The city's been a hellhole of addiction, homelessness and crime for years, so this will be a relief to the still-remaining law-abiding residents

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tough luck

One year ago, July 31 2023:

Ruais Wants to Close Manchester’s Homeless Camp ‘Loophole’

Manchester’s police are hamstrung when dealing with the twin crises of homelessness and addiction, thanks in part to a city ordinance that allows homeless people to camp on public property, according to mayoral candidate Jay Ruais.

The lone Republican in the race to replace Democrat Joyce Craig, Ruais is backing an effort to change the city ordinance prohibiting camping on public property. Under ordinance 130.13, police cannot currently stop someone from setting up a tent on city property. That needs to change, Ruais said.

“We have a significant homelessness crisis in our city, and it is impacting the community at large. In order to make sure our businesses are thriving, and the quality of life for residents and visitors to Manchester is not threatened, we must give our police and first responders the proper tools to address this issue,” Ruais said.

Alderman At Large Joseph Kelly Levasseur is pushing a change to the ordinance to make it easier for police to keep people from sleeping on the streets. The ordinance currently prohibits the camps, but with a loophole: It allows homeless people to stay on the street if no shelter space is available.

Levasseur wants the Board of Aldermen to remove that exception, allowing police to enforce the camping prohibition. Camping on public property without a permit carries a possible $250 fine. Ruais said enforcing ordinances against camping is an important step toward addressing the city’s homeless problem.

“We must deal with this issue in a comprehensive way, one that includes enforcement of our ordinances, addressing the underlying causes of this crisis like addiction and mental health while increasing the availability of affordable housing. What we cannot do is govern in fear of lawsuits, and I support this proposed ordinance change,” Ruais said.

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Manchester has struggled for years with its homeless crisis. In 2021, the city had about 360 unsheltered people, according to the NH Coalition to End Homelessness annual report. According to city officials, that number has jumped to about 540 people this year.

Much of the homeless population lives in tents and shelters scattered throughout the city, leaving many residents feeling unsafe in their neighborhoods. Craig, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, acknowledged this year that half of the city’s opioid overdose cases happen in homeless camps.

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The issue is expected to be front and center in the governor’s race next year if Craig defeats Executive Councilor Warmington for the Democratic nomination.

Asked recently about Craig’s candidacy, Gov. Chris Sununu replied, “Seriously, does anyone want the state of New Hampshire run like Manchester?”

Craig has attempted to blame Sununu and the state government for Manchester’s homeless problem.

“Manchester and communities across the state have been working to address the growing homelessness crisis for years, and mayors have repeatedly asked for the state to collaborate with us to find solutions,” Craig said in a May 2023 statement. “Our communities need a partner in Concord who understands that we can only solve this homelessness crisis if we all work together.”

November 7 2023:

Ruais wins Manchester mayoral race, as voters across state cast ballots in local elections

First-time candidate Jay Ruais was the big winner in New Hampshire’s municipal elections Tuesday, claiming a narrow victory in a closely-fought race to become the next mayor of Manchester.

The campaign between Ruais — a National Guard member and former Republican congressional staffer — and Democratic Alderman Kevin Cavanaugh turned on core economic issues like housing, downtown revitalization, and homelessness in the state’s largest city. But in cities across the state Tuesday, voters voiced similar concerns about their local economies as they cast ballots in races for mayor, city council and other municipal positions.

"The homelessness issue we have here, as well as the costs of housing, are probably the biggest issues for me,” said Brendan Grothe, a voter in Manchester’s Ward 11. “So I'm voting for whoever I think has got the best ideas to try and address those issues."

And it was $1.69 on Inauguration Day, 2021

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I did that

White House touts $3.49 gas, one cent cheaper than last July 4th

I happen to remember that because I filled my tank that day and while I was standing by the pump, remembered that Biden was being sworn in in about an hour, and had promised during his campaign to declare war on oil, beginning with cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office. Which he did, and then proceeded to cancel oil exploration leases and put hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land off-limits to oil and gas exploration. He made lots of promises at the time, and he’s kept most of them, to disastrous effect.

Speaking of which ....

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From Politifact:

Broadly, the word senile is defined as pertaining to old age. But often it is used by some people in association with memory loss problems or diseases that are not a normal part of aging.

PolitiFact contacted experts in the health care of older people for their take on Hume’s use of the word senile and its application to Biden. They said Hume’s characterization is wrong.

