Category Archives: drugs

Seattle, failed city

Posted on May 14, 2023 by | 8 comments

I recently returned from a trip to Seattle – my first since 2019 due to their strict Wuhan virus restrictions implemented in 2020.

What I saw was just so depressing. A demorat-run city that is in ruins. Recent pictures I had seen on social media of the homelessness that runs rampant in Seattle:

I saw homeless camps along the freeway that I had never seen before when I previously lived there for decades.

Driving along the I-5 through Seattle was just ugly. So much “tagging” (graffiti) on the concrete walls and traffic signs. A friend told me that much of the tagging has been cleaned up since the 2020 riots. He also told me that the Seattle Police to this day will not stop anyone from tagging. An example of what the tagging looked like in 2020. It’s better today yet was still all along the I-5 corridor.

Along with the endless homelessness situation, crime, tagging and fentanyl crisis in demorat-run Seattle, residents in a certain zip code must now pick up their mail due to vandalism and theft.

From MyNorthwest.com:

“Some south Seattle residents are claiming a significant ‘mail fail’ is occurring as the United States Postal Service (USPS) has halted mail delivery due to a rise in recent vandalism and theft.

A sign at a nearby U.S. Postal Service office in Columbia City is telling residents in the “98118” zip code to pick up their mail in person at an annex office, located at 5920 Martin Luther King Jr Way South. The zip code covers around 49,000 people — but it’s unclear how many of them are not getting their mail delivered.

A visit to that annex office Thursday afternoon revealed a line of more than a dozen people waiting for their mail. A single employee was seen helping them.

One woman named Jenny told KIRO Newsradio that she had no official communication with USPS, but that her local postal carrier told her, “this was going to take a long while to fix and we had to come [to the annex office] to get our mail.”

Seward Park resident Barbara Myers said her postal carrier told her the issue was caused by a recent theft. “They haven’t been delivering mail for four days because a master key that operates all the boxes in Seward Park has been stolen,” Myers said.

When questioned about any thefts of mailbox master keys in that area, USPS Inspection Service spokesperson John Wiegand said there are active investigations, but declined to provide details.

“Property crime has been on the rise in the Seattle area, in the Northwest, and kind of across the country — and mail theft is unfortunately one of those areas that have been targeted significantly with that uptick in crime,” Wiegand said.”

Read the whole story here.

Ain’t demorat-run Seattle grand!

DCG

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San Francisco, failed city

Posted on May 13, 2023 by | 7 comments

Man caught pooping in aisle of a Safeway store in San Francisco. (Khon2)

Matthew Lynn reports for The (UK) Telegraph, May 7, 2023:

San Francisco should be one of the best retail centres globally; an easy place to sell every kind of luxury good, fashion essentials and high end electronics. The money is there, as well as the people to spend it.

Yet this week, the department store Nordstrom announced it was shutting its locations in the city, joining a growing exodus of big name retailers. Household brands are in despair over the damage inflicted by an ultra-woke local government….

Nordstrom’s announcement was yet another blow for San Francisco’s battered retail industry. The company told employees it would not be renewing its leases at the Westfield Mall, nor at the Nordstrom Rack across the street, due to the “changed dynamics” in the city.

The “deteriorating situation in downtown San Francisco,” Westfield Mall told the Washington Post, has left both customers and staff unsafe.

The retailer is hardly the first to put up the “closing down sale” signs. The upmarket grocery chain Whole Foods has shuttered a flagship store; the H&M, Gap and Banana Republic have all left. While some British high streets risk becoming boarded-up wastelands, they could soon look positively vibrant compared to what used to be known as “the golden city”.

There is no great mystery here. Under its ultra-woke Mayor, London Breed, San Francisco has been testing out a wide array of faddish, progressive policies. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, Breed was one of the first to jump on the “defund the police” bandwagon, cutting $120 million from the law and order budget.

Sales and corporate taxes have been pushed up. Homelessness has been tolerated right across the city centre. Motorists reportedly leave car windows and doors unlocked to deter overnight break-ins.

Last summer, a groups of business officials wrote to officials threatening to stop paying taxes if politicians failed to clear litter from the streets and stop people from openly taking drugs….

The quality of life has deteriorated steadily in San Francisco, not least for those who cannot afford to escape to the wealthier suburbs. Businesses are shunning the city, perhaps deterred by an increasingly unfavourable local tax, social and regulatory environment.

In 2021, foreign direct investment into new projects in San Francisco fell to their lowest level since 2009. And as shops close, real estate prices are tumbling. Let’s not forget that one of the big reasons the San Francisco based First Republic Bank had to be rescued was because of expected losses on property loans. The city is slipping into a vicious cycle of decline from which it is hard to see any exit….

There is a lesson in the closure of Nordstrom in San Francisco. It is one of the wealthiest places in the world. It has a per capita income of $160,000 (£126,000), according to figures from the Federal Reserve….

It is often complacently assumed that businesses will just take any amount of punishment so long as there are still customers with money to spend. You can push taxes up to any level you like, let crime run out of control, turn the streets over to vagrants, and impose as many virtue-signalling rules and regulations as you can think of, and they will stoically put up with it all because they need the market. San Francisco is a warning that that is simply not true.

There is always a final straw. That was true of Nordstrom and the golden city…. Ultra left local governments can destroy even successful cities – and once it starts it is almost impossible to reverse.

~E

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Posted in Crime, drugs, Finances, The Left, woke culture

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Pray for our youth: Transgender doctor says “age is just a number”

Posted on November 2, 2022 by | 2 comments

In this case, a very profitable number for this doctor…

Dr. Nadia Dowshen specializes in LBGT issues associated with minors and is the medical director and co-founder of the Gender and Sexuality Development Clinic.

A video has resurfaced of her from 2020 claiming that when it comes to performing sex change surgery on minors, “age is just a number.”

She went on to suggest that a child’s maturity was more important than their exact age. Watch the video at the Daily Mail here.

The good doctor says that at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, they perform ‘top surgery’ on patients as young as 14, which involves removing or implanting breasts.

According to the Daily Mail article, when asked about whether there were age limits in place for sex change surgeries, Dr. Dowshen said: ‘It is important to remember that age is a number. But as an adolescent medicine and developmental specialist, we know that where a child is cognitively and socially is more important than that exact number of their age.’

Here’s the kicker:

“Dr. Dowshen was also asked about the potentially life-altering effects of hormone drugs given to transgender minors, which can cause infertility. She said that many youngsters with gender dysphoria ‘are not interested in having children at all’.

Read the whole article here.

These “gender affirming” surgeries are very costly.  According to costhelperhealth:

“For patients not covered by health insurance, the typical cost of a sex reassignment surgery can range from about $15,000 for just reconstruction of the genitals to about $25,000 for operations on the genitals and chest to $50,000 or more for procedures that include operations to make facial features more masculine or feminine.”

Nice money to be made there for the clinic Dr Dowshen co-founded.

I’d like to see Dr. Dowshen go into a courtroom and tell the judge that when dealing with a minor, “age is just a number.”

These life-altering drugs and surgeries given to confused minors with gender dysphoria causes irreversible damage.

We need to pray that the current trend of mutilating minors comes to a complete stop.

We need to pray for our youth.

DCG

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Find a common theme: Starbucks closing 16 US stores for safety issues

Posted on July 13, 2022 by | 5 comments

I wonder what these cities where Starbucks is closing stores all have in common?

From Yahoo:

“Starbucks is shuttering 16 existing locations.

The company announced Tuesday, per The Wall Street Journal, that cafes in Los Angeles; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; Philadelphia; and Washington, D.C., would permanently close by the end of July following safety concerns.

“After careful consideration, we are closing some stores in locations that have experienced a high volume of challenging incidents that make it unsafe to continue to operate, to open new locations with safer conditions,” a spokesperson told Insider in a statement.

They continued, “We look forward to continuing to serve these local communities and encourage our customers to visit us at our other stores in these areas, which can be found on the Starbucks App or Starbucks Store Locator.”

Insider and Wall Street Journal report that Starbucks’ decision follows incidents regarding drug use by customers and other members of the public in certain locations.

A public letter from Starbucks senior vice presidents of U.S. operations Debbie Stroud and Denise Nelson shared the company’s desire to make its locations safe for its guests and employees.

“We read every incident report you file – it’s a lot,” the letter said, in part. “We want you to know that creating a safe, welcoming, and kind third place is our top priority.”

The letter said that the programs and benefits “to ensure you feel more supported and empowered” include “robust safety trainings for all partners” and the ability to modify operations, including “closing a restroom, or even closing a store permanently, where safety in the third place is no longer possible.” It also said that benefits to “support your mental health” and “help create emotional and financial safety” are available, among other support programs.”

Read the whole story here.

Such a shame. Our cities should not be closing stores due to local safety issues while trying to create a “planet positive impact” experience.

If kindness was all around us, why the need to close these stores? Respect and the desire for us all to thrive should be a priority.

Keep the faith that we can all Build Back Better Together at some point in the future.

DCG

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High Times in the Big Apple

Posted on November 30, 2021 by | 5 comments

 

Lost in lethal dreams, a junkie destroys his life on a sidewalk.

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio is opening the country’s first “supervised shooting galleries” for junkies, a measure he believes will help keep addicts from shooting up openly on the sidewalks of Manhattan as they now do routinely. His nonprofit-run “Overdose Prevention Centers” are located in East Harlem and Washington Heights, and are expected to open as early as Tuesday (Nov. 30).

The locations were chosen based on “health need and depth of program experience,” according to the NYC Health Department. The sites will provide clean needles and social services. Addicts have to bring their own dope.
According to de Blasio, the shooting galleries are a safe and effective way to address the opioid crisis. “I’m proud to show cities in this country that after decades of failure, a smarter approach is possible,” de Blasio said in a statement Tuesday.

The mayor had attempted to create drug shooting galleries prior to the election of Joe Biden to the presidency but was unsuccessful.
The mayor tried to push the controversial proposal to open a total of four sites before, but was blocked by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and President Donald Trump, who both opposed the plan.

Opposition to the program continues today.
City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) was skeptical about the program’s effectiveness.

“British Columbia has led North America in safe injection sites, all while crossing overdose death milestones every month. How anyone can see this as a solution to a serious problem is beyond me, never mind the concerns of the neighbors,” Borelli told The Post Tuesday.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), whose district includes Staten Island and parts of southern Brooklyn, called on the Department of Justice to block the sites, noting that under former President Trump the DOJ said such sites would violate the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Malliotakis wrote U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland Tuesday urging him to “take swift action to enforce federal law.”

The congresswoman cited a Jan. 2021 Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that determined it was a federal crime for a supervised injection site run by a Philadelphia nonprofit to allow consumption of illegal drug use at its location.
“Instead of focusing on the root cause of the drug epidemic, Mayor de Blasio is enabling drug cartels that continue to break our laws, smuggle illegal drugs over our border, and prey on our children,” Malliotakis said.

“Crime and fentanyl use are at record highs because of open borders, botched bail reform, and anti-police policies that keep releasing criminal drug dealers back onto our streets. Opening taxpayer-funded heroin shooting galleries is not a proper solution. These centers not only encourage drug use but they will further deteriorate our quality of life,” she said.

~ Grif

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Posted in Crime, drugs, Evil, Health, Joe Biden, The Left, Uncategorized

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