Just wait until they put copper depositories in public parking lots and on the streets

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replacing a stolen hydrant:”hundreds stolen in recent years”

But that’s nothing, compared to what’s coming; scrap copper is currently going for $3.33 a pound

And this, from Blink, a supplier of EV charging stations:

Cutting the Cord: The Shocking Reality of EV Charger Vandalism

Electric vehicles (EVs) have been steadily gaining traction in the automotive industry, promising a cleaner and more sustainable future. However, as the EV market expands, a concerning issue has arisen – the theft and vandalism of EV charging cables, primarily for their valuable copper content. This blog explores the growing problem of copper theft from EV chargers and the steps being taken at Blink Mobility to protect its charging infrastructure.

The Copper Connection

Copper is a highly sought-after metal with a long history of industrial use. It’s a critical component of EV charging cables due to its excellent conductivity, making it ideal for efficiently transferring electrical power. The price of copper on the global market has been rising, which, unfortunately, has attracted unwanted attention from thieves and vandals.

The Appeal of Copper Theft

The motives behind the theft of charging cables, particularly for their copper content, can be multifaceted:

  1. Copper Market: The rise in copper prices has turned these cables into valuable commodities on the black market, enticing criminals looking for quick financial gain.

  2. Easy Targets: Charging stations are often located in parking lots or public spaces, like Blink Mobility, making them accessible to thieves who can quickly cut and steal the cables.

  3. Low Risk: Thieves may perceive this type of theft as low-risk, as it often occurs in less crowded areas with minimal surveillance.

  4. Environmental Impact: Ironically, the theft of EV charging cables poses an environmental threat by disrupting the growth of electric mobility, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Consequences of Copper Theft

The consequences of copper theft from charging cables are far-reaching:

  1. Charging Station Downtime: Vandalized charging cables render charging stations unusable, causing inconvenience and frustration for EV owners and Blink Mobility’s car sharing members. Fewer chargers available means lower battery levels for our car sharing members and sometimes even fewer cars available if there isn’t a place to charge the EV.

  2. Financial Implications: Repairing or replacing damaged cables is costly, diverting funds from expanding charging networks or leading to higher charging fees. For the copper value of a few dollars, vandals are causing thousands in EV charger repairs.

  3. Environmental Setbacks: Copper theft hinders efforts to promote clean energy and sustainable transportation, obstructing the reduction of carbon emissions.

  4. Negative Public Image: News stories about charger vandalism create a negative image of the EV community and discourage potential adopters.

Thank God, our FBI is focused like a laser on the REAL terrorists

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No, not Antifa burning police cars:

In case you missed it, on May 31, the Justice Department announced:

Paulette Harlow was sentenced today to 24 months in prison following her convictions for federal conspiracy against rights and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act offenses in connection with the blockade of a Washington, D.C., area reproductive health clinic on Oct. 22, 2020.

Assistant Director Michael Nordwall of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division commented, “Today, the final defendant was sentenced in an elaborate conspiracy by 10 people to intentionally and forcibly block patients and workers from accessing a reproductive health clinic while streaming it live online. The FBI will not stand for anyone who violates federal laws causing destruction, injury, and violent attacks like this one. We are dedicated to protecting the rights of all Americans to safely access medical services and ensuring providers can perform their duties freely.”

The Daily Caller reports that Harlow is 75 years old. She is wheelchair-bound and suffers from Hashimoto's disease and back pain that requires her to use a wheelchair. She is hardly the picture of a fiery, dangerous activist. Her attorney asked the judge for leniency, as did her husband, John. He told the court, “I feel like Paulette is dying. In my heart, I think she’s having a hard time staying alive.”

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly actually found Harlow's husband's pleas for leniency amusing and took the opportunity to make light of the situation.

And who let them in and then released them to roam about the country in the first place?

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nothing to see here

Americans are warned a terror attack is likely after 'enormous' surge in threats and sinister plots nationwide being thwarted

Attorney General says threats of terror attack 'gone up tremendously'

Attorney General Merrick Garland made the astonishing admission while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday during a hearing dedicated to investigating the department's politicization. 

'I am worried about the possibility of a terrorist attack in the country after October 7,' Attorney General Garland said. 'The threat level for us has gone up enormously.'

'Every morning, we worry about this question. We try to track anyone who might be trying to hurt the country,' he continued. 'Of course, this is a major priority for the Justice Department.'

FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking to a different committee on the other side of Capitol Hill in the Senate, agreed, saying 'we have seen the threat from foreign terrorists rise to a whole other level' after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack.

We have seen a rouges' gallery of foreign terrorist organizations call for attacks against Americans and our allies,' Wray said.

