Market timing is everything: These could be hugely popular if located near college campuses or inside MSNBC's studios

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Supporters of Kamala Harris gather for her concession speech at her alma mater, Howard University, in Washington D.C.

New Waldo County business will let you smash things to blow off steam

A new Searsmont business will soon give its customers the chance to release any pent-up frustration by breaking glass objects, blasting loud music, bursting liquid-filled balloons and committing other forms of controlled destruction.

The operation, called The Rage Release, is due to open Nov. 22. When it does, it’ll be one of several so-called rage room businesses that have opened around Maine in recent years, though it would be the first in Waldo County.

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“It’s a fun, safe way of relieving stress, and creating new memories,” said Gail Gary Cox, the owner of the business.

Cox, who has several businesses, is opening The Rage Release in a large garage space on a residential property that she owns at 109 New England Road.

She is dividing it into multiple rooms that will provide customers with different types of experience. In some, they’ll be able to destroy or beat up a variety of objects, including wine glasses and bottles, stuffed animals or even a vehicle. Blunt objects such as baseball bats will be available. (The business is now accepting donations of old furniture and appliances people want to dispose of.)

In other rooms, customers will be able to explode balloons filled with paint or water. For those seeking a less tactile experience, there will also be options for dancing or screaming to music.

Fees will range from $10 to $250, depending on the activity, the number of participants and the length of time.

Some mental health experts caution that the increasingly popular rage rooms are no replacement for actual therapeutic treatments, and that people with certain disorders should avoid them. But when done safely, they note that they can help relieve stress, in the same way as video games or ax throwing can do.

Cox emphasized that her operation is not meant to promote violence or unhealthy reactivity, but rather to give people an outlet for any pent-up anger, grief or other emotions they may be feeling.

“For one person, breathing exercises could relieve their stress, but for someone else, they might think, ‘I have a lot of stress on me.’ Maybe breathing is not going to be enough,” Cox said. “It’s a new venture, I guess. But at the same time, giving our town something new, something to do. There’s not really another space like that around here.”

I give it the same shelf-life as those popcorn stores that sprouted across the country in the late 90s and disappeared just as quickly, but hey, ya gotta try.

Transvestites, even migrant swarms; the most serious threat to our country is the destruction of our energy infrastructure, and this appointment addresses it.

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Former Trump Energy Sec Who Unleashed Production Boom Positioned for Return to Admin

Trump's victory is 'a pivotal moment to reshape U.S. energy policy,' former energy secretary Dan Brouillette says

As Donald Trump's energy secretary, Dan Brouillette unleashed an energy boom, with America becoming a net energy exporter and producer for the first time in 75 years thanks to record-high oil and gas production. Now, Brouillette is positioned to potentially serve in the second Trump administration, saying Trump's victory is an opportunity to "reshape U.S. energy policy" and usher in "an era of unprecedented innovation."

After four years of the Biden-Harris administration, which prioritized green energy policies to fight climate change and rolled back Trump-era energy policies in the process, proponents of an all-of-the-above energy strategy are excited about the possibility of Brouillette returning to the Trump administration.

The excitement underscores the centrality of energy policy to Trump's economic vision. The president-elect has made clear he views slashing energy prices as the key to battling inflation and blunting the spike in housing prices. "If we open up American energy, you will get immediate pricing release, relief, for American citizens—not, by the way, just in housing, but in a whole host of other economic goods too," Trump's vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, said during a debate.

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Trump selected Brouillette to serve as deputy energy secretary in 2017 and to serve as energy secretary in 2019, after then-secretary Rick Perry left the department. Brouillette is the only person ever to receive Senate confirmation for both roles. After serving in the administration, he was hired as the president of the energy firm Sempra Infrastructure and, two years later, as president of the Edison Electric Institute, the nation's largest industry group representing power providers.

In interviews with the Washington Free Beacon, several former Trump administration officials and energy industry officials, all of whom have extensive experience working with Brouillette, lauded the former energy secretary as someone who could advance Trump's agenda and unwind the Biden-Harris administration's restrictive regulations.

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Filling energy-related policy roles in the Trump administration, meanwhile, will likely receive an increased level of scrutiny from Trump and his senior transition staff. The president-elect campaigned on increasing energy independence and energy security and curbing burdensome climate regulations implemented by the Biden-Harris administration. Trump also promised to reinstate his first administration's energy agenda, much of which was overseen by Brouillette.

"I think the world of him," said Mark Menezes, the president of the United States Energy Association, who served as Brouillette's deputy at the Energy Department in 2020. "He's got the skillset necessary to run any agency. He showed that at DOE, whether it's a job in the White House or even international."

"Under his leadership, the U.S. became the leading producer of oil and natural gas globally, and really served as a huge counterbalance to the countries that for years had dominated the price and supply of oil," Menezes said. "That's what changed under his leadership."

While he served in the Department of Energy, Brouillette spearheaded efforts to boost America's nuclear power footprint and created a first-ever artificial intelligence office.

He also served on the White House National Security Council and National Space Council and was one of Trump's top advisers on energy and nuclear-weapons matters.

"When you look back at what DOE did under the Trump administration, Dan Brouillette is at the core of all of it," said Neil Chatterjee, who served as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during the Trump administration. "While he certainly has conservative bonafides, I know a lot of Democrats who may not agree with all of his views on policy, but they respect it and they respect that he's a serious person and not a hack and not an ideologue."

Brouillette's work bolstering liquefied natural gas export projects to energy-needy allies in Europe and Asia is especially relevant given the Biden-Harris administration's actions. In January, the White House gave in to environmental activists' demands and issued a moratorium on permitting such projects to allow time for a federal study analyzing their climate impacts.

The Biden-Harris administration's moratorium on gas exports is ultimately something Brouillette could quickly unwind if Trump selects him to lead the Department of Energy once more. Sempra Infrastructure, the company Brouillette led after departing the Department of Energy, is one of the nation's largest developers of natural gas export projects.

"When he was deputy secretary, he went to Germany several times—Germany at that time didn't have any import terminals," a former Department of Energy official who worked with Brouillette told the Free Beacon. "It was very reliant on Russian gas. And Dan was able to get the Germans to build their first import terminal. That was the first sort of stage of American LNG coming into Germany."

"He understands energy markets," the former official added. "He understands nuclear technology, he understands renewables, he understands that all of those are needed in order to have the most stable, secure, as well as affordable and clean energy balance that we can possibly have, and not just here in the United States, but for the world. He's very pragmatic about it and I think that translates into an all-of-the-above energy strategy."

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Every parent in Riverside would have been arrested for this heinous act of neglect when we were kids and walked to school

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The cutoff distance for school buses in Greenwich in the 60’s was one mile; anything shorter, kids were expected to make their own way to school and back, and we all walked frequently to Old Greenwich (even — gasp — Cos Cob, and sometimes, Greenwich) unarmed and unaccompanied.

REPORT: Police Arrest Georgia Mother After Son Walked Roughly One Mile Into Town

Police reportedly arrested a mother in Georgia on Oct. 30 after her 11-year-old son walked less than one mile into town away from his home.

Brittany Patterson, a mother of four, donned an orange jumpsuit after police handcuffed her during dinner at her home, fingerprinted her and took her mugshot at the station in Fannin County, according to Reason, a Libertarian publication. A female sheriff reportedly found her son, Soren, strolling downtown Mineral Bluff without an adult.

Mom Jailed for Letting 10-Year-Old Walk Alone to Town https://t.co/9ORvKPkfWx via @reason

ParentsUSA is defending this Mom against criminal charges . . . because her son, days away from turning 11 years old, walked into town – population 370, along a stretch of road with speed…

— ParentsUSA (@NatlAssnParents) November 12, 2024

Patterson initially thought her son was playing in the woods when he was not home to join her other child for a doctor’s appointment, the outlet reported. The 11-year-old was already walking around the nearby town of just 370 people, where he was spotted by a woman who called the police.

A female sheriff brought Soren home to his grandfather before Patterson returned home, Reason reported.

Patterson’s family lives on 16 acres of property with her kids and her father.

“The mentality here is more Free-Range,” she told the outlet.

“I was not panicking as I know the roads and know he is mature enough to walk there without incident,” the mother said. The sheriff disagreed.

The female sheriff arrived at Patterson’s door with another officer around 6:30 p.m., according to the outlet. The officers ordered the mother to put her hands behind her back and then placed in her handcuffs, Reason reported.

“She kept mentioning how he could have been run over, or kidnapped or ‘anything’ could have happened,” Patterson told the outlet.

Patterson was released the next day on $500 bail, the outlet reported. A case manager from the Division of Family and Child Services (DFCS) assessed her home, went to her eldest son’s school for an interview and presented the mother with a “safety plan,” according to Reason.

DFCS’s “safety plan” reportedly required Patterson to delegate a “safety person” to watch over her children whenever she leaves the home. It also demanded she download an app to monitor Soren’s location, which she rejected, according to the outlet.

“I will not sign,” the mother made clear after contacting her attorney, according to Reason.

Handcuffed, held overnight in jail? Bankrupt these people.

True in Maine: elections in the past decade have seen out of state Democrats' money flood in by the tens of millions of dollars

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Posted on November 12, 2024 by Steven Hayward in The Daily Chart

The Daily Chart: Cash and (Don’t) Carry

The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page notes the irony that it was the Supreme Court rulings on campaign spending that Democrats have deplored and compared to Dred Scott that enabled Democrats to vastly outspend Republicans in the election cycle just concluded:

The [Democratic] party was spared from an even bigger rout by their huge advantage in campaign spending, and for that they can thank their billionaire donors—and the Supreme Court they love to hate.

Kamala Harris raised more than $1 billion and spent more than $900 million, while the Trump campaign raised around $380 million and spent more than $350 million. In swing states Democrats had the edge in campaign spending across the board.

Their ratings never recovered once they lost their airport contracts and millions of "viewers" were no longer forced to watch it and be counted

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That may look like a smile’s on my face, but if you look a little bit closer, it’s easy to trace, the tracks of my tears, baby, baby, baby

CNN 'will axe top stars in layoffs that'll see hundreds fired as ratings continue to tank'

CNN is planning to wield the axe on some of its high-paid staff after dismal election ratings that cap off a disastrous period for the cable news network. 

According to an explosive new report from Puck, network executives will unleash sweeping lay-offs in a bid to save the network's flailing reputation. 

It comes after the departure of stalwart Chris Wallace, and amid reports senior stars like Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper have both been denied raises.