possible?” Steve Kirsch asked. “It’s possible because the Amish aren’t vaccinated. And because the Amish didn’t follow a single guideline of the CDC,” he answered.

“They did not lock down. They did not mask. They did not social distance. They did not vaccinate, and there were no mandates in the Amish community to get vaccinated. They basically ignored every single guideline that the CDC gave us. Ignoring those guidelines meant a death rate 90 times lower than the rest of America.”

 

Here’s the video transcript for those who want to read more:

Let’s talk about the Amish. Yesterday, I drove to Lancaster County (Pennsylvania). I drove to Amish country. I drove from house to house to house. I actually went to the house of a relative of Gideon King. He’s the one person, the only known person in the Amish community who supposedly died from COVID — that I’m aware of.

Now, they say there may be up to five people in Lancaster County who died from COVID, but I was unable to get the names of five people. I offered a $2,500 reward on Twitter. Hey, give me the names of more than five people in Lancaster County who died from COVID. Not a single person was able to name more than one person. They all named Gideon King. One guy.

So, I actually went to the house of Sam King, who’s a relative of Gideon King. And I talked to Sam. He doesn’t know if Gideon actually died from COVID or not. He died in the hospital. They think it was COVID, but maybe he died from the COVID hospital protocols. Okay.

So, you look at the Amish. I did the calculation. Let’s say there were five Amish people — because people say, I think there were maybe a few, or maybe there were five Amish people. And then I asked them, okay, can you name them? And nobody can name them.

But let’s say that we could name them — and there were five Amish people who died. That means the Amish died at a rate 90 times lower than the infection fatality rate of the United States of America. The Amish died at 90 times lower rate from COVID than America — than the rest of America.

Now, how is that possible? It’s possible because the Amish aren’t vaccinated. And because the Amish didn’t follow a single guideline of the CDC. They did not lock down. They did not mask. They did not social distance, They did not vaccinate, and there were no mandates in the Amish community to get vaccinated. They basically ignored every single guideline that the CDC gave us. Ignoring those guidelines meant a death rate 90 times lower than the rest of America.

So you talk about taking guidance from the WHO? Why don’t we copy what works? In fact, wouldn’t it be great to say in the next pandemic that Pennsylvania will take guidance from the Amish instead of the WHO? And you will be much, much better off.

Steve Kirsch breaks down the numbers in more detail on his Substack page:
Steve Kirsch’s newsletter
BREAKING: The US COVID mitigation measures resulted in 90X higher COVID deaths
Executive summary On May 22, 2023, I offered a $2,500 reward for anyone to give me the names of more than 5 Amish people in Lancaster, PA (which is the world’s largest single community of Amish people with over 45,000 people) who died from COVID. Nobody could do that. I got a few names. And nobody could name anyone under 50 years old who was suspected of…
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