'Just in the time I have been FBI director we have disrupted multiple terror attacks around U.S. cities.' 

'I would be hard pressed to think of a time when so many different threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at the same time.' 

Wray said threats against Jewish Americans has been particularly acute.  

'We've seen an elevated threat to the Jewish community in the United States.'

Though he said Jewish communities were targeted before the October 7 attack, since then the threats 'went up dramatically.'

'Religiously motivated hate crimes, close to 60 percent of them, are targeted at the Jewish community,' Wray testified, noting how the community only makes up two percent of the U.S. population.

'Increasingly concerning is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, not unlike an attack we saw in the Russia theater.'

One vector for threats to enter the country is through the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the FBI chief.

'Individuals who when they come in are armed with fake documents or snuck in some way or individuals of whom there's not enough derogatory information in the intelligence community to watchlist them,' have been of particular concern, Wray testified.

'As we have less collection overseas against foreign terrorism, there's less sources of information' to denote which individuals entering the U.S. are threats, the FBI director said. 

Though there have been numerous reports of known terrorists entering the country illegally through the southern border, non-watchlisted suspects, on which there is scant intelligence, also pose a great concern, Wray told the senators.

These individuals pose a threat because once in the interior they are difficult to track - and then it may take take an FBI terrorist task force response to regain surveillance on such people.

>>>>

Additionally, he said the threat from fentanyl smuggling has increased, adding that there have been individual seizures of the drug that could 'wipe out an entire state.' 

One of those FBI raids in New Mexico found enough fentanyl to kill every person in the state 'along with hand grenades, ballistic vests, you know, the whole nine yards.'

And the fentanyl problem is tied to the other side of the border, Wray said, referencing Mexico. 

Sorry to have missed this story originally, but fortunately, Stephen Green has brought it back

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20 Years Ago Today: Killdozer Smash

20 years ago today — June 4, 2004 — the tiny Colorado town of Granby suffered the worst terrorist attack in its 120-year history. OK, the only terrorist attack. It was on this day that Marvin Heemeyer rampaged through town in his customized Killdozer.

Heemeyer, a 52-year-old small business owner, seemed at first like a good neighbor. An Air Force vet and a South Dakota native, he moved to neighboring Grand Lake, Colo., in 1989 after his USAF stint and seems to have been generally well-liked. 

Nevertheless, Heemeyer would spend the last 18 months of his life holed up in an otherwise unused part of his old muffler shop, modifying a Komatsu D355A bulldozer into an impenetrable battering ram. Calling it Marv's Komatsu Tank (or MK Tank), Heemeyer armored the tank with concrete and steel plates. There were external video cameras — shrouded with ballistic glass and complete with compressed air nozzles to clear away dust — so he could remain inside, fully protected.

There was an A/C unit and fans. Steel-plated gun ports. Ballistic plastic. And enough food and water for a week.

At about 2:15 pm, Heemeyer busted Killdozer out of its hiding place and right into Mountain Park Concrete, owned by the rival Docheff family.

The city quickly took up arms, with civilians and police firing more than 200 rounds into KIlldozer to no avail. Undersheriff Glenn Trainer even climbed on top with his pistol, looking for a way to shoot inside.

Killdozer made its way through more than a dozen buildings and various streetlamps and roadsigns. Attempts to stop it with a front-end loader and two tractor-scrapers were brushed aside. 

Heemeyer didn't just smash things. He opened the steel plates protecting the gun ports to fire on power transmitters and the tanks at a propane storage yard, apparently trying to start a blaze. Residents were alerted via reverse 911 calls to evacuate and, somehow, no one was killed or injured.

….

For starters, Heemeyer's behavior became increasingly erratic. A 1992 fight with the city over a sewer line devolved into a years-long battle, including him pumping his muffler shop's sewage into an irrigation ditch. Later, when he tried to sell the property, he kept demanding more money from the buyer, claiming at least twice to have had it reappraised higher. There were fights over legalized gambling, the construction of a cement plant, and more. Throughout it all, Heemeyer would accept various remedies before suddenly changing his mind.

After losing a zoning battle with the town, he even demanded a refund from his attorney — and that's just nuts. [Green is an attorney - Ed] At the time, he was overheard saying to himself, "I'm just gonna bulldozer this whole place to the ground."

Mission: accomplished.

…. Heemeyer took his own life with a .357 after Killdozer got hung up with a track stuck in the basement of the Gambles hardware store. The owner was one of the people he'd had issues with.

Still, who among us hasn't dreamed of getting back at the busybodies of the world in some sensational way?

Marvin Heemeyer made his dream all too real, and the video is spectacular. 