It’s "a shameful display of ageism and ignorance," said Donald Jurivich, Eva Gilbertson Distinguished Professor of Geriatrics and Chairman of Geriatrics at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences.

Powerline's Scott Johnson first began posting this excerpt from Calvin Coolidge's Independence Day speech in 2004: it seems more prescient with each passing year

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THE ETERNAL MEANING OF INDEPENDENCE DAY

President Calvin Coolidge celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1926, with a speech providing a magisterial review of the history and thought underlying the Declaration. His speech on the occasion deserves to be read and studied in its entirety. The following paragraph, however, is particularly relevant to the challenge that confronts us in the variants of the progressive dogma that pass themselves off today as the higher wisdom:

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

The Supreme Court erred, and this is the result

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It’s actually an acceleration, not the beginning of the state’s and its social media branch’s attack on free speech. Already, Google, Facebook, et al, have demonetized conservative websites by refusing to run ads on any article discussing global warming, transgenderism, school unions, COVID responses, from lockdowns t masks to vaccines — the list is endless. Facebook’s just upping the ante, and, emboldened by the Supremes, the rest of the evil empire is sure to follow suit.

Facebook (Meta) Censors Thousands of Mainers After SCOTUS Green Lights Feds to Coerce Social Media

Facebook, the flagship social media site of Meta Platforms, Inc., deleted thousands of social media posts from users in Maine on Friday night.

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Facebook’s broad censorship campaign removed more than 3,000 posts made by social media users, including users living outside of Maine, who had linked to Maine Wire articles, including elected officials posting their own op-eds.

The mass takedown began just 24 hours after President Joe Biden gave a debate performance that was widely regarded as disastrous for his re-election campaign.

The Maine Wire’s Facebook page had primarily been sharing videos of the Commander-in-Chief debating former Republican President Donald Trump in the hours before the censorship campaign began.

However, the nature of the posts that were removed were broad and varied, and not all of them political or authored by Maine Wire reporters.

According to a review of hundreds of complaints sent to the Maine Wire about the censorship campaign, the posts Facebook targeted have no theme or commonality other than having links to TheMaineWire.com.

Facebook removed a May 2023 story about the Stand by to Fly practical shooting event in Hampden, which raised $75,000 for the Travis Mills Foundation.

Rep. Regan Paul (R-Winterport) shared screenshots showing that her more recent op-ed about offshore wind in Maine — a project that will directly impact her constituents — was removed from her personal page. In this instance, an elected officials own speech concerning a major political topic was removed from her personal page.

The censored stories also include dozens of investigative reports on illegal Chinese marijuana sites throughout Maine.

For example, Facebook deleted all links to an investigative report that showed Gov. Janet Mills’ brother, Paul Mills, helped Chinese drug traffickers transfer ownership of an illicit marijuana cultivation site in Corinna to a Chinese national living in Guangdong Province, China.

Facebook even took down a guest column about the New England Patriots.

Understand, The Maine Wire is not some fire-breathing, anarchist/commieAlex Jones January 6th denier, it’s a legitimate, solid news reporting publication: it broke the story of the Chinese pot farms that have invaded Maine, for instance, a story with national implications because the same pattern is occurring in other rural states. What it is, and the reason Facebook is going after it, is that it’s conservative – beginning and end.

Facebook has a long history of partnering with left-wing governments to censor politically motivated speech. In Germany, criticisms of the country’s immigration policies are regularly removed from the site. In Pakistan, the company will limit speech offensive to Muslims.

Maine Wire Editor-in-Chief Steve Robinson issued the following comment in response to Facebook’s targeted censorship campaign:

“Mark Zuckerberg is a lizard person.”

I’d say that sums it up.

161 years ago today, Pickett's Charge was repulsed, Lee's soldiers slaughtered, and the third and final day of the Battle of Gettysburg concluded.

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Lee’s attempt to invade the north was thwarted and he was forced to retreat back to Virginia. The war would continue for another 19 months, but it was lost today.

If you’ve never toured the battlefield, read a good history on it, and then go see it — more fun than touring the Capitol, and less chance of being imprisoned for 10 years.

January contract, closed today

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58 Perkins Road has sold for $5.3 million. The owners tried for $6.195 million back in June ‘22, but that was not a good time to press the boundaries, and the listing was pulled. It returned in September of last year at $5.685 million, with the result as noted.

Interestingly, the listing info includes a number of digitally altered shots that switch the color scheme of certain rooms from Bloomingdales black to white. Are tastes changing again?