Old Greenwich sale

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28 Lockwood Drive (not to be confused with Lockwood Road, or Lockwood Avenue), listed at $2.495 million, sold for $2.928. 1920 home, 2,200 sq.ft., 0.15 of an acre — lot is 50’ wide, 129’ long — and the street, but not the structure itself, is in the AE flood zone.

In other words, pretty typical sale for this market.

got the bleached zebra

the orange

and the ocelot, because why not?

That would leave her with, what ... two?

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Kathy Griffin Says She Lost a Third of Her Fans Over Trump Severed Head Photo

The Hill reported Saturday that Griffin says she has suffered tremendously for standing valiantly against Bad Orange Man: “One thing that breaks my heart,” the sensitive little shrinking violet and budding professional victim lamented, “is why I would say I’ve lost, probably permanently, about a third of my audience because of the Trump thing.”

Political polemics are not comedy, or didn’t used to be.

And the lawfare continues unabated

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general j. kaul addresses the subjects of wisconsin

After waiting four years, and just in time to (try to) intimidate Trump supporters and those who dare to work for him:

Wisconsin attorney general files felony charges against attorneys, aide who worked for Trump in 2020

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed felony forgery charges Tuesday against two attorneys and an aide who helped submit paperwork falsely saying that former President Donald Trump had won the battleground state in 2020.

The state charges are the first to come in Wisconsin and follow separate charges brought in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Georgia related to the fake electors scheme.

The Wisconsin charges were filed against Trump's attorney in the state, Jim Troupis, 62, attorney Kenneth Chesebro, 62, who was advising the campaign and Mike Roman, 51, who was Trump’s director of Election Day operations. Roman allegedly delivered Wisconsin’s fake elector paperwork to a Pennsylvania congressman’s staffer in order to get them to then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021.

All three are due in Dane County Circuit Court on Sept. 19, according to court records. They each face one felony count punishable by up to six years in prison and fines of up to $10,000.

Troupis and Chesebro did not return voicemail messages left Tuesday. Roman's attorney, Kurt Altman, said he just learned of the charges Tuesday morning and was in the process of reviewing them.

Kaul, a Democrat, didn't rule out filing more charges, including against the 10 fake electors, saying that the investigation is ongoing.

“Our approach has been focused on following the facts where they lead,” he said at a news conference.

Wisconsin Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson called the charges “outrageous.”

“Now Democrats are weaponizing Wisconsin’s judiciary,” Johnson posted on X. “Apparently conservative lawyers advising clients is illegal under Democrat tyranny. Democrats are turning America into a banana republic.”

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers offered a one-word response to news of the charges being filed: “Good.”

The alleged crime was to prepare an alternative slate of electors, labelled as such, and to present that slate to a congressman for preservation in the event that Trump’s challenge to Wisconsin’s election was upheld. Next up, according to this thug, is to prosecute those individuals who’d agreed to stand as alternative electors.

This would be embarrassing if they were capable of embarrasment, but they aren't, so ... (UPDATED)

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Trump moved to enforce existing immigration law, biden has broken it with impunity — who’s the felon?

After letting 11 million illegal aliens into the country during his three years in office, Biden to issue executive order limiting the number to 912,500 annually, plus the gotaways pouring across the unguarded border. The highest number ever admitted during the Trump administration was 300,000; on his first day in office, Biden stopped all border wall construction, ordered the removal of those portions that had already been constructed, and began rescinding the executive orders Trump had issued restricting immigration. How many were rescinded? “Too many to count”.

The details of his new “plan” are now out, and at least some people are unimpressed.

Biden Announces Executive Action on Border, Which Has 'Exceptions Broad Enough to Drive a Truck Through'

In no way can Biden’s executive order be described as “shutting down” the border.

It bans asylum to some illegal crossers, with some exceptions.

It does *not* stop or slow the up to 1,500 migrants per day released into the U.S. via CBP One app at ports of entry, and does not stop or slow the up to 30,000 migrants per month flying directly into the U.S. and being released into the country via Biden’s controversial mass parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.

Unaccompanied children/minors are exempt from the order - which will lead to concerns about child trafficking, and migrants can still claim fear in an attempt to avoid deportation.

Also, asylum has already been banned for most migrants who cross illegally since the end of Title 42 last year - and that hasn’t stopped them from coming. Highest numbers in recorded history end of 2023. 

The order may speed up removals to countries we can deport easily to, (Mexico, northern triangle countries, etc), but there has been no explanation as to how the administration will be able to begin mass removals of migrants coming from another hemisphere with governments that don’t cooperate with the U.S.

Fortunately, Kampallawalla Ding Dong was available to explain